Doctor Gast

I'm not an expert on WAR. So I can't really comment of him winning the MVP but if Gibson, Clemens & Verlander had done it. Why not Santana? He was the best during his time. But I agree with Rigby that he was robbed. & experts should have known he was robbed & give him the acclaim that he deserves.

Rushing has been on my target for a while now. He'd be a great catcher but he's blocked at LAD, he could play 1B but again blocked, LF isn't a good option. LAD has had a lot of opportunities to trade Rushing, but it seems they are saving him for a real special deal, whatever that may look like. Does the Twins have that special deal that LAD want? MIA has no interest in Vazquez, no teams have real interest in him. Jeffers has no future here, he's not a starting catcher & he'll want a sweetheart extension deal. W/o Vazquez to stabilize the catching, it'll fall apart under Jeffers. We need to look not only if we can squeeze by another season at catcher but we need to look towards the future. The only way I'd consider moving on from Vazquez is to acquire a Moreno who a different TD member suggested. AZ isn't motivated to move him, you have to be very proactive to make this happen. A Rortvedt (TB) but it won't be easy. I like the underrated HOU backup Victor Caratini, who could be our starting catcher for a while if we can extend him. & that not saying we don't need a future catcher for him to groom. The greatest need we have is to have our FO proactive & initiate essential trades. In Falvey's time here, I have never seen him be proactive & initiate an important essential trade. He'd rather throw money around in FA, which is the last thing we need.

You are basically bringing back the same team that Falvey put together in '24 that was so bad. But I see you didn't bring back Margot & you replaced him with Keirsey which is a vast improvement, especially in defense which MN was so bad in. You also kept Vazquez to stabilize the catching which I agree with. If we trade away Julien our defense at 2B would vastly improve our defense so we wouldn't need to waste our money on an expensive low-productive GG 1Bman which would cost more than $5M. We need a much more productive & cheaper Miranda. W/o Julien we might have to trade for a RH platoon 1B backup if Keaschal wouldn't be ready. I wouldn't trade Castro because he'd be more difficult to replace & affect our depth. We'd save more money on Paddack & he'd be easier to replace. Congratulations Brett, you did improve the team but I'd personally do it differently.

CIN saw something in Montas as did MIL but IMO NYM will capitalize on him. I haven't been much in favor of past reclamation projects of the Twins or dipping into the bottom of FA's barrel. I agree with you guys that Montas wasn't really in MN's cards since Boras is his agent. OAK tends to damage SPs when showcasing them & when he finally recovers he'll still be pretty good. If Montas was available & we had the means, I'd bet on him

As Boras as his agent & MN financial bind, there wasn't much chance he'd end up a Twin this offseason

It'd make more sense if they were trading Jeffers. I'll echo what DJL said. It'd make more sense to trade for Venezuela, put him on the 40 man & option him to AAA where can season a bit more. He has potential. LHP- (TX) Magdaleno & (CLE) Webb look tempting if they come available to us.

We have had a problem at catching since '22 Jeffers's trade value bottomed out, We put a Band-Aid on it '23 where Jeffers was put in a supportive role & he excelled & his trade value skyrocketed. In '24 he had an equal tandem role & his production stalled & dipped greatly as his trade value. In '25 if Jeffers is put in a primary role his trade value with his production will bottom out, if put in an equal tandem role his trade value will slightly dip to where he is right now. Jeffers isn't a starting catcher now or ever, we need a starting catcher now & in the future. In '23 was the best time to trade Jeffers & even right now we can still land a future starting catcher with Jeffers in conjunction with others in trade, in the future I doubt it. It also takes time for a catcher to settle in under normal situations. If we wait for it to get really bad it makes it that much worse to break in a new catcher. Very soon Jeffers will want an exorbitant amount to be extended for being a backup catcher. I hope this FO isn't stupid enough to do that. Jeffers has no future here so why wait?

I'd love a lineup filled with Arraezs. Arraez doesn't have the range to play 2B, not the height or power to play 1B or the superpower to DH. With the Twins, the defense wasn't important to them & the other teams also loved him & SD could afford to put him at DH because they had the power & defense so Arraez didn't have to be. But the defining reason is that Scott Boras is his agent & they can't afford what his asking price to extend him, pure & simple.

Agree with JD & I agree with Nick that FO should finally start initiating trades & do it right away. Not sit back & wait & hope you get a deal at the end. It's like my Dad who liked to sit back & wait to get a good deal on a Christmas tree. By the time he ends up buying the tree, everything is picked over & he pays almost nothing for a worthless tree & everyone is pissed. Some teams are out there acquiring depth SPs. Paddack is a fair priced mid- lower SP, there is a market for him, go out there & find a trade. Before everyone fill out their catching positions go out there & sell Jeffers. CO desperately needs SPs, go out there give them an offer they can't refuse with Dobnak. There are teams with good young catchers who are blocked go out there & make a fair deal, we have the redundant young players to make it happen & quit complaining about the budget, most trades aren't expensive. Very unlikely these teams will seek us out. If you sit around & wait like last deadline you get a Richards. Do you want everyone pissed again? & quit trading away needed players to afford players we don't need.

