Riverbrian

Everyone needs to understand this.

And at least... they could have an upward trajectory for future years.

It's been a long time since I've seen a collection of arms in the bullpen as crafty as this one is shaping out to be. Personally... I don't like Crafty in my bullpen. I like heat. According to my research... right or wrong. Altavilla and Banda are the only arms that toss over 96 mph. Sands is close. Otherwise... we have a bunch of craftiness. Nobody is going to frighten major league hitters from our current collection. I'll take Altavilla just to add some velocity to the pen.

Either way. We are still talking about Carson Wentz backing up McCarthy. Brooks Lee is our McCarthy. Meanwhile Wentz is just fine as long as he doesn't see the field.

College or high school players that are good enough to be considered for the draft... they are typically the best player on the team at Georgia Tech or at Duluth East high. Typically the best player by some distance and the best player on the team typically plays SS. Therefore all teams draft a lot of shortstops. Once they reach the professional level the best player at Georgia Tech is standing along side the best player at Duluth East and the qualification for the position is redefined dependent upon on who you are standing next to. What is going wrong? Good question but something has been going wrong for quite some time. SS, CF, C and 1B development has been bare for a long long period of time.

As an organization. SS is in impressively bad shape.

This is not a convincing endorsement. Rostering players that you hope don't play is the biggest roster mistake that clubs can make. Giving one of only 13 roster spots to someone that you say is fine for a backup as long as they don't play for long stretches is taking an already limited 13 roster spots and further limiting something that is already severely limited. Leaving no room or solution for failure or injury to the player that you hope plays for long stretches.

Keep making your case if it starts him hitting. 😉

I'm not talking about Keaschall specifically. However... for a young player... Multi-Positions gives them more doors to walk through for a major league job. A young SS doesn't have to wait for Corey Seager to get traded or hurt to get a taste of the big leagues... more doors to walk through if they are multi-positional. If you are a player about to hit free agency. Multi-positional capability means more interest. If you are Royce Lewis... it won't just be 3B needy teams that will call him. If you can play a corner OF or 1B. More teams are interested. Multi-Position capability means any opportunity could be cashed in on. If the Brewers wanted to trade Brice Turang to the Twins for some reason... yeah I know... they won't... but if they did. Multi-Positional capability means you could do it. I'm pro flexibility. If a player can do it. Encourage it. If a player can't do it... then don't do it. It doesn't just have to be... what everybody in the world... labels as bench players. Players can move around. Put your best SS out there. Your top defensive outfielder should play CF. You don't have to move them around for the sake of moving them around. As needed... stay fluid... get your best players in the lineup. I know some disagree... but these guys are ball players... best in the world ball players that are multi positional capable.

Jeez. It took me 60 years to see all of the stadiums. You'll knock it out in a summer. First thought: I may be late since you are in motion but... I highly recommend Fort Myers. One day at the Twins complex. The access to the players is unbelievable. Other Thoughts: Squeeze in Lake Tahoe Between Denver and Sacramento. Just stop and get some ice cream and look at the clear water for a bit and drive on. From San Francisco to Los Angeles... Take the Pacific Coast Highway. It's the most beautiful drive in America. Stop at the Elephant Seal Nookery and watch them bite each other. For food... Stop in San Luis Opispo and find a nice restaurant with outdoor seating and enjoy the food the weather and this beautiful city. From Arizona to Dallas. Do not stop and see "The Thing". No matter how many billboards you see telling you to stop and see "The Thing". Don't do it. From Dallas to Houston. Stop in Lockhart Texas for BBQ. It's a little off the beaten path but... It's Texas BBQ in the BBQ Capital. Chicago... Try the Italian Beef. WET... Make sure it is WET. Cincinatti... Skyline Chili. Pittsburgh... Have a Primanti Brothers Sandwich. You didn't go to Pittsburgh if you don't have this sandwich. Also... I recommend going up on Mt. Washington at night for an incredible city light view with the rivers surrounding the city. Milwaukee: Tailgate... Definitely Tailgate. Seattle: Pike Place Market

