Riverbrian

Yep I already have Outman etched in stone for a roster spot next year. Not because I'm personally behind him or even believe in him... and that also doesn't mean that I don't believe in him. Once again... I don't know but his power and speed combo could be special. The reason I have him etched in stone is because they traded for him knowing that he has no options available next year and will have to be on the 26 man or he goes to the waiver wire. The only way the trade makes sense is if they are willing to give him a run in 2026 to try and unlock that potential. They don't acquire him for a couple of months and then toss him to the waiver wire at the end of the season. Therefore... Outman will be given the benefit of pre-determination and will be allowed to struggle for awhile. Out won't need to be the same blistering out of the box that Clemens required. And of course... he certainly didn't blister out of the box. Some players are given the chance to get it right eventually. Some players don't.

I appreciate these updates. They are fun to look at it... please continue because I look forward to them. If I understand the lottery correctly and I'm pretty sure that I don't because I think that the odds for the 3 teams removed are redistributed as the lottery goes from 18 teams eligible to 15 and I don't know the redistribution process. With my current understanding... It sure seems like the Top 3 spots are the place to be. If there were no teams removed and 18 teams eligible. The top 3 spots are supposed to have equal odds at 16.5%. When add that together... It's about 50% that one of the top 3 teams get the first pick and threfore 50% that one of the other 15 teams get the first pick get struck by lightning. With the three teams out and their lottery wealth redistributed. I'm not sure what that will add up to percentage wise for the top 3 teams or the other 12 teams with longer odds. I was sleeping in Math school so... I guess I'll wait until the odds are announced and then hopefully someone can explain it to me.

I'm trying real hard to get out of the fan perception business because I don't know what anyone will be. And I believe with every fiber of my being that front offices don't know either. Still I find myself having to take strong positions where the correct answer is. I don't know. Clemens has already been branded. Day one with the team... the majority of our minds were made up. I wasn't happy with his arrival... I was part of it. 19 home runs later... the majority it seems would still shove him out the door. I think you are spot on. I'm pretty sure that the fans on Athletics Daily took a while to warm up to Rooker. The Oakland front office and manager took a while to warm up to him. 30 year old Seth Brown was the guy they chose over Brent Rooker. Seth gets hurt and now Kotsay turns to Rooker. Brent goes on an 8 for 17 at the exact moment that Kotsay pointed his finger at him. Brent turns that into 9 home runs before April is over. 1.245 OPS over 67 AB's. Kotsay couldn't see what Rooker would become... he chose Brown. The Royals couldn't see it, the Padres couldn't see it... The Twins couldn't see it. If Rooker doesn't explode out of the gate. If Rooker is just average out of the gate. He probably wouldn't be in baseball right now. May and June were actually down months for Rooker. Below Average for two months after the hot April start. That hot start gave him continued chances through the down months. Clemens 2025 is much like Rooker 2023. Rocco didn't know. They chose Julien and Ty France. After they signed Clemens... Rocco stared at him for two weeks, It took a Buxton and Correa double concussion collision before Rocco had no other choice. Clemens goes 10 for 22 with a couple of dingers and now Clemens is part of the language around here. If Clemens doesn't start 10 for 22. He's the first guy to St. Paul when health starts to return to the club. Because he was hot at the exact moment Rocco ran out of options and pointed a finger at him. Here he is. A subject to be debated for 2026.

No argument. OBP is what will show up on the negative side of his ledger. .071 BB% is on the low side. Buxton BTW has an .077 BB%. Juan Soto leads the way with a .180. So basically double the walks for the top of the pile in that statistic. His .220 batting average isn't helping that OBP. But, with his hard hit rate and fairly decent K percentage... I like a guy at the plate who doesn't K a ton and hits the ball hard as someone who can trend upward. And maybe... just maybe... No way of telling... but maybe... just maybe... As he gets more AB's... that eye gets a little sharper. We are still talking about someone who has 740 Career PA's over 4 years. At the end of the day... High OPS is driven by Slug primarily. You'll find a handful of guys like Austin Martin who have close to equal OBP to Slug and end up with a decent OPS out of it but there are not many. I'm not going to spend a lot of energy fighting for the guy... but... we got a lot worse on this roster. A lot worse.

