Doctor Gast

Thanks Seth for another interesting & well explained article. My hope is that they bring all of them back but with lower than expected salaries. I think all of them would want to return. Gordon has proven to be a good OF that can produce out there but his INF leaves something to be desired & his production drops there. Keep him in the OF. He might get traded because Castro can do things better than him defensively & be redundant. Farmer impresses me. To get hit in the face with a FB & return w/o missing a step, WOW. We need him not only his bat & glove but also his presence, even if we don't trade Polanco but especially if we do. He can adequately sub SS, 3B, 2B, 1B & catcher in a pinch

The '19 Twins & NYY success was the juiced ball & their slump was the removal of it & the new adrinalin high that encouraged their organizations to go all out on the focus of HRs. The '22 resurgence of the NYY was the constant supply of juiced & goldilocks balls that were fed to them. The NYY can continue down this same road of philosophy as long they aren't specially treated w/ spiked balls. Twins I hope get off this HR highs. I don't care how many HRs they get in insignificant times when pitchers are more often to make mistakes & still lose. It's not about striking out in crucial times when the pitcher is focused, it's about getting a hit that helps wins the game. I wish Rowson luck & freedom to coach the hitters as he see fit, although I'd prefer it as a Twin. As for Popkin, it seems I read an article that he was working with Gallo before ST, to help him to change his swing when he had 2 strikes (which I was impressed). I think this constant all or nothing hitting philosophy is more FO idea than Popkins. Popkin is just following orders.

Ist I congratulate Sonny Gray for coming in 2nd in the CY & thank you for what you accomplished as a Twin. As expected Gray turned down the Twins QO. In this thread I like to show how Gray should appreciate the Twins. Below is a '21 comparison between Gray & Mahle before the '22 offseason Name G GS W L PCT ERA SV IP H ER R HR BB SO Sonny Gray 26 26 7 9 .438 4.19 0 135.1 115 63 67 19 50 155 Tyler Mahle 33 33 13 6 .684 3.75 0 180.0 158 75 78 24 64 210 Here we see that Mahle was a better pitcher than Gray going into the '22 off season. Better record, better ERA & pitched more innings. In the 1st half of the '22 season, Gray pitched 63 innings & Mahle pitched 96 innings. The Reds pushed Mahle & his arm fell off (figuratively speaking) when the Twins got him. Let's supposed that roles were switched that Mahle was traded in the offseason to the Twins & Sonny stayed with Reds to be traded at the deadline. With the Reds wanting to showcase Gray they'd (with Gray's blessing) over-stretch him like Mahle. I'd imagine that Gray's arm would be in worse condition & prematurely ruin his chances to have anything to show coming into free agency, let alone 2nd in the CY. It'd be very hard to forecast what Mahle could have accomplished if he was properly managed by the Twins if he was traded in the off season. But he could have been just as good. So Gray has a lot to thank the Twins for properly managing him against his stern grievances.

Excellent foresight! One that give us optimium production & results, one that I share & hope this FO shares but seems not. Yes that's 3yrs away & most likely eased into it with C4's mentoring. I can get excited about Miller We have a 1B dilema & where do we put Julien? Why don't we put him in his natural position? 1B. Problem solved.

It seems that you're not very high on Jefferson Quero (MIL). Do you think that MIL is open to trade him?

Thank you for enlightening me

If you trade Vazquez you are paying someone to take our 1st class defensive catcher for maybe a 3rd rate catcher. A cheap catcher will not get you anything & maybe does not improve much over Carmargo. Jeffers is far from an elite catcher. which I doubt can repeat this years limited hitting success.

Gallo & Severino are the type of hitters this FO are enamored with. Gallo was a waste of money & time. The fact that they selected Severino before Martin & ERod to put on the 40 man, tells me that they value Severino and will give him every opportunity to make it to MLB. Do I agree with them? no. I love the fact that he's switch hitter & hopes he makes the MLB but I would keep Severino in AAA until he cleans up his SOs.

In '21 they were in hurry to get rid of Rosario & Larnach, Kiriloff & Cave were to man LF & sub CF. In spring training they all were bad but they were determined to push them through. None of them stuck & we had to convert Robsnyder & Gordon from INF to OF & rush Celestino. They did better than expected but it was a disaster. '22 Lewis broke MLB subbing Correa & shone. But Lewis is a different animal. My opinion is different, that INF isn't very deep. If we trade Polanco & Farmer as advocated, we have Lewis (3B) Correa (SS) Julien (2B) with Castro as sub, I wouldn't like him there very often. And Castro could be very busy playing CF. I wouldn't trust rushing Lee transition to MLB. In this scenario our INF takes a huge drop in quality. Where our defense need to be top to compete. Vazquez helped to turn our rotation from around the middle of the pack to top tier the big difference is his handling of the pitchers. Our catching went from the toilet to the middle of the pack. If we trade him the Jeffers/ Carmargo tandem could take us back to the toilet. I don't trust Carmargo's limited successs in AAA will transition well in MLB. I think Martin could be productive in the MLB. We have to see how well he does in Spring Training. I still won't trust him full time in CF until Buxton is ready to take over. All three areas are extremely important, any deductions from them will affect the competitiveness of our team.

I expect a lot of innings from Lopez, Ryan & Ober have another year under their belts so I expect them to support their workload better, If we pick up another Lopez type trade that would be great. Paddack & Varland should be taken slower to maximize their potential. Again long relief should be implemented & used regularly with spot starting roles. Paddack, Varland, Headrick, SWR, Festa, & Winder are good candidates. If Dobnak turns things around better could figure into the mix.

