TopGunn#22

I'm in favor of dropping Kreidler from the 40 man AND cutting Arcia. Neither does much for me. Waiver wire or trade is a better option. Both Outman and Roden played well enough to have earned a spot on the team. Trade one of them to a team that needs an OF and who has a SS who is an obvious upgrade from Arcia/Kreidler. (that bar is NOT very high). I realize we have SS prospects in Culpepper and Houston and will probably draft another one with our first pick in the draft. But Lee's glove isn't up to SS standards and we need a better option.

The Twins have invested in SP's both in trades and the draft for 5-6 years now and our current "State of the Staff" is underwhelming. EVERYTHING would be different if the Twins were entering this season as they had anticipated...with a healthy Pablo Lopez fronting the rotation, an All Star #2 in Joe Ryan and a resurgent Bailey Ober throwing 93 mph with his fastball setting up his devasting change-up. 2 of those 3 aren't going to happen. While Mick Abel seems to have taken a giant step forward this spring training, Festa is hurt (again), Zebby hasn't impressed at all. Bradley has had a couple nice outings but still lacks consistency, and SWR is, well...SWR. Good enough to be an average #5 but still seeming to be light years from #3 status. There are some nice prospects coming in the next year or two, but for 2026 it's not looking like a strength. Maybe they will surprise me, but I'm not confident. Zebby is especially confounding because normally his stuff is pretty good, but he's far too hittable. Now it appears his velocity and stuff in general are down from last year. It's not the kind of encouragement I had hoped to find in spring training and time is running out.

To me it's clear Abel has earned the #5 spot (and he may just out perform SP #4 & #3) and that Zebby hasn't done enough to put himself ahead of SWR and Taj. But as it has been pointed out, Zebby starting out in St. Paul is NOT a disaster. Would I have liked him to beat out Ober for a rotation spot? CERTAINLY. But Zebby will very likely get at least 20 starts this year. Since I'm not buying the hopium that the Twins will be contenders this year, my focus for 2026 is where we will be once baseball starts getting played in 2027. Zebby should be a part of the rotation by then for sure.

Chpetitt19, we, meaning you and I, honestly have no idea what kind of "value" Ober had or has. Neither of us has any solid information on that. BBTV has Ober's value at 18.0 which is down a bit from his off season 21.0. That doesn't make me "right" because I used that as the basis for my comment. I would agree with you on assessing his value after last season and so far in spring training. I'm not impressed with Ober at all. But the truth of Ober's value probably lays somewhere in between that 18.0 and zero. I would just say that with pitching injuries a certainty, probably every major league team would be interested in at least discussing a trade. If the offers were low-ball specials I can see rebuffing them. But in the bigger picture, I'd rather see young pitchers like Abel, Bradley, Zebby and possibly Prielipp get the Ober innings and get what I can for him in a trade. Maybe Ober scuffles himself to semi-mediocrity and we can get a bag of balls sometime this season from a pitching needy team. But the future is not with Baily Ober. His mythical "value" stands at 18.0 right now, but I only see it getting worse as the season progresses.

I agree with TJSweens. I had hoped we could have traded Ober for something we needed, especially after Lopez was lost for the season. The Twins are not competing for the divisional title this season. They will not be a Wild Card team. Hanging onto Ryan until the trade deadline, while risky, is something I understand. Hanging on to Ober, when the future is tied to Abel, Bradley, Matthews, SWR and to a lesser immediate extent, Connor Prielipp, I would have moved Ober while he still maintained a certain level of "value." There might have been hope that Ober would regain that smidge of velocity he needs to be effective and that in doing so, would make him quite a trade chip at the deadline, or sooner, as SP break down at all times and especially the most inconvenient. And while I'll acknowledge it's still "kind of" early, giving up 5 hits and 2 walks in less than 3 innings does not instill confidence in me that Ober is going to get better. He might. But I'm not betting my house mortgage on it.

His fastball NEEDS those extra couple mph because if he doesn't have it, his change up looks way too similar to his fastball. When you're talking major league hitters, the margin between a successful pitch and one that gets crushed is razor thin. It was encouraging to see him throw yesterday. He's essentially the #2 SP now unless and until one of Abel, Zebby, Bradley or SWR out-pitches him. I still believe we won't be able to compete this season, but we should have enough to keep the White Sox in last place. But at the trade deadline, if we have guys like Ryan, Ober, Jeffers and Bell healthy and producing, we should be able to maximize what we get back to lay a more solid foundation to build off of for 2027 and beyond. We will also have a better idea if Lee or Culpepper can handle SS or what E-Rod, Jenkins, Gonzalez and Prielipp can do going forward.

Good article Matthew. Whether this was by design or not, once this reality of having 4 lefty's in the BP took shape, I was pretty certain the idea of trying Connor Prielipp out in the pen sort of went away. As shattered as the Twins BP was after the the trade deadline, I kind of thought, with the track records of all the BP candidates in camp that we would end up with these 4 lefty's making the team. But it's going to be a little scary when Bobby Witt Jr. comes to the plate in a high leverage situation and one of these guys has to get him out.

