Brett

Honestly, I’d rather see Brooks Lee, Austin Martin and Michael Helman take those at-bats. At some point, we need to take a risk to tap into upside potential.

Austin Martin got 233 at bats last year. Would love to see Keirsey get that level of opportunity this year.

I just hope we don’t need all of them next year.

This is a great conversation. I think, in general, that we often try to reduce outcomes to the result of an equation. But players aren’t robots, and we’ll never completely know what they’re thinking about or how they’re feeling on any given day. Defining the intangibles is tough; quantifying them is damn near impossible. I watch games because of the uncertainty, not because I know what the final score should be.

Super creative and a fun exercise. And thank you for at least keeping the Joe Ryan Experience!

Coulombe would be nice. Anything to add to the roster for Paddack or salary dump for a minor leaguer?

You’re not wrong. Trying to stay within budget and hoping for the best means the majority of the younger players have to be better than last year. It is a big ask. The spark guy? Tough call. The coach’s son (Lee)? The local kid (Wallner)? Someone who’s not on the radar yet (Eeles)? Maybe we’ll find a Shannon Stewart-type impact at the trade deadline.

Appreciate the comment. I share the concern about Paddack, but I also think he’ll only start the year in the rotation, not finish it. Maybe he catches lightning in a bottle, or maybe Festa is up in mid May. It’s nice to have options.

My one and only blog thus far talked about Willi Castro and how he was a bellwether for roster construction next year, so I start with him. It's too late, but I would not have tendered him. We just paid Kyle Farmer $6+M to have a subpar season as our primary utility IF and we can't afford that again. Instead, I would go with Brooks Lee to back up 3B/SS/2B. This goes against a lot of folks thinking that Lee could start at 2B or 3B, but I think his flexibility is key for us this year as he provides major injury insurance for Lewis and Correa. I'm not sure another team values Castro as much as we do, but let's just say we're able to trade his salary away for a mid level prospect and (maybe) a lottery ticket pitcher. My infield to start the year has Lewis at 3B, Correa at SS, and Julien at 2B. If he can put whatever that was last year behind him, this actually works. At 1B, I would go back to the well and try to get another year out of Carlos Santana. It's funny he's not even listed among the free agents below, but I would hope his glove, at least, is ageless. We can expect the bat to slow down some, but he was more than serviceable last year. We'll call it $5M to occupy the infield most days and train in Jose Miranda. I might also tell Trevor Larnach to buy a first basemen's mitt and I can't be the first person to think about that. In the outfield, Larnach, Buxton and Wallner are pretty damn solid. I'd love to see the 3 of them combine for 100 HR's, but I know we're Twins fans and can't have nice things. DaShawn Keirsey provides better OF defense than Austin Martin and probably will hit better. Martin sticks around because he is also the emergency 2B in addition to be adequate in LF and CF. Hey, teacher: leave those catchers alone! I shudder to think how the pitching staff would look without Vazquez, and Jeffers can literally carry the team offensively for games at a time. Starting pitching is pretty easy. Letting Paddack go right now when he could be on the cusp of very good/great is short-sighted. I would rather let 2 of SWR/Festa/Matthews marinate in St. Paul instead of depending on 2 (or all 3) to be a major part of the staff for the whole year. That's 7 guys there, plus Andrew Morris AND Cory Lewis AND Marco Freakin' Raya. Feeling pretty good about the picture now and longer term. Relievers are in good shape as well. I'm less concerned about handedness and more concerned about getting people out. So, sure, I can see Kody Funderburk or I can see Brent Headrick, or I can see both of them if Louie Varland doesn't have a good spring. Ronny Henriquez is also in the picture, especially if someone above in the pecking order gets hurt or can't find the strike zone early on. Seriously, we'll see all these guys at some point. So, yes, the kids will be alright. And, yes, I know that I'm a Dobnak over budget. In my company, 2.33% over budget is doing really well. C: Ryan Jeffers ($4.70M) 1B: Carlos Santana ($5.00M) 2B: Edouard Julien ($0.80M) 3B: Royce Lewis ($2.30M) SS: Carlos Correa ($36.00M) LF: Trevor Larnach ($2.10M) CF: Byron Buxton ($15.00M) RF: Matt Wallner ($0.80M) DH: Jose Miranda ($0.80M) 4th OF: DaShawn Keirsey ($0.80M) Utility: Brooks Lee ($0.80M) Utility: Austin Martin ($0.80M) Backup C: Christian Vazquez ($10.00M) NA: Dead Money Here ($0.00M) SP1: Pablo Lopez ($21.50M) SP2: Joe Ryan ($3.80M) SP3: Bailey Ober ($4.30M) SP4: Chris Paddack ($7.50M) SP5: Simeon Woods Richardson ($0.80M) RP: Jhoan Duran ($3.70M) RP: Brock Stewart ($0.80M) RP: Griffin Jax ($2.60M) RP: Jorge Alcala ($1.50M) RP: Cole Sands ($0.80M) RP: Justin Topa ($1.30M) RP: Louie Varland ($0.80M) RP: Kody Funderburk ($0.80M) NA: Dead Money Here ($0.00M) Payroll is 0.08% over budget

If we trade the Joe Ryan Experience, I’m going to have a one man riot on the Target Field plaza.