Based on performance in 2025 and performance alone. Maybe just Buxton and Keaschall would out rank him on the Twins. Just looking at some cherry picked stats. (Using 233 Plate appearances as a marker... I wanted to make sure that Stanton and Varsho are included). Only 22 players have a better AB/HR Ratio (Two are Twins Buxton and Wallner). He has a strikeout rate of .232. From those 22 players... Only Caminero, Juan Soto, Langaliers, Grisham, Springer and Carpenter have a better strikeout rate. 91.8 exit velocity, 49% hard hit rate. Only Buxton is better in both categories and not by much. Home Runs, Decent Contact, Strong exit velos and hard hit percentage. He runs well, aggressive on the bases and his defense is decent at multiple positions. If you keep hitting like that, the balls are going to find more grass. What's not to like about that? Streakiness? Age? When the clean up begins... he's not the first area to clean.

1. I'm not comparing him directly to Rooker. You are. 2. Rooker was being used by another poster as an example of players who were tossed aside by other teams and also by the fans of those teams. Only to become something extraordinary after receiving the break of landing on the exact team that could actually provide opportunity and just happened to hit the ground running at the exact moment of that opportunity leading to another game followed by another game and eventually a long term contract and a future in the game of baseball. The comparison is that Rooker like Clemens was inches from selling cars and now he's home free. Not saying Kody is home free... not saying he will be a Rooker. These are two players who were inches from out of the game of baseball entirely. 3. I get it... you didn't like Rooker's defense. As far as I'm concerned... He can DH or just let balls fall around him in the OF... if he can hit 30 plus home runs three years in a row like he's done... I just don't care. If the A's want to give him back to the Twins. I'll take him. The A's don't want to give him back... they signed him to a 5 year deal so he can call Coldwell Banker and talk real estate in Las Vegas.

Exactly. Justin Turner is another. J.D. Martinez and what's his name... Umm... David Ortiz. Those are just the loud ones.

Just to piggy back on the spot on point you are making. 40 Man space decisions are going to make players available and if the clubs were right or wrong on these hard line decisions are just plain often undetermined. Rooker was DFA'd by the Royals. Before that he was traded to the Royals for a player that the Padres DFA'd a month later. Before that he was what I assume was a 40 man roster space clearing addition in the Rogers/Paddack deal that made room for Pagan. When you consider the opportunity that is typically provided to players like Rooker or Collins or Clemens once the 26 and 40 man space restrictions cut them loose due to predetermination. It's amazing that any outliers like Rooker or Collins or even Clemens happen at all... Yet against the opportunity restricted odds... they happen. People will say it's a rarity and not the norm. It is a rarity but quite possibly rare because of they stay on the edges watching others. The fact that it happens at all only points how bad these misses are and if they can miss... you wonder how many just faded off that could have been. How many of these Rooker roster space cuts just drifted off into the baseball wind with the potential to be a Rooker all along unrealized. It's impossible to answer. I'm sure many got the fate that was going to happen eventually but every Rooker or Clemens makes you wonder. Nobody is ever going to know the answer to that question because they are cut, gone. The organization will always be right when they control the outcome. Told ya they wouldn't make it. Clemens is getting opportunity now. Kudo's and Good Luck to him. He gets to represent a small group of outliers that just happened to land in the one spot where they get a chance.

Back when I was a teenager growing up in Salem Massachusetts. I felt guilty after I burned my first witch. I came to the conclusion that one seizure in front of others is not enough to measure properly for determination nor is one instance of someone flying around on a broom.

