Riverbrian

If the trade was actually offered. I know that there is some sort of confirmation out there but I still reserve the right to say if. If that trade was offered... in hindsight it looks terrible. Tolle has stufffffff! However... I'm still not going to blame Falvey or Zoll for not taking the deal at the time if this was indeed a deal offered. Because I'm not sure what the reasoning was. 1. Maybe they thought they could get a better return for Ryan in the off season with more teams involved. 2. Neither Tolle or Arias were as highly valued as they are now. Arias at 20 years old rose from 76th to 3rd overall since the trade deadline. Payton Tolle was the 16th ranked prospect in Red Sox system in 2025. If they redid that 2025 ranking now. He's probably #2 behind Anthony and ahead of Arias. 3. The trade deadline has to be chaotic... especially the trade deadline that the Twins had last year. Maybe they didn't have time to evaluate and reach consensus on it. Maybe #1 and #2 led to #3. Who knows... I wasn't in the room and I"m ok giving them the benefit of the doubt... But Yeah... you are exactly right when you said. It's not a stretch. The Joe Ryan money is then added to the available budget for free agent acquisitions with Tolle replacing Ryan... you have Tolle plus Josh Bell money to spend 15 million on a higher priced free agent acquisition than what Josh Bell cost... in theory because that 15 million acquisition still has to play better than the 7 million Josh Bell). But yeah... exactly... they could have had both! I also agree that something changed in the off-season. I have my suspicion but I have no proof but I do believe that they changed course. They didn't complete what they started at the deadline for whatever reason but I do believe with no proof that Falvey was going to do more selling. I believe that buyers buy and seller sell. This team was in contention no matte how tenuos some of us feel about it. Making the playoffs is worth it and they needed pitching. I worry about the loss of Hill. Hard throwing lefties are like Gold... See Peyton Tolle for example. However other than Hill they got deals done at reasonable prices and they added to a pitching staff that was finding some decent pieces but needed more to support what has been happening thus far.

It's incredibly complicated but yet so simple. Buxton and Correa are tremendous defensive players. They shouldn't move or play any other position. If you have a Nolan Arenado in his prime. You wouldn't move him off of third base. However... if you had someone else on the team that deserves playing time or coming up through the system that also plays third base with Nolan manning the position. You would move the other player to another position out of necessity. You wouldn't strand him at 3B waiting his turn while they put some really questionable player at 1B because he happened to the best they have. Necessity is the mother of invention and flexibility opens doors for the best to come through. Team context is always going to create necessity's that require invention and it's being done mostly on the fly because necessity waits for no one. Necessity comes straight out of the shadows and you don't see it coming so I'd rather players get prepped during the formative years of development. And another complication to add to an already complicated process. More positions means more doors open for the top ranked prospect to walk through. Or the one who is looking the best in AAA. The injury that could get him some work in the majors plays another position. Correa isn't moving off SS so and why would you but it's your SS in AAA that's knocking down the doors and screaming I'm ready. The ability to do a half way decent job at the position where the injury occured and the space opened up would make him the call up when the necessity reveals itself. Instead of waiting for a specific injury at SS. Of if you have the flexibility of moving a Keashall back to 2B (Yeah I know... Nobody wants to see that) but if you had that ability... because his bat is playing pretty good right now and he isn't amazing at either 2B or the OF defensively. An injury at 2B can put Keaschall back at 2B then Jenkins can be the call up. Otherwise... it's Tristan Gray because he's the best 2B in the system.

Great article Parker! You do great work. This is that ole' change of scenery term that the broadcast teams like to throw around when struggling players leave an organization. If the staff can coach, teach, or just find a light switch that others couldn't find. Players can improve quickly and improvement makes past stats irrelevant. This is what coaches and analysts are paid to do. Their job is to Improve players and they have successes and failures. Who knows what the rest of the year (or next year for that matter) has in store for Kramer but right now he is 12 Innings in with a 0.58 WHIP. Go get Em Dean

Parker is the best!

Yes... That's the very important VALUE component. Thank you for the support. I do appreciate you and your thoughts on this topic. It's why Joe Ryan should have been traded in the off-season. His value was at an absolute peak and substantial. The Twins could have traded Joe Ryan and picked up a major prospect close to the equivelent of Jenkins or multiple highly ranked prospects with the ability to fill spaces with players making the minimum and performing decently enough. And you don't even have to do a complete teardown... you can keep Buxton and build a team with young TALENT around him and it would win baseball games. We have precedent... we can all see it happening almost consistently with other clubs as you point out. It's not just about developing talent that the Twins utilize on the field until they are traded or reach free agency. It's not just for the direct benefit on the field. It's also about the indirect benefit of raising the TRADE VALUE through development. If you are promoting young talent successfully... you will also need young talent to trade at the deadline when it works. This means you got to keep stocking those shelves. If you strip mine developing players for parts for MARGINAL theoretical gains today... you intentionally cap their TRADE VALUE. You don't develop them fully when you strip mine them for parts and you do it during their prime development years. It's like refusing to talk to a baby during the time when they are learning so fast that you could be teaching them english, spanish and french at the same time. Why would you cement anyone at age 25 by taking away the things they need some experience to work on. It's doable. You and I both see it and it would fit within our financial constraints and every one should know that we are going to have financial constraints.

