Doctor Gast

Both Bundy & Archer were signed on to be part of a piggyback system because they had promise in being used in limited innings. The piggyback system was abandoned, and we had a terrible BP that blew up early even putting added stress on the rotation and a terrible catching crew. Bundy & Archer pitched well early but the extra burden proved too much for them. If Archer was brought back this last season he'd have a much better season being one more year behind his surgery, having a ST, much better BP & game calling.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound like you were short-selling Polanco. Our only difference of opinion is Julien's ability to play 2B, especially on a full-time basis. I love Julien's bat but that doesn't mean he should be our full-time 2Bman, By some guided positioning you can improve your metrics, & you can stretch him to be somewhat adequate but it doesn't hide the fact that he doesn't have the range & smoothness to turn the DP at 2B after all these years of trying. Many talking heads say we need a 1Bman, which means they want to sign a Gallo-type FA slugger, We are not over budget we don't need to trade Polanco, Polanco is a bargain. It'll be very hard if not impossible to trade Polanco for anyone significant but the reason they want to trade Polanco is so they can free up $ so they can sign a this Gallo-type FA. It's much better to keep Polanco & rotate Kiriloff (when he's not hurt) at 1B & DH (I want to limit Buxton at DH) with Julien and eventually have Kiriloff rotating in the OF. I respect your opinions & value them even if we disagree on this one point.

You stated my thoughts, Cory. When I 1st looked at the title my response was to play 100 games in CF. In '22 Buxton hurt his knee not in CF but sliding into 2B. The '22 goal for Buxton is to get him in as many games as possible. So that means to play him at DH & play him in as many games hurt as he could walk onto the field. From the beginning, I advocated not to play him hurt, if he can't play close to 100% shut him down & fix the problem so he can be ready for the postseason, Buxton & Polanco both played severely hurt not only severely affected their production in '22 & eliminated them from our playoff push & severely affected their '23 production & Buxton didn't make it to the '23 playoffs. If their injuries were quickly addressed & given proper rest & treatment they'd have been in a much better situation in '22 & '23. So we have to reset our objectives away from quantity to quality. 1st objective is to have Buxton healthy in CF for the postseason. 2nd is to have Buxton in CF & limit his DH duties & ABs. During the season when he's hurt take care of the problem right away, don't put a band-aid on it & say we're good. Except for the aftermath of the pre-Paparesta era, '23 was a pretty healthy season. I'm looking forward to an even better '24, healthwise.

A very good list, although I'd think Ryan should have a higher trade value ranking. #1 because most other teams see his upside & value that. #2 he still hasn't had the years to build up his stamina. Every year of the 2 full years he has pitched he has increased the # of quality innings, so I expect this season he'll increase it still yet. #3 When properly managed, he is a sturdy pitcher. #4 He's hungry, he's always seeking out veterans to pick their minds and goes to outside training facilities. He's driven. There are still things he needs to work on. like confidence. IMO he pitches better at home & he can be intimidated by a big line-up. But this will be improved along with experience. All these factors lead me to believe that Ryan is not close to reaching his full potential and he can become a successful postseason starter very soon & be highly valued in a trade. I don't think I'm being biased.

Although the challenge system is a step in the right direction. But with a challenge system, there's a limit on how many challenges you can have. Also, let's say there are 20 challenges combined /game (with some umpires it could be much more) 5x20 = 100 minutes that's a lot of time wasted when you can have a 100% correct call every pitch with no time delay using robo ump. Plus it speeds up the game because in a regular game, there are always disputed calls that players & coaches protest which delays the game. Robo ump eliminates that. Robo ump is great for the game and especially made sense during covid but it will be further delayed being adopted because teams like NYY enjoy the bias advantage of human umps.

Very disappointed that the robo ump was not adopted in but not surprised.

Curiously, SOs are very desirable for pitchers yet for hitters it doesn't matter? RBIs (runs) or the lack thereof by many experts are not important but according to this comment, it's insinuated as very important?

I don't see clogging our home-grown pitchers with more low-mid SPs & certainly not trading away Jax for him. & certainly not give the Twins any ideas of quitting there & not going after a front-line SP

I see that I made a mistake & I apologize. I took Strib's comment about the CLE correlation injunction with Falvey's comment as all of Falvey's comments. But that doesn't take away from what I said about the invalid correlation between CLE's SOs. I'm curious though where the Strib & Nick came up with the same correlations. & who sourced it?

