Matt Braun

I blame the rain. Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Box Score Pablo López: 5 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K Home Runs: Harrison Bader (1) Bottom 3 WPA: Pablo López (.199), José Miranda (-.185), Carlos Correa (-.112) Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) It’s here. It’s finally here, and only an hour and a half late. The long winter silence gave way to the greatest two words in the English lexicon: Play ball. A time for purple prose, nostalgia, and swearing at our favorite players, whom we haven’t seen in real action for months. Nothing else in life will ever beat it. Pablo López earned first-game honors for the third straight season. Somehow, all three starts have come in the state of Missouri. Fate is a funny thing. While those previous starts were successes, this one was laborious. He pitched… a lot. Too much, really. St. Louis’s hitters refused his attempts at subterfuge and, in fact, punked the one who usually tricks: twice, the Venezuelan was caught unable to handle a stealing runner at first base. The first set up the game's opening run; the second preceded a disastrous two-run homer off the bat of Lars Nootbaar. The Cardinals added a fourth and final run in the 3rd, after which López settled in marvelously. Getting through the first inning or two was his bugaboo throughout last season. Sadly, it doesn't look like he's found the remedy for that problem yet. Starting against López was Sonny Gray, his former partner in crime. In 2023, they worked as one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball. Now, Gray remains one of the trickiest pitchers in baseball. “Yeah, that’s what he does,” this author thought, following a number of his offerings on Thursday. Fastballs sliced the corners as breakers dipped and dotted just outside the zone—enticing all the same, they were, and Twins hitters often bit. He ended the game as the superior hurler. But, he wasn’t perfect. With a man on first, one of those classic Gray off-speed pitches found too much of the zone, and Harrison Bader—making a homecoming against the team that drafted and developed him—drove the pitch out to left field. So much for a glove-only signing. Following Gray's sixth-inning exit, Minnesota rallied for a third run, thanks to an RBI double from Willi Castro. That very rally was somewhat bittersweet, though, as St. Louis’ center fielder, Victor Scott II, robbed Ty France of a potentially game-tying knock smacked deep into the right-center gap. This one is not to be confused with France’s other potentially game-tying knock smacked deep into right-center caught by Scott just two innings later. So it goes. A Nolan Arenado homer in the bottom of the eighth capped the scoring, and the Twins, despite some minor drama created by Bader in the ninth, fell to the Cardinals in 2025's season opener. They'll have to be a bit more ready when the first pitch is thrown Saturday. Notes: Thursday saw Harrison Bader's first career homer against his old team, the Cardinals. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. stole his first career MLB base. Trevor Larnach reached base three times in a game for the first time since September 25th, 2024, which isn't as impressive a stat as this author expected it to be. Post-Game Interview: What’s Next? The Twins and Cardinals will enjoy a free Friday before returning to action on Saturday. Joe Ryan will start opposite Erick Fedde with first pitch coming at 1:15 PM. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet View full article

The Twins trimmed their spring training roster following a loss to the Baltimore Orioles. Image courtesy of William Parmeter The following players were optioned to Triple-A. They cannot appear in a spring training game for the rest of 2025. RHP Travis Adams A surprise addition to the 40-man roster this offseason, Travis Adams appeared in two spring training games, allowing four runs across four frames. He was already a long (long, long, long) shot to make Minnesota’s opening day roster; the 25-year-old will start the year in St. Paul. RHP Matt Canterino Matt Canterino—seen about as often as Bigfoot, these days—made one spring training appearance in which he walked three batters and suffered a shoulder injury in the process. So it goes. He’s set to meet with Dr. Keith Meister soon to better understand the nature of his injury and his process going forward, but, unfortunately, this tune sounds familiar: he’s going to be on the shelf for a while. RHP Marco Raya Marco Raya suffered one of the most disastrous outings a pitcher could ever endure, hitting three, walking two, and failing to net a single out to give him a rarely seen infinity ERA. All five men eventually scored. The good news is that spring training is fake baseball; those runs only exist in an archaic hyperlink on Baseball-Reference. Freshly 22, Raya stands as one of the team’s best pitching prospects, and he’ll look to build on a 2024 season that delivered him to Triple-A. OF Emmanuel Rodriguez Even the most optimistic Twins fan, if such a thing exists, knew Emmanuel Rodriguez was unlikely to see game action this spring. He took live batting practice for the first time since undergoing thumb surgery and should begin running bases soon. The possibility of seeing one of the best prospects in baseball is by itself worth the price of a Saints ticket this spring and summer. The following Non-Roster players were reassigned to minor league camp. They can still appear in spring training games but will get their work in separately from the players in the big league camp. RHP Randy Dobnak The mustachioed legend himself is still the unwanted step-child in the Twins organization. 2025 marks the final guaranteed year of his extension, and he’ll likely once again star as the leading man in the Saints’ rotation, a team he’s thrown 343 2/3 innings for. C/1B/OF Alex Isola Alex Isola hadn’t yet played in a spring game, a strong forecast for this decision. He’ll head back to St. Paul and bide his time in the Michael Helman role; a “break in case of emergency” depth option who can moonlight at catcher if need be. RHP Cory Lewis After missing spring training last year, Cory Lewis triumphantly tossed a pair of shutout innings—with a handful of his signature knuckleballs, one of them strong enough to punch out Gleyber Torres—in a successful relief outing. Like the other hurlers mentioned, he was clearly on the outside of the major league rotation looking in, but he’ll serve as a critical depth piece should health fail a starter, or two, or three. RHP Erasmo Ramírez The 35-year-old Erasmo Ramírez lives in this perfect Baseball liminal space where, to me, he was last relevant some seven or eight years ago, but still inexplicably pops up on rosters because someone needs to pitch some innings and no one wants to burn an option year on a promising player. That’s how he’s pitched in each of the last 13 seasons. Unfortunately, that streak is in jeopardy: he suffered a significant tear in his right teres major and won’t be available to pitch for some time. INF Yunior Severino The Randy Dobnak of position players, Yunior Severino has flashed the talent of a big-leaguer, but the Twins have eschewed his power and swing-and-miss ways, limiting him to a cross-town side-show a notch below big-league material. Even an uninspiring battle for the first base job couldn’t provoke the team to see what they have in Severino; he has yet to even appear in a spring training game. Any surprises with the first batch of players sent back to minor-league camp? View full article

