Brandon

I’m still learning the prospects more and more. If I had more time, I’m sure there are a few more tweaks I would make to my list. Lowering Festa is one of them. Putting Sevirino higher. Combining the three injured players to tie at 19 so I could add others including Lewis…..

Brooks Lee having a nice showing in AA in first full season. Lots of doubles will turn into lots of HR's. Walker Jenkins Probably number 1 but hasn't played yet so I reserve the top spot till after he gets a chance to show his skills professionally. Marco Raya Pitching really well in High A and made a AA appearance. looks promising. Hopefully he can debut next season. Charlee Soto Exciting to see what he will do. Not sure where to rank him. Here looks good to me. David Festa Has a 5. era but lots of Ks hopefully he keeps improving. Matt Wallner Waiting for opportunity to show he can hit in the show..... again.... Emmanuel Rodriguez Needs to show more soon as he is starting to fall down the list. Jordan Balazovic making a nice comeback from the free fall of last season. Simeon Woods Richardson Sliding. I hope he turns it around. Yasser Mercedes I don't know this guy. must be expensive international signing. Noah Miller All Star Defense and no offense. He is made for the current team. Brent Headrick fringe bullpen help but nice depth. Yunior Severino making a nice climb up the ladder. Was a free pickup from Atlanta since they had to let him go back into free agency as a penalty. Jose Rodriguez Still very young and just getting started. Has nice power for his age. Luke Keaschall Should be right there with Severino and Tanner Schobel. Blayne Enlow climbing back up the prospect list though a rough showing in first 3 AAA outings. Matt Canterino Injured and out for the season so in time out at the bottom of the top 20 in wait and see pattern. Austin Martin Coming back from injury so let's wait to see what he does to really evaluate him. He drops for not being around but is still top 20 in wait and see pattern. Connor Prielipp With the impending TJ surgery and the fact, he hasn't pitched much yet I am not sure where to put him. but he is a top prospect he can pitch. Kala'i Rosario This prospect is interchangeable with several others who are having similar seasons. Tanner Schobel, Ben Ross, Chris WIlliams, DaShawn Keirsey..... There are lots of prospects deserving of top 20 towards the bottom of the list. There are many injuries to players who are top 10 when healthy. It becomes hard to pin some of these players who aren't playing or haven't played.

I would love for them to trade for Goldschmidt. Since he is not likely available, lets go with an inexpensive RH hitting OF bat like Pham. I think the Twins need to horde their prospects a little bit more this year. last year we sent out alot of them and we need to restock. Good thing we had a good draft this year as that will help. I think we also had a solid international prospect signing season too if I remember correctly. so hopefully our system rebounds quickly with lots of prospects coming down the pipeline soon.

Torii Hunter is another 1rst round OF hit as was Kirby Puckett. I was sad when we traded Petty because he seemed like Berrios replacement. The drafted pitcher you want to see succeed. Enlow is another. But I still think the trade of Petty for Gray was a good trade. If Petty comes up and has a development year then 5 good ones with Cincinnati we still break even considering the present value of the trade and that Gray did everything and more he was brought over here to do. If he signs a 3 year 60 million extension that would be nice. one thing I have noticed is we are seeing more of our drafted players reach the majors. The thought process from Andy MacPhail former Twins GM is that the goal is for the Twins to develop 2-3 players a season to the majors and we are doing that. Though Baltimore (Cano, Tyler) Cincinnati (Steer and CES and eventually Petty) and almost Detroit (Baddoo and I guess Goodrum though not with team anymore) also benefitting. Our farm system got a lot stronger with this draft. I am excited to see where our system ranks now. Though we did just graduate 2 top 100 prospects (Julien and Lewis).

Joe Ryan is 1991 Scott Ericksom

The front office is not holding on to Kepler or Gallo out of stubbornness or inability to admit being wrong. They have made changes in the past. I think the front office is giving the guys they are paying millions to every opportunity to succeed. They do not have room in the budget to make moves maybe if there is salary moved to even out a trade but I think they are capped for this year based on comments about improvements have to come from what we already have. I think a 2-3 week run after the all star break should be enough opportunity to either release, trade or DL someone to give Larnarch or Wallner a month to see if they can do better. I also think the front office doesn’t want to make a move the can negatively affect the pitching staff. Our OF defense has a high floor.

The 5.9 was a projection for the year not actual. 2. We are only half way through the season. 3 at his price break even is 3.5 WAR. He is on track for 2.0. Yes below value but also time enough to close the gap considerably. And he is trending up. Absolutely make the complaint he hasn’t performed to standards. Even he would defend your arguments to some degree. But to say least valuable is over doing it by a mile.

Kinda harsh. Correa is trending up. He raised his average 25 points the last three or 4 weeks. If his average was .260 just 35 more points his line would be down but not out of range of expectations. His power numbers are still in line with his career. So let’s give him a break if it’s the injury causing this.

