tony&rodney

Preller will believe that Cease will return more and Falvey will believe the price is exorbitant. That's why no deal. The reality is that the Padres could use Paddack as a starter more so than the Twins and the difference in money, if Suarez is added to the deal, allows San Diego to sign up an inexpensive free agent while filling holes that they cannot buy on the free agent market. If the Padres look for prospects they can do better talking with either of the Cubs or Mets but I'm not seeing why Preller would shift to prospects to help the team this year. Larnach, Julien, and the minor leaguers C. Lewis and C. J. Culpepper have years of control left, while Paddack and Castro strengthen the team this year. Preller does this deal if offered because it helps the 2025 team. The Twins would hesitate because Castro has been valuable across the field and Larnach had some growth as a batter last year. Minnesota also almost certainly still has positive ideas about Julien, despite the groans from many on Twins Daily. Agreeing to take Suarez is risky too because he still has 2 player option years at $8M. If he bombs, that money is quite a hit. Falvey/Zoll does this deal because it is a splash for boosting public notice of the team. The deal: Larnach, Julien, Castro, Paddack, C. Lewis, and C. J. Culpepper for Cease and Suarez.

Good. Little late to the show though, don't ya think? 84 wins?

Mickey Gasper? This will be an interesting look. I know nothing about him except for the statistics, which means I know absolutely nothing about him.

The simplest solution going forward will be a monstrous difficult task. All attendance and media revenues need to be combined into one pot and distributed evenly. Stadium advertisements, executive boxes, adjoining real estate income, etc. will still give large market teams a big advantage but Milwaukee will no longer need to pretend that running their team perfectly, selling out their stadium, and maxing out their media contracts puts them on anything close to a fair level as the large market teams. It takes two teams to play the games. There are zero reasons why a New York, Houston, LA, or Boston team makes more money off of their media than an opponent. No opposing team, no TV or radio.

As shown by my byline, I'm a huge Rod Carew fan as well. I have often quoted his dominance over every batter in baseball using the measure of batting average, specifically that 1977 season. It irked me that George Brett, a very fine player and fellow Hall of Fame member, received more national press than Rodney when George hit .390 with 515 PA and 175 hits versus Carew's 694 PA and 239 hits or if you prefer GB=9.4 WAR vs. RC=9.7WAR. An interesting point that started Carew's career is that Calvin Griffith "ordered" the manager to start Carew from Day One of the regular season. Rod had only played as high as "A" ball to that point. Cal knew baseball talent.

New ownership may have a different view on contract extensions but I would expect that the POBO and/or GM would have some expertise or guidance for an owner on that front. Even Cohen (NYM) has not gone nuts with contracts and extensions and he certainly has the do-re-mi to do whatever he wants to with his money.

Well, I initially just hit quote for the entire comment but it didn't seem necessary. No foul play was intended and sorry if it seemed so. I'm a Twins fan and not picking on Minnesota but San Diego does support their team more completely from the numbers. As for competition, there have been fifty plus years of economic studies that refute any benefit of a sports franchise to an area based on a simple principal. People have spending habits that include forking over their money for entertainment which is a constant whether there are ten teams or one or zero. The competition for entertainment dollars has been studied to death. However, you have a very good point, winter is different. Perhaps I lost the point you were making. Did I? Was it that Minnesota has more professional teams?

I was a little disappointed, but not at all surprised, that Hayes did not repeat what he felt might be a fair deal for both teams. Understandable he kept away from speculation.

Maybe not. Since the Padres have had a team they have drawn more than the average attendance more times than the Twins have. The Twins reigned supreme from 1961-1970, but the population has other interests more often than not. I believe that was the point of the Hayes article - the Twins could use a public relations boost from a player acquisition to go along with an announcement of the sale of the team. The public is fickle and some attention in the local media may spur a bit of conversation which could possibly lead to some renewed interest in the Twins.

If what I read in the comments is even remotely close to some semblance of true, which is a fairly wide region of doubt, we can conclude that PECOTA is bull***t, and merely space in our cold winter day.