Bingo! But he should be in the middle of all that. If he's not the head of the catching department, who specifically is? With all these bodies floating around in analytical & coaching we need someone actively & specifically involved with all the aspects of catching. Are they lumped altogether with other areas? Whatever they are doing it's not working & things absolutely needs to be shaken up.

IMO none of these players fulfill any big need we have. Also the problem isn't the core, it's FO not able to pull off essential trades to fill essential holes. So quit blaming the core, & FO get your act together to see the holes & quickly fill them.

So you are suggesting to further shake things up by trading economic Ryan & or Ober with still upside for an expensive experienced SP that has reached their upside & might even be on the downside? It may make sense to Falvey but not to me. It seems like rouge, where Falvey comes in to save the day by not trading Lopez, Ober or Ryan from ownership's chopping block. If we need more veteran SPs, we don't trade veteran SPs we trade the prospects & rookies. Trading Paddack isn't that tough of a sell. His $7.5M price tag is a fair price for Paddack's services & everybody but MIA is looking for SPs. They just have to stop advertising that they are having a Fire Sale. Lopez is a top commodity & should not be considered for trading. Unless this FO botch another open-window opportunity then if Falvey can't put together a winner & he's fixed in this organization so why pay a Lopez or Correa? We have a lot of young players we should trade. Why keep on trading those we need?

There were so many sacrificial lambs but the ones that should have been fired (the ones who adhere to Falvey's philosophy) weren't & some were even promoted. I'd have liked Falvey. Baldelli (at least demoted to bench coach so he can really learn how to manage from a more qualified manager), Tingler, Watkins & Conger relieved of their duties. Borrego seems to be an improvement over Conger. IMO Falvey's idea for catchers is can they hit HRs? Can they follow spreadsheets & take orders from the bench? The rest is frivolous & needs no attention so the catching coach can be spread around everywhere else. Tanner Swanson was greatly acclaimed here & when he went to NYY he greatly improved their catcher drafting, and development & put a lot of time into working with their MLB catchers. Tanner has done a great job elevating the NYY catching dept. What has Conger done? Twins' catcher drafting and development are nonexistent & he lets the catchers figure out on their own what they need to know. The Twins' catching dept. is in shambles. And Falvey doesn't care, he got the man he wants in there.

I like your attitude!

Here's a trade I came up with to give you an idea https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/177002 I followed Teel since he was in college. IMO he'll be a great catcher & advocating trading for him since we didn't get him in the draft. Now BOS knows who they have & they're not giving him up. Even in a win now mode, they'll try to fill their needs via FA & trades that don't include him. There are other trade MLB-ready prospects, there those who are blocked & those who we can offer Jeffers. Those who are blocked are (MIL) J Quero (LAD) Rushing (SEA) Ford & (BAL) Basallo. Those that'd need Jeffers in the trade is (CO) Romo & Carrigg, (CWS) E Quero & if we have a chance (BOS) Teel. We should have been always drafting & developing catchers because they are a premium & expensive to obtain. Our catching depth is a shamble. The best avenue now is trading for one but it'll take serious trade offers.

If we could land Moreno, we'd have our starting catcher. Then we could trade both Jeffers & Vazquez. But I haven't seen any indication that they'd be interested in trading him. One veteran catcher that I have my eye on is Victor Caratini (HOU). IMO he is underrated, he has very good defensive skills & his hitting has improved to above avg. He's HOU's backup catcher, but has the ability to start & has 1 year left. If we bring a very beneficial trade to Hou, they could be persuaded.

"Alternatively, the Twins could lean more heavily on Jeffers as the primary catcher while using Camargo sparingly. This strategy would shift Jeffers into a role he has never held at the big-league level." Yes, in '22 after trading away Garver & Rortvedt, Jeffers was handed primary catching duties with Sanchez look to as mainly DH & emergency catcher. Jeffers crashed very quickly & not able to handle the physical demands, ended up on the IL. '23 He was declared postseason catcher & caught the whole postseason & didn't do very well. As a backup. In the shortened '20 he had a very good season. In '23 he had even better season. As a slightly more used in tandem. '21 he did very poorly & '24 he waned as the season dragged on. In summary, contrary to what Falvey wants us to believe, Jeffers isn't a primary catcher, he's better used as a backup. Twins need at least a starting catcher & the Twins cupboard is bare. As we should know FA catching is very expensive even for a backup catcher. We are wasting our time with Jeffers & soon he'll want as a Boras client a very hefty extension for a backup catcher. Jeffers isn't our future so trade him yesterday. Although his value has dropped considerably from last year, he's still worth something to help us land a future catcher. We'll end up losing terribly trying to trade Vazquez with a big Fire Sale sign on his back. We'll have to eat a good chunk of that money & then losing money trying to find an expensive inferior catcher in FA. To answer your question "Are the Twins ready to shake up the catching?" They shook things up in '22 & they haven't recovered from it. They have put a Band-Aid on it but now they want to rip it off. Ready or not they have to fix the problem they caused.

