bean5302

Royce Lewis is my favorite Twins player. I would 100% advocate against extending him right now. He just hasn't proven he can be great. The same way I really disliked the Buxton extension the Twins should never have gotten themselves into. 1. Long track record of major injuries. 2. Athleticism which has been severely impacted by those injuries. Dropping from a probable 70+ grade speed guy to a 40 grade speed guy. That has to rebound before I extend him. 3. Performance. Lewis had major struggles in the 2nd half of last year. I think it's just a combination of leg injuries robbing his strength and speed, and that Lewis will rebound in 2025, but an extension now is too risky. 4. Ownership change. Locking up players to long term contracts before selling the team doesn't make sense as it reduces the new owners' flexibility. Rosters don't matter, but I bet large, long term guaranteed contracts do. 5. Chemistry. As of the end of the season, signs point to Lewis being angry with the Twins and not super happy with his team mates. Unless these issues have been cleared up, smashing Lewis together with long term team mates might not be a great idea.

Honestly, an epic rap battle between Twins players throughout the season would be hilarious. Might need to hire a professional company to stage it dress up style like "Epic Rap Battles of History" Let the fans vote via their MLB Ballpark apps. Have local artists submit their scripts and give those artists credit for the tongue in cheek raps. Almost none of these satirical ideas are truly crazy, haha. Or I might be more crazy than suspected? Jim Jeffries - "That's the thing about crazy people. They don't know they're crazy. That's what makes them crazy!"

I'd keep SWR in AAA to get a look at Castellano in the rotation for a few starts if the rule 5'er pitches well in Spring Training. The fact Paddack hasn't been shipped out is negligence on Falvey's part. He's doing it again. Guy does not understand the Twins' position or how to budget.

I'm waiting for the first bait-n-switch international signing to push the boundaries of collusion in regard to the broken international signing stuff with Japan. Step 1) Sign sub-25 year old Japanese star player to MiLB contract (as required). Step 2) Hypothetically... hahhaha, believe me, this is a "hypothetical" what.. if you, say, make the team out of of Spring Training might you be amicable to an extension to x years and y dollars? This is absolutely happening, btw. I guarantee extensions are being hinted at during discussions. Just whether or not there's a gentleman's agreement formally being made, and how quickly the move happens, you know?

Correa is a great shortstop. Teams are interested, but few are going to be interested taking on his entire contract, even if there is surplus value. There's nothing in Derek Falvey's answer which alludes to any significant discussions on Correa or the team actively shopping him. Reports on Correa being traded are wispy, lack any teams involved or even confirmation there is more than a check-in level of activity. Here's what it looks like when the Twins were actively looking to move cornerstone players at the deadline in 2021. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/07/byron-buxton-trade-rumors-twins-phillies.html Do the Twins regret signing Correa? I doubt it. He's a big part of the reason they won their first playoff game and series in 20 years. They probably regret the structure of the contract.

They'd all suck. That's how it would change. I absolutely abhor the concept of the "Golden At Bat." It's pretty rare for me to feel so strongly negative about rule changes. Ghost runner. Probably mildly prefer it to not exist? Don't really care. Bigger bases. Seems like a good idea. Pitch clock. Absolutely love it. Ban extreme shifts. Strongly supportive. Universal DH. Supportive. Golden at bat. Seething, intense, even irrational abhorrence.

