bean5302

Brooks Lee has always been viewed a non-viable shortstop at the MLB level. It was widely expected Lee would have to move to 2B due to lack of arm strength and poor range even at the time of draft. From the day he was drafted until now, the Twins are probably the only organization in baseball who would entertain playing him at SS. As far as his speed/range, when Lee came up, he was the same speed as he is now, and he's always had a stout lower body. I don't know as Lee is beefing up or staying the same, TBH. Those funky stats you're seeing are probably going to continue to be funky because you're getting into super small sample sizes. Brooks Lee's problem isn't "velocity" though it certainly isn't helping him he's among the softest hitters in baseball. He also has no plate discipline. Personally, I think fans of this site are just enamored with the name "Brooks Lee" and all the over-hyped excitement which came with his drafting. There's a chance he can address the multiple factors he needs to change in order to become a league average hitter at MLB, but projecting more than that feels unrealistic to me. In regard to Culpepper, yes, his defense is drastically better than expected. It was expected he was a non-viable SS, and now it looks like he might be good enough to stick there. Culpepper's RF/9 was 3.91 last year with a .962 fielding percentage in AA. Viable MLB shorstops are usually 4.00+ with a .970+ fielding percentage. Culpepper was not a good shortstop, but he might be "passable." Culpepper's bat is also suspect.

I think the Larnach comp is pretty fair. What Larnach is vs. what he was when he first came up. Both slow, left-handed "corner outfielders" with mediocre pop. That said, Larnach has significantly more raw power. If Larnach could take another approach change and stop hitting so many grounders, he could be a pretty impressive bat. Gotta get past that inability to hit lefties somehow, though.

He's not DaShawn Keirsey. Keirsey had zero years in the minors where he was impressive at the plate. He had a hot start at AAA in 2024 and one of the admins of TD seemed to really like Keirsey personally so Keirsey got pushed as a viable MLB player around here. Keirsey's bat had never been impressive in his MiLB career. His best performance was at age 26 in AA. He was a non-prospect. Roden doesn't have the speed to cover CF, but he's produced at the plate at a high level throughout the minors. Roden doesn't show big power, but favors a line drive approach which generates some XBH and pretty medicore power output. Unfortunately, his higher contact approach has been totally outmatched at the MLB level. At the MLB level, his walks evaporated and converted into strikeouts. He's going to need 300 or so consistent plate appearances to see what the Twins actually have. Personally, I'm not bullish on him.

The Twins are saying they will be competitive, and they're still hanging on to Ryan, Lopez, Buxton and Jeffers. So acquiring a shortstop would be sound strategy. Culpepper probably has a 25% chance to be a solid starter. A 10% chance of being as good or better than Abrams. Houston's chances are lower. He hit like Keoni Cavaco last year.

It’s not hard to find a 4.50+ ERA reliever on waivers. Being a good team’s cast off doesn’t move the needle for me wanting them. I think it’s a lot more likely people got focused purely on Banda’s ERA and not the chances that ERA is going to persist. The Dodgers, of course, recognize the low likelihood Banda will be a quality reliever which is why they DFA’d him. 8.45 K/9, 4.71 BB/9, a .227 BABIP, and a strand rate of 83% taken together just scream regression. Banda is not “something” or a “real live bullpen arm” he’s a magician who has likely run out of smoke and mirrors.

Pablo Lopez is like an $8MM per season bargain, but hardly extreme. He's worth less than Sonny Gray's value when the Twins acquired Gray. Maybe 20% of the league would consider taking on another $22MM in salary at this point in the offseason. Joe Ryan has one of the higher trade values for pitchers who are speculated as "available" and he's one of the better bargains on an expected production vs. annual salary for the upcoming season. He's not remotely close to the biggest bargain in SP right now. Skenes makes $800k right now and he's twice as good as Ryan in terms of value produced. Hunter Brown is better and cheaper with more team control, Bryan Woo is cheaper with more control, etc. In terms of raw value, even a guy like Gavin Crochet is worth more than Joe Ryan in trade value despite Crochet making $28MM per year because of the added team control, and Crochet at $28MM is twice as good of a deal than Lopez at $22MM.