Yah, I'm not buying that excuse. I'm from Minnesota and the lakes and fishing are a major draw in the summer. There are plenty of things to do, actually endless. At the end of the day people have a set amount of money they spend on entertainment each month for whatever purpose that may be. That is true for every place on the planet. The people of San Diego prefer/enjoy/like baseball more than the people of the Twins Cities. That isn't very controversial. The San Diego area easily has as many distractions as we have here and the beach is always an easy yes. I am not threatened by the fact that San Diego has supported their baseball team much more than the people of the Twin Cities. It is what is and in this case the numbers do not lie. For now at the very least the San Diego market, which is a fair amount smaller, supports their baseball team better than the we do here in Minnesota.

Me too. If these guys are not in ST, we can guess the Twins are not very functional as a system.

First things first, the Twins need to believe in a player enough to put them in the lineup and let them play. San Diego was trying to win the NL West but stuck with Jackson Merrill through some tough struggles. Merrill wound up have a helluva year. The Brewers stuck with Jackson Chourio when he was lost and were rewarded with his play which was crucial in helping win the NL Central for Milwaukee. There should be an evaluation and decision made by mid March on Emmanuel. Keaschall will need some time at AAA and Jenkins will also need more experiences in the minor leagues ..... unless something incredible happens in ST.

Quite natural for San Diego (Preller) to ask about Ober and Ryan and also indicate an interest in Keaschall, Rodriguez, and Jenkins. My take is that all of those names were pretty much dropped past the initial hello stage. Both Minnesota and San Diego have some motivation to engage further, which is why Dan Hayes writes his article. He suggests the likelihood of any deal remains low. The Padres need players, the Twins need a publicity boost. A trade will be complicated but possible. Preller needs to be reasonable and Falvey/Zoll needs to have confidence in those players who would pick up the slack from traded players. Perhaps the Twins add a bit of salary too. Preller wants to add a LF (Larnach), a DH/1B (Julien), possibly a utility player (Castro), and SP (SWR/Matthews). There are certainly other names being discussed and these discussions are likely on and off. Other teams are also attempting to pry Cease away from San Diego as well, but most of the other rumors involve more prospects than actual MLB players. The Padres are competing for a playoff position and while a Cubs or Mets prospect laden deal might be good 3 years from now, I would be surprised to see San Diego give up on 2025. Perhaps if the Twins expand the deal to accept relief pitcher Robert Suarez (sunk contract), there could be an exchange that is kinder to the Twins. Speculatively, Larnach (LF), Julien (DH/1B), Castro (if/of), Paddack (SP), and a prospect along the lines of Cory Lewis or C. J. Culpepper would complete the trade for Cease and Suarez. San Diego sends away $23..75M in player costs but receives back $16.75M in players. The end result for San Diego leaves them with some money to add a guy like Gibson, Heaney, Lynn, or Quintana while their position group is strengthened. The Twins would be thinned though at the corner outfield spot and a utility player short for now. The upside is a risk. Do the Twins believe in Emmanuel Rodriguez and others or does caution and a risk adverse course continue to be the strategy of our favorite team. That is the way I read the current Cease situation and it seems like nothing will happen based on the past. But .... you never know.

There is utility in looking at statistics and analytics, which is why teams hire a raft of employees to dig and scape for any advantage or edge possible that improves any player to increase potential win totals. For those of us not employed by an MLB team crunching data, these sites and minutiae of collected numbers are good entertainment. When i'm working specifically with a pitcher (in the past) on refining one pitch and changing the shape of another pitch based on some information on hand, the close proximity to the task at hand has consequences and verifiable successes and failures. Reading the data and not having any personal hands on knowledge means the data is just numbers. When Joe Ryan works specifically with one of the many businesses/people tracking his delivery and pitches and then using information in conversation with Joe to find subtle improvements, there is a close knowledge of how that works. Looking over the data without seeing the guy pitch is an incomplete picture, which is what all of these sites give us. They are mere entertainment and I enjoy them too but it is best to put it into context. Thus ______ (fill in the name of the site/ prognosticator) publishes a tome of information telling us where our players and teams should reside. Guess what? Sometimes they are close because numbers do tell a good story. The Twins benefitted from their residence in the AL Central for a few years as Chicago, Detroit, and Kansas City faltered and Cleveland struggled with money. Last year we began to see a natural rise of a couple of teams (Detroit and Kansas City), which should continue in 2025. The AL Central will almost certainly be a close race between four teams and the White Sox will be more competitive while losing 100 games. Don't bet on any of the teams at this time to win 90 games. Expect 82-88 wins for all of Detroit, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Kansas City.

