ashbury

Sign me up for a shortstop, whichever one falls to three.

What was your favorite Daniel Susac moment as a Twin? I've thought about this for a while now, and I'd have to say it was that one time.

This sounds about right. The folks who view each player solely through the lens of their trade value, and who want to "trade high," are overlooking the actual value that a year of play each player brings to the team. It would have been easy to garner an absolute haul in return for Kirby Puckett after 1986. "His value will never be higher!"

Chuck Jones's Grinch is the indispensable one for my holiday viewing pleasure If a teevee show doesn't count, then I guess It's A Wonderful Life. Most contrarian for me I guess would be Elf - Will Farrell is hilarious when he's being funny, but his "warm" persona always hits me as snide, even when I'm assured it's not.

If Mariah Carey* ever did a cover of it, the universe would likely collapse in on itself from the sheer awfulness. * I believe "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is a perfectly reasonable holiday song, and the people who hate it are reacting to Carey's vulgar performance of it. Yes, that's the Christmas hill I would die on. Try Robyn Adele Anderson and Von Smith's version and decide for yourself.

Ask your doctor or pharmacist if The Internet is right for you. 😁

Before the firing I wondered whether the Twins would eventually offer Rocco a job in the front office rather than completely cut ties. I still wonder if they did, but this news fits in with my perception that he's a better fit for an administrative/analytics type of position.

They need outfielders, not a DH and a ninth inning defensive replacement. Can't hurt to ask, though.

Yeah, but Too Soon.

Motel 6 never provides more than coffee in the morning. Speaking from years of experience here.

Claiming at the outset they aim for "a sustainable, championship-caliber team," then trading away important bullpen pieces who were under control past the end of the 2025 season, but now saying that they plan to keep the "core", is the dastardly work of sportswriters?

Did you know that all tautologies are tautologies? You can look it up! Might as well shut down the forums and cancel the off-season articles. We're not allowed to speculate, apparently. Meanwhile the sports books will continue to accept money on both sides of the line they set, and will adjust that line to keep the money in balance and earn themselves some easy money with the juice.

I'm almost indifferent whether the FO chooses the particular direction you suggest. But what I do want to see is this: Pick A Lane for 2026. Lately their actions seem to vary depending on which way the wind happens to be blowing.

The gambling aspect was probably out of an abundance of caution. The real problem lies in whenever the game you think you saw on the field wasn't real. "Integrity of the game." The game always needs to be seen as a genuine contest of skills. Gambling is the best known of the reasons for that to be called into question, so they felt they needed to check it out, or at least that's my interpretation. There are times, such as "getaway day" during the long season, when people may perceive a little difference in what they usually watch, but this case went over that line considerably even if you take his story at the time at face value.

For reference, guys already on the major league squad aren't that numerous, really. Using their ages today, the guys not already mentioned above are: Age 24: Lee, Bradley Age 23: Keaschall I hope I didn't miss someone. The pipeline isn't really that strong, batters and pitchers alike, in terms of what's about to emerge. Maybe there's more hope further up the line with the younger ones; but that's always the story, isn't it?

I was preparing a passionate article on why the Twins shouldn't sign Lou Gehrig to play first base for them, but this one pretty much covered all the points I was going to raise, except that Goldschmidt isn't deceased.

That average seriously misrepresents free-agency value. Every long-term contract is different, but the one Seattle signed Raleigh to blends his arbitration years with some free agency. B-r.com shows it as: $2.67M, 12.67, 13.67, 24.67, 24.67, 24.67 It's pretty clear what both sides of the bargaining table thought was a fair value for his free-agency years, modulo it being guaranteed to him several years in advance. The Mariners may feel they've locked in someone they'd have to pay even more to, when the time came. And free-agency is exactly what the Twins and Jeffers would be bargaining over. We've already gotten the benefit of his cheap years. Jeffers isn't Raleigh, but he isn't Vazquez either.

