Doctor Gast

Got bad news, Canterino is down with shoulder problems already, Doesn't sound good.

In my opinion, Tonkin shouldn't be considered to be on the active roster. We have a lot of candidates with options that can slot in the active roster throughout the season. Hopefully Castellano can make the roster, I have faith in Alcala. In my opinion, Varland is one of the top candidates to make the roster. We have so many good BP arms that I don't want them to waste their bullets in AAA.

I'd considered Lewis for 1B this season only to cover for Miranda & help to protect him from some soft-tissue injury which he could still be susceptible to. But since we got France & Baldelli hasn't considered him IMO it's out the question. IMO this season Lewis is healthier, will have more stamina & hopefully they can get the INF coach to help him with his throwing. Lewis will be a very good 3Bman. 3B should be one of our deepest positions, so keep Miranda off there.

I pretty much gave up on Cartaya in '23. If LAD, who have produced a few top catchers in recent history, gave up on him, what makes the Twins think that they can miraculously transform Cartaya into a very good defensive MLB catcher, to replace Vazquez? Since Tanner Swanson I haven't seen any noticeable development our catchers. I had great hope in Olivar, a very good hitting catcher who had the tools to be a very good defensive catcher. Now he's not even expected to stick at catcher. When Vazquez was settled in BOS, he was a good hitter. Understandably, Vazquez had a bad year in his 1st year focusing on getting to know the pitchers & adapting to a new team, his 2nd year he improved & now his 3rd year I'm expecting a better hitter & that should be a better bench mark to compare. Cartaya is a catcher, he's not converted from another position or moonlight another position. I am hopeful from his recent improvement in his defensive skills & hope he can maintain what he learned in LAD & pick up on some stuff from Vazquez. LAD knows Cartaya better than anybody, & I'm sure they have been working on his hitting especially the last couple of years. I don't think that the Twins will find that magical key to unlock his hitting problems over night or even before Vazquez leaves. How Cartaya has progressed in the upper MiLB tells me he'll also have some difficulty adjusting to MLB. We need to look at the whole picture. I have my doubts if Cartaya will be ready to viabally replace Vazquez defensively, offensively & especially stamina. Jeffers lacks the stamina to maintain his production at equal tandem duties so Cartaya has to really step it up. So I say the Twins need to look for a promising MLB-ready catcher to be groomed to takeover for Vazquez. Plus it won't be a slam dunk that the Twins can afford a Jeffers extension. So they may need a Jeffers replacement. Will Cartaya become a MLB catcher? I say yes but it's hard to say when or how far. IMO Camargo could be MLB-ready before Cartaya.

Castro's greatest value to the Twins is his flexibility. Castro was stretched too far last season which affected his production. This season I'd be very surprised with the way this team has been constructed, that Castro will play any CF maybe even LF if everybody stays healthy & effective. It seems that they are trying to squeeze Castro out. IMO it's a waste to fix Castro at 2B, We still need him at SS & 3B. Correa & Lee's health is not dependable. Lewis & Lee's health is not dependable at 3B, IMO Miranda should stay off 3B. At 2B Lee & Julien should be sent down to AAA to get their hitting back & Julien to figure out 1B. With Castro able to add quality depth at valuable 5 positions, which helps conserve valuable roster spots. IMO Castro will be less needed at more stressful positions & be able to maintain his production.

FO has more invested in Paddack than money. Whether he breezes or limps through ST, he'll be in the rotation when camp breaks.

Donak might gets some look from other teams that really pitching.

Good game for basically 2nd team.

Great to see Miranda at 1B!

Sandy Leon is having a pretty good ST. Remember him?

ATL is a good team & having a good ST

Just tuned in. Dobnak toe to toe with Sales in 0-0 tie. Who would have thunk it!