Barring injuries, it sure looks like two of the three young hurlers who impressed (in various ways) in the Twins' rotation last summer will be left out when the team heads north this spring. That ain't justice, Sheriff. Image courtesy of © Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images As spring training warms from a simmer to a boil, the Twins only have a few questions to answer over the coming weeks. We have an idea of what the lineup will look like—at least in terms of who will play where. The bullpen is its usual mix of established studs and collected misfits scraping for the final few relief spots. The rotation is all about that fifth starter role, and which one of Minnesota’s promising young hurlers will break camp claiming it. Lost in this talk, though, is a crucial question: why does Chris Paddack have a solidified spot? He’s a two-pitch 29-year-old with a career 4.38 ERA, whose only year close to a “full season” was one pandemic and a second torn UCL ago. He’s pitched 432 2/3 innings across six seasons. The Twins themselves know he can’t be trusted: they spent the entire offseason quietly attempting to deal him and his $7.5-million contract, only to find that they couldn't wrest much value out of any other team in exchange for him. In an era with a dearth of starting pitching, no one wanted to shell out Aaron Civale money for Paddack, unless they could do so without including a prospect. Now, the team has Paddack written into the fourth spot in their rotation, in heavy pencil—if not in ink. I know the members of the Twins front office are wise enough to understand and avoid the sunk-cost fallacy. Yet, they’ve acted oddly adamant and steadfast in supporting the Paddack experiment. “The slider,” which we’ve heard a lot about—far too much, considering he proved unable to master a true tertiary pitch years ago—is the amorphous sticking point. Maybe that’s the key to unlocking everything. And maybe Oswaldo Arcia will lighten up on the swing-and-miss, one of these years. At some point, a player can no longer live in Potential World; they have to prove development (beyond nebulous quotes) and actually bring something to the table. Knowing when to call it on someone isn’t always easy. We see the potential in bits and moments—starts and pitches—and dream of a future where that consistency is bottled, properly maintained, and self-evident. I’m calling it on Paddack. I think he made sense in 2022, when the smoking ruins of J.A. Happ and Matt Shoemaker begat the terror of Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer. But the Twins have options now. Great ones, too. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections see David Festa and Zebby Matthews as better pitchers even right now, with Simeon Woods Richardson as essentially an equal. Shoot, even Andrew Morris is indistinguishable in terms of production. So here’s what the Twins should do: swallow their pride and move Paddack to the bullpen. Eat the money. Make him baseball’s most expensive middle reliever (or not, even; the idea of spending this much on a relief arm is only crazy to the Pohlads). They’re never seeing that $7.5 million again, so why scramble to maximize their ROI when they could avoid blocking a worthy youngster—and potentially gain a relief ace in the process? We saw a sneak peek of reliever Chris Paddack in 2023, and he looked excellent, striking out 14 in 8 2/3 innings combined between the regular season and playoffs. He was one of the few Twins hurlers to consistently get Houston batters out in the ALDS. Small samples, yes, but it shouldn’t be surprising that a guy who really only commands two pitches dominates with a simplified approach and elevated velocity over short bursts. ZW43WjNfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0RnZFZVZ0lFVkFzQUMxRldBQUFBQXdGUkFGa0dVbGdBVmdkVVZWRUVWRklIQXdwVA==.mp4 If (when) Paddack breaks camp with the Twins as a starter, I won’t get it. He’s a known commodity, not appreciably better than the three main guys nipping at his heels. Better suited in the bullpen, he could provide a boon to a relief group bursting with potential, but thin in upside in its second tier when factoring in Brock Stewart and Justin Topa’s injury issues. It won’t happen, though, and he’ll instead block a young pitcher likely to match (if not surpass, outright) his production. Injuries will probably open a path to the majors for those younger hurlers soon enough, anyway, but it's foolish of the Twins to think reactively. View full article

More specifically, who has done it recently? Image courtesy of © Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images On Tuesday, Carlos Correa spoke to the media at Twins spring training on a variety of topics, ranging from injury questions (he’s fine), to Jose Altuve playing left field (“that little man can do anything. He’ll be fine.”). Nestled near the end of the scrum were comments regarding his desire to lead the Twins to a championship. “That’s my dream, ever since I got here,” Correa said. “If we can win the World Series, that will make me very happy and cement my legacy as a world champion in two different organizations.” It’s what drives him. It’s what gets him out of bed in the morning. That’s the kind of talk you’d expect from a cerebral but tenacious competitor like Correa, and it begs a question: how many players have led multiple teams to a World Series win? We’re not just talking about role players here: how many bona fide studs—All-Stars and MVP vote-getters—have changed franchises and brought both to the promised land? I looked through the rosters of the World Series winners since 2000 to find players who were both great and established leaders for the teams they won it with. Those parameters give us seven position players who accomplished Correa’s dream. They all put up at least 5 rWAR (what I broadly defined as “great”), although not necessarily in the seasons they won the World Series in. Here’s the list: Mike Lowell, Johnny Damon, Shane Victorino, Ben Zobrist, Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, and Freddie Freeman. Seven may seem low, but it’s like the “Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are the only two starting QBs to win a Super Bowl with multiple franchises” stat; if a team has a guy good enough to deliver them a championship, they tend to keep that player, perhaps forever, but at least untul they're no longer capable of carrying a team that far. With all due respect to Lowell, Damon, Victorino, and Zobrist—all tremendous and deeply memorable players—they aren’t quite what we’re looking for. They were ancillary players—necessary pieces to win the Whole Darn Thing—but to say they “led” their teams to championships is like saying George Harrison "led" The Beatles to 20 No. 1 hits. While "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" are some of the band's finest work, Lennon and McCartney were the engines of the car. That leaves us three guys tied to the Dodgers: Betts, Seager, and Freeman. I don’t think Freeman works here. That Dodgers team was stacked. As critical as he was, especially in the Series itself, I can’t use him. Betts is a more compelling character because, in 2020, L.A. was simply a very good team, not the world-conquering leviathan of talent they are now. There’s something almost folksy to the fact that AJ Pollock was their starting left fielder. The next-best player on that team was Cody Bellinger, but Bellinger was in the beginning of his decline at that point, so Betts comes out on top. It’s a similar story for his 2018 win with Boston; J.D. Martinez was incredible that year, but Betts was basically prime Roberto Clemente (who kind of won with two different teams himself; the core of the 1960 Pirates had entirely turned over by 1971, except for him). That's not a bad example for Correa to follow. We can go even further. For the most accurate comparison, I think Seager takes the cake—ironic, given that the two are juxtaposed by the infamous 2017 World Series. Anyway, the youngest of the three Seagers (yes, there’s even another out there), reached the mountaintop in 2020 with Betts's Dodgers and jumped ship to the Rangers after the 2021 season, eventually leading them to their first World Series win in 2023. They both play shortstop. Like Correa, Seager signed with a team outside the Big 5 (Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox), and as Correa would, he holds a special place in a fan base's collective heart as a result. I think if there’s anything to take away from this, it’s that what Correa is attempting to do is rare, but not unheard of. A handful of very good players have won championships with multiple teams; a trio did so under the pressure of being more or less the main character; and one accomplished this while jumping down a tier in market size. As always, there’s plenty of great history in the process of being written. Correa absolutely could become the next in a short line of exceptional players claiming multiple rings with different logos on them. John Bonnes contributed reporting to this piece. View full article