I should have waited to give you time to respond, I see now. However, if you are interested in slimming down those fingers, I asked ChatGPT and it gave me these helpful tips: Finger Fitness Program (results not guaranteed) Repetitive Strength Training: Type the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” five times without looking. Builds precision. Fine-Motor Pilates: Practice hitting the Backspace key with elegance and control. Grip Conditioning: Squeeze a stress ball while muttering, “I meant to type that.” (I replied: "don't quit your day job, R2D2.")

Surely a autocorrect-assisted fat-finger/typo of "there"? What's really being considered in the article is "what's the plan regarding Jeffers?" Team control runs out after this season, so he's in a different category than Buxton/Ryan/Lopez. Sign him to an extension, which will be of similar length but higher value compared to the Vazquez free agent signing? If not, then there needs to be a more detailed plan: let him walk after hopefully a productive 2026, or plan to trade him at the deadline, or trade him now. The choice among these four options probably depends in part on the team's finances, which (my guess) won't be clear even to the team until some business is conducted at the Winter Meetings to decide on ownership stakes. Thus, a lot of hemming and hawing in the article. We don't know, because they don't even know. It's a bit like Schroedinger's Cat: we don't know anything until the box is opened, and there's reason to think the box opens next week.

It's commonly estimated that to acquire one win's worth of talent on the free agent market costs upward of $6 million. If a baseball manager were worth 10 wins all by himself, some team would gladly pay him $60M a year. I don't see salaries like that, so the teams must believe the marginal value of even the best manager to be smaller than that. / edit - ha, Mike types faster, or at least expresses himself more succinctly, than me

If I had some eggs I could have ham and eggs, if I had some ham. 😁

It's vitally important for the baseball fans in the Twin Cities to suffer despair over their team, in order for ownership to obtain an additional $400 million in their net worth. That's what this uncertainty boils down to. Accept or reject the economic system we live under, but that's the facts of life if you want to root for the Twins.

Yeah, I wish I could be more constructive. I'm not saying not to make the trades. I'm just setting expectations; it's not going to be the sudden influx of multiple Walker Jenkinses that some people seem to anticipate. A franchise's fortunes tend to be cyclical; I forsee the highs for the Twins becoming less high and the lows getting ever lower. I don't think Falvey and his FO are incompetent. They just don't have some sort of "special sauce" relative to their peers. I don't think ownership is especially terrible, at least in the context that like most of their peers they view it as a business and not an expensive hobby. I just think the deck is stacked to a degree greater than 1987-1991, the era we look back at so fondly. A team winning 55 or 50 will just serve to shrink the revenue stream further, and the lower revenue isn't going to "teach ownership a lesson" or whatever it is that gets touted.

The front office's philosophy with roster assembly where it comes to LH corner outfield seems to be: “There must be a pony in this pile somewhere!”

We like to talk about top-100 prospects as though they are sure things, but they are not. It's instructive to turn the Wayback Machine to 10 years ago and have a look at the MLB list from then: https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2015/top100/ Sure, the tippy-top prospects in that list mostly panned out very nicely. But the ones in someone's top-20 are not the top-100 prospects who will be available for pretty much any price. Will we be excited if we land somebody's #28? The equivalent 2015 prospect was Alex Jackson, who we picked up just now for very little after he's had an un-illustrious career to date. Right after him at #29 was Alex Meyer, who due to injury never really panned out for our Twins. Right after Jose Berrios at #32 (hurrah!) we see Nick Gordon at #33 (meh). Kohl Stewart at #36, anyone? Go all the way down and cast an eye at #99: Manuel Margot was an actual ballplayer for a couple of years, but I have to think hopes were higher. Of course, I'm cherry picking, for Twins fan entertainment. There is also in that 2015 list some nobody called Aaron Judge who was ranked #68; Realmuto is found a couple of slots later. Future stars are scattered in a top-100. But I think it's still a point worth remembering. Trading a good player for even a couple of top-100 prospects is no sure thing. Two top-100 prospects may be beyond what's attainable for Buxton. At the same time, such return strikes me as too little for what he's really worth to his team, unless our front office suddenly becomes elite at player evaluation.