I think the "Kody Clemens bar" is a good way to put it. The rest of the article... I'm not sure that I agree with it. When Kody was acquired... I was against it and I wasn't thrilled with the Bride signing either. Nothing personal against Kody or Jonah but it really really bothered me that the Twins turned to a couple of April DFA's from the Marlins and Phillies instead of reaching into their farm system. The management team placing more faith in MLB cast off's over their own development system was what bugged the hell out of me. If I could go back in time to April using hindsight... I think I would still be bugged by his signing because of what it says about our development. However... Clemens has shown me some things that makes me happy he is here and I don't mind him at all. If he gets a roster spot at a couple of million in his first year of arb. We could do worse. 1. 19 Home Runs in 310 AB's is nothing to sneeze at. If you take out Ryan Fitzgerald's small sample of 2 Home Runs in 27 AB's. Only Buxton, Wallner and Clemens have AB/HR ratio's below 20. 14.29, 15.04 and 16.00 respectively. Everybody else on the roster needs at least 11 more AB's on average to generate a home run. Lewis and Larnach are #4 and #5 at 27.75 and 29.69. I realize that power isn't everything and the team does need to transition to a more diversified roster but power still has a role to play and we currently have 3 guys who are at least playing a power hitter role. If this team can find 13 players better... we will be in decent shape... I think Clemens serves as a good bar to try and clear. 2. This is his first year getting significant playing time. I know we live in a world of instant gratification and many will be impatient. Some players get the opportunity in a big dose and some get spoon fed. Cody was spoon fed 127, 148 and 120 plate appearances over his first three years for a total of 395 scattered plate appearances. That ain't much... it's a lot of waiting for a game here and there. This year he got his first big dose with nearly as many plate appearances this year as the three years prior. And he didn't completely trip and fall on his face... no matter how ping pong ball streaky he was. There were a handful of games that he won by himself. If this team can find 13 players better... we will be in decent shape... I think Clemens serves as a good bar to try and clear. 3. He plays the game hard and he can play multiple positions decently. I like watching him play, he takes the extra base, he busts his ass out there. He's not a defensive mess at any of the positions he's played including OF. He looks like someone who is trying to win a job, wherever he can win it. If we can find 13 better players... we will be in pretty good shape. Clemens serves as a good bar to try and clear. 4. I can think of 8 players on the current 28 man roster that he has clearly out played this season. If this team can find 13 players better... we will be in decent shape... I think Clemens serves as a good bar to try and clear. Again... I was against the acquisition at the time and I guess I still am but... now that he is here... he has my full throated support. I think Clemens serves as a good bar to try and clear.

They are not afraid of youth and they trust in their system of development. It isn't just the Brewers, Cleveland, Detroit are also examples of development as the primary feeding the animal. The Red Sox... just traded Devers and got better afterwards and they have a 2025 team full of youth. The Giants grabbed Devers and ended up selling at the deadline. After selling they got themselves back into contention with players like Drew Gilbert leading the way. I ask everyone to look at all 30 teams and count how many times you ask yourself this question. Who is this guy and where did he come from? Once you start looking into those answers... the only conclusion that you can draw is this. Pre-Arb players produce the same range of Bad to Terrible players as a lot of the vets. We just don't know who they are.

I can't speak for the Great Hambino but... speaking for myself. I see Jeffers on the roster due to current lack of options... However... if you really want to play the value game. It is better to take advantage of the catcher market than be a victim of it. So if the choice is limited to selling Jeffers or buying Rutschman or one of the top catching prospects and those are the only two considerations. I'd sell Jeffers eight days a week and I wouldn't even entertain the thought of paying the price for Rutschman. The reason is the catching market and the consistent over pay involved in those transactions. Those are not the only two choices and right now... I'd just sleep in the bed they made at the position. Jeffers and whatever they can scrape up cheaply. Concentrate on the other 24 roster spots.

