bean5302

Falvey got fired for incompetence. I do wonder how people are thinking this was Falvey's decision to leave, LOL. I don't know what you're seeing, but it seems to me Falvey is making the same kinds of moves he's been making throughout his entire career as the head of the Twins front office.

Same thing in 2024. While cutting payroll was a massively stupid move from ownership, the Twins didn't roll out a bare bones payroll. Falvey had $130MM to use responsibly. Instead, he burned $35MM on Vazquez, DeSclafani, Margot, Farmer, and Paddack. Falvey had an obvious need to make tough decisions on where the payroll was going to come from, but he refused to make those choices. It's not Falvey fault if he makes some bold moves designed to make payroll and field a winning team without the depth needed to absorb injuries. That's on ownership and he can make that clear when he's handed the payroll. Instead, time and time again, Falvey has demonstrated an inability to make moves when it's clear he needs to make them.

The Pohlad family is "toxic?" Seems like a pretty wild perpective to me. It feels to me there's been a bit of a power struggle inside the family in terms of what to do with the Twins. I think they've been poor owners in regard to what seems like extreme nepotism and the unwillingness to hold high ranking positions accountable. It's clear the Pohlad family wanted to bury the bad debt they'd accumulated through other business transactions in a sale, but other buyers wouldn't bit. Now the Pohlads are also trying to pretend they invested in the team to accumulate that debt, but I think that's a bad strategy because it's dishonest. I've gotten the impression that Joe Pohlad became very buddy-buddy with Falvey. It wouldn't even surprise me if there was some brownnosing going on Pohlad to Falvey since Falvey is clearly the guy who started speaking to the public because Joe and Dave St. Peter were incompetent in that regard. FWIW, Joe was never in charge of ownership decisions. He was a spokesman. From the comments Tom has made, he seems like a much more demanding, and he has the authority to make ownership style decisions. This is awesome. His move to fire Falvey after Derek once again rolled out the status quo stay pat and add some quad-A types to block talent and keep the floor better than 100 losses, on the surface, it's reasonable to expect Tom had enough. Given the opportunity to support ownership's philosophy of non-half measures, Falvey failed, and likely the future strategy he presented was a failure. The Pohlad family (or new ownership) will not turn the Minnesota Twins into a large market franchise with annual $200MM+ payrolls. There's reason to believe an ownership group willing to tank/rebuild would be able to stretch payroll to $160-180MM in the best of seasons, but I really can't see a responsible owner in the Twin cities pushing higher in the near future. The Twins ran a $155MM payroll in 2023. They opened 2025 with $143MM. About one big name signing away from the absolute max (if people actually went to the games).

Levine's role is largely unknown, but I think it's clear at this point he was about to be supplanted by Jeremy Zoll and decided to leave. Levine hadn't impressed other franchises in regard to either his role or philosophy as he was interviewed and immediately dismissed as a candidate by Boston and while Levine's name came up several times in other GM type searches, he ultimated landed as a an assistant in the Brewers organization. From early on, Levine seemed to have a clashing strategy with Falvey. It felt like Levine wanted to be more aggressive in the competitive window "boot to the throat" comment, etc. Falvey seemed to fit best with the Pohlad family's historical perspective of goals. 3/5 = Play competitive ball (.500ish) 4/5 = make playoffs 5/5 = win the division. I'm quite concerned that Zoll is "Falvey's Guy" and he'll be a Falvey-type GM.

The Pohlads have always been hands off owners when it comes to roster construction. I don't know why people continue to dream they're leading scouting meetings and doing contract negotitions. The Pohlads were a totally different leadership group last year. Now with new minority owners and Tom not buddy-buddy like Joe was with Falvey, it feels obvious what's happening. Tom and minority owners aren't impressed with what Falvey's accomplished, and they shouldn't be. Falvey did make sweeping changes at the trade deadline to gut the bullpen. The MLB talent Falvey brought back to replace outgoing MLB talent is of questionable value moving forward, largely redundant, and they players were not productive. Despite assurances the team was not going to use half measures, Falvey has once again entered into 2026 with the philosophy of signing ten quad-A type of players while re-arranging deck chairs because he can't help himself. Watching serious talent come back from recent rotation arm trades in the past couple weeks had to push Tom to the boiling point since Falvey refused to move similar talent. The message is crystal clear. Falvey doesn't believe in his pitching pipeline and Falvey isn't going to operate like the teams the Pohlads have repeatedly mentioned as successful models for mid and small market franchises. I don't know as Zoll is the answer, but Falvey was the big problem.