Baltimore’s endless glut of hitters has to give way somehow, right? Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images With the Orioles signing Ramón Laureano on Tuesday, it seems that, once again, Baltimore has more hitters than they know what to do with. Their lineup was already crowded, with Heston Kjerstad on the bench in most formulations of the lineup and Coby Mayo stuck at Triple-A Norfolk, meaning a piece or two needs to wiggle free, lest a player needing time in the majors finds himself out in the rain. So, why a Ryan Mountcastle deal specifically? Perhaps no hitter on the team was more cursed by the Orioles’ horrid left-field wall botch job, often called a “modification.” A dead-pull hitter by nature, Mountcastle shifted his approach to favor democracy because, frankly, even Harmon Killebrew would find hitting into a wall as big and distant as the one deemed sufficient to separate Berlin a frustrating task. In response, his numbers have been merely fine, not overwhelming for a slugger; his career wRC+ is 112. Target Field suffers from no such malaise. It’s the eighth-friendliest stadium to righties since 2022, according to Statcast’s ballpark metrics. Homers occur at an above-average rate; doubles are accepted as fond company. Singles are tougher to come by, but Mountcastle has little use for those, anyway. As for fit, Minnesota is uniquely situated for Mountcastle. Their plans for 1st base and DH appear to be the shrug emoji and a rotating cast of Jose Miranda, Edouard Julien, and whoever wants to take it easy that day. The roster begs for a guy like Mountcastle, a bopping right-handed hitter who clarifies the lineup and wouldn’t steal at-bats from deserving players. You could have a perfectly regular rotation with Willi Castro, Julien, and Brooks Lee spelling whoever needs a day off (or gets injured). There are two issues facing the Twins here: the first is that Mountcastle must be compensated in the form of American dollars, also known as money. That’s a steep ask. His deal for 2025 will be for $6.787 million, and he’ll have one more year of arbitration before hitting free agency following the 2026 season. If you believe Dan Hayes’ recent reports that the Twins had around $5 million of wiggle room before the Danny Coulombe and Harrison Bader deals, then the team is about $2 million in the hole (unless they can dump Chris Paddack and/or Christian Vázquez money somewhere else.) The second is convincing Baltimore to actually trade someone. The Orioles appear satisfied in their gluttony. They’ve been oddly Brewers-y, for a young team with an apparent mandate to spend. As Gunner Henderson and Adley Rutschman continue their march to arbitration—and in the wake of Corbin Burnes exiting the picture—Baltimore has decided that Tyler O’Neill is the supplement that will rescue them from the Wild Card round. Their starting rotation is Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, and an Oops, All #4 Starters collection including 41-year-old Charlie Morton, Dean Kremer, and (ahem) very experienced Japanese hurler Tomoyuki Sugano. That's hardly the stable necessary to crush a perpetually dense AL East. That means that any Mountcastle deal would necessitate capitulation on their end. Rumors have swirled around the first baseman for years, but he still wears orange and black. Evidently, Baltimore believes in the virtue of extreme depth. It’s always strange attempting to piece together a fictional deal, but I think a move involving Bailey Ober (with Baltimore eating salary and/or sending a small extra piece) could make sense. Maybe a young hurler like Zebby Matthews or David Festa could sway them, too, depending on who Baltimore prefers. In the end, I think Minnesota would need to dip into their starting pitching reserves. Ultimately, I know this is a pipe dream. Baltimore is altering their wall—an explicit acknowledgment that they went too far in 2022—and Mountcastle should thrive once more. Throw in the cost of the player, the money Minnesota needs to shed, and the fact that the Orioles hug their youngsters with a vigor unseen in any other franchise, and the odds that this thing happens are exceedingly low. Still, a man can hope, and I remain steadfast in my belief that the Twins should attempt to acquire Ryan Mountcastle. View full article

Or: come read about a very fun group of comparable players. Image courtesy of © Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images Here’s a simple question I asked myself the other day: How could we analyze Simeon Woods Richardson’s season in the context of his age? His year was fine—133 ⅔ innings with a 4.17 ERA is non-descript, even in today’s age of suppressed starting pitcher usage—but how should we consider relative youth? Does it make his play more impressive, and if so, just how much? And, critically, to whom can we compare him historically? The first thing I did was tab a writer with a Stathead subscription for a simple query: give me a list of pitchers in their age-23 season. (Thanks, @Cody Christie.) He narrowed it down to the Wild Card era, which felt like a good call. It’s as arbitrary a cutoff as any, but we should probably observe a modern context; the days of a guy like Bert Blyleven entering 23 with over 1,000 MLB innings already under his belt are Roman Empire levels of ancient. I then ranked the list by innings that season, discovered that Mark Buerhle threw 239 frames as a 23-year-old—they really don’t build them like that anymore—and searched for similar hurlers. We’re again dealing with arbitrariness here. I outlined “similar” as seasons within 10 innings of Woods Richardson's total, in which a player pitched to an ERA+ five points north or south of our subject. That felt reasonable, but I could see an argument for different parameters. This way, though, we have seven comps: Jordan Lyles, David Price, Kerry Wood, Gerrit Cole, Kris Bubic, Marcus Stroman, and Taj Bradley. (There’s some Alanis Morisette irony at play here, considering Woods Richardson’s first franchise swap was part of the Mets acquiring Stroman. Time is a flat circle.) Ok! That’s a fun list of names. There are two Cy Young winners, 15 All-Star selections, and Kris Bubic. (My apologies to Mr. Bubic, who makes my father roar in laughter when he hears his name.) What’s striking to me is that there’s no real bust here. Lyles is probably the worst pitcher of the bunch, but even then, he’s gobbled over 1,500 frames in an MLB career that started during Obama’s first term. You could do far worse than that. For our purposes, I think Bubic and Stroman are the most useful of these players. Wood, Price, and Cole were outlier power pitchers, and as much as I would like to recklessly comp Woods Richardson to them, they aren’t particularly useful subjects. Lyles pitched his age-23 season in Coors, which (again) isn't useful, and Bradley just pitched his, so there’s no future data on him to analyze. Bubic’s relatively successful 2021 season portended a meager 2022, and he’s dealt with injury issues ever since. However, the Royals intend to stretch him out as a starter again in 2025, so his career is far from over. Stroman also ran into injury issues immediately following his breakout in 2014, tearing his ACL the next spring training, but he quickly morphed into one of the most reliable starters in the game. Both hurlers present a very real path for Woods Richardson. Player development isn’t linear; it’s jagged and seemingly illogical, often throwing its target way off the beaten path before eventually ushering them where they need to go. This is especially true for pitchers, who mature later than hitters. Long-term, Woods Richardson’s prospects look great, but there’s a