Frankly, I'm very concerned defensively on the right side. Baldelli is determined to have France at 1B, normally I'm not concerned at 1B defensively if he can provide average-ish defense & you have a decent 2Bman with plenty of range. But France is an established hack at 1B & Baldelli is determined to play Julien at 2B. When I watched, too many GB got through the right side of the INF while Julien was playing there even with Santana & Correa playing beside him. With France it'll be a nightmare. Julien & Lee both had very good OBP at the MiLB level, which is a very good quality for a leadoff hitter. But last season they had trouble hitting & neither have shown to be a terror on the bases, which is another valuable leadoff trait. Unlike Julien, Lee has a solid glove, yet besides not hitting I'm concerned about his chronic back problem. I would not depend too much on him to anchor any position & would limit the amount of games played. Julien is stretched at 2B, both Julien & Lee should be sent down to AAA to work on their hitting & Julien, his learning 1B. Martin has been moved all around the field & stretched at SS & CF. Now they want to groom him in CF. IMO this is super redundant. They have (RH) Buxton & Bader, (LH) Keirsey (MLB) Emma (AAA) on the 40 man with (BH) Cerda (MLB) on a MiLB contract all accomplished CFers plus others. Martin isn't needed in CF. Martin is better served at 2B, his natural position. Settled at 2B, he can focus on his hitting & getting on base. Martin is also a better candidate for the leadoff hitter position. In MiLB he also had a very good OBP & he was a terror on the base path. IMO Martin is our solution at 2B & as the leadoff hitter.

Over spending for brought in, washed-up veterans, in place of capable inhouse players? Where have I seen that before? Sounds familiar? I don't fault the Pohlads for not spending the money that many wanted on big-name FAs, the Pohlads have spent more than the rest of our competitors in the Central (I doubt the next owners would do much better if any). But I do fault the Pohlads for not caring for the Twins. They have created a friendship with Falvey that allowed him to completely take over the Twins (& promoted his yes-men) in areas that he's totally incapable of managing, therefore this mismanagement has held the Twins back, not lack of spending. In the case of the Twins, stability isn't a positive point. I hope that maintaining Falvey in control of everything, wasn't a stipulation in the sale contract.

I'm a Twins fan, I'm not familiar with how the NBA works. IMO in MLB the FO is the driving force. The Twins need be shaken up. Falvey can stay where he is & be responsible for the pitching, but all the other duties need to be transferred to a more baseball smart & better trade negotiating FO. Hopefully the new owners would have enough interest in the team to do that. I agree that spending money doesn't ensure success, you have to be smart in what you do.

Both rotations were very good but the BP & rotation ran out of gas in '19 & the Bomba Squad didn't show up either for the playoff. '23 the rotation & BP were more rested for the playoffs, López was great, but the deciding factor was Correa & his ability to motivate Lewis.

The Twins are said to be trying to transform our hitters. Maybe Cerda has benefitted from this endeavor. He has gotten my attention & best wishes to succeed.

I'm looking at Wilson Contreras (who is also a primarily hitting catcher) 3 offseasons ago & next season will be 4, who is making almost $20M/ season & he's not even catching now. If they dial Jeffers back, he'll have a good season & with inflation, IMO he'll shoot for Conteras's $. Now Contreras is a better defensive, offensive catcher, plus has more stamina than Jeffers but they'll play the stats & sell to the Twins that Jeffers is their primary catcher which the Twins are selling to the fanbase, but will settle for less under this scenario. If they keep on playing Jeffers the same as last year, then look at what you are suggesting around $10M. If anyone who has Boras as an agent is looking at maxing his return. Now you mentioned extending Vazquez, I have suggested that they could do that this year, to renegotiate his contract to be a more team-friendly contract for this & next season. IMO Vazquez would be open for that. To adjust to another team & learn another pitching staff is very distracting & unproductive, so he'd rather stay in MN for as long as he can even if it means less money. Right now Boras has all the leverage, if they extend Vazquez that gives the Twins more leverage. I'm all for extending Jeffers for $8M+ (I like Jeffers) with Vazquez in tandem & hopefully Cartaya can progress enough to be spell Jeffers in the 2nd half. I don't know if they can set the house on fire but at least they're a short-term solution for our near future dilemma.