The CBA negotiation and the possibility of a work stoppage is a wild card that should absolutely be a very important consideration but I don't know how you consider it because right now... it's just going to be tough talk and posturing leading up to getting into a room together. Right now...If you plan for it and a work stoppage doesn't happen... that's a problem. If you don't plan for it and it happens... that is also a problem. It's a wild card that keeps me torn on the direction to go. I tend to think business as usual because a work stoppage should be something neither party is interested in and I hope that both sides realize that and can therefore avoid it. There is no doubt that I'm pre-arb focused in order to have a budget to work with and eventually extend players that should be extended or play in the bigger money areas of free agency. We have a lot of pre-arb players on the roster now and we have (in theory) budget to work with and that's a good starting point. If they keep the starting staff... there is a chance that this rebuild can happen quicker than most think it can. Yes the bullpen is going to require a lot of attention, a lot of trial and error but bullpens can be built using a variety of sources from converting starters to finding Brock Stewart types. On the position player side. At Catcher... I think they should sleep in the bed they made and not over pay chasing catchers. If they end up punting the position... they punt the position. Just make sure they can play defense. If they have the players to pay the price for a young catcher MLB ready with potential. They should take those same players and pay for someone who will play more games at 1st base or SS. More bang for the buck. If it's Jeffers and Pereda next year with Gasper in AAA or vice versa... That's what it is. Just ride it out until they can develop a catcher or two or three that gets people excited. I'm ok with the following next season in the outfield. Buxton, Larnach, Wallner, Martin, Outman. Outman I assume is on the roster because they traded for him despite running out of options. They will need another year at least to see if they can get him to display the potential they traded for. But... I want to be clear.... Only Buxton has earned every day playing time and even he will need a rest day. I want the other 4 competing so use the DH position and give them the opportunity to become what they believe they can become. On the infield... it's a little more concerning. Only Keaschall is earning every day playing time at the moment but he is still a small sample size. Lewis should play every day but a year long slump should temper that temptation a bit so he can give up some playing time and same with Lee... but we got to find out what Lee can do and we got to keep trying to get Lewis unlocked. I think Clemens has earned an arbitration offer and his flexibility will be useful so I'm Ok with those 4 breaking camp with the club but... once again... same as the outfield. Only Keaschall is earning every day playing time at the moment. The rest... I want to get the opportunity to compete for playing time. Lewis, Lee and Clemens haven't earned every day playing but they have earned the right to get playing time and compete. Jenkins, GG, Erod, Culpepper, Fedko... there will be injuries and that is when you call up the most ready of the group and when they get the call. You play them... you give them an honest to god chance to compete but I wouldn't prematurely move a player that you have invested in like Wallner to clear a path for an immediate move from those waiting on debuts. They will get their chance. Injuries will make sure that they do. That's 11 out of 13 spots... That leaves 1B and SS and those are the positions where I scratch my head. SS... Not saying Lee should be taken off SS but I am saying that we need to hedge our bet at the same time. I'd like to see a decent young SS brought in to compete with Lee so Lee can also compete with Lewis, Clemens and even Keaschall. Nobody on the farm looks ready to take the jump for opening day 2026 so they may have to try to find someone outside of the system. 1B... Do you give Sabato a chance out of spring training? He will have to be placed on the 40. Or do you keep trying to get Julien to display the potential he showed two years ago. Or do you just go get the best young 1B you can find outside the system? And that brings me back to trying to find the best young 1B and young SS from outside the system. To get those type of players... You'll probably have to trade Ryan to get the quality. If you trade Ryan... Well now you have weakened the one thing that looks pretty good next year and I'm torn between both paths. It all starts with the 40 man roster decisions this off-season but... I'm pretty adamant on one thing. You have 13 roster spots to work with in this incubator. Use all 13... Don't use only 9 because some of those 9 eggs are just not going to work out and the front office or any of us can say with certainly which eggs will or won't develop. The only thing that is gaurenteed is that a player won't develop if you waste one of the 13 spots and don't provide the chance to compete. 13 egg slots compared to 9 increases your odds and hastens the getting competitive part so please don't let predetermination stand in the way. As for as the money available to spend. I'd rather they wait until we start seeing something out of the younger players. If this comes together quicker... then the trade deadline can come into play... money can be spent to shore up areas. Also... one last thing. Never feel like a player is not worth it unless they can give you 6 years with the organization. If you get a year or two out of a young player... that's a year or two and it has value. I'm also don't advise letting age get in the way. Nathan Lukes is 31 and Ernie Clement is 29 and they are both playing key roles with the Blue Jays right now. Don't wory about what Lukes will be at age 37 when he reaches free agency. The bullpen... Uff Da. It can be done... but yeah right now... Uff Da.

I won't argue with you on the direction forward because I honestly haven't made up my mind yet... but I'll give you credit for being a lot more confident in the direction you feel is the correct one and I can see solid reasoning for it. I still toy with the idea of keeping Ryan, Lopez and building around that. If I'm reading you correctly... you are trading Ryan and Lopez and if you are going to deepen this thing. Ryan and Lopez will probably return the most talent. Starting pitching is where we have actual depth. On the other hand... it's the one place where all that depth will also all be necessary because you need 9 or 10 starters to get through a typical season... so I have a natural reluctance to move any of it. If they trade Ryan and Lopez or one or the other... that could change my current thoughts on Larnach. Probably not Wallner though since he has another year of pre-arb. If they keep Ryan and Lopez and try to build around that starting staff. I'll be pretty tough to convert on either player. I'll probably fall back on my often repeated mantra. Utilize all 13 roster spots... don't focus on 9 spots wasting the other 4 spots. Open competition... provide opportunity. Don't use the word backup, limit pre-determination to who gets a 26 man spot but don't use pre-determination to anyone that you give a 26 man spot to. 13 spots as opposed to 9... in my mind... is also a quicker way back.

How deep this rebuild is going to go this off-season. I don't know. They could keep the starting rotation arms and build around it. They could trade starting pitchers and bring in names we are not talking about right now. And of course everything in between including the opportunistic didn't expect player X to be available adjustment to the direction. It's hard to advocate one way or another but I will say this. I generally struggle with the eagerness to throw away good in search of perfection. I also generally struggle with any logic that seems wrapped in the concept of "He Sucks so we should trade him... if they suck... who you gonna trade them to. On the opposite of that logic... there is the logic that if other teams are willing to give up real talent for a young player... wouldn't that young player also have value to us. Right now... I'm just going to say... these are two players who are above average hitters and we have a lot of players who are below average hitters. I'd keep them.

By total losses in the field and on the bases... I assume you meant to say not as good as some others or below average. I watch a lot of baseball. Most plays are routine and they make the play. Also the majority of baseballs are hit to other positions. K's will take away maybe one third of fielding opportunities for the entire team. Maybe 1 non-routine play every 2 to 3 games. Someone could check my numbers... I could be wrong. I'll grant you that when the play requires a higher degree of difficulty. I'd rather have someone else out there but they are not total losses in the field. They are above average hitters on a squad with 7 below average hitters. They are not where you start when the cleanup begins. Wallner is pre-arb next year costs the minimum. Larnach is in his 2nd year of arb and will probably make 4 million next year and 4 million isn't pushing the budget anymore, Don't get me wrong... Defense is important but often over weighted.

We have a total of 7 players that play regularly that have an above average OPS. And the OP wants us to choose between them. And the responses are to get rid of both of them. I keep them both gladly. I'd bring in competition for them but the 40 man cleanup should start at the bottom. These two are nowhere near the bottom. This website makes me shake my head.

Where you are pointing... is the exactly where we should all be looking. It's the next big thing in the path toward straightening things out. Before they sign Kyle Tucker to that free agent deal. This is first on the honey-do list.

I don't understand how it's so hard to work with the conditions that exist. Simply look at the roster you have to work with and position them. Did we have a better CF on the roster? Was Bader a better CF? I'll let others debate that. But if Bader is was a better CF. Why couldn't they play Bader in CF and Buxton move to a corner when Bader was placed into the lineup and let Buxton play CF when Bader wasn't in the lineup. This static position and static place in a batter order thing drives me crazy. There is nothing static about baseball players... they rise and fall and rise again like ocean tides, like hot and cold air. You staff a 26 man roster with the best players you have. The assessment of the best 26 players you have is not just a defensive assessment. It's offense, defense, it's everything that makes up the job of being a ball player. The search for better players needs to be constant, competitive and it needs to take in account offense, defense and everything that makes up the job of being a ball player. If Buxton plays some LF and some CF... it'll be alright. If he plays CF every day... it'll be alright. You look at your roster and you place them in the positions that make sense. Not only year by year or even month by month but the lineup you are putting out there every day. The Twins have achieved 100 wins only once since hitting the shores of Bloomington 64 years ago. That year was 2019. Jorge Polanco played 142 games at SS that year. Sano played 91 games at 3B that year. Arraez played 49 games at 2B and 21 games in LF that year. Mitch Garver played 82 games at Catcher that year. Astudillo turtled at catcher for 21 games, 15 games at 1B, 13 games at 3B and 8 games in the OF. It worked out OK. Enough fluff around the edges in regards to building a roster. Stop looking for specific positions... FIND PLAYERS period. Stop looking for specifics like right handed or left handed. Stop strip mining for parts... that's fluff around the edges. If you end up with 3 CF's on your roster that can play this game. That's good because you got 3 players who can play this game. If Jenkins, Erod and Buxton end up on the same roster and are all killing it. We are going to be OK. Thank your lucky stars that you have 3 talented CF'ers and then make out a lineup with them in it. The Twins are currently not in a position to hyper-focus on finding a CF to purposely and deliberately move Buxton to a corner. The Twins need to be hyper-focused on increasing overall talent on the roster period! Buxton is a good CF... I'm sure he'd be great in a corner as well. Let the context around him make that determination or better yet... let performance on the field make the determinations.

Many people wanted the Twins to sell. More accurately... Many Many Many people. They didn't just type sell on Twinsdaily. They typed Sell Sell Sell. I assume that typing sell 3 times is for emphasis and would speak to the desired degree of the sale. Guess What They Sold

Outman: 63 AB's - .642 OPS. Brooks Lee: 437 AB's - .659 OPS Vazquez: 178 AB's - .498 OPS We will find out if Outman was a good investment down the road. For those already convinced it was a bad trade . Hey they could have traded Stewart to the Rangers for Michael Helman. He's the new everyday CF in Texas. Currently leads the entire Rangers team in OPS. Helman: 55 AB's - .928 OPS.

I have no idea if the return on the trades were good or bad. The trades will be good if the Twins can turn the return into major league quality talent. They agreed to the deals... the scouting staff... evaluators see something they like, agreed to the deals and are therefore going to give it a go. If they can't develop them into major league quality... the trades will not be good. These determinations are going to take time. Judging them immediately after the trades is extremely premature. Judging them after 30 some AB's or 20 some innings is also premature. It's up to the Minnesota Twins to get the appropriate value out of each player. Let's see how they do. Past is the past... Tomorrow is Tomorrow.

If you don't mind... please take a moment and step into your time machine and go back to September 2018. You'll notice that Twinsdaily was filled with posts from posters who were sure that Byron Buxton was upset and gone over service time when he wasn't called up in September. Apparently we have no problem jumping to similar conclusions 7 years later.

