tony&rodney

The constant fear based comments that demand a salary cap and floor are hard to understand for me. Why? Because the owners specifically set up the system that allowed teams to create the current financial gap. Now they want the players to adhere to a new system that will, in theory, guarantee that each owner turns a profit of some sort through a cap system that doesn't even address what counts as revenue. People continually compare baseball to other professional sports. No other league has an anti-trust exemption, nor do other leagues keep their books private. The commissioner and owners have operated for decades in a dishonest fashion. The owners created the revenue disparity and only the owners can solve the issue. Professional leagues are pretty simple if one looks at a basic principle. Games cannot take place without two teams. Leagues will, most likely, not work with just eight teams in say Division One. Given the basics it makes sense that all revenues related to games, attendance and media deals, should be shared. Otherwise there will be increasing disparity over time. The insistence that players solve a problem created by owners is too difficult to understand for me.

The article is fair. People should not diminish the importance of keeping Jeffers and Ryan on this team. Trading these two players could have brought the team some talent. While I'm clearly a guy favoring talent acquisition I can see the benefit for 2026 in keeping your best bat and arm.

Winokur can play above average (I did not say excellent) defense anywhere he lines up. He gets quick reads on batted balls both as an infielder and in the outfield. I would say he gets put wherever the greatest need shows. The key for Winokur remains his bat. He has big power but the hit tool has a ways to go. The stance and swing are changed, which has resulted in more contact even if his towering home runs and long drives are down. Players as tall as Winokur often have mechanical issues, such as a long swing. If he can comfortably adjust to the changes he has been using this year, Winokur could arrive at some time in 2028. It is also possible that he flames out at some point. Recently in a game I watched, Winokur popped a home run to right field off of a tough pitcher. He used his more compact swing. In the same game he took a big long powerful swing, one capable of driving a ball 500 feet. He came up empty on the big swing but his face looked like he felt good taking that big hack. Unfortunately Winokur will not get to MLB with the long swing and the refinements to a different setup and swing take time and discipline/focus on a daily basis. He remains a prospect.

There should be little disagreement that the Twins entered the season with a shaky bullpen. However, the results of the past month seems more in tune with the arms currently rostered and one big change. The Twins entered 2026 with a pretty weak set of gloves. Over time a number of moves have been made and the current alignment is more capable of turning batted balls expected to be outs into outs. The fly balls, the line drives, the ground balls that were hits early in the year are more often outs now. One must also acknowledge that the current gloves remain merely average if not slightly below average. This improvement has made a drastic difference to the pitchers. There are still glaring holes. The outfield without Buxton is weak. Keaschall has used his speed to get to some fly balls that would not be caught by Roden or Martin but he is slow to react and on a steep learning curve. It would be better if Luke were in a corner or at DH. The guy who has hurt the Twins lately in the outfield is Trevor Larnach. He hustles and hits the cutoff, which is a plus as compared to others. However, the ball has been punishing him lately as seen from his inability to catch a ball that scored two runs against Bradley's ERA the other day. Larnach is a good bat and is doing his best to be a good ballplayer. Talent with a glove can be improved but improvement sometimes merely reaches a below average fielding level. Larnach should probably be a DH too. Martin seemed like he was improving in left field but is not as comfortable in right field. Roden is not a good outfielder but he does not embarrass himself either. Ryan Kreidler is the best outfielder on the team but is desperately needed at shortstop. This season has shown how important defense is for pitchers. The success of the remainder of the 2026 campaign will rest primarily with how effectively the starters pitch combined with whether the bats can put up a better showing in the final two months. Lewis looks more stable in his legs right now. Can he improve? Ultimately it seems like the Twins will need two players, not currently rostered, to make successful debuts. Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins are not ready right now but I'm expecting that they will be up in two weeks. Hopefully those two strengthen the glove side of the coin and make positive improvements to the offense as well. There are a ton of questions surrounding the Twins. These next 49 games should be interesting and will, hopefully, be good viewing.

The Twins slow start in April/May was due in large part to a defense that turned batted balls that are meant to be outs into base hits. The defense is much improved but still in need of further improvement. Some will not accept that outs need to be converted into outs. For those who do it is easy to see why Wallner, Gonzalez, Mendez, and Sabato remain in AAA. It is also understandable that the two players who will help the Twins are Walker Jenkins and Kaelen Culpepper. My expectation was that they would be up in late July but injuries have pushed that timetable back to mid August. A more thorough rebalancing of the roster will need to be accomplished in November/ the offseason.

The Twins Cities is not the market for baseball that it is for football, hockey, or basketball. The series in Seattle drew over 126,500 and the Mariners were and are behind the Twins in the standings. The Rockies drew about 112,000 customers to see the Kansas City Royals. The San Diego Padres draw almost twice as many fans as the Twins. We can point fingers all day long but Target Field is a fabulous venue for baseball and the fans are not showing up in numbers to indicate large interest in baseball in the Twin Cities. Winning is the only thing that brings fans to the games for Minnesota baseball. I'm thinking there are people who may know the Pohlads own the Twins and stay away but I'm also betting about three million people in the metro area don't care who owns the team. While I can appreciate that the Twins front office and Tom Pohlad seem to be in a bit of a pickle here regarding the popularity of the team, I would suggest that building a winning team comes with some cold-hearted decision-making at a difficult time. That isn't easy and I, for one, have some empathy for those making the calls. It is, however, their jobs. For me, the bottom line, the 2026 Twins team is unbalanced and needed more than the admirable in season position shifts done by Shelton and his staff. I'm not sure when these changes/trades should have been done and maybe they get completed this coming November. Money is not the key missing ingredient. A balanced talented roster is the missing piece. Perhaps Walker Jenkins and others arrive and thrive to help the club. There is still plenty of baseball left to play in the 2026 season and we can hope for series wins, maybe even a notable winning streak.