Matthews has the stuff to be a #2, maybe even an ace, just not a Cy Young candidate right now. From Stuff+ This is Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray and Zebby Matthews. Which pitcher do you think has the best stuff? Matthews is the top line. Lopez is #2 Ryan is #3 Gray's 2023 is #4

Meh. Fans don't care about names on the roster. The Twins could trade Lopez or Ryan today and it would make no significant difference in attendance. The Twins signed Correa and Twins attendance was lower in 2022 than in 2021 relative to the league. Sure, it gets internet forums excited, but it doesn't really put butts in the seats. It takes a major investment, then results, then re-investment to generate excitement.

MLBPA didn't value arbitration eligible players in negotiations. Instead, they've always pushed for agreements which favored stars maximizing their big free agency contracts. I do think arbitration has been especially unfair to players who have down years entering into arbitration, but arbitration is part of overall competitive balance baked into the CBA. Without full revenue sharing, instantaneous free agency would render small and mid market teams entirely to be the Dodgers AAAA farm outlet. Pre-arbitration years are often where players adapt their game prior to entering their prime. Teams spending literally millions of dollars and the better part of a decade developing these players only to watch them leave to make the Dodgers into 17x in a row World Series winners the moment they're ready is equally unfair. The arbitration models are designed to keep costs under control for small-mid market teams who can't afford their payrolls to double as a result of having a few young core players having 1 good year. I don't think the next CBA is going to completely blow everything up for the entire financial side of baseball.

Could the Twins package up Ryan or Lopez? Sure, but I think Lopez only gets moved if the Twins are willing to sign a guy like Gallen to replace Lopez and just grab some cost controlled 2.0 WAR talent ceiling back to firm up one spot on the roster. I don't see a lot of good trade partners for Ryan at this point in the season if the Twins are looking to be competitive. What the Twins need back has to be MLB caliber talent so finding a trade partner who is both looking to add MLB talent (Ryan) and give up MLB talent when rosters are largely jelled already seems unlikely. I also don't think adding any substantial salary is possible without offloading some salary at the same time. I wrote up a blueprint the other day using this site's GM tool reflecting what the Twins "could" do to field a competitive team this year.

I mean... everybody can have an opinion, but Larnach is a league average bat. Wallner has always been far superior to Larnach in terms of production at the plate. vs.

Yes, buying a pass to all 81 games is a lousy deal if you're going to attend less than 20. Buying a season pass to Valley Fair is a bad deal if you're going to go once. In general, I'm sick of the whining about the cost of attending Twins games on this site from people who could come up with a list of excuses longer than a girl not interested in a guy that is asking them out. Twins games aren't expensive to attend. The problem is they haven't been very fun to attend.

Opening day payrolls: 2017-2025 101MM 131MM 121MM 128MM 125MM 131MM 141MM 128MM 146MM While the end of 2025 saw a payroll sell off, according to thebaseballcube.com, as of opening day, 2025 had the highest payroll in Twins history. The idea the Pohlads cut payroll in Falvey's final years is BS. I realize it's 2026 and this is the internet so I should expect misinformation everywhere, but the facts are the Pohlads allowed the highest payrolls in club history for the years prior to 2026. Last single year. Last two years. Last three years. Doesn't matter. Honestly, I do think the Pohlads had a chilling effect on the payroll earlier in Falvey's tenure. When the Twins missed out on guys like Yu Darvish and Zack Wheeler due to what was reported as pushback from ownership to give out longer contracts. That's partially on ownership, but also partially on Falvey to sell them on the idea. I think if the Twins would have landed Wheeler or Darvish, we may well be singing a different tune today, but then again, when given the opportunity to keep Gray, Falvey failed to recognize the value in having a playoff caliber rotation. Maybe that was the impact of Levine on his way out? In any case, Falvey was given a team with an outstanding, cost controlled young core and he failed to build a serious threat in the playoffs. The talent level on the current MLB roster is inferior to what he inherited, and the farm system is no better. Any GM would have been expected to rebuild the front office, scouting and analytics. The fact Falvey oversaw the bare minimum isn't impressive, just a "meets expectations" part of his review.

Here's your blueprint.

Yeah, useless if you plan on giving the pass as a gift. Gets you into the game for only fricken $3 if you're planning on attending.