Doctor Gast

Many people's solution to Twins' supposing problems is just to get rid of some salary to sign an expensive FA (ex. Goldsmidt) IMO that's nonsense. Keep our reasonable players especially those who are performing at prime positions & have chemistry with the club. Quit spending on frivolous salaries that don't help the club. Proven veteran SPs is always a need, why create another hole while not filling the old ones (like last season)? Keep them. There are other ways to cut if need be.

Absolutely not. FA are expensive, any extra money we have should be spent on extending our own reasonable players not filling FAs pockets. If we spin the wheel on high-stakes FAs, we'll have nothing left over to extend our sure bet players.

It's surprising how far the CWS has fallen. Just a couple of years ago or so, the CWS had a promising young powerhouse team that was projected to dominate the central. IMO their down fall was lack of veteran leadership. Also BAL has tons of young talent but because of lack veteran leadership they don't have enough to take them over the top. We have great young talent but w/o Buxton & Correa around they tend to flounder.

I'd be looking forward to that. Looks like the Twins had only 1 team that qualified for as long as I can remember off hand. How many did qualified? And who was the last before '19? Player evaluations are super important for helping to find players via draft, international signings, trades & even FA. Developing in-house players are the best way to have them on the roster but having quality young players to trade are also important to fill necessary holes. Trading for high-quality players to fill our holes this season was sorely missing to improve our team. IMO this was why we failed miserably & fell way short of our appointed goal.

IMO Pohlads have already dipped their toe in the waters, Their announcing their intentions & stating that this is the right time to sell, tells me that they like their chances & possibility of something breaking out before the announcement if they decide to wait. They could be in negotiations already with different groups. Also their concern for selling to the right group could also mean that there could be several opportunities that they are looking at. For everyone concerned, I hope that the Pohlads aren't too greedy & for a smooth & quick sale.

I see a lot of ?s much like last season, hope won't get it done, We picked up a lot of RPs, with a lot of hype of having a great pen. If hype meant anything we'd be winning the WS but none of them ever panned out. If Duran were kept as only a closer & had Jax as a fireman, IMO we'd have had more success. I'd hope Duran regain his dominance but he's still a very good reliever. Stop wasting Varland bullets in AAA. Sands breakout is a big plus, I didn't like how they used Alcala this last season but next year I expect good things from him. If we can't get anything good for Paddack in trade, I'd put him in the BP. Right there we have a pretty good high-leverage BP. I'd not mess around with Topa, I just trade him while his value is still up. We won't get a full season from Stewart so we have to find a way to have him healthy at the end of the season for the post. There were an awful lot of pretty good LHRPs at the deadline that we missed out on. I'd try to scour to come up with one this offseason. That leaves us with low leverage which we can easily fill out in-house with Canterino if he can stay healthy, Raya, Prielipp or others not to mention maybe acquire Thielbar via FA. We should have a better base at BP, but IMO not good enough to experiment Jax at SP.

If Falvey & Co. are still around next year even with new ownership I still don't see any change. A little extra money for Falvey to blow in FA isn't going to change anything either.

I wanted to believe the best in the Pohlads but it became obvious that they didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know what they were doing because they didn't care. The only one who really cared was Carl's wife.

The moves that was made this last season haven't helped us one bit for this season & IMO made us worse. The absence of Margot will help a lot. Trade is our best weapon, let's use it. Our main need is still a veteran mid-rotation inning-eater to conserve our young SPs. Switch Paddack with Jax? maybe. If we can get a good trade to dump Paddack's salary, go for it. Start Varland in the BP. Maybe it's too late to trade for LHRP butt at least try. Next re-educate our hitters from focusing on swinging for the fences to have good ABs, take what pitchers give you, clutch hitting with RISP not striking out. Of course, if a pitcher serves a big meatball, give it a ride. That'll help our offense the most. IMO these were the biggest reasons for our downfall this season. It's not late to pick up a promising young catcher although sooner would have been better than later. Not only for now but mainly for the future. Our systemic depth at catching is pathetic. We have been very lucky to have Vazquez & Jeffers healthy these 2 years. If you want this team to tank by all means trade Vazquez. Unless these needs are dropped in Falvey's lap, I don't see any change.

Due to bad management, a lot of burden were put on our rookies & they raised to the occasion producing to the best of their abilities. Hoping next season they'll be put in better positions to progress. Sims outperformed all of them & acted like a MLBer. Congratulations to Sims!

You will trade away a potential SP in Jax for RP prices? Doesn't make sense, Cubs won't pay SP prices. I can't see destroying our catching position by paying down Vazquez's salary in a trade, just to nullify a $10M mistake. We are loaded in good prospects in the OF & SP. It's not solving any problems only creating new ones.