Alrighty. Let's do a fair and honest review. It took me a couple minutes but your "NA" = New Addition? The way you setup the roster list isn't my favorite because it makes it harder to assign positions to incoming players or to keep track of them. For this exercise, we assume Luis Arraez is on the team instead of being unconditionally released and will be at 2B and Brooks Lee moves back to AAA. Ahmed Rosario, Scott Alexander and Elias Diaz are veterans without options so they need to be on the roster if you're offering them more than MiLB contracts (which you are). *Elias Diaz slots into backup catcher replacing the outgoing Christian Vazquez. *Ahmed Rosario will replace the outgoing Willi Castro as a Utility Infielder. *Scott Alexander is listed under the position player NA category, but he should be in the pitcher group. He pushes Kody Funderburk to AAA. *Pete Fairbanks has no options so he pushes Louie Varland back to AAA. *Roki Sasaki replaces the outgoing Chris Paddack in the rotation. I'll assume his signing bonus is our maximum of $7.5MM and is counted against MLB payroll. He cannot initially be signed to a 2yr deal under MLB rules. Roki Sasaki can ONLY be signed to a MiLB contract, period. Afterwards, he can be added to the 40 man and the 26 man. The team will have 6 years of control over him. C: Ryan Jeffers ($4.7MM) 1B: Jose Miranda ($0.8MM) 2B: Luiz Arraez ($14.0MM) 3B: Royce Lewis ($2.3MM) SS: Carlos Correa ($36.0MM) LF: Trevor Larnach ($2.1MM) CF: Byron Buxton ($15.0MM) RF: Matt Wallner ($0.8MM) DH: Edouard Julien ($0.8MM) 4th OF: DaShawn Keirsey ($0.8MM) Utility: Ahmed Rosario ($3.5MM) Utility: Austin Martin ($0.8MM) Position Players = $84.6MM / 25.0 WAR Backup C: Elias Diaz ($3.0MM) SP1: Pablo Lopez ($21.8MM) SP2: Joe Ryan ($3.8MM) SP3: Bailey Ober ($4.3MM) SP4: Roki Sasaki ($0.8MM) + $7.5MM SP5: Simeon Woods Richardson ($0.8MM) Rotation = $39.0MM / 13.0 WAR RP: Jhoan Duran ($3.7M) RP: Brock Stewart ($0.8MM) RP: Griffin Jax ($2.6MM) RP: Jorge Alcala ($1.5MM) RP: Cole Sands ($0.8MM) RP: Justin Topa ($1.3MM) RP: Pete Fairbanks ($3.7MM) RP: Scott Alexander ($2.5MM) Bullpen = $16.9MM / 6.5 WAR Total Payroll $140.5MM So we're over payroll here. If you exclude the $7.5MM for Sasaki's International Signing Bonus (I don't think ownership would be on board with that), we're still at $133MM. I think this is about an 89-90 win team. Now, onto the viability of this deal. Trade 1 - Paddack, Vazquez ($17.5MM), Keaschall, and Morris for Arraez ($14.0MM). San Diego is looking to dump salary, not take salary on. Padres don't need/want Vazquez, but they're probably okay with Paddack for depth. Keaschall and Morris as toss ins make this a huge overpay for the Twins so San Diego would take this deal. Trade 2 - Willi Castro ($6.2MM) for RHP Pete Fairbanks ($3.7MM), AA Catching Prospect Dominic Keegan, and A+ 2B prospect Emilien Pitre. Pitre is a nothing toss in, sure. But Dominic Keegan being listed as Org #13 by MLB.com is probably undervaluing him. BTV lists Dominic Keegan at $8.9MM surplus at the trade deadline, but he absolutely raked afterwards, finishing the season with a .320/.400/.546 OPS .946 wRC+ 179 line with a 10.0% BB to 23.6% K rate in AA. The only question about Keegan is his catching skill. Even if he can't catch, he can still DH or cover 1B. No way the Rays trade him for Castro, even straight up IMHO. Fairbanks for Castro, probably, even if the Rays don't like taking on salary. Signing Roki Sasaki. This is not happing. There's no good reason for Sasaki to sign with the Twins. We can't offer more money than anybody else, we can't offer more endorsement value. Everybody he talks to is on lame duck status so he's not likely to know anybody in the front office or on field coaching management a year from now and the Twins haven't treated other Japanese/KBO signings well at all.

@polanconeverblinks Very first thing I noticed... you traded for Luis Arraez and then DFA'd Arraez and released him because he's not on your roster? I mean, that's some pretty bold hatred of a guy (or a funny error) hahaha @Mike Sixel you don't need to worry. Arraez didn't even make the roster here.

Just ball parking it. Not everybody starts working in their career path at age 18. Some work a retail or service industry job while they figure out what they're going to do or there are some internships which don't exactly pay well, etc. Kinda nit picking 45 vs. 47 years, LOL.

