Doctor Gast

Twins made a lot of wrong decisions in '24. The greatest mistake was selecting Margot over Keirsey. Margot was simply terrible on both offense & defense. It delayed Keirsey's MLB development 1 year & had to play rookie Martin in difficult situations. 2nd decided to place Jeffers over Vazquez as the primary catcher. Quickly it became an equal tandem even at that, Jeffers eventually after the 2nd half, he started to wane especially defensively. 3rd Chose Julien to be fultime 2Bman. Twins took a big hit defensively up the middle. Besides Correa & Buxton missing significant time & Jeffers catching too often. Margot was suppose to be Buxton's sub at CF that didn't turn out. W/o Correa covering for Julien, his warts became obvious defensively. The league adjusting to him, Julien was terrible offensively but because we didn't have anyone to sub him he stayed up far too long & was called up far too soon. 4th was not trading Julien & Gonzales for a SP & a high-leverage LHRP. The rotation was as expected worn thin which affected their performance. With Duran suffering a minor setback & LHRP Theilbar a greater one, with Steward injured again. The Twins were in desperate need of high-leverage arms, especially LHRP. 5th not cementing Miranda & Kiriloff at 1B, after coming off shoulder surgeries. Miranda & Kiriloff were phenomenal while healthy. If cemented at 1B they could have greatly improved our 1B offense production there at 1B the whole year. Instead, they made them to play positions where they had to really work their shoulders. IMO to compensate for their shoulders, both backs went out. Miranda lost 1 year of MLB development & 1/2 year of production. Kiriloff lost all that plus the rest of his career. I will add at 6th not adding future promising MLB-ready catching. We desperately need a future catcher & we have no depth. Having a future catcher giving Jeffers a break once in a while in the 2nd half would have done wonders in Jeffers's production while building for the future. I could go on about how they were managed but these were the 6 most serious mistakes. To comment on the Polanco trade. It was a lose-lose-lose situation, Twins/SEA/Polanco. Twins gained nothing. Desclavani's arm was shot when we got him, Topa had & still has a chronic knee problem, he was a nonfactor & Gonzales was way overrated when we got him & shouldn't ever make it to the Twins. We lost Polanco's presence on & off the field & his clutch hitting that we dearly missed down the stretch. His knees were worse than we thought yet he still was able to make the highlight videos, If Twins had doubts about Miranda & Kiriloff at 1B, Polanco could have put some time there to spare his knees. Being traded is difficult especially when that person has given so much of his heart. Polanco by far had his worst season for SEA. Polanco & Garver went through hell by the SEA fans. FO frivolously spent most of the extra money on players that didn't really pan out. The trade should not have ever happened.

Thanks Gregg for another interesting article. The Ishbia Bros. are interested in the team and the way it stands with the core. If the core is compromised that might affect the sale of the team. Correa, Lopez & Buxton are reasonable salaries with players who are difficult to replace. To make a team competitive you have to focus up the middle & pitching. Catching with the addition of Vazquez has helped us to reach the lower part of the middle of the pack. For years I've advocated for upgrading our catching not only for now but mainly for the future. You said to get rid of Vazquez we'd have to pay down 60% of his salary so we save $4M to move him. After moving him we'll end up on the bottom. How easy would it be to replace him for $4M? Very difficult & we'd end up an inferior product & save nothing! There are players that we can easily replace for less, But Falvey's Fire Sale, wait & see approach, no FO isn't coming to us with great deals to help us solve our problems. They are coming to us with players they want to unload with bargain basement prices. Falvey has to come up with creative deals & go out there and sell them. Very quickly other teams' rosters will be filled & our opportunity will be closed. Here comes the scary part. They may be able to trade Castro at a discount & not be able to replace him. But here we save only $6+M which still leaves us short & a weaker team. Plus Falvey has an addiction to dabble in the FA. To support his habit & meet budget, he'll end up trading Lopez. Destroying any hope of making the postseason & maybe even jeopardizing the hope of selling the team.

