Doctor Gast

Thank you Greg. It was a very sad day when they traded Dozier. Dozier gave his heart & soul to the Twins, often playing hurt, What hurt more was that they got nothing from the talent rich Dodgers. IMO Dozier's decline wasn't age. it was a broken heart. He wanted to be lifelong Twin, they should accommendated him. If they had handled Martin differently he'd be up here already. If they stick with Martin, he'll give great dividends as also SWR eventually contribute. Looking back this FO hasn't done as well as I thought in this area.

My thoughts exactly. IMO the greatest mistake the Twins made in the post season was to bench Vazquez. Vazquez has a lot of positive post season experience that'd rise to the occassion & Jeffers would be lost. Vazquez is a gamer like Correa who'd want catch great majority of games but saw his playing time diminish. But this was a slap in the face to a proud Vazquez, who should have caught the great majority of the games in the PS. I'd understand if Vazquez wouldn't want to play here with everything that had unfolded & the prospect to play 2nd fiddle to Jeffers in '24 and I wouldn't blame him. Yet I'd hate to see them trade him & our catching return to the toilets. & our rotation digress. FO has made many bad decisions about our catching; concerning short past, present & future. If they want to compete present & future they have to rethink their catching strategy & raise their standards.

I like how you brought up Donaldson to remind us how this FO after striking out signing any viable FA SP, that they back track to Donaldson to try appease the fanbase. We could use another Nellie Cruz type hitter to fill in at 1B because DH is taken unfortunately. Especially because of the budget squeeze, I'd rather roll with some kind of Julien, Kiriloff, Miranda, Farmer or even Buxton combination & spend the money else where.

In cOF we have Kepler, Wallner, Castro, Gordon, Larnach & Kiriloff all capable, proven & bat LH. We aren't deep in this area? Don't shout too loud this FO will resign Gallo. I don't think FO are interested in offering Kepler QO next year, In 2022 we were desperate in the BP. Yet we traded our only proven closer Rogers (because it was his last year of availibity) & took a risk on very risky unproven Duffy & proven terrible Pagan & it all proven absolutely disasterous. Although Kepler is our best cOF, we are deep enough where this FO will move Kepler (not that I agree) with any offer close to their liking unless another FO will offer them a deal they can't refuse on one of the other cOFs.

Kepler is a very good hitter that was hit by a triple whami, switching a juiced ball for a dead ball, pitchers adjusting to the elevated swing & the shift, Although Kepler tried to adjust, it was insurmountable & his production tanked, Now at least the absent of the shift, Kepler was able to find his swing. Now that he's found his swing the real Kepler is back. For his last year, his trade value is reasonable. I don't think the Twin will want to offer Kepler a QO, so they are motivated to deal him but maybe a short reasonable extention if they don't get the deal they want.

I don't think SEA will buy into that Polanco is a 3B man. They're not that dumb.

When I saw this article my gut said no. Then I read Swimbo's comment, then I knew it was his delivery. Welcome Swimbo to TD.

I agree that your eyes can deceive you when watching TV or don't catch everything. Many elite CF can make difficult catches look routine & many below average OF can dive for a ball that you see on the camera at the end of a play & everybody thinks that he just made a wonderful play but when you see the whole play you discovered that this guy just dived for a routine fly ball. I agree that we have much more sophisticated methods to find more correct & precise data like range (range factor/9 innings last year; Julien's was 3.67. The league average was 4.06) & catch probablity which I think is absolutely fantastic! But these absolute stats are rarely used. Some people prefer to use complicated stats with bias baked into them to prove their point. Let me use a simple example that I can even understand. Scouting Grades you have Hit-Power-Run-Arm-Field. One prospect example has Field 50 (yet he can play any position on the field including pitcher & plays CF, SS & catcher very well)- Arm 70- Run 60 (not taking into account that he's a catcher)- Hit 50 (college .388/.426 OBP- milb .350/ .408) & Power 40 (college slg .509- milb slg .600, OPS 1,008). Just looking at the score & everything is equal you'd think his overall score would be the mean of the combined score which would be around 55 which is a pretty good prospect but his overall scouting grade is 45 which tells you he's not that good. He was penalized in his hitting, power & overall because he was a line drive hitter, although his #s were great. Because there's a heavy bias towards HR hitters. FOs love to serve writers a lot of their bias hype & stats & they go on X (Twitter) & serve it to everybody that follow them. And that where too many people get there info from & think it's unbias facts. X is a platform where everyone is pushing their agenda. I don't follow Twitter. I try to keep an open mine. You say #s don't lie but #s can be manipulated, incomplete, not taken in account underlying conditions to push a certain point of view.

Just curious will you be doing deadline - trading vets for prospects which IMO is this FO preference? Or maybe you have.

Manoah is very intriquing. I hope that he's fixable that getting away from the shadow of NYY & big media to a friendly MN would do it. And TOR could be motivated, But I'm scared that like J Lopez it might not work. Like Yogi said baseball is 90% mental, the other half is talent.

Catching is a premium position & Mauer is one of the best in most aspects at catching. He took a lot of pride in his defense because he had to work at it, hitting came more naturally. The Twins raked while he was catching until he got hurt (wish he hadn't). Catching is much more important than many care to believe. Unless you hit a bunch of HRs you don't rate. I wish we had another Mauer right now.

I believe he has the record for the highest BA & OBP for a catcher in a season also

Very interesting, I haven't come across any PIT website lately but I've heard that the fans like Polanco & that they serious to compete. While interacting with a Buc fan though it seems that they are more serious about is SPing so it's hard for me to see them letting Keller go.

