Doctor Gast

You can't always take trades at face value. With that in mind, Varland shouldn't have been up for sale #1, he's a hometown boy, whose aspirations are to play for his home team, he didn't want to be traded & easy to extend if need be. #2 he has proven himself as a high-leverage RP, #3 He has had many years of availability, #4 a foundation of the next BP. #5 He's more valuable to us as a closer & increases his value period. If you are really into the Twins' way of gaining prospects & the prospects they pick up, it's easy to get excited about their potential. But I'd rather have a proven MLB player who is committed to the Twins for many years in their system. Trading Varland was a big mistake.

You could probably say that CWS didn't totally tear down; they still have Roberts. It's inevitable that it'll be a total teardown; it's well known that Ryan was up for sale, he thought he was traded. Pablo makes more sense to trade because of his salary. Buxton said he didn't want to be traded, but maybe secretly, Falvey wants to trade him, and after this mess, Buxton has changed his mind. After all this salary slashing, it doesn't make sense to extend Jeffers to a Boras-expensive extension. Let's say, for argument's sake, they aren't trading anybody else. You are drinking the Falvey Kool-Aid if you think they'll be competitive next year or many years thereafter, how long? depends on the new owners. If Twins can't compete with their proven players, how can they compete with the hit-or-miss players they picked up? The problem has never been the core. It's been management. As long as they are in place, they'll never come close to reaching their full potential.

We started this last spring training with a very strong OF, deep defensively & offensively. INF was fragile, with injury-prone Lewis, Correa & Lee & insistence of keeping starting Julien at 2B, who is a liability both defensively & offensively. The keystone position is very valuable where you need a good glove, quick reactions, range & smooth DPs. Martin is our best defensive player to play 2B, but he was placed in our deep outfield, where he wasn't needed. Keirsey is always an asset at defense & baserunning & he was having a pretty good ST, offensively. I was fine with Twins breaking camp with him. But most baseball people know a prerequisite for bringing up a MiLB player is that you have to give him regular ABs. As of yet, they haven't, which is a great disservice to him. Our BP was also strong & deep. Our rotation also looked strong on paper with Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Paddack, Sims, Festa & Matthews. Each having their concerns except Lopez. But the undertones were fragile, which became evident when AAA hopefuls weren't producing & Ober started the season sicker than a dog & a hip impingement. What really showed our fallibility was when our bedrock Lopez went down. It could have been easily remedied by getting a veteran inning-eater. That wasn't done. Catching has been solid but will wear down because there is no support & if there is a prolonged injury, we are cooked. I will start my Outlook with catching. Next season, Vazquez will be gone, Twins are slashing payroll; are they going to extend Jeffers to an expensive Boras extension? No, if they are smart, they'll try to get something for him (instead of nothing) & trade him. Then who will be the primary catcher? Who'll be the backup? IMO, it'll be disastrous to plug anyone in our organization there. It'll be at least 3 years before Tait can be ready for a backup role, if ever. The great majority of prep catchers (even highly drafted) ever make it. We have nobody. What is the solution? It looks like a complete sell-off. So Pablo, Ryan, maybe Ober (if they didn't spare Varland), they'll even try to trade Buxton again. Hopefully, Falvey will not be part of this. Then we have the difficult task to find not one but two promising young MLB-ready catchers & maybe re-sign Vazquez on the cheap, to mentor them. All our areas are fragile now except OF, where we have a tremendous glut. This sell-off so far has flooded our system with redundant, hit-or-miss prospects. If Falvey is still at the helm, the completed sell-off will continue to bloat our farm with these players. These types of prospects are hard to trade for anything significant. So they'll rot & regress there until we lose anyone good in the rule 5 draft. So that's it, our INF, catching, rotation & BP will be determined by these hit-or-miss players hoping somebody sticks. I'm sorry for this elaborate explanation for a MLB game. I'm trying to find relevance from what led to this & the outlook.

Some think baseball is an HR derby, the one who hits the most HRs wins. It's not. Some think it's Fantasy Baseball, driven by HR bias stats. It's not. Thank God, baseball is far more intricate & interesting; influenced by the human element, interaction & experience. That's why we must get kids into baseball for that human element. Otherwise, we can sit them in a corner & give them a cellphone to play with. If we reduce it to only stats, that's when we get flat & into trouble. IMO, baseball needs to be something organic, spontaneous, & individual, not something cold & uniform. Sorry for getting carried away.

If CO doesn't want him, heck, maybe we can do something with him. (I'm being facetious)

You think Margot is a defensive asset? You look at NYY, they got this great offense & even supposedly good pitching but their defense stinks. They got swept by MIA. & we can't come close to spending the big bucks to get these big bats. We need an offense that can hit when we need a hit not strike out & don't need somebody to hit a bunch of HRs when we don't. I'll take a very good to elite defensive player at a premium position that can hit an occasional clutch hit, than a Cave in CF & a Julien at 2B (even if he was hitting) who are hacks at those positions. I expect my DH & corner fielders to drive in the bulk of needed runs. A ball getting by or flubbing up a play can do a lot more damage. Normally, a light-hitting, good pitching & good defense can go farther than a good offensive team with poor defense in what I've seen.