I'm in the camp that SO do matter. When you put the ball in play, you are increasing the opportunity to get a hit & forcing the defense to make the play giving the hitter the opportunity to get on base. IMO you need to motivate base runners to steal to eliminate the force out or DP & makes the game so much more entertaining than watching a batter whiffing & sitting down. If SOs aren't important, then why has TOR had so much difficulty getting to the postseason & advancing when they do? Hitting a solo HR when the team doesn't need it in a low leverage situation & striking out when we do in a high leverage situation is very counter-productive. We have to do a better job of guarding the plate, especially with 2 outs which seems to me they are trying to do that.

Cerda, (BH) CFer looking pretty promising. We have a lot of quality MLB CF depth now. (RH) Buxton & Bader, (LH) Keirsey & now Cerda plus Emma & Jenkins not far behind. Trying to force (RH) Martin in an unnatural position at CF with very few LHPs opportunities, when we don't need, seems very redundant. IMO 2B is a position of greater need & a more natural position for Martin. I like the idea of ST game threads, sorry I missed this one. When I have time I'll try to seek it out.

It's called common sense, If you actually read my post w/o freaking out. I stated that in '24 we could use more depth but in '25 we are fine. Before you accuse me of making things up, I ask you to actually read & try to understand what I write. I've stated in this post & for years that we desperately need to acquire a promising young MLB-ready future starting catcher to groom. To avoid this predicament of having nobody to be able to be the primary catcher, so Twins have no choice but to extend Jeffers to an exorbitant extension because he's a Boras client. I'm guessing they'll probably ask for $20M but settle closer to $15M, because FO has hyped him up as a primary catcher. Many say Jeffers is inconsistent but I say he's very consistent, When he's in a supportive or weak-side tandem he's very good, look at '20 & '23 stats. When asked to split equal catching duties, he starts out very good, but as the season wanes so does he offensively & more so defensively & leaves much to be desired, look at '21 & '24 stats. When asked to do primary catching duties, he crashes, burns & lands on the IL, look at '22. I put his stats below. Once a crazy idea they get in their mind, they stick to it no matter how bad things get. So they'll stick with Jeffers. I predict that if they don't trade Vazquez this season & he'll still maintain somewhat the same results as '24. If they trade Vazquez, Jeffers will be asked to do primary catching duties & expect a worse outcome than '22 otherwise we can look forward to '26 when Vazquez leaves. They'll scramble to try to salvage a disaster but they are terrible at it. My strong opposition to this FO is a cry for hope that this core of Correa, Buxton, Lopez & Lewis & future core to be relevant. They can't do that with a poor catching corp. And a reason to follow the Twins, which I find hard to do. Season Team Level Age G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA xwOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 2020 MIN MLB 23 26 62 3 5 7 0 8.1% 30.6% .164 .364 .273 .355 .436 .346 .349 122 -0.5 1.2 0.7 0.4 2021 MIN MLB 24 85 293 14 28 35 0 7.5% 36.9% .202 .269 .199 .270 .401 .289 .299 83 -1.3 -7.3 9.5 1.2 2022 MIN MLB 25 67 236 7 25 27 0 9.7% 26.3% .156 .259 .208 .285 .363 .287 .315 86 0.0 -3.6 3.5 0.8 2023 MIN MLB 26 96 335 14 46 43 3 9.9% 27.8% .213 .359 .276 .369 .490 .369 .333 137 -2.0 12.9 -1.2 2.3 2024 MIN MLB 27 122 465 21 56 64 3 6.9% 20.2% .206 .238 .226 .300 .432 .317 .304 107 -0.8 3.0 -2.5 1.7

