Doctor Gast

That's OK because we picked up Castro because of it. Much like Castro, Celestino was rushed up to the MLB before he was emotionally ready & was given up by their development team. IMO Celestino's potential isn't as high as Castro but has the talent to still impact a team once he gets straightened out. Once hitting the MLB, pure hitters like Lewis, Kiriloff & Lee hit the ground running but they are held back due to injuries. Miranda & Martin only need some MLB seasoning (Miranda also an injury). Larnach, Wallner & Julien are held back due to approach change. They are on their way back. 8 young quality talent there & Castro only turned 27 in April all have great potential & deserve to start games for the Twins right now.

I've been waiting a few hrs. for TD to post this. IMO Castro is a story of a young player who was rushed ^& sputtered & DET gave up on him. A friend of Baldelli recommended Castro to him, on a whim he called him. I'm sure Baldelli is happy that he did. Twins are fortunate that he did & that there were injuries to open the door after spring training, Castro played great in spring training but Twins don't look at ST performances & Castro would have been doomed to rot in AAA. But with the Twins, Castro has taken every opportunity & has run with them. In the beginning of this season we lost our big 3 and the result could have been very disastrous, putting us in a tailspin & in a hole that would have been hard to get out of, But Castro was our anchor in this storm to minimize the damage & left us in a situation in which we could recover. Not only has he held down very demanding positions admirably, he has also produced offensively. I greatly value his versatility at prime positions, with his switch-hitting means you can get his bat & glove in the game filling any hole & adding quality depth at many positions. No wonder he leads the team in WAR & games played. I had no doubt that Castro could help the Twins from the beginning but he has greatly surpassed my expectations. I'm very happy that he got the all-star nod that I had hoped for & deserved. Congratulations! & wish him & Correa well & that they'd make the Twins proud.

I'm glad we both agree Mike, about our catching depth. But to quote what I wrote before to show his value to the Twins, "Defensively he has raised the level to above average. Besides raising the catching level our pitching level has increased. Besides being a top defensive catcher, he's very good at game-calling & handling the pitchers. Besides working well with the pitchers, he works well with the INFers, especially Correa. He's also a great clubhouse guy." And I'd like to add also that he's durable, a rare quality for catchers. I'd also like to point out that Ryan Jeffers is a great backup catcher or in tandem but doesn't have the physical or mental durability to be a primary catcher. Let's look at his stats. Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards 2020 23 MIN AL 26 62 55 5 15 0 0 3 7 0 0 5 19 .273 .355 .436 .791 119 24 0 2 0 0 0 2/DH 2021 24 MIN AL 85 293 267 28 53 10 1 14 35 0 1 22 108 .199 .270 .401 .670 83 107 6 4 0 0 0 2/H 2022 25 MIN AL 67 236 212 25 44 10 1 7 27 0 0 23 62 .208 .285 .363 .648 85 77 6 0 1 0 0 2/DH 2023 26 MIN AL 96 335 286 46 79 15 2 14 43 3 2 33 93 .276 .369 .490 .858 134 140 6 10 4 2 1 2H/D 2024 27 MIN AL 72 285 247 35 59 16 0 14 47 2 0 21 59 .239 .324 .474 .798 123 117 6 12 1 4 0 2D/H '20 he subbed a few games, he had a good year. '21 Garver was injured & Jeffers had the lion's share over Rortvedt, Jeffers slumped. '22 Garver & Rortvedt traded, Jeffers was declared the primary catcher, not able to handle the added physical & mental strain Jeffers quickly crashed & burned. '23 Vazquez was signed as the principal catcher in the catching duo. Jeffers as backup, Jeffers thrived. '23 postseason Jeffers was declared primary catcher (over 2X WS championship experienced Vazquez) Jeffers got 2 singles out of 19 ABs no RBIs. '24 sharing duties at catcher & did well until he got extra DH duties & started to slump. As you look at Jeffers stats, Jeffers depends on Vazquez to at least carry 50% of the catching duties for him to thrive. Vazquez not missing time has aided in Jeffers success. IMO many people will be very delusional after Vazquez, leaves, thinking Jeffers & Camargo can handle the catching duties.

