Brandon

If the new GM is a current assistant GM their replacement could come from outside too giving a new voice.

In Levine’s defense I think the scouting department and coaches have a say too as they are signing players with issues they think they can improve on and make work. Some work out Theilbar, Wisler, Solano, Santana, Rich Hill, Odorizzi, Pineda, Maeda…. And some don’t like Mahle, Jay Jackson, Shoemaker, honestly looking back more moves worked out then not. But the reality looking forward is there are not many moves to make with the stability of this roster contractually. Our rotation is pretty set though 2027. The line up is mostly set too except we will probably trade players to help restock our farm system to let higher ceiling prospects play. (E Rod and Jenkins). We have depth starters so it’s basically bench and bullpen tweaks the next 3/4 years. Offseason shop talk will be fun……

Margot did better than the alternative player Taylor. And Margot’s failure comes from how he was used at times. Jackson was a failure but Staumant had a nice run for 850,000. Along with acquiring Desclafini we were able to sign Santana and that worked out well. Blewett, Henriquez and Tonkin worked out well. (Henriquez was acquired in previous season). I grade out Falvey as B+ we have a top 3 farm system and he did the best he could with negative resources to work with.

This was an obvious move. Glad it’s out of the way. On to more offseason stuff. There are not many moves to make this offseason. So enjoy the few depth signings a bullpen arm, a middle IF, and backup OF signings. Maybe a Paddack trade. Possibly a hitter like a DH part time 1B. Those last two would be our big offseason moves.

Austin Martin was clearly an average offensive player when compared to others coming off the bench. In addition to what I stated above he was successful on 7 of 10 stolen base attempts and scored 41 runs in 233 AB so good numbers there. Probably a good base runner for pinch running. Yes his Defense needs work. But he is still a C for a bench player.

How did he grade out in the corners? I didn’t know he was that bad in CF. I thought he was passable but needed some work getting used to CF still I imagine.

my evaluation of the evaluation of hitters. Nick you were pretty spot on. I think though on the bench players you grade them with higher expectations then you should. our bench is actually one of the best in the league if you go an look at other teams benches. granted ours is a big step back from last years bench where the bench was interchangeable with the starters which never happens. Martin had a solid walk and K rate and had 20 XBH in 233 AB HIs OPS is still low but his defense is also solid. I would give him a C. Margot was pretty bad. even noticably lower than his career numbers. if you take out his pinch hitting he is atleast hitting his career averages. the drop in defensive ability was also disappointing as I am sure that was his calling card. I give him an F for pinch hitting and C- for the rest of his performance and D to D- overall. Farmer had a terrible slump to start the season. 3 for 47. he had over a .740 OPS the rest of the way which is pretty good for a back up. or you can say it was around .700 which is still ok for a back up then went hercules for about a month. So I would give him an F through April 24th and a B+ after that. and an overall grade of C-/D+ You got Velazquez right. On the position player side. Miranda finished with a .763 OPS which is in the C or C- range. yes he was really good then really bad. but his overall is in that range. Castro also slumped really bad as his numbers of a .717 OPS is not very good. I would give him a solid C cause he still made the All Star team and is versatile. again all nitpicking.

With Lopez, Ober and Ryan our top 3 having several #4 starters is fine by me. Woods-Richardson pitched like a #2-3 for half a season and Festa had a good K rate with a decent showing after his first two starts, so it's not like they don't have promise. E Rod should be up next season at some point as well to help the offense.

My biggest disagreement is on Paddacks grade. We were expecting 100-120 innings we got 88.33. He was good in more starts than he was bad. When he was bad he was really bad so his ERA is inflated. I would give him a C possibly C+. my other complaints are Zebby because the lens you should grade him on is expectations in the bigs and he met some, but was more hittable than hoped for. Nice control and K numbers a C- possibly C for how good his control was. Kinda like Festa’s first two starts. He gave up lots of runs but still made it through 5 innings. Alcala I give a B- for all the reasons you gave. I think I give him more credit for how good his first half was so his fall was the same but from a higher place then where you had him. last complaint López. He was a C-/D+ the first half and A or A- the second which should give you a B- /C+ grade. basically nitpicking.

