tony&rodney

People understandably seem pretty worn down by the inaction of the offseason and the various frustrations with the organization. The calendar has shifted to February though with a number of players already hanging out in Ft. Myers getting ready to play baseball in the sunshine when it warms up. I'm wondering if a minor trade or two or maybe a signing is still possible. I also wonder if a major trade could be in the cards before April. One player (minor trade) who I would like to see in a Twins uniform is Jordan Lawler. He was a big disappointment in several brief and irregular stints with the Diamondbacks and he has very little chance for playing time in Arizona. It is tough to know what it would take to acquire him. BBTV had him at 24 a month ago but has him around 4 now, which seems strange. Is Alan Roden or Austin Martin enough? Would the DBacks take Larnach plus a prospect like C.J. Culpeepper? I think more is needed. Is Ober too much or acceptable? There must be some other opportunities to find balance with the roster. While I believe Matt Wallner would be a pretty good DH, the same can be said for Trevor Larnach or Josh Bell. I think the Twins will use Bell at first base. That means that either Larnach or Wallner should be dangled. They could both be good but Wallner is less expensive, has a higher value, and projects to produce more wins. Larnach is pretty good but may not return anything useful. Tough spot which I thought would be solved in November. Can it be resolved in February? While I thought that Wallner should be an important piece of the 2026 Twins, I have wondered whether Pittsburgh would see value in a trade of Big Matt for Jared Jones and a Comp A pick. Hopefully the Twins can find time to engage in a few conversations on deals that balance the roster. A few tweaks seem like a good idea. Folks seem uninterested in making guesses, but I'm still hopeful of a few positive moves.

If I remember correctly you went to a game that he played shortstop and did not think very highly of him. Perhaps my memory is mistaken and you watched him play a dozen times or more. If you have seen him play a couple dozen times please forgive me. It is good to remember that we all have bad or down days at our jobs or did for those of us who are retired. Personally I find it useful to watch a player a couple of dozen times before making a strong judgment on their skills. I'm looking forward to watching Marek Houston this summer. I only saw him play four times last summer and he looked totally over matched at the plate and didn't look above average in the field. Yes, i am aware that Houston has a great reputation as a fielder. I believe I saw him on his bad days, which one reason I intend to watch him this coming season. Guys like Young and Winokur will need to develop their hit tool to work up the ladder. Keep an eye out for them.

A few things have been ironed out, for better or worse. Tom Pohlad is in charge. Derek Falvey is going to spend more time with his family. No use to get pinned down forever by all the negative energy. Where do the Twins go from here? Is the team set? Does it make sense to add a starting pitcher? There are a few out there, but the Twins seem doubtful as spenders. Are any trades possible? The messages being bandied about make a selloff seem highly unlikely. Are there any options to gain value from trading a couple of guys currently on the roster? Like most people I'm a bit disillusioned with the lack of action towards improving the club. I'm also ready to see Walker Jenkins and maybe Emmanuel Rodriguez. Hard to know if they would be ok or overwhelmed. In my opinion the roster is out of whack. The bullpen could be difficult to rebuild on the fly but the young guns might surprise, delight, or even disgust people on more than a few occasions. What ideas are out there? Or is the current roster already done? Does anyone have any potentially positive thoughts?

This a somewhat surprising take. The Twins jettisoned Duran, Jax, Varland, and Stewart to clear payroll. Those four would cost about $10M more than four rookies. Why would you or actually anyone ever think the Twins would shed the payroll last July only to add significantly more cost for inferior relievers now? I'm not opposed to the Twins adding $50M in relief pitching since last season, but any additions that cost money were never going to happen. The Twins were more likely to sign Bo Bichette. The management of budgets has been a nightmare as has the management of the roster payroll. Thus the recent amicable divorce of Tom and Derek.

Matt Wallner is a guy who can do some damage with the bat in his hand. I'm hoping he finds a path to vast improvement in the batter's box. The improvement at the plate should be combined with using Wallner strictly in the DH slot. Like Nelson Cruz, his bat could make him a real danger to pitchers and his seat on the bench when his team is in the field will endear him to the pitchers on his own team. Wallner's ability to hit is going to be a huge part of the 2026 team. I do still wonder if Pittsburgh might be tempted to trade Jared Jones for Big Matt.

The present is always a good time to think positive and work towards success. Zoll has been a part of the organization long enough to see the strengths and weaknesses of the system. Perhaps he can use the best of the current system with practices from a few clubs that have stretched their thin financial assets into winning baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, and Tampa Bay Rays are the posters for well run consistently competitive teams. Hopefully, Zoll can steal a thing or two from those guys.

