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I would be interested to hear your opinion on exactly how the FO should find a player better than AAAA at this point in the season without being allowed to spend any money...

Not the FO fault. Get ready for a stream of AAAA guys next year. Further payroll reductions are a-coming!!

Elite fielding with a .735 OPS / 106 OPS+ for $5m per year is an absolute steal at basically any position. It looked like he was done a few years ago, but has improved his offensive numbers over the last few years. Lewis, Miranda, Kiriloff are not locks (injury and unsure offense), resigning Santana at another 1/$5 mil contract makes too much sense and fits the current "we are cheap" attitude of ownership. You sound higher on Severino than ownership. He has positional flexibility, including 2B. Why hasn't he been called up already?

There are dozens and dozens of examples of players failing in one organization and succeeding elsewhere. Check out Jose Bautista, Randy Johnson, and Sammy Sosa... Sometimes a change of scenery is necessary.

Basically saying we have to hope younger players step up and other teams fall apart. Sounds about right.

Not a lot of org depth at 1B right now. Santana is at the point in his career where he will probably be looking at the same contract (1/$5m) next year. Probably the one guy they will take a hard look at resigning. I am a fan of the new September call-up rules. September always seemed like a totally different game due to the roster expansion. I get the "rewarding organizational guys" thing, but it shouldn't be a thing at this level. Professional sports is mainly outcome based.

I have been down on this team all year. I have said time and time again that their record was mainly due to them beating up on the 5 worst teams in the league and playing sub-.500 against everyone else. This team has been smoke-and-mirrors all year. That being said: You can question Rocco all you want, but with every bad thing thrown at the Twins this year, if they make the playoffs, you can easily make the argument that he is the AL Manager of the Year.

As nobody here knows the extent of the knee injury or the pain he plays in, this is a valid question. Lot's of discussion in previous months about Buxton only going 90% to avoid risk of injury, it could easily be that Kepler basically fine with a few exceptions (like putting on the brakes then trying to kick into gear again). That being said, Watkins should know the status of Kepler's base running, This is 100% Watkins. His inability to make the right decision on sending runners has been atrocious for years.

You beat me to it. The Twins catchers is basically top 3 in baseball this year offensively (among teams catching positions). Why would they do anything different then what they have been doing?

BP problems are not solely a Twins problem. Organizations everywhere struggle with this, especially when you get past the setup and closer guys. BP3, BP4, etc. are a yearly (monthly, sometimes daily) balance of money, luck, 40-man-rosters, health, and experience.

For the haters out there, I am not sure how you can be negative about what Falvey/Levine have done for the organization. Almost from bottom to top, the Twins are in better shape than they were 6 years ago. You can always nitpick and find things you don't like, whether it is interviews, too much reliance on washed up veteran pitchers, signing/not signing <insert player here>... You can find faults with anyone. Grass is always greener and all that. As for either/both of them leaving, for all we know they are very happy in their jobs and are not actively looking. I know there have been external interviews, but those need to be taken with a grain of salt. I for one hope ownership pays them to keep them here.

Unfortunately no, wins are not the best metric. Ownership, both today and yesteryear, cares more about nickels than wins.

Nah, there are enough periods in there. Anyone (including Tonkin. any other DFA/Waiver pitchers, and MiLB guys) needs to be considered an option here. What will be sad is if a couple of hundred thousand dollars stop this team from improving.

I said it at the time and I will say it again: Everyone knew the Twins were not going to spend any money, so they went out and made the cheapest trade possible so ownership could say to the fans "Hey, we made a move. We are trying." That move just goes in line with all of the efforts ownership is making to show the fans the just do not give a s**t about the success of the on-field product

You do understand this is a Minnesota Big 4 Sports Franchise? Letting down fans and choking away championship opportunities is part of the M.O...