Just to clarify myself to some in my statement about keeping Garver & Rortvedt & trading Jeffers. 1.) I've always stressed the necessity of picking up a promising young MLB-ready catching prospect, With the understanding of phasing out Garver as the #1 catcher to Rortvedt while phasing in the new prospect. So it's not comparing present Vazquez/ Jeffers to Garver/ Rortvedt but more like comparing in the past Garver/ Rortvedt/ promising prospect to Jeffers/ Sanchez; present Rortvedt/ Promising prospect/ maybe Garver doing some subbing in a pinch to Vazquez/ Jeffers; future promising prospect/ Rortvedt to Jeffers/ Carmargo. 2.) Under this premise there was no need to pay for an expensive FA (Vazquez) or another expensive FA after he leaves. Jeffers had more trade value than Garver & Rortvedt together, which would give us better options. I never liked how NYY handled Rortvedt yet he was Gerrit Cole's private catcher. While with TB he has hit much better. TB looking for a 2nd catcher isn't slam on Rortvedt but it's how teams manage these days. This ordeal has passed & nothing we can do about it but hopefully learn from our mistakes. And I am very concerned about how little attention is given to drafting & developing our young catchers, Which is the best & cheapest way to produce our catchers.

Great we have some common ground. I believe Urshela wasn't on the '23 roster & although Solano & Taylor contributed well with the team, I didn't consider them as core. IMO they were more placeholders for others coming up.

Why did the Twins sign Vazquez in the 1st place? Because Jeffers can't handle primary catching duties. FO's hope after trading away Garver & Rortvedt was that Jeffers could, but he has bombed. Later hoped with the help of Vazquez, Jeffers would grow into it, but he hasn't. After Vazquez leaves, we have nobody to take his place. And I'm afraid Jeffers will flounder again because we have no one in the system that can take up the slack. Going to FA agency again will not be cheap & because we have no one else I'm afraid that the Twins will extend Jeffers with a ridiculous contract because Boras is his agent for an average at best catcher. What should the Twins do? In the 1st place, they shouldn't have traded Garver & Rortvedt & traded Jeffers instead. Then the contract Vazquez wouldn't have been needed & we would gotten much more for Jeffers in trade to plug more of our holes namely pitching at the time. But that time has passed. We desperately need an above-average catcher for the future. Vazquez is gone after this season & Jeffers has 2 more years. IMO extending Jeffers should be out of the question. Since we signed Vazquez, I've advocated trading Jeffers & pick up 2 very promising young MLB-ready catcher for Vazquez to have 3 years to mentor. 2 years have been wasted but we still have one more year for Vazquez to mentor such a catcher. I don't see Falvey having vision enough past this offseason so I see the Twins not doing anything & really hurting at catching for many years after Vazquez is gone. Because picking up another decent catcher in FA will not be cheap & I don't see Falvey able to initiate a decent trade for one.

IMO motivation & lack of veteran leadership had a lot to do with performance down the road. There was a lot of complaining about Lewis's arm slot when he threw. Teach him how to throw, help him to achieve that through coaching. Don't force him in a position he doesn't feel comfortable in, that'll zap any motivation he has. I actually thought Julien improved at 2B, where he finally got to balls that normally bleed through. He couldn't make the play but still it's progress although stats paint a different picture. W/o Correa, the veteran leadership wasn't there so younger players were lost. Although FO made a lot of meaningless moves, they did nothing to really help the club while social media blamed ownership. This robs the team of motivation, w/o motivation it's a very long season.

We have basically the same core that advanced in the '23 postseason all we need to do is the same as this season fill the holes & not continue to make new holes. The CWS had a great young team the problem was that they lacked good veteran leadership w/o it they fell apart. IMO you need great veteran leadership to mentor & stabilize the younger ones. W/o Correa & Buxton for an extended amount of time, we didn't have viable veteran leadership to hold a younger team together & they fell apart. Although I don't see much change from last year (unless Falvey gets lucky & another team drops a needed pitcher in his lap).

Simms was not expected to contribute anything to this club by most fans & maybe even the head honchos. But by his extra effort, he helped to make us more respectable, keeping us in games & winning games he started in a disappointing season. In a disappointing season, Simms is a bright spot as a rookie.

