Doctor Gast

A very creative trade. Ryan & Ober aren't shed salary bait & MIL isn't a team where you look to shed salary. I agree the main difference between Perkins & Keirsey is opportunity & it'd be a greater shame to leave Keirsey out to dry again. Keirsey can give you just as much value if given the chance for free w/o giving up anyone of value. You don't trade a front-line SP for a CF sub. You have been reading too many Jim Bowman articles. Maybe the Polanco trade looks better on paper but both are bad trades & add nothing to what we already have.

I was a big fan of Richardo Olivar during his '22 FCL MVP season. I was combing through the system to see if there was a catching prospect that I could get excited about. Olivar was the one, he is very athletic, moves around well, and seemed like he had the tools to be a very good catcher who could also hit. IMO serious catchers should stay at Catcher & learn the ropes to become the best catcher he can & not be moved around, Either he's a catcher or he's not, position flexibility isn't a trait I value at Catcher. I have soured on Olivar because he hasn't developed as a catcher as I'd like which necessarily isn't his fault. Due to this & him just dipping his toe at AA, IMO he doesn't need to be protected. Olivar has a lot of untapped talent that a team that knew what they were doing could transform Olivar into a very good catcher but it'd take longer than 1 year of MiLB. He's not close to MLB.

Instead of the core slowly suffering the bleeding cuts from last season & more cuts planned to the core. Trading Correa would be a mercy kill to the self-inflicted senseless death of our Twins.

You hit the nail right on the head, Cody. You can't hide a slugging below-average glove at 2B any longer since the shift ban. FO is slow to catch on. Julien shouldn't have been ever considered at 2B. He actually improved getting to the balls that normally bleed through but he couldn't make the plays & his DPs were not impressive. He was better profiled at 1B but now the league has taken away his HR advantage. he like Sano has to adjust, IF he adjusts and that's a big IF, he'll never be the same hitter. He was on my trade list last offseason but now he's a must-trade. Athletic Lee, Lewis, Castro & Martin are very promising options at 2B to start the season which makes me hopeful for much better results at 2B than last season.

With Falvey at the helm, it's hard to know what to do. Falvey was bound & determined not to sign platinum glove, fan-favorite Buxton, to satisfy big market teams by trading him, But fortunately, the Pohlads intervened & signed him to a team-friendly contract, Falvey signed Donaldson & to unload him Twins took a big hit. Falvey wanted to sign Story but fortunately, that didn't work out & Correa fell into their laps. Falvey scares me, he screws a lot of things up. Sometimes he gets lucky but IMO his luck has run out. For Falvey to be creative is to throw logic out the window. His creative thinking took a Division champs & postseason contender into a 4th place in the AL Central. I'm afraid that he'll lead us down the same path as the Rockies & CWS. I don't put it by him to continue dismantling the core that brought postseason success because he's not able to initiate an important & viable trade. There isn't anyone in NYY or NYM that the Twins need but leave it to a big market team to talk him into something. I used to love the offseason but the resigning of Falvey, I have lost all hope that the Twins will do what they need to do & become frustrated by them doing what they shouldn't.

Many rate arms by accuracy, quickness & arm strength. Many looked at Jeffers's earlier poor CS% & pop time & evaluated him as a poor arm which is misleading. Jeffers worked hard to better his pop time but his framing technique suffered. Maybe Conger's main job is 1B coach but he's also listed as Twins MLB catching coach. Twins catchers always praised Tanner Swanson when he was coach here. Jeffers has stated that he didn't get much help from coaching (Conger) but took it upon himself to better himself. I don't doubt that Conger doesn't help with the scouting & development which isn't under his job description. But those who are in charge of all of the scouting & the development of pitching, hitting, baserunning, INF, OF as well as catching IMO is very overwhelming. I hope that they should be able to depend very much on our main catching coach for direction & work together as a team.

He spent basic all last season AAA that was too much time & shouldn't have happened.

If we get a surprising offseason, that means another FO comes & drops a player we need for a player who isn't essential to us. Much like the MIA coming & offering Pablo Lopez. Last season there wasn't any FO that came & dropped a needed SP in Falvey's lap so Falvey had to get "creative" meaning trading away needed players for players who weren't able to help the Twins & be able to frivolously spend all the allotted money on players who were not able to help the Twins. Falvey said he needed to be "creative" at the deadline & they came up with Richards. Falvey's creativity brought the Twins from projected AL Central Champs, a postseason competitor to a 4th place in the AL Central. When Falvey says he needs to be "creative" this offseason. That scares the **** out of me. That means disturbing the chemistry, not trading players we should, trading players we shouldn't to pay for players we don't need & leave holes unfilled while creating new ones. Trading like Pablo Lopez for prospects doesn't makes sense to me (unless it's a high MLB-ready catching prospect) because we have a lot of redundant prospects that need to be traded w/o adding more.

