Road trip

Martin has had an unexpectedly good start, which brings him into the everyday player conversation. But it's just a good 20 game stretch at this point. His defense looks better, I guess, but he's probably at best an average outfielder because his arm is no bueno, and his routes are still an adventure at times. Should he get some starts against right-handers? Yes, I think so, if for no other reason than he will get mighty rusty soon as the tsunami of left-handed starting pitchers will inevitably end (it has to, right?). Mixing him in a bit more while sitting Clemens/Larnach/Wallner is fine but odds are all three of those guys are going to be better hitters over the course of the season against right handers (maybe not Clemens... but the Twins seem to have no faith in Bell at 1B).

Unfortunate, but as others have said this is just a normal part of the sport now. Players get hurt, frequently. It's tough being a Vikings Twins fan. Next man up.

CES absolutely raked at AA and AAA in 2022 and 2023 when he was in his early 20's, but something went terribly wrong with him. I have no idea what, although I recall he did have some back issues. It may also be that for many players the gap between AAA and the majors is a chasm too vast to cross. He's young enough yet that someone, somewhere, is likely to sign him to a minor league contract. I have doubts that it should be the Twins, but have to note that CES is the same age as Anthony Sabato and has been a much better hitter than Sabato at every level. Sabato is more or less our "prospect" at 1B for St Paul, if you can still be generous enough to call him a prospect. Nobody at Wichita is primed to move up to fill 1B either. So.... maybe?

The Twins defense is bad, to be sure, almost everywhere on the diamond. And yet an equally large problem is the offense. They just can't score runs with any consistency. Just look at shortstop production. The best defender at SS in 2025 was Bobby Witt, at 18 runs prevented above average for the year (per Baseball Savant). That makes Witt worth 19 runs more than Brooks Lee on defense (Lee was -1 last year). But look at their respective offensive production... it's a chasm, far more than the 19 runs worth of difference. Heck, Witt's offensive value over Lee might be worth more than 19 runs in a month! And you can do this all over the diamond, save for CF if Buxton stays healthy and has a good year. Even for traditional offense-first positions like LF and 1B the Twins roster players that are below average hitters. It's gonna be a long year..

Yeah, I mean, he should have just struck out 😉

The fact that Lee was a touted prospect and a 1st round pick still matters, at least at this point. Out of the 2022 first round picks, only Jackson Holliday, Cade Horton, and Zach Neto look like sure-fire major leaguers, and frankly only Neto has had significant success in the majors thus far. It's still early in Lee's career. Results haven't been as encouraging as hoped. Maybe 2022 was just a weak draft, but I wouldn't give up on Lee's bat until he gets to 1000 plate appearances.

Yes, that would be fine for a defensively elite SS, but that batting line seems really optimistic for Houston. .240 is league average these days. Maybe he can become Mark Belanger. That would be valuable. Just understand what you are wishing for: Gold Glove defense with an OPS+ of 68 (that's really bad, btw).

Plan for the future. Don't live in the past. As much as we want a return of 2023 Pablo/Twins, nobody has a time travel machine. The odds of Pablo returning to his prior form are poor. He's suffered a serious injury, and the track record for pitchers undergoing a 2nd UCL is not good. This is especially true of starters over age 30. It was a devastating event for the franchise. If the Twins want to contend again someday they have to face reality and think with their heads, not their hearts.

Martin is really the only player of this list that I want to see on the roster. He might still have some upside, but its almost now or never for him. The other bench options listed in the article are AAAA filler, and that unfortunately may include Clemens. By 2029 we will struggle to remember that any of them once wore a Twins uniform.

It seems likely. Pulled his hamstring severely in April and was on the IL for the next six weeks. Hamstring injuries can be notoriously slow to fully heal for some athletes. His loss of speed may be permanent, or perhaps a winter off will result in slightly better sprint speed this year. We can only hope, because a faster Wallner would be somewhat less of a liability in the field.