Actually the two guys I'm most curious/excited about are older players who had magical 2024 seasons. Carson McCusker fits best as a DH but would look much the same as many of the other Twins as a corner outfielder. The adjustments McCusker made last season in his swing and his continual improvement might just give him a shot at some point. The power is unbelievable, greater than that of Matt Wallner. Payton Eeles is a great feel good story and it will be interesting if he gets more than a glance in camp. Eeles put up numbers that were a bit startling. If you had to choose between Lee and Eeles looking over their St. Paul contributions it is a tough call with Eeles having more speed. I'm not sure what the Twins have in either McCusker or Eeles but it behooves the coaching/managing staff to evaluate whether these players are for real.

Did the AL Central get more competitive tonight?

The Twins are for sale and if the sale goes through soon enough (March 15) there will be chatter within Twins Territory. The Twins are rolling out a new media format. People will choose to buy if they are interested and a sale might help but a shiny new toy acquired via trade would receive significant press and be roundly debated and advertised. This would likely boost sales. The season starts in late March and by May the Twins will have begun to show what type of team they are going to be for people interested in attending games or buying the media deal. A winning team is a positive but a plodding poor defensive team that waits for good things will not be a strong draw. I think we saw that last year. An exciting team will bolster both attendance and media sales and keep the Vikings off the frontal lobe for a bit longer. What does Falvey think?

Catching is such a tough position. We saw the Orioles outstanding catcher take a step back in 2024. By the end of the year he was beat up. We are seeing J. T. Realmuto, a fantastic athlete, begin to decline from the rigors of catching. The position is such a difficult spot to fill. The Twins have actually done ok (not great, but ok) using Jeffers and Vazquez in a timeshare. There are teams who would dream of having either one of those guys for the last two years. Look at the debacle in Miami. So perhaps the sharing route works going forward and identifying how to draft and develop, sign, or otherwise acquire will be quite important in 2026 and onwards. Because I believe a good baseball team starts with strong players up the middle I focused all of my first blueprint moves towards acquiring a catcher. My first suggestion was to trade Brooks Lee for Jeferson Quero, a huge overpay by the Twins but one that I felt was critical now. Later I drummed up ideas to filch guys like Endy Rodriguez or Harry Ford. Ford has been trending away from catching though. Kyle Teel was just too dear to put an offer on. Recently, I wondered if Baltimore would trade Samuel Basallo for one of Lopez, Ryan, or Ober. Huge price but that sums up how important I feel catching is to a team.

Maybe the trick is to have high quality and deep substance alongside of rah rah and style. Wasn't that the Oakland A's winning in the early 1970s?

Dude. When it comes to baseball at this moment .... the times they are a changing.

Actually I think there is a chance at a major trade. This may be particularly true if all of Larnach, Wallner, Rodriguez, Miranda, Julien, Eeles, Keaschall, Lee, along with others like pitchers Festa, Matthews, Morris, Raya, C. J. Culpepper, and Cory Lewis look really good through March. Stuff can happen. I don't expect anything, which is what I have said but not wanted since last October. We shall see.

Draft the best player available. Trade to fill perceived holes.

Good lord, picking over stats to state who sucked worse but inserting an excuse for one but not the other. I give up.

I'm not opposed to a signing either but all of the names we have gone over have declined in talent, usefulness, and are injury prone. This leaves a team with virtually no reason to make a contract offer that an experienced player will usually take. Having said that, we know that both Profar and Iglesias signed for $1 million just last year, so maybe the Twins sign someone like Bader, Grichuk, or Iglesias for $1 million this year. The key is to keep any signing at a minimum, max $2M, and with the idea to jettison the player if they are toast. Michael Helman is an unusual player. He is older, is adequate with a glove almost everywhere, runs well, and has pop in his bat. He also is often injured and prone to striking out a ton. Every time I have watched him play he displays the skills and qualities a team would want in a utility player but he also has those empty plate appearances too. Forgetting his age and stats, the Twins might want to think about his ability to fill a role. If you haven'y seen him play on numerous occasions, I don't think you can judge him accurately. He is an enigma of sorts.