tony&rodney

The Twins should roll with this group right now ... unless the price goes much lower on Montas. I thought the miss was not making an adequate offer for Bassitt, because the Twins could have bested the Mets offer. Another big miss was not taking a risk on Carlos Rodon. Of course, we all know that so many little things can ruin any signings or trades. Winder looks good to me - patient, mature, and not afraid to attack or make a mistake. He will need to wait for his chance. There will be opportunities for young pitchers to make an impression both starting and in relief. But, yeah, the prices are too high and it is time to see who has the pitches to keep the Twins in a game until their offense shines, because the bats should be solid.

The Twins absolutely need to be more athletic going forward. Fly balls that drop and line drives just out of the reach of slow defenders (of/if) are really discouraging for a pitcher and often force changes to increase strikeouts. Royce Lewis and Austin Martin are both athletic and profile as decent defenders in the outfield or at 2B/3B. The jury is out on their abilities to play shortstop. If they can hit, they will play. Jose Miranda must scare the Twins in the field because he looks more dangerous with the bat right now than either Urshela or Arraez. There are very few prospects who have years as dominant at the plate than Miranda had last year. It is only his athleticism in the field that stops him from being given the third base job. Lewis and Martin will not face those questions in the field. Hopefully they will hit.

"If there’s a team that could go up or down more than almost any other in baseball it could be Minnesota." Agree wholeheartedly with this. The Twins could be pretty good or pretty bad. I'm feeling that the other teams in the AL Central will be better than they have been in the past. Chicago will be healthier and have a strong bullpen. Detroit picked up some solid experience to go with their youth and their young pitchers are getting ready to win. Kansas City has youth and a few vets. Greinke in 2022 profiles as better than any Twin starting pitcher and his choice and enthusiasm to return to KC brings excitement and experience to the team. Finally, the Guardians have a top 10 farm system of players who have plenty of minor league experience and will now get their chance. The Guardians with their pitching and Terry Francona could really surprise a bunch of people. It is a sorry situation where the owner won't spend just $20-30 million more to buttress this young team. The Twins need to click in order to win enough to make the playoffs and this AL Central has zero resemblance to those weak teams from 2019-2021. I believe the division will be much better.

Both Martin and Lewis are expected to be good with their bats, feet, and gloves. I'll take Lewis in RF and Martin in LF if they play great defense along with decent on base and batting average skills. A power hitting outfielder that cannot catch the ball in the gap or run down a ball down the line hurts the team. I would never compare any player, ever, to Ricky Henderson who played LF. A reason that Kepler has a long rope in RF is his defense and speed. Hopefully he rebounds with his bat this year. There is always a place to put an athletic player who hits, runs, and plays defense. Lewis and Martin just need to prove themselves to get their shot.

I hoped against all hope that the Twins could pry Alcantara away from the Marlins in November of 2020. Miami signed him to a favorable contract. He would cost the about farm right now: Lewis, Kirilloff, Martin, and Balazovic. That is a no and the Marlins are going to hold tight to their young pitching.

Oakland is squeezing the market. It may pay off. Bassitt is better than Manaea and Oakland should have been fine with a Sands, Strotman, Rooker deal. On the other hand, the Twins may not be willing to go that high for Manaea. I really like Montas, but he does not have the pedigree of a Berrios or even a Gray. Montas has good stuff and one year of success. I was/am hoping for Montas but a package equal to Berrios would be just wrong.

USAFChief is correct that as the season goes along it is usually a mixture of which pitcher lines up against which opponent's pitcher. The start of the season and immediately after the All Star Game are different. I would begin the season with Gray, Ober, Ryan, and Winder. This leaves Bundy and Gray for the Dodgers. Unless the Twins add an experienced "good" pitcher via trade, they will need to use Winder and he is ready to go now. The only other option looks to be Smeltzer. I'm choosing Winder at the moment.

Trade? Yes. Otherwise ... Gray, Ober, Winder, Ryan, Bundy.

Good read. Ober is fun to watch. Last year, he was a mild revelation. Now, he looks like an emerging piece to a good starting pitching staff. Just watching him pitch on video, Ober controls the batter more consistently than any of the other pitchers. I think he has great value as a Sonny Gray type of pitcher and now the Twins have Gray too. It would be sweet if the Twins can add a pitcher to slot in between Gray and Ober.

Brooks Lee falls to the Twins.

The Twins are in a tough spot. Ryan, Ober, Bundy, and Dobnak are all back of the rotation pitchers. Winder could go in April, maybe Balazovic as well, but the hope has to be that at least one good pitcher is gained in a trade. Montas or Manaea look most likely. Still a couple of weeks to go.

The Twins are better on defense with Urshela and better on offense with either Arraez or Miranda. I would go with Miranda.