A totally valid concern. Unfortunately, the numbers for Abel aren't all that much better, although he ramped up a little last year. 108, 113, 108, and 137 innings pitched. Similar numbers for other young starters like Zebby. For better or worse (I have no idea) this seems to be how young starters are being developed pretty much everywhere. It isn't just a Twins thing. Ideally, by current (low) standards you'd like to have starters that can get to the 150-160 inning pitched range, but it seems very few pitchers throw that many as they advance through the minors. Thus, you don't really find out much about endurance for young pitchers until they get to the majors. I certainly hope this low bar can be cleared by some of the Twins young starters, be it Abel or someone else.

I hate the City Connect uniforms less as time has passed...kind of like I hate the Yankees less as time has passed since their last World Series title. Still hate them, just with a little less passion. They remain an easy last place for me. I'm totally with the Great Hambino on the red uniforms from a decade ago. Bring 'em back.

Agree, sort of, for recent history because the Dodgers have been buying titles of late.. they've developed very few members of their core. But you don't have to go back all that far to see development success stories. The 2014 Giants, 2015 Royals, 2016 Cubs, and 2017 Astros all won titles with cores that were largely developed internally. That was a golden age for developing your own players. Even the 2019 Nationals were substantially home grown in the lineup plus Strassburg. Sure, they all brought in a player or three from outside the organization, but their stars were developed. Is that era gone? Maybe. I hope that development can win a title again, because the Twins ownership is never going to spend like the Dodgers and other big money franchises. Will they sign an injured Pablo to an extension? Who knows. My heart wouldn't complain, but my head would.

Look, I get that Pablo is loved, and we want him to remain a Twin, but those advocating signing him to another contract now should study the results for 2nd UCL surgeries. Add in the fact that Pablo is older than average for this procedure, and the odds of him returning to prior form are very bad. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39741491/ TLDR result: MLB pitchers provided only half of their value to teams at 3 years postoperatively. Longer version: At 3 seasons postoperatively, pitchers returned to performance in pitch count (55%), expected fielding independent pitching (68%), fWAR (48%), velocity (76%), fastball velocity (80%), horizontal movement (81%), vertical movement (66%), Stuff+ (78%), Location+ (89%), and Pitching+ (78%) at varying degrees. Only 3.9%, 11.8%, and 28.1% of pitchers returned to full performance by 1, 2, and 3 seasons postoperatively, respectively. Only an additional 19.3% of pitchers met 4 out of 5 full performance criteria. Binary logistic regression identified starting pitchers and preoperative faster velocity and older age as strong negative predictors of return to full performance.

Worst offseason ever. There are those on here who have memories much longer than mine, but even in the late 70's when Griffith lost or traded just about every player with a pulse, well at least they tempted fans to dream about a future outfield of Bombo Rivera, Willie Norwood, and Hosken Powell. Ah, the Good Ole Days! Maybe we were just more gullible then... Griffith at least had the excuse of owning in an era with no revenue sharing, no significant TV money, and no other source of income, unlike our current batch of public welfare Banksters.

Pecota projection for the Twins? Yeah somewhere in the 70-79 win range is reasonable. Pecota is higher than my guess, but it's a reasonable projection. I must be missing something on the Pecota projection for Detroit. This is a team that won 87 games last year, returns nearly everyone of importance, and nearly their entire core from last year is under age 30. Everyday players like Greene, Keith, Dingler, and Torkelson should get better as they are all under their age 27 season. They added Valdez and Kenley Janssen. Unless last year Detroit was just unreasonably lucky, I can't fathom why Pecota projects they should be dramatically worse this year.

This may be a case of "misinformation is everywhere". There are different numbers in different places. If you look at Spotrac salary data, which is used to compute MLB Luxury tax numbers, you get a different picture of the Twins payroll. It includes "dead money" for players that are gone but on payroll, not just the active roster: 2020: 168 million 2021: 145 million 2022: 173 million 2023: 177 million 2024: 160 million 2025: 141 million 2026 (projected): 110 million In that time, the Twins went from being consistently middle of the pack in MLB salaries to 23rd in 2025. 2026 is too early to project, but it likely won't be much higher in the rankings. I was also ready for Falvey to move on, for many of the reasons listed above, but the idea that the Pohlads didn't change spending habits seems suspect.

