stringer bell

Among players with 100 plate appearances, Clemens ranks 15th in OPS for first baseman. That is middle of the road production. He is adding value with his glove and has recently done a good job against left handed pitching (SSS). At this point, he should be playing every day and certainly in there against right handed pitching. I'm not overly confident he'll sustain his good hitting, but for now Clemens at first base is not a problem. Will Clemens continue the Twins run of one-off Gold Glove winners? It seems it is more possible than the surprise of Ty France winning the hardware last year. He's easily the best defensive first baseman the Twins have and according to BBRef and The Fielding Bible, he is among the best in MLB. It is amazing how fast perceptions change. When the Twins went on their nice run in April and briefly were in first place, Bell and Caratini were certainly a big part of their success. Now a month and a half later, both are being dismissed as horrible off-season signings. Bell and Caratini are both in their early 30s with substantial track records. Bell has always been an above average hitter and Caratini has been about average as a hitter while mostly being a backup catcher. As much as I suspect Clemens will regress to the mean, I am about equally confident that the two veterans will also move closer to their career norms. Caratini figures to be a key guy in 2027 if there is a season and he is a Jeffers trade or injury away from being the Twins primary catcher. He should play less until he gets the bat going. Bell really isn't part of the future at all since he has a one-year contract and has negative value if he doesn't hit.

Veteran guys like Bowman and Arcia put up good numbers at AAA, but then can’t do it in the big leagues. Somebody will probably give Bowman a chance and I guess the Twins should be Team #1 to consider giving him a chance, particularly given the bullpen’s struggles.

They are not going to score, are they?

That is correct. The last time there was big discussion about the rule was when George Brett had his monster year and hit .390. It wasn't certain he would get to the required 502 plate appearances and everyone was informed that he wouldn't need to because he was so far ahead of everyone else.

Austin Martin is seven plate appearances short of qualifying for percentage stats like batting average and slugging average. Even if he went 0-7 reaching base, he would still have the highest OBP in Major League baseball.

Bradley last pitched on 5/5, so he wouldn't be eligible to pitch until 5/21.

Impressive outing from Matthews. As many are saying, there really is no such thing as too much starting pitching. Obviously, there will be injuries and disappointments, but Matthews, Abel, Bradley, Ober, Prielipp and Ryan should be the envy of most teams in terms of upside and cost control. Reading through the game threads, there are plenty of negative comments. Many are deserved and the Twins have a boatload of players who are producing far below expectations. I try to temper my complaints by looking at other teams and seeing if they are similarly afflicted and most teams are. It's far from automatic to get a runner in from third with less than two out and hitting with runners in scoring position comes and goes for every club. We live in a high strikeout era and many teams have bad defenders. The last three teams the Twins have played all are behind the Twins in defensive runs saved. Shelton is in a bit of a honeymoon phase right now, but he'll eventually be criticized for pulling (or not pulling) a pitcher and using the "wrong" players.

Golden opportunity and they are 2/3 of the way to blowing it.

In 2026 Martin has faced righties about half the time and has an .815 OPS including a .422 OBP. There is room for quite a bit of regression before he should lose playing time. In 2025, Martin had a .668 OPS with a .361 OBP vs. RH pitching, which would figure to an OPS+ around 90, below average but certainly not a black hole.

Lewis had a fielding slump before going on the IL, and was at -3 DRS at one point. He's at -1 now, (as is Gray as of 5/13) so I don't think defense has been the main issue with Lewis. That said, Gray has outhit Lewis considerably and on merit should be playing as much or more than Royce.

Just past a quarter of the way through the season, there are several players who have struggled mightily. Who is in a death spiral and who will come out of it? Here is my list and course of action for each: SWR--Bullpen now. He's got enough to be a back of the rotation guy. He needs a reset and he's out of options. Wallner--Send to St. Paul. The Twins have better options and Wallner looks as lost as he ever did. Fedko should be up. Outman--It looks like he will never be able to hit acceptably, but if there is space for a pinch runner/defensive replacement, he fits the role. Keep him in that role. Lewis--Short leash--start him two out of three games for the rest of May and hope there is some improvement. If not, a trip to St. Paul is in order. Keaschall--Hang with him for now. The regression has been sharp and his power seems to be gone, but he's young and shown he can help the club is he hits a little bit. Topa, Rogers, Garcia, Banda--That is half the bullpen and they've been dreadful. Maybe someone will want one of them, but get them off the roster. Bell--A proven hitter. I expect he'll come around, but he should be gone by the trading deadline. Caratini--Another guy with a track record of decent hitting who hasn't hit much for over a month. Reduced playing time, but he will be the primary catcher after the trading deadline. That is one starting pitcher, four bullpen guys, and six position players who are dragging the team down, about 40% of the roster. It's hard to have a winning team with so many guys performing poorly.

The difference between a great Silva game and this game for Ober is that the soft contact Silva would allow would be ground balls. Ober had a variety of pop flies and cans of corn to the outfield.

Twins are now tied for third place in the rough and tumble AL Central. By the way, the Central isn't the worst division in MLB, the AL West has a considerably lower winning percentage.

When Jeffers hit his homer, he looked like a jumbo Harmon. The same glance at the ball with a couple of walking steps towards first base.

