Riverbrian

Complete overhaul? I can’t advocate anything yet because I’m not sure if they simply don’t trust or are flat out failing to develop players they will trust. If they are failing to develop players that they trust. They need a complete overhaul of the system because they have fallen behind. If they are just not trusting. That just takes an attitude adjustment from the decision makers. Not holding my breath at this point. So eventually we will need a removal of that particular bottleneck. As for platoons. I’m done with them. Used to be OK with them because they made sense statistically but the Twins took it too far. Now I just see them as a slight advantage or disadvantage for one AB that will compromise the development of players and therefore the future of the club. Forget the name McCusker… insert name here. If they give someone a 26 man spot. He needs to be allowed to compete… not put to sleep while players are playing every day with a .600 OPS. If the manager doesn’t allow him to compete. Get someone else. If you don’t have anyone else. The organization requires a complete overhaul. Because the Twins don’t have a roster that the Dodgers or Phillies have… 9 players from top to bottom… yet we have the same amount of pre-arb players and the attitude that Ty France can’t leave the lineup.

It’s a hard job. Like timing the stock market is a hard job. The limitations of the 40 man and 26 man roster is going to require placing your bets on this player and betting against this player. This is why I don’t blame the Twins for missing on Rooker. But it can’t be argued that they didn’t miss. They missed and missed big. The problem is simply the wasting of 26 man roster space. When a player is called up and placed on the 26 man roster and then not utilized due to predetermination. They better be right. They bet on Julien and Miranda this year. I did to. They were wrong thus far… so was I. When Rooker surfaces elsewhere… I have every right to look at them and say. Bet on the wrong horse Eh? How are Celestino and Garlick doing? Are you sure about McCusker? How can you be so sure? Are you sure about Lewis? How can you be so sure?

The Twins are not the only team that can’t pull players out of a pile. All 30 teams make these mistakes. Predetermined opportunities is a main reason why. Lewis will get every chance to become what they expect him to become. Max Kepler will get every chance to become what they expect him to become. Others not so much. Oakland also missed. It took an injury and a bad rebuilding team to get on the roster for Rooker. Even Oakland didn’t know what they had until they ran out of options and sent him to the plate.. The Twins missed on Rooker. I don’t blame the Twins for missing but they missed. If they missed on Rooker who’s to say they ain’t missing on McCusker right now with the same predetermined opportunities allowed or not allowed. With Rooker he got a shot to prove the Twins, Padres and Royals wrong. McCusker may not get that chance to prove anyone wrong and fade into the baseball wind with the thousands of others.

They better be right. Hand selecting this guy and holding back this guy. Lewis better not fail. Rooker better not thrive elsewhere.

We may be sellers by the end of July. If we are in contention. Offense will be the biggest need. Don’t care what position.

If the Angels would trade those 3 for Carlos. I hope Carlos and his family will enjoy Orange County.

Let’s say McCusker comes up and is much more aggressive and he gets 4 ABs vs lefties and he hits 4 home runs. Will it matter? I mean besides the home runs that put a run or two on the board for the team. Will it matter to the future of McCusker? Will his utilization all of sudden change? Or will he continue facing 25% of the pitching?

If he is coming up to face left handers at the expense of Wallner and Larnach. Please don’t. If he is coming up to simply face left handers period. Please don’t. If Rocco or anyone on Twinsdaily feels that we have 9 players that have to be in the lineup everyday. Please don’t call him or anyone up. However… that strategy better work because all eggs will be in that basket. Good luck to all involved.

Ups Downs. We are on a down. We will feel better on an up in the future.

I’m not there yet but if I do I’m going right past Rocco and pointing my finger at his boss.

I've been taking opportunities to point out our opponents lately so those who are not watching the other teams or not inclined to watch or care. Tonight it's the Brewers with 17 Pre-Arb players on the 26 man roster. The Brewers are currently 40-35 while the Twins are 37-37.

I've been saying for a couple of years now. I will judge this front office on development and development alone. I'm not impressed with their ability to cobble together low cost vets and remain competitive. That bill will come due with a loud crash and a high draft pick the following year. When you look at the young talent coming in. Yes... some crash and burn but there are plenty of pre-arb talent that is performing at least on par with what the low cost vets are doing. If you only look at the Twins... you will develop a distaste for the young player because we are not developing. If you look at the rest of the league... that distaste goes away and you see that this can be done without the low cost vet eating into payroll. We have a development problem. And the Catcher position is perhaps one of the loudest examples.