lot of snarl and thistle that can muck up his evolution. It’s all part of a plan, hopefully. Now, are there any specific adjustments I can recommend? Well, I doubt that the team can squeeze any more velocity out of Woods Richardson. That he sustained a 93-MPH heater in 2024 already blew away all expectations. It's perfectly possible that he could hold onto his best stuff all the way through a season better than he did in 2024, though. He'll know what the feeling of managing effort and workload over a season is like, and he did impressively hold his velocity within games this year. His next step will likely be figuring out how to best maximize his pitch mix. Two things stand out to me: his changeup—once a plus pitch, maybe only average now—far underperformed his batted-ball data. Upping its usage could help make him more unpredictable. Then there’s the curveball. We know now that those big overhand breakers don’t earn whiffs as much as you might expect, but they can be powerful tools to steal a strike when behind in the count. Woods Richardson allowed an xwOBA of .460 in 1-0 counts when he threw his fastball, slider, or changeup, but that number dropped all the way to .278 when he flashed the curve—which he only did 16 times, sometimes going nearly a month between 1-0 curveball usages. That number needs to go way up if he wants to improve. Here’s the skinny: Simeon Woods Richardson’s 2024 season was ordinary in terms of pitching seasons, but given his age, even meager success is a building block. He has experience. He’s been there, perhaps even done that. Recent history suggests that good things are on the way for the youngster, but it might take some time to realize the potential. No worries, though. He’s still just 24, after all. View full article

Come see the good, the bad, the dreadful, and the one correct pick between the two. Image courtesy of © Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images American League Awards Predictions: AL MVP (Winner - Aaron Judge) Matt’s Choice: Julio Rodríguez I tried to let my pattern-seeking brain work some magic with this pick. Rodríguez finished 7th in the MVP vote in his rookie year of 2022 and 4th in 2023. The evidence was overwhelming that 2024 was to be the Year of Julio. Praise be. Yeah, that didn’t happen. He ended up with his worst year as a pro—still a 3.8 fWAR season, mildly disappointing only given his immense talent—and failed to garner even a sympathetic down-ballot vote. Whoops. On the other hand, Aaron Judge enjoyed one of the finest right-handed hitting seasons in baseball history. Whoops. I’ll go to the grave saying that picking the overall favorite to win the MVP is fascist and bad content, though, so I won’t lose sleep over this pick. Cody’s Choice: Bobby Witt Jr. I went against my radical homer tendencies, and look, it served me well! Generating 9.4 rWAR over 161 games played, Witt put together one of the more impressive regular-season campaigns in modern baseball history, leading him to finish second in AL MVP voting. In my assessment, he would have won the award if Big Yankee wasn't paying MLB award voters hundreds of thousands of dollars to push their “Pro-Judge” agenda. In all seriousness, I have great disdain for both teams. That’s probably why I shortsightedly assumed the Royals wouldn’t seriously challenge the Twins in the AL Central standings this season. I was wrong there, too, and Witt was a significant reason why they overachieved. AL Cy Young (Winner - Tarik Skubal) Matt’s Choice: Pablo López Right division, wrong pitcher. Clearly, someone new was going to win this award in the AL, with the stalwarts in the league either incapacitated to start the season or moved elsewhere, but López was not the one to step up and fill the void. Instead, he underwhelmed and ran into home run problems in a fine but ultimately disappointing season. Tarik Skubal, on the other hand, was magic. His talent—apparent and tantalizing before 2024—exploded and led to an AL triple crown, as he won 18 games, struck out 228 batters, and pitched to a 2.39 ERA. I’m not upset about whiffing on him, but I think I should have considered him more when I made my prediction. Oh well. So it goes. Cody’s Choice: George Kirby I was actually really high on Skubal before the season, and even argued that he might be the best starting pitcher in the AL Central. Many at Twins Daily (including Matt Braun) called me various obscenities, but I stuck to my guns, and look where it got me: absolutely nowhere. I thought this was the season Kirby was going to pop and, well, he didn’t. The 26-year-old Mariners hurler generated just 1.9 rWAR over 191 innings pitched. He was a serviceable arm for the mostly competitive M’s. However, he didn’t even sniff an AL Cy Young Award vote. (Somehow Yusei Kikuchi and Cade Smith did?!) AL Rookie of the Year (Winner - Luis Gil) Matt’s Choice: Evan Carter I think this was my worst selection of the article, and the reasons are so self-evident that they barely deserve a paragraph. Evan Carter was dreadful. His bat grew limp, his defense melted, and he never played after May; a back injury ended his season. His MLB career should be bountiful and extended, but his full rookie season was a disaster. Now, Luis Gil as the winner? No shot that was ever on my radar. He entered 2024 with 33 ⅓ MLB innings and a penchant for such inefficiency that it seemed he may never start again. Then, just about the entire Yankee rotation hit the IL, and suddenly, Gil became a linchpin. Sometimes, it's almost impossible to predict this stuff. Cody’s Choice: Wyatt Langford I selected the other Rangers rookie outfielder, and despite Langford receiving only one second-place vote and four third-place votes, I am not ashamed of my selection. Like the Tyler Mahle trade, the process was sound, and I shouldn’t be ashamed of the results. Again, don’t look at the results, they are lying to you. Regardless, Langford didn’t get much love from voters despite posting 3.9 rWAR and a 111 OPS+ over 557 plate appearances. Like Matt, I didn’t even consider Gil for this award. I was under the assumption he wouldn’t get an extended look in the Yankees rotation this season, and if he did pitch, it would have been as a reliever. So, to copy Matt yet again, I will end my section with a Vonnegutism and say, “And so on.” National League Awards Predictions: NL MVP (Winner - Shohei Ohtani) Matt’s Choice: Corbin Carroll Before the season, it looked like the NL would be a little more open than the AL, just by virtue of the talent spread and because the big newcomer—Shohei Ohtani—would be a DH only, and no strict DH had ever won the award. So he simply had the greatest DH season ever. Sure. Corbin Carroll—whom I believed picking would make me look like a big smarty—had a relatively down year compared to his excellent rookie season. His hitting sagged as injuries messed with his swing. By June, his OPS still started with a “.5.” Then he just kind of got over it. He didn’t burn down the league or anything, but he finished with 4.0 fWAR, far from the ruinous season he appeared to be on track for. Cody’s Choice: Francisco Lindor Lindor posted 6.9 rWAR and a 138 OPS+ over 152 games for David Stearns’s new-look Mets. His impressive 2024 campaign placed him second in NL MVP Voting. Wait, I selected another second-place finisher?! I was so close, yet so far. You know, this reminds me, there’s an old saying in Tennessee–I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee–that says, ‘If you ain’t first….you ain’t first. If you ain’t first… you can’t get first again. If you ain’t first… you ain’t last.” My apologies, I forgot the saying. Nevertheless, I am proud of my Lindor selection, and if it weren’t for Big Dodger…. NL Cy Young (Winner - Chris Sale) Matt’s Choice: Logan Webb That Chris Sale rebounded to win his first career Cy Young—for real, he somehow never won one with the White Sox—wasn’t altogether surprising; his issue was health, not performance. Like Skubal, he claimed his league's triple crown, earning him the vast majority of first-place votes in a decisive win. Logan Webb, my pick, finished 6th. His innings accumulation