tony&rodney

I wish numbers weren't retired, for any team. When I think of the Hall of Fame I am reminded that #3, #6, #29 will not be on the back of any present or future Twin. I think Joe Mauer would love to see Walker Jenkins slashing base hits to left field on outside pitches.

Mike Cameron was a really good baseball player.

Since the statements last Fall that the Twins were not going to make further cuts to player payroll, my take is that the budget was at the very least a bit fluid and not anything to get all crazed about this offseason. The primary issue as far as the Twins roster is concerned is and has been a question of what Falvey views as the best combination of players. The hesitancy to complete trades can be seen as fear of failure (not a good thing in baseball), which seems unlikely, or that Falvey has a high degree of confidence in the team currently assembled. I just looked again at the list of nearly 100 players still available as free agents and cannot justify adding any of them ahead of our current team. I do feel that there are possibilities for transactions with other teams and if the Twins trade away more players than they receive the need or use of one of the available free agents can be revisited at that time.

Hope. Faith. Have faith in the possibility of change and hope it works. The Twins have a shot if some things change. If not, tune into watching Bobby Witt Jr. and the minor league games.

I thought we already had several articles which identified the Twins bullpen as the best in baseball. The bullpen looks good right now. If a big trade occurred with a team and the Twins were able to scoot off with a really decent arm that is on a reasonable salary as a part of the deal , sure add a guy. Otherwise, we good.

Hard decisions to make and Falvey gets the big bucks. Sounds more or less like what has already been discussed at some length - Cease for 1)SWR or Matthews, 2)Larnach, 3)a prospect like Raya or K. Culpepper, and 4)Castro. Can the Twins substitute Julien or Miranda for Larnach or Castro? Same questions apply: Do the Twins feel Emmanuel Rodriguez is ready now? How confident are the Twins in receiving production from Brooks Lee and host of others (Lewis, Miranda, Julien, Eeles, and Keaschall)? Preller knows he isn't getting the top 3 prospects or either Ryan or Ober. The discussion with the Cubs contains mostly top 100 prospects with high risks. That doesn't help the Padres whatsoever. Likely everyone just rolls with what they have into the season.

Please no Laurenao, Grichuk, Rizzo, Canha, Turner, Merrifield, etc. None of these guys will suddenly be the 2019 versions.

Before the advent of big media money there were a number of ways teams could compete in theory, whether via attendance, sponsorship, or energetic management. Think St. Louis. There are 30 teams in MLB and the rough average metro area is around 4.6 million people. The metro numbers vary from place to place but I used very conservative figures. Half the teams are above the line and half below. The current world is hyper related to marketplace and thus those teams in smaller market cannot do anything more than tread water to compete. This is admirable but teams like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh can and will eventually be buried if all media monies are not shared; system stays relatively the same. I'm not sure a salary ceiling is needed but a salary floor would absolutely be required if revenues are shared in order to stop hoarding of dispersed money by owners. Some of the benefits the Dodgers are benefitting from currently are due to their astute management, but it is also true that they benefitted hugely from MLB decisions. Among a pile of other dysfunctional decisions, the Manfred era bailed out the Dodgers in 2011 by an agreement that placed a value far below the eventual media deal and made percentage agreements as part of the 2011 bankruptcy. This served to basically give LAD somewhere around $600 million in profit above if they were playing by the same rules as the Yankees. So, yes, the Yankees are not happy right now with how this development has turned out. Fixing Manfred will be a Herculean task, unless ..... unless ...... Manfred takes some Draconian actions. What? Not likely to upset the status quo too much.

I was going to add this on my comment above. Both fanatic Twins fans and casual fans are generally not too excited by the team. Why is that missed by the owners and front office? I go to games and am put off by a lack of fundamental execution as much as the boring station to station play. Then there are some mind numbing substitutions in the 4th and 5th innings which wind up being awkward in the late innings. The noise from the PA system is just intrusive for this old man, but I have been asked by people in the 20s and 30s why the Twins pump so much pointless noise into the game. Between the lack of actions by the team and the unusual public relations a new ownership group cannot come fast enough. I'm expecting sweeping change in the next 12 months. The Twins are the guy who lives next door who never painted his house or cleaned up his yard for years and then put the house on the market and still made a decent profit. Many of us are eager for a new neighbor.

Well said - uninspiring.

