tony&rodney

Maybe the pitchers who get batters out (lowest WHIP) is the best idea. Seems pretty worthless to have a roster spot taken up by a LOOGY in 2025. Tanner Scott would work. JK. $.

I'm pretty sure Hays gets $5 million or more. Does that eliminate the Twins as an option?

Was just referring to his baseball career. Garbe was quite an athlete and good student who took what he learned to find success in his life. He is living in Moses Lake, Washington running a construction company. Playing professional baseball is really an extremely tough job.

Where have you gone B. J. Garbe?

Seems like this coming year will be really exciting for watching Walker Jenkins. Everything will be predicated on how Jenkins adapts this year. Worth remembering that Mauer spent an extra year in the minor leagues because he needed more work as a catcher and the Twins had an excellent catcher in A. J. Gardy said on numerous occasions that Mauer was MLB ready as a batter as a 20 year old. Will Jenkins be ready at 20 or 21 years old? I'm not worried about the entire idea of putting too many expectations on the young man. These elite athletes have had eyeballs on them since they became teenagers. Signing for $7.14 miilion as a top draft choice, you can be sure that Jenkins has extremely high goals for himself and has a system of checks and balances in his life to keep everything under control.

The thoughts on whether Emmanuel Rodriguez needs to show himself as ready in St. Paul versus those of us who would like the Twins to put him in the lineup is pretty much an endless loop of basic opinions. What I think should be clear is that a few people believe that there are sometimes players whose talents separate themselves from the vast majority of prospects. There are zero current Twins who I would advocated for skipping AAA. That doesn't mean ER is a sure thing at all but I'm seeing him as a Twin more than a Saint. It is easy to understand the usual stance of more time in AAA, but this time I will simply disagree even if the path is one Falvey surely chooses.

Personally, I have more confidence in the pitching than the position players. I see a need for the Twins to upgrade the defense behind the pitchers with a minimum of one new outfielder and one new infielder. The current roster does not meet an average level of play in the field forcing the hitters to produce at very rates and the pitchers to throw more pitches and record more outs than should be expected. A player who does meet the standard, Carlos Correa, may be the key, whether he is traded or kept. The Twins need him at the plate and in the field yet his salary seems to stop the Twins from getting creative. We have already discussed Correa but I wonder how the Twins can proceed with him or without him. Perhaps when Soto and 2-3 more FA starting pitchers sign their contracts there will be discussions and some movement across baseball. I hope the Twins see fit to improve their roster.

For that matter, one wonders whether Caleb Thielbar returns, healthy and ready to pitch?

Consistency is a good thing.

Very strange response from you. You are the king of all stats, buried up to your eyeballs with so many interesting comparisons, lists, and never-ending assortments of analytics, many quite relevant and others missing first person knowledge. Now you drop a name many of us are very familiar with. a guy who had great athletic promise but never accomplished much of anything except to flash potential in spurts. I'll leave the stats to you. Why choose Benson is my question? How do you see Benson in Jenkins? I'm genuinely curious. They are both hyped prospects, but I can't see it. What am i missing?

And no less an authority than Paul Molitor, among others, have stated how unselfish Mauer was to play his career as a catcher because his ceiling was virtually unlimited as a batter playing in the field. Mauer was the only person ever named athlete of the year in two major sports when he was in high school and he was good enough to start as a freshman for any D1 major power basketball program in basketball as well. If you never saw him in person as a high school athlete and have seen seen others of significant accolades you have no comparison. In multiple sports, particularly basketball and baseball, i have seen a multitude of stars up close and Mauer ranks amongst the greatest of athletes of my decades long career. Nobody can definitively state X number of base hits (mine was just a wild hair-ass guess), but the talent was there. Catching is so far removed from any other position that it is impossible to compare. Imagine if pitchers had to win 325+ games in their career. There is a reason so few catchers are in the Hall of Fame. If you have never caught a minimum of 100 nine inning games in a year for a half dozen years, you simply do not have a reference point. Mauer was among the top athletes in baseball for decade. His peers were in awe of him and he never really gained the level of respect locally that he did nationally. Yes, I'm way out there, but only because of the number of professional athletes I have seen as a comparison to Mauer. So, I guess you know where I am on that. Of course there are those who simply disagree and many people of those are still jealous about his contract. Fine. Walker Jenkins has a long road to go and health is his number one challenge. He also has to evade the circus of social media and a society that has its sole god, money, as a focus which can tantalize and ruin many a career in the hyper competitive world of athletics. I wish Jenkins well on his journey and hope he drags our Twins into a World Series or two .... or more.