Rod Carew is my also my favorite baseball player of all time and I also want to state that I am a big Luis Arraez fan as well. These players put the ball in play and make things happen... So... I'm not arguing any of your points. Yes a single is more valuable than a walk if a runner is already on base but I jumped into the discussion because you said "But with Wallner, 8 times out of 10, you’re giving away an out, those precious 27 outs." This was where I felt the need to jump in. When it comes to the subject of making outs... The difference between Wallner and Arraez isn't much. I fully agree with you that outs are precious. The extra out or stolen out is a huge deal. If the league average OBP for 2025 was .315. Just using simple math it will tell you that approximately 1 out of 3 batters reach base on average. That is two outs and one baserunner every three batters... that is the average and as you can tell... it's going to be hard to score runs with that type of percentage of one baserunner and two outs. So... run production for every major league club is going to come down to sequencing... stringing some hits and walks together. If you give away an out... an error or a walk turning 3 outs into 4 or if a CF robs you of a hit turning 3 outs into 2. The odds of a scoring a run increase decrease dramatically or worse yet... the odds of scoring multiple runs in an inning increase or decrease dramatically because it provides or takes away an opportunity to have multiple positive events happen in a given inning before the 3 out clock runs out of time. It also increases the possibility of that three run jack and this is where Power is a game changer. A three run jack is an instant crooked number. It is my opinion... that the crooked numbers increase the chances of winning baseball games. I don't have stats to back that up. I just believe this from my years of watching baseball. Giving up 5 runs in an inning is hard to come back from. Sometimes you do... most times you don't. As Ashbury has been pointing out. Wallner really wasn't a lot of help in the sequencing part last year. He's right. I just happen to believe that that sort of thing isn't necessarily repeatable from year to year or month to month or week to week or day to day. If I have a concern about Wallner... that would be his strikeout rate. The K is about as empty as it gets in regards to those precious outs. I'm concerned about any batter over 30%. Wallner might be improving in that regard... he has gone from 38.5 in his rookie year to 31.5 to 36.5 to the 29.1 in 2025. 2025 wasn't his best year... he's got some things to work out. If he gets that K rate down... with that exit velocity... look out. Will he? I don't know but he costs the minimum and this team needs to develop and development sometimes requires a little patience. We can't just toss guys after a bad year when they are still under team control and cost the minimum.

In my opinion... The extra out or stolen out is one of the biggest influences on crooked number innings but that's another subject. In terms of Wallner giving away outs. It's not two out of ten. His OBP was .311 in 2025. It was .372 in 2024 and .370 in 2023. Arraez OBP in 2025 was .327. It was .346 in 2024 and .347 in 2023. Those numbers in perspective. Every 100 PA's Wallner reached base 31.1 times. Arraez reached base every 32.7 times over 100 plate appearances. For further perspective. Depending on where you hit in the order there typically 4 or 5 plate appearances per game. That means it will take between 20 and 25 games to reach 100 AB's. For Perspective... That's 20 to 25 games to reach base 1.6 more times in 2025. OPS is absolutely influenced by power hitters... or more accurately... it is influenced by Slugging. To understand this bias you need to take note of the ranges of the two stats. In 2025 the league average OPS was .315 and the league average Slug was .404. You add those two together and you get a league average OPS of .719. Just by league average you can already see a higher number in the Slug. However... look what happens when you compare the averages with the league leaders of those stats. Using those who qualify only. Juan Soto was the OBP leader with a .392 OBP. The leader in OBP doesn't even produce the average SLG. The SLG leader amongst the qualified was Shohei Ohtani with a .622. That's a 218 point jump from average to top compared to a 77 point jump average to top. Yes power makes the world go round. Batting Average does not.

We spent 2023 and 2024 doing everything humanly possible to keep every single left handed hitter away from left handed pitching. In one game against the Giants. We pinch hit before they had their first AB in the game because of a dreaded lefty following an opener. The caution exhibited toward left handed pitchers was beyond anything the other 29 teams were doing. It became so extreme that you couldn't be blamed for thinking it was the central philosophy of the organization for those two years. Despite this incredible effort to avoid the left vs left platoon disadvantage on the offensive side. The platoon advantage didn't seem to matter on our own mound. In 2023 148 innings out of 1451 total innings were thrown by a lefthanded pitcher. Left handers (while almost impossible to do)threw less innings in 2024. We desperately couldn't let the pitching staffs of our opponents utilize this platoon advantage like it was Kryptonite but we had little to no interest utilizing this platoon advantage for our pitching staff. for our advantage. I don't care anymore. As long as everybody is looking at left or right like they can math this thing together they are missing the real point. The real point? That would be ...talent.

I tend to not worry about spring training stats. I certainly don't look at them as any indicator of pending 26 man roster selection or pending 26 man roster unselection. I don't recommend reacting to small samples period and I certainly don't recommend reacting to small samples facing pitchers or hitters wearing 94 or 86 on their uniform.

I'm not going to bet on Outman... But... 2024 was 134 AB and 2026 was 135 AB's. These MLB AB's were collected in drips and drabs. Fill in work on a loaded roster when someone got hurt. Called up Sent Down. Called up... Sent down. The majority of his time was spent in Oklahoma City where he was a consistent .900 plus OPS. I don't plan on spending my time defending Outman. I'm just here to say. It seems obvious that the Twins like Outman... that's why he is here. And I believe the Dodgers also liked Outman and I believe that other teams liked Outman. That's why he wasn't DFA'd by the Dodgers during his two years of struggles in sporadic playing time. . They knew that teams would claim him so they DFA'd other people instead. Eventually they traded him and got something for him and what they got for him was something that they wanted.