If they all had first showings like Keoni Cavaco maybe? .172/.217/.253 OPS .470 wRC+ 37 in rookie ball with a 4.3% BB rate and a 38.0% K rate would be good enough for me to bet a prospect wasn't going to make it.

20 WAR in a Twins uniform. That's my bar for HoF. Smalley and Coskie are the only ones who make the list here.

No, no, no, that was just miscommunication. Polanco needed the special clubhouse glue to hold his knees together. Lost in the translation. Reminds me of the old Sprint mobile bad communication commercial. "What they said was ship the Enron documents to the feds, but what they heard was rip the Enron documents to shreds. Clearly a case of bad cellular."

The Twins cannot be relocated. They're under a guaranteed lease until 2040 with no option for early termination. A Hennepin County judge struck down a move with just 1 year left on the lease at the Metrodome back in 2000. No judge is going to allow a move with 15 years left on the lease. Furthermore, MLB owners have to approve any move, and owners would not be on board with the Twins moving any time in the near future because the Twins already have a good stadium and situation in Minneapolis. Any place the Twins could potentially get a brand new stadium deal in place with public money is currently also potential expansion location or location a team in a bad stadium position on a short term lease would potentially explore moving to. Moving the Twins to a location which would carve up an existing owner's market. So allowing the Twins to move would hurt future and/or existing MLB owners.

Average US blue collar worker makes $50k a year in current dollars. avg. blue collar 45 years of work = 2.25MM. HVAC industry more like $3MM+ an electrician, more like $4MM+ Studies on household income level "happiness" is reached between $80-100k-ish per year on average as I recall. You're in the ballpark if you're in a blue collar skilled trade. Food industry is the lowest, skilled trades in construction/housing in the middle, with maintaining expensive equipment being the high end. In general from what I've seen.

First, he was straight out of the draft and the Twins assigned him to Ft. Myers, which is pretty typical for a college pick, and certainly better than being assigned to rookie ball. Amick only had 77 plate appearances so it's not like he had time to move up or that he's not on track. HIs batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was only .239, which is super low, and probably just unlucky. If we change his line to a normal .300 BABIP he's like .250/.380/.440 OPS .820 wRC+ 130ish instead of his already wRC+ 120 figure. 30% better than league average isn't impressive? It's not Earth shattering or something, but that's a very solid showing in a small sample size.

Next time an argument about millionaires vs. billionaires in regard to owners dominating the poor pitiful players.... amirite? Seriously, though. Soto will likely never have even close to Attanasio's money. Players actually pay taxes on their income. Just for funsies, threw this together quick. Numbers might be off a bit because I may have forgotten something. Assume Soto puts 40% of his net income into investments and those investments earn 4.00% (which is low, but not a bad rate for such huge dollar amounts and sure beats him being bankrupt like many players blowing through everything they've got). Also assumes zero endorsement deals or any other income sources, blah blah blah. He ends up at $467MM net worth at age 40. *Nominal tax rate is just a loose guess, players pay taxes to the state where the game is played for each game, and Soto will obviously donate to charities, etc to reduce his tax burden, etc, etc etc.

Agree with @Greggory Masterson here on needing a little more info and a little less rage. Obviously, this article hit you the wrong way, but no idea why? Do you think the players are being unfairly categorized or do you think the idea any bad clubhouse presence is a horrible idea? Maybe you're upset it didn't include a player you thought it should? I don't think exploring the potential of getting performance from a clubhouse diva on a discount is a bad idea, but there are plenty of guys with iffy reputations in the public eye. Max Scherzer called Justin Verlander a "diva" in the clubhouse, and Max has a reputation for being essentially bat-$#!4 insane. From Tim Anderson to Marcus Stroman and even Max Kepler, there are rough catches on the armor as soon as anything negative is reported about a player.

