bean5302

Brooks Lee's bat has been on par with Kyle Farmer's, and he's the only guy who is or is likely to be on the 26 man from your list. If you're aiming for .500 baseball for the next 5 years, keep all your prospects. If you're aiming for playoff relevance for the next year or two, you move them in the right scenario.

Adam Plutko is a 32 year old MLB journeyman who came back after washing out of MLB in 2021. Plutko pitched very well in Korea from 2022-2023, giving him a MiLB opportunity back here in the states. I'm not sure he'll stick in baseball or not. He might be serviceable as a spot starter, but I don't think he'd get anything better than a MiLB contract around the league. He's been better than his prime in some ways (walks), but he lost some K rate he had back with Cleveland in the minors.

In the interest of technical accuracy, I will assume you are correct. I'm not even going to look it up though, since I don't think there is a single team in baseball worried about a $1MM buyout, LOL.

I think it's clear the Twins have a need for a bullpen arm at this point. Not because of the results, but because Stewart is down 2mph so you have to think something isn't right there or question how reliable he'll be as a quality BP arm down the stretch. I was hoping Varland and Stewart could provide the the Twins with the quality front of the bullpen options, but Stewart doesn't look like that guy right now, and the Twins have kept Varland in the rotation far too long in St. Paul.

Definitely agree. Woods Richardson really does look the part of a quality MLB rotation arm. Whether that's a #3 or #5, it doesn't matter because it's still a huge huge win vs. what was expected of him after last year.

I just don't like Kikuchi much so I wouldn't give up much for him. I don't think he's going to be better than Lopez, Ryan or even Ober so what I'd give up for the guy isn't much.

Similar deal would probably be Cory Lewis + Yunior Severino + Deshawn Kiersey. Quite a bit to part with for a Kikuchi rental IMHO.

Pretty concerning about Brock Stewart. Looks like he's down about 2mph and it's showing in his results. Seems like Woods Richardson might just be getting a correction to his 3.27 ERA / 3.56 FIP to be more in line with his 4.18 SIERA and 4.22 xFIP entering the game.

Yep, I was wrong on this one. I was looking at 2023 as if it were 2024.

Sorry you didn't recognize his name so he must suck. More value than anybody on the Twins not named Carlos Correa (or Buxton, lol) for 2019+ and guaranteed for 1.5yrs at $10MM total. fWAR 2019+ Byron Buxton = 15.3 Tommy Edman = 15.2 Pablo Lopez = 14.9 Max Kepler = 12.7

I really wanted Zac Gallen, but the Diamondbacks stormed back instead of floundering. All of my evil finger interlocking in front of my face posing was for naught.

Cardinals gave up a lot. Edman is a 4-5 WAR infielder with 1.5yrs of control $2.3MM this year and $9.5MM next year. Like if the Twins had traded Brian Dozier in 2017 at the deadline instead of 2018.

I'm not sure (insert perfect pitcher) is available?

Why do they have to build a bunch of strawmen? The Twins do not lose money every single year. NOBODY HAS SAID THEY DO. The Twins have lost money since 2019 on a cumulative basis because of colossal losses in 2020, and a big loss in 2022 as the Twins expanded their payroll but revenues didn't follow. In 2023, had the Twins not made or advanced in the playoffs, it's likely they would have lost money. The Pohlads cut expenses, seemingly to about where they'd need to be to turn minimal profit if the the Twins missed the playoffs this year. They absolutely should expand their payroll in my opinion as they're in the playoff chase and they should expect revenue from that source. If you add up the 49MM loss in 2020, the 10MM profit in 2021, the 27MM loss in 2022 and the 19MM profit in 2023 you get ($47MM) net in losses since 2019. There is data behind the values. Most of it comes from Forbes, and they're a far more reputable source than the backside of angry fan commenters.

Passan reported the Pohlads are keeping money tight to their chest.

Snell does not make $31MM next year. He makes $15MM next year and $15MM in 2027 (deferred from 2025) if he opts out. The only way he opts out is if he's hurt for the full season in 2025. Basically, shoulder surgery or TJ. That's it.

If Snell finishes the season with an ERA under 4.50 and an FIP under 3.70, he's opting out. He owns a 3.34 FIP right now. 9 starts remaining. 48 innings or so. A 3.90 ERA and a 4.00 FIP for the rest of the season get him to guaranteed opt-out land. He won the Cy Young last year, and he's pitching better this year than last. The chances he can't pitch better than a 4.00 FIP are remote. He will not cost a top 30 MLB prospect. That's insanity. BaseballTradeValues has Snell as 0 value (PTBNL), though he's certainly worth more than that. He's 100% not getting anything better than a org 5 prospect. Not happening. He can't receive a QO from SF, he's going to opt out unless he gets a serious injury and the Giants are not making the playoffs. Risk of injury or watching him walk for free. The Giants are pushed into the Luxury Tax and they'd like the reduce the burden.

$5MM this year then opt out. worst case scenario $15MM in 2025 $15MM in 2027 Snell may not be the answer, but he's the highest probability at a low cost. IDGAF about mid rotation guys. We have plenty. They do. not. help. us. The Twins are making the playoffs regardless of whether or not they stand pat. A #4 starter doesn't do a thing for us because we don't ever see them in the playoffs. We get bounced before they pick up a baseball.

