Road trip

W Castro (S) SS T Larnach (L) LF J Miranda (R) 3B M Wallner (L) DH R Jeffers (R) C C Santana (S) 1B M Kepler (L) RF A Martin (R) CF B Lee (S) 2B Hope Ryan has his best stuff today. Not a stellar defensive unit out there, and missing some big bats.

Lee at 2B and Castro at SS is.... interesting. I suppose it means Lee's arm is still hurting.

Hard team to figure out, the Royals. They might have the worst hitting outfield in MLB. The bullpen is abysmal. Bench depth is poor. Their lineup is pretty young. But they send out a good starting pitcher pretty much every night. Witt Jr, has possibly become the best player in the AL (don't tell that to New Yorkers). They have a ton of speed to cover ground in the field and steal bases at every logical opportunity. They kind of remind me of the Royals circa 2014, minus the bullpen. I still think the Twins roster is better... but there is some reason for concern.

Perhaps it wasn't clear, but I was arguing against the point that Wallner is already too old to be considered a prospect who will develop further by providing a sample of players who did exactly that... And yes, Foster, Bautista, and Downing were in the majors earlier...but were slow developers. Foster flubbed his first chance to be a starter and spent nearly his entire age 24 season in AAA... was replacement level value at age 25, and then jumped to stardom at age 27. Bautista didn't manage an OPS+ over 100 until he was 29. Downing blossomed when he left the Sox for the Angels and was converted to outfield. Downing had 47 HR's in his 20's, and over 220 in his 30's. These are all late bloomers who developed long after their prospect status had expired.

No, you responded to Mike who clearly was talking about Cleveland, and then went on your diatribe. Peace, out...

Cleveland's kids have played far more games than the 9 players you listed above for the Twins, most of whom have spent the majority of the year at AAA (frankly even listing Castillo, Camargo, and Henriquez is a bit suspect as all were emergency injury replacements who barely have 10 games between them). The kids haven't all be great for Cleveland either, but they don't have other options. They decided back in spring to sink or swim with guys like Rochio and Bo Naylor. Their hitters as a group have the youngest average age in MLB. Their pitchers are also young.

Lots of late-blooming sluggers out there. Not even sure Wallner would qualify as late-blooming since he has hit the ball pretty well ever since arriving, minus a few adjustment periods. Beyond Nelson Cruz, you could also list Jose Bautista and Josh Willingham as recent examples. From my younger days I'd note Brian Downing and George Foster. The all timer, of course, was that Ortiz guy who played for Boston (I'd like to forget about the fact that he was released by.... someone). Give Wallner 1000 at bats and then we can judge what he may become. He's an outlier to be sure, but if he maintains anything like his current career OPS+ he is not only a starter, but a star.

It's hard not to be a little jealous of the KC fans. The Royals were absolutely awful last year, but ownership went all in on improving the team. When they see an opportunity they are very aggressive and this year it has worked out well. Having said that, I like the Twins present day roster and minor league system better than the Royals. I think the Twins still finish ahead of them by multiple games. But most improved team this year? No doubt, it is the Royals.

Very possibly correct.... but someone should tell the tv guys as they implied otherwise.

How on earth could the ump believe that Kepler intended to interfere on his swinging strike?

Agree, he may find it hard to get a 3 year deal. It is hard to project Kepler's value, and hard to know how well his skills may age. It may depend on how much a team will value his defense, which is significantly better than Gurriel's Lourdes Gurriel Jr. vs. Max Kepler: Value Rk Player Age From To G PA WAR WAA oWAR dWAR Rbat Rdp Rbaser Rfield 1 Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 24-30 2018 2024 712 2874 12.0 2.4 10.7 -1.1 41 -3 -4 11 2 Max Kepler 22-31 2015 2024 1048 4160 21.1 7.1 15.5 2.9 26 11 2 52

Exactly. Next year I expect him to end up at a bigger money club. It's just the nature of the game. 3 years/$45 million or something like that. Not a chance the Twins can fit that into their payroll plan since they have a bunch of arbitration eligible players who will need increases.

