twinkiesfan11

Intriguing list but guessing the Twins will be aiming a little lower than this for 2022. Why trade Berrios if they are willing to invest heavily in veteran pitching? Reading the signs I'd assume they retain Pineda and roll with a rotation fronted by Maeda, Pineda with maybe a low cost upside gamble or token washed up innings eating veteran followed by a patchwork of Dobnak, Ober, Jax, Barnes, Balazovich, Winder, Ryan, Strotman, Sands, Duran and Canterino if they're healthy. It seems unlikely the Twins will seriously be competitive in 2022 with or without Buxton so might as well give the young guys a chance to see what they have to work with for 2023 and beyond. Maybe re-sign Berrios in 2023? That'd be neat

Anyone heard when he’s going to report to Wichita?

Love the 40 man roster considerations in your plan. One of the many hard lessons this FO needs to take from this disaster of a year is that they have done a very poor job scouting internally. I would hope to see a philosophy change going forward favoring keeping the protection fringe prospects over fringe veterans for the Rule V draft. Akil Badoo and Tyler Wells as recent examples wouldn't have saved this mess of a season but would have definitely been some bright spots to provide hope for better days ahead. In hindsight losing them both for nothing so Jake Cave, Shaun Anderson and others could remain on the roster is inexcusable.

If a rebuild is the direction this is headed then the FO just needs to get as much talent in return as they can. If Buxton, Kepler, Donaldson and others are leaving they'll need high end position player prospects and not like the pitching pipeline is in poor shape.

All indications are that there have been multiple years of fruitless and challenging extension negotiations with Buxton and Berrios. These are the two most important players on this roster, besides these two the best hitter was a 41 year old DH followed by an injury prone 35 year old 3B. The rest of the starting rotation is aging, injury prone and underperforming. 2020 couldn't have come at a worse time stunting the growth of upper level prospects that the Twins clearly were planning to be contributing as soon as late 2020 (Lewis, Kirilloff, Larnach, Balazovich, Duran, etc). The delayed arrival of key prospects combined with aging of key veterans and underperformance/injuries to others seems to necessitate a reset. This is the epitome of a crossroads situation, If Falvey and Levine are confident they can get deals done with Buxton and Berrios re-signed I'm sure there would be a strategy in place to re-load to compete again in 2022 and 2023. If they don't think they can get it done they absolutely need to blow this roster up and maximize the return while a lot of these players are still highly valued by other teams, especially with the CBA up in the air. This is an opportunity to either lock up two potential franchise players or re-load for a hopefully quick rebuild and return to competitive baseball with a new generation of players.

Yep, my bad. If the Mets were open to that type of deal I'd rather have Matt Allen + one of Crow-Armstrong or Baty. Probably Crow-Armstrong if the proposed Blue Jays trade was also in the works. But talent is talent, if the Twins can acquire multiple prospects of this level it's a win.

Replace Matt Allen with either Crow-Armstrong or Baty and I'd be on board with all three trades. Feels like a rebuild is coming, these three moves would be a hell of a way to kick that effort off.

On a serious note - In honor of Kyle Garlick making the team it feels like the world needs a Garlick Mashed Tator T-Shirt from SotaStick

If the Darvish, Snell, Lindor, Arrenado trades are any indication of what it would take to acquire a high salary player in this uncertain, reduced revenue market I’d definitely be calling on Price. I can’t imagine it would take anyone in the top 20 prospects to acquire and could probably get the Dodgers to eat some salary as well.

One more veteran would sure be nice for stability. Would love to see Clippard back.

At this point as much as Nelson Cruz has been beloved by teammates, the front office and fans it just doesn't feel like a great fit anymore. He's been a stud the past two years and is entitled to expect one final big pay day but I couldn't fault the Twins either for drawing a line at one year at $12 million (totally speculating) for a 41 year old bat only player. I'm admittedly developing too much of a crush over his 2017 and 2020 outlier seasons but to me Marcell Ozuna just feels like a slam dunk fit and I wouldn't hesitate to give him a 3 or 4 year contract. He's over 10 years younger than Cruz, still capable of playing some LF and holy hell his statcast numbers are sexy. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/marcell-ozuna-542303?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Donaldson has a history of calf issues, Simmons has had ankle issues for two years, Polanco has two years of ankle issues and Arraez has balky knees. Recent history with this group indicates that there will likely be DL stints and plenty of scheduled rest, the depth will be very useful. There will be plenty of at bats to go around, no way would I even consider trading Arraez or Polanco without a crazy return.

My thoughts: Departures: - Non-tender Rosario: Not worth the cost in the COVID financial environment and there are three internal options ready for an MLB opportunity (Kirilloff, Rooker, Larnach). - Allow Gonzalez, Avila, Hill all walk in FA : Time to move on From Gonzalez, I believe a Garver/Jeffers timeshare is the way to go in 2021 and a combination of Astudillo, Telis and maybe another AAA C should be plenty of depth, Hill was solid when healthy but can't be counted on. - Buy out Romo: One soft-tossing RH in the pen is enough (more on that later), his antics got old this season and he got roughed up a bit late in the season. Retaining: - Odorizzi: On a 1-year make good contract. - May: On a 2-3 year contract. - Rogers: Relievers tend to be up and down, I'm betting he'll bounce back. - Clippard: Very solid veteran to keep around - Thielbar: Looks legit, nice 2nd LH - Adrianza: He's a good end of the bench insurance policy Up in the Air: - Cruz: On a 1-year contract or a 1+ team option only. With the NL leaning toward no DH in 2021 his number of suiters should be somewhat limited again. If he won't accept I would pivot attention immediately to Starling Marte or George Springer. Honestly I like the idea of the DH slot being more of a rotating slot than committed to one defensively limited player anyway. Either of these two would provide high level offensive output with the ability to play CF if/(when) Buxton is injured. - Cave: Just not sure I see a fit. Holes: - 5th Starter: I feel with Maeda, Berrios, Pineda and Odorizzi the Twins can afford to address this slot either internally with one of Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, Duran, Chalmers, etc or with another trade for someone honestly none of us could predict (Maeda as an example). - Utility: I personally don't feel this is a position to invest big dollars to fill. It felt like teams were much more aggressive in 2020 promoting their top prospects. I'd honestly rather see the Twins just bite the bullet and commit to Royce Lewis as the starting SS on opening day. Lewis can also handle CF and 3B, Polanco can rotate between 2B and SS, Sano is certainly capable of playing some 3B sporadically, Kirilloff can play COF and 1B, etc. Rather than have a roster spot committed to an expensive veteran utility player (Hernandez, Profar, etc) I would rely on the versatility of the players on the roster.