IMO we started out the off-season very badly. Made some bonehead moves & ingrained the "all or nothing" approach that was doomed to fail. We started out great with Lewis but w/o Lewis, later Correa & Buxton & the league had the book to counter our hitting, we took an awful gut punch. To give Baldelli credit he changed course on our hitting approach (which SEA is still trying to figure out), we slowly improved our offense. Castro has been our anchor especially during the absence of Lewis, Correa & Buxton. Correa has been playing like an all-star, the Buck Truck is making deliveries more frequently, Miranda after having some playing time, he has shifted into another gear, Martin has been valuable & like Miranda he needs more playing time to hit that other gear. Lee as expected hit ground running much like Lewis did. Wallner returned from AAA a better hitter & fielder & Julien isn't far behind. I have great faith in our young core & advocated not picking up inferior veteran roadblocks that have set us back. For our superior young players to develop properly for the postseason we need to get rid those roadblocks. The rotation helped get us through the rough patch. SWR has been a nice surprise, Lopez is going through his readjustment but expect him to get on top of it. Everybody else is doing about what is expected. These guys can get us to the dance but it'd be nice to have another top tier SP to advance in the postseason. The new acquisitions have done pretty much what I expected which is not much. Except Staumont I expected the TOS to be a non factor because we can expect at least one good inning but not any more or with frequency with Staumont. Jax has been steady, Duran & Thielbar have regressed. I have hope that Duran will rebound but I don't expect Thielbar no more than serviceable. Once managed correctly Alcala has proven valuable. Varland has not been taken advantaged of in the pen yet. Because of my doubt with Thielbar IMO we need a LHRP set up man. I like where we are sitting but CLE is having a great season because they had faith in their young players & kept a good hitting philosophy. It's expected that CLE will pick up a SP. We need to add to our needs finally if we want to win the division.

It was more of a rhetorical question. They have been wanting him to play 2B all his career & he has been lousy most of his time there. Thinking that his bat would make up for his inadequacy there. Possibly focusing on his fielding with smoke & mirrors maybe they have passed him off as adequate. I'd still want someone who is naturally better at 2B so they wouldn't be deterred from their hitting trying to be passable at 2B. Julien would be the LHH platoon at 2B. (SHH) Lee is our present & future full-time 2Bman with Castro, Martin & Lewis all better 2Bman & better contact hitters as backups. While we have RHH Miranda & Santana who can't hit RHPs we have nobody designated to bat against LHPs at 1B. 1B is a production position, Santana isn't close to producing the way he needs to at 1B. He is one of the roadblocks I insinuated to earlier. As I wrote earlier Julien is very close to MLB the only thing that is stopping him is Santana. Why isn't Julien playing 1B? Is rhetorical because it doesn't make sense to have him at 2B, his future & present is 1B. The only sense is they intend to trade Julien but if they wanted to trade Julien, last off-season was the best time.

Because of Eeles, I've been following AAA a little more. Eeles is holding his own, Julien is closing in on returning to MLB, why aren't they focusing him at 1B? We have Lee, Lewis, Castro & Martin who are naturally better than Julien at 2B, not to mention Farmer. It's frustrating having all these roadblocks holding back our young players. The BP game for the Saints went well until Winder, it's taking him a bit to get his stuff back.

Ober pitched very well until he petered out. Facing Fedde who has a good record while playing for the worst team in baseball, you'd think that they'd put out a better roster. With Vazquez catching, you'd think they'd put a better line-up to compensate. But no they put Margot (who can't hit RHPs) in CF (?), & Santana (who can't hit RHPs) high up in the order. No Buxton or Kepler & no Lee's glove. With the top of the order doing well in the 1st, bases loaded with nobody out & accumulating Fedde pitch count to where CWS got the BP going. On the ropes ready to do serious damage, the middle of the order whimped out & let them off the hook, with nothing. Deflated the Twins couldn't recover & it gave Fedde & CWS a shot in the arm. This is another head-scratcher. every game is important.

Correa isn't stupid. As a smart INFer, he knows the poor quality of defense of the INF (due to prioritizing bats) throughout the years & the ban of the shift created an opportunity to be taken advantage of. So that's what he's doing while focusing on maximizing his contact rate & minimizing SOs. More Twins should take advantage of this while focusing on improving our INF defense

Thank you Cody for this article. We have to look back on why we signed him. We signed him because our catching was in the toilet. Defensively he has raised the level to above average. Besides raising the catching level our pitching level has increased. Besides being a top defensive catcher, he's very good at game-calling & handling the pitchers. Besides working well with the pitchers, he works well with the INFers, especially Correa. He's also a great clubhouse guy. Did we overpay for Vazquez? Maybe so. But what is done is done & what is the alternative? If we DFA him we are out the money or if we can trade him we'll have to eat a good portion of that money. Either way, our defense will take a blow. Carmargo isn't a serious backup. Then we'll have to pay extra for an inferior backup.

We out hit CWS but came up short. How disappointing

Why did they have Santana so high in the order, he can't hit RHPs?

Another impressive outing for Sands

Twins sucker for the high FB. At least we got one back

There's my man Wallner! Keep it going!

Ober petered out! No offense Peter

When you have the guy on the ropes you finish him up

Good AB from Wallner

We are getting a great performance from Ober

Yeah, we need have better ABs to accumulate Fedde's pitch count

Great job Miranda!

You can't let these guys off the hook.

All that for nothing! Crap! You gotta do better than that from your production positions

Great hit & run! I was expecting that with Castro & Correa

At least Margot isn't leading off.

Festa is the 26th man. I was hoping for Varland, because we might need long relief help in an emergency.