Doctor Gast

My bad, thank you. A Freudian slip.

You did a fantastic job describing Gallo production lately in your opener. But you did nothing as far as convincing us why signing him was a good thing. Giving Gallo top dollar while everyone else who actually needed a lefty bat was offering him prove it to me money. Sano is very comparable yet we DFA Sano. Much like Sano, Gallo has dug himself into a deep rut. A rut he can't easily get himself out of. You can try to think that the shift ban will turn himself around. But his biggest problem isn't the shift, it's his SOs. NYY tried to tweak Gallo but made it worse. If we think that we can fix him, how did that work out with Gary Sanchez? You mentioned that Gallo had a little higher OPS last year but Kepler had a higher OBP, .318 to .280. I've been frustrated with Kepler and have been open to trading him, if the right deal came along. But if I had a choice of signing Gallo or keeping Kepler, I'd hands down select Kepler. Because IMO the shift ban will help tremendously more Kepler than Gallo. Which will increase significantly Kepler's trade value yet it'd be difficult to flip Gallo with his new price tag. What scares me most is the idea of FO placing Gallo as a CF sub, that's Cave all over again. To think that is possible because he has played there makes as much sense as Sano playing at SS, just because he has played there. Another key point is that Gallo will limit the playing of our young high up side OF lefty bats. I don't see any up side. Even if Gallo return to normal and starts to hit HRs, will he hit those HRs be when we need them or will he SO? FO IMO have been trying to control their harmful fetish of hoarding potential big bats. Unfortunately it seems after the failure of signing Correa they suffered a relapse & yielded to their craving & later tried to justify it. You should listen to your fathers, they're wiser than you think.

I really believe in this offense too.

I'll be interesting how this "novella" ends. My guess is that he'll stick it out at NYM & take any adjustment.

The same way that Paddock, Mahle & Dyson did. ?

With shift ban Arraez shouldn't be playing 2B in '23 much less '26. Martin should be playing 2B soon. If Julien can prove that he can play 2B at the MLB level then Martin can be a super utility player. It'll be interesting where Miller will be at. Larnach is a much better fielder & hitter when healthy than Wallner. Gordon should get a lot of playing time being 4th OF. Catching is very thin & nothing spectacular. Vazquez & Jeffers will be gone (hopefully before). Some how we need to find a top notch MLB ready catching prospect that can be mentored by Vazquez. What will the rotation look like? After SWR there seems to be a gap.

Offensively I think the most productive thing we can to do is better managing the teams health. We face LHPs about 8% of the time (my guess) so righty bats is good but not a premium. I agree with Karbo & prefer we get that bat at an OF/DH position. Defensively we need a SS more that can hit RHPs which we face about 92% of the time (and will help out offensively which Farmer won't need to face RHPs), which frees up Farmer to help out at 3B & other positions.

Knowing the Yankees (& most other teams), they'll probably try to convince us to take 2 John Ryan Murphys

IMO Thinking Gallo is going to be that much better hitter is even more widely overblown. Both will have the same SOs & walks as before. HRs shouldn't effect that much between shift to no shift. The difference comes to who makes better contact. I believe Kepler will find his natural swing and Gallo like Sano will find it hard to get out of the rut that he's in.

Kepler and Polanco had down years, Polanco because of unrested injury & Kepler because of the shift. I expect good rebound from both, with jumps in trade value.

I'm sorry Ted you haven't convinced me at all about Gallo relevance on this club. You stated that Gallo has a better bat, I'm assuming you are correlating that to hitting HRs. My definition is the ability not to SO, which makes Kepler a much better bat. Gallo isn't profiled as a CFer so don't even think about putting him in CF. The fact that he's played there doesn't make him a CFer. Sano has played SS, that doesn't make him a candidate there. IMO Gallo's biggest problem isn't the shift, it's his SOs, the shift ban will only elevate his BA slightly that's it. While Kepler will go back to his natural swing where he'll get his share of hit along with his walks. If it's between Kepler & Gallo, I'll pick Kepler every time, I don't care if there's trade interest in him, odds are we won't get what he's worth. I don't care if Gallo returns to his old self, his old self tends to hit HRs when we don't need them & SO when we do. even so IMO Gallo is going down the same path as Sano. We have so many more important needs that needed to be addressed before adding to the corner OF lefty bats glut.

I'm all for giving our youth opportunity but this type of tear down is disastrous, a clear recipe for tanking for many years to come and vie for the worst record in MLB history. Unfortunately now tanking is no longer beneficial. We had a taste of this kind of thing when we let Rosario go so Cave, Kiriloff & Larnach could man LF & sub CF, Now multiply that by INF, catching & SP. OF - I can see we trade away Kepler & Gallo because of our glut there, because Gordon has proved himself dependable and hope between Larnach, Kiriloff & Wallner can man less demanding RF and maybe seek a young promising righty bat a little more advanced than Celestino. INF Right now we have zero quality depth in the INF. Defensively our core we have a shaky 3B in Miranda, an above avg. SS in Farmer that can't hit RHPs which we face about 92% of the time, a solid 2B in Polanco and at our least demanding INF position 1B we have many adequate candidates & more athletic players that can play there if need be. If we trade Polanco we'll have a super big hole at 2B, Arraez has no range. W/O a tear down Arraez is expendable, with tear down he's even more expendable. To give us any respectability, we need to keep Polanco until Lee or Martin can dominate that position. Catcher Jeffers best quality is his above avg. framing which will soon become obsolete. He shouldn't be our future catcher and have no body close to give us anything on the MLB level. Jeffers trade value has been dropping as his value to the team. We should trade Jeffers for soon MLB ready Endy Rodriguez (PIT). Rotation Trading Gray or Maeda makes absolutely no sense on their last year of their contract. We'll get a couple of low lottery tickets for the both of them. Because of the pitching management philosophy, the suggested rotation of Tyler Mahle, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Louie Varland, Josh Winder will crumble the 1st month with replacement SWR soon join Ober, Varland, Winder & maybe Mahle afterwards. The problem of our losing isn't our players, it's management, poor & incompetent off season negotiations. This tear down talk is FO way to blame the players & taking the heat off them. Where tearing down the structure they can start all over again & have the excuse of "oh, we're rebuilding" gain many more years of employment. But if the true problem of management, evaluations, coaching & negotiating with other teams are not dealt with. We'll be in a stuck in the Twinkie mode of perennial rebuilding & bottom feeding.