Good post as usual. You are correct. 1. There is a strong correlation between payroll and winning it's undeniable. There is also a strong indicator that if you go the money route... if you raise that payroll to create that competitive team... it'll typically take an increase of money to sustain it without development to keep a rising payroll somewhat in check. Without it... she will keep spinning upwards. 2. You won't have development to keep payroll from going unchecked when you are using potential 26 man development space on 1 year contracts of 2nd or 3rd tier free agents that the true free agent winners passed on. 3. Those 1 year contracts to cover for development add 15 million to 40 a year in expenditure. 4. The Twins can only compete for better free agents if they reduce the number of free agents needed. 5. Then consolidating the combined money that would have been required for multiple acquisitions and directing toward the one or two needed because development has filled additional spaces. 6. It's completely doable but it needs to constant development commitment at the major league level.

In recent Twins times. Our best year was 2023 with 87 wins a playoff berth and playoff series win. 2023 was also the year that our payroll reached a record level of 153.7 Case closed... money matters. Well... I suppose it needs to be considered that in 2023. Top Salary belonged to Correa and he did lead the team in AB's and finished the regular season with a 94 OPS+ at a 33.33 Million price tag. 2nd highest expense was Buxton and he was having serious physical issues that limited him to 80 games at DH only and he toughed out a 97 OPS+ at a cost of 15.14 million. The 4th highest salary belonged to Gallo who produced the worst 100 OPS+ in the history of the game for a 11 million dollar price tag. The 5th highest salary belong to Vazquez who produced a 64 OPS+ at 10 million for the year. The total spent on these 4 players for the year was 69.47 Million. That leaves about 84 million spent on everyone else. You will need at least 22 more players to staff 26 players on the MLB roster and then there is money being made on the 40 man. I understand that people won't appreciate my pointing this out but I'm going to point it out. Look what we got for driving that price up. We set a record in club spending. What happened next? Yes we won the Central, We won a playoff series and we did so on the backs of lesser paid talent and then we needed to spend even more in the off-season because of Arb raises and we didn't have cheap talent to prevent the payroll from rising. And after not continuing to drive payroll upward... setting a new payroll record the year prior no longer mattered. It became a PR nightmare and frankly... they deserved it. This club has never spent significant money in its existence. 2023 was the closest we ever came to significant and it made us hate the franchise even more. They will need to find another way to compete.

Last game Right Handed Starter August 13 - Aaron Nola - Loss - 1 Run Scored Lineup Composition - 5 RH - 2 Switch - 2 LH Season Record vs RH Starters: 44-41 Season Average Runs Scored vs RH Starters: 4.74 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Season Record vs LH Starters: 16-22 Season Average Runs Scored vs LH Starters: 4.45

Brooks has been fine this year but I struggle applying "breakout" to his 2026 performance. He has come up big at times in key moments but his production in total has been squarely average and that's OK. Hope he keeps improving.

I made a similar joke to my wife once and she didn't know I was joking. So she went on a journey to find the seriousness in the comment. I didn't know that she would do that and by the time I found out that she took it seriously... she was already mad at me. Humor is a slippery slope.

I agree that the Twins did this to themselves but it's OK because the more players you send through the filter... the better the odds of finding some that become something... But that system doesn't work if you are not prepared to send more players through the filter. Having excess of outfielders is a blessing and a curse. It's simply a curse if there is too many to evaluate and just causes spillage without results. Joey Gallo is a great example of my concerns. They spent 10 million on the guy and then gave him 10 million dollars worth of opportunity. Essentially doubling down on the mistake costing not only money but also costing opportunity for others while they waited for Gallo to be the player they thought they were signing. Now... I didn't like the Gallo signing when it was made however by Late April 2023 I was singing his praises. He was superb but then the crash happened. By May... it was a noticeable problem. He wasn't even close to major league quality. He had a stretch where he struck out 17 times over 24 at bats. I reached a point where I was calling for his immediately dismissal mainly because it looked like he was swinging with his eyes closed but also because he won't be back next year. Gallo gets chance after chance and a Roden for example gets 55 AB's and no matter what his low OPS currently is telling everyone. He has only struck out at 13% clip. He's nowhere near Gallo who struck out 17 out of 24 times. They were wrong about Gallo and if they were wrong about Gallo... they can be wrong about Roden or whoever we plug into the discussion. Players ultimately have to let you know through performance. The Buxton comp... It's absolutely goofy because Buxton is the only guy on the roster that I think deserves every day playing time... but the point still stands. The statistical differences that we illustrate take time to accumulate... in any given game the differences are marginal and any player can go hitless for the game. If Roden gets 1 Single in a game while Buxton goes nil. It doesn't mean Roden is the better player but for that game he was. Roden is one of 9 players in a lineup. One player out of 9 doesn't kill the team.

I did a quick random sampling of 100 fans in Staples, Roseau, Ely, Eden Prairie and Worthington. The results were eye opening. Some of them care and some of them don't.

Nothing against Jackson... I'd honestly have no problem with him remaining on the roster but three Catchers on the MLB roster isn't ideal roster utilization for a contending team. Healthy and one plate appearance in the last 15 days is problematic roster utilization for any team contending or not.

Necessity is the mother of invention.