Yes, Duran would look good in the bullpen. Strotman may be another guy to stick in relief. However, I'm good to use both of those guys in a trade. The Graterol trade was fair for both teams and an example for a similar move this March.

Celestino should be attractive to Oakland but I'm not too sure how they view Larnach, Wallner, etc.

Gary Sanchez has struggled mightily as a catcher. We can hope that he is able to improve in small ways behind the plate. He looked a little bit more fit today than I remembered him from all of the times I saw him last year. that's probably not true but I'm going to hope he does well. The article was very positive.

Getting two major league pitchers and giving up only one pitching prospect would be the steal of the century. Not going to happen. Position players who aren't up-the-middle are over valued in MLBTV. What if the Twins added Duran and Strotman in a 6 for 3 trade? Is that fair or realistic. I haven't thought about this too much.

Yes, this. Josh Donaldson was a force always pushing everyone especially himself and despite many fans being put off at times by his aura, players liked his energy. Correa is a star player with panache, like Buxton, and this raises the bar for the entire team. Great signing, no matter what happens.

A wonderful signing. Correa is a shortstop. This is all so confusing .... when you look at the Twins roster on November 1 and then compare it to March 17, it is difficult to comprehend what was going to be a positive outcome. About a week ago I had heard that Story was not interested in the Twins unless there were two strong additions made to the roster. Today we learn that Correa had used WAR to ask one team where they were going add to become competitive. BP and Fangraphs had the Twins around 80-84 wins this season, which meant that Correa could see a light going to Minnesota. This was not on anyone's radar. I have not heard nor read a single link (0%) connecting Correa and MN. This completely changes the course of this season. Correa is a tough out and has a beautiful glove. A question which has dogged me all winter and returned pretty much zero interest from those on Twins Daily has been the eventual budget for the Twins. I initially believed that $140-150 million was a solid number that built in a decent profit for the franchise. TD used $130 million. The recent moves, suddenly, made me question all previous speculations. This was particularly true because all of the free agents that would cost any money were gone and there was the whispering that Story had pushed the Twins aside. Correa was not in any iteration ..... .... until today and this is wonderful. Next? This signing, much more than if Story had been signed, opens up any number of options. Yes, Montas and Manaea are still being talked about, but the Twins could still entice the Reds, Marlins, Orioles, or another team with various offers. One pitcher could make a huge difference and two could mean fun comes to Target Field. The Correa addition means that the next move might be impossible to predict as well, but also mean that the Twins feel comfortable pushing their budget beyond $130 million. Correa, as someone else wrote, is a sugar boost. I love sugar.

One thought, which is neither what I can really imagine nor accept, is that the Twins already are finished putting together their 2022 roster. Everyone keeps saying this will happen and that will happen, for sure, but so far ...... Perhaps everyone has been totally off base and this is exactly the team Falvey wants for this season. I mean, we have to consider past moves as well as past non moves and look beyond our thoughts.

Did not mean to discourage anyone .... just wanted folks to know that the Twins cannot just release Urshela and Sanchez to save some more money, as it seemed some may have not been aware of the rule.

The contracts of arbitration players are now guaranteed. The Twins will have to trade Sanchez, Urshela, and others to get out from underneath their salaries.

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Sano is a better athlete than Sanchez but he hasn't tried his hand at catching .... yet .... hmmmm.... could he block balls in the dirt?

To be fair, the kids in CA, FL, TX, and warm weather states get many more repetitions than those in cold weather states. This means, primarily, bat and arm speed as well as experiences running routes and fielding. Of course, there are players that excel from colder climates (Mike Trout), but the edge is real obvious and fairly dramatic. This is drawn from personal experience, coaching in both Florida and Minnesota, as well as time spent watching games in person. The skills are better watching American Legion in late July than watching the high schools in May. Weather does matter.

Rortvedt and Sanchez do not play the same position. Rortvedt is a catcher and yes, he needs to improve his hitting. If you look around baseball a number of teams have used catchers who have lower OPS numbers and so forth but are great with the glove. My opinion, and the Yankees agree, is that Rortvedt has a future as a catcher. Sanchez is a DH who was used behind the plate because he mashed, until it finally became untenable. The Yankees were pretty sure they could unload him because of the DH being instituted across baseball. The surprise was that he wound up on the Twins team. He has enormous power, very similar to Miguel Sano. People have asked what this means for Kirilloff and Sano. Sano likes to be in the field but his defense is poor and he was slated for DH duty for the most part. Kirilloff was slated for first base and is almost adequate in the outfield, but it looks like with Sanchez at DH, the Twins will use Sano at 1B and AK in LF. The trade weakened the team at four positions. Thus, one should not compare Rotvedt and Sanchez as catchers. FWIW, I would definitely take Sanchez at DH over Rortvedt.