I watched the interview when it 1st came out, & loved it! I was hoping that Keirsey would have gotten the nod to be the 1st backup to Buxton starting the season. Picking up Margot was a terrible call. Keirsey would have made the team so much better defensively & offensively. Margot disturbed everything. Keirsey has a small window to prove himself. I criticize the Twins for making that window smaller. As I've said before Keirsey has a lot of character as well as being a very good player. That's a very good combination.

Conger is 1st of all the catching coach, being the catching coach I'd hope he'd know & have a big impute in what kind of catchers the Twins need & how to develop those catchers. Is there someone else who's directly responsible for the catching department over him?

Our catching drafting & development has gone no where since he took over. Actually FO puts very little importance on catching defense. If they can hit a few HRs they're good we don't have to develop them defensively. So we don't have to have anyone good there.

???? Who's throwing stones I just asked a question. I'm not criticizing anyone for the signing, It had to be done. It worked out as far as I'm concerned. He just didn't adjust very well offensively to begin with. I think you are missing the point of my question.

Why did we sign expensive FA Vazquez in the 1st place? #1 we had & still don't have anyone in the system to be a back catcher except Jeffers. #2 Jeffers isn't a primary catcher, Jeffers is a very good hitting, average-ish defensive backup catcher with a below-average arm. But when asked to do primary catcher duties his production both offensively & especially defensively noticeably drops. You look at Jeffers's numbers throughout his career this observation is true. Jeffers 2 yrs. from now will be eligible for FA. My guess Falvey has planned from the start that Jeffers would be the Twins' future primary catcher. As Boras as his agent Jeffers will get top primary catcher dollar for a backup catcher. While we still need a good primary catcher. FA is too expensive, Conger still has done nothing to come up with a viable MLB-ready catcher prospect now or anytime soon. We needed to trade for a young MLB-ready catcher before but now is better than never. So who do we keep? let's look at the facts (not hope). '22 Jeffers was asked to do primary catcher duties- he crashed & burned, his trade value bottomed out to around 3. '23 signed Vazquez to take the burden off Jeffers- he excelled & his trade value raised to 28.5 (we should have traded him then). '24 declared primary catcher but duties were shared equally, Jeffers was used a lot as DH when he was hitting well. As the season dragged on, Jeffers #s again waned & his trade value dropped to 13.1. '25 if we trade Vazquez, Jeffers (not a primary catcher) for real will be asked to do primary catcher duties & Carmargo (not a backup catcher) will be asked to do backup duties. This scenario will produce '22-type results, is that worth shaving off $10M, minus the money that MN will have to pay down? Vazquez's defense has only gotten better longer he gets to know the pitchers & his hitting has gotten better. Again in trade, we'd have to pay down his salary. While Jeffers is still worth something, if held onto to do primary catching duties & resemble his '22 year, we'd might have to pay something to trade him when we finally realize he's not a primary catcher worth paying for an exuberant extension. For many this seems complicated but IMO it's very simple & I'd do it before. That is to trade Jeffers ($4.7M) while he's worth something, trade for a backup catcher (Joey Bart, PIT) & Drew Romo as the 3rd catcher to be the future catcher. I'd keep Vazquez to mentor these young catchers because I don't trust Conger to do his job. In '26, Vazquez would walk free & we'd be free from the $10M. For '25 besides Jeffers $4.7M we can also cut in other places like Paddack $7.5M.

We've had a lot of bad teams in the mid 70's through the early 80's when I had stopped watching them. There have to be worse ones in there.

Same sentiments, FDG. Matthew said the bad word to me, "spending". Because spending you'll have to trade away someone you need, to afford someone you don't need. We are rated as the best bullpen in some circles, the BP isn't a top priority. Although IMO we could use a high-leverage LHRP but we can trade for that from our declining valued players we need to move.

Just by subtraction, we are a better team without Margot. '24 Margot played bad ball all away around (one reason the Twins did so lousy). Plus blocking Keirsey & Martin from really helping the team. '25 w/o Margot, Keirsey & Martin should be finally free to be used advantageously as bench players. Keirsey will mainly sub Buxton & Martin wherever needed. That leaves Castro to mainly focus on LF, yet free to roam where needed but a lot less than last year. Whew! Larnach will back up the (LH) cOF positions. Kepler played Target Field's RF superbly but RF isn't a premium defensive position so defensively It's not as big of a problem as some let on. I'm impressed with Wallner's improvement in defense after many years of not improving. After Wallner adjusted to the league's adjustment to the Twins' philosophy. Wallner will be an improvement offensively. Where we'll really miss Kepler is his presence. As Tom presented on his podcast. in that games that Kepler played in they tended to win. Stats don't tell the whole story. We don't know when Emma will be able to advance into MLB, so when he does he'll make the Twins better. I don't see any holes. I see a much improved OF. We need to look elsewhere to focus on improving the Twins.