The 2 articles you mentioned are basically FO's defense of their stance but don't really give us a big picture of reality. You can't argue with facts. I don't care how many HRs you hit in a blowout game, it's winning the close games with clutch hits that matter not keep striking out in those situations. They defended themself by stating that CLE was at the bottom of the list of striking out. I protest that CLE's problem was not that they didn't strike out enough but that they didn't have the offense, plus other things. And that not striking out was one of their positive attributes. https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/stats/team/?sortStatId=STRIKEOUTS At the top half of the list, we mainly see poorer teams except MN & the weird duck PHI which is still a few teams lower than MN. Looking at the bottom half of the list we see mostly good teams where teams like HOU, and AZ are close behind CLE, & ATL & TOR are not far behind. What I think is interesting is that CLE who was dead last in HRs & SOsdidn't end up as the worst team in the MLB & AZ which was towards the bottom on the list of HRs & SOs, went to the World Series. It goes to prove that they were able to win the close games I'm not against HRs but I'm totally against the Twins' hitting philosophy of an all-or-nothing approach. We have the offense, the problem is our hitting philosophy. What gets me is that this FO will double up serving their Kool-Aid even when it's obvious that they are wrong.

I agree with you jmlease1 100% up to the point of "we have adequate depth at 2B" because if we trade Polanco we will be forced to play Julien full-time at 2B which will compromise the integrity of our INF. IMO we are wasting our time with Julien at 2B where he could be learning to play 1B where he belongs. Polanco is a bargain, he has good numbers when he plays unnecessarily hurt but he has monster numbers when he's 100%. He's finally starting this season at 100%. So anyone don't sell him short.

I could not find this PIT interested in a Larnach/ Musgrove trade in MLBTR.

I was keeping close tabs on PITT at the time. In PIT it was common knowledge. It might have made MLB Trade Rumors but was not in any of MN news that I know of.

I'm stating CF depth, CF takes priority, you can't have nobody at CF, you always put your best OFer there. All these guys are much better than Cave & have shown in the past they can perform there except Martin but like I said I'm confident about him much like I was for Lewis & Julien. I agree a lot hinges on how much we can depend on Buxton & development of Martin. During ST we can see enough of where these 2 stand & if we need a MAT to help cover any shortcomings, at the end of ST that will happen

Trading for pitchers at the deadline is risky business, their arms need to be carefully examined 1st. Mahle, Dwyer & Paddack's arms were shot when we got them. Yeah I know Paddack wasn't traded at the deadline but his arm was well known to be shot but it seems like they didn't care. Off-season you're not paying for the abuse some teams do to showcase their arms at the deadline. Yeah, it was difficult to give up Steer & CES when they could be used for better trades but at least they are getting an opportunity to play. The Lopez/ Arraez trade is the model we are looking for. Lopez more than adequately filled our need at SP. And Arraez who was great with his bat but was our lesser option at 2B glovewise. filled MIA's need for offense. I share with you the concern for depth. For depth, we need to look at how we sit at the key positions (CF, SS & catcher) defensively, Last season we were the deepest we had ever been at CF. & fortunately, we were because Buxton basically didn't play a single game at CF. But this season, Buxton is in a much better place than last season & Martin is in a good place to come up & impact this team sooner rather than later, So right now we have Buxton, Castro, Martin & Gordon; all adequate or better at CF. At SS we have Correa, Farmer & Lewis (Lee could be brought up later in the season but I don't see him as a factor & I didn't include Castro because he'll be busy in the OF) are adequate or better. Buxton is very good at CF, Correa is very good at SS and at catcher, we have Vazquez who is very good, Jeffers who's adequate & Carmargo is unproven. IMO Carmargo doesn't have catcher in his blood & doesn't have the spunk, talent & motivation that Martin has to really take off. If we trade especially Vazquez that'll highly compromise our catching position. Jeffers thrived under Vazquez's safety net, the last time Jeffers was our sole primary catcher he bombed. In '21, PIT offered us Musgrove straight up for Larnach, FO didn't accept or gave a counter-offer. Musgrove was moved to SD for substanially less. FO decided to go FA & picked up Happ & Shoemaker & got the fanbase all on board. Needless to say Musgrove had a wonderful year pitching no-hitters & how did Happ, Shoemaker & Colume do? We had a pretty good team how did we fare? What would have happened if we went the trade route & picked up Musgrove instead like I had advocated, What I've observed is we take more risk in FA than in the off-season trade route. About the offense, we have a lot of offense, we had the most HRs in the AL. The problem with our offense is striking out too much (we set the record for the most) in clutch situations & not getting hits. The most important improvement on offense is ditching their "hitting HRs every pitch" philosophy. Where we can win more close games that we normally lose via SO's.

I've said it before & I'll say it again, Sano is so strong that he doesn't need to focus on hitting HRs, he needs to focus on making contact. Because "anything he makes contact with is going over the fence". It doesn't matter if it goes 500+ or a line drive that clears the fence. What's the difference is the SOs that come instead of hits in clutch situations that come from HR every pitch mentality but Sano has gotten so bad that he strikes out all the time. I'd love it if a trainer would sit down with him, work with him & try to get that mindset that has been instilled in his mind, out of him & get him to focus on making contact. It might not be too late.

