LastOnePicked

I was skeptical he'd ever reach the majors, so I give him and the Twins minor league development staff a ton of credit. I hope he has a great MLB career ahead and makes me look even more foolish.

Stop that. My blood pressure is loving these games.

Exactly like I predicted.

Look, I think this is still a sub-.500 team. On paper, they're certainly still a sub-.500 team. But they don't seem to want to be a sub-.500 team ... and that's what I like to see. That attitude may make all the difference.

"At least one asset acquired last summer is making a name for himself, at least in a tiny sample size to date. Taj Bradley ...what say ye?" I say he ain't doing too bradley so far. Keep it up, young feller.

I love how we get when these Twins are just a single game above .500. And I'm feeling it, too. Bring on the prospects and let's irritate some division foes.

Probably too early to say this, but I do like Shelton as manager a lot better than Rocco. A lot. A lot.

Same here. In fact, they've just bested my predicted season win total.

Cy Bradley. A taj overdone ... but I like it.

Twins Daily's members are some of the smartest (best-looking) posters around! Well this is definitive proof that Twins Daily doesn't access my laptop camera. Whew!

Excited for the next Tom Pohlad interview. Maybe after the opening homestand.

It's not just that they lose ... it's that, as an organization, they're losers. They don't act and set a winning agenda - instead they react and are constantly scrambling to patch roster holes and catch up to the latest trend. It starts with ownership. The "Spin the Pohlad Wheel" offseason got us Tom, a guy who clearly had no ability to assess the quality of the roster and decided to kick tough decisions down the road. A critical injury to Ryan, Lopez and/or Buxton was entirely predictable ... and this roster clearly needed all three at peak health just to start sniffing around .500. I wouldn't have been pessimistic about a commitment to a rebuild. I don't mind watching a young team take its lumps if there's a greater plan in place. But watching fringe veterans and failed post-hype prospects attempt to "compete" for the AL Central is nauseating. And the fool's talk of "we expect to win" makes it so much worse, because you realize that there's still no one competent or cognizant in the organization to steer the ship.

The only optimism I feel for 2026 is that we won't have to hear Baldelli give flimsy excuses after crushing losses. That alone is a major improvement going into the season. They need to develop a signature brand of fundamentally-sound baseball, they need to help young players adjust and excel, and they need to trade assets as soon as the market offers opportunity. They'll lose at least 88 games, but if 2026 proves that 2025 was rock-bottom and that the bounce up has begun, that'll be a major win for the franchise.

Slow and sloppy baseball is the worst kind of baseball. Shelton can't make this roster more talented, but he can help the team improve on-field focus and at least make routine plays look, well, routine. That's the improvement I'm looking for.