Very good point ML Ready. TB & CLE are smaller market are good models but I'd like to extend our players much more than they do. The Twins won't be able to compete with ATL that's understood as far as the ability to extend players. Granted that ATL is a larger market (where does MSP fit in?), my point is not to focus our money on FA but to extend our own key players.

I agree with you Matt, that Donovan is a very good utility player. But I'd prefer Castro because he's better at SS & CF, giving us even more flexibility & better team chemistry. IMO he won't be available. To quote you. "Trading for Donovan would probably mean moving on from Castro, but getting extra team control, a few more dollars to spend," I wrote a blog here about how to create a successful team by emulating other successful teams. All those teams I mentioned had some common characteristics, and they were very good player evaluation and development together with the ability to pull off needed trades without being dependent on FA. The team I wanted to emulate the most was mid-market team ATL because they focused on extending key players to keep the core and chemistry intact to maintain continuity and success. I would like to add that there is a team that I don't want to emulate, and that is the Colorado Rockies. They are terrible in player evaluation & development, terrible in managing their money by overpaying FAs especially bad ones & great players like Arenado & Marquez. They had a great season with their core but the following seasons, although they had spent a ton of money, they had no money at all to spend & had nobody to trade so they did nothing in the offseason. Arenado was a very rich dude now but he wasn't happy, because the team wasn't getting any better & he became disgruntled. Then the dismantling of the core began & although they didn't rebuild their team, their team plummeted. The dispersed core never achieved their former glory. Bad at player evaluation & development, frivolously spending their allotted money, bad trades, not filling important holes therefore making the team weaker instead of better, dismantling of their core, beginning of disgruntle players, does that sound familiar? Our problem isn't the core, we have players & prospects we can trade, trading needed players isn't the answer. Quit trying to emulate CO & try to be more like ATL.

That is your opinion. What are you basing that opinion on, Mr Bean? For someone who lives & dies by specific stats, I'm surprised. Keirsey has done everything we asked him to do at AAA & then some. Are you basing his hitting by his very small MLB beginning sample size? I'm further surprised. There is a process to development & each is different. Holliday with a larger sample size was absolutely terrible does that mean that BAL should give up on him? Or do you think we should pick up another Margot to further screw up the development of our prospects? Stats are good only to a point & if you are dealing with projected players in a Fantasy Baseball game. Stats that are comprised to come to a bias personal result with no applications to underlying conditions & untangible effects in the real world. Just by stats alone Keirsey deserves a long look & commitment. But beyond that we need to look at character. I love to watch Seth's interviews. I wasn't big on SWR until I watched him on Seth's interview, And now I'm a big believer in SWR even when everyone else gave up on him, I've listened to early reporter's interview with Lewis, from then on I believed in Lewis & capable of great things even when he couldn't do what the Twins wanted him to do. Martin hasn't become the power hitting SS model that the Twins wanted to shove him into but still he has value that can help the Twins. The Twins have always put Martin in impossible situations & expect him to be a high profiled veteran. This season I hope the Twins will give the speedy, fiesty, OB machine & base-path terror a reasonable opportunity to succeed, After I watched Seth's interview with Keirsey & saw his character I've become a believer. I don't put a lot of stock in stats or what social media says. I put stock in what I see & know who the players are. I don't expect to see Keirsey's bat to set the MLB on fire (although he could) but I do expect that he has the talent to be the greatest glove to ever sub Buxton. Again Keirsey deserves to have the opportunity to be a bench player as a rookie & that's what the standard should be, a rookie bench player not an all-star starting CFer that fans put on him expecting him to fail.

Keirsey is a bona fide CF and is a very good sub to Buxton. Buxton is coming off a 100-game season that he can build upon. Emma isn't that far behind to possibly help out. Throwing out Margot we have a very good perspective for this season.

30 MLBer that played in 150+ innings. I bet most of them are 1Bmen &DHs. How many are catchers or CFers? Not many I wager.