The Twins must not have received any good offers for Ryan Jeffers. Adley Rutschman does have one more year of control but I would think most teams would much rather have Jeffers than Adley. Who knows, maybe the Twins totally took Jeffers off the table, which would be a surprise. The two best bats for the Twins are (arguably) Buxton and Jeffers and yet the team has won as much when these players were down with injuries. Placement of importance is difficult at best with some guys.

Unless I missed something, the Twins still have three catchers. Alex Jackson has done decent work in limited action. The guy looks like he still has talent. It would be surprising if he is still on the roster tomorrow and there is no doubt in my mind that this time another club will grab him. Was anyone else surprised that no team offered cash considerations for Matt Wallner? The guy deserves another shot to play but he looks like he will finish the year in AAA.

My two main concerns for this season back in late March remain, in the same order now as then. First problem has been relieved but not fixed. The defense was the worst in baseball but wholesale moves of players around the field improved the glove work somewhat. There is still a major problem in left field and centerfield and right field remain well below average. The second concern remains the bats. The team has scored runs and even created some exciting comebacks. Can the hitters create enough offense to win down the back third of the season? Will Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins arrive and thrive? Go Twins.

We cannot know how Zoll or other MN Twin front office people are regarded by their brethren, but something seemed off about the inability to pull off a significant series of trades. Maybe the Twins prospects are looked on very poorly, at least less than is often suggested here at TD. Keith Law has had the farm system in the back of the middle ten in baseball. No matter what, the roster still looks unbalanced. However, now we know the club that will roll through the final stretch this season. I'm guessing Kendry Rojas goes down to work as a starting pitcher with the addition of Hoffman. It also seems like the Twins are planning on using Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins soon, at least Jenkins.

Sorry to say, i would not trade Winokur for Neto. Think the Twins had a shot to make a solid trade with Ryan last year and Jeffers this year. Hmmm.

Adding to the above comments, a manager will not intentionally walk the bases full when the pitcher is not experienced and a known control pitcher. There needs to be some room for error. The pitcher knows they have an open base and can attack the hitter more carefully. In this case the execution was less than desired. On Saturday, the desired ground ball found a glove but an unfortunate mistake led to the winning run. Shelton played it textbook correct. Still it is a reasonable question to ponder.

The Toronto-Angels trade more or less highlights how different organizations have separate values on prospects and MLB players. Nimmala has whiffed a ton at AA, is not fast, but can play shortstop. The pitcher is a lottery type grab and the outfielder a stretch pick. Soriano saw his stock dive recently but it seems like a slim return for a controlled starting pitcher.

Hard to know how good any of these players (the traded prospects) are or whether they can contribute at the major league level at some point. Because I watch Wichita, I have seen Hope play a number of times. He wasn't particularly impressive in my extremely limited views (maybe 5 games). The prospect guys do what they can and they have relevance to judging talent to some extent. I wouldn't trade Winokur for Hope though, just from my viewing.

Roster builds are not easy. The Twins are much improved on defense from April/May but one can objectively argue that there is ton of changes still necessary to field an average to above average defensive-fielding team. Take yesterday's lineup as an example. Kody Clemens and Ryan Kreidler are both good utility players who provide solid average, sometimes even plus defense. Brooks Lee has improved enough at third base to be an average fielder. That is it though. Jeffers at C, Lewis at 1B, 2B, or 3B, Larnach in LF, Keaschall in CF, and Roden in RF are all below average defenders. Caratini at 1B, Gray at SS, and Martin in RF off the bench are also below average fielders. To be fair, many of the players are somewhat reasonably close to average. Nevertheless, the Twins have holes to fill and while the team really needs to find good bats there is also a need to improve the work of the gloves. Building a roster is not an easy task. Hopefully the Twins are narrowing their focus towards more athletic players. There may be some promise in players like EmRod, Jenkins, Houston, and later Winokur to hit at an acceptable level while playing good defense. I have been encouraged that the Twins moved away from Bell-1B, Keaschall-2B, Lewis-3B, and Lee-SS. Sometimes little steps provide hope.

Fantastic article. The trade deadline is fraught with illusions, hopes, and hype. The work on rosters is best left to the offseason. Still, one can believe in surprises and miracles.

You spew hate and disgust with the players and the games, you use the thumb down for no discernible reason, and are consistently negative towards many people. Sorry to be so rude but it is difficult to understand why someone who has so many bad feelings is on a site that is promoting the Minnesota Twins. It does make me question why I am on the site though. Once upon a time, using a totally different byline I was among the very first people to join Twins Daily after following Twins Geek, AaronGleeman.com, and several other sites as well as making a little dough contributing to several baseball blogs. I did quit and take a hiatus for a number of years and do wonder if the time has arrived to disappear again. I'm not a fan of the "I hate everything" type of comments. So you are not off to ask, "Why are you here?" Maybe I need a long vacation from this type of stuff. Peace to you.

Why are you even on this site?

These last two games are on the offense and defense. Larnach, who I do like quite a bit, is not an outfielder.

Yah, but damn he looks good. Right?

The Twins get a day off tomorrow and reset. By tomorrow night they will know that the trades are not a thing. The team will win or lose with the guys in the organization. I'm feeling better about this team than any team since 2019, which was a year with Manfred's superball.

Tough loss but the boys don't quit.

Everyone and I mean everyone needs to know the owners are always willing to f up in a major fashion and then go public with how the players need to save them from ruin.

Small, hopefully painless glitch - Kreidler needs to stay in game.

Absolutely love the calm, emotionless clapping by Bailey Ober after Keaschall ties the game.