bean5302

Falvey was unaware you could draft true catchers in upper rounds. He remains confused at how Ryan Jeffers joined the organization.

The MLBPA turned down the offer owner's made for a salary floor, but the MLBPA can technically file a grievance if the Athletics don't spend at least 150% of their rev share money (totals at like $105MM), not that it would likely be successful.

It is peculiar to see Castellano left exposed. The K and walk rates were both excellent, the hits allowed was solid, BABIP was totally reasonable. His ERA and FIP were both solid at the AA level, and he's only 23. I would not be surprised if he opened the year in the rotation since SWR, Festa and Matthews all have options. I'm sure the Twins are looking to move Paddack's contract as well.

Because the claiming team needs to put the prospect on the 26 man MLB roster for the entire year. The Rule 5 pick cannot be optioned.

Paddack.

The Lopez extension is fine in a vacuum, but like all the rosy TD hype machine articles on Lopez, this article dodges some concerning parts to Lopez's performance and intentionally misleads the reader about other pitchers/competition. Free agents making 50-75% the AAV under short contracts are not comparable to Lopez's contract which came as an extension while Lopez was under team control for 2 more seasons. Lopez was not in free agency. The article is also biased against other pitchers in this list, and the cheap shot about the Angels playoff hopes is impressive coming from a Twins site... Luckily, we can look at the last 3 years of Lopez (to only include healthy seasons) including results from Miami while also dinging other pitchers who've had recent injuries. Let's ignore that 5.11 ERA for the first half last year, how Lopez's actual results are often worse than his FIP, and let's also ignore the performances of the pitchers coming off impressive seasons before signing their contracts.

Jeffers and Lewis will be free agents in 2027 and 2028, respectively. Buxton will probably be traded in the 2026-2027 offseason since his full NTC drops after 2026. Predicting 2028 is just guessing. There will be better players drafted in 2025 who'll be in the opening day lineup for the team in 2028. Many prospects don't go on to have a good MLB career. Keaschall, Jenkins and Emma all being a success story is highly improbable.

He did pitch that 1 game in August back in 2021! He's due! Also, yes, that's the last time and only time he's pitched in August since 2020.

Correct. It was an iron-clad, insurmountable defense to what was essentially a complaint about the Pohlad's running a crazy low payroll. While I canceled my season tickets with no intent to renew, and I've been highly critical of the Pohlad's 180* shift in how they planned to run the team, I'm not delusional in regard to the team's spending. The Twins have ranked from #16-20 in MLB since like 2017. They haven't been in the bottom 5 for over 20 years. Fans griping about grievances should change the teams they follow to Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, and Miami. Those are teams who have payrolls literally $100MM LOWER than the Twins in recent years.

I guess the Yankees had to prove they were willing to spend huge money so they chose to lavish it upon Fried, who will be 31 next year. He's got ace performance, but he's not the most durable. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/yankees-max-fried-agree-to-eight-year-deal.html

Nah, the Mets changed their offer to 6yrs with $160MM guaranteed cutting their initial offer in half as I recall. Correa told Boras he didn't want to negotiate with the Mets after they tried to change their original offer, and Correa then has Boras initiate contact with the Twins. Both San Francisco and New York still wanted Correa, but once the offer was pulled, Correa was done with them.

Not have a top 20 payroll in MLB. Don't sign Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Josh Donaldson, Pablo Lopez, Christian Vazquez. For all the "cheap Pohlads" posts and griping, the Twins have consistently run the 2nd highest payroll in the AL Central for years and years.

I don't think anybody feels there's any surplus value in Correa's contract for 2025. The potential value comes in 2026-2028, with NPV... a30 2025 = $36.00MM a31 2026 = 31.50MM (30.28MM present) a32 2027 = 30.50MM (28.20MM present) a33 2028 = 30.00MM (26.67MM present) Then, Correa is cheap if he ages well, with salaries rapidly dropping. If he stinks, the team doesn't have to play him a lot so he won't vest each season. a34 2029 = 25.00MM (21.37MM present) a35 2030 = 20.00MM (16.43MM present) a36 2031 = 15.00MM (11.85MM present) a37 2032 = 10.00MM (7.60MM present)

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.