remained unrivaled—he topped 200 frames for the 2nd straight season—but his run prevention chops took a slide. His ERA crept up a few tenths, even as the scoring environment dipped. That’s not going to play. Cody’s Choice: Bobby Miller I, uh…. Okay, I fell victim to a quirked-up white boy with a 100-MPH fastball. It happens to the best of us. It really does. Miller ended the 2024 regular season with an 8.52 ERA, 6.97 FIP, and -1.9 rWAR over 56 innings pitched. Uhm, it should also be noted that he ended his 2024 campaign with the Oklahoma City Comets. As my father always told me, “You can’t win the NL Cy Young Award in Triple-A!” Either way, this was a horrible pick that has tarnished my reputation, but at least Bobby got a World Series ring! NL Rookie of the Year (Winner - Paul Skenes) Matt’s Choice: Paul Skenes A winner! I do know ball! Paul Skenes had a fabulous season, putting up ace reliever efficiency across 133 innings to best Jackson Merrill for the NL rookie crown. Ok, maybe it wasn’t the hottest take to believe that a former 1st overall pick (and perhaps the best pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg) might be good at baseball. This was nothing like Gil; Skenes was the surest thing we’ve seen in quite some time. Still, his utter dominance went far beyond even the most optimistic prognosticator’s wildest dreams. This was a partial season for the ages. Cody’s Choice: DL Hall If MLB hadn’t gone Woke I could have made a tasteless joke about how DL’s nickname matched the name of the list he was always on during the 2024 season. But, again, MLB went Woke, and I am a better person than that! Still, Hall, like Miller, was a bad choice. The rookie southpaw posted a measly -0.2 rWAR over 43 innings pitched and never made much of an impact for the Brewers' depth-deficient 2024 rotation. Hall could still easily make an impact in the 414 long term, but 2024 wasn’t his year, and that’s okay. Congratulations to Matt for going out on a limb and voting for PAUL SKENES. He beat me by selecting one correct winner, meaning I will long be bitter and resentful toward him. View full article

One of the best pure athletes in the Minnesota Twins system comes in seventh in our offseason prospect ranking. Image courtesy of William Parmeter Handed an overslot $1.5 million in the third round of the 2023 draft, the 6-foot-6 Brandon Winokur allowed the Twins to lure him away from UCLA. He made his pro debut in the Florida Complex League. Built like a svelte Ben Roethlisberger, Winokur represents something of a departure from Minnesota’s typical modus operandi regarding drafted position players. The Brooks Lees of the world—those more nimble and agile—have little in common with Winokur, who often makes his professional teammates look like Little Leaguers and brings a Matt Wallner-like presence in the batter’s box. Don’t think his size slows him down; Winokur can haul ass with the best of them, running the bases with uncommon grace for a human tree. That’s perhaps unsurprising, given that he modeled his game after Mike Trout. As you may predict, his rawness and size have so far resulted in an elevated strikeout risk, which is always a concern for a player his size. “While he’s shown all-fields power in Fort Myers and has even flashed an ability to square up fastballs around his hands (a rarity for such a long-levered hitter),” writes Eric Longenhagen, “Winokur is struggling to recognize spin and has a 17% swinging strike rate as of list publication (Jun. 25, 2024).” Just three qualified hitters—Ezequiel Tovar, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Zack Gelof—topped that mark in MLB in 2024. That’s not a collection of certified killers, although, players like Teoscar Hernández, Brent Rooker, and Nick Castellanos have proven that a high whiff rate can play. That’s the calling card for Winokur: power. Show me another 19-year-old who can hit a ball 440+ feet. They’re a rare breed. He possesses the kind of tantalizing power potential that can turn games on their head—and turn people’s heads, as they watch a blast sail deep into the night. The Twins have taken an extremely open-minded approach to Winokur’s defensive development. He’s played the most at two of the most critical positions, shortstop and center field. We’re now solidly in the post-Ripken era of shortstop thinking, so having a big man manning that position is far from unusual, but even so, Winokur, at 19, has two inches and 10 pounds on the Hall of Famer. He’s built more like Elly De La Cruz, and he still has time to grow. “The Twins have been pleasantly surprised with how well he’s moved on the dirt, and they aren’t ruling out that he plays shortstop for longer than anyone anticipated,” says his writeup on MLB.com. Still, it seems inevitable that he’ll become a third baseman, corner outfielder, and occasional center fielder in the mold of Joey Gallo, where he should be perfectly adroit. It never hurts to let him cut his teeth at such a crucial position, though, and Minnesota has a few years before they need to decide his home, anyway. For all the hoopla surrounding Winokur’s talent and boom-or-bust profile, his numbers for the Mighty Mussels were simply pretty good—barely dramatic in shape. He slashed .249/.327/.434 across 411 plate appearances, good for a 116 wRC+ in the damp Florida State League. Perhaps most exciting is that he wasn’t your traditional stationary slugger: Winokur swiped 23 bases while only being caught six times (that’s a 79% success rate for those not blessed with Bert Blyleven’s California math). The strikeouts were a touch high—he struck out 28% of the time—but that isn’t an unthinkable rate; 12 qualified FSL hitters whiffed more often. Heck, the aforementioned Wallner almost struck out as often as a 21-year-old there just five years ago. To put it plainly, there aren’t many players in the Twins system with a higher ceiling than Winokur. If everything comes together—if he goes supernova and reaches that tantalizing potential—he could be a force Target Field simply has yet to see. Speed, power, and defense at a key position is a hell of a combination. There’s no guarantee we see that future, but it remains solidly in the cards, and that’s why Winokur comes in as our 7th-ranked prospect heading into 2025. View full article

The big man from North Carolina has developed into a reliable starting pitcher. Might that entice another club to come calling in the offseason? What’s up with Bailey Ober? More of the same. This season was the prototypical Bailey Ober campaign: 31 starts of roughly above-average competence, with almost yawn-inducing consistency. He set a career high in innings pitched, missing just one start on his way to a 3.91 ERA and 191 strikeouts. Being a starting pitcher who can reach the fifth inning without evaporating into a fine mist, just about every team in baseball could use a hurler like him. The case for trading Bailey Ober: Hey, man, it’s tough to find starters these days. Most rotations are shaky when the season starts and in complete disarray by August. Pitchers who can chalk up around 180 frames—close to the new gold standard for a starter—are mighty valuable commodities, even if that production is simply fine, not outstanding. The Astros just handed the Blue Jays a haul for half a season of Yusei Kikuchi, for goodness's sake. Minnesota would certainly get more for a younger, better hurler with more years of team control. This moment is when he’s most valuable; he’s in arbitration now. He’ll never be cheaper than today. Each year will creep the Twins’ payroll a few million bucks higher, a grave consideration for a team looking to trim fat for a potential sale. This move would be more akin to Tampa’s ethos regarding starters: next year’s model needs to be here sooner than you think. The Rays have made a habit of developing awesome starters—turning them into real fire-breathing aces—just to flip them for a package surrounding a highly-touted pitching prospect. Then that player becomes an All-Star... and gets traded. So it goes. Dealing away Ober could help solve Minnesota’s vague, esoteric problems. No area is a