bean5302

Yeah, except as soon as the Giants and Mets wanted to renegotiate based on medicals, Correa flipped them the bird by having Boras outright stop taking their calls. Call me crazy, but I think there might be some bad blood there, lol.

It's a good move. Ynoa's big issue has been walks, and control is the last thing to return after TJ. If Ynoa's control improves this time around, he could be a real nice depth piece for what will undoubtedly cover a rotation injury. It makes Paddack even easier to part with as well.

I could see the Athletics being on board with this hard core. They had to overpay hard for Luis Severino because of the AAA converted venue they'll be playing in. I don't think the Twins can expect any real return for Paddack, but with Oakland in a position where they aren't a viable destination for free agents, they might overpay with more than just a salary dump or a PTBNL. FWIW, they don't care at all about a player grievance. Wouldn't be the first time, haha.

As noted by @DJL44, Grichuk isn't agreeing to any one year offer for $2MM. I don't think he'll need more than $6MM, just probably more than $5MM because of the $1.75MM buyout he's already gotten or it could just be Grichuk wants to get close to $6MM total, but AZ told him they'd trade him if he opted in and Grichuk wants some control over where he plays. I'd be pretty surprised if he didn't get the $4.25MM+ to get him to a total $6MM coming off last year considering his long track record of mashing left handed pitching. When it comes to arguments suggesting he'll take whatever scraps we give him because most teams won't pay him $6MM, that's just more suggestion that Grichuk will, in fact, get close to the $6MM total or more. If fans here want him so bad based on the metrics, other teams will want him as well. There are quite a few outfielders with limited earning potential who are looking to cash in this offseason who are in Grichuk's wheelhouse so there will be stiff competition, but Grichuk has never posted a season below 0.5 WAR. Aside from whether or not Grichuk is going to get paid, I wouldn't really want him. I'd rather the Twins make a move to acquire a higher floor/ceiling RHB for the outfield than a playable floor with a 2 WAR ceiling for $5MM+ considering the financial spot the team is in. Plus, I dislike platoons in practice since the opposing team dictates the flow of the game to you. A pitcher change is all it takes to make your platoon advantage into a serious liability.

Unless Ober is considered to be an upper rotation starter, and clearly the better option compared to Joe Ryan, the answer is no. In my opinion, Ober carries a great deal of decline risk, and he's a #4 type starter. Extending guys like Ober is admitting the front office doesn't have anything to replace him. You don't buyout/extend #4 starters. You can just as easily replace them in free agency for about the same cost. Logan Webb was an ace. Javier was coming off an a25 ace-like season. Ober is not comparable. Keller is comparable to Ober, but Keller had already finished his arb 1 season before agreeing to the extension so the Pirates only had 2 years of team control. This would be like a 6 year contract (a29-a34) for Ober. A structure like 6 yrs and $70MM probably would work, but why would the Twins do it? While fans seem to want their teams to extend every single good player they have, in reality, Ober should just be blocking cheaper variants of himself.

“open to listening” Meaning nobody is talking to the Twins about Correa. There is only one team I thought really lined up with Correa, and that's the Nationals. Correa also has to waive his NTC, which he's not going to do just anywhere or without a good reason. This is such an overly dramatic article.

First, his name is Paddack, not Paddock. The risk is he's hurt all year and doesn't pitch for $7.5MM or he pitches worse in the rotation than David Festa, Zebby Matthews or Simeon Woods Richardson for $7.5MM or he even loses some games for $7.5MM. What's the upside? Best reasonable case scenario, Paddack is only as valuable as Festa/Matthews/SWR, but at 10x the price.

You mean like all those innings Paddack pitched? Boyd has huge upside. Paddack does not.