Is this Falvey's idea of "creative"?

This year, 2024/2025, the answer is no. Good speculation though.

If Joe Mauer had played his entire career at any other position, other than as a pitcher, he would have won a entire trove of batting championships, had well more than 3300 base hits, etc. He was a catcher by choice (demand if you will) and the best in baseball. I don't think many Minnesotans still understand the respect that Mauer had among players in MLB as a pure athlete. We can only hope that Walker Jenkins has it all together like Mauer, and boy it would be sweet. Wouldn't it?

Yes he does and I, for one, would not bet against him. His biggest challenges are his head and injuries.

I sure hope he maintains that swing and let the doubters doubt all the through a Hall of Fame career.

I think the closest comparison to EmRod amongst current Twins is Matt Wallner. Nothing Julien does is very similar to Rodriguez except for their both having a good idea of the strike zone. As far as just watching hittable pitches, one might throw Jeffers or other names in the hat too.

I wrote about that a couple of summers back. The attention and focus were all over the place. EmRod played young. FWIW, I saw a major improvement in his play for Wichita. The skills are there. How much can he adjust and show focus on a daily basis. That is the key. I'm not seeing where he learns anything more in the minor leagues and punishing him for how inconsistent he played in Ft. Myers and Cedar Rapids doesn't make any sense at all.

Does anyone else wonder if Jenkins will hit like Joe Mauer? Is that blasphemy or a template for criticism? Walker has a sweet swing and oozes athleticism. "Hopefully, a run of clean health..." Seems like his ticket is health and repetitions. I'm looking forward to watching him next season. I think Twins fans should be totally excited about this guy.

The next negotiations between MLB owners and the MLBPA should be interesting. MLB is increasingly tilting towards an uncompetitive situation due to the massive increase in the gap between clubs in terms of revenue. The Dodgers may pay near 10 times the payroll of their neighbors in Sacramento this year. At the minimum they are well past twice what a middle payroll can reach. Will they triple the Twins? One has to wonder how this plays out across baseball. Blake Snell can be dominant at times but that contract would be excessive for even many large market franchises.

Even this projection, which I won't dispute, puts the pitching in a better spot relative to other MLB teams than the position player group. Seems like you make a case, without actually stating it, for Falvey to get to work fixing the lineup.

No issues with anyone's opinions. I just wondered how many times you have seen EmRod play? I'm also quite high on both Keaschall and Morris because I like what I have seen as they have developed in the past two seasons. I have watched Morris pitch about eight or nine times and have seen dozens of Keaschall's plate appearances. I am always curious if people have watched these prospects numerous times in their games, watched video clips, or looked over stats. I would not expect that many people had actually attended numerous games of many prospects because they play in different locales all the time. One can watch the games via milb.com though.

The Twins would like to have another really good starting pitcher and my suggestion is to overwhelm Miami in an attempt to acquire Sandy Alcantara. That is extremely unlikely and the Twins don't reach high very often, There may be some other opportunities too, but I'm pretty content with the starting pitching. Last year Louie Varland and Zebby Matthews were cuffed up with a rude greeting to MLB. The top four were pretty consistent. Now depth is a real difficult word to use with any pitching staff. Ask the Dodgers about their top ten starting pitchers going into last season and the subsequent injuries. Stuff happens, so we should avoid talking about depth. Chris Paddack over David Festa would be strictly a scholarship award. Since 2019, Paddack has had a rough go of it. If he stays, we all hope he turns back into the 2019 model. We might as well call Nelson Cruz too. Doubt aside, one doesn't ever know where injured pitchers find their status. Seems like Festa, barring a solid addition, should be allowed to compete for a rotation spot in Spring Training. As usual, injuries are the cloud over every starting pitching staff in baseball. I'm feeling decent about the Twins guys right now.

I agree with your second point. Bat discipline? How many plate appearances of Emmanuel Rodriguez have you watched in the last year or two? There isn't anyone in the Twins system who has his discipline. I would agree with those who say that the Twins will not start ER at the MLB level. I totally disagree with that decision though. I guess the best argument was put forth by chpettit19. As was already stated, we shall just agree to disagree.

I think this is where the two sides are regarding Prospect #2. Personally, I have seen enough of him to take my stand, which may be way off. I did not have the same confidence with any of Lewis, Lee, Miranda, Julien, Wallner, or Larnach to name a few. The future is wide open. Let us all hope Falvey & Sons does something though. Is Eeles Prospect #1? jk