Somebody has to run things. Zoll's being given the keys because there isn't anybody else, I'd wager. It'll be interesting to see what he does.

Falvey isn't a scapegoat. He used other people as scapegoats. Falvey was the NUMBER ONE reason the Twins have failed. He was given substantial enough budgets to win the division every single year and yet the Twins managed only 1 playoff appearance in the past 5 years. Falvey didn't decide to part ways. He was fired, but given the opportunity to step down to save face.

I do feel like Ohl has more potential than Adams right now. Ohl was a hard-core strikes thrower in the minors, perhaps challenging hitters too much. Ohl backed the strike throwing off at the MLB level and delivered pinpoint control with a 115+ location, very good O-swing rates, but his stuff got barreled a lot. Maybe the Twins felt there wasn't any room for stuff improvement and MLB hitters would start getting too good at pitch recognition and just crush Ohl as a result.

The Twins DFA'd Ohl, but didn't DFA Adams.

I think it's pretty much exactly what you said. The team has more talent than what people are giving credit for, and there's ceiling. My projection is not unrealistic for any given player. Every single number I posted is reasonable given past performances and ceiling. Unless you were implying like 2-3 players improving would be enough on their own to add 20+ wins to last year's results? Sorry, but that's pretty well impossible as we don't have 3 Shohei Ohtani's on the roster.

Julien is going to get the opportunity as an every day 2B in Colorado. While he's much maligned here, his bat is every bit as good as Brooks Lee's has been. Julien's high line drive rate should play well in cavernous Coors Field. It remains to be seen if the venue switch will refresh his approach. Ohl was just as good at a22 in Low-A as Kaminska was. Guess it's a new toy for Falvey who apparently feels comfortable with our bullpen situation this year.

The optimistic ceiling for the Twins: C - Jeffers 2.5 1B - Bell 1.0 2B - Keaschall 3.0 SS - Lee 2.0 3B - Lewis 5.0 LF - Martin 2.0 CF - Buxton 5.0 RF - Wallner 4.0 DH - Larnach 1.5 BC - Caratini 2.0 UO - Outman/Roden 1.0 UI - Clemens 1.0 UI - Arcia 0.5 SP - Lopez 4.0 SP - Ryan 3.5 SP - Ober 3.0 SP - Matthews 3.0 SP - Bradley 2.0 RP - Rogers 1.0 RP - Topa 1.0 RP - Sands 1.0 RP - Funderburk 0.5 RP - Orze 0.5 RP - SWR 0.5 RP - ? 0.5 RP - ? 0.5 50.5 + 45 = 95 wins. Totally and completely unreasonable, but theoretically possible.

They "could" be way better, but it requires a bounce-back or step forward from almost the entire roster to be a legitimate playoff / World Series contender. Expecting everything to go the Twins' way is unreasonable, but it has technically happened in baseball history.

Maybe not if there's a strike. MiLB players are now represented by the MLBPA and the CBA.

The Twins signing Caratini on a multi-year deal for more AAV than Ryan Jeffers is making, then declaring Jeffers to be the primary and Caratini to be a backup catcher and 1B/DH when we have about a dozen of those on the active roster already is nonsensical. I don't understand why the Twins acquired Jackson if they don't believe he's a viable backup option. I'm skeptical Jackson is a viable backup, but I'm not the one wasting millions of dollars on him.

There will be no fans in the seats for 2027-2029, then. Baseball will fall out of relevancy as soccer replaces it and I expect revenues to utterly collapse. If the MLBPA wants future contracts to get cut in half, a work stoppage is the way to go about it. If MLB owners want to lose half their franchise value, a work stoppage is also the way to go about it.

I had negative interest in Twins Fest this year. Despite the fact I bought a new jersey and was really excited to get it. This ownership group is utterly clueless.

Then why not trade Walker Jenkins and the rest of the farm for established players?