I'm looking forward to the 2x a week articles about this all the way into Spring Training when we'll find out what the Twins are actually going to do. The reference to Littell should be removed. He was a lower leverage middle innings eater in Tampa. Also, his 2.3 fWAR is hardly spectacular. He was largely a mid rotation guy last year. Going from elite reliever to mid rotation isn't a huge upgrade. How is the conversion measured as a success or failure? Griffin Jax produced 2.6 fWAR last year. Similar to a typical Joe Ryan or Bailey Ober season. Jax needs to be the front end starter to really pay dividends here, and btw, his pay rate will skyrocket as a rotation arm compared to a typical reliever. Mentioning only success stories certainly furthers your cause, but it makes your opinion easier to attack. No mention of guys like Kopech who have elite stuff who couldn't make it as starters or less recently, Daniel Bard. Generally speaking, teams only draft starting pitchers. Relief pitchers are starters who couldn't make it as starters. That's the biggest reason why successful relievers aren't pushed back into rotations. Also, Louie Varland replacing Griffin Jax? Varland's track record as a reliever is sus. There have to be at least 5 articles about this already, but a good article would have both point and counterpoint without the low-hanging fruit for critics.

Why fast food? I'm serious. Get a cheeseburger basket at Hennepin Grill. $15. It's good. It's better than a $14 double quarter pounder meal at McDonalds for sure, and it will fill you up. Get a beer at one of the self checkout kiosk locations. No tip. I do not tip if I have to check myself out. I don't understand the 2nd class citizen thing? Stop buying tickets in advance. There are only a couple games which "sold out" all last year. Tickets are always available at the box office when you walk up without the fees. Buy your tickets online through Seatgeek less than an hour from game time. They generally bottom out by 15 minutes before the game. I had to sell my club level seats for as little as $18/seat last year. So if you're paying more than face value for your tickets (including your fees) you've got better options.

@Vanimal46 you've not eaten much at Target Field, I expect. I'm 100% in agreement with @DJL44's post about good food being available at Twins games. Almost every place has good food. The Red Cow 60/40 bacon sliders are outstanding. The chicken tikka masala at Hot Indian is also very good. While TD's sponsorship pushed Official Fried Chicken hard, it wasn't nearly as good last year though it has been pretty dang good in the past. Vegan/vegetarian? Chana Masala at Hot Indian is very good. Herbavorious Butcher has options. Then there are specialty items available at pretty much every pub spot. Finding "gas station" (meaning bad quality/taste) food is actually very difficult at Twins games. The $1 twins dogs are good. They're small, but good, and they don't sit on the rollers for 2 days. While Union Hmong Kitchen gets listed as a good venue, it's actually one of the few places I'd say stinks. The Philly Cheesesteaks also suck. I think that's all I know of.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/players/chris-paddack Paddack's deal doesn't come with surplus. I don't know why people view him as a solid pitcher around here. I expect it's just the lasting impacts of the TD hype machine working its magic. Chris Paddack has pitched 100+ innings 2 times in his 6 year career. His rookie season, 2019, and 4 years ago in 2021. He's never pitched over 140.2 innings. Ever. He's among the bottom (4.82 ERA) 25% of starter ERAs over his past 3 years with the Twins. Paddack is not comparable to Boyd, at all. Boyd has shown great upside numbers the last 3 years, and was great last year. 2.72 ERA, 3.29 FIP with a 10.44 K/9 last year will 100% turn some heads. Paddack? 4.99 ERA, 4.19 FIP, 8.04 K/9. Boyd also went 135 innings, 170 innings and 180 innings in back to back to back seasons before running into forearm issues in 2021 and eventually leading to a UCL/TJ situation. I'm going to keep writing this because so many people are living in Paddack ver. 2019. Paddack has never had a year in his career with an ERA and FIP below 3.95. He doesn't strike guys out, he doesn't have great stuff, and he's always hurt. He's a back end rotation arm if he's healthy. Kyle Hendricks (4.81 ERA/4.49 FIP last 3 years) just signed for $2.5MM.

