Whammy

AB #3 was a 101mph liner that the 2nd baseman caught. Very high expected batting average I’m sure.

Taj doing his best Twins Bullpen Pitcher impression

History is littered with effective MLB relief pitchers who weren't ANYTHING until their 30s.

I believe that ties him for the Twins all-time lead in HBP in a season If that's wrong, blame Attebury.

At the beginning of the season I had a strong belief that this season was going to be Zoll's only shot, unless the team strongly overperformed. There were times this season when that looked possible, but with where we are at this point, it looks unlikely. I believed Zoll was on borrowed time not because he's done a poor job, which is subjective and different people will have different opinions, but because I just don't expect Tom Pohlad to operate that way. He doesn't seem to be the type of person that will let someone grab hold of the most important job in the organization by default, which is how Zoll got the job. Tom strikes me as the type of guy who would hire a Dave Dombrowski-type. Knowledge. Experience. Those are the qualities that I suspect Tom values. Tom had to scramble this offseason as he took charge and Falvey departed. It made sense to maintain course with Zoll. But I just don't see that continuing, short of a miracle last 2.5 weeks.

That seems very shortsighted and an inefficient deployment of resources

I'm struggling with the idea of signing a mid-rotation starter. At first blush it sounds logical, based on what has happened this year and the depth that was required, but in practice it squeezes the roster/organization in ways that probably don't make sense. If I'm the GM I'd prepare for a few injuries, but preparing for extreme injury issues might start to do more harm than good. In my mind it's sort of like QBs in the NFL. Does it make sense to have an extremely capable backup QB? In a vacuum, yes. If your star QB gets injured, you don't want your season to completely tank. But that backup might cost $10M and in your ideal world he sits on the bench all year. And does a borderline starting caliber QB even WANT to sign up to be the backup for Jalen Hurts (for example)? And actually, history is littered with examples of a star player getting injured and it paving the way for unbelievable success. Matt Cassell getting injured and having to rely on late round pick Tom Brady. David Robinson getting injured leading to the #1 overall pick and getting Tim Duncan Now, it's different in baseball, because we're talking about a group of players, but let's play this forward with the 2027 Twins starters Barring a trade these guys are locks: Pablo Lopez Joe Ryan Taj Bradley So, you have two core spots available and here are the guys you have access to: Bailey Ober Zebby Matthews Connor Prielipp Dean Kremer Mick Abel Mike Paredes Kendry Rojas Some of those are easy. I agree that Ober will likely get non-tendered. Paredes to AAA as depth. Rojas either to the bullpen or AAA as depth. But were still left with 4 guys for 2 spots. And if you sign a mid-rotation starter, that's 4 guys for 1 spot and to be honest, I think it would be Kremer. So now you've got Zebby, Prielipp, and Abel ALL at AAA? It sounds fun to have that much depth, but to me it doesn't make sense. It's the equivalent of spending $20M on a backup QB that you hope to never use. So, this my long way of saying, spend money on 1B. Heck... SPLURGE on 1B. Because there's no reason to spend another dime on starting pitching depth.

I view Royce as a better defensive option at 1B than Clemens. I don't care what the small sample of numbers might say for the time Royce was learning to play the new position. My eyes tell me he's a better long-term defensive 1B. But I don't really want either of them playing 1B regularly in 2027 because I don't find either of their offensive profiles palatable for a 1B. We just need more from that position offensively than we've gotten for several years. If we do make big boosts to the offense in other places, then I can live with Royce at 1B because, like I said, I kind of like him there defensively and he still has a tiny bit of offensive upside in my mind.

I'd be OK with Royce back at first base, but only if we spend big money on other needs and are like "for $5M we could do worse than Royce. Let's run it back" I'd also be OK with Mystery Box. 1B seems like the best opportunity to spend big and have a great impact (I haven't looked at the free agents, but I'll assume there are some). The other two options aren't very appealing to me.

Personally, I think the mute option that they have is enough. If someone is being such a problem that interacting with or even seeing your content is causing a problem, then that's a problem for the moderators to deal with (banning if necessary). Outright blocking of people, in my opinion, shouldn't be necessary in a moderated discussion board situation.

If it makes you feel any better, they removed my comment in this thread regarding people blocking certain users (which I'm fine with, BTW. It was snarky, unnecessary, and didn't add to the topic). Perhaps you believe only your posts are being removed because you never see the posts from other people that have been removed.

Unless he did something behind the scenes that we don't know about, I find it unlikely that he's traded this off season. There's no good roster reason to do it. In my opinion that would be a David Ortiz level blunder. That probably sounds silly, but only because we know how that turned out. In the moment Ortiz was confusing and unnecessary. The same way trading E-Rod for low value this offseason would seem confusing and unnecessary. BTW - Ortiz never had a global ranking anywhere close to as high as Rodriguez has/had). Ortiz had like a 110 OPS+ over 1400 Plate Appearances with the Twins and was basically just a DH by the time they parted ways. I'm not defending the unnecessary parting ways from the Twins, just adding a little context. It obviously looks horrific in retrospect. Back to E-Rod... If they do trade him this offseason and they get fine value, then I'd be more OK with it. Trading him should be on the table for the Twins, but not because they are worried about finding him plate appearances in 2027, but because they viewed the trade as a positive for the organization.

I view the main reason for your opening day roster observation is that it's so rarely a requirement. The most prominent examples of it happening across MLB are related to the Rule 5 draft, which the Twins have done on occasion, because it's the requirement. Most of the time, not breaking camp with the big team is related to years of control, which will not be the case here. This is a pretty unique situation. Should he be with the Twins right now? Absolutely. Can I explain why he's not? Not really. But I expect that we'll see him in a week or so. Even if the FO plan is to trade him in the offseason, there's not really any downside to calling him up for a few weeks.