Whammy

I don't think it works as a long-term strategy, but for specific games and specific combinations of pitchers it can be effective. I know how sensitive they are trying to be with Prelipp's workload and this seemed like a good opportunity to help that situation.

There was an interesting think-piece that I read maybe a month ago (might have been Baseball America) that talked about the perfect storm situation that the Giants are in, where they could go scorched earth and violate all of the MLB Draft spending rules. I haven't heard much about it since, but it's an interesting concept. Many teams violate the first tier of bonus pool penalties. It's purely a financial penalty. After 5% overage things get harsh. Losing future draft picks. No team has ever done that. Once you hit 15% you've maxed out the penalties. You lose your next two first round picks (and maybe next year's second round pick). That's harsh. You also pay a 100% financial penalty on the overage. But here's the thing, once you clear 15%, there are no additional penalties. So, at that point you might as well get really crazy and double or triple your bonus pool. No team has ever been in as good of a position to pull that off as this year's Giants. They have deep pockets and they aren't eligible for a top 10 pick next year even though they suck this year. So, what's stopping them from telling Roch that they'll pay him $15M? And then paying $4-5M to all the rest of their picks who might be elite HS players looking for a big bonus, to forego college? They could load up on ten or more 1st/2nd round talents. So that scares me, since the Twins are drafting right before them.

I'd rather keep Paredes stretched out at AAA The secondary effect of that is that they might not feel the need to keep Rojas stretched out and he can rejoin the MLB bullpen. Ultimately, assuming health, yes, I'd rather have Paredes filling the Adams role, but we obviously can't assume health. SOMEONE has to be available for some spot starts.

Personally, I think they should enact this plan.... Prielipp with a Paredes piggyback today, then send Paredes down to AAA after the game and call up Ober. Then Ober or Zebby can pitch tomorrow and the other one can start on Friday (They both last pitched on Saturday)

4 Weeks to the deadline, not 3

He added a “behind Cleveland” at the end, which I believe is true.

I think he’s been pulled early every game so far in St Paul

He’s actually my favorite of that group

I also binge Rob Jeremy. Not sure I’d call it comfortable though.

My generosity in this regard has reached its limit.

I wonder how many players this year have been less than a week away from getting called up to the majors, only to get hurt. Culpepper Rodriguez Roden Jenkins (probably not) Only the front office could truly answer that, but it does seem to have become a thing this year.

You beat me to it

I'd love to see some examples of teams adding a prospect to a trade in order to get a better prospect back. I'm not remembering any good examples in recent Twins history, but that could just be my memory fading. Also it could be that it's more common MLB-wide than just my Twins-centric view of things

I'm an engineer, so I love to be able to put numbers to things. I love analytics and the have no problem with cold hard soulless decisions that sometimes come out of looking at data in an unbiased way. BUT... I also think it's important to acknowledge that cold hard soulless decisions have secondary impacts. And while we often have a difficult time putting numbers to those secondary impacts, that doesn't mean they don't exist. The perceived benefits of those decisions need to be weighed against the potential negative impacts those decisions create. Player morale. Fan morale. 2026 attendance. Future attendance. Franchise value. All of those things are in play and need to at least be considered. The difficult thing for us here on this discussion board is that we have ZERO idea what's being offered. We can't make informed pro-con opinion on moves that are or aren't made, because we often don't know what the "pro" might have been. I'm not going to say something as condescending as "I'm surprised that needs to be said," but.... well.... you get it.

Not that I think there is an extension in the works, but what makes us think we'd be hearing anything about it ahead of time?

The part of this that I disagree with is basing anything off of Caratini's awesome last 5-6 weeks. I do think it has reset expectations back to baseline, from where is was in Mid May, which was quite low. I also believe that if Jeffers did accept the QO, there could be a trade market for him. This is all something that doesn't really need to be worked out until the end of the season, other than, if the Twins think it might be a possibility, they may bake that into what they would accept in trade for him at the deadline.

I don’t mind people disagreeing. I understand that I’m probably on the wrong side of a 25/75 proposition. But I think it’s an interesting thought exercise and has some very intriguing nuances to it. I just wish more people would respond with why they disagree rather than just slapping the down thumb on it and moving along. Just down-thumbing something is lame, in my opinion. The only posts I really ever down thumb are offensive/inappropriate stuff.