Trade prospects for Goldschmidt move Killeroff to LF then trade Gallo for a prospect or whatever you can. The hard part of this is the money. The budget is probably tapped out already which makes trading for Goldschmidt difficult. What else can we include in the trade to help offset some dolars? Maybe Include RP Lopez and trade Kepler for a prospect and let Larnarch and Wallner compete for RF. Not sure how much we improve here and lots of moving parts. But I’m sure there are other more cash neutral deals out there. Trading Gallo or Kepler for a prospect and bringing up Wallner. Then trading for Pham or Duvall. And still give Wallner his shot. Can Julien play 3rd? That would solve the blockage at 2B for now. and of course the minor adjustment is giving Jeffers 60-65% of the playing time at C. CF we need to just give time there to Kepler whether he wants it or not. His .720 OPS plays ok there or Duvall or Pham could get some time there if no one else wants to play CF. Especially since we would be able to give Wallner his shot if the OF we traded for us standing in CF some nights. but the biggest improvement should come from Buxton and Correa getting on track and hitting at the .850+ OPS level again. Our bench is pretty solid for a bench. This regime like the last one is pretty good at building a strong bench.

Isn’t Lee 2.5 years younger than the average player at AA? Isn’t he hitting an insane number of doubles that usually project to become HR power as he matures? I still feel pretty confident he will be a solid big leaguer. Probably a.270 ave with 20-25 HR power and 50-70 walks. That should help our team.

The Yankees who has the most similar lineup to ours just fired their hitting coach. I agree with moving Kepler to CF some time to bring up Wallner to play some in RF. I do think if Buxton isn’t up to playing in the field he should need to sit some games out if he continues to hurt the offense with no defense. I do think if Gallo can keep his OPS over .800 he can be fine on offense. Not great but ok.

If we are all in right now we acquire Goldschmidt and Turner and maybe Pham and trade Kepler for a prospect maybe Polanco too and acquire a reliever too.

If you don’t care how Berrios did when evaluating a trade why would it matter if we get a reliever and utility player? That’s like the Reds saying I don’t care how Mahle does in 2023 we gave up a top of the rotation arm for prospects.

I'll just say Turner for 3B/1B/ DH Pham for a RH OF Barlow for the pen or if the Twins want to go all in Hader We absolutely need someone with a winning attitude to help get the team out of its offensive slump.

In evaluating the trade Berrios was not that great last year with an ERA over 5.00. Saving 11 million which went used on payroll last year, and getting a reliever and a utility player for several years is even value in my book. The extension Berrios signed goes independent of the trade since he wouldn’t sign with us as far as we knew. But if we were getting several years of Berrios if we kept him then yes this is a bad trade.

I mean…. I guess if he’s available we should consider drafting him. Yeah, he is definitely a possibility worth considering.

The bullpen will be well rested for the next series. Against Baltimore. I think the bullpen will do well next series.

I didn’t have a direction at anyone. It is an attitude that has been prevalent around here for a while. And since money all came out with the importance of on base percentage over batting average. I always thought it was important with how the Twins would score so many runs being near the bottom of the league in HRs.

In the Berrios trade we saved 11.4 million or so and got 2 high end prospects. If they become a useful utility player and reliever we still win the trade or atleast break even. I don’t think we loose the trade by much. Though we can debate all day long about whether the Twins should extended him. I think 7 years is too long for a pitcher. The market for starters continues to rise so the extension looks like it has the potential to be a bargain long term. We will know more on that in about 3 or 4 years.

Joey Gallo is this generations David Kingman.

He was signed after it appeared we lost out on resigning Correa. The Twins were targeting several players including Gallo and Justin Turner and I forgot the third one as a backup plan. The real question is why wasn’t Kepler traded?

I thought Gallo signed for 11 million. I do think he has been worth exactly what we paid him maybe slightly less making his signing an ok one. It would be nice to see him end up with 35-40 HRs this season and maybe 80-85 RBI.

Gallo has one of the highest on base percentages on the offense. I think only Killeroff and Solano are higher with Lewis when he gets more At Bats. He leads the team in HRs too so how is it empty? Yes I think he needs a higher batting average and more productive outs too but he is more positive in the lineup then most of the rest of the line up. If anything Kepler should cede playing time except that Larnarch hasn’t beaten him out either. If he did He would be the starter.

When it comes to pitchers, I would rather they get snubbed. Less chance to get injured. But every team needs to be represented so there are always snubs. Brent Rooker is this season's Ron Coomer. But Duran does deserve to go. I think it would be better to do a league "who got snubbed" to help alleviate the bias.

Gallo is not blocking Larnarch. Larnarch hasn’t seized his opportunity. Do you want an .800 OPS hitter in your lineup or a.690 OPS hitter. If the OPS’s were reversed your blocking claim would be correct. You have a case that Wallner is being blocked. But not by Gallo….Kepler maybe but he is hitting better lately too so who knows.