Thank you Tom for bringing amusement while reporting on a mundane & depressing offseason. I miss your regular insights & interaction on TD. I never miss an episode of TFTwins on Youtube. Moran & Gasper are promising prospects, with no disrespect isn't the Christmas gift we were expecting. BTW BOS liked their gift. But they have already got a bunch of really nice gifts. But thanks Falvey anyway.

Primary of what Tom has done is writing a report on a Twins' transaction. Just because he was very creatively amusing in doing so doesn't subtract from that. FO could use some creativity to makes some significant trades. BTW "Just For Fun" makes front page news. If you want to change that, I wouldn't oppose. But that should be another topic.

A lot of good memories of the Metrodome. That place really rocked at times. I guess I never saw the Metrodome at the end so I only remember the good. I miss it too. Budget restrictions shouldn't be an excuse for the inactivity, Au! Contraire. This offseason should be really jumping. There are a lot of trades that should have been done already. Trades that don't cost us any $, trades that should save us money, trades w/o affecting the team's integrity, really significant trades. But the longer the FO sits around & waits, the more likely we'll see insignificant trades & trades that affect the integrity of the team.

I was shocked to hear of his death (pneumonia), he was always in good shape. In the age of steroids, I was never impressed with all the HRs others were hitting. But to watch Henderson on the basepaths was a thing of beauty. The gold standard as far as what a lead-off hitter should be. Ricky you were taken too soon from us but your memory will always be with me. Condolences to his family.

I thought the same thing, Tom. Falvey's wait-and-see strategy always puts us in a situation where he feels he has to do something at the last minute, so he frantically picks up something that other teams want to flip, something this team doesn't need, but something he feels he can spin to make the fanbase believe he did something, like a Desclavani, Margot, Richards, fruitcake, or a nail clipper. LHP Moran wasn't on the 40-man. Gasper was & BOS have been busy this offseason and eventually needed a roster spot so Gasper would have been DFAed so instead getting nothing fortunately for them they got something out of it. Gasper was picked up last season via Rule 5. Fangraph has him projected to play 0 games any position in MLB this season for the catcher desperate BOS & he'll take up a valuable roster space for MN. We could use some 1B depth & desperately need catching depth. But by thinking Gasper will fill any of these needs we are deceiving ourselves again. FO should have been proactive, approached BOS & traded Paddack for Romy Gonzalez & Gasper & BOS would still have come out on top but at least we'd have accomplished something.

If you are talking about Lewis, the last few years has been spent rehabbing. He just simply ran out of gas.

I would, Luzardo is at his low point at trade value. Even with the rotation we have, you can't have enough SPs especially if don't have any LHPs. IMO Gonzalez won't make it as a Twin & we have enough 3Bmen so we can spare Culpepper. Scale back on Luzardo for a while, he'll come around to be a reliable top-end LHSP. Too many teams were trying to lowball MIA but even though PHI having a very good rotation, they saw Luzardo as a bargain & cut the BS.

I really like his bat-to-ball skills & I'm impressed with how he can handle SS with his speed. If the Twins focus on bulking him up for more power he won't stay at SS. With his arm he's destined to 3B. It'll be interesting with what shakes loose when Correa can't handle SS.

Very happy with Larnach adjusting, I'm not sure if he has more upside & could use better defense in LF. After Lewis's knee surgeries, fighting soft-tissue side effects, & now fatigue. I'm optimistic that he'll keep on getting better every year. The same way I am with Miranda, Being settled at 1B will do wonders for his health & production. Wallner has improved in the OF & has adjusted but still could improve in his adjusting. I'm encouraged by our rookies from last year, together with the new promising rookies coming up. And most of all no Margot! I have no hope for Julien that he could help the Twins defensively or offensively. Hope they don't drag him along like they did with Margot. Trade him while you can.