certain weakness, but there’s little they do exceptionally well. There’s a reason why they finished one game above .500. Their talent isn’t bad, per se, just unrealized: how much are you willing to trust guys like David Festa and Brooks Lee at the moment? They need to understand their young players better, and potentially adding to that pool would hedge their bets, shouldering the burden currently placed on their youngsters. Comparable trades of the past: Any of the Rays’ trades from the last few years—say Chris Archer, Blake Snell, or Tyler Glasnow—come to mind, although those three pitchers held more clout than Ober. An almost perfect comparison is the Dylan Cease trade that brought him to San Diego. Cease has a career ERA .01 lower than Ober's, but he was traded with just two remaining years of team control. He was also just one season removed from a 2nd place finish in the AL Cy Young race, and he seems like the kind of pitcher who should be better than he was for Chicago. Ober, the touch-and-feel soft-tosser, will always be met with more skepticism. Hey, blame modern baseball’s decision-makers. A better stylistic comp for Ober and a better encapsulation of the possible value proposition here might be Jameson Taillon, whom the Pirates traded to the Yankees with two years of team control remaining in Jan. 2021. Taillon had injury question marks attached to him at the time, and Ober has an extra year of team control left, so if the Twins do pull the trigger on any move, it should be at a slightly higher price tag than that one. Taillon fetched four prospects, though they were all fairly low-wattage guys. Potential trade partners: Realistically, every team in prospective playoff contention should be interested in Ober. We all saw how ugly it got for some teams in the postseason: Nearly every Game 3 or 4 was a nightmare barrage of relievers, as managers attempted to bandage a wound with an endless supply of guys who throw 96 with a slider. It can get bad, especially with just an injury or two. Expect some notable teams to be curious about Ober. Conclusion: The Twins have a valuable asset in Ober. The league-wide dearth of decent starting pitching elevates his place in the market. Minnesota has yet to truly dive into the waters of hyper-efficient baseball—the kinds of strategies employed by teams like the Brewers and Guardians, who keep their roster in a constant state of churn and flux, save one or two stars—but with a new GM and a new owner potentially on the horizon, that could change. It would be a risk to deal Ober, but maybe that’s what the team needs to get over the hump. View full article

Welcome to the Twins Daily Top 20 Prospects countdown for the 2024-25 offseason. Today, we'll highlight a quartet of international hitters and an infielder with potential 30-homer pop. Image courtesy of William Parmeter (photo of Yasser Mercedes) After looking at the 10 players who landed just outside our Top 20, we now turn to five who just made it. Here are our Twins prospects ranked 16-20. 20. Ricardo Olivar - C/OF For a 20th-ranked prospect, Olivar is an awfully fascinating player. Deemed “underrated” by Cody Christie, the 23-year-old Venezuelan mostly splits time between catcher and left field and has occasionally moonlighted as a center fielder and second baseman. Even by today’s super-utility “do-everything” standards, that’s a unique combination. Daulton Varsho couldn’t live that life for long. Dale Murphy quit catching after his age-23 season. Could Olivar be the rare exception? Eric Longenhagen is skeptical, but the potential is tantalizing. Regardless of where he claims a defensive home, Olivar’s offensive upside buoys his prospect profile. He flashed impressive plate discipline in two shortened seasons at the beginning of his pro career before hammering home a critical point the last two years: he doesn’t chase. Won’t do it. He’s walked over 100 times combined between 2023 and 2024, and maintained a modest strikeout rate to boot. Olivar slashed a blistering .287/.393/.473 with Cedar Rapids before earning a late-season promotion to Wichita. He struggled in a small sample but was two years younger than the average player at Double-A; he’ll likely be fine. And today, he clocks in as our 20th-ranked prospect heading into the offseason. 19. Eduardo Beltre - OF Ranked as the 39th overall international prospect available in 2024 by MLB Pipeline, Beltre broke through as a true 17-year-old in the DSL (he didn’t turn 18 until last month). He cracked 11 homers across 43 games in an outstanding introduction to pro ball. He slugged .618. As a 17-year-old. That kind of production brought back memories of Yasser Mercedes (more on him soon) and Jose Rodriguez in 2022; maybe 2024 will catapult Beltre onto a similar prospect path as Mercedes. DSL production is Mickey Mouse, though—you’d have better luck predicting a presidential race based on polls done exclusively on cracked-out squirrels—which is why Beltre remains in the back end of this prospect list. Still, you would be wise to remember his name heading into 2025. 18. Danny De Andrade - INF The prize of the 2021 international signing period—the Twins handed him a $2.2 million bonus—De Andrade has been solid so far. Not outstanding or bad; simply good enough to rise through the minors at a decent pace. He slashed .244/.354/.396 with the Mighty Mussels in 2023 before suffering an ankle injury early in 2024, limiting him to just 29 games with the Kernels. He hit more or less the same before being sent to the AFL, where he has yet to play any games. Being an infielder, De Andrade’s value rests on one question: can he play shortstop? He’s an instincts-over-athleticism defender who’s seen time at 2nd and 3rd but remains firmly entrenched at short. Perhaps (though only perhaps) that's a sign that Minnesota remains optimistic about his long-term future there. Or, maybe they figure there’s no harm in letting him play there until it’s abundantly clear he can’t pick it. At any rate, De Andrade has shown consistent production in the low minors, separating him early from your typical international burnout. 17. Tanner Schobel, IF Schobel’s prospect stock has seen better days. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (alma mater of Joe Saunders and Kerry Carpenter) product bopped 14 homers in 77 games with the Kernels in 2023 before earning a promotion to Wichita. He hit a wall there: he only swatted two homers across 49 games at Double-A, and his slugging dropped nearly 200 points. This season was a small rebound for the 23-year-old, but it still wasn’t pretty; Schobel managed a .211/.301/.338 slash line in 520 plate appearances with the Wind Surge. Any infielder who can average a near 30-homer pace for any stretch of play, though, will remain in prospect raters' minds. Schobel is mostly a third baseman these days, even as the team gave him some outfield playing time for the first time in his recorded life, but he can man second quite well and will cover shortstop at times. Whether his bat bounces back will determine just how bright of a future he has in the majors; we rank him as the team’s 17th-best prospect. 16. Yasser Mercedes - OF As mentioned earlier, Mercedes broke out in 2022 by slashing .355/.420/.555 while stealing 30 (!!!) bases in 41 games at the DSL. That’s Rickey Henderson stuff. He then struggled mightily Stateside in 2023 while nursing a shoulder issue. A $1.7-million man from the 2022 international class, Mercedes bounced back in 2024 to slash .331/.421/.568 with the FCL Twins while showcasing more tools than a Lowe’s. In a system with plenty of boom-or-bust athletes, Mercedes may be just behind Emmanuel Rodriguez in terms of pure athletic talents; he could very well settle in as a prototypical strong-armed right fielder capable of doing things on a baseball field only a select few individuals can accomplish. The soon-to-be 20-year-old is an ultra-exciting player, and we ranked him as the 16th-best prospect in the system. Final thoughts: I'm unsure of the last time the Twins had so many notable young international players in their farm system. Maybe it's serendipity, or perhaps the organization has recently improved in identifying Latin talent, but one thing is clear: this is a high-variance group. Just two players, Olivar and Schobel, have reached Double-A. Mercedes has played 10 games above Rookie ball, Beltre has yet to play Stateside, and De Andrade has made all of 117 plate appearances with the Kernels. There's a good chance all of these players will fall off in 2025, and there's a good chance they all improve; we're simply too early in their pro careers to understand them well. Of this group, Mercedes is easily my favorite. A less disciplined writer may be inclined to intoxicate themselves with hype and compare him to a young Julio Rodríguez. I won't go that far, but something about his madman baserunner ethos excites me; the team has yearned for players in that vein for years. Olivar is a close second, with his potential as a catcher/outfielder hybrid standing utterly unique in the baseball landscape. View full article

