h2oface

And yet, unless you are paid the big money, are an inked in "vet" (or even a Miranda resume after a half season last year), or have just been traded for and are pre-ordained to be given a shot, if nothing else but to prove that your FO decision was a good one - ST stats do seem to matter. They are cited on why Willie Castro made the team last year. Because Spring Training WAS a factor! The main factor. So what is the line that makes ST matter? We all hope he is the real deal and has a great year, but has Wallner has earned pre-selected status, already, and St shouldn't be a factor for him? I guess he has. A little soon, if you ask me. Remember Danny Valencia?

Better to have Wallner getting no hits and striking out all April, eh? I think, since all have options, you would do well to let the worst performing player suck in AAA until he warms up and starts hitting. No need to have in left field striking out all month.

30 years, eh? How soon we forget. Seems 2005,2006,2007,and 2008 with Mauer and Redmond was pretty damn good, and depending on how you discount stats, even better than last year. 15-20 years ago..... And Mauer was a work horse. Maybe there weren't just 2 on the roster all year, but they were a consistent duo and their production was pretty awesome. Mauer in his prime and Redmond hitting .300/ Morales added some in 2009, too. Vazquez being durable really wasn't a plus last year in a lot of ways. I would rather see Camarago get a shot than suffer through a healthy but deficient bat from Vazquez again all year.

"His 31.5% K-rate would've led the majors in 2003 but ranked fifth on the Twins in 2023; in other words, it's not really an extreme whiff profile in today's game." I don't care how many MLB players strike out over 30% of the time, it will always be an extreme whiff profile. All it means is that there are more players with an extreme whiff profile. It doesn't make it less extreme because more players can't hit the ball as often anymore.

Paddack says "Get her out of the paddock and on the mound. We need females in MLB!"

my comment a week ago from: Minnesota Twins Acquire Outfielder Manuel Margot from Dodgers in 3-Player Trade Posted February 27 The 2021 Five. With Miller being traded, that makes all of the first five draft picks of 2021 trade bait. Chase Petty #26 (Reds/Sonny Gray), Noah Miller #36 (Dodgers/Manuel Margot), Steve Hajjar #61 (Reds/Tyler Mahle) , Cade Povich #98 (Orioles/Jorge Lopez), and Christian Encarnacion-Strand #128 (Reds/Tyler Mahle). David Festa, the Twins Lucky 13th selection, #399, is still hanging in there. Great article! Thanks for filling the rest in. 😇 Come on, TDers. Please get Paddack out of the horse pen. It is probably gonna be a tough task. One of the posters with the most comments ever still hasn't learned to spell Kirilloff! 😇

I'm sure the new additions can be coached into the new "Twins Way" and increase their K's. Give them a month or so.

The Twins can't afford not to keep Vazquez, because if they traded him, they would have to pay him to play for another team, anyway, or a least a good share of his $. No other team was or is inclined to pay $30 million for 3 years, or $20 million for the next two. Only the Twins decided to. At this point, Vazquez owes us at least one good season, and by the contract amount, 2. So you have to bet on Vazquez, I guess, at least for this year. Hopefully he can climb out of the hole he dug offensively (and his offense was a big part of the reason for the original contract) and perform at least up to half the value he is being paid, and give the Twins a season at the plate, too. $10 million for Vazquez defense half the time is not a good value. (Jeffers $2.425, less than 1/4 of Vazquez). I would think Lewis could handle short to back up Correa. He looked fine when he played there before. I think it's a good idea to keep him in the mix just in case. The only reason he isn't there now is Correa blocking him from the position. Unknown how good he could be. DPCC is a big expensive question anyway right now, after last year. Lee could probably handle 3rd, at least soon, but Farmer, for sure. Like Farmer says ".... an easy way to cut payroll is by not keeping me, but I think that shows how much they like me.”

Good luck to DPCC. The last 2 seasons, he has had pitiful starts. Even worse for what they cost.

For me, Kepler is our guy in his prime (even though many doubted him for some subpar performance), not a visitor for a year or two, and wasn't and isn't a block out of the blue. But I agree, there are a lot of trade happy GMs.

The 2021 Five. With Miller being traded, that makes all of the first five draft picks of 2021 trade bait. Chase Petty #26 (Reds/Sonny Gray), Noah Miller #36 (Dodgers/Manuel Margot), Steve Hajjar #61 (Reds/Tyler Mahle) , Cade Povich #98 (Orioles/Jorge Lopez), and Christian Encarnacion-Strand #128 (Reds/Tyler Mahle). David Festa, the Twins Lucky 13th selection, #399, is still hanging in there.

If there was a transfer portal in MLB, half the farm would sign up. To block guys that are 25,26,27 for a mediocre player like Margot that gets paid 5 times they do (in Twins money, 10 times total) ....... why stick around if you didn't have to. And another first rounder (kinda anyway, CB-A #36 overall 2021) in Miller that basically was a waste of time now. Development, eh? Yawn. This is the year for very unexciting moves. Uber rich people are not like us. They are the cheapest people in the world until they want a friend, or have a passion. Obviously, owning the baseball team and wanting to give the fans a consistent chance of winning is not a passion for Pohlad(s). Dodgers signed Kiké for $4 mil, less Twins $ than we will pay for Margot, and with no trade.