Boston has to get someone at 3B to move Devers off there. BOS is very high on Casas so they are more apt to move their DH instead but they do need a lot of help at SP & catching (Lopez & Vazquez could really impact them) so they could do it. After BOS moved Teel there's no one big on the BOS team I'd really want. Just like Lopez & Vazquez positively impacting BOS, the loss of them for the Twins will have a greater negative impact that can't be replaced. I really like your idea about using a larger positive surplus value to offset negative surplus value. Twins who are very deep in pitching still find value in Dobnak, then the Rox who had been at the bottom of pitching depth can find more value in Dobnak. ROX still thinks they are a competing team & they have a ton of holes. Their biggest hole is catching if we trade Jeffers with other players that help fill some of their holes plus basically throwing in Dobnak for free using trading surplus capital for MLB-ready Drew Romo & soon-to-be to be elite catcher Cole Carrigg. Savings of $7.7M. Then we can trade Paddack to BOS for Romy Gonzalez (1B/utility) + $2M that's $9.5M savings. OK BOS wouldn't want to pay the $2M & rather use a low prospect instead but that's still $7.5M savings. 7.7 + 7.5 = $15.2M using only non-core replaceable players. That more than balances the budget plus takes care of a couple of needs. All we need to do is trade for high-leverage LHRP Nardi & then we are set to compete for the Central. Which I never felt that we could last season.

I've hated the fruitless articles of trading our core players. CLE does a lot of things right but dumping their key core players is not one of them. On this point, I don't want to mimic them. Correa is the heart of this core that broke the winless postseason games. After we signed Lopez our winning window was opened. We have a great core & farm system to keep this window open for a while. We have to keep the magic from that core together as much as possible the more we compromise the core the more we lose the magic, last season was a taste of that. If we can't win it's not the core's fault where we need to shake things up, changes would be needed elsewhere.

Exactly

Nobody wants Alonzo, NYM only does at a discount & for sentimental reasons.

If FO only dump salary in a creative & intelligent way I'd be very happy, But there are some cheap awesome trades that can fill out this roster. Together with this great core, I can be excited with this club.

Miranda isn't a rookie fresh from AAA that we have to be patient with. He's got the bat that needs the opportunity to be healthy from his '23 shoulder injury by playing 1B not manning 3B. We have been too patient with Julien at 2B & now reinventing himself as hitter won't profile as a 1B & needs to be traded now. Miranda hits better against RHPs, Julien hits much better against RHPs & Wade hits better against RHPs. There is no advantage in getting Wade. Choosing Cave over Wade all those years & trading him was a big mistake, Choosing Wade over Miranda overall would be another one. Polanco here at 1B would be great in the clubhouse and on the field. No doubt Polanco can quickly adapt to 1B & give him time to finally heal too. I believe there a few teams in on Polanco even with needs at 3B. So until FO trims the fat w/o compromising the core & have a few millions to boot. Until I see it, I can't believe that they can intelligently do that. Until that happens we can't think about FA because we can't afford even a Polanco. Then we'll have to settle for Miranda which is much better than trading away a much needed core player to afford an expensive Gallo all or nothing type loser, hoping they'll bounce back.

Exactly, I get excited in what theyn can do but you have to keep them on the mound.

I'll state again a 1B target to platoon (not replace) with Miranda, Romy Gonzales (BOS), He just mashes LHPs, great at PHing, a very solid glove that can platoon anywhere on the INF or OF (when not needed at 1B), he's very cheap to obtain (BTV 1.3 surplus trade value) & cheap 4yrs availability.

None of these pitchers will have a shot in '25, except Prielipp. & he'll make it only as a RP. Like Duran his only shot is at RP, his starting days are over. But that's not bad.

I didn't see much fanfare, so I thought this was just another hyped-up podcast, but I guess it wasn't. I haven't checked it out yet. I'm surprised that MIA didn't wait until Luzardo was able to put up better #s at the deadline. Hurry up & nab Nardi

Because the league has the book on "all-or-nothing" hitters, almost everybody was hurting at 1B. so 1Bmen are going to be expensive even in trade. I was very surprised at Santana's $12M. We have no choice (if we really had before) but to stick with Miranda.