This is a stark reminder how absolutely clueless the Twins organization has been for many years. Royce Lewis had the best chance to be a major league SS, but injuries and excessive weight training changed his body type and transformed him into a 3B. The Twins are in an unacceptable gap for 2026 and 2027 at the SS position. Lee, for whatever positives he has will probably not survive the year at SS. He just isn't physically gifted enough to shine there, and I question selecting him where they did as the Twins should have been aware of those physical limitations. Does anybody envision Lee ever making the play Houston did behind 2B?? I wonder if Brooks Lee will even be a Twin in 2027/2028. Now the Twins are forced to consider rushing another kid (Culpepper) who many think is destined to be a 3B to rescue themselves from the below average ceiling of Lee. Heck, when you look at what Brooks Lee did at the plate post Correa trade you could almost find yourself thinking "why not just stick Marek Houston in there NOW!!!" There is a high chance the player the Twins select with the 3rd overall pick in the amateur draft this June will be a SS. Will it be a college player or a high school player? How quickly could that player realistically challenge for the major league starting job? SS is an absolute mess for the Twins and when SS is considered the foundation for any good major league defense, it makes it all the more disappointing that this team had to make a very expensive mistake on Carlos Correa when almost every other major league team didn't think Correa could handle SS for long with his persistent foot problems.

What we're seeing from Abel does not appear to me to be fool's gold. It's a continuation of how he finished last season. Cody's opening line is spot on. Abel has been the most encouraging development of Spring Training so far. And Bradley didn't disappoint yesterday either. As Abel has said, he's not so focused on his mechanics now. That's happening naturally through all the hard work he's put in. His primary focus now is the chess match between pitcher and hitter, and so far he's executing flawlessly. I'm in total agreement that the Twins should be focusing on the upside potential of players with an eye on being a team ready to seriously compete in 2028. There are far too may things that have to break perfectly for the Twins to have a prayer to compete in 2026, and a key component, Pablo Lopez, has already gone horribly wrong. At some point this season we will see Joe Ryan and Ryan Jeffers traded, probably Ober if he doesn't completely flop in 2026. There's a 50/50 chance or better that Byron Buxton is traded as well. By the end of May, we will be seeing a Twins team probably 10 games under .500. The teardown that began at last year's trade deadline will be completed at or before THIS year's trade deadline. It's important in this season to get a good look at the young pitchers, Abel, Bradley, Zebby, Prielipp, SWR, and the young hitters, Keaschall, Lewis, Lee, Rodon, E-Rod, Jenkins, Culpepper and Gonzalez. When baseball games finally start getting played in 2027 the rotation is going to look completely different and the lineup will as well.

Dasan Hill has been on my radar ever since we drafted him. He's starting to show what the Twins had "projected" him to be able to do, namely, hit the high 90's or better with his fastball and tighten up his breaking pitches. With all pitchers it comes down to command. I'll really be "thirsting" for weekly updates on how he is progressing. If things go like I think they'll go, he could be a fast mover through the Twins system this spring/summer. The absolute ceiling would be to see him make it to St. Paul in August. That may be a stretch if they limit his innings later in the season. For not having a LH SP in the rotation in what seems like FOREVER...The Twins in 2 years could see Connor Prielipp and Dasan Hill as big pieces. Without any 2026 or beyond draft choices factored in, it's possible the rotation could be: Zebby, Abel, Bradley, Prielipp and Hill...and not necessarily in that order.

jmlease1 makes an excellent point about walks drying up if you can't punish a meatball down the middle of the plate once in awhile. I'm hoping that Houston can find just enough power to punish said meatball occasionally. I'd be quite happy if he's primarily a singles/doubles hitter who can effectively run the bases and draw enough walks to get on base at a .350-.360 clip. Because the defense is certainly real, and he can lift up the team and a pitcher consistently with the highlight reel plays he will surely make. This is why I think he was a reasonable gamble when and where we picked him. He was clearly the best glove in that draft. The amateur draft won't take place until later this spring/summer. The Twins will have had a great chance to observe and analyze where Houston is. Right now there are a couple college and high school SS that the Twins have their eye on. If Houston is showing real progress, might the Twins shift their priority to a CF or SP? Jenkins could very well be the guy to eventually take over for Buxton, but another speedy CF candidate couldn't hurt. And there could be a kid who takes a Paul Skenes step forward as a SP prospect. How Houston is playing at the time of the draft could have an impact on who the Twins select #3 overall. Or, it might not matter at all.