Anyway you slice it. The key to everything is development and I am really concerned about the offensive side of the ledger. This thing will crash... we can't keep France-ing our way through this and not adding decent pre-arb talent. Every non-pre arb player on the roster will eat into that budget. The Tigers with the best record in baseball have 18 pre-arb players out of 26. The Twins have 7. That 11 player difference is money available in the budget to sign DIFFERENCE MAKERS instead of low cost hope they are at least average players. That's why it was a huge deal when Camargo sat and watched Vazquez OPS in the .500's. That's why it's a big deal that McCusker was held back. That's why Miranda and Julien hitting the struggle button is scary. That's why rostering Bride and not playing him to see if he has anything is a huge deal and that's why only investing playing time in Lewis or Lee types matter. Once you go around the league and count Pre-arb players on the other 29 rosters... you discover that the Twins are low and they are in the same grouping as teams like the Phillies and Dodgers. We can't compete with those teams financially. They are signing BIG MONEY guys and we are signing LOW MONEY guys. We need to be in the pre-arb arena that Detroit and Cleveland and Milwaukee are in so we can take the 4 million here and 4 million there add it together and play at a higher level in the free agent market.

I thought your posts were great. Did I leave an opposite impression? If I did... it wasn't intended. I saw your suggestions. I have no way of knowing exact valuations from each team but I do have the assumption that Quero and Kurtz will be expensive to acquire with similar valuations. Will Joe Ryan (for example) get the deal done? I don't know but we don't have many Joe Ryan value players to offer and I feel it would be a mistake to spend your Joe Ryan bomb on a 60% of the time player... so give me the more ABs that Kurtz will bring,.. if those are my only two options. Trading Lee, Maya and G. Gonzalez for Quero? I don't know who says no in that deal but it better be the Twins saying no. I'm saying yes to that deal if I'm the Brewers and this is the example of that over pay that I want the Twins to avoid filling the catching position. This is the double down fixing their failure. Trades like this are why I'm saying... just lie in the bed you made. Don't damage the team further fixing this damage caused by this failure to develop.

As for this part. Am I OK with a AAA catcher who cannot catch or hit or throw behind the plate? No... I'm not ok with that. I would be rather upset with that. After Jeffers, If we have failed to develop beyond a AAA catcher who cannot catch or hit or throw in the 8.5 years of the Falvey regime... I'm going to be rather unhappy and honestly... I'm already there. What's the bar here. Vazquez? A good defensive catcher with very little bat. We haven't been able to identify a catcher, coach them to be a good defensive catcher at the very least? We can't clear that bar. So now we got to spend another 10 million dollars for the position. In the meantime, Vazquez gets to OPS in the .500 range and regular turn in the rotation without threat to his job. As bad as that is... I feel it would be even worse to correct this failure by committing a significant portion of the available resources to fix it externally because it all ties together under the umbrella of the budget and we need the very little we have. Give up decent prospects? OK... we currently have 7 pre-arb players on the roster. Two of those 7 will be Arb 1 next year. Whose coming to bring that 7 pre-arb players to the 18 that the Tigers have with the best record in baseball. Every player that is not pre-arb dips into the budget. Trading our future to fill this catcher hole will just keep the bad train rolling with the Twins spending 4 million here and 4 million there and 4 million here on average talent to fill those holes that other teams are filling pre-arb. If we are not developing pre-arb talent to free up money and we don't have money to spend. It's just a matter of time before the rebuild is declared and we are hoping that #4 pick overall in the MLB draft is a good one. The Tigers have Dingler. Where is our Dingler? I'd rather they just wear it.

Great Post You nutshell my thoughts pretty good in this first paragraph. We have limited resources (Money - Pre Arb Talent) and those two issues are not a good combination BTW. We have 24 other roster spots that require attention and some of those roster spots are going to be compromised because we don't have the budget. if we choose to spend those limited resources on the catcher position it will prevent us from addressing other positions sufficiently. In other words... we will have to compromise somewhere. I'd rather not spend the little we have at a position where the market prices are inflated and a position that plays roughly 50% of the time. I'd rather take the hit and spend the little money on someone who plays more often. Spend the limited money on a catcher... you don't have money left for a 1B. We are already low on pre-arb players. If you spend your top prospects on a catcher and you'll have to to get a good one. You won't have pre-arb players on the roster in future years, which mean we will patching holes year after year and hoping they perform average like France and not horribly like Margot. Trade a Joe Ryan (For example only) for a young top catching prospect. OK... but... do we want to trade Ryan for a catcher who plays roughly 50% or would it make more sense to trade Joe Ryan for a Cags or Kurtz and stop the 1B revolving door of low budget opens. In a nutshell... we are going to compromise somewhere. I choose catcher and the front office deserves it for failing to develop. I've listed all the pre-arb catchers. Our single success story is Jeffers and he will be gone come 2027. We are currently paying 14.5 million for our catching tandem. We are paying our every day 1B 1 million because we can't afford a 3 million dollar. Take the hit at catcher. Strengthen elsewhere.