Last offseason was absolutely awful but this offseason is unbearable. Our greatest concern should be up the middle, SS is good, CF is good, if we take Julien out of the equation at 2B we are good. Catcher, we are sitting in the middle of the pack at best. Twins want to trade Vazquez that'll put us in the bottom of the barrel, so we pick up an inferior back up for $5M. You put that together with $5M that we'll have to eat when we trade him coming a grand total of zero savings. In contrast, losing a very good defensive catcher who knows & works together well with our pitchers for someone who is inferior defensively & don't know our pitchers. Sorry to say but before we even think about FA, we have to think about how we are going to bring payroll down to the target goal. All of TD articles should be on how we can meet budget. With everybody filling out their rotation, here we are with Paddack still on our roster, he should have been moved at the Winter meetings. All of us especially FO have to use our creativity to move Dobnak, there's a good market for Paddack & Jeffers, get it done. If we sit around & wait. very quickly any doors will be closed. Then FO will go to plan A, which is to trade Correa, Lopez, Castro, Ryan or Ober so we can afford going to FA to sign Santana. The main offseason goal shouldn't be meeting budget or shopping FA . It's getting better. Trading Correa, Lopez, Castro, Ryan or Ober doesn't make us better. These guys are core players at key positional depth. How does removing any of these core guys so we can sign an expensive non non-premium 1Bman make us better? We need to figure out how to meet budget & still get better. By signing Santana last offseason made us better this offseason? By signing Santana or a more inferior 1B FA this offseason will make us better next offseason? Fangraph has projected Santana at 1.1 WAR after his career season. They have projected Miranda at 1.5 WAR after a disappointing season. Santana is on his downside, Miranda is on his upside. Santana is expensive, Miranda is very cheap. Sign Santana & it's another lost year for Miranda. Do the math who should we stick with? Any holes we have can be easily filled by trades. I can see the scenario now. Twins push the "We have to have Santana" narrative. After months of sitting & waiting they'll declare we can't move Dobnak, Paddack, & Vazquez so we have to trade Castro. That's not enough, we still need to clear more salary to meet budget & we have to have Santana & maybe another RH OF bat. So we'll have to trade Lopez. Then comes "Darn Pohlads & their budget, it's all their fault". Just to let you know I'm not a Pohlad fan.

We have to look at underlying conditions. Lee is a rookie & had some back problems, It's a matter of getting acclimated to MLB, which he will. I can also put Martin & Keirsey in that boat, w/o Margot in the equation I expect Martin & Keirsey to be used correctly & more time acclimating to MLB they will shine. Defensively Lee is ready for MLB but as Bean stated he needs time in AAA to work on his swing. It's been a long time since Lewis has put in anything resembling a full season. He ran out of gas. Eventually he'll get his stamina back & rake. Julien, is it just a sophomore slump? His defense has always been bad at 2B no matter how much you spin stats. The league has taken away his & many others' HR advantage. It'll take more than a slight adjustment to solve his problem. He'll have to reinvent himself. IF he can make the transformation, he'll no longer profile at 1B, Last season was the best time to trade him but he still has some hyped value, trade him now.

Our problem isn't the budget crunch it's not making the needed trade, The root word in Chinese for opportunity is crises. This budget crunch should become an opportunity. By learning not to be so dependent on FA, which can make us into a better team for one thing looking to deserving in-house players over expensive inferior outsiders. Miranda & Alcala both were coming off rehabbing from previous injuries. IMO both were managed incorrectly which led to their poor performance. Hopefully, both will be managed better & both will produce very desirable results. Alcala sticks to 1 inning & nonrepeating outings until he shows he's strong enough to do more. Miranda settled into 1B to improve his glove while mashing. Julien has no such excuse. W/o Correa to cover for him Julen isn't passable at 2B. The league has taken away his HR advantage. IF he adjusts he won't be the same & no longer has the bat to stick at 1B. He's a liability both defensively & offensively, trade him.