I know we all love Pablo, and I certainly hope he can stay healthy and anchor the staff, but since the trade for Arraez: Pablo: 8.1 BWAR Luis: 6.8 BWAR It's not the slam dunk thus far that many want to portray. Luis may have declined, but Pablo has his own injury history. I think/hope Pablo will probably be the better player moving forward, but their production thus far has been closer than most seem to think.

A few. Danny Santana comes to mind. Different skill set but from a very good first year to completely unplayable by year two. He never really recovered. I still wish Julien the best in his new spot. DJL beat me by 2 minutes :)

I'll agree with the rotation, if the top guys stay healthy (coin-flip). But they ranked 23rd in MLB in runs scored last year. 23rd. I think we could make a case that the offense could be worse this year unless some of the current minor leaguers make a sudden and unexpected impact. Bader's unexpected production is gone and not really replaced. Same with Willi Castro. Jeffers is potentially on the trade block. It could get really ugly if Buxton reverts to his career average of ~340 PA's instead of last year's 540. I'm good with the Rogers signing, but it looks like a 70 win team to me. Hope I'm totally wrong on that...

To be fair, the best year of his career isn't ancient history... it was 2023 with the Marlins where he put up .354/.393/.469 - even managed 10 HR's. 4.6 bWAR for folks that want to boil it down to one simple number. I don't advocate for the Twins signing him as he's not a great fit for a rebuild or the current state of their roster. They've already collected a more than sufficient number of left handed "should be a DH" candidates. However he's the kind of player that some wealthy and contending franchise will sign to a one or two year contract just in case he can be returned to prior form.

I blame Petco. I'm only half joking. This is what happened to Arraez when he was traded to the Padres in 2024: Home or Away Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ Home 77 74 337 317 37 85 11 1 2 22 5 0 13 14 .268 .307 .328 .636 104 12 5 2 0 2 1 .276 72 79 Away 73 72 335 320 46 115 21 2 2 24 4 3 11 15 .359 .385 .456 .841 146 6 3 0 1 1 1 .372 128 140 As recently as 2024 Arraez was great on the road, but unplayable at home. That'll mess with a guy's head. Hence, the change in approach, and by 2025 he wasn't hitting very well anywhere. He will be somewhere else in 2026. He's a good bounce-back candidate if he's healthy. I'll be rooting for him, even if he never plays for the Twins again.

Thanks for the information... and that sounds bad. It also makes me wonder why apparently both Bell and Twins management felt they were a good match. Is there any MLB ballpark that is colder than Target Field in April?

Well, yeah, even without the dearth of free agent outfielders, Buxton's trade value will likely never be higher. He'll be 32, and finally stayed healthy for a full year last year. A large part of his value is his elite speed, but this can only decline with increased age. It is almost inevitable that Buxton would bring back a little less in 2027, less still in 2028, etc. He is a depreciating asset. It doesn't mean the Twins *should* trade him. From a marketing perspective Buxton is one of the very few reasons a casual fan might buy a ticket to a Twins game. By opening day he may be their only veteran bat, depending on how you define that. Maybe none of that matters though... it's gonna be a rebuilding year(s).

I read this and I thought...Hm, is that first sentence correct? I had to look. The most recent data I could easily and quickly find was from 2020, from https://www.mlb.com/news/baseball-endangered-species-lefty-hitter-lefty-thrower. In that season: 40% of MLB plate appearances were from lefty hitters Only 11.6% of non-pitchers in MLB threw left-handed. Thus, actually, most left handed hitters at the MLB level throw right handed. The split in 2020 was approximately 33% L-L to 67% L-R. The article goes on to explain that right handed throwers have become increasingly prevalent because short benches have led to an increase in the desirability of positional flexibility, and utility players have to throw right handed if they are going to play anything other than OF-1b. So... teach your kids to throw righty and hit lefty, which has always been pretty solid advice anyway.