Doctor Gast

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.

A note: LAD is pursuing any top line SP except Snell, no one is pursuing Snell except PHI. Most don't want to pay what Snell is asking with all his warts.

I'm not much for these type of extension but in Lewis's case the sooner & longer we lock him up the better. He's definitely a difference maker. A gem we need to invest in.

I agree with the FO that our solution to our needs is the trade market. Yet anyone that thinks that any team that needs Kepler or Polanco will offer us anything more than a bunch of worthless players & poor lotto tickets will be IMO very disappointed. We won't get anything close to what they are worth to us! Vazquez is worse where we'll have to pay someone to take him & then pay for a far inferior substitute. Farmer is a valuable quality INF piece. Our main need is a frontline SP. Seatle is no longer an option, do we really want to go down that Burns or Cease route? Kepler & or Polanco will not land us a frontline SP, IMO MIA is the best route and IMO it's best to make a reasonable trade before Yamamoto signs & avoid the feeding fenzy that'll follow. After the dust settles following our frontline SP trade can we fully evaluate our situation & what we can do.

The '23 team maybe has been the best since the last time we won a post season series. But this team had a been pretty disappointing season besides the pitching from Lopez, Gray & Duran until Lewis came along. Our team leaders Correa & Buxton had pretty disappointing regular seasons & the MLB leading 1654 SOs is nothing to be proud of, Plus our defense overall wasn't that impressive. We won the division but the division was terribly weak, Lopez, Lewis & Correa had a pretty good post season with a few good performance from a few others. But the majority didn't do much. The team was memorable but would not be in my top ten, maybe because I'm old enough to remember the others & this one is fresh in our minds.

For years I could see Julien's future with the Twins is at 1B not 2B. Not surprized that he's there in '27. So why not have him not only playing at 1B in '21 but kept him there so to have him totally familiar there & instead of causing confusion at 2B now. Jeffers at catcher & Carmargo as back up because we aren't allowed any other options. Jenkins has out grown CF but there he'll be playing there because of his bat. Not sure that Correa would keep his performance at that level to stick there in '27 if not shift Lewis & or Miller at SS, maybe platoon Correa & Lee, Lee & Lewis at 2B. I believe there'll some shifting around in the INF.

We might be surprized by our rotation come around '27 with all this SP talent coming from Cedar Rapids this season.

thank you for your contribution to the sport

We are under budget now, & we don't need to sign another Gallo. So what is the big push to trade any of the 4- Polanco, Kepler, Vazquez & Farmer? Other teams won't pay what they are worth to us. Trading anyone of these guys will cause a big hole in our defense. I have no reason to believe that Polanco won't start 100% ready whenever he in this shape he always has a tremendous season. As long as the shift ban stays, steady Kepler will have a fine season, I credit Vazquez as raising the level for the catching & pitching. His hitting understandably dipped because of getting familiar with a new team & getting to know each pitchers & study how he can strategize their plan of attack on each hitter with each pitchers strength. I expect now that he's more settled in, his hitting will return to normal or better. Some people say we have a shortage of experience OFers. Lets see we have Buxton, Kepler, Castro, Kiriloff, Larnach, Gordon, Garlic, & Wallner that's 8. Still others say we have an abundance of INFers. Let's see we have Correa, Polanco, Farmer, Lewis & Julien. that's 5. That's 8 OFers to 5 INFers. Compared to the shortage in the OF we have a greater shortage in the INF. To add to that thought, IMO Martin will come up sooner rather than latter & make an impact in the OF while Lee (IMO will thrive at AAA & eventually become an all-star) will come up much later & doubt he'll make impact. IMO a mid-fielder needs above avg, range & a 2Bman needs to turn a smooth DP, Julien lacks in both. Evidently Julien stretched himself to the point that some said that he was adequate. Being stretched for a limited time is OK but if we trade Polanco, Julien will become our primary 2Bman for the entire season, he'll be overstretched which will really effect his defense & to some extent his offense. When we traded Garver, Jeffers took on the primary catching duties, he was quickly overstretched, tanked & became injured. If we trade Vazquez something simular could happen again.

I'd figured that Julien's success wouldn't surprize anyone in '23 but to many it did. The same for Martin's future success in '24 wouldn't surprize anyone but it seems that to many it will. SWR was starting to turn it around in the 2nd half, I expect him to continue that trajectory. I expect Lee to really do well in AAA and be an all star in the future but it won't be quick IMO he won't make an impact in the MLB this season. I expect some bounce back from Miranda at 1B. It'll be interesting to see how Canterino pitches & if he stays healthy.

Yes TB starting with Garza & Barlet made some pretty good trades with good evaluations & they knew when to sell when a players hype & trade value was high. That's the buy low/ sell high technic that always win. Twins tend to sell low due to poor evaluations & keep players when their hype & trade value were high only to suffer for it.