The season was supposed to start out as Lopez, Ober, Ryan , Paddack, Desclafini, with Varland as the 6th starter Desclafini got hurt and Varland failed. That’s two starters down and the Twins got a lucky break as Woods -Richardson came out of knowwhere and had a good rookie season. The Twins needed another starter with Paddack getting injured and Festa came up and did well after his first two starts. With Ryan getting hurt Mathews came up and had a few good starts and several clunkers. The Twins did try to acquire Kikuchi and Houston overpaid more than we should for him. But the rotation was not the problem. The pen was short a few relievers and the offense collapsed. We need a new hitting coach!. But at the deadline we didn’t know the offense was going to crash. We did know we needed a one arm and we should have pushed more for one or two. But with the budget and cost in trade why?

Margot didn’t help the offense much either but you should add up all of the innings that we signed or acquired and show their results. But you should list all of the acquisitions like Duarte and Bowman and Tonkin twice and Irvin …. They did well with Santana signing. That went really well. Also the young pitching looks promising. Festa and Woods-Richardson. And we have a top 3 farm system in MLB so it ain’t all bad.

Byron has 4 years remaining on his contract. He will be the starting CF for at minimum the next 3 and likely the next 4 unless he gets injured enough over the next two to really slow him down. I think he finishes his contract in CF and if the Twins resign him they will then move him around.

The point of it all is to end up on this thread of course 😃👍

The Tigers think the Twins are the 87 Blue Jays. And apparently so do we. The 87 Jays lost a 3 game lead with 7 left to play to allow the Tigers to make the playoffs against the Twins in 87.

We find out about pitching depth every year. it never ends. At best Theilbar should only get a 1 year deal for a lower base pay and incentives that can reach around 3 million if given enough appearances. something like 1 million base and 1 million at 40 appearances, with 250k each at 45, 50, 55, and 60 appearances. unless another team offers more. I am clearly not opposed to a minor league deal either. But with a season like this one I do think we need to dial expectations back on him next year if he is back and consider him a mid reliever.

Looking at his numbers you can see that his ERA is higher then in years past. Why is that and what has changed? Looking at his traditional stat line you notice that he has given up more hits and twice as many walks compared to the last several years. His strike out rate is the same. And his homeruns per 9 innings is in line with his career average. Let’s dive deeper and look at more numbers. He is giving up contact at similar rates. His LD% is actually a full 1% lower than his career average. His ground ball % is 7% higher than his career average and his flyball rate is down 3% from his career average. What I don’t know is if his stuff is less than years past things like fast fastball speed, spin rate on pitches resulting in movements. What I can see is that it seems more ground ball hits are falling in than normal Since the line drive % is down, I would think there is more luck / groundball hits going against him. He is also walking twice as many hitters as he has in the past which is adding even more base runners. And third. This hasn’t been stated on here but with the bigger bases and more steals he has given up 7 stolen bases with no caught stealing. Since 2020 3 was the most stolen bases against him in a season and no one has been caught against him this year. Theilbar’s effectiveness loss comes down to 3 things. 1. More hits on the ground are getting through. 2. Twice as many walks 3 base runners getting the jump on running to the next base. 1 of these is luck and the other two are tightening up on holding runners and throwing more strikes. I do believe Theilbar can make a comeback and be good again next season but he has to tighten up his game. I would love to hear others thoughts and analysis on his season. does anyone else think that a few teaks could have him being an effective middle reliever again?