I'm all for trading away players that we should trade. But I don't think we're quite there yet with our pitching depth to trade from. Last offseason, we were a little short on depth, which resulted in injuries to Paddack & Ryan & the rest of the rotation running out of gas, especially the rookies. This season I don't believe we have a surplus of MLB arms. We have Lopez, Ober, Ryan, SWR & Paddack plus a slew of AAA SP that can be rotated in & out to help manage the rotation. I wouldn't mind trading away the last year of Paddack if we need to meet budget. But that's it. If we focus on pitching & defense, especially up the middle, our offense is more than capable when properly managed. Last offseason the Twins wanted offensive bats MAT & Rhys Hoskins. We dodge the bullet on both because we didn't have the money to afford them. But we didn't dodge the bullet from the Dodgers by the means of Margot. IMO big bats, especially lately, are a gamble unless you have the money for Soto. I'm a big believer in our offense & they will produce if managed properly & able to keep the glue together. We might need to trade from our surplus of offense before we need to trade from our pitching. Speaking about defense up the middle. Catching has been our biggest need. They bought an expensive band-aid in Vazquez to keep us from bleeding to death, But sooner or later we'll have to rip off that bandage. We still have that gaping wound, w/o Vazquez, we have Jeffers, who can only manage a weak side tandem. Camargo & Cartaya, who haven't shown yet that they are MLB 3rd string catchers. We have 5 catchers on the 40-man but only 2 are serviceable. Jeffers's contract is about to expire, & it'll be ridiculous to sign Jeffers to an outlandish extension. We have to have a MLB 3rd catcher who can be our future catcher (Jeffers is not him) & time to groom him, a good option so we don't have to extend Jeffers. Cartaya can become a MLB catcher, but he's not now & we don't know when or how far he can advance. I would not trade pitching for offense, but I would for a promising young MLB-ready catcher, if I had to.

I get my info from NYY podcasters, explaining why all those promising bats that went sour. I never said the Twins ruined Martin's swing. Maybe set him back but not ruined.

Your goperty goop does explain anything. There are analytical teams that I'm all in favor of & there are others that go way overboard with weird analytics that have no sense, that's what I'm against. If you actually read my post you'd remember that I said that Arraez wasn't an ideal lead-off hitter because he's not fast. It doesn't pay to argue with you about Martin because you refuse to understand & I get tired of keeping explaining to you. You can keep believing that slow sluggers are better lead-off hitters & I'll keep believing that those who get on base at high clip, raise havoc on the bases & don't clog the bases are better lead-off hitters (that's what I have debated on) & leave it at that. P.S. there's a big difference between tweaking (which I'm not talking about) & tweaking the heck out of a swing like the Yanks did.

You are comparing apples to oranges, I compared apples to apples. Putting them on the same playing field. If you actually read my quote carefully, you could see that. As I've been saying, I'm not looking at the situation that both are in right now, but their potential. Because of their small sample size (hitting lead-off- Wallner (8 PAs) .00 OBP & SO 3Xs, Martin (0 PAs)) & opportunity, we need to look at their MiLB records. To reiterate, a lead-off hitter has to get on base, Wallner (OBP .379 with no interference), Martin (OBP .397 tried to manipulate his swing) & wreak havoc on the bases, Wallner with 15 SBs in 5 seasons & Martin with 76 in 4 seasons, Comparing apples to apples Martin is a much better lead-off hitter. Plus Martin's splits aren't bad. They is no doubt that (LH) Wallner has more power than (RH) Martin especially against LHP, I'm not advocating Martin over Wallner to hit clean up. To reiterate, Wallner has been groomed to be a cOFer & his style of hitting for his entire pro career, so all he needs to concentrate on is his hitting. On the other hand, Martin has been moved all around, having his swing manipulated & his rookie season he needed to learn a very difficult CF which he hasn't been groomed for on the fly. There is no comparison the conditions that both of these guys went through. IF Wallner had gone through the same things that Martin had, I guarantee that his production would be much lower. But Baldelli has no desire for a traditional lead-off hitter that's why we don't have one. If he did, Martin would have been treated differently & would be a good candidate to be groomed as one.