You called it!

Exciting to do the double steal, but it would have been really bad for Buck to be out and Jeffers not get a chance to blast one upstairs.

He'll be a pretty good backup if/when Jeffers is traded or one of the catchers is injured.

Most everyone that has paid attention to the Minnesota Twins in the 2020s sees a team that is weak defensively. I agree with that assessment and really don't have all the answers to make the Twins a good defensive team. I do want to quantify just how bad they are in the field and compare it with the rest of MLB. Using information that is free online, I have reviewed several metrics. My principal sources are The Fielding Bible and Fangraphs, with Fangraphs incorporating data from Statcast. Here are some team rankings; the Twins are 28th in Defensive Runs Saved with -8 in their first 41 games this year. They rank 15th in Fielding Run Value and 21st in Outs Above Average (-3). While these metrics don't line up perfectly, players rated very good to elite usually are pretty much the same and there is agreement on who the very best defensive teams are (Cubs, Red Sox and Dodgers). So it is with individuals. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bobby Witt Jr. and Luis Arraez stand out no matter which metric is used. Among the Twins, the three players who have positive ratings across the board are Kody Clemens, Trevor Larnach and Austin Martin. Byron Buxton is rated as neutral except for a +2 Outs Above Average. It is also clear who the Twins worst defenders at their positions are--Brooks Lee and Matt Wallner are in the lowest quartile for their positions. The Fielding Bible breaks out Defensive Runs Saved by position and the Twins -8 Defensive Runs Saved is basically covered by shortstop and right field, shortstop is -5 and right field is -7. An aside, Dan Hayes is reporting that Lee's DRS has stabilized. I believe it has actually gone down from -5 to -4. While the Twins rate quite a ways down in The Fielding Bible's DRS list, they are only a couple of runs from moving up four or five spots. The #23 Rockies are five runs better and four other teams are within two runs of the Twins -8 mark. Eight runs in 41 games is about a run surrendered a week (actually five games). The Twins don't have a lot of good defenders beside the three or four listed as above average. Both catchers, Lewis and Keaschall are below average, but close to neutral. It would seem that removing one of the guys who is weighing the team ranking down. Having a guy with +2 DRS in right field over the first 41 games would flip the Twins to positive territory. Overall, it wouldn't take much to put the Twins in the middle of defenses in the major leagues. It would be nice if the Twins had a potential Gold Glover at each position, but that isn't the case for any team. Removing bad fielders should be a priority, especially if there is a good fielder to replace them. (Clemens over Bell?) I don't think the Twins are hopeless on defense or that they don't care, but they've been willing to sacrifice defense for offense at many positions. Edit to add: One day later, the Twins defensive stats improved in The Fielding Bible to -5 composite Defensive Runs Saved good for 24th place in MLB.

What kind of numbers can we project from Culpepper's performance at St. Paul? To me, if he's only hitting .250 with about an .800 OPS, he would likely be well below average against big league pitching. Projecting his defense might be a bit more reason for optimism. I think this piece is saying that the building blocks are there for a good major league player, but he's still developing. That's great, but I don't think he truly help the 2026 Twins at the level he is performing. The bigger picture is that the Twins have run out three guys routinely in the infield and each has disappointed in some aspect. Lewis has not hit and not improved defensively, Keaschall has regressed and isn't getting extra base hits and is still below average defensively and Lee has hit well, but has shown he lacks the tools be an average defensive shortstop. Since KC would not be a real improvement this year, this would seem to be "prove it" time for the three major league regulars, with Lewis having the shortest runway and Keaschall the longest.

The weakest hitter should hit ninth and arguably that has been Lewis for most of the time he's been on the active roster this year. My problem is that Buxton is hitting first when his skill set would be better used in the 2 or 3 spot in the lineup. It does seem that Buck is most comfortable hitting first, but that is going to mean fewer guys on base when he hits. .

The Wild need to play three great games to get to the Western Finals. The Avs are really good and it will take a complete team effort to win each game. In my rating system, the Wild needed to beat two of the top six teams to get to the Western Finals, probably the toughest path of all the teams.

I believe you are referring to Gomez, not Garcia. Gomez is 26 and was with the Rays, Garcia is 39 and was acquired from the Mets.

You never know where your bullpen ace will come from. Recently, the Twins have had success converting starters (Jhoan Duran, Griffen Jax, Louis Varland) but sometimes closers come off the discard pile like Lism Hendriks. Gus Varland has been DFAd numerous times and he’s closing games for the Nationals. If the Twins try to have a youngish guy like Gomez be a closer or a guy relied on in high leverage, good for them. There’s a small chance it will work and maybe the club has a good arm for multiple years. Signing guys in their mid to upper 30s to one yesr deals, the upside is hard to see

Bell has a pretty long history of hitting wherever he plays. He's hit a large snag for sure, but in his ten-year history he's only been below average once, and that was the quirky COVID season. He's been part of a deadline trade several times and I wouldn't be surprised to see him moved then

I don't think it is worth it to have the last guy on the bench be a specialist. Essentially, that is Outman at this point. He's a pinch runner and defensive replacement, much as Keirsey Jr. was last year. Having someone who could be a semi-successful pinch hitter or platoon option in the outfield makes much more sense.