Is it OK to dream about Prielipp and Canterino in the Twins bullpen in ‘26? That would be cool.

Honestly, I forget that he’s on the team and projects as a starter. I would be OK with a trade for salary relief and repurposing. Not sure I would do the swap for O’Hearn, since I don’t think he’s $6M better than Miranda.

Would like to understand individual ratings rather than the outfield collectively. Then I can spend my offseason wondering how much better is Larnach over Castro in LF? Or, better yet, will ‘25 Keirsey be better than ‘24 Margot as the 4th OF?

That’s a helluva write up. I only watched game 5 in its entirety, so appreciate the in-depth flashbacks I didn’t know about and weren’t captured in MSM recaps.

Count me shocked as well. His health may be worse than any of us know. i wish him well in the next chapter.

There's a lot of discussion around Willi Castro and whether the Twins will pay up an estimated $6.2M via arbitration to keep him around next year. People are coming down on both sides, and really anyone could be right. I see 3 scenarios where the Castro decision shows which way the team will decide to construct next year's roster. Take a break from the Dodgers crushing the Yankees (we'll see how that statement ages), and take a walk with me... Scenario 1 - Joe Pohlad finds his wallet In this scenario, Derek Falvey gets approval to slightly improve the payroll number to north of $130M. Despite Castro's stature as a utility man, Falvey recognizes his value is greater to the Twins than a lot of teams due to his ability to play a number of positions decently and he remembers in most games to bring his bat. Maybe he's a more consistent version of Nick Punto, after all. $6M for a 3 WAR player doesn't seem so bad, and Falvey can perhaps get creative with other moves to find bullpen help, a first baseman, and a starter who's not considered a reclamation project. I'm not sure how to describe the probability of this scenario, but it seems plausible but not likely. Scenario 2 - Youth movement This time, the family believes the easiest path to selling the Twins is to pare down the team payroll (and possibly other areas). There's no way Castro stays in this scenario, and the Twins also seek to deal Lopez, Vasquez and Correa (who I hope says "no"). Even in this scenario, they probably don't deal Buxton in order to stave off a complete fan revolt. Kepler and the other free agents get the front office's best wishes and not much more, and the Twins start the year with some well-known prospects like Brooks Lee, Austin Martin, Emmanuel Rodriguez and probably a couple of surprises on the roster. They would be fun to watch, but some of the more learned fans will find themselves going to more Saints games to see a more competitive team. I really hope this doesn't happen, and I'm afraid it might. Scenario 3 - Falvey's sleeve and the tricks they hold Maybe the salary range is a little higher. Or lower. But Derek Falvey does something or maybe a few somethings to create some flexibility. One of those might be offering Willi Castro a 3 year deal. No idea what that would look like...maybe $12M to lower his annual value to $4M? Maybe finding a trade partner for Vasquez for a little more relief? If they decide to roll with Jeffers and Camargo at catcher, maybe Falvey finds a left-handed starter? A power hitting first baseman? The possibilities aren't exactly endless, but I can almost guarantee he'll do something that isn't on anyone's radar. I think this scenario may be the most likely, but we're talking about like a 40/30/30 split. I always love the roster construction exercise with the uncertainty and the number of paths that we as a fanbase will describe, deconstruct, argue about, and propose alternatives. While cheering the Twins on in the World Series would be a better use of our time in October, we are where we are...reading the tea leaves and dreaming of spring training.

I’m not sure operating margin on an annual basis has as much to do as asset appreciation over the last 40 years. A $44M investment in 1984 growing to a $1.5B valuation now shows how crazy the market is for sports teams. That’s a raw 3400% increase over 4 decades without considering other investments (e.g scoreboard) the Pohlads have made along the way. I need to think about this a little more, but I’m pretty sure making sure they get x% return off of y revenue is not a major consideration for the overall purchase price of the team. And, if that’s actually true, stripping salary from the roster and accepting performance decline might actually make the team less valuable. Sorry, that’s a lot. I’ll go back to work now.

Surprised you didn’t mention Spencer Torkelson. Until I looked up his stats…what happened to him? I thought he was “can’t miss” as a prospect.

Love this column. It seems like we’re loading up on college pitchers in the middle rounds, and some of them are turning out quite well. Nice to understand the strategy rather than thinking this is just the lottery ticket perspective.

Since I have an unnatural attraction to portfolio risk, I would evaluate AK as part of the whole roster rather than individual performance. In my assessment, the Twins are already over leveraged on players with injury histories (and accompanying future injury risk). That makes me a “no” on retaining him. As a fan, I hated typing all that. I really wish the best for Alex.

This is literally the money shot here. Bill Smith and what was left of Terry Ryan ran a rather uninspiring team from 2007 to 2016, wasting the prime Joe Mauer years.

Cody, you must be too young to remember Ron Davis. It’s been 40 years, and I can still feel that stabbing pain when I heard “Ron Davis is in”. 14 blown saves does that to a guy.

Thanks for the hope, Cody. It’s in short supply right now.

I think $15M for 3.6 fWAR is an excellent return on investment. I don’t care to see him playing hurt…we’ve seen enough others do that.

I was hoping for a few more innings for Connor Prielipp. That would have been fun to see.