As much as I'd have liked for the Twins to have extended him, I'm happy for him that he got the money & he'd be playing with his brother. A great player & guy, he deserves it. Wish him the very best.

No, I've always liked Escobar, but what we need is a better SS, which puts Farmer as utility. It's too late for Falefa after we got Farmer Dealing with CWS will be a hassle for Hendricks No way the others FAs are a different story, I'm all in to sign Rogers, Fulmer & Cruz.

Agreed, but you forgot our OF, which was our greatest defensive asset, even with injuries to Larnach, Kiriloff & Buxton off & on. The defense of Buxton, Kepler, Gordon & Celestino were great. Gordon & Celestino were a breath of fresh air from what we had before. Offense, Buxton is always great, Gordon was impressive and with return of Kiriloff and Larnach with the shift ban it will aid a lot to our group. Celestino made strides last season & I see him continue to do the same. This group was the area we needed the least help & this were FO saw fit to add. Contributing to the log jam at corner OF especially lefty bats. INF is still our greatest need, Right now we have 0 quality depth at 3B, SS, & 2B. Farmer has trouble hitting RHPs which we face more than 80% of the time, we need a SS that is profiled as SS and can hit RHPs. That'll free up Farmer to be our quality utility player. Others areas we're good as you said but we could still use improvement. We have a very good core with a few additions we can be very good. But IMO our problem hasn't been our players but how they've been managed.

Good job Ted. I'm hopeful that this operation will solve his problem & that he can recover quickly, what else can we do.

What I know of Correa is that he does vest himself into the organization that signs him, because he likes to win & any way that he can to improve his team he'll do it. If the Twins would have shown that they were serious about contending, which of course includes giving him the contract that he wanted. He'd be happy being a Twin but none of that happened. Correa did circle back to the Twins but the Twins said no thanks. I know that Boras is full of tricks and he was playing the Twins all the way. Further & further into the off-season the odds the Twins to sign Correa became less & less.

Correa has been very vested in this organization, he makes it his point. He knows it from the ground, up. The players had input in who the Twins should sign at the deadline, which coach to rehire (I don't agree with). Correa is mentoring Miranda. IMO Correa was a Twin until he became a Met.

IMO Lopez trade was Correa's idea on being competitive because he wants to win. I trust Correa's judgement more than this FO. Now that Correa is lost, FO has floated the ridiculous rumors of trading Gray & Maeda along with signing Pollack, Turner or Gallo to see how the fan base will react. They must be listening to wrong fan base, because TD was overwhelmingly against any of these moves. I can't trust this FO on making an intelligent decision on their own. Not making the Lopez trade & signing Gallo, I'm more inclined that this FO will not do the right thing therefore they'll trade off Gray & Maeda. As an optimist, I still hope that that Levine would communicate with his buddies there in CO, that Kepler would be a great fit for them and Marquez would do better here.

I believe with you Seth that the Twins believed that they had a chance of signing Correa, basing on last year outcome. MN gave their best offer, Cubs & SF were waiting in the weeds until NYM entered the mix. That's when everything blew up. MN should have known about Correa's injury, last year when they signed him and it never raised any red flags. MN offer should have been based in part to those files.

Thanks Nick for the update. When you had mentioned that previous ankle injury, I was thinking maybe with that historic contract what was hinged on it was Correa's ability to be to play at SS for a good portion of that contract. More than likely that previous ankle injury would limit his years at SS. With that size of contract I don't blame SF for balking. NYM didn't care if Correa could play SS or not. Boras continued to want to use MN as a pawn for leverage. But MN had already moved on by signing Gallo (wish all this happened sooner, hopefully we wouldn't have signed Gallo) and the mystery surrounding the injury. I never blamed SF for balking from making a mistake. Correa is happy because he's where he wants to be. Boras knows when to be patient & when to strike when the pan is hot, some do not. And unfortunately MN's Correa dream is about to come to an end.

I believe the FO wasn't creative enough, pretty straight forward if you ask me. MN was in the hunt but it was Correa's fall back offer & he was willing to wait. Until NYM got in the mix, SF panicked (had every right) & desperately gave that ridiculous offer. They got cold feet so Correa went with where he wanted to go. MN didn't have the money nor the clear shot at the post season that Correa wanted.

People are going crazy, just because we have some extra money doesn't mean we should throw it away. Like we did with Gallo. Besides Sale won't want to come here & not sure if BOS is big on the price of letting him go.

I'm not saying SF faked anything, I'm saying they found a way out & they took it. Correa isn't crying either, he wants to be a NYM.

SP, catching, SS & CF, the priority is what they do on the field not their bat. That being said I think we can do better than Mateo. Where we can still have the defense yet gain on the bat.