Like I said it was a lose/ lose/ lose deal. MN lost, SEA lost & Polanco lost. The ridiculously bad season that a healthy Polanco is obvious that he had a terrible time adjusting away from MN where he gave his all. Plus being tormented by the fans there. The MLB highlight '24 commercial of Polanco robbing a hit to start a DP that killed an opponent rally is a constant reminder in what can do defensively from a player better known for his hitting.

Unlike you Nick, I don't think the season was won or lost by blowing out or losing some games to poor teams. But by what management did or more importantly, didn't do. We started out in better shape in '24 in better shape than we had in a while, after having good success in the '23 postseason. We had a great core with great chemistry, healthy Buxton, Correa, Lewis, Polanco, Miranda, Kiriloff with promising Wallner & Julien. Only a hole left by Gray that could be filled with the stepping up of Ryan, Ober, Paddack & picking up of a mid-rotation, inning-eating arm via trade, to take off the pressure off the BP & rotation. If done nothing we'd still be under budget. FO did nothing to fill that hole but added frivolous salaries that did nothing to help, and some were even detrimental. IMO our season would have been worse if not for the surprising effort of our rookies SWR, Martin, Festa & Matthews. Because of the lack of depth in the rotation SWR, Festa & Matthews were abused that manifested in poor performance towards the end of the season. Margot was a total waste, Martin was a rookie that needed to be eased into CF & while adjusting to MLB pitching, he needed to face only LHPs but veteran Margot had that special treatment & because Margot was subpar at CF, Martin had fulltime CF duty while Buxton was down. That really weighed him down. W/o Margot, Martin would have faced only LHPs & Keirsey would have handled the lion's share of CF & RHPs duties. Keirsey's hitting could not have been any worse than Margot's but his glove would have really helped, while gaining valuable experience for the future that was wasted on Margot. Although Lewis has been a good leader under Correa & Buxton & under short periods carried the team. But while they were down for any amount of time he folded & we were depended on veteran Santana for leadership. There was a lot of hype about Santana's leadership & clubhouse chemistry that'd replace Polanco, when he was acquired. But that never happened. When we needed him the most, he did nothing to help turn the ship around. While watching Polanco highlights all you'd hear was Mr. Clutch & he was the heart & soul of the team. I know Polanco would eventually leave but this year was not the year. The Polanco trade was a lose/ lose/ lose situation doomed to fail from the start. Making us weaker. His leadership, chemistry & clutch hitting was sorely missed. Before the deadline all our BP acquisitions failed & we needed a LHRP. All we needed was a simple trade that never happened & what they did was a laugh. What I'm talking about isn't hindsight but something I've preached all season. & I have even mentioned the poor philosophies that have hurt this team.

I was dead set against the Rogers, Rooker/ Paddack, Pagan trade. In '22 we desperately needed a strong BP. extending Rogers on a reasonable contract made perfect sense. but FO out-smarted us by picking up a promising young SP & a RP they could turn into a closer together with Duffy. Everybody knew Paddack's arm was going to fall off but that didn't stop them from showcasing him & Pagan. We wasted our money on them in '22. Paddack wasn't going to be around long enough to show any gain (only loss) so they extended him with a generous contract. Paddack's hype was he was going to fill the Gray hole in innings & production (that didn't happen). Falvey is more concerned about looking good than the good of the team. That said, we won't get anything for him in trade, FO will still want to see more in return from him & we still need veteran depth in the rotation. So IMO he'll stay here in the rotation until he can't.

Agreed, IMO the problem wasn't salary it was management. If FO had an extra $30M they would have spent it on the likes of Hoskiins, Montgomery & MAT. The culprits were bad player evaluation, bad philosophies & inability to initiate necessary trades. Yet the Pohlads supported the sources of our problems which tells me that the Pohlads are ignorant of the game & they are ignorant because they don't care. If they don't care how do they expect us to care?

Yes Santana's defense is better but he has had forever to perfect it & like Nick said 1B defense doesn't carry much weight. While Miranda, Kiriloff & Julien & has had very time there. Finally, keep Kiriloff & Miranda at 1B & keep them healthy to improve our offense. Trade Julien if we can get good value from him because IMO I doubt he'll return to where he was before the pitchers adjusted to him & when Kiriloff starts showing what he can do, then we can start to think about trading him.

Lawson fits perfectly into Falvey's style, so I say absolutely not. The farther away from that style the better.

Totally agree. We have a lot of options at 1B W/O Santana. Miranda's inefficiency is injury-related, when injured fix him we have others who can fill in. Don't go long periods of sub-performances. During that period I didn't hear anything about any injury but how bad he was I knew something was wrong, why didn't Baldelli?

How refreshing! Common sense. What Falvey does best is somehow spin stats & hype & shift blame through social media.