Riverbrian

The 2025 Twins bullpen wasn't built on expensive free agents. It was built by getting them ready internally. We traded for Duran and then developed him. Jax... Varland... Sands. through our system. The Red Sox bullpen was the best in baseball last season. They signed Chapman but the rest was getting players ready for the job. Weissert was acquired as part of package of players in the Verdugo trade. Whitlock was a rule 5. Bernandino was a waiver sign much like our Gomez. Bello was pulled from the starter pool and he transitioned fairly quickly.

I can't even begin to predict how the market is going to react. I'd imagine that if the players want to sign quick... teams will have to follow suit. It'll be pretty painful to sit it out for more clarity if players are signing. If the players want to proceed carefully. The teams will have to follow suit. I'd imagine that the players association is updating players and agents. I'd imagine the commissioners are updating ownership and front offices. Place your bets. Nothing is solved to my knowledge... how will it turn out?

The problem is putting yourself in a position where you’re forced to spend heavy money on relievers. The Twins put themselves in this corner, and it's a dangerous place to be because relief pitching is incredibly volatile year-to-year. However... looking at where we are right now... we have much more pressing needs. The bullpen cannot be the priority until our biggest roster flaws are fixed first. A front-line starting pitcher and a massive, impactful bat in the lineup have to be the top two priorities.

If he ends up in a Twins uniform. I will absolutely love your plan.

My wishes to sign Lawlar are also not set in stone. I'd like them to make phone calls and sign someone similar. Matthews straight up might work. We might need Matthews more though. We will need that depth this year and we will really need Matthews in 2027. In regards to Ryan. I'm a big fan. Tom Pohlad had said he is going for it. If that's the case Ryan is probably staying. If you are going for it... you pretty much have to put him front and center of the charge. The rotation has a chance to lead the way. I did check myself for a fever in case I'm hallucinating. It was 98.3 and I can see a path. Optometrist visit has also been scheduled. But... the time to spend is now on a couple of key pieces and the time to commit to youth is also now. It can be done simultaneously.

Ryan... No big deal. If he is going to make more than 13 in Arb. Twins pick up the option and Ryan declinse. This was a bet that the Arb figure is less and the Twins will obviously submit less. Ryan can still submit the 13 million or higher if he wants but he can't outbid himself or he will lose. Bell... He did great. He got some big hits for us. Hat's off to Josh. However I doubt he gets over 10 million on his next one year deal. If the Twins want him. They could bid less and land him. Hopefully they don't want him. Keep the DH spot open.

I lose sleep at night... worrying that it is exactly what they do.

Absolutely... They have to. They can't hold Emma back he's out of options. His time has to be now. I don't care what anyone thinks of him after his September sample. You develop the hell out of this guy. Put talent on your roster. Realized or unrealized. He's here and he should play. Culpepper is the only SS consideration. There isn't another one within 500 miles of Target field. His time has to be now. But... He has to stay healthy. They need someone much better than Kreidler that has SS skill. However... they could screw this up. Rostering Martin could send Jenkins to AAA. Martin would then attach to Emma.

I understand your point a little more now. Of course there is trade value on the Twins roster. It's just not going to fetch a big fish. If they ever decide to go young. Re-whatever. There is nobody on the roster who could propel the Re-Whatever. We could get some real decent major league talent for Jenkins that sellers would absolutely be interested in. The Rockies might even give up Hunter Goodman for Jenkins. But... the Twins can't do that. It would be unforgiveable. Jenkins and his young band mates are the key to everything. I'd love to add someone like Jordan Lawler to our 2027. He'd be perfect. However, I don't think it can be done with a Larnach/Kremer package. He didn't have a bad year. He's not a distressed asset. Getting hit by pitch shouldn't represent injury prone. He has years and years of team control. If the those two get it done. Get it done and smile. I just don't think that would happen. I think it's Joe Ryan that would have to be traded just to get the D-Backs to bite. If you trade Ryan... are you still going for it?