Royce is very raw, the Twins have been fairly aggressive with him and oblique injuries tend to haunt. It just feels like he’s primed to make everyone forget about his 2019 struggles in short order. Guys with this kind of athleticism who have at least shown flashes of dominance are special prospects. The fact that he’s reportedly great in the clubhouse, shows leadership traits and has a lot of charisma for the fans is also worth mentioning. He has hit for average in stretches, his power rates among the best in the system, his speed is special and he has the potential to stick at shortstop or could be a plus CF or 3B. He’s absolutely the top prospect for the Twins and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him reclaim a spot in the top 10 of national top 100 rankings by mid season.

https://twitter.com/jimcallismlb/status/1227029116152668167?s=21 Not a top prospect but sounds intriguing

I don’t love this. Maeda is a very solid pitcher but really hate to see Brusdar go.

Now that Starling Marte has finally been traded is now the time to make a push for Chris Archer? The Marte trade (Pirates receiving two well regarded but VERY young prospects) would seem to be a clear indication that the Pirates are headed for a full tear-down and rebuild so absolutely no reason to hang on to Chris Archer. Archer is about the same age as Marte, both have two remaining years on similar sized contracts and histories of uneven performances. Safe to assume similar trade value? Would Something like Celestino and Enlow do the trick?

A big consideration in this discussion is 40 man roster space as the Twins already have to make a difficult decision to cut someone to make room for Donaldson. I personally don’t see anyone on this list worthy of a guaranteed contract/40 man slot unless Walker or Salazar are healthy which they must not be or they would have surely been signed by now. That being said, I think they should absolutely be making some offers for minor league deals with invitations to spring training with opt out dates and performance incentives. Might as well target the highest upside pitchers in this group (Walker, Salazar, Sanchez). Never hurts to try to catch lightning in a bottle and they’ll have another roster spot available at the start of spring training when Rich Hill can be transferred to the IL.

He's clearly ready to be a difference maker now but needs to continue to build up innings. Wes Johnson said he's bullpen bound but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be used as a traditional single inning reliever. There are lots of ways they could deploy him as a multi-inning opener or reliever on somewhat of a rotation that could be mutually beneficial to the team and to his development. Maybe the Twins just feel that the best place for an arm this valuable but to date fragile is with the big league club where he'll get the best coaching, training, mentorship and nutrition the Twins can provide. As a fan I can't wait to watch him make hitters look foolish all summer instead of just reading about it in the minor league forum game recaps.

More mad if the Twins were found to be one of the cheaters...although if they were doing it prior to 2019 it clearly didn’t pay off very well for them...

Love Marwin but would be fine with that, punishment should apply to all players and personnel that participated or were aware and looked the other way. I don’t feel MLB came down nearly hard enough, every team and player in the league should be scared ****less to attempt or continue this type of behavior.

50 game ban for every player who served more than 120 games on the major league roster of the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Astros. It would turn them into a AAA team long enough to eliminate them from playoff contention and there would be no 1st or 2nd round picks to show for the lost season. This would have been fair in my opinion and can guarantee no team would risk this type of cheating again.

Interesting that they hired a managerial candidate that Derek Shelton would have competed against for the Mets and Pirates openings. Seems like an excellent hire but would assume he won't be here for long. Really curious to see how they fill out the assistant pitching coach position. With Pete Maki and Justin Willard both showing up on some lists of up and coming coaches you have to wonder if they'll promote one of them and backfill with another MiLB coordinator?

At this point, given what's left and the terms the top remaining FA's are looking for/teams also in the hunt I would totally be fine with/would almost prefer punting on Ryu, Keuchel and Donaldson. If it were me I'd be focused on extensions for Berrios, Odorizzi, Buxton and Sano, offer a 2 year deal to Taijuan Walker along with one each of the best FA starter, reliever and corner infielder you can get to agree to a 1 year deal. This strategy would really piss off the payroll obsessed fans but you get an upside signing in Walker while building solid depth which proved very beneficial in 2019 without any regrettable long-term commitments. Can always supplement for the stretch-run at the trading deadline and have money to play with for free agency next year.

Big fan of the FO and everything they've done so far but the lack of activity this week has been a disappointment. It feels like they're suffering from analysis paralysis. Even seeing yesterday that Don Kelly who was apparently their top candidate to be the 2020 Bench Coach was hired away by Pittsburgh before they even got around to scheduling a meeting with him. It's been all but given that Shelton was leaving for over a month and the hiring was announced over a week ago. Shouldn't they have had a list of candidates lined up and maybe even some prelim discussions in the works BEFORE he officially left?