bean5302

Isiah Kiner-Falfa. Why does his name even come up let alone at the ridiciulous rate I see? He's not a legitimate starting baseball player. He can't hit. Like at all. The defensive metrics are all over the place amplified by SSS multiplication which are just floating fake value. He's fine as an insurance policy utility infielder, but that's not a need for the club.

Indiana making the CFP while the Gophers remain mired in mediocrity hurts my eyeballs.

I think Ervin Santana was hugely overlooked here. Definitely deserves a nod on the 1-10 list somewhere. He helped the Twins make the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, made the All Star team in 2017 even receiving a Cy Young vote. It was a great return on investment at a time the Twins were just dipping their feet back into the waters of spending. Santana put up 10.5 bWAR before injuries derailed his last season. Can't say I agree with including extension data in these summaries (like Phil Hughes) as we'd have to include extensions for guys like Max Kepler etc to be fair. What happens after team control ends doesn't belong in the analysis because it's too murky.

Oh yeah, I was dead set against the Santana signing; absolutely hated it. Bader was fine, and I looked back to when he was signed for my comments on the matter. I never expected Bader to be as good (or healthy) as he was. Anything can happen, and you're not going to get me to actively root against players being successful, but dumpster diving looking for value isn't going to be successful often enough to justify it. That's my point.

I answered it essentially with "I do not care. Nobody cares where dynasties come from." In general, fans of sports hate dynasties (when their team isn't part of it). Salary caps won't change the fact there are dynasties. The Yankees have made 1 World Series (and lost) in the past 15 years and you're talking about the Yankees? They've only won their division 3x in the past 13 years. Literally, I just showed with examples MLB is just as (or more) competitive as the other sports with salary caps, floors, max contracts, etc. Salary caps do not prevent dynasties. Salary caps will not suddenly make the Twins a preferred destination. Just look at how the Wolves have done recruiting top players, even when willing to shell out huge money. Players don't even want to get traded to them. Not to mention salary caps would require a total overhaul of the entire revenue system for MLB requiring absolute no-go concessions from both MLB ownership and the MLBPA. Guaranteed contracts? Largely gone. Salary floor? Required. Full revenue sharing? Required. Multiple strategies to field a championship team? Eliminated. I gave literal, real-life examples here.

Yep. Another Falvey-esque move on display. Does not understand value. does not understand "budget." We can only hope against hope that Bell turns into Bader/Santana instead of Margot/Gallo

It's not a big if. It's a collection of "ifs" which is the problem, and for somebody like me, it's if I even feel like following the team watching "go big or go home Tom Pohlad" send the status quo team out there again this year.

Joe Ryan is Arb 2 this year. An extension would probably add another 3 years to his contract at $30MM per year, plus buying out his existing arbitration eligibility. So guessing about 5yrs $108MM-ish? right now ($8MM, $15MM, $25MM, $30MM, $30MM), all of which will be for a non-durable post-prime age 30+ pitcher. At the end of the deal, Ryan will have pitched through his age 34 season making $30MM. Ryan has a career ERA/FIP of 3.80, but if you limited it to his last two seasons, you could make the case he's a 3.50-3.60 ERA/FIP, solid #2 pitcher. If the Twins already had a cost controlled ace and a proven core with a $160MM payroll max, this would make sense. The Twins don't have either item.

Who cares where dynasties come from? I guess I don't. Maybe you do and you'd rather see the Brewers vs. the Royals for 10 straight World Series' vs. a mix of different teams. I'd rather have some variety and a reason to watch the season.

