Jump to content
Can Ober and the Twins take down the Royals tonight? Join our game thread! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Road trip

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    689

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Road trip

  1. Road trip
    Philosophically I agree with the article. The Twins are too close in the race to give up this year. It may just be a "chip and a chair" approach, but baseball is weird in small samples, and with two months left this is pretty much a small sample. Trading from excess for immediate pitching help is fine by me. They can't realistically carry 3 catchers for the duration of the season, so trade one. They have an excess of corner outfielder/dh types, so trade one if there is any market demand for them. Build up that bullpen, maybe get a possible 4th starter, roll the dice. Tampa seems a good fit for this type of trade due to their own needs, motivations, and pitching depth.
  2. Road trip
    Both are bad fielders. Larnach should also really be a DH at this point. If you look up Larnach on Baseball Savant you won't find a meaningful statistical difference between him and Wallner, unfortunately. If Larnach is traded, next man up in LF is likely dealer's choice of Roden/Martin/Keaschall/Jenkins/Clemens/Mendez/Gonzalez/ERod. Good grief, that is an excess of possibilities.
  3. Road trip
    I was skeptical about Houston's bat. I may have been wrong. Higher OPS now at Wichita than he had at A ball. I haven't watched him other than highlights, but his stats say St Paul next year, and then maybe it won't be long until the big squad? By all accounts his glove work is already top quality.
  4. Road trip
    Well, he's a starter the rest of the year due to rotation attrition. I suspect, assuming he is healthy, that he will still be a starter in 2027 due to rotation attrition. Such is the nature of MLB pitching...guys get hurt, and every MLB team needs about 8 or 9 possible starters. I think he will be out of option years though, which may complicate a decision about his place in the rotation in April. In his favor, he has some length. He has shown an ability to go 6 or even 7 innings in a start (9 out of 12 starts this year). Compared to many of the starting pitchers the Twins have used this year he is a real innings-eater. This helps take some load of an always-overworked bullpen. That's actually really valuable for a #4 or #5 starter, which might be his ceiling. This length is also a dramatic improvement over last year, where he hit the 6 inning mark only 5 times in 16 starts. That's encouraging. Would he perform better as a reliever? Probably. You could also say that about almost every MLB starting pitcher. It's simply an easier job.
  5. Road trip
    Agree, he's not good at this point, but that's a tall standard for a team that recently rostered Edouard Julien. And Sano. And tried to hide La Tortuga on defense. And Delmon Young. And (unfortunately) I could go on... back to Todd Walker and Willie Norwood and the immortal Bombo Rivera... so it isn't just a recent Twins thing.
  6. Road trip
    I'd keep Ryan until the offseason when I'd either try to sign him or trade him, but.... IF and only if the Twins want to trade Ryan, I'd be calling up Milwaukee. The Brewers need a starter with Woodruff now out for the year. They are in their World Series contention window, but they don't project to have a very good chance against the Dodgers in the playoffs unless they upgrade their rotation. Their minor league system is loaded. Could the Twins work out a deal involving Ryan for Jesus Made? Maybe throw in another player as needed? As good as they are, the Brewers have some holes in both their lineup and starting rotation and they really should be in "win now" mode.
  7. Road trip
    IDK... Arraez is on a pace for a 5-6 WAR season and is owed less than 6 million for the rest of the year. That contract is a bargain. Getting out of PETCO seemingly resurrected his career. He will bring a decent haul from some contender that needs a 2nd basemen and some offensive help (which, at the moment, isn't really the Twins).
  8. Road trip
    Yup...typo on my part :)
  9. Road trip
    Young prospects remind me of seed corn, if you will bear with a farming analogy. My neighbor likes to say that seed corn is all 300 bushel an acre potential when it is still in the bag. You plant it, and perhaps conditions aren't ideal in April, chip away 10 bushels. You have some soil fertility issues apparent in May, chip away 15 bushels. Weeds in June, -20 bushels. Doesn't rain in July, -30 bushels. Pretty soon that 300 bushel an acre potential dwindles down to 220 or less. Same thing happens in the minors. Young or newly drafted players haven't seen much adversity yet. They look great "in the bag". Tait isn't "in the bag" anymore, and has struggled with some adversity. Next year it will be apparent that Tinney has some weaknesses as well, as all players do. It doesn't mean that Tait, Tinney, or any other prospect won't eventually yield well, but many of them won't look as good a year or two after the Twins acquire them. Like you I cringe a little when brand new guys are ranked well above players who have already performed well in the low to mid minors. I'm excited about Tinney like everyone else, but ranking him near or equal to a guy like Jenkins who has already made it to AAA seems premature.
  10. Road trip
    I think I agree. This is where it is trending in my mind. The Twins are underwhelming, but the AL as a whole is so very, very bad this year that they are contenders. It feels absurd to type that, but here we are at the All Star Break. FanGraphs has them at 34% to get a playoff berth. It'll depend on how things progress through late July, but I could see ownership deciding to gamble on the current roster and trade none of the current 25-man. Maybe they trade a spare minor league outfielder for immediate bullpen help? Beyond that, prospects will likely have to earn a promotion until the Twins drop out of contention, or get promoted due to injury. And who knows.... 1% chance that the Twins can replicate the 2006 Cardinals, win 83 or so games, and make an irrationally wild postseason run.
  11. Road trip
    Prior was great as a 23 year old.... and finished at age 25. Knowing the Twins of that era, they would have wasted Prior's few healthy seasons teaching him to "pitch to contact" in the minors.
  12. Road trip
    It's early to judge, but right now it looks like a very good trade for the Twins. In two years Bradley will hopefully still be an important member of the Twins rotation. Jax will have gotten significantly more expensive and will be pitching somewhere other than Tampa.