I'm familar with that story. 3B isn't the biggest need of CO & they are stuck with players that 1B is the only place they can play, so they wouldn't be interested in Miranda. Jeffers & Topa has much more hype & CO would be more interested in them. I don't think Alcala wouldn't drum as much interest than Jeffers & Topa which would make Dobnak more interesting to at least fill in the back of the rotation. They'll fill their bigger needs. CO has more money than we do. Why do we want to trade 2 of our better-valued players? While creating a hole at 1B? This trade addresses more than picking up a very good young catcher. It's about cutting fat so that we don't have to cut anymore muscle that affects our productivity & chemistry. Have extra money so we can extend key players & yes create a solid catching base for now & the future.

Rockies don't like to rebuild, even though they should have a long time ago, so they aren't looking for prospects. They didn't want to pick Dobnak up on the waiver wire because they didn't want to pay his salary without receiving any compensation. The value of Jeffers & Topa versus the value of undervalued Romo & Carrigg, compensated for Dobnak. Receiving Jeffers & Topa is much cheaper than going to FA which they normally do plus pay a premium for pitchers & $4M for Dobnak isn't bad if he comes through for them which is likely. The trade makes CO stronger & would cut their payroll. You just have to sell it. They should buy it.

Twins haven't been able to develop catchers since Tanner Swanson. Get rid of Conger & find a good one. Since the Twins can't develop catchers then they have to go to expensive FA (Vazquez) or trade. Catching is a premium position where defense really matters. So trading away Vazquez would be suicide, I don't trust Carmargo or Jeffers to go the innings that'd be required of them. For reasons I explained many times before I'd trade Jeffers. We'd forego Jeffers's $4.7M this year & Vazquez's $10M next year. There are many desirable young MLB-ready catchers out there but they are all very expensive in trade value. There's one underrated young MLB catcher, Drew Romo (CO) that has the tools to become an above-average catcher, majoring more in defense. He's a switch-hitter that caught in 95 games in AAA with pretty good results hitting & got in 16 games at the MLB level (catching in 111 games shows stamina). Romo has been CO's future catcher but Black has been leaning towards Hunter Goodman lately. Both are expected to share catching duties for '25 but rumors have it that CO wants to acquire a veteran possibly sign Stallings back. CO is lacking in many areas, but 3 of the worst areas are C, RP & SP. My suggestion is trading Dobnak ($4M, SP), who I've always thought be a good fit for CO along with Jeffers ($4.7M) & Topa ($1.2M, RP) for prospects, Romo & Cole Carrigg, who I think has all the tools & character to be an excellent catcher. I'd prefer not to put Romo in a spot of obligating to start so many games & again I don't trust Carmargo so I'd also like to trade for (PIT) Joey Bart. Joey Bart was one of my low-risk trade candidates last season that PIT picked up for nothing & became a very productive catcher for them. He could help in tandem with Vazquez plus giving plenty of opportunity for Romo to come up & help out. I'd trade Paddack to HOU. #1 Paddack is Texan, #2 HOU needs SPs, #3 we can find a replacement in the trade market & #4 $7.5M that HOU can afford. To even out the trade I'd throw in Severino which HOU also needs some help at 1B & 3M much more than we do. In exchange, we could pick up a lotto ticket. In these trades, we'd clear $16.4M for this season while $10M will come off the books next season. Without compromising the integrity of our core, Having $ to sign extensions to our key players instead of trading them away. Win/ win situation for all parties & we'd secure our future catching depth for years to come so we can compete for a World Series during that time. I like that idea better than trading away our core & continue on the path that helps us to compete with CWS for the cellar.

Like most of these dilemmas you posted, they aren't dilemmas. It's a no-brainer, you tender him. But the question is, is he the Twins' primary catcher of the future? The answer to that question is no. Jeffers is an above-average hitter, especially for a catcher. He adapts to the pitchers that he hits against pretty well when they adapted to the Twins' style of hitting HR. but the adjustment has taken away that HR edge. He works hard at his defense to the point where he's average-ish. He has a below-average arm that very little he can do about that. The reason for his roller-coaster results is directly linked to his workload & being depended upon to be the primary catcher. He does well when he has backup catcher duties that show up in the stats. But when given more than that of backup duties, his production wanes, primarily in his defense. You need a lot of stamina to be a primary catcher & Jeffers doesn't have it, along with a below average arm. This season the catching was very close to half & half but the extra DH duties might have been too much for him. I have advocated for years to pick up a better prospect catcher to be our future Twins primary catcher. Jeffers has 2 more year left, Twins appear to be stuck on him that means with Boras as his agent, he going demand a ridiculous amount of money to extend him as a backup catcher. Quit wasting our time with Jeffers. He had great trade value last year & has dropped significantly but I still believe we need to trade Jeffers because we can't afford him as a backup catcher. Late is better than never to obtain a MLB-ready prospect to get ready to be the primary catcher for next year after Vazquez leaves. This year we can take $4.7 M off the books next year $10 M.