Possibly. It would require creativity... the proper amount of rest intervals. I don't have a plan. However... 1450 innings have to be covered. I support the Twins efforts to experiment.

Correct and therefore. We all love playing the games on paper before the games happen. I get your point. I enjoy your posts. The Rays had no business landing where they landed on paper. Victor Mesa Jr. was placed on waivers by the Marlins. He doesn't look all that great on paper. Simpson, Walls, DeLuca, Palacios, Williamson and creating a real good closer out of 31 year old Bryan Baker isn't going to cause a rush to draft kings for Bets on the Rays over the Jays and Yankees. 😉

Instead of a formula of 5 plus or 1 inning. I'd simply ask the question. Can you hang a zero? How Many can you hang? 1,450 Innings in a year that need to be covered by a pitching staff. Does the allocation have to be a strict formula of 5 plus or 1 inning and nothing in between. Do we have to give Dylan Bundy 140 Innings just cause he's in the rotation? For structural integrity?

Can we? Us mere mortals? It's tough for us regular folk. We typically don't take everything in. We debate talent. We can't even decide amongst ourselves who is talented or not. However... I will bet a large amount of money. That front offices have an exact dollar amount attached to every player. Sure... you'll get variance between baseball clubs based on how they weight certain data sets based on individual team preferences - one teams assigns more value to spin rates and another team assigns more value to speed or defense etc. Add in positional depth, scarcity, where the teams are in the competitive window, the financials of each team and the valuations will have ripples. But... for disciplined front offices? I don't believe those variances are ever going to be enormous causing Larnach to double in value because the Padres really need a left handed hitting DH. They may value him a tick higher but they won't blow past the guardrails. The Math is the math. Back in my radio days. It was Cume X TSL. That was it. That was how ratings were determined., Cume was how many individual listeners and TSL was time spent listening (How long did they listen). How many and how long determined revenue and who was hired and fired? I assume baseball would be similar. How good and for how long.

200 innings makes my position look ridiculous so please don't assign that to me. How about 100 innings for Duran instead? I don't know. I'm not as sure as you are. But I'm saying there is a lot of space in between black and white. It's either 5 inning plus or 1 inning max. There is nothing in between that?

The Rays were the better team.

100% I read your post and that's exactly how I interpreted it and I thought your post was a spot on obvious point. In order for trades to work for you. You have to have value to trade to get value back. Trading low value gets you low value. That's not going to produce talent. We all know free agents are not going to work for us because we don't have the budget to make it work. So we got to develop players that have trade value to make trades work for you and we are not doing that. You were completely correct when you said

I don't know if I am or ain't. I'm just saying I didn't understand the thumbs down.

You are probably right. They are at a real low point in terms of 2026 payroll. But, if they are trading Joe Ryan... 10 million. That basically covers the overpay on Jeffers. And... The need for Jeffers decreases because the talent on the team decreases. If the talent decreases it is going to cost more free agent dollars spent to replace it and we will still have that problem of free agents choosing where they want to play. Basically... I'm concerned about the allocation of funds. I'd rather they allocate the 23 million at a position that plays 162 not 130 and I'd rather not spend 30 million total on the catcher position which will be almost double than what any other team pays for the C position. I'd rather the Twins get in on the bidding and sign him for 3/45 or whatever it takes.

I love Jeffers. He's one of us. With that said. If we offer the QO... You have to prepared that me might take it. If he takes it. It will drain the majority of funds available to improve this team. Jeffers becomes our primary investment. I love Jeffers... He's one of us but if we have 23 million to spend. I'd rather spend that money on Bauers and I really really don't want to be 30 million invested in the catcher position alone.