Not on my team.

I'm not saying his hitting can't get better by striking out less, he may even hit a couple of more HRs or that he can't field better balls that are hit at him. I'm saying that he could improve a little on what he has done but his trade value will not be significantly effected. And the normal tendency would be that it'd trend lower. Middle fielder criteria on defense is range, Julien doesn't have range so that'd disqualifies him as a mid-fielder (2B). I don't care how good his bat is or how well he fields balls that are hit at him.

Good luck to Celestino. He's a MLBer, he'll make it somewhere as a sub CFer & 4th OFer. If he get's enough AB now, he could improve his hitting together with his very good OBP & defense which could land him a full time CF position someplace.

I'd throw out the high & low. I'd like to shoot higher than Blackburn & I wouldn't want to shell out any high prospects for 1 yr. of Burns because I doubt we can resign him which makes a trade feasible. You didn't say how many yrs. of availibilty w/ Gilbert which would make a difference. Yet I believe SEA would want to hold out for Julien instead of Polanco. Which I'm fine with me. go for it. I think you hit the nail on the head with Manoah as far as his problem is mental. What sticks out to me about Manoah last off season was his verbal confrontation with the Yankees & Big Media, that was bound to effect him. He needs to be removed from that enviroment & TOR knows it. IMO TOR is motivated to move him where he can recover. This could be an opportunity for MN. I love the Cedar Rapids connection with Keller. PIT has done wonders in the last few years in their pitching development but still Keller could benefit greatly by coming to MN. I've longed for Baldelli to reach out to Sheldon when Sheldon was motivated to make some great deals. I believe that window has closed. PIT highly prizes SPing now & it'd be hard to pry Keller away from PIT.

My sentiments exactly on all you said.

Seatle is a nice target for our SP needs. But I disagree that Brook Lee is our best trade piece option. Lee is 2nd on my untouchable list, Lee is a future All-Star being so versatile at premium positions & hitting. I like Julien's bat but he wasn't on my list. FO will try to unload Polanco but they will ask about Julien ahead of him. Because Polanco missed ST, needed an extra long time to recover from his abused knee injury, the extra conditioning (yet suffered from hamstring injury & reinjury & ankle injury afterwards), the vamping up & trying to find is rythym, last season didn't portray his true value. This season he'll start out 100% & we'll never get what a 100% Polanco is worth. It make much more sense to trade Polanco at the deadline, at this time we'll see where Lee is at & Polanco's value would greatly increase to where it should be. But it'd be hard to trade him when he's producing much like Kepler did this season. If Julien is considered as part of this INF logjam he's the one that should be traded this off season because Julien's value has pretty much peaked & he's expendable.

I'm sorry Hans, I'd pass on Alonzo. I'd love to have a pure hitter like Alonzo but I'd hate to give up E Rod for one year of Alonzo & I'd sooner have a whole team like Alonzo which means focusing on changing our philosophy that drafts, signs, encourages & horde these type of hitters with holes in their swings.

Thanks for putting something like this together. Very interesting. Trades are indeed very tricky. You have to line up needs of each team & even if you line-up perfectly the needs of the team, the FO might not be able to see their needs. Thinking they are strong in one area while in fact they are very fragile and putting their priority into something that isn't. I came through this more open to Keller (PIT) as a trade target. Most of the "out the box" ideas were ridiculous (IMO was intended to be so & TD was being nice) but those that were truly "out of the box" were interesting. Hitting on ideas that are totally foreign to this FO, like inniating a 3 way trade or hitting on areas that they are blind to. Which is the basic idea of "out of the box"

Thanks tony & co. I appreciate it. Looking into Mahle's injury history, he didn't have any shoulder injuries until '22 when he was overextended by the Reds. He had a hamstring injury in '19. I never mentioned a rift between Baldelli & Gray, I understand that Gray's grieviance was competitive motivated that could have been easily been taken differently or become frustated & a manager could give in to the grieviance & pitch him much more but Baldelli wasn't bothered & stuck to his guns. Plus the new pitch he picked up with Twin. My point is that this Thanksgiving Gray has a lot to thank the Lord & Twins for. I hope he fully understands & appreciates how blessed he has been.

Maybe things will happen more quickly this year?

To keep to subject, I like to say i'd be very hard to trade any of these guys. My list is #1 Royce Lewis- To me he has never been an option to trade because like flying finn said there are too many intangibles to figure his true worth. We be at great loss if we trade him. #2 Brook Lee- I agree with BTV & value Lee over Jenkins because of the production over longer time (we have more certainity of his future), I love Lee's tools especially his hitting & the fact of his balanced switch-hitting. Plus he plays a premium defense. #3 is very hard for me to pick & I know most people will disagree w/ me but my #3 is Pablo Lopez- I value front line SPs & Lopez is established & is well known. You know exactly where your baseline is at & it's fantastic. #4 Walker Jenkins- He has a high ceiling & most everyone else has him at #1 but he's young & has very little exposure. Until he gets a lot more experience I'd rank him here. #5 Joe Ryan- I'd be very hesitant to trade Ryan because of his ability & determination to become a very viable front line SP. Again I value front-line SP Everyone else has a price tag depending on our need & if the player is overated or underrated

Thanks again Weitz for your intriguing ideas. I've advocated getting Senzel back during Cave's early sub CF days, I thought a change of scenery might do him some good. He could still very well be a viable cheap option. I believe that Paparesta could get Turnbull back in shape. & do well w/ the Twins. DET didn't have the dependable INF to go along with Turnbull's fort`e, if the Twins keep Polanco I'd give him a shot. Otherwise, no thank you.