I'm really not defending anything. I don't need to agree or disagree with the Outman deal. I just don't know how else to look at it. Yes Stewart has had injury issues. There is no denying that and the injury issues has to lower his trade value. I get all of that. However... Brock Stewart is still on the Dodgers 40 man. They wanted him and they still want him. They DFA Banda and Kept Stewart. Banda is now pitching for the Twins. The Dodgers chose Stewart over Banda. The Twins claimed Banda and they no longer have Stewart. How else can anybody look at it? If Stewart was healthy and still with the Twins... he would be our closer. Yes I understand that he will be injured 5 seconds later based on his track record. Stewart can spend time on our injured list just as well as sitting on the Dodgers injured list. Our current bullpen... is Rogers, Funderburk, Sands, Banda, Topa, Orze and whoever else. Chafin? Stewart when healthy is the best reliever of that bunch. He wasn't on an expiring contract. The Twins did not have to give him away. The only justification for sending him over to the Dodgers at the trade deadline is.... They like Outman. It doesn't mean I like Outman... It doesn't mean that you like Outman. It means that they like Outman. It means they agreed to the trade because they liked Outman. They could have asked for a 19 year in return that they don't have to make a roster decision for 3 years. They didn't... They agreed to Outman. They agreed to Outman knowing that he was out of options and 75 years old. They agreed to Outman knowing he gets a roster spot in 2026 or they traded for a two month rental The Dodgers could have DFA'd Outman at any time during 2024 and 2025. They didn't and they have 40 man roster pressure that goes beyond what the Twins have to deal with. They didn't DFA him despite his struggles because I assume that they also like Outman. If none of the other 29 teams wanted Outman... They can DFA him with no worries. No one would claim him. They DFA'd multiple players instead of Outman in 2025, they traded players during the 2025 season trying to manage the 40 man roster and through it all Outman survived the 40 man. That is until the Twins agreed to acquire him for a relief pitcher that the Dodgers wanted and still want today with injury issues full known to all involved. The narrative that two teams just exchanged unwanted crap can't be the case. It doesn't add up. These teams wanted the players involved in the Deal. If they DFA Outman... I get that many of us will be OK with that. But if they DFA Outman. He will probably get claimed. And if he gets claimed. We will have traded a reliever who would potentially be our closer for a two month rental in a lost season. I don't know how else to look at it.

I don't believe spring training box scores influences roster decisions. I think they already have a pretty good idea who will be on the 26 man. I think they had a good idea before players arrived to camp. I don't know what Brock Stewarts trade value was at the time if the trade. I understand that Brock's fragility will probably lower his trade value. I don't care what his trade value was or is. The Twins didn't need to give him away. Look at our current bullpen. If he was healthy... Brock Stewart would be our closer right now. He made 870K last year. This wasn't a budget decision. The Dodgers and Stewart avoided arbitration with a 1.3 million deal. He is under team control for the next two seasons. Brock Stewart is still on the Dodgers 40 man. Anthony Banda is not. Brock Stewart still has value to the Dodgers. Why would the Twins give him away? They wouldn't give him away. This means that they like Outman. They decided they would rather have Outman over Stewart. They chose Outman over Stewart.. They liked Outman over Stewart enough to add him to a crowded outfield at the expense of a depleted bullpen. Stewart if healthy would be our closer right now. If the Twins DFA Outman... they will have given Stewart away for nothing. If the Twins DFA Outman... would he be claimed? I don't know but its possible that he will be claimed for the same reasons that the Twins traded for him. I don't believe the Twins have proprietary scouting methods that the 29 other teams don't have. Brock Stewart didn't need to be given away. The Twins didn't take Outman back in the trade to be a two month rental in a lost season. They like him.

You are 100% correct. Ability is what you are looking for. You can't skirt the ability thing. Specialists are not that special. If you looking for specialists... you are not looking for special. I clicked your b-ref link. There is a filter activated. If memory serves. Total number of plate appearances in 2025 should be in the 180,000 range. Your percentages will be correct either way. The actual league wide splits will be different.

Royce Lewis is critical. From a boost standpoint. Nothing could be bigger than Royce Lewis in 2026 actually being what he was promised to be. Wallner reaching elite power status could rock some worlds.

I will not bet against you.

Thank You. Thumps Up This is good stuff.

The Angels tier... Has to be the absolute worst tier. If you are on this tier... It's not a tier you want to be on.

Under the rarely achieved everyone is healthy coming out of spring training scenario. If he makes the roster. He will make the roster as a short side specialist. I don't believe that he will make 26 man roster because we are burning a lot of roster spots on the C, 1B and DH spots.

I'm not saying Wallner and Wallner alone. The subject just happens to be Wallner. This organization needs to develop period. If you can't work though things... you won't work through things. I agree that giving him another season is the right move. You and I just came to that agreement from vastly different directions.

Agreed The franchise future health depends on players like Wallner.