Casas = 0.6 fWAR last year

Want to attend a Twins game with lots of concessions for cheap? There are many options. Wednesday is $1 hot dog day. At a dozen different vendors around Target Field, get a hod dog for $1. The Twins allow you to bring your own bottled water in for free. Buy Legends Landing seats to get free unlimited food/beverage. There are special family package deals as well. Food too expensive anyway? Fine. YOU CAN BRING YOUR OWN FOOD INTO TARGET FIELD. That's right. Read it again. Gotta have that "craft" beer, do you? Well, around the neighborhood of Target Field, expect it to cost you $13 with tip at the bar for 16oz. Yeah, it's more at Target Field, but I've never seen somebody order a small at Drafts at 34. $20 is 20oz with tip. Need a beer for cheap? If your palate won't be ruined by the horrors of the typical American lagers... at the 3 sections of family pricing, get a 12oz can of Bud/Bud Light for $5. Good season ticket packages drop the price by 15% which basically covers your tip. Good lower levels start at like $25 per game ($500 for 20 game packages) per seat. Want Wild Tickets? Upper level start at $71 per game ($781/seat for 11 games), and you're going to get terrible food for even more money. Vikings starts at $97 for the nosebleeds ($1,552 for 16 games). Get ready to pay through your bleeding nose for concessions as well. Oh, maybe the Timberwolves? They're so embarrassed by their prices, they don't even list them online. Maybe as a Twins fan site writer with such an in-depth knowledge of the cost of attending games, you've heard about Twins pass? $59. Attend literally every single home game for $324. Want good seats while you do this? No problem. Stake out a place outside in the Truly On Deck seating just above sections 101-102. First come, first served. How about the parking costs? $20 in a ramp! I won't do it. So street parking on 4th is $9 through the app. Going solo? Metro Transit costs less than $5 RT from a ton of locations. The North Star service returned last year for a lot of games. I'm sorry the Twins didn't personally knock on your door and offer to sit down at the table to discuss all ways you could attend the games on your own or with a family for dramatically less money or even less money than going to the movie theater.

No, the Twins would be worth a heck of a lot less with a billion dollars in future guaranteed contracts on the books. Billionaires will care way more about protecting their investment and potential growth of their assets than the likelihood the team is already a World Series competitor. Look at the Timberwolves as an example. The value of that franchise skyrocketed by 25% last year because they were suddenly competitive. As a result, Glen Taylor decided he didn't want to sell at the price point he agreed to, and he's tried to kill the deal to make more money. Any prospective buyer would want the Twins to have the potential to become far better under new ownership because there's a huge potential growth in franchise value and fan interest they could tap into.

Unless the Twins are absolutely burning it all down, I think they're going to need to rely on their core whether or not they trust in it. In my opinion, trading Royce Lewis makes no sense unless he's part of some huge package deal. Players who are already considered reliable high value guys are pretty much all going to have high salaries as well. If you're trading Lewis for a player who already makes a lot of money, it's an untenable position for the Twins without a corresponding packaged player where the Twins are dumping salary. If you're trading Lewis for an unreliable or unestablished prospect/player, what's the point?

Gary Sanchez 10/10 times. Stallings signed with Colorado for $2.5MM. Grandal, and McCann are both likely going under $5MM and I'd rather have either one than Vazquez.

LOL, this was a fun blow it all up exercise complete with crazy trades from value and players teams don't even control. 1. Buxton says no, Yankees block the Twins phone number. 2. Correa says no, Mets say "hellllll no!!!!" 3. I think this might work. It all depends on how Boston feels about their pursuit of Soto and their payroll since they'd probably need to go find another CF'er. Personally, I think the Red Sox are leaning on Duran being a future franchise cornerstone so they might not be willing to part with him. 4. Sure, but I think you mean "Chris Williams" who the Twins have no control over since he elected MiLB free agency so the Twins can't trade him because they don't control him. 5. I think Seattle would do this deal just for the value. 6. Cubs laugh and block the Twins' number. Severino is worthless so I'm not sure why you included him, no team wanted him for free on waivers. I don't know as Ober brings back Shaw on his lonesome, let alone the rest of the package. BTV says like 25MM from the Twins for like 70MM from the Cubs. Yeah, I'd have to agree, your FA numbers are not remotely reasonable. Turnbull is probably not taking $3MM after his year last year, but it's not like non-elite RPs are going to be able to command much more than that. Jordan Beeks (you mean Jalen Beeks?) is reasonable, Laureno is going to get more than that. Any position player a team could justify starting is going to make at least $4-5MM. The real issue with your pivot strategy is you're low balling players thinking you can get top notch production for a special discount because the rest of the league doesn't recognize the value.