Great post. Not having an answer for a Jeffers injury in 2025 is bad enough. Solving this for 2025 is going to require paying market prices and the market prices for catching have been in place for year at a position that only requires playing HALF of all games. However... there is the desperation thing that occurs when you are NOT GROWING YOUR OWN that forces you to pay those prices. Ashbury refers to it as a stupidity Tax. Ashbury is correct. The Twins are spending significant money at the position when they don't have significant money to spend... just to cover for their failure to develop at the position. In 2026 Christian Vazquez will be gone and Ryan Jeffers will be in his third year of arbitration, therefore a pending free agent, therefore most likely not here in 2027. If we don't have a decent next man up for Jeffers in 2025, we will probably be in shopping in the over priced catcher aisle during the off-season for 2026 and doing it again for 2027. The money that we will spend on catching will be money not available to address the other positions. Meanwhile during the 30 million dollar Vazquez era. Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom, Carlos Narvaez, Connor Wong, Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero, Korey Lee, Bo Naylor, Dillon Dingler, Yanier Diaz, Freddie Fermin, MJ Melendez, Logan O' Hoppe, Austin Wells, Ben Rice, Tyler Heineman, Gabriel Moreno, Jose Herrera, Drake Baldwin, Miguel Amaya, Hunter Goodman, Braxton Fulford, Drew Romo, Dalton Rushing, Hunter Feduccia, Agustin Ramirez, Nick Fortes, Francisco Alverez, Jackson Reetz, Rafael Marchan, Joey Bart, Henry Davis, Endy Rodriquez, Patrick Bailey, Ivan Herrera, Pedro Pages, Yohel Pozo and Riley Adams have reached the major league shore, That's 38 pre-arb catchers easily identified on the rosters of other clubs with one tour around the rosters of all 30 teams and I'm sure I missed a few. And let's not forget that Adley, Cal, Kiebert and William Contreras are in the first year of Arbitration. Bottom Line: I don't want MY Twins to over pay for their failure to develop. I don't want them to over pay in prospects and over paying prospects is what it will cost to acquire a catcher in a trade to play half the games. I'd rather they sleep in the bed they made... take the deserved hit they have coming to them at the catcher position, take the resources that they would need to spend on a catcher to play half time and spend those same resources on a player who plays full time at 1B or 2B, 3B, SS or OF. Anyway... Great Post.

Jeffers on the IL is perhaps the worst news we could experience. We are just too thin at the position. My opinion won't be popular but... they must lie in the bed they made. Don't trade for catching. It's too expensive to acquire for someone who will play every other day at most. Next man up... whoever it is... is the next man up. If the next man isn't ready for what the majors will throw at him... that's on the Twins because they've failed to prepare themselves for a Jeffers injury. Not being ready at catcher isn't something new for 2025. Not being ready resulted in the big contract for Vazquez in the first place.

Baseball seasons are roller coasters so I try not to scream too much on the downs. I assume an up is coming at some point. I'd tend to focus on the roller coaster design. I just want to take this time to point out that the Reds sent 6 pre-arb players to the plate last night and probably will be sending 6 to the plate tonight Friedl, De La Cruz, CES, Benson, Steer and McLain. Some are having great years and some are having rough years. The 9 players they sent to the plate last night cost them 16.025 million dollars total for the 2025 season. The Reds are currently 38-35. The Twins are 36-36.

Roster utilization is going to be interesting with the call up of Keirsay. Interesting probably isn't the right word. Nearly Set with no other options is probably the right words. With the OF healthy... I only see that late inning defense and base running replacement for Keirsay. Bride I imagine will be elevated into a short side platoon role and the only practioner of that role. Jeffers will probably handle a lot of DH duty against left handers. This will knock Clemons out and probably Larnach or Wallner whenever a lefty takes the mound and we got a lot of them coming up this week. Against Right Handers... Rocco will have 9 players to choose from for 8 positions. France, Clemons, Lee, Correa, Castro, Buxton, Wallner, Larnach and Bader. One will have to sit and my guess is that Rocco will probably rotate that one spot.

This is why all 13 roster spots matter. We will see how Keirsay is utilized in his return to the majors but with Buxton and Bader on the healthy along with Larnach, Wallner and Castro he won't be needed to start. This puts Bride and Keirsay on the roster. Both players that the manager has given limited playing time to. This is why all 13 roster spots matter. Keeping Bride on ice (Deserved or Not) did nothing to prepare us for one injury. One injury... not two or three injuries which is not unheard of. Bride will probably be busy this week with all the lefties coming down the pipe as he settles into a short side platoon role. Take the Catcher position out and the limited role being offered to Bride and Keirsay and we are rolling with 9 eggs for an 8 egg carton. Slumps from multiple players out of those 9 players that Rocco trusts? Can't fix it. We are going to offensively rise or fall with their fates. We had a hot streak with our pitching leading the way. If the pitching takes a hit and it has... the offense has to make it up and I'm not sure we have that type of offense to make up the difference. All 13 roster spots matter.

Happy Father's Day to you and your Dad!

For clarification: The Joke or my comment about purposely not watching news? For a more light hearted topic. Where are you going on Vacation?

News and Politics attack from the bottom, top and sides. The informed electorate is bunched up in a ball. I'm the Sardine in the very middle of that ball. I decided long ago that I'm not going to choose a style of news so I can be manipulated into committing such acts. I'll watch baseball instead.

Agreed I have knowledge about the dangers of watching news these days and therefore don't and therefore didn't have knowledge.