Big fan of Garver & it pained me to see him go. But now bringing him back on a part-time basis at $26MM for two years under these circumstances & the premise of letting go a Polanco, Kepler or Farmer at bargain prices or even paying someone to take Vazquez doesn't make sense. Vazquez was a safety net for Jeffers & Jeffers thrived not being the sole primary catcher, where he bombed in '22. But being the sole primary catcher in '24 if they trade Vazquez, Garver's net would not be strong enough to catch Jeffers if he bombs again. We should have Julien, Kiriloff, Miranda & Farmer at 1B. We don't need another, especially at FA prices.

We have to bring baseball back to MN, which means greatly limiting black-outs, ban black-outs outside let's say a 200-mile radius & have access to streaming. We can get by with the current payrole with savvy trades & by-pass FAs if that's what it takes to make Twins games more accessible.

IMO this is like Reds with Castillo, they dangled him around for a couple of years to get buyers for their other pitchers. Luzardo isn't going anywhere.

During the covid season, robo umps made the most sense out of everything that MLB proposed. Removing older umps away from close proximity to batter & catcher. Yet they didn't install it. Why in the Sam Hill didn't they & why haven't they yet? Because umps bias often favors teams like NY & bias against teams like the Twins. People argue that robo takes away from the spirit of the game I'll protest that fair play should be the heart of baseball. Yet another year w/o robo umps. I'm also against the compromise of having the opportunity to protest a call. That slows down the game & you shouldn't have any limit of having the correct call called. All calls should be correct & standardized so that both pitchers & batters know what they are facing,

Thanks Nick you usually seem to have a pulse on what's vital for the Twins, After Gray's blow out loss it seemed that every Twin was bitten by the HR bug. I sensed that even Lewis a clutch hitter was no longer was trying to get that clutch hit in those clutch situations but hitting that HR or another grand slam. Too many people equates HRs to wins. If so we should have had the best record going into the AL post season. We need to realize that many of those HRs are hit when it doesn't matter when there are blow outs. Where pitchers are more apt to make mistakes, giving opportunity to HR happy batters. But doesn't matter how many HRs you hit, a win is a win a loss is loss you don't get any bonus pts. for HRs. And when the game is close & especially in a post season game. The pitchers are top notch & psyched you're not going to get any mistakes which often yields against the Twins hitters SOs after SOs & are handed the loss after loss. This philosophy IMO creates holes in the batters swings which we often see batters swinging through a strike. Back in the day the Twins encouraged every player to hit line drives & go the other way now they encourage every hitter to try to hit a HR every pitch both are wrong you need help every hitter to be the best type of hitter that he is, individually. Help hitters to adapt to every pitch and every pitcher, so if you have 2 strikes you change your swing. I'll take a clutch hitter over a slugger any day, that doesn't mean a clutch hitter can't hit a HR. To summarize the Twins need to wake up & ditch their philosophy & start creating more clutch hitters & not Sano & Gallo types.

For all the reason that the other members have beaten me to what I wanted to say, not going to happen. We can do ATL (Contreras)/ OAK (Murphy)/ MIL type of trade to upgrade & MN (Arraez)/ MIA (Lopez) type strength to weakness trade to improve our team. Please not like '21 again, after we won the division where FO punted by letting Rosario walk & depended on Cave, Kiriloff & Larnach, & then Celestino, and then converted INFer Gordon & Refsnyder to OF. Scrambling at the end they scraped Happ, Shoemaker & Colume from bottom the barrel & convinced the fanbase what great additions they were. Maybe this year after they trade off one or more of the 4. They can scrape together enough money to sign a FA RH version of Gallo. Please excuse my sarcasm.

Gum usually came with the cards, Collecting baseball cards when I was young got me familiar with other players That I normally didn't watch on TV. We never played with our cards, but I usually biked into to town with my brothers when we didn't have to work on the farm & round up some town kids to play ball. We'd play all afternoon, couldn't understand why some would prefered to stay home & watch TV. That was when baseball was the national pastime & sport. A time of innocence, it'd be nice if those days would be back. I had a lot of baseball cards with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Kofax, Don Drysdale, Camilio Pasqual, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva & Rod Carew (I had them all) that kept at my folks. When I realized they were worth something I went back to bring them back with me. They were gone, all of them.

I respect your opinion Tarheel, but I'm sorry those players won't get us close to solving our SP problem, they'd get us a prospect plus having to pay MIA maybe $5MM to boot. This trade helps MIA but same time creates holes in our INF & catching.

What I've heard that MIA's main focus is catching & SS. IMO MIA is throwing out a name like Luzardo to see what they can get as far as catcher & SS in return. Jeffers I think makes the most sense as the our main piece, As discussed before Luzardo would be a great addition to our team.