So I think we can just say you choose any reclamation project for SP1 consider Bieber now signed with the Guardians for 1 yr $10MM + a player option at $16MM for 2026. Lopez for a 1.5-2.0 WAR 1B in Casas plus two edge of PTBNL toss ins is a colossal overpay by the Twins. While Lopez's contract needs to be moved for the payroll capacity to sign Bieber, packaging Larnach with him to get Kyle Teel + Wilyer Abreu back is more efficient way for addressing Twins needs, IMHO. I think this is probably about an 83 win team. IMHO, Casas is no better than Miranda at 1B, and Miranda's bat doesn't provide big upside at DH. The SP1 scenario is highly likely a significant downgrade from Lopez. Seeing Ryan, Ober, Paddack, Festa, SWR as our rotation for 1/2 a year doesn't inspire me with confidence the Twins would be in a position to claw their way back up in the standings for a playoff run once the hypothetical SP1 returns. While I had my doubts about Seattle giving up a top 50 MLB prospect (their #1 prospect for Fangraphs, #4 for MLB) for Eddie Julien, I did see on BTV it's a universally liked deal by Seattle and Minnesota folks so I'm in! I like Hays... years ago. :) I don't see a way he beats out Larnach for LFer duty now, though. Hays was a butcher in the OF last year, and his bat is probably league average-ish. Kinda like what Larnach was vs. what Larnach probably is now?

Smalley, Goltz, Koskie. My minimum requirement is 20 WAR with the Twins.

Jim Kaat was HoF eligible in 1989-2003 (maxing at 29.6%), and the veterans committee 2005-2015 (maxing out at 62.5%) before being specially appointed by the Golden Days Era Committee. The people who were in evaluating Kaat were from 30 years ago, in a totally different era of baseball. Kaat had an exceptionally long and distinguished 25 year career, but he was almost always the #2 or later guy on his team's rotation. The only year you could really say Jim Kaat was the ace starter in the Twins' rotation was 1966. Kaat was almost always behind Pascual, Grant, Chance, Perry or Blyleven. Of course, the resurgence of Kaat's career in 1974-1975 where he was suddenly the White Sox's ace happened, but it was 2 very short years in a huge career. He never won an ERA title or a Cy Young. He made the All Star team only 3x in 25 years, and he was a top 10 pitcher in WAR only 3x in his 25 year career, never better than #5. Overall, Kaat's career 3.45 ERA converts to 8% better than league average. Even if we cherry pick Kaat's through his prime end in 1975, it's still only 13% better than league average. In my opinion, Jim Kaat is the very definition of an accumulator. A very long career of good, but rarely great, seasons getting him to 45 career WAR. It's also the reason I feel like 60 career WAR should be an automatic. No accumulator can possibly hit that accomplishment. Even 50 career WAR should be a near automatic. Here's a stunner for you. Brad Radke, just about the single most overlooked Twins player in history, has more career WAR than Jim Kaat.

You have a very different opinion on the subject than I do.

While it's great Suzuki doesn't have major platoon splits, Rocco Baldelli clearly doesn't care about actual results as much as theoretical results. Baldelli would platoon Babe Ruth and Kyle Garlick so Suzuki's plate appearance ceiling is probably 500ish with the Twins. Also, I like the idea of acquiring Suzuki, but the proposed trade is going nowhere. The Cubs are shedding salary, not taking on bad contracts. Paddack and Vazquez could be traded elsewhere, but like a recent article talked about, any big moves probably hinge on the Twins dumping salary before bringing on any talent. The Twins would need to clear $25MM+ off the books to bring Suzuki in. Not happening.

The Twins got -0.2 WAR from their DH position last year if I remember right. Seiya Suzuki is a pretty nice advantage there.

Swanson's previous 3 seasons = 107 OPS+, previous 114 OPS+ Story's previous 3 seasons = 113 OPS+, previous 102 OPS+ Kim's previous 3 seasons = 103 OPS+, previous 96 OPS+ While Swanson and Story might have been viewed as slightly better than Kim, I don't think its enough to pull Kim below $100MM in total guaranteed value for a 5+ year deal, unless the shoulder is a huge concern and he opts for a 1yr deal at like $25-30MM similar to Correa's pillow contract with the Twins in 2022. It wouldn't surprise me to see a vesting option contract for Kim if a team wanted to get creative. Like 1 year $20MM deal with a team option for 5 more years at $100MM+ which is automatically vesting at 504+ plate appearances.