I hope Buxton learns how to slide. Watching him bounce and face plant head first, misjudge the distance and slide over and past the base, and feet first, too. Really needs to perfect sliding safely to stay in the game.

Hendriks won’t be playing this season as he is now recovering from TJ surgery last August. His 2 year $10 million contract is really for 1 year of play. Here’s to you both. Life can be cruel, and who we become is more about the courage and grace with which we deal with what we are dealt, than what we want. Thanks for sharing you story.

Some owners of professional sports teams in the major leagues with comparable wealth of the Pohlad family like to spend, and aren't that concerned with their profits. If the team they own, which is not how they made their fortune, breaks even, or even loses some money now and then, they don't care. Well, they care, but they don't own the team to get richer, necessarily, but to have fun with their life and wealth. They bought the team to try to win it all, and they will spend to do it. If they win, then they will make more money, and they will like that as well. Market Smarket. We don't have that kind of owner. Profit is king. That will not change for the Pohlads, it seems, even as the younger family members take control. The biggest lie came with the new stadium and getting the money from the City back more than a decade ago. Not tanking the payroll for the money share still applies. That lie is mostly forgotten with time, and ongoing. The spend strategy didn't work so well for the Mets, though.

🤔 After considering some of the insightful discussion here, I have convinced my mind to throw the dictionary out, and consider Justin Topa, who turns 33 in a couple of weeks on March 7, as the youngster of the bullpen. 🤔

Yes. Ha. Beat you to it. My apologies if I got anyone's age wrong.

I just watched Twins 2024 Season Preview - Royce, Byron, Pablo, Louie, Brooks, & more. It is always interesting to me how some ball players are considered young, and some old, or at least not young, at the same age. Joe Ryan, in this video, and plenty often around TD, is called a young pitcher. He will be 28 in June. Lopez is 28 in a couple weeks. I don't recall him ever being called young. Ober is 29 in July. He is often called one of our young pitchers. Jax 29. Alcala is 29 in July. Paddack was 28 in January. Is he young? Correa is 29 until September. Is he young? Varland just turned 26 in December. Duran in January. Winder is 27. Sands 27 in July. Funderburk is 27. Headrick 26. Canterino 26 all season. Are they young? If you spend your early 20's in the minors, and don't get established in the show until the second half of your 20's, does that make you young? Woods-Richardson is 23 until September. Jeffers will be 27 in June. Miranda will be 26 in June. Wallner is 26. Martin will be 25 in March. Julien in April. Lewis in June. Are they young, or are they prime timers? Are the same age position players considered older than pitchers at the same age? Just because you don't make the show until your mid to late 20's, do you get a hall pass and you are still young? And what is old? I hear mentions of 29 even being old at times. And early 30s. Polanco is 30 and turning 31 in July, and we had to trade the old man. If you are 35, good luck getting a multi-year contract, unless you are part of the very upper tier, and then good luck to the teams that sign them, because you are likely to have an albatross on your books. If 27 or 28 is considered young, and 30 old, that is a very short prime time. If you spend years injured, does that make you older and damaged, or younger because there was no "wear and tear" on the body for an additional season(s). Personally, I don't differentiate. 23 is the top of young. Soon to turn 21 Emmanuel Rodriguez is young. 24-25 is pre-prime time, and the clock is ticking. 26-32 is prime time. 33-35 is middle age, and 36-39 is old. 40 and over and you are an anomaly. What do you think? What is young, prime time, and old for a MLB baseball player? And do you consider the 2024 Twins generally young, or with Buxton, Kepler, Farmer, Vazquez, Santana, DeSclafani, Weiss, Topa, Theilbar, Stewart, Okert, and Jackson in their 30's (a probable 12 of 26 to be on active roster), old?

I can't believe our Twins (& X Marlins and Reds) gave up their number one bench cheerleader. He was infectious last year! Might be time to move on to his alter ego. G Cinco! Quit fooling around and get Devon Williams. When you only pitch your starter barely half the game, on purpose, the pen is how you win games! A reprise for "The Man":

MAT. The cutsie nickname with initials for some. (Although not him) We all have middle initials. Well, most of us. It was very important that he separate himself from other Michael Taylor's of the world. I don't know why people don't just call him Taylor. They all buy in it seems. Hey, since the A is so important, why not just call him A if you want to shorten the laborious 3 namer 5 syllables. Do the Fonz...... say it sustained, and proud. Aaaaaaa

When a team virtually never drafts the highest pitchers projected available on day one instead of the numerous failed position players they do draft (the few exceptions noted), they have to find a few acorns after day one, as it’s the only pitchers they do draft! Hopefully, Festa will be a ringer.

“Durán now follows in a line of the best relievers in team history (Joe Nathan, Glen Perkins, Taylor Rogers, etc.) who failed as starters but became All-Star-caliber closers.” Duran is not a failed starter. He always wanted to start, Still was talking about it after the 2022 season. He was never given the opportunity to start as he came back from injury.

That is soooooo presumptuous. Trusting writers that want to break a story and not being at the scene to really know. SMH. Have you even ever met him. Have you ever talked to him, even?

4 to 5 years later…. Balazovic the next Liam Hendriks? Hard to wait that long holding a roster spot and suffering through the wait for that gamble.

“essentially inessential” 🤣