I was looking into Joey Bart (SF) last offseason. PIT picked him up for practically nothing. & he became their best catcher last season. I like Valenzuela much better than Camargo but I still don't trust him as a backup catcher. But I'd be open to picking him up & let him season a bit in AAA to work on his hitting. He has potential.

As I've said before, I'd prefer OFers with options than those who don't. I'm not totally against getting Canha IF we need a RH RF platoon, if we need a RH RF platoon we can't afford the big money he wants especially with a poorer '24. We can wait, so if we can pick him up for $3M I'd consider it.

Thanks Blyleven. I appreciate it. LH CFer is a premium. The more they develop Keirsey at the MLB level, the greater his value. Twins gain nothing letting him rot at AAA.

"As such, around this time a year ago, we were wondering if the Twins would add Keirsey to the 40-man roster and protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. They didn't, and from accounts that Aaron Gleeman has shared on the Gleeman and the Geek podcast, it doesn't sound like they seriously considered it. (Paraphrasing: After multiple inquiries about the team's likelihood of adding Keirsey, a Twins official replied to AG, "Boy, you really like DaShawn Keirsey, huh?")" This kind of response & other actions, make me really doubt the Twins' player evaluations, that sometimes their decisions are more subjective than objective. My feeling in '23 with Castro was that he was ready to be sent down no matter what he did in spring training. Once down in MiLB he'd be forgotten. Fortunately for us injuries forced the Twins to take a chance on him. There were others that weren't so lucky. While they go out get losers like Gallo & Margot. In '23 Keirsey showed that he was our 2nd best CFer in the system behind Buxton, he also showed that he could hit upper minors pitchers, What more do you want from a CFer?! '24 was Keirsey's chance to show what he had before the likes of Emma & Jenkins would come on the scene. & like in '20, Keirsey was robbed of his pro development, '24 he was robbed of a valuable year of MLB development. What player evaluations revealed that Margot was close to the worth we paid for him (I wouldn't have taken him if he was given away) & deemed that Keirsey wasn't able to give us MLB CF performance or that he couldn't eventually hit MLB pitching which would be just icing on the cake. The acquisition of Margot was a big mistake! Margot blocked the role that Martin should have played & took the active spot from Keirsey & Martin had to try fill the CF spot that Margot was suppose to supply. The absence of Keirsey as the main CF sub & management determination of putting Julien at 2B which forced Correa & Santana to cover for him, to make him look passable. These decisions severely affected our defensive compacity especially when Correa wasn't around. We can't go wrong with investing in our MLB-ready in-house players especially when there is a need & a budget crunch, We lost 1 year of MLB development from Keirsey at CF, Varland in the BP, Martin in his role, Miranda & Kiriloff at 1B. We start '25, 1 year behind where we should have been as far as development performance while we finished in 4th place ahead of CWS in '24. So what did we gain? We gained nothing, we lost, & we lost bad! Usually it takes them awhile before they see their mistakes. If they make the same mistake again with Keirsey. it'll be unforgiveable.

Yes TOR was a great landing spot for one of our (LH) OFers in trade but again that ship has sailed. TOR has done a good job of restocking their OF with (LH) Ofers.

There is no big need to where we need to capitalize on trading Castro unless you to go big on a SP or pick up a promising young catcher. & even then we have many other players that we can easily get along w/o. Like Jeffers, Julien, Larnach & a score of prospects with G Gonzales heading the list. If we trade Castro we create a hole that is harder to fill. Castro isn't our starting CF or our starting SS or even our starting 2Bman, he's our utility player which adds valuable much-needed depth to all these premium positions. He gets to & makes plays on a temporary basis that many utility players can't. His flexibility is his greatest talent.

Rox seems like a good fit, many ex-Twins got a 2nd chance there & did well. I can see them signing him & he does well at Coors & then they trade him to a contender at the deadline for prospects. That seems to be their MO. MIA most certainly won't be interested because they are in a rebuild unless they get him dirt cheap & they could also flip him at the deadline for prospects.

IMO this is a strange article. On the one hand shows how an intelligent team like LAD values super-utility players like Castro & on the other hand how we can unload Castro to an intelligent team that values depth. Why can't we be that intelligent team that appreciates what Castro does for us & what a value he is? I agree with Fire D G, we don't have anyone who can replace him in the system. With the Fire Sale sign out we won't get close to what he's worth.