Coffee may be for closers, but how in the world do you find one? (Not coffee. The other thing.) Image courtesy of © Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images While watching Game 1 of the World Series, it struck me how many relievers on both teams were essentially robbed from other franchises. New York’s first choice out of the bullpen was Clay Holmes, acquired from the Pirates in 2021 (for Diego A. Castillo!) as a no-name 28-year-old with an ERA over 5; he became a multiple-time All-Star. The Dodgers countered with Anthony Banda, a man well-journeyed, finally breaking out in his eighth big-league season. Luke Weaver, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech, all plucked from different teams, in trades that reflected either desperation or disinterest by the other side or on waivers. Nestor Cortes and Tommy Kahnle were the only relievers to pitch for the squad that initially drafted them, and even those guys trekked across the MLB landscape for years before returning home. It’s now apparent that the Twins have a weird problem with acquiring relievers. They can develop them—Taylor Rogers, Griffin Jax, and now Cole Sands have all flourished under the Falvey regime—but identifying capable major-league bullpen arms remains as foreign as the Mariana Trench, leaving the bullpen much too shallow. Since 2017, most of the best relief seasons have come from players who have only pitched for the Twins. The biggest exception was 2023 Emilio Pagán. That’s pretty much it. Brock Stewart would count, if he could ever stay healthy. They have shown a decent propensity for trading for non-big leaguers, like Jorge Alcalá and Jhoan Durán, turning both hurlers into quality bullpen arms. These moves exist in a strange nether where you could ostensibly argue the team did successfully pilfer another franchise, but dealing in minor leaguers is a slightly different game than handling those who have already pitched in the big leagues for a few years. They were trading once-valued members of a losing team when they got both Alcalá and Durán, meaning that the opportunity cost of getting those two was not acquiring some other prospects whose ceilings might have been higher. In the other realm, the one where the team looks over the major-league ranks for their next quality bullpen arm; the Twins have been dreadful. I’ve roughly counted 20 instances since 2017 in which the team—with the ethos of acquiring a buy-low reliever to potentially improve—dealt for, claimed off waivers, or selected such a player in the Rule 5 draft. These pitchers ranged from Justin Haley to Jhon Romero. Someone like Addison Reed—an established player—doesn't count. Out of all of them, the best result, yet again, was Pagán. The vast majority of cases flamed out terribly. I still have nightmares about Brandon Waddell. And maybe that’s just how the game works; you’ll never be perfect, after all. What makes it work for teams like the Yankees and Dodgers is that they’re constantly looking for the next breakout reliever. New York burned through seven or eight such players this year alone. If your pitching development is good enough, you will hit on at least a few pitchers each year. Ironically, two players excluded from my count—Jeff Hoffman and Dennis Santana—had great years in 2024: Hoffman as one of the many All-Stars in Philadelphia’s bullpen, and Santana as a middle-innings guy for the Pirates after they claimed him from the Yankees. Go figure. And two players who did count on my arbitrary list—Trevor Megill and Ian Hamilton—improved tremendously after the Twins jettisoned them from the roster. Megill served as the damn closer for the Brewers in Devin Williams's absence. Go figure. Look, dealing in relievers sucks. Consistency is an illusion in this realm. An adjustment or two—or just a few good or bad outings—can radically color perceptions of a player’s performance, turning them from a nobody into a star. I mean, the Yankees’ closer is Luke Weaver. Luke Weaver! On his 6th team! Entering the year with a career ERA over 5.00! How does anyone understand this sport? I hate concluding by saying the Twins simply need to be better in this aspect. Yet, it’s true; the franchises in the World Series owe no small part of their runs this month to their ability to find elite play from players otherwise thought to be incapable of such performance. Minnesota, however, has failed to find the same success, and they may want to follow the extreme quantity example set forth by the teams still playing competitive baseball. View full article

In 1993, the recently deceased legend hurled complete games against the Twins in back-to-back starts. Here's the story behind it. Image courtesy of © Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images Twelve years after Fernando Valenzuela dazzled the NL as a 20-year-old, he found himself in a different league, donning a different uniform, giving off the aura of a different man. “Fernandomania” may as well have occurred a century before. Like many pitchers who come up young and rack up huge innings counts before their body fully matures, he had experienced a steep dropoff. The same characteristics that drove his stardom—the screwball and the immense workload—wore Valenzuela down, raising his walk rate and ERA as the years between his peak and his present piled up. The Dodgers no longer wanted him. The Angels didn’t care for him, either. Six years after finishing second in the NL Cy Young race, Valenzuela was pitching for Charros de Jalisco. For a pitcher as successful as he once was, it’s almost impossible to crash out of affiliated baseball, until it's certain there's nothing left in the tank. Valenzuela essentially did so in 1992. He signed with the Orioles before the 1993 season, with little guaranteed. He wasn’t even on the Spring Training roster. But Baltimore decided they could use one more starter, so Valenzuela, once lost in the spring shuffle, became a critical back-end piece for the competing club. The lefty's season started rough—his ERA was in double digits heading out of April—but he hung around and leveled off in May and June. He even shut out the Blue Jays on Jun. 30. On Jul. 18 in Baltimore, he faced a new opponent: the Twins. An extensive stay in the NL had shielded the then-32-year-old from the AL-based Minnesota club. They were as alien to him as pitching without spectacles. Just two years removed from a World Series title, the Twins were in a definite lull, a near-decade-long malaise that would keep the team a loser until 2001 and pose an existential threat to the franchise. Heroes like Kent Hrbek and Kirby Puckett remained, but the pitching staff—shaky even in good times—was a mess. Kevin Tapani and Scott Erickson regressed. Jack Morris was north of the border and on his last legs, anyway. Once the season concluded, only three teams claimed an ERA worse than the gang Minnesota assembled in 1993. All of that added up to a team that entered the match against Valenzuela and the Orioles at 37-52, stuck at the bottom of the AL West. Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous summer day, about 83 degrees at first pitch, and a Camden Yards bursting at the seams with fans watched Valenzuela turn back the clock in a complete-game effort against the Twins. Minnesota plated a pair of runs in the 2nd, snapping a 24 ⅔ scoreless inning streak for Valenzuela, but Eddie Guardado—a rookie hoping to help the team’s pitching woes—surrendered runs in the 1st, 5th, and 7th to give Baltimore plenty of breathing room. It would never be the Twins’ day: Orioles left fielder Brady Anderson robbed Shane Mack of a homer in the 4th, leaping high over the wall (since replaced by a much taller one, much farther from the plate) to snag an athletic out. "Fernando shut us down," said Twins manager Tom Kelly. "We just couldn't do anything with him." And just a few days later, Valenzuela would do it again. Facing off against Guardado again—this time on a Friday night in the Metrodome—the lefty one-upped himself, allowing a single run in yet another clobbering of the Twins. He “again mesmerized hitters with tantalizing screwballs and sawed off their bats with inside fastballs.” Minnesota clubbed a trio of doubles, two of which combined for their lone run, but were otherwise made toothless and impotent in the decisive win. The 2-3-4-5 run of Jeff Reboulet, Puckett, Dave Winfield, and Mack went 1-for-15. “He has this mystique of the screwball, but he doesn’t throw strikes with that pitch. He gets you out with the ‘cutter’ [a fastball that breaks in on right-handed hitters]. It’s a very effective pitch,” Kelly said following Valenzuela’s first complete game on the 18th. “He looks inviting to people and they get caught up in trying to hit home runs or drive the ball, when you should take it the other way.” It’s solid advice for a team that never saw Valenzuela again. The Twins were only a minor player in the lore of the late, great hurler, but they were a part of it, if only for a week in the summer of 1993. It's a testament to his legacy that, even in that late stage of his career, he could leave such an impression in such a brief exposure to a team. View full article

Read and rejoice in the best-performing rookies to grace the Twins in 2024. The end of the season ushers in many things—offseason predictions, complaining about how the year went, etc, etc, etc—and one of those great processions is our Awards voting. Yes, we, the writers at Twins Daily, gathered in a great session, only exiting when white smoke augured our shared agreement and correct opinions regarding the winners of our prestigious accolades. Or maybe we all sent an email to Seth. You’ll never know the truth. Today, we will tackle the Rookie of the Year honor. Somewhat distinguished in that a player only has one* chance to win it, the Rookie of the Year award acknowledges an individual who entered the season with fewer than 50 innings pitches, less than 130 at-bats, or fell short of a byzantine bylaw regarding time accrued on the Major-League roster. These players aren’t necessarily expected to make an impact, but sometimes they do—and this piece will spotlight and applaud the rookies who best influenced the 2024 Twins. *Ben Simmons stands as the exception. Honorable Mentions Brooks Lee You know who Brooks Lee is: since being taken 8th overall in the 2022 draft, Lee appeared earmarked for a future as a classic slick-fielding infielder, the kind of guy who accentuates the baseball-specific athletic prowess that intoxicates and hypnotizes fans. Plus, he could hit a little bit. And he was a switch-hitter. And his dad was a coach. What wasn’t to love? Lee arrived the day before the 4th of July and smacked the ball like Thomas Jefferson smacked King George III with the Declaration of Independence (I know it’s a stretch, but deal with it.) He had a hit in six straight games and was slashing .275/.329/.377 through his first 17 games. The prospect that was promised had arrived. That was the best of it, though, as Lee settled into a prolonged slump, got injured, and hit poorly in his September return. Still, that early July boost loomed large in our voter’s minds, and Lee earned an honorable mention on our list. Zebby Matthews Zebby! The man known as Daniel Zebulon Matthews was known far and wide amongst those select nerds who scoured minor league box scores and unearthed AA footage like a baseball Indiana Jones. An 8th-round pick in the same draft as Lee, Matthews blitzed through the minors. He rarely walked a batter, pounding the zone with surprisingly vibrant stuff for a strike-thrower. He was named the Twins minor league pitcher of the year for his incredible efforts. With a decimated starting rotation, the Twins gave Matthews the call on August 13th, and he answered with five quality frames against the playoff-bound Royals. Two more solid starts portended disaster: a two-inning, nine-run stinker against Toronto that could only be wiped away with a Hershiserian shutout streak. That did not come to pass, and—despite some seriously impressive starts—Matthews ended 2024 with a Major League ERA of 6.69. He’ll claim the final honorable mention of the list. #3. Austin Martin Expectations have been high for Austin Martin for nearly half a decade. A 5th overall pick out of Vanderbilt in 2020, Martin joined the Twins following the José Berríos trade in 2021, marking him as a potential star on a Minnesota squad sometime in the future. His path through the minors was tougher than expected—the power that was promised never came, and his contact-focused approach invited bountiful dry stretches—but Martin made the team out of spring training and stayed up for most of the season, accruing 257 plate appearances across 93 games. He slashed .253/.318/.352. Perhaps his strongest asset was something the team has dearly missed in recent years: baserunning. Martin is a madman on the diamond. He begets chaos and nonsense. His legs buoyed his ballpark-of-average bat and dreadful glove to become a passable ballplayer. We’ll see what’s next for the 25-year-old. #2. David Festa Much like Matthews, David Festa was a part of Minnesota’s “Oops, (almost) All Rookies!” starting rotation down the stretch. A 13th-round pick in 2021, Festa added muscle and velocity following his selection and made the jump from no-name later-round pick to legitimate prospect in 2022. The Twins promoted Festa in late June, and outside of a brief demotion in July, he stayed as a reliable contributor the rest of the way. Striking out 27.8% of batters, Festa worked to the tune of a 4.90 ERA spread across 64 1/3 innings. Brilliance struck at times—like when Festa worked six innings with just two earned runs against the Braves or when he held the Cubs scoreless over five frames—but the muck of inconsistency struck a little too often; his final four starts totaled 10 earned runs across 17 innings. Still, Festa flashed promise, and for his efforts, we voted to make him the 2nd place finisher in the Twins Rookie of the Year race. #1. Simeon Woods Richardson Yeah, you shouldn’t be shocked. Without a particularly strong competitor, Simeon Woods Richardson stood head and shoulders above everyone; without him, Minnesota probably loses hope in the playoff race far sooner. Woods Richardson made a spot start during a doubleheader on April 13th and essentially remained in the rotation until the very end. Across 133 2/3 innings, Woods Richardson struck out 20.6% of batters and held an ERA of 4.17, a number that was much lower until he—like the rest of the team—broke down in September. Not bad for a pitcher with less than 10 big-league innings entering the season. Given his breadth of play and the lack of a real challenger, Woods Richardson nabbed 12 of 14 first-place votes, making him the almost unanimous winner of the Twins Daily Rookie of the Year award. With such an excellent season under his belt, Woods Richardson looks well-set to be a cog in the Twins rotation for years to come. Previous Winners 2023 - Royce Lewis 2022 - Jhoan Duran 2021 - Bailey Ober 2020 - Ryan Jeffers 2019 - Luis Arraez 2018 - Mitch Garver 2017 - Trevor Hildenberger 2016 - Max Kepler 2015 - Miguel Sanó Final Vote Tallies Simeon Woods Richardson - 39 David Festa - 27 Austin Martin - 13 Zebby Matthews - 3 Brooks Lee - 2 View full article