Nine of twelve

Congratulations to Mr. Pagan. I think for the Twins this was $16M wisely not spent. I would say that Great American Smallpark is probably not the best place for him, so good luck with that in Cincy.

My impression is that he is an (caudal terminus of the gastro-intestinal tract). Even if we needed another infielder he would not be on my list.

The following numbers are the reasons it makes sense not to have signed them: 11/7/1989 and 4/11/1988.

All owners want their teams to win. Winning teams generate more revenue than losing teams, so of course they do. But operating a business valued at billions of dollars is not a game. There certainly are differences in philosophies from one team to another, but you must wind up in the black. If you don't it's not possible to sustain the business.

In the days before MLB came to Kansas City and Atlanta, the Cardinals were the primary team of the south (including Texas), much of the midwest (including a lot of Minnesota) and the mountain west. Obviously it's not that way now, but the culture of St. Louis being a baseball-first market remains. Additionally, consider that there's no NFL or NBA there. That's what enables the franchise to out-perform expectations that are based strictly on market size.

I wonder if Brian Duensing's agent has been in touch.

It's not hard to envision Jeffers being an All-star catcher in 2024. And if he's healthy I think he should be starting at least 100 games, hopefully a few more. That means the second major league catcher, whoever that is, will be a backup, not a co-starter as was the case in 2023. I'm not too concerned about who starts 1/3 of the games as long as he's satisfactory in that role.

It's hard to fathom the thinking on the part of some of the commenters on this thread. Dude is only 21 years old. IMHO there should be nothing but optimism.

I don't dismiss trading with any team as a potential way to improve the Twins. As suggested in the OP, our trades with Tampa Bay have generally been successful during the last decade or so. (This is probably attributable more to luck than anything.) But if I were a Tampa Bay fan I would be frustrated and even angry that other teams, especially average-market teams like the Twins, view the Rays as little more than a feeder system. I would view it as condescending. Over the last 5 years the Rays have the second best record in the AL, trailing only the Astros. They should be emulated rather than looked down upon.

I just want to make this observation. There are 29 teams that have shown no interest at all in moving to Las Vegas. So this means that the A's will be moving from the least desirable location in MLB to the least desirable location in MLB. Good luck with that.

I'm rooting for him. He's a major league-quality fielder and baserunner. He's still relatively young at 24 and it would not surprise me if his hitting improves to where he can hold his own in the majors. I expect he will have good opportunities with Pittsburgh.

Joe Mauer was the best baseball player in the world in 2009 and he was very nearly the best player in the world for quite a few more years. He is deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. It's unfortunate that the Hall of Fame has a lot of undeserving members as well.

I think the two on the ball are Lenny Green and Jimmie Hall. The visor is much more difficult. Could it be Tony Oliva?

Keep in mind that reduced TV revenue affects not just the Twins but almost every MLB team, at least to some extent. It seems likely to me that most teams will have more constraints on their 2024 budgets compared to the last few years. I expect free agent contracts to be smaller this offseason than originally projected and there will probably be internal cost-cutting measures instituted, such as fewer scouts and the like. I believe that this would be referred to as a correction in stock market parlance. So the Twins will probably wind up with a payroll ranked in about the same position relative to other teams.

It sure is easy to tell other people to spend their money for your benefit, isn't it?

This happens all the time on this website, which is why I rarely read trade-related threads.

Killebrew was not traded. He was released and the Royals signed him as a free agent.

For a follow-up you could write an article comparing and contrasting apples and oranges.

Mr. Ludwig has a very deep resume and seems intelligent. He sounds to me like a potential candidate for a full-time staff position on a major league team.

I'm in favor of who is best suited to handle the position. One big worry of bringing someone from deeper in the minors: see Hicks, Aaron.

To save others the bother of looking this up: The highest-ranking player not elected to the Twins Hall of Fame is Brian Dozier. (Chuck Knoblauch was elected but not inducted.) The lowest-ranking player elected to the Twins Hall of Fame is Greg Gagne. (Dan Gladden is ranked lower than Gagne but he was elected in part as a broadcaster.) There are 10 players ranked higher than Gagne who have not been elected to the Twins HOF. Edited to add: perhaps Twins HOF members on this list could be denoted by an asterisk or similar.

This is so cool. One very, very small nitpick: I think it might have been better to post #300 at the top and work down to #1 as is usually done with top (insert number here) lists.

I'm not a stathead and I don't know the details of the formulas for fWAR or bWAR. I get that WAR is an attempt to put a uniform overall value on a player but what I don't like is the arbitrary nature of it. It's arbitrary in two ways. One, the formula itself, which ultimately comes from the opinions of the people who decide what the formula should be, and, two, the presumed level of the hypothetical replacement player. It seems to me that the replacement player, whoever that is, would have a WAR of 0.0 because the WAR of a given player is literally Wins Against Replacement. But should the hypothetical replacement player be a league-average player or should he be a top-level AAA player since that's who would be most likely be the actual replacement? Moreover, the real-life replacement player varies so much from one team to another and from one player to another that it seems nearly impossible to project a single hypothetical replacement player. For example, in the Twins organization the replacement player for Ryan Jeffries would presumably be Jair Comargo. But the replacement player for Carlos Correa could be Willi Castro, or Kyle Farmer, or even Royce Lewis. The argument could then be made that it's whoever the 26-man roster replacement is. OK, then which replacement player was added, an infielder, an outfielder or a utility man? Or even a pitcher? What if the team makes a trade to replace a player? And I won't even get into the issue of contracts and options and so forth that affect who replaces whom. So, to make a short story long, I'm with Cap'n Pirhana. I also take WAR with a huge grain of salt.

Top 10! All right, that puts us in the top 1/3. Okay, well I guess that's better than being average. Slightly.

I think Gary Ward. The man in the photo doesn't look skinny enough to be Ron Washington. I don't know if spring training numbers from that era are findable but neither player wore 50 in the regular season.