I agree with the premise of Matthew's article. And I would go so far as to say there is no "telegraphing" left to do. All any team in the American League needs to do is look at the Twins current roster and calculate that the Twins are non-contenders. This team is projected to win 73 games. 80 is the high side and very unlikely. We will not contend in 2026. There will be a disrupted season in 2027. The only question is for how long. We know it will be contentious. The plan all along should have been to build with an eye toward 2028. Not trading Pablo prior to spring training was a major mistake. No hindsight is needed to arrive at that conclusion. We let Falvey go. Was he advocating for the tear down in opposition to Tom Pohlad's puffery that he either goes big or goes home? We now have our definition of Tom going big...signing Josh Bell and Victor Caratini. I'm underwhelmed. SOMEBODY is going to get hurt in someone's rotation. Heck, 75% of the Dodgers rotation is in a constant state of pain. We should be working the phones for trades involving Ryan, Larnach, Jeffers and possibly even Byron Buxton. I might even be willing to move Royce Lewis or Matt Wallner as well, this year or next. The Twins need to look completely different by the time the 2027 season ends. A bona fide major league SS is needed. A CF to replace Buxton if traded is needed. Younger, more athletic OF's are on the way with Walker Jenkins and Em-Rod. 1B is still a mess despite having about 5 guys who will play there this season. A major rebuild should ALWAYS have been the strategy. That it wasn't is yet another reason why the Pohlad's should be gone and a new ownership era begins. Once Glen Taylor decided to sell the T-Wolves the skies cleared, the sun shined, and a new era of T-Wolves basketball dawned. It's time for the same medicine for our baseball team.

Showing my age here, but I miss the classic home white with navy pinstripes and blue numbers and TWINS trimmed in red. Basically the 1963-1971 home pinstripes. None of the 5 uniforms showed are bad. I just miss the classic, traditional look. They wore them during the Mauer-Morneau-Santana-Nathan era.

Thank You Cody for a well written and thought out piece. I never thought the Twins would contend this year. Is the "Universe" possibly trying to make things as crystal clear to Tom Pohlad that 2026 is not going to be the year of a Twins resurgence? Losing Pablo for the season should be the proverbial tap on the shoulder for the organization that the full scale rebuild should commence...very soon. It's time to check in with these pitching needy teams to see what prospect capitol could be obtained for Joe Ryan. It's time to go with the Kids and find out what we have in the way of young SP. Bradley, SWR, Zebby, Abel, and behind them Prielipp, Rojas, and in a couple years Dasan Hill, Charley Soto etc... And if they'd go so far as to trade Joe Ryan, then include Buxton, Ryan Jeffers, Larnach and probably Baily Ober if he's pitching decently up to the deadline. There is no sugarcoating how bleak this coming season is going to be with the almost guaranteed stoppage in 2027. It's time to embrace a complete overall of the roster and undertake the rebuild needed to make the Twins contenders, at the earliest, 2028 but probably 2029/2030. Pablo's season ending injury before he could have been traded for some good prospect capital should be a wake up call to the Twins organization. Stop deluding yourself. The fans understand the franchise is a literal "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Come to your senses and do what you know needs to be done.

This is just SO...TWINSY !!! I have believed the Twins should have accepted the obvious and sold high on some of their "stars" this off season, stockpile the young talent, introduce some of that talent in 2026, get more of that talent on the field in 2027, (whenever the players and owners decide it's time to play baseball), and then by 2028, be poised to compete with purpose in the A.L. Central. There should be some kind of new economic model for MLB in 2027-2028, and the Tigers will be without Tarik Skubal. Pablo was one of the better trade chips the Twins held. Now that has blown up in their faces. I would expect a bigger sell off than the self immolation of the bullpen this trade deadline. I feel bad for Pablo. He's such a likeable player, a good leader and ambassador of the game, and for the Twins. But his big hope was to be traded to a contender in 2026, and now he's hoping to be able to play sometime in 2027...depending on when MLB decides they want to play ball.

The only reason the Twins should sign Giolito is to trade him for something later in the season to a rotation needy team. That's not a good enough reason to use resources when there are bigger holes elsewhere. Kopech would be a better signing as he could actually be the Closer for a BP with a glimmer of hope. Plus, no one is estimating what it would cost to sign Giolito. $10 million? $12 Million? O.K. Maybe the Twins should sign Giolito if a Bailey Ober trade can bring them an actual Major League starting SS. That kind of move would make Brooks Lee the Utilityman able to play all around the IF. But the Twins shouldn't sign Giolito first. The trade of Ober (or some other SP) for a bona fide MLB SS should be done first. Then you could sign Giolito to hold down the #3 spot in the rotation while still giving Bradley, Matthews, SWR and Abel the opportunity to compete for spots #4 & #5. The goal was supposed to be getting better defensively in 2026. That's unlikely to happen as long as you have a below average SS and Larnach/Wallner in LF/RF. NONE of this has yet to be addressed.

Mauer also played some RF in his final season, 2018.

I'm kind of on the same page as rdehring... Once you get past Jenