Riverbrian

In regards to the original post. I think it was a fantastic post and something that needed to be said. I'm glad Trov said it. It won't raise much debate because in my opinion, it can't be argued with and those who attempt to debate it are probably not considering it nor inclined to consider it but they should be looking at it and looking at it hard. The GM or POBO job is extremely difficult. The CBA lays out clear limitations that make individual roster decisions for the 40 man or 26 man impossible to get 100% correct and I will contend until the Cows come home that there are a handful of superstars out there and there are handfull of players with no business in the major leagues. The rest are a big collection of players in the middle. Front offices must make these individual roster decisions in the face of additional filters such as trying to win right now. Projections, not past results but future performance because we assume the coaching staff is actively working with all players to get better and improve past performance. Front office has budget considerations because all teams have a budget, they have to work with what other teams want in terms of our excess talent and how they assess our talent. Players ping pong... sample sizes need to be built... the margins are thin and hard lines and decisions have to be drawn. I've been saying for multiple years that these roster spots are gold and should be treated as such. Intelligent posters can't understand my point about Bride just wasting a roster spot as I come across as some Bride Fan and the poster just doesn't like Jonah Bride. When I'm talking about the value of the roster spot and wasting it while Ty France plays every day because we haven't developed Ty France level. I mainly refer to the 26 man spots that are available because that's the the first filter from the 40 man that players have to get through in order to improve the current team now and in the future. Regardless everything Trov is saying about the 40 man is correct. Admittedly my response to your post was talking about the 26 man roster holes and the budget remaining to fill those off-season holes and how it might play a role in our deadline decisions... which in my opinion is germaine to the topic... But OK, let's go to the 40 man. Trov is correct. Actually, he is off by one but his point remains valid and I'm not going to split hairs. They currently have two players on the 60 day for a total of 42. Keaschall and Lopez are on the 60. Tonkin accepted outright assignment about a month ago. Some of our current 40 man players will be easy calls to jettison to make room but not a bunch. Come December the Twins will have to consider additions to the 40 man or risk losing the player per CBA rules. I'm not going to project who I think the Twins will add out of names like Lewis, Morris, Schobel, De Andrade, G. Gonzalez, Prelipp and others but if the Twins feels there is a chance of any of them being claimed... they got to roster them. It's another filter attached to all trade considerations. Trov is correct. The Twins have put themselves in a position of being squeezed at the top financially because the budget is maxed out and will be maxed out next year and then squeezed on the 40 man at the bottom in terms of rising prospects plus the addition of whoever we acquire in sell mode. In the middle of all of that squeezing, we have watched our farm products crash against a major league wall resulting in the starting of this season with 8 pre-arb players which is well below the majority of our competition so you kind of wonder if it matters at all. AND HERE IT IS JULY and we have Keaschall and... and... umm... Travis Adams? that have auditioned for next year to add to the 5 pre-arb players (Wallner, Festa, Richarson, Varland and Lee) that we think will be with us next year. We have no major league information on players to get us up to 10 or 13 or 18 like other clubs and 40 MAN DECISIONS to make starting right now with this trade deadline. The 26 man is the critical point but it all starts with the 40 man. I'm scared for our future when I start wondering what's the point of gathering additional prospects in sell mode when the Twins are seemingly only willing to fully commit to only the bare minimum of players making the bare minimum resulting in the situation we are in now. Discussing on TwinsDaily the trade of Joe Ryan for prospects as Ty France and Christian Vazquez are played like superstars.

While I strongly disagree with the "what are our realistic chances in the playoffs" reasoning. I do agree that I don't like our odds of reaching. For 2026... We will have at least 7 26 man roster spots to fill based on our current expiring contracts. The money saved on those contracts will be spent on arbitration raises. I don't have any expectation that a new owner will drastically increase pay roll. I have no reason to think the Twins manager or front office are comfortable just flooding the roster with an increase of youth to fill the roster spots. So I'm guessing an additional move beyond the expiring contracts to free up additional money... that can be spread thinly across the open spots on the roster this off-season.

With the DFA of Lou Trevino and the call up of a young bullpen arm. The Dodgers have risen from 10 to 11 players with less than 3 years experience on their 26 man roster. The Twins arrived at Dodger Stadium with 10 players. The Dodgers have a record of 59-42 The Twins have a record of 48-52 I post these pre-arb totals once a series to illustrate how our Twins compare to the other 29 teams in terms of young affordable talent. The reason I am doing this is to show how the Twins have fallen behind in regards to development. To show that the Twins are building their roster in a similar fashion to the Dodgers and Phillies (without Dodger and Phillies Money) while the Tigers and Brewers have double the pre-arb totals. I always post the records to fairly show the results of the efforts. To show that youth doesn't mean wins and more importantly show that youth doesn't mean losses. To show that not every team are the Brewers on the high end and not every team are the Twins on the low end. In the end, the Twins are spending 30 to 50 million a year to cover this development shortfall.

I was going to post that when we play the Dodgers. I've been doing it once a series... So for those who want to wait until then... Spoiler Alert... STOP READING HERE: As of July 19 the answer is 10 - The exact same number as the Twins have today. The Twins are in a similar situation as the Dodgers without similar money.

The Rockies 26 man roster contains 15 Pre-Arb players. The Twins arrived in Denver with 10 Pre-Arb players The Twins are currently 47-50 The Rockies are 23-74

The second sentence says it. Third sentence... I'm not ready to throw in that towel... but I'm doing arm exercises just in case I have to give it a chuck. These strength of schedule attempts at analysis are fun and even interesting... but like your 2nd sentence accurately states. If your team is playing well... it isn't going to matter much who they play. If your team isn't playing well... it isn't going to matter much who they play. That goes for all 29 teams. If you catch the Rockies when they are playing well. If you catch the Dodgers when they are not. One game at a time... put your cleats on. Worry about your own business.

This is such a good sentence and it should be repeated over and over. This sentence speaks volumes. If they don't think they have the players on the farm. They should tender their resignations because apart from wins. Having the players in their system is the single most important job that they have. If the players don't exist... they haven't done the job required.

As Fonsie would say: Exactamundo. Or was that Laverne or Shirley? If you want to extend Jose Ramirez you have to develop Jose Ramirez. And in addition to that... you have to be able to afford the extension. And you can't afford the extension because your roster is filled with players in arbitration or one year free agent necessities because you are light on players that don't cost money. For a team going for it... Why is trading Joe Ryan a legitimate discussion? It's a legitimate discussion because Arb raises are going to eat up the majority of money coming off the books and we still have 7 to 9 roster holes that need to be filled. So the answer is to: A. Trade Joe Ryan to free up cash to fill the 8 other holes that need filling. B. Trade Duran and Jax to free up the cash to keep Joe Ryan and still have the problem with the 8 other holes that need filling. C. Sell everything not nailed down. Buxton and Correa are nailed down and surround those two with the future in an all at once fashion. If the answer is C... I'm going to ask for a new front office to lead us through this since the reason answer C is the option is because of their development failure. An influx of players that need development in the hands of people who are not developing is like turning the faucet on with the drain wide open. One last point... that fits what we are talking about. How does Dombrowski get fired in Boston? He won a world series and gets fired. How is that possible? It's possible he got fired because he had left himself with nothing coming from the farm... while payroll continued to increase. Payroll was maxed out... the team had a down year. The owner asks him how to fix it and he has no choice but to ask for more money because he burnt down the cheaper option avenue. Enter Bloom to reset the franchise. Which he does despite some additional down years as the Red Sox are now in the process of bringing in multiple high end players making the minimum. Bloom will get the Cards farm producing... Bank on it. Dombrowski is doing well in Philly but seems to be a little more attentive to the farm this time around.

Things are rarely black and white so it's probably a combination of both things you list... plus other stuff we haven't even thought of. I have no idea what specifically is wrong inside the operation but something is wrong. I'll start with a premise that could play a major role in there decision making. I could be right... I could be wrong but here goes. The Twins are going for it... right now... That's it... that's the premise... and they have been going for it for many years now . That mindset is the path they have chosen... going for it and NOT quite getting there potentially causing a sacrifice of tomorrow. Nothing wrong with going for it... a rebuild isn't necessarily necessary. The problem is that the Brewers, Rays and Cleveland are also going for it with a completely different approach. I was guessing that the Brewers were going to rebuild after trading Corbin Burnes. They didn't. They just capably replaced Corbin Burnes with players from their system. They had faith in what they were doing on the development side. The Twins don't display that same faith toward THEIR own development. Why? I don't know but it's the crux of the problem in my eyes. Why is that? Is it their belief that they need seasoned players in order to consistently go for it and limiting opportunity from the farm or are they looking at their pile of players on the farm and not liking what they see. Either way... it's a development problem and ultimately we are low on pre-arb players while the Brewers have double the amount and still going for it.

Absolutely... Have your Coors and get a Blue Moon at the spot it was first brewed. While you are enjoying those 10 to 20 beers at the stadium... Get the Elvis Shake. It's not something you are going to make at home and you can't find it at the local Dairy Queen or Cold Stone. Despite the unique combination of ingredients (Banana Ice Cream, Peanut Butter, Caramel Corn and Bacon). It actually tastes OK... but... admittedly you'll be braver to try one after 8 beers. If you drive yourself to Coors Field... Rental Car or road tripping in a Kia like I did. I'll pass along that downtown Denver is a nice walk in the summer time, the parking was plentiful and progressively cheaper as you drive away from the stadium. I found a nice spot with a nice walk for a very reasonable price by not pulling into the first location I saw.

It's hard for us mere mortals. Myself I've reached the point where I believe we have a development problem based on an imperfect system. Simply counting the younger players on every team on the 26 man roster to start the season and the numbers on every team once the injuries and call up start happening. It's unfair for me to judge with this basic approach because I'm not counting stats on the younger players and adding them up for a measurement of production. I'm counting the numbers for financial reasons and the obvious budget that our team must adhere to. In order to really measure... you'd have to take their numbers add them together and average them out and compare them to the vets. Lots of data entry involved so make sure you have drinks and snacks nearby. If anybody did this type of research... I'd be absolutely interested in the results. But it would have to be comprehensive... All 30 teams. That will only get you so far because you still have the unanswerable question of who gets credit for the development. In the case of trades... Did Ryan develop with the Rays or did the Twins find something. Did Ryan find it on his own or did the Twins development team find something. In the meantime... Yet while unfair... It's also fair because I'm sitting here wondering how the Twins are so low on pre-arb players and how the Brewers are beating us and others with double the amount. The Brewers have two major league rotations right now. The one in Milwaukee and the one in Nashville that would probably be better than 5 teams in the majors right now. The Twins have the vet presence of teams like the Phillies but we don't spend that kind of money. Milwaukee could trade Joe Ryan and not miss a beat. As a matter of fact... they have traded Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Devin Williams and seem to come out of it stronger every time and for 30 million dollars less than the Twins spend. 30 Million... that's one BIG FREE AGENT that the Twins could add to the roster. Why do we need to trade Joe Ryan... Not to copy the Brewers... but to plug the holes that the farm isn't filling because we are not copying the Brewers... we are more like the Phillies.

The trade of Joe Ryan doesn't mean the end of 2025 for the Twins. It just makes us more uncomfortable and less optimistic because it's a name we know and trust. If it's possible to be less optimistic in consideration of the current state of optimism expressed on Twinsdaily. The Red Sox were 36-36 when they traded Rafael Devers. Alex Bregman was also on the injured list. They have gone 16-8 since. The trade of Joe Ryan doesn't mean the end sometimes it means the beginning. With that said... if the Twins trade Joe Ryan... If they trade Joe Ryan. They better do a better job with the young prospects acquired then they have done with their own farm raised prospects. It's important to note... very important to note that the primary reason that a Joe Ryan trade can be justified in July of 2025 is because they haven't done a good job raising their young for many years now. If they struggle with the raising of their own young... bringing them more young to raise seems to be a bad idea... it would be like trying to collect water in your sink with the drain wide open.

This is everything in a one sentence. Playing Ty France every day like he's Freddie Freeman or Pete Alonso is a neon sign.

Correct and Clemens is probably only getting the opportunity to be stuck with because he had that two week stretch where he was one of the best hitters in baseball. Without that... he would be no different than Jonah Bride. That's why I can't fault them entirely for playing the long game. You kind of have to because trying to time the streaks is probably impossible. Want to bench Royce Lewis because he has been below terrible for a long stretch. You might sit him down right when he is just about to come out of it. Clemens is hot now... Clemens just went cold... Hey He's hot again. Clemens and everyone will go hot and cold over the course of a season. Dare I say it... Buxton will probably fall for a stretch this year. However, for these very same reasons... I will fault them when they glue someone to the bench because they don't know who is going to go Kody Clemens for a stretch. If you got a hitter in hot streak... keep playing them until they cool down. If you got a hitter in a rough patch... play him... just not as much. If a hitter reaches June hasn't woken up. You got to start thinking about alternatives and possibly acting on those alternatives.

Every year there is going to be a discrepancy between expected and actual in regards to each individual player. Pleyers ping pong up and down throughout the season and they ping pong year by year. It's hard to get it right. Right or Wrong (I'm not saying it's right or wrong)... the Twins will consistently play the long game in hopes of a better 2nd half from those they expect to perform when it's all said and done. By long game I mean... they will ride with the players they expect to perform until they actually do... or the clock runs out on the season and they don't. Sometimes they bounce back... a lot of times they just don't. It doesn't matter to me what everyone thinks of Kody Clemens. I wasn't comfortable with his acquisition at the time it happened and that also doesn't matter. Many are thinking he will turn back into a pumpkin eventually and maybe he will... maybe he won't but that also doesn't matter. On the year thus far. Only two players have an OPS over .800... Buxton and Clemens. In the past 30 days. Clemens has the 2nd highest OPS on the team. His batting average isn't amazing but 6 bombs in 50 AB's in the past 30 days (most of them clutch) and he has been our 2nd best hitter. The key is 50 AB's in the past 30 days compared to Ty France with his 73 AB's in the past 30 days with a .228 OPS and an even worse .274 slug. Has Rocco finally chosen Clemens over France? Not entirely but Clemens did make 3 starts at 1B (plus 1 at 2B) in the past 5 games all vs. Righties. 2 for France in that time frame. Jeffers and Vazquez... Pretty much equal playing time as they split those catching duties right down the middle. One has a .468 slug over the last 30 days and the other has .098... I'll let you all figure out who is who but those catching duties remain split right down the middle with Jeffers getting some extra DH work against left handed pitchers. Correa and Lewis were supposed to hitters... Doesn't matter if they are not... They get every day playing just like they are. The Twins will stay with them until they prove the Twins right for playing them every day. Bottom Line: The Twins tend to choose the guys they like best and they sink or swim with them. They will absorb a lot of sinking waiting for the occasional swim.

I'd be alright with you in charge.

The Pirates came to town with 12 Pre-Arb players on the 26 man roster. The Twins had 10 Pre-Arb players this weekend. The Pirates are 39-58 The Twins are 47-49.

Somewhere in the universe... there is a way to get your best pitchers more innings and your worse pitchers less innings. I don't know the answer but somewhere in the universe there is an idea that will allow you to increase the innings of your best pitchers. Some of your bullpen guys are your best pitchers and some those sitting in the starting rotation are your worst. The standard rotation and bullpen utilization that has been in place for decades surely can't be the method that will be used in the year 2057. So yeah... I agree with you. To me... Jax doesn't even have to start... he can come in any inning and throw 2 or 3 innings... just increase his work load incrementally like the Dodgers are doing with Shohei Ohtani right now. Just figure out a way to increase his innings, determine what the rest interval should be and get your best pitchers to cover as many innings as they can. I'd love for someone smarter than me and the authority to give it a shot give it a whirl.

Agree 99% The 1%... I continue to believe that you don't trade for Rushing or Basallo to fill the massive hole at catcher. Take your limited trade capitol that you'd spend on a catcher and trade for a player who can in theory play 162 games instead. Rushing will play 120 games max or in the case of the 50/50 thing we do... 100 games. On the other hand for a similiar price... if not less (Insert 1B Prospect) could potentially be available for all 162. I get the importance of catching but I'd rather the organization sleep in the bed they made rather than over pay to fix it. Everything else is spot on. The Tigers are another prime example. They sold last year at the deadline because they thought the season was over. It ended up being the fastest rebuild in the history of the sport. I'm sure Tigersdaily was pissed initially and look at them now. The trading of Joe Ryan doesn't have to signify a full rebuild. The teams you have mentioned have kept their train rolling with these types of moves but they have been able to consistently capably succussfully backfill with home grown talent making the minimum. However, the trading of Joe Ryan so they can take the money he would get in arbitration just to spread it around and fill 9 open spaces is what signifies it time for a full rebuild. When JT Brubaker, James McCann, Dominic Smith come rolling into Fort Myers with Baldelli gushing about them to the press with payroll still around 140 million. You might as well start over at that point. I have no reason to expect this front office/manager will leave Fort Myers with a plane containing, 7 or 8 rookies sitting in the back of the plane. Not with the faith they exhibit toward their own product, not when they demonstrate that they would rather roster cast off's developed by other organizations when 26 man spots open up.

Can you flip a switch? I wouldn't. Can you dial it upward? Yes you can. Get the innings count up from 70 to 90 or 100 innings. But... I get it. Boxes. Players must be placed in boxes. There is either or and nothing in between. He either starts and throws 180 innings or he makes one inning appearances for 60 innings a year. Nothing in between. Can you hang a zero and how many can you hang?

I spent almost a day trying to figure out how to quote this line from this discussion and respond to it in a more appropriate discussion. Couldn't figure out how to do that. So... Oh Well. Yes... it is quite possible that they will not offer arbitration to Trevor Larnach. If they don't offer arb... That's pretty impressive. They literally waited until Trevor's last year with the club to give him AB's vs lefties.

Your scenerio would be awesome... I've just lost faith. We have had a top ranked farm system for back to back to back to back years and still find the team in this position. A mass import from the farm like you suggest would change the ratios and provide payroll flexibility to keep players we'd like to keep. But... I'm just not in a good place right now. I can't shake the feeling your scenerio is a ready or not here they come because we have no choice scenario. Now that scenerio did work for the Tigers very well last year but do the Twins have that in them... I'm not sure. The Brewers have been steadier in a year by year filling of the gaps from within which doesn't require the mass harvest.

This is a great post. I have my concerns and I'm not afraid to express them but I'm pretty sure it's a tough tough job that comes with immediate expectation and future expectation. You got to balance winning today with an eye toward the future. The gray area is immense... the black and the white areas are thin thin hard to see lines. I just can't endorse these guys handling a rebuild because if we require a rebuild, it will be due to this development lull that has happened on their watch. I don't who or why... but the what seems to be apparent at this point.

No argument. I'll add a couple of thoughts though. Arb players are generally cost effective unless... they are really successful like Joe Ryan. That changes the equation and of course... and I know you know this... the years spent in arbitration. We will only have two entering Arbitration next year on the low end of the pay scale. That 22% is about to go up. Anyway... I know we are not in disagreement. This team has a budget and how that budget is spent... either big at the top or players at the minimum will determine if you can afford Joe Ryan. Correa certainly creates an obstacle that the front office needs to work around. But, this Correa obstacle was placed into the path of this car 3 years ago and it's not really movable but it's existence didn't sneak up on the front office driving the car. So the next thing to look at is... How do you work around it? or better yet and more positively how do you work with it? The money is spent... what are you doing with the rest of it?

I'm glad you see it. Welcome to a very small club. Most the time I have to over explain to no avail how I don't have a problem with Harrison Bader himself but have a problem with the need for Harrison Bader. Everybody not making the minimum is a dent in payroll. We are in this situation because of arbitration raises. We spend too much time looking at the big contracts. The goal should be to keep a healthy pipeline of prospects (Like other teams are successfully doing) so we can hang on to the money in the budget so we can keep players like Joe Ryan when they go up in price or add another big contract via free agency. This isn't a problem that just sprung on us. It's been building because of low numbers of making the minimum over the years. It's been building because of the strip mining of parts of our left handed hitting prospects, the failure (thus far) of those that they placed bets on... like Julien and Miranda, the trading of prospects like Steer for more expensive players and last but not least... the lack in faith the organization places on players that the manager won't utilize when they get a cup of coffee on the 26 man because he is too worried about the game today with no regard to tomorrow or how they could work into the future of this organization. Lee comes up and gets every opportunity. Everybody else requires multiple injuries for the chance to show they could help. Producing a 900 plus OPS in St. Paul does not remove this lack of faith in their own product at the major league level. Vet players producing below .700 OPS does not create a lack of faith in the vet or move the needle on the lack in faith in the prospect at the major league level. The result is a concentration on one or two prospects a year that they do have faith in. Lee and Keaschall for example and that will not produce the numbers necessary to afford Joe Ryan when his arb number goes up 16 million a year. Eventually it crashes, We can't afford the players we want to keep and we are forced to turn the kids loose anyway due to a lack of options but we will starting two years behind our competition because our influx of young talent will be year one and the other organizations will have year one, year two and year three of players making the minimum. There was always a bill to pay for how they have been treating young pre-arb players. For this lack of faith in them. The possibility of trading Joe Ryan is what it says on this invoice. If not Ryan... others.