"kid" at 24? He's an adult, he'll be playing his age 25 season (where you're essentially no longer a prospect). I know it's a baseball thing to call these professional adults "kids" but they're not. Falvey famously called 29 year old Kody Clemens a "kid" last year. It's something gross about baseball. There were 27 players in MLB last year who were qualified as hitters at Lee's age or younger. Brooks Lee was dead last in terms of his production at the plate. He was 26th of 27 in overall value despite playing SS predominantly. He's got solid instincts, but he's got a chronic bad back already, he's not athletic enough to hold down any position other than 1B/3B/DH, and he's got exactly 1 thing going for him at the plate, and that's he doesn't strike out a ton.

I think we've seen what happens when Falvey needs to make trades before. He overplays his hand and runs out of legitimate partners late in the offseason. Ryan is a bit special in regard to that philosophy since there are always going to be interested partners for a pitcher like Ryan. Bottom line, if you believe in the pitching pipeline. Whether it's Bradly, Abel, Zebby, SWR, etc taking that step forward, Ryan is absolutely expendible. Lopez brings back dramatically less coming off a tough year of injuries with a $22MM annual paycheck coming. From what I've seen, teams do not value Ryan as highly as Falvey. Though Ryan carries a +54 trade value in BaseballTradeValues, clubs have apparently been hesitatant to give up their truly premium assets. Those +40 type players as the headliner. I think that reflects the league-wide view Ryan is not an ace, he's a playoff caliber starter but not the guy you want leading a rotation. But Falvey won't. Falvey won't put his money where his mouth is.

Tait and Soto have a 0% chance of playing at the MLB level this year so they can be ignored regardless of rank. Jenkins making the roster in the first 2 weeks would be stunning, but I suppose there is some scenario where it could happen, but Falvey has logjammed corner outfielders about 17 deep behind 1 WAR ceiling guys. Rodriguez and Prielipp both have a path to opening day. Emma, especially, given the Twins will be burning his 3rd option before the end of April before a single plate appearance in the big show if Emma isn't on the 26 man before then. It speaks volumes about Emma if the Twins are okay burning his 3rd option like that. Prielipp's path is Falvey getting his way by putting Prielipp in the bullpen, though we already have 1 guaranted lefty (Rogers) and a likely guy (Funderburk). If Prielipp struggles to get through multiple innings or against lefties, I think Falvey's ego will win the day over Zoll's desires to continue Prielipp's path as a starter.

So he went from abominable to just awful? In all seriousness, Larnach didn't have enough sample size in 2024 to generate a stable number. wRC+ 71 is still unplayable for a low value defensive position.

It's necessary to break out Brooks Lee as a left handed hitter and as a right handed hitter. Career lines RHB = .218/.274/.351 OPS .625 wRC+ 72. ISO .134, 7.1% BB, 15.1% K. .231 BABIP LHB = .261/.291/.367 OPS .658 wRC+ 82. ISO .106, 3.5% BB, 20.0% K .304 BABIP As a lefty, Lee is a slap singles ground ball hitter with no control of the strike zone. As a righty, Lee has a better grasp of the strike zone, and he becomes a dead pull hitter with a better ratio of fly balls and a little more pop. Both ways, he generates little in the way of hard contact, and he's a pretty easy strikeout of pitchers stay inside and low from either side of the plate, but even if they leave pitches out over the plate when Lee is batting left, he's not going to do any damage even if he does make contact. He's the last couple years' version of Luis Arraez, but with 3-4x the K rate. His 2025 approach and results looked pretty much just like his 2024 debut. There have probably been about 5 articles about Brooks Lee and whether or not he can improve over the offseason. I think Lee's ceiling is probably a close to league average bat. Maybe .260/.310/.410 OPS .720-ish type of hitter at best? I will say the Twins have shown a remarkable level of patience with Lee. Dramatically more than any other young player I can recall recently.

It's true Liam Hendriks (2007) we DFA'd back in 2013. Lewis Thorpe (2013), but arm injuries seemed to really derail him.

He's no faster than Wallner was a couple years ago, and his weak arm led to teams really being aggressive on him last year where he got some opportunities to push up his defensive stats through getting some easy outs on attempted advances. Martin doesn't get a good reaction or jump, but he does have enough raw speed to make up for his poor instincts. Expecting more than average defense from him feels optimistic, but certainly more ceiling than a guy like Larnach.