And I’ll keep beating the “we might just give Jeffers the QO” drum, even though most people dismiss it out of hand. People seem to think that he’ll automatically accept it. Perhaps, but here’s two things worth thinking about: 1) A high end catcher on a 1 year deal (even if it’s 23m) has value. I’d guess the Yankees would be more than happy with that this year. 2) With a lockout it might not be $23M. That matters more than just “we actually only owe him $15m for the 2/3rds of the season that actually gets played. The bigger impact is on whether Jeffers accepts the QO. At $23M he might think that the big AAV is worth the risks of 1 more year of wear and tear on his body before he hits free agency. But if that $23M get prorated, then the idea of locking in for 4 more seasons at like $15M per sounds a lot more appealing because his actual earning potential on a QO might actually only be $15M anyway (or something close to it) Because of those two things not only do I think that having him accept the QO might not be such a bad thing, but also I think it’s probably less likely that he accepts it than people think. This also falls under the category of “we’ll know more in 22 games” because if he’s looking anything like his pre-injury self, I think a QO is better than a 50/50 chance. And if you think you might be giving him a QO, then that has a big impact on what you do with him (or Caratini - who might all of sudden become tradable) at the deadline

People have many different opinions on last year's trade deadline, but I don't think anyone would call it a half measure. I'm not sure I've ever seen a Twins front office act MORE boldly (for better or worse). Some people have a very binary view on what constitutes a successful season. If they aren't a legitimate contender for the title, then all moves should be made to make some future team more likely to be a contender for the title. Those people are viewing having a team hanging around .500 as a bad thing because they think it might result in not maximizing every possible 2026 resource for a theoretic 2027 or 2028 run. I just don't view it that way. Competing for titles is about more than accumulation of the maximum amount of future assets. And I view a season like 2026, that might end up with us battling for a playoff spot as a part of the process. In my view, punting on that opportunity for growth and partial success does more harm than good, on and off the field.

All of these potential scenarios are fun to talk about am I'm all for it, but the reality is, we have 22 more games before the trade deadline. That represents almost 1/3 of the remaining schedule (71 games left right now). So much can happen between now and then and what happens in those 22 games will shape the correct answer on "what should we do at the deadline." I think if we're anywhere remotely close to a playoff spot, trading Ryan would be a terrible decision. I understand all of the "value" reasons why, but fans just don't care about that right now. And while we might get less for him in the offseason, we'd still have the ability to trade him for value then. Unless we really go in the tank over the next month, I'm a "no" on trading Joe Ryan at the deadline. I do think that no matter what position we are in, a story can be told for trading Jeffers. He's been awesome and I'll hate losing him, but the catchers have largely held their own in his absence and losing him for nothing in the offseason would be a tough blow. I could see Zoll saying this: "We made Jeffers what we felt was a competitive contract extension offer. He declined to accept it, which we respect. With Ryan becoming a free agent this offseason we felt it was imperative to the organization to get some value for him and we are thrilled with the players we got for him. Ryan leaving now does not preclude us from pursuing him as a free agent in the offseason" We can do that while also adding players at the deadline. Both can make sense. Almost all other potential trade candidates feel pretty low wattage compared to those two decisions and we've got 22 more games to figure out what the right answer for them is.

Never doubt a Twins fan's ability to find a negative in anything positive. You forgot to mention that all of these wins are hurting our 2027 draft position.

Feels to me that Kepler is a good comp for Jenkins' defense.

Qualifying offers would have to be tendered in early November and decided upon by the player by Mid November. The league year ends at the end of November (with a potential lockout on Dec 1), so the QO stuff will be decided before then. I agree that the QO will be a point of negotiation (albeit a small one) for the next CBA, but it seems unlikely to me that as part of that, they will rescind any effect of a 2026 QO. So, while I agree that the QO will almost certainly change, and potentially even go away, I do still think it will have an effect on contracts ending this year. The most likely scenario, in my mind, is that the positive effect on teams losing players (draft compensation) will remain for at least 2027 and the negative effect on the players (signing team given up draft picks) will go away, or at least be dampened.

Oops... looks like I missed that you did say it. That paragraph got a little too long for me, I guess.

Not explicitly stated in your post, but definitely one of the key factors is hitting with runners in scoring position. I believe we lead MLB in Batting Average with RISP.