Just watched the video. Very impressive, he know exactly what to do with ball before he gets it & reacts very well at the moment, great feel for the position. He has a very good arm. Hard to find anyone at SS with Correa's arm. 3B yes but not SS.

Thanks Cody for bringing this to light so we can honor Noah Miller! Congratulations Noah! In my book CF, SS & catcher needs to be glove 1st , hitting is just icing on the cake. He should continue to get timely hits, get on base & get stronger as he gets older. He has always been on my watch list so I'm happy that he got this recognition. Just because he's not prolific in HRs with SOs people like to overlook him. Correa's been has slightly diminishing every year. I don't see him finishing his term with the Twins at SS. Like many here I've seen Miller as our future SS for awhile.

Jose' comes from a good line of MLB catchers- Father (Jose` Antonio- Braves) uncle (Jose` Gregorio- TOR) & brother (Ethan- #5 top 100 pospect - Padres) Venzuela . Mark is not related background Mexican

When he has been healthy he has shown promise & this year he started strong, played in more games & led the Twins in RBIs, I don't care about the decrease of HRs if he's hitting, But with the longer exposure they found a crack in his armour. The Twins should have known his weakness & corrected it by now, at 27. His trade value because of years of availibility is comparable to Kepler. If he's part of a reasonable trade I'd do it.

Trading Polanco & or Kepler will open up a big hole in their respective positions that can not be filled internally. Eventually Wallner can, I hope. At CF, SS & 2B- range is a preequisite, the players need to get to the ball. Julien doesn't fit that bill. But for argument sake Julien can hold down the fort until Lee is ready. According to BTV Polanco & Kepler together could net you a 4th SP or maybe a 3rd if you;re lucky. I'd rather stick internally instead of going that route. Or then a bunch of lottery tickets, I'm not in favor of that either. The only option I'd be in favor of, is trading them for a very good- elite soon MLB ready catcher prospect Keel (BOS), Rushing (LAD) or maybe Basallo (BAL) . Why is that? If we are looking for high end SPs we need to look at rebuilding teams but there they only want prospects or maybe newly broke MLB players. If we want to unload some high end expendable prospects that could be an option. All other teams are looking for SPs not unload them. Except MIA, but there they won't listen unless you offer a catcher. Jeffers is at his high point trading value, IMO he has peaked & is due for a regression. We have Vazquez who can mentor & groom this new apprentise quickly into a viable MLB catcher. Then Vazquez would be worth every penny we are paying him. & we'd have a top level catcher for many years. Catcher is a premium position that have been neglected by this organization. If we want to progress as a contender we need to address this area.

True Lewis's presence & clutch hitting sparked the offense. Nothing can drain the morale of a team when hitters come up & strike-out in clutch situations year after year especially with bases loaded. When Lewis's outside of the team's philosophy were able rejuvinate many Twins hitters. Even Jeffers was able to hit his 1st walk-off (although he was totally surprised & flabbergasted). But we still had too many SOs in clutch situations. If we want to be a serious contender this arqueic philosophy of hitting a HR every pitch has to be quickly abandoned.

I can really see Martin come up & contribute and Lee could follow later but the others not so sure.

But I'm encouraged with our roster. & the fact that we are heavily favored in the Central give us freedom to give Julien & Miranda time to perfect 1B & even Martin if he really proves to us in spring training that he's ready for the show in CF or anyone else new we may bring in.

IMO one late comer that broke the FO mold is not enough

I was one of the 1st ones who advocated trading Arraez (not because I didn't like Arraez, on the contrary I like him very much, but it made a lot of sense to better the team). A ton of members diagreed with me but it turned out to be the greatest deal this FO has done. The suggestion I'd suggest a ton of members will disagree with me. And that is Jeffers. I know Vazquez has helped Jeffers a lot & the pitchers I believe like him but IMO Jeffers has peaked his value will never be this high again. There'd be a lot of teams interested in him. I see him regressing this coming year. And instead of having 3 up & down averageish years of Jeffers then years of absolute drought because we have no one in the system that comes close to stand out. We can go out & get an elite MLB ready catching prospect for 6+ competitive years. Vazquez has served his purpose last year but we still have 2 yrs of him. Why not take advantage of Vazquez's experience to mentor this prospect these 2 remaining years because Vazquez is untradable anyway. We can use Jeffers to get a SP we need. I'm not only looking at this coming season but many coming years. Actually, I advocated something like this last offseason but with the addition of Vazquez & the rocket of Jeffers's value it makes more sense.

Stats can be spun, can be bias & don't tell the whole story. Your eyes don't lie. That's where the debate should be. You are probably one who shouts stats,stats, stats but yell bloody murder when a pitcher is lifted the 3rd time around the order. Stats are very clear that's what should be done. So don't tell me I'm shouting into the void.

You don't trade him because he's a great clutch hitter & cheap, that's why you keep him. You trade him because you can get good trade value. Right now his trade value is about as low as it's ever been.

The same argument that they compared Polanco & Arraez. I'm not talking about bat, I'm talking about 2B & that's about does he have the range or not. I don't care about the other metrics they come up with.

I don't see him making it to MLB this season unless he really turns it around w/ his SOs. I hope.

I stand corrected.