  13. Road trip
    There are several playoff contending teams that have negative WAR at DH. I suspect someone will offer a minor leaguer for Wallner by the end of the month. He needs a fresh start elsewhere and the Twins can pick up a lower level pitching suspect/prospect. Wallner might be done, or with new coaching and a new environment he might regain his former ability to hit a fastball and become the next Brent Rooker.
  14. Road trip
    The likely solution for immediate help this season will continue to be DFA pickups from other teams. You hope to find another Gomez, knowing that you will have to sort through a variety of unsuccessful claims. Sometimes it works. It'll be an assortment of guys with injury histories (think Brock Stewart 2.0), control problems (Gomez 2.0), or maybe a failed starter they think they can convert. It isn't an exciting strategy... you could even call in depressing, but if they can find another Gomez that is controllable I'll call it a success.
  15. Road trip
    I kind of have similar recollections as well. Or maybe that was an excuse because he got in Gardy's doghouse somehow? Hardy wasn't fast, but in my recollection had everything else you would want at SS. Gold gloves aren't a perfect measure, but Hardy went on to win several in Baltimore almost immediately after getting traded. And I think it came on the heels of the infamous Nishioka signing. Quite an avalanche of bad decisions..
  16. Road trip
    Yes, shortstops matter. JJ Hardy. Sigh. Traded for absolutely nothing in one of Bill Smith's most inglorious trades, a year after Smith had paid a king's ransom to get him (trading a soon-to-be-a-star Carlos Gomez). Not a coincidence that the Twins totally fell apart the next year.
  17. Road trip
    Truth 6: Twins offense has been incredibly "clutch" thus far. https://www.baseball-reference.com/tools/split_stats_lg.cgi?full=1&params=bases|RISP|ML|2026|bat|AB| As much as we like to complain about players hitting with runners in scoring position, this year the Twins as a team are hitting .288 which easily leads MLB (Philly is a distant 2nd place at .266). You can look at OBP, 1st. Slugging, 2nd. BABIP, a thoroughly out of character .340! Can it continue? Possibly not, but the stats back up the performance so far. We can certainly point to the failings of individual players, and I think everyone *feels* like the Twins need to upgrade offense at several positions, but as a whole the Twins offense has performed well beyond expectations.
  18. Road trip
    I agree, he was a golden child for TD. Perhaps it was justified though... back in 2024 he was highly ranked in MLB Pipeline, ESPN, and various other prospect sites. I think hope for Brooks Lee was justified given that pedigree and his high draft slot. Most of us had never seen him play, other than a few highlight reels. I agree generally though that TD writers/readers pin some hopes on many less highly thought of prospects, often later round draft picks. Names like Balzazovic, McCusker, Helmen, and Keirsey come to mind. None of those received the national press that Brooks Lee got, and needless to say none of them worked out in their brief chances in MLB. The Twins are, by any objective measure, an unsuccessful franchise this century. Most of us were born into fandom by geography. When the present is bad, people tend to hope for the future or else dwell on the past... but Kirby and Hrbek aren't coming back.
  19. Road trip
    Gotcha... so instead of giving him some time at AAA to improve his game the Twins should just release him. 23 years old... apparently in your world if you can't perform well at 23 you never will.
  20. Road trip
    He's only 23, so there is still time for him to become the player we *thought* he was going to be last year. He had fewer than 400 PAs at AA and AAA combined. The Twins rarely rush their prospects through the minors, but I think you could argue that Luke got rushed, perhaps both offensively and defensively. If they think he just needs more work at 2b to become an asset there, send him to AAA to learn more, which might also benefit his hitting. If he needs to become an outfielder... well, there are players at AAA hitting well that are already better defensive outfielders than Luke. It seems like either way, a move to St Paul might be the best for both the player and the franchise.
  21. Road trip
    I agree, at least short term. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he doesn't get shelled in his first couple of call ups. But perhaps that is the point. Get the learning done in 2026 while he rides the shuttle back and forth from St Paul. Expect a little better in 2027, while still riding the shuttle. Perhaps a bullpen anchor by 2028? That may even be optimistic given his minor league numbers, but if his stuff is really that electric we can hope that he will develop the needed control that he doesn't currently posses.
  22. Road trip
    The Padres do desperately need more outfield (and DH) production, so they are a likely match, be it Larnach or one of our other outfielder/DH types. They need to make moves, their best hitter so far this year is (*gulp*) Ty France.
  23. Road trip
    Yeah, nobody here remembers Santana, Viola, Mauer, Morneau, Kirby, or Carew. Heck....just a few years ago Maeda finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting.
  24. Road trip
    At this point next year, at least three of them will be on the IL. Bank on it. That is the nature of MLB pitching in the 2020s.
  25. Road trip
    I generally agree with your list, except I can't share your optimism on Pablo. Paddack-like may actually be the likely result, or even an optimistic result, although Paddack had a different surgery. The internal brace procedure Pablo had is a little different, and relatively new. A disappointing comp result for the internal brace procedure on a 2nd UCL tear would be Zach Britton or Matt Bush (both forced to retire). Shohei Ohtani is the best possible result, but isn't really comparable as it was Ohtani's first UCL tear, and this is Pablo's second. This article, while a bit dated being from 2023, lays out the limited pool of comps, and isn't a cause for optimism: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/the-ucl-internal-brace-surgery-non-study/ I have great respect for Pablo, and he could of course be the exception... but it wouldn't stun me if by 2028 he was forced to confront his own Moonlight Graham decision.... he's getting somewhat old to start med school.
×
×
  • Create New...