I think you meant it would be interesting to see how Tampa Bay would do with the Twins payroll. The last time the Twins were relevant, 2023, the Rays had less than half the payroll of the Minnesota Twins, but won 12 more games than the Twins. I wish all teams spent the same amount on player payroll but that won't happen in my lifetime. Are there big fans of the Pohlad way of running the Twins? I would like to hear if there are voices for the owner's positions. That issue should not be confused by a lack of skill by the Twins front office. The teams that should receive your sympathy are the Rays, Brewers, Guardians, etc.

Falvey was hired in October of 2016. Ober and Jeffers are his plum pipeline thus far. Now i really hope every prospect performs at 150% of their expected talent to make Derek look good retroactively (I really do) but thus far Falvey has been a failure, objectively; he didn't have any vision. By all accounts Falvey is a pretty decent guy that most people like. He talked a good game. It appears that Tom Pohlad didn't buy the bull&*it any longer. Baseball is a tough business. Players get DFA'ed with very little notice and sympathy. Edouard Julien and Pierson Ohl were traded with few people lamenting their exit. So it goes.

The Twins ownership has collapsed the payroll in a dramatic fashion. Nobody in Twins Territory is pleased with lower payrolls. Nobody. Reality can be tough. In reality, Falvey had more money to spend on HIS roster than any team in the AL Central in his time as the man in charge of rosters. How did he do? You can each decide for yourself. Take away the players left by Terry Ryan and there wasn't much to brag about. Who is the best player on the Twins team today? Who signed that guy? Clue- it was in 2012. Falvey did some good things and has some success. Certainly there are positives but when he had to work with the budgets of Cleveland or Milwaukee he was toast. The Twins need to find a new owner. That is a possible positive path forward. They also need someone to lead the team who is in tune with the dire state of mid market MLB baseball. That wasn't Derek Falvey.

We won't agree. That's fine, it's life.

The Twins won with Calvin's boys. To be fair, the addition of a few players was critical but that was all Andy Mac. People really judged Cal harshly because he was so raw, just a simple baseball gut; the last of the dinosaurs. Carl proved himself to be exactly what we said he was all along. His boys are actually good people, imo.

Not likely, even a little bit. Falvey has had numerous opportunities since 2016 to make big trades for prospects. Tampa Bay managed to convince him to send Nelson Cruz for Joe Ryan. The trade for Duran worked out. Those guys were not highly rated prospects. We do not know what happened last July. We also do not know what happened recently. We can live without the knowledge too. It was time for a change. So it goes.

This is exactly correct.

The constant focus on payroll does not obscure the fact that Falvey sat on his hands each of the last 3 offseasons. Was he waiting to be fired? I don't know about that but we can look to teams like Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and others who also face legitimate financial challenges and make moves beyond waiver wire deals and signing whatever players remain in late January/early February. The late July trades were head scratchers from around baseball. Yes, there were some decent prospects returned but it wasn't at all clear what the goal was when nothing followed in the remaining months up to today. All of October, November, and December we were told that the Twins did not know what their payroll budget would be for 2026. The public doesn't really need to know but there should still be a plan. Other teams make tough decisions. Tampa Bay traded Brandon Lowe. Milwaukee traded Freddy Peralta. The Twins? Nothing. Edward Cabrera was available. Others too. The Twins have an unbalanced roster. I have no problem with any one player but the composition of the team is not viable at this point in time. We have seen very little work being done to address the roster. We don't know what caused this decision to be made now. Tom Pohlad visited several players and has spoken to season ticket holders or so we are told. This could be among the reasons. There is no doubt in my mind that moving from AL Central high payrolls back into the morass of teams hovering within $20M of a $100M payroll is restrictive to finding the favored free agents. It does not preclude one from seeking alternative solutions. Falvey, through his actions during the last three winters, refused to join his brethren in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Tampa in building rosters. He was shown the door. I actively opposed the sale of the Twins to Carl Pohlad in 1984. It has been a long time since that day, water over the dam. Right now Tom Pohlad is up to his eyeballs in work at making things better for the Twins and their fans. I don't know the guy. The Pohlads have struggled with public relations. The Pohlads still own the team and the payroll is still over $100M. I would like to see some attempts at improving this team. I'm open to ideas. I think a payroll of $115M should be sufficient. Let's see what transpires in the next 6 weeks.

Falvey was hired in October of 2016. It was time for him to go. Wish him all the best. He will almost certainly find a job in the business world at some point. The Twins direction? Who knows. Zoll is going to be getting a ton of texts and calls from other clubs about players. Sharks circle. The next month could be interesting.