Lewis - Hasn't produced a single full season yet. Last year was the closest, and he was barely worth starting (he's my favorite player... but objectively true) Jeffers - Was specifically mentioned. Buxton - Terry Ryan's draft, was already in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Ober - Was mentioned, but not by name. Arraez - Terry Ryan drafted. Kepler - Bill Smith signed, was in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Jax - Jax did provide solid value as a setup guy once he flamed out as a starter. Varland - Similar to Jax, but with a lot less track record. Polanco - Bill Smith signed, was in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Trade value for Ryan - You're 100% right, Joe Ryan was a huge steal, and a big feather in Falvey's cap. Trade value for Duran - It did take 5 years for the Twins to turn Escobar's trade into a closer, but they were successful. It was an okay return. Trade value for Lopez - I mean, this signifies my problem with Falvey's failure to draft/develop players as much as anything else. He traded an All Star drafted/signed by his predecessor and Falvey used that inherited asset to compensate for inability to draft/develop. Falvey has run out of previous GM talent pool and Falvey's teams have been terrible the last couple years as a result. No more coat tails to ride on. Twins changed their draft strategies. While I can laud the change in directions after the admission he was bad at drafting, the fact Falvey was bad at drafting isn't a good thing. But... did they change much? Lewis was hit tool and athleticism. Cavaco was athleticism. Miller was hit tool and athleticism. Brooks Lee was hit tool. Jenkins was hit tool and athleticism... While there are less of the slugging outfielder profile, Larnach and Rooker (away from Minnesota) have been two of the most successful draft picks in Falvey's history. Btw, Keaschall wasn't a 1st round pick, let alone a high first round pick which is apparently critical to finding talent. We already know he can't be good because only high 1st round picks are expected to be successful based on your metrics? If you're reading my comment correctly, you're seeing you are arguing both sides as you run down your list in an attempt to justify your defense of Falvey's failures.

Where's the Vikings Superbowl? How about the Wild's Stanley Cup or the Timberwolves NBA Final Championship? In the last 10years, 8 teams have made the Superbowl. In the AFC, KC and NE have 8 of 10 Superbowl appearances. 11 teams have made the Stanley Cup Finals. The last 2 have been idential. Panthers vs Oilers, and the Panthers have made 3 straight. 12 teams have made the NBA Finals. Both the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers made it for 4+ consecutive seasons. Salary caps do not work. 12 teams have made the World Series and only 2 teams have gone back to back in the past 10 years.

You're literally agreeing with me while calling my comment laughable. Unless you think talent evaluation, drafting, development, philosophy and injury luck have no value in MLB and it's purely about salary? A salary cap in baseball alone will not suddenly make the Twins into World Series competitors, which is really all the fan base here cares about or thinks would happen. The cap would be far higher than what the Pohlads would pay. The median opening day payroll in MLB is about $165MM. Where would MLB place the hard cap? $200MM? Would that fix the Twins who's primary problem is a GM who can't develop talent? Lets pretend we live in a fantasy world where the owners agreed to a 100% revenue sharing model and the MLBPA agreed to a hard cap with a floor like the NFL has. Where does Shoehei Ohtani sign? Not *&^&%^& Minnesota, I'll tell you that much. Players will sign where they get endorsement money which is not Minnesota. Or a place with low income tax. Not Minnesota. Or a place with good weather. Not Minnesota. Or a place with a strong fanbase. Not Minnesota. Players care more than ever about a team being a legitimate contender and playing for a large market team with a strong fan base. Maybe we can add a max contract provision in there? Again, since the Twins wouldn't be able to offer any more for a player than anybody else, guess what? Nobody signs with wintery wonderland, weak fanbase, flyover state Minnesota. Player drafting and development becomes even more critical for the teams who can't lure the elite players through big endorsement paydays, great weather or championship pedigree. The cost for making a mistake becomes catastrophic more than ever, too. The Wild got utterly castrated for a decade because of the bad Parise/Suter deals. That's the reality of salary caps. They don't work like people think. They won't turn Derek Falvey into a genius.

It feels like he should have been both in regard to memory of the bat and the fan support he had, but he honestly wasn't. It's hard to take a 150 G approach with him because his 2024 value came from being so heavily shielded away from lefties. His performance would certainly have dropped at 150 games just like we saw in 2025. Very little difference between 2024-2025 except Larnach got more PA against lefties. Assuming he could play 150G shielded from lefties like 2024, he still would have capped out at 1.9.