Looking back it did seem like the bullpen is where we needed to add. The Twins did drive up the price of Kukichi for Houston. The Twins were right not to pay that price. The Twins could have used one more high leverage bullpen arm but we did have lots of depth options. The real problem is no one was thinking the offense would crater as Correa and Buxton were out for most of the last two months and Lewis slumped badly during that time. So did Miranda and Julien / Lee combo and All Star Castro and Kepler all slumped. Wallner, Farmer, Santana, Jeffers, and Larnarch have been the offense. With a spurt of Velazquez for a month after the break. There was no way to plan for the offensive collapse. But that is the biggest reason why we are here. I suspect having another high leverage arm might have prevented a game losing blow up or two and that right now that really matters but having a better offense would have put us in first place. though this article is spot on in attacking for not getting a reliever, it wasn’t as big of a need at the deadline as it has been the last 30 days. The offense was humming along and so was our pitching too. Not letting payroll go up a million or two for a reliever acquisition is inexcusable that is why everyone is so mad and rightfully so. I hope in future seasons we are able to spend a little to go for it. Atleast so we have the optics of going for it. And while pitching was humming along there were concerns with Paddack being hurt and Woods-Richardson was approaching his career high in innings pitched. But glad they didn’t acquire a crap starter and didn’t pay a higher price for Kukichi.

Maeda, Sonny Gray, Jake Odorizzi and Jaime Garcia were good trades. (Jamie Garcia had one effective start before the Twins traded him again but that still counts).

Perkins is in the Jax category ahead of Duffey. Probably tied maybe a little ahead of Tyler Rogers. Cory Lewis is also a prospect who reached AAA this season on the Twins pitching prospect chart. Kyle Gibson gets no love here? First round draft pick has over 100 career wins and is on track to finish between 130-150. Berríos is at 99 career wins. He could make it to 200 if he stays healthy.

And an extra pitcher for the double header too.

Twins are a HR neutral park so that will help but this week is on the road. I think he would work best as a piggyback starter but you want Irvin going first in case he sucks and you can put your b relievers in. But 3 - 4 innings from Irvin followed by 3 from Festa should be a solid combo.

Swanson has been a league average hitter since signing with the Cubs. Boegarts was solid last year and below average this year for the Padres. I think he even got moved off of SS too. Turner is good but was never signing here. And I don’t think he is a plus defender. On a per game basis Correa seems to be one of the best signings. And if you include the SS class from the previous year only Seager comes out significantly better statistically. Semien does too except he is at 2B. We are getting good value from Correa when he is on the field and healthy. Let’s hope he gets better and can gut out the playoffs with peak performance if we don’t blow it on the way there.

And they are getting the results needed too. Tonkin has a 4.76 ERA but Blewett is 2 earned runs in 14 innings with 12 Ks and 3 BB and 13 hits. Is it sustainable? I don't know. He does have a high nineties fastball if i read correctly. But he is also low leverage. I am not saying he will have a great career. He has had a great last 4-6 weeks and we just need that to last another 4 more weeks is all I am saying.

DFA ??? really? I mean you can make a case for Tonkin. All I am saying about Tonkin is that he is an ok 8th man out of the pen. Blewett isn't blowing it. He has 11..67 innings with 11 to 3 K to BB ratio and not giving up runs either. He could be on a streak through the playoffs. Is he a DFA candidate who knows maybe. but he is on a tear right now. Henriquez, He is the most stable of all at this point with 27.67 career innings with the Twins with an ERA of 2.60. His FIP is around 4.01 so with that he is still serviceable. This is the performance for the back of the bullpen. the 7,8 and 9th man in the pen since its expanded in September. for the playoffs we can bring one or two of these pitchers with the team to be the bottom end of the pen to pitch in likely losses to keep the score down in case we are able to come back. so I don't understand how this is pathetic. can you explain with facts and data?

The Cleveland series is 4 games. We sweep that we are back in the division title business. I won't resign myself to wild card only till after that series. with our two best players back and maybe a healthy Kepler we could be very competitive here on out. Our offense and defense will improve with these two. It will take pressure off of Walner and Lewis too. The back of our pen has been pitching well too. Blewitt, Henriquez, and now Varland with Tonkin who has been ok. My confidence level is real high if Correa and Buxton are truly injury free. I do like this article comparing records needed to ensure our way into the playoffs, but it would also be cool to see our path to the division title too even if we don't like the outlook.