The players that have the most current value is our youngsters or players that we still need to develop. According to BBTV. And Yes... there are some serious doubters in regards to Baseball Trade Values. Jenkins, Keaschall, Bradley, Lackey and Culpepper are our most valuable trade pieces. However, an organization like ours shouldn't want to trade them because if you trade prospects... you trade them for established players and that will drive payroll beyond our range. This is what the Dodgers do, The Mets do. To be more like Brewers... we want to develop and try to maintain their value so they become trade options that bring back players like Lackey when the they get closer to free agency. Jenkins 61.3 Keaschall 36.8 Bradley 36.4 Lackey 36.0 Culpepper 30.4 In regards to older players that cost money and can be traded for younger prospects. Joe Ryan 17 Buxton 13.1 That's a huge drop in regards in value on tradable assets. Joe Ryan should have been dealt last off-season. To put this in perspective. Riley Quick has more trade value than Joe Ryan does now with just 1 year remaining before free agency. To put this further in perspective. Joe Ryan last off-season had a value of 55. That's how much we lost from one off-season to the next. Last off-season Joe Ryan probably brings back two Culpepper type talents or one Jenkins type prospect. Now we get a Riley Quick type talent and that's all if you want to reload like the Brewers do with their developed assets. (Again... I understand BBTV and some people's reservations with it). In my opinion... it does a pretty good job of identifying the top trade value. Looking at the Brewers. Chourio has a value of 162. The Miz has a value of 104 Made has a value of 76.8 Henderson has a value of 60.1 They have 4 players just as valuable as Jenkins. Including 2 that are excessively more valuable. Chourio is basically untradable his value is so high. They will eat some years off his years of control. Trade him at about 60 value and just keep reloading. If the Brewers want to cash in develop assets like Turang... His value is currently 43.3. He is going to return some nice prospects to reload with and then they develop the return and cash out, develop the return and cash out. When Burnes was traded his value was 33.3. The Twins are simply not very good at developing trade value. Part of the reason I'm screaming about the strip mining of players and the reduction in value it causes. It's important they stop doing this right now. The Twins are even worse at cashing it in... if they happen to develop someone like Ryan that other teams would like to acquire. How do we all know this... beyond the mistake we made with Ryan. It's simple... We don't cash them in... We let them reach free agency and very few teams want our free agents. We use them up for our benefit and nobody wants them. Ask yourself this question. How many developed Twins have signed a huge deal in free agency in the past 20 years. Most organizations have produced players that get the big pay day. Our Brian Dozier and Max Kepler's did not get paid. The biggest deal in our History was Torii Hunter 20 years ago. Where is our Machado? Where is our Soto? Where is Kyle Tucker? It's this today mentality they have that some other teams don't have and they are still beating us today. A GM's primary job is to increase the value of their players. Yes... Win's are more important but the Wins take care of themselves if they are able to increase the value of their players. Develop or Die.

I'm not sure why you got a thumps down on this post. You are right. The Twins need to create value. The Brewers have an impressive list of players rostered in 2026 that came from the trees of the Burnes, Williams, Hader trades. Create value and trade it. The Twins struggle to create it.

I do assume it was Tom. Somebody stopped it abruptly. Someone had a false definition of rebuild. Some association of a negative attached to the term. Someone felt that re-whatever meant losing record. Someone made a big mistake. Lot of people have this stigma. I don't and I know you don't. The average age of a MLB hitter has steadily gone lower over the years. The Twins have been consistently higher than the average. I spend a lot of time counting pre-arb players and I can tell you the league is younger, faster and stronger. The league is younger than it has ever been and the Twins are typically a little older than the average. As a matter of fact. The only stretch of baseball that the Twins were consistently younger than league average was 1999 to 2005. Which led to the creation of the Piranhas. The Piranhas were in the center of a decade long stretch of AL Central titles and 90 Plus Win Seasons. The Piranhas were scrappy and fun to watch. The Piranha era was 2 million people through the turnstiles. I hope Tom reads the bolded part.

People think rebuilds take a long time. They really don't. That was years ago when teams would disapear for awhile. However. Rebuilds do take a long time if you don't actually get started on it. To finish... you have to actually start. For example my car took a week to fix. The main problem was that it took me 6 days to get it to the shop. Last year was just a time suck. They could have been attacking 2028 fully loaded. You and I saw that wall coming. It's almost like they didn't see it or care. To quote Fastball. "Where were they going without ever knowing the way".

That's a perfect footnote.