Lopez's changeup is massively improved vs. previous years in terms of "Stuff+" which tries to evaluate how well pitches should work based on the entire repertoire. I think Stuff+ is only useful in identifying year to year adjustments or comparisons between pitchers for specific pitches. There are too many highly successful pitchers with Pitching+ close to 100 and that's not reflective of actual results so there needs to be more work done on the impact of layering (like 3 - 100 level pitches might be worth pitching+ 110 because of how they stack, etc)

It was weird. I tried posting a couple random images and tried to edit the posts after the fact, but that failed, too haha. Hope you enjoy the power steering system on a 1969 Mustang 😂

Agreed. Wallner is very much on his own. Even though he had a down 2024, he was still a solid enough starter. A 2.0 WAR player is still a good enough player to count on as an every day player. 150 / 76 * 1.6 = 3.2 150/ 75 * 2.0 = 4.0 150 / 104 * 1.4 = 2.0 2.0 WAR = Max Kepler Royce Lewis is close to the same boat as Wallner. At his worst, Lewis is about a 1.5 WAR. Larnach has a 1.0-1.5 WAR CEILING. He's not a starter. A playoff team cannot rely on a guy like Larnach to be an every day position player. Lee looks like a 0.0-0.5 WAR player. He's got a lot of track record now of being unable to hit, and capped defensively by his lack of athleticism. Martin has a pretty good history of utility guy with a 1.0 WAR ceiling, but we did see the big changes we were hoping to see (high walk rate, better BABIP) last year, but SSSS. He's got so little track record.

Okay, put up some analysis like I did this topic. I've done it before. MLB has more playoff and championship turnover than any of the other big 4 sports. Salary cap does not fix the problem on its own.

Nope. His job appears to be completely secure because for all the talk, the Pohlads are the Pohlads.

As a go big or go home guy, Tom Pohlad should definitely recognize Falvey is not the right GM for him. Falvey sits on his hands until late in the season when other teams are done executing their strategy so there aren't any trade partners and there aren't generally any free agents. This means his roster cannot be burned down in a rebuild attempt anymore and it can't be built up for a run at a title.

Hard cap doesn't fix anything. The NHL, NBA, and NFL have even more competitive imbalance than baseball.

Larnach and Clemens are likely to deliver as many HRs as Bell and Vientos.

While I have felt the Twins have been given enough resources, putting together the history paints a rough picture. Data from opening day payroll figures BaseballCube.com Since Falvey started in 2017 Teams highlighted in blue = won at least 1 World Series Teams highlighted in green = went to the World Series League highlighted in blue = won at least 1 league Championship League highlighted in green = went to the league Championship. It's a very stark picture which supports the haves/have nots arguments people have been making on this site. While the have nots still very frequently make the playoffs, they rarely advance far. If you spend, you have a high degree of likelihood you'll make it to at least the league championship. The results are sorted by total spent, but even if you sort by median, the results are pretty similar.

The Twins are very likely to have a bad bullpen this year. It's December 21st, not November 1st. We're 1/2 way through the offseason and we haven't seen any acquisitions to the bullpen. Supposedly the RP market is pretty hot with a lot of clubs vying for interest. I can count on Falvey to be able to sign about 17 MLB minimum AAAA relievers and logjam everybody in the minors at the beginning of the season to guarantee the Twins a bad, but not terrible bullpen to open 2026.

teaching them: you'll be out of the playoff race by the deadline :D

Jose Miranda's HBP in head was 07/28/2024. https://www.mlb.com/twins/video/jose-miranda-hit-by-pitch-willi-castro-to-2nd Before HBP, Miranda was .324/.367/.517 OPS .884 wRC+ 149 BABIP .349, 5.0% BB, 13.5%K, .193 ISO After the HBP, Miranda was .211/.236/.303 OPS .539 wRC+ 48 BABIP .261, 2.7% BB, 18.9%K, .092 ISO