I largely agree with this, and like many share the frustrations implicit in this strategy. I'd add "Their other plan is to trade for potential top pitchers from other teams". This is how the Twins got Pablo, Ryan, SWR, Duran, and Alcala...likely 5 of their top 8 or 9 guys. They've also traded for a variety of vets like Gray (a success) and Mahle (a failure). Obviously they didn't do that this month...perhaps no good opportunities. Given the payroll limitations, it is actually a fairly logical plan. The FO can ask for payroll increases every day but have to live with ownership decisions. Thus the FO has to draft, develop, and scout other organizations very well to succeed. Drafting at a high success rate means taking mostly position players in the 1st round, because you can't afford too many 1st round flame outs (Tyler Jay, Kohl Stewart, etc). Converting promising young position players (Steer, Encarnacion-Strand, Arraez, etc) along with expiring vet contracts into viable MLB pitchers can work, and I think is pretty much understood to be their core strategy. Supplement this with "sign and try to develop mediocre pitchers" as you noted which usually fails, but very occasionally gets them a gem or at least a useful relief pitcher until their arm falls off. It isn't an ideal way to get good pitching. However all the other better ways involve more money, and at least this FO has put together a better and deeper pitching staff today than what the Twins have had for most of the past twenty years.

Agree on most, but the cost on Blackburn wasn't excessive (and he has pitched several games this year, just beat the Angels last weekend). He's been a sort of average MLB pitcher for a long time now. If the cost was only the 28th best prospect in the Twins system, well I think I'd make that trade just to solidify the #5 starter slot. Could be Festa or Dobnak will work out... but I don't really like wagering on that.

Huh... 2 pitch guy, despite being a former starter. Based on the description he really needs a pitch to attack right handers. Maybe the staff hopes to teach him a slider like they seem to do with all retreads and hope he's a quick learner? Anyway, we hope for the best. Welcome Trevor!

Do I wish the Twins had kept Wade? Yes. Do I think they should trade a real prospect to get him back? No. He'd just be another left-hander that Rocco would always pinch hit for, and we already have several of those. His days in the outfield also seem to be over, which makes me think his speed is gone. He sure did learn to hit after leaving the Twins though. If there is to be a move today I'd expect bullpen help. From the list above Alexander (or frankly anyone from Oakland) should be affordable. Whether Alexander or anyone else from the A's would be a significant upgrade over Okert or Thielbar is frankly unknown.

I mean, sure, but Dobnak is owed about 500k for the remainder of the season. MLB minimum for a full year is 740k, so savings gained are tiny. If the Twins are that desperate for cash flow that they need to throw away a prospect to save 500k (and I find it hard to believe that they are) then things have gone terribly wrong.

Relative to many other prospects, yes, Larnach has avoided major injuries. He has suffered some nagging injuries. He had some muscle pulls in '22 that landed him on the IL a couple of times, and has battled a foot issue to start this year, which for a time was limiting him to DH duties. But compared to Lewis/Buxton/Kirilloff, Larnach has been pretty healthy. Some of this of course is just good vs bad luck...

There is some truth to this, especially considering ERod and perhaps also Keaschall are probably only a year away from joining the outfield mix. Even with the assumption that Kepler and Santana are gone next year, I don't know that there is room long term in the lineup for all 3 lefties (I'll just pencil in Miranda at 1B next year). Unless absolutely blown away (#1 starter, which isn't happening) I won't trade Wallner. He is the rare Twin prospect that has stayed healthy, has the highest ceiling by far of the 3 players, and projects to be the best defender once he moves to his natural RF position where his arm will pay big dividends (admittedly "best defender" is a low bar... none of these guys are future gold glovers). AK, I'm afraid, won't bring back a lot at this time. Because of his injury history teams will be wary. I doubt he will have opportunity to build much value for the duration of 2024. Larnach has value. Higher floor, lower ceiling than Wallner. Can't trade him this month because the Twins need his bat right now, but during the off season I would listen to offers.

I think this is the primary reason it was Julien over Castillo. They needed a 40 man spot for Brock Stewart who had been on the 60-day IL, and had completed his rehab work. There is a 40-man space crunch coming up with Topa soon to need as spot as well. Castillo did fine in his time in the majors, but was sort of the easiest player to justify removing from the 40-man roster.

*Shocked* the Twins moved a runner over.

Festa was playing with fire all game, but overall he showed some good stuff. 7 Ks in a little over 4 innings. I can see why the evaluators like him... he just needs to cut down on the occasional meatballs over the heart of the plate.

Robo umps would be welcome any time now mlb... Missing the inside corner is the unforgivable sin.

I agree, if the Twins don't have starters that can go deep they could ride the pen. There are a lot of off days in the playoffs. The traditional approach is to find dominant starters, but the Rangers pretty much rode their bullpen all postseason. After the wildcard round (where they dominated and won quickly) roughly half of the innings thrown were from the bullpen... that's a pretty hard ride. It worked out pretty well for them... But I'd still like another solid starter, assuming the price is right.

This, entirely. I think if you gave Rocco a roster that included 25 year old versions of Carew, Oliva, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau he would look for ways to platoon them. Every one of them hit lefties at a significantly lower rate. He believes in platooning, I assume with the blessing of the FO. We don't have to love it, but we will have to live with it.