He won't be back. If the light switch flips he's gone and we are back at square one. If the light switch doesn't flip. He's gone because we don't want him back and we are still at square one never even reaching square two. Meanwhile one year gone. Find the next IKF for 2027... Two years gone. On to 2028... three years gone. Carlos Santana had a decent year for us. Got himself a 12 million dollar deal that we couldn't afford. We couldn't afford it because we didn't have enough pre-arb players developed to create the spare change necessary and this led to Ty France playing every day. Cleveland had the 12 million because they had a different philosophy and successfully developed pre-arb players that allowed them to afford him. That 12 million deal with Santana brought them up to 100 million which is still 42 million less than what we spent this year. Of course... we don't know what players are gonna do. Carlos Santana didn't work out for Cleveland. They cut him two weeks ago... which is something the Twins just don't do and they have turned the 1B job over to Manzardo, Cayfus and Noel. Who knows if Cleveland makes the playoffs but... they are currently 2.5 games back out of the wild card. Their current 28 man roster has 23 pre-arb players on it. If Cleveland wanted to... they won't... but if they wanted to... because of their development. They could outbid all 29 clubs for Kyle Tucker next year and still be spending less than we spent this year. Where is our Manzardo, Cayfus or Noel? You hit the nail on the head. The issue isn't Ty France... The issue is that Ty France was the best option by far. I'll add that not only was Ty France the best option... he played every day like he was Pete Alonso because the Twins backed themselves into this corner. We came out of spring training with 8 pre-arb players... 142 million payroll for the year. 7 expiring contracts and arbitration raises that would eat nearly every dollar available from the 7 expiring contracts, the farm is nowhere near spitting out the replacements to fill those roster spots and Falvey probably can't go to Pohlad and ask for another 15 million just to fill the 7 expiring contracts just to keep the status quo. The money was gone. The bill came due. So... we were going to need to move a player or maybe two players in the off-season to free up 10 to 20 million dollars just so we can go re-staff the team with 6 more IKF type players and onward we go. Just life support until the wall hits you in the face and the airbags go off. Airbags went off... The team steeply sold. Money is now available. Don't spend it on IKF types. Fix this development issue whatever it is.

I have been complaining about development for several years now. I've also stated multiple times that I will judge this front office on development and development alone. However... I'm just simply hard to drag into the crowd of people that wants to simply fire people that I've never met and have never heard a reasoning or strategy that isn't public relation screened. Every fan base of every organization from Pro to College to High School to Bantam Hockey wants the coach fired. My years of complaining is asking them to change approach rather repeatedly. IFK would be the breaking point (I'm extremely close to that breaking point already) because: We just hit the wall that I said they would hit. They just stripped the roster down to 20 pre-arb players. They got a blank slate to work with. If they return to the same practice... that I believe got them there in the first place. Well... they would without a doubt be incapable of change and at that point I will join the crowd and be a broken record on how they must go. Until then and I'm extremely close... my comments are constructive. Talking theory and not names. I have no choice. A, I don't know what specific player will be or could be. Age 23 players and what they will be at age 26 with opportunity. I don't know... none of us know. I don't read Keith Law and convert it to gospel. They could be good... could be bad... there is only one way to find out. I've stopped trying to predict it. I'm more comfortable with my opinions with players with a major league sample size but at the same time... I also know that a light switch can be located at any time in their development. I simply expect my organization with all of their scouts and coaches who do this for a living to be better at it because we are team with a budget that will always be dependent on minimum making talent. Don't care who rises from the seeds planted. But we better have seeds that produce and we are way behind everybody else. B, If I say we need to develop better players (Theory) the conversation always gets bogged down with... Martin Sucks... Julien Sucks... Keirsay Sucks... (Specific). Now my point is lost because Martin sucks and I got sucked into a Martin debate with someone who is sure they know what Martin will be in the future. Now in order to make my point... I gotta become a Martin supporter when I have no idea what Martin will become. I simply don't care if Keirsay sucks... the point is that the organization should have produced players who don't suck by now and they need to produce players who can help win so we have budget to work with. If they fail to develop... they fail period in my opinion. Why am I stopping short of calling for their heads even after this disaster of a season and continued practices that I believe are toxic? I don't know what caused this? Did they ignore youth development in favor of cheap one year contracts because they thought they were close and France was a better bet? Did ownership change course on them... a course change that was hard to change out of? Was it Falvey? Was it Rocco? Was it the Pohlads? I don't know. Anyway... damage is done now. Slate was cleared. If they go back to the methods that didn't work before this off-season. I'll be full throated in my cries for immediate change.