StormJH1

This prediction, predictably, is proving to be very active. Haha. I don't interact in person with a lot of Twins fans, but I just feel this weird indifference about the team. Which is discordant with an team that has good rotation/bullpen, reasonable star power for a mid-market team, and a decent chance of sniffing the postseason if a few things break right. I think the ownership/sale situation, annual injuries, uncertainty about how to watch the team, and (especially) the lack of investment in the on-field product have really worn on the fanbase.

It's Monday on the week of Opening Day now. I assumed that I was being ignorant and had simply missed news about what channel this would be on Xfinity AND whether or not it will be included in one of the add-on tiers many of us likely set up years ago, specifically so that we would have access to FSN, Bally, etc. This is a friggin' mess. I'm in my 40's and not completely technologically inept. The demographic of people who would be (a) still really into baseball; and (b) reliant on a cable provider to show Twins games skews quite a bit older than me. How the heck are they supposed to figure out when and where to watch the games if it changes every year, changes within the year as it did with the surprise May 1st blackout last season, and then isn't resolved days before the start of the new season. There are like 1500 channel slots on Xfinity X1 service. Are they expecting that your 75-year-old grandfather will just thumb around by accident and locate the Twins TV channel they may or may not be paying for in the mid-600's while channel surfing? My Xfinity bill creeps up so embarrassingly high, I'm tempted to dump the whole thing over stuff like this. My wife and daughter rely on it less and less compared to streaming options as time goes on. Does anyone know if there is an upgrade option if you have the MLB.TV All Teams Yearly Subscription ($149) to include the local team for the bundle ($199), if you are already signed up? My plan was obviously to watch the Twins on TV, since I believed I was already "paying for" it. If that turns out not to be the case, or if I cancel cable, it looks like my next option is to pay the $99 just to add the Twins (or $19.99/month), which seems like an unattractive option.

I definitely was among the many voices earlier this season saying Kepler shouldn't have been re-signed and (later) should have been traded for whatever C-level prospect we could get for him. Obviously, that looks wrong now. But as others have said, I don't much regret the opinion for two reasons: (1) The entire trajectory of his career still makes it more likely that the last few months are a Chris Parmelee-like outlier, versus an actual indicator of his long-term production; and (2) The team has tons of young, talented position players that were being blocked by Kepler (and others), and arguably would have performed nearly as well with that additional playing time. The crow I need to eat would probably be on the Mahle trade. Not because I was so sure it would work out - I wasn't at all. But because I applauded the Twins for finally taking a risk and flipping prospects for a potential upper-half of the rotation arm. Unfortunately, Steer and Encarnacion-Strand are making it look like that trade look VERY bad, and there wasn't a way for me to know Mahle was already hurt and about to become even more hurt the following season.

Yeah, that's just the problem. I think the take on Julien learning 1B is a solid one, but I think that's probably going to take some time. Remember the original plan was to have him learn one of the corner outfield spots, as that seemed to be the more immediate route to playing time. Except we have a logjam there, too, which is the whole point of this topic. I wonder if the front office truly anticipated that Byron Buxton was going to be the everyday DH heading into May, or if it was more of a situation where the knee was barking around Opening Day, but they'd hoped it would clear up after a week or two and he could go back in the field. Because losing the option to DH guys like Larnach, Julien, and Kiriloff makes it significantly harder to get the young guys regular playing time. Julien is not going to "replace" Jorge Polanco. And, shockingly, Kepler just started 7 games in a row after coming back from injury, until he finally sat against a lefty (P. Corbin). (FWIW, Kepler's splits in 2022 were somewhat even, but he was trash against lefties in 2020 and 2021). It's not just that guys like Kepler are bad. It's that when you bring a veteran back like that, they're so much harder to get out of the lineup when they inevitably slump. 400+ AB's this year from Larnach, Julien, or Kiriloff would be SO much more valuable than getting the same exact production from Kepler in their place.

Fair, but I guess you could argue that you earn "luck" by putting yourself in the position in the first place for something to work out. Like the Mahle thing last year - what if he ripped off 4 or 5 starts like Lopez has had to start this season after he was acquired, and then gotten shut down? I think that is an entirely plausible thing that could have happened, and fans would have viewed it differently. He's also back pitching reasonable well now, so time will tell on that move. But you have try a bunch of stuff, like trading for Mahle AND Pablo Lopez, AND committing $200 million+ to a guy whose ankle may fall off, in order for some of it to work. (I agree that lost Correa like 10 different ways this offseason before getting him back in the most absurd way imaginable, but he is a Boras client, and our initial offer to him him before the Giants signed him was very competitive and kept us in the discussion).

Love the deal, and while he probably is out-pacing his long-term performance currently, it seems like it has a reasonable chance of looking like a bargain. As much as I loved Arraez, I was in favor of this trade from day one, and I think the early performance has shown that he is a legit talent. Injuries happen to almost every pitcher, so if you could find a position player and SP of like talent, the team getting the position player is going to "win" in a lot of cases just because of injury. To me, that doesn't matter. This was the right thing to do, as was the Mahle trade, and the general decision to stockpile competent SP arms. I probably feel better about our SP depth now than I have since...when? 2010? 2006?

Totally agree with this take. Although I think more people were asking for the Twins to sign an ace than you may think. Despite our colossal depth of problems all over the roster, there are people who legitimately think we should've thrown $20 million at C.J. Wilson or Cliff Lee so we at least had one good ace. First, a free agent pitcher has to WANT to come play for you. Other than a slight pitcher's park, there's really no motivating factor for an ace to want to come here as opposed to LA or Texas (or Boston/NYY, etc.). Second, it would have made virtually no difference to the success of the team - not when you can't support the ace adequately with runs, and the 2-5 options are a mess. Look at the pitchers Seattle has had and been forced to dump because they weren't making a run. But they've been busy actually drafting power arms, so their chances of having a solid rotation 2 or 3 years from now are light years beyond the Twins'.