There have been some odd comments by various people regarding prospects. Apparently a few folks are hurt that various prospect prognosticators have not elevated the Twins farm system to the levels they feel are warranted or have left this guy or that player off the lists. In the past there have been literally hundreds of comments and dozens of articles boasting about the bright future of the Twins "top ranked" system and the many players in the "pipeline". This has been extended on numerous occasions to include comments that suggest that the team has never in its history had so many highly rated prospects. Keith Law's list of prospects and team ranking did not make some people happy. The turn is to state that it is performance that matters and that rankings are unimportant. I can easily agree with that if many of those same people had not written so many comments highlighting the excellence of the Twins farm system. My interest in prospects goes back a half century. I enjoy watching all of Babe Ruth, Legion, high school, college, Men's Senior Leagues, Town Ball, minor leagues, and major leagues at roughly the same interest level. The quality of play differs. The lists of individuals is worth my time but team rankings are complicated making for less interest on my part. I watch too much baseball and when I see a guy making plays and dominating the field, mound or batter's box on numerous occasions I try to put a name to the guy since I rarely listen to announcers. Most of the top 20 players stand out on a consistent basis if you watch them. All this to say that it is great to get excited about a prospect and especially your favorite team, but there isn't any reason to feel defensive if those guys who work at prospect evaluation for a living don't share your opinions or overlook your guy. It's just a game within the game.

The most basic fact to understand about anything related to the Twins financial situation is that the public (us) does not know any hard numbers. There are quasi-valid guesses about revenues and expenditures as well as ideas about "other" expenses. We can probably make similar vague guesses about some person who lives in that green house three blocks away. Here is what I think I know about the Twins and the Pohlads: 1. The Pohlads own the Twins. 2. The Twins increased payrolls steadily during the current front office era. 3. The Twins reduced payrolls the last few years. 4. The Pohlads were unsuccessful in selling the team for the price they wanted. 5. The Pohlads took on financial partners. 6. The Twins currently listed payroll is about the same as the 2015-2017 payrolls. MLB is a mess at this time in terms of discrepancies between the haves and the have nots. While teams like the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals may have been dominant forces throughout the long history of the game, the factorial differences that exist today have even crushed the Cardinals. The unique aspect of MLB (as compared to other leagues such as the NBA, NFL, and NHL) is that actual club revenues are closely guarded secrets. Thus it is possible that any team can find ways to claim either profits or losses dependent on the expertise of their accountants. The Pohlads have claimed about $500M of losses. Tough to argue that point but the family doesn't explain the expenses either. I usually spend zero to very little time thinking about the owners. Owners going to do whatever. Billionaires rarely lose money. This is why I have stated in comments that it would be surprising if there was a lockout that extended beyond next April. The owners love money too much. So, have the Pohlads solved their debt problems? I could care less.

Gabby Gonzalez made such major improvements last summer that he slips below some radars but more likely he is a player people want to see further in 2026. He is a Wallner/Larnach/Twins type of defensive player (weak), doesn't burn on the bases, and has not shown much power. Thus he gets dinged badly for those traits and his poor 2024. He looked like he could turn on pitches last summer and did drive the ball in the gaps as well at both AA and AAA. I am looking forward to watching him play this year to see if he has an additional gear, particularly as far as being playable in the field. There isn't any reason to think less of GG just because he didn't show up on any lists this year. His presence on lists two years ago was pretty much ridiculous given that he had such poor skills at the time except for the hit tool. Keep an eye on Gonzalez.

I worry about tree roots growing into the pipes. That's a big problem.

Tait is a long way from MLB .... 3 years would be quick. From my limited views of his games (via milb.com) he has a big bat that could play at 1B if he cannot make it as a catcher. He is very aggressive and barrels the ball quite a bit but takes the type of wild swings youth are known for. He is one to watch. The stories out of Philly is that the Twins preferred Tait to Aiden Miller. It doesn't make any difference now but someone must have been pretty impressed by Tait. We shall see .... poco a poco.

Virtually all of the guys whose names are popular (Law, Longenhagen, McDaniel, etc.) place primary importance on those players they believe will be effective MLB players. They place less emphasis on guys who may get a cup of coffee. Talent, specifically reaching that talent, is what the writers and prospect gurus focus on with the players. Any time a writer puts up the lists, there are strong opinions and disagreements with more than a few people suggesting that one writer or another has a dislike of a team. This actually makes for some humorous comments on national sites, as people bemoan the fate of their favorite clubs. I'm just hoping the Twins prospects can bust out, get a chance to play and roll with their opportunity.

I'm hoping that both Walker Jenkins (RF) and Emmanuel Rodriguez (LF) open the year in the Twins lineup. I know I'm in the small minority on this and I also know the Twins won't consider this but it is what i hope to see. Prielipp should open the year in the bullpen. Hopefully Culpepper arrives at some point in the summer (mid June).

Law had the Twins at #21 among farm systems, at the bottom of his fifth tier.

The Twins come in at #21. Within the next month or so a host of publications will throw out their best guesses for where each team stands among the 30 MLB clubs. Twins fans should probably expect an average somewhere in the middle ten of all organizations. These rankings are not a big deal. Production from individuals from the system is important.

The decision may have been a coin flip. More coins still need to be flipped.