I'd rather have good defense & pitching than jeopardize them both for so-so offense.

Put him in the pen until he finds his 3rd pitch like Santana

Or make INF defense more of a priority.

All these years of facing Jose Ramirez, they still haven't learned not to pitch to him.

Many prospects get a lot of hype attached to them. I admit that I hadn't taken Tait very seriously because he so far away & have taken some of his negative evaluations too far. Also, I don't know any highly touted prep catchers who have ever thrived in MLB, but I know a ton that haven't. Another reason is my lack of confidence with our catching coaches from Conger down to be able to develop Tait. If they can't develop him as a catcher, what good is he? I don't care about his bat as much his mitt. We need a mitt now not 5 yrs. from now even if he makes it. Odds are he won't.

"Their final game before the trade deadline was a 13-1 debacle that, in fairness, gave all the impressions of a team begging to be ripped apart at the seams." Sorry, Nick, that debacle wasn't on the team; it was on Baldelli, or whoever told him to take out Jax & give BOS a gift by putting Clemens in to throw to them HR Derby. How sad! No, it's on Falvey & Co.. They were the ones who had to be shown the door. The ones who were responsible for this mess shouldn't be the ones responsible for setting the new foundation, especially on this level of teardown. IMO, the high-risk lotto tickets received did not come close to the level of talent that was given away or were relevant to the team's needs. The flat atmosphere that Falvey created caused the lack of production from the team. The players, although not wanting to be traded, were happy to be in a better atmosphere & each one rewarded their new team by dominating in their debut. Falvey must have felt like Santa Claus by handing out these tremendous presents (no wonder he is so well-liked in the league), again, at the expense of the Twins. IMO, what Falvey has done has set the Twins back maybe a decade if we are lucky.

Yes, I remember

Great rally to start the game that put us ahead 4-0 but it had to take great execution between Clemens & Keirsey to nail it down.

Twins almost stole defeat out of the jaws of victory

WOW! Pulled this out of the fire

Tonkin is our new closer, huh

Correa homered for HOU

Because of the bad BP, the rotation will end up being stretched out further. The result is, as always, a burned-out rotation resulting in further to injuries & non-quality innings.

I was super disappointed with the trades. Every trade we lost & lacked relevance. Where most of those trades should have blown our socks off & never came close. A Varland trade that no way should have happened.

Correa was at his lowest trade value ever by far, so I wouldn't trade him. Much like the situation with Pablo, Ober, Larnach & Wallner. If he wanted to be traded, then tell him get your trade value up & we'll trade you in the offseason. If HOU really wanted him, then pay for the player he's capable of.

I wouldn't doubt that Falvey would mount a giant bronze statue of himself in front of Target Field.

The Twins' biggest problem wasn't about not getting enough money but how Falvey allocated the money he got. He feels he had to overpay for those players he wanted. He overpaid for FAs like Donaldson, Gallo, Vazquez and Correa. Donaldson & Correa were long contacts that we had to get rid of & paid through the nose to get rid of them. There are some FAs whom he didn't pay that much for but the players were so bad that he overpaid. They took big salary dumps on worthless players like DeSclavini, Margot & Sanchez, And gave a big extension to players like Paddack while rehabbing. We aren't NYY, where we can throw money around. We also had a lot of players that hit the top of their trade value & weren't needed, who could have been traded to shore up our fragile areas (where we didn't need to spend money). But they didn't & their trade values have tanked. He also extravagantly brought in FAs, where our own players were as good or even better than those they brought in. We could have made the Twins much more competitive w/o having to depend on a boatload from the Pohlads. Maybe in Falvey's mind, he thought he was signing an elite SS for many years, just like he thought many players he acquired were going to be good but weren't & SPs Mahle, Desclavani & Paddack's arms were healthy when they weren't. While Falvey thought he had an elite SS for years & paid for it, despite SF & NYM didn't think so. In reality he got a 3Bman for the bulk of the contract & should have paid accordingly. Since we are talking about how things could have been better. Although Falvey probably has an open door policy so players could come in & air their opinions. But I'd like to question how much does Falvey really listens? Correa shared that he had for 2 yrs. told Falvey that he needed to shift to 3B, Correa has made it known to Falvey who the Twins should target. It appears that it met deaf ears. Do you think that this could have affected the morale? Varland was sad & surprised about being traded & Paddack wasn't surprise but was sad. But they have adjusted well & are happy, both have dominated for their teams, Correa, Castro & Duran seem to be very happy & are also dominating. Although the Twins had the talent to compete, they were very flat, Could it because of the atmosphere the Twins created?

Games are won & lost in the margins. You might have OK pitching, even OK offense, but have poor defense & poor fundamentals, forget it. If you don't develop bunting, don't expect your players to bunt. Keirsey should have been sent down to AAA a long time ago so he could have been called up at this time. After sitting for an awful long time & when he finally played, he miraculously had a good game & then he was benched. Why not let him ride his good fortune? Martin had a good game & he sits. Julien isn't a 2Bman & he's not hitting, why is he playing every day?

Baldelli finally used long relief. Ohl isn't my favorite pitcher, but we really need a long RP, I'd prefer Sands but we are short on higher leverage BP.