90th percentile in A-ball for a 22yr old high draft pick slugger at 3B is kind of expected. The issue with being the 10th best 3B prospect is that SS and 2B prospects who wind up not having the range get pushed to 3B a lot. There's not a ton of information you can really get from a 21 year old prospect just out of the draft (now technically 22), but Amick did hit well in Ft Myers with some pop, not unreasonable K rates and good walk rates. The biggest ding was the batting average, but when you have a .239 BABIP, there's plenty of room for that to be more impressive. The move to Cedar Rapids will hopefully be fun to watch! Amick is the Twins' #11 prospect in MLB's rating, #39 for Fangraphs. https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/twins/billy-amick-701771 Here's hoping he proves the scouting reports to be overly bearish and Amick really takes off.

Mark L. Attanasio, the owner of the Brewers, has an estimated net worth of $700MM. I think it was like $450MM a few years ago. Mark Walter, the controlling Dodgers' owner has a net worth of $6B. If prospective buyers are interested, but they don't have enough money, they'll pool together with an ownership group so I don't think we need to sweat it too much.

Highly encouraging for multiple reasons. It means A) there are interested parties who could potentially buy the team and B) it lights a fire under other potential buyers so the market should accelerate a lot now, just a few weeks out from an arbitration decision on the Timberwolves purchase.

It's hard to dig up history on Herr and why some Twins fans who've been around for so long hate him, haha. https://www.twincities.com/2009/07/25/tom-powers-twins-have-employed-some-strange-characters-during-dome-era/ https://coffeyvillewhirlwind.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/1988-brunansky-for-herr/ I found plenty about how Herr loved playing for the Cardinals and liked his team. He's in the Cardinals' HoF. He only played 1/2 a season with the Twins, and his performance wasn't bad (1.5 WAR in 86 games), but fans seem to be angry at Herr personally. Brunansky produced the same value as Herr did in 143 games for the Cardinals, btw. Bruno was playable as a starter for a couple years after the trade, but he didn't have a single 2.0+WAR campaign again.

Actually, for generating interest in terms of buyers, it's a good move. The new owner can then cut him and be the hero, if the public actually has the reaction most people expect. That said, it'd probably be a bad idea in terms of getting the desired asking price. New prospective owners are going to be looking for a return on their investment. They do not care about who is on the roster. The bigger the return (more they can increase value), the better, and signing Bauer would potentially decrease the sale price. So if the Pohlad's want to drop the sale price for the team to increase interest without looking like they're not generating interest already, it'd be an interesting strategic choice. I don't see the Twins signing free agent splash players, especially including Bauer. But if we're just advocating for on field value vs. cost while considering the bad reputation of the player, there is no player the Twins could sign with a likely better return in that capacity.

I asked you this elsewhere. What possible reason would Sasaki have for signing with the Twins vs. 29 other suitors? The Twins bring a lame duck owner/front office/coaching/manager. Small endorsement market. History of poor treatment of other KBO/Japanese players. A team which has missed the playoffs 3/4 recent years competing against 2 rising teams who did make the playoffs last year. I'm sure the Twins will go all in on recruiting him, but the Twins are going to be eliminated almost immediately.

This is nonsense. Utility player = player who plays many positions; who isn't entrenched at a specific starting position. Willi Castro is good enough to be a starter, but he's been used as a utility player. Marwin Gonzalez was good enough to be a starter, but he was used as a utility player. Tommy Edman was just signed as a utility player for 5yrs and $74MM. You think the Dodgers are paying $74MM to a guy not good enough to play? On the other side of things, why wasn't Nick Gordon used as a utility player by Miami? Why didn't Detroit use Javy Baez as a utility player? Why wasn't Trevor Larnach used at catcher and shortstop years ago? None of those guys were good enough to be a starter. See Baseball Reference. I trust that's a fairly trustworthy source for baseball related information? I emboldened your unpopular (due to being incorrect, IMO) definition of the term at the end. https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Utility_player#:~:text=A utility player or utility,with a lot of flexibility.

If you're talking about clubhouse guys with bad reps and value... Trevor Bauer. That's who the Twins should sign. MiLB contract, invite to Spring Training. What does ownership care about fan reaction? Fans are already apathetic and the Twins are selling the team.