Seems like he is destined for the bullpen. This is a huge year for him. Do the Twins move him to the pen, give him the uber protective treatment as a starter ala Marco Raya, or cut him loose as a starter? Anyone can guess. I was impressed tuning into his games last summer despite the short outings and sporadic results from inning to inning. Prielipp has great stuff from what I saw.

Fear not, February begins this Saturday.

Totally agree. He was among my favorite players to watch last season (milb.com). I have him as #10 right now. Low floor but superstar ceiling; amazing athletic talent.

In DiPoto's defense, Seattle has a fantastic starting five staff but almost nothing behind those five guys. A little bit of a rock and a hard place. They need Arozarena and Rodriguez to have big years. A comeback from Polanco could go a long way too. Seattle will play a ton of close games and could win the AL West.

Isn't that something. Good for Jorge. This also seems like Seattle is done adding unless they are involved in a major unforeseen trade.

Sands might be interesting to another team who wants to trade for him and convert him back to a starting pitcher. That is possible. I'm not sure what team or how much value Cole Sands has to a mystery team. The Twins are pretty deep in starters and Sands would need a year or two in St. Paul, so that is not happening. Sands was really good in the pen and I'm betting he likes the MLB life better than AAA. So unless some teams calls and offers a bundle Sands is in the pen and we hope he is as good or better than he was last year.

A simple no.

Seattle has plans to use Jorge at third base.

Please excuse me for intruding on your conversation. The scouting and drafting of players is separate from development, the coaching. They don't intersect, not in baseball because drafting for need doesn't work. Occasionally there will be some wild ass idea tried and it fails miserably. The Angels drafted only pitchers one year and passed on players who they knew were better but the club was determined to draft pitchers. Dumb. I can't really think of an appropriate example but maybe fantasy football. I have never even once played any fantasy games. So you draft a team but you only watch to see how your picks work out. You don't actually have any say in their performance. That seems like a lame example but best I could do.

Well, last season both Lewis and Julien were pretty much worthless, but there was a season in 2023. I think Lewis can rebound to carve out a fair MLB career and it is possible for Julien too. 2023 and 2024 - tale of two seasons that highlight the hopes and fears of young players.

Looks like you forgot Brandon Winokur in your top ten. Remember to look back in a few years.

The U.S. has never been further away from an equitable system than right now in its history and it is quite natural to see the big market teams lord it over the bottom 18-20. Expansion. Put three more teams in the New York area and another 3 more in LA and correspondingly in other big markets. Not going to happen. The Rays and Brewers are trying to compete but they get very little credit. I'm not sure Miami, Pittsburgh, and the CWS care. Same old, same old.

Refinement, repetitions, practice, and adaptation is the easy answer but health is first.

Wallner is a horse of a different color than the others you mentioned. The players are too different in multiple ways to discuss together.

Professional sports leagues that require two or more parties to work together at every single event (game) need to share the resources or inevitable the market differences blow away the opportunity for relative competition. I'm not sure (guess we know) how the New York or Los Angeles teams would feel about putting three additional teams in their market areas. New York has roughly 24 million people in the Greater New York or Tri-State area and the Greater Los Angeles area has over 18 million people. By comparison, the greater Kansas City area is around 2 million people. Putting 3 more teams in the New York and Los Angeles areas would still leave all of those teams with more access to revenues as per population than Kansas City. Granted there are a number of teams that are either uninterested or poor in maximizing their regions economic potential to support the local baseball team as well as owners who are not active in working to put the best possible team on the field, which reduces interest. However it still takes two teams to play the game and the different sizes of markets is important. The initial changes in sharing revenue were made before the media contracts became huge. Now it is very likely to be quite a fight to get all stadium revenues and media monies put in a pot and distributed evenly across all teams. Sharing 50% of your media revenues is not anywhere near sharing. If the Twins share their media money of say $80 million (is it that much?), they keep $40 million. If Los Angeles shares their media money of say $300 million (Is it more?), they keep $150 miilion. Sharing as we can see is not exactly sharing but more like when I give myself 75% of the chocolate bar and kindly hand my girl friend the 25% left over. Where this goes is a guess and it seems like a few of the teams who may be just collecting revenue checks without even attempting to invest or improve the fortunes of their teams is a problem too. Perhaps the biggest problem is the ongoing existence of the exemption that MLB has to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, one of the weirder occurrences in legislative history.