You can't run Sands, Duran, and Jax out there every day. You have to get innings from the other guys. They need more success in the BP, but any decision they make will be the proverbial "roll of the dice": questionable veteran, unproven prospect. My bigger issue is the lineup construction. Under no circumstances should Margot be leading off. Especially with Miranda and Castro in the lineup. Farmer batting 6th? For everybody arguing that Rocco uses analytics too much, yesterday's lineup was far away from analytics based.

Santana being productive on offense and stellar on defense? Alex Kiriloff shakes his head in regret and looks for his outfielder's mitt...

I am not a big believer in the theory some losses are better/worse than others, but situationally, this loss was tough. Trailing Cleveland by 2 games, seeing Cleveland lose, than giving up a big lead in 7th, failing to score in the 10th, then losing on a quirky play in the bottom of the 10th.

I agree with this. Look at things another way: Lopez pitched pretty poorly yesterday, yet somehow managed to get through 6 innings without giving up a run. You can make good contact on just about any pitch (see Vlad Guerrero Sr.). You can also wiff on an 85 mph FB down the middle. The luck factor here tends to balance out over time. Today was just not their day.

I want so badly to believe they won't move Vazquez this offseason. However, if current trends continue, saving money will be more important than on-field success.

I love the internet, when you can be condescending and at the same time have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. I am not going to post my resume, but needless to say my business grasp is slightly more than rudimentary. First, using your example, making capital improvements on a property will most assuredly improve the value of said property. You also must not understand the concept of flipping houses, as taking short-term interest only loans or balloon payment while you improve and then sell the house is extremely common. But that is not really germane to this discussion. There are only a few reasons to own a big 4 professional sports team. One is status, another is sentiment, but mainly it is financial. There is basically no other investment where the value of your business is guaranteed to rise, regardless of how you treat it. In the case of the Twins and Pohlad, he got the team on the cheap in '84 for $44 million. They had a few years of success (mainly 87-92), but were otherwise pathetic until 2000, when they were going to be contacted and receive $250 million. The were fantastic for most of the 2001-2020 era, and as of 3/24, Forbes has the current value of the Twins around $1.5 billion. They increased in value when they lost, they increased in value when they won. You are right in the Pohlads run the team like others. They run player payroll mainly as a percentage of income/net income. Like I said, there is an income threshold they do not want to go below. The Dodgers and Yankees bloated TV deals directly translates into those teams spending more on player salary. But that percentage is arbitrary, not fixed. Ownership showed that by pocketing the late TV deal money, instead of re-investing it into the Twins. I have never said that cash flow or net operating income do not matter. I am saying that you need to look at those items in conjunction with your overall return on investment, meaning business value. According to your business acumen, a business that has a neutral or negative, cash flow but the overall value is a net positive every year is a poor investment. That is insane, especially for the uber wealthy that do not require that net income to live off of. Lastly, team owners have a certain degree of civic duty when owning a team. They know this when the join the fraternity. Owners that spend money on the team and fan experience are loved, while cheap owners that look to squeeze every last nickel from the team are hated. Back to baseball....

MiLB contracts with Spring Training invites for veteran pitchers that show some modicum of ability should be handed out like candy.

I would put his games played number due to the high number of injuries the Twins have had, going along with Wallner melting down at the beginning of the year, not to his stellar offensive performance.

Not to go down this rabbit hole again, but there are ZERO owners of professional sports teams that lose money. On the off-chance a team (like the Mets), tries to go negative cash-flow for a season, they will make it up in increasing overall value of the team. The issue is not the Twins losing money. The issue is that there is a profit line the Pohlad's refuse to go below. A line they create that has been exacerbated by the idiotic television/marketing/public announcement decisions they have made over the last 12 months.

They are already rolling the dice with some of the names we have seen because they have no other options. Remember this as the Twins refused to spend money offseason through trade deadline to pick up any pitching of consequence and you see Festa/Varland/Matthews start a pivotal game 4 in the postseason (assuming the Twins get that far).