I understand what you were looking at, and on the surface, it made sense. Just digging in a little further makes the odds a lot longer because the Giants don't just have to make up 3.5 games to get into the playoffs. The Giants have to pass the Mets, Diamondbacks (division), Cardinals and Pirates while preventing 2 teams right behind them from gaining ground (Cubs, Reds). 5 of 6 of those teams are not in the Giants' division. The Giants have zero head to head games against the Mets, Cubs or Pirates. They've got 2 series against the Diamondbacks and a single series against the Cardinals and Reds. So much has to go right for them. It's like calculating playoff odds for the Vikings near the end of the season, haha.

Blake Snell + Taylor Rogers + Cash = Eduoard Julien + Marco Raya

First off, I think we can all agree that it won't make any difference if the Twins were not to do a single thing at the deadline if they were to win the World Series with what they've got. It's extremely far fetched in my opinion because our starters just do not line up well against playoff caliber rotations. It could happen, though. Royals in 2015 weren't juggernauts in the rotation. Second, I don't care if the Twins win the World Series and then go .500 for 2 years. For those folks who don't want to mortgage the future that they didn't even know they had 3 months ago, you have a very different philosophy than me. You use the old Pohlad philosophy. "Be competitive" is the goal. Base Goal, play .500 baseball. Elevated Goal make the playoffs. Reach Goal = Win the division. Hate it. So opposed to that line of thinking that I'm sometimes even personally annoyed when I see that opinion. I'd like to see the Twins try to win a World Series. Winning a World Series is worth more than every single prospect in the entire Twins' system combined, IMHO. The impact it has on the potential revenues and payrolls change the bracket the Twins can operate within. It changes everything. Third, cash flow and value are not the same. If your house is growing in value but you're racking up credit card balances because the house payment is $1,000 too high, you're not talking about how well you're doing with the house. A steady company losing money who has a stock price going up isn't excited about their financials, either. Team valuations are largely irrelevant. Cash flow is what matters. Based on operating income, the Twins have lost money since 2019. 2019 profit. 2020 huge loss. 2021 break evenish. 2022 big loss. 2023 medium profit thanks entirely to the playoff run. 2024 appeared to be setup to break even EoY if the Twins didn't make the playoffs based on 2023's numbers to me. Dave St. Peter and the 7 new fans he's added to Twins baseball vs. the 2,000 he's chased off might have a better scoop on that. Did we beat Wheeler? No. Did we beat Skubal? No. We beat their teams in their latest regular season series' though. That's playoff baseball vs. regular season baseball. Our #4 and #5 are better than their #4 and #5 and our #3 is a push so we wind up winning. It doesn't matter. We don't even get to that #4 guy because we're bounced in 3 straight loss games. Even with great efforts from our starters, we didn't score many runs against those ace pitchers. That's why you need to fight ace pitchers with ace pitchers. This is why the Twins will probably get smoked in the playoffs right now like EVERY SINGLE OTHER SEASON IN THE PAST 20 YEARS other than last year when we had the competitive 1-2 combo Gray and Lopez. Just like in 87 when we had Viola and Blyleven. Just like we had Tapani, Erickson and Morris. The top end rotation of World Series competitors is almost always stacked. There are rare exceptions, but 90% of the time, you need studs in the 1-2 rotation spots.

I through WAR in there just as a reference. You don't get to 8 WAR (BRef bases it on ERA+) without being pretty outstanding, regardless of the era.

Nice to see Jenkins producing some XBH, even if today's 2B was really a single and a throwing error. Jenkins' ISO is starting to climb back up to respectable. Gabriel Gonzalez has been hitting the ball much better as of late as well. It's good to see. Unfortunately Emmanuel Rodriguez's day to day status continues as he just can't seem to shake that nagging thumb sprain.

3 ER in 5 innings isn't good. That's a 5.40 ERA, and Varland owned a 1.60 WHIP, also very poor thanks to 4 walks and 4 hits in just 5 innings. He's cooked as a starter and the sooner the Twins move him out of the rotation, the sooner St. Paul has room for Andrew Morris.

The Giants (53-55) were 4.5 games back from a playoff spot and have 6 teams ahead of them for 3 Wildcard spots, and two teams are only 1.5 games back from the Giants. They're 10.5 games out of the division lead. The Twins were 4.5 games back from winning the division and they would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. Braves WC1 +5.0 over Giants Padres WC2 +4.0 over Giants Mets WC3 +3.5 over Giants ------------------------------------- Diamondbacks +3.0 over Giants Cardinals +2.5 over Giants Pirates +1.5 over Giants -------------------------------------- Giants Cubs 1.5 behind Giants Reds 1.5 behind Giants Totally different scenarios. The Giants aren't totally out of it, but they're well outside the playoffs given how many teams they need to pass. You have to assume at least 3 of those 6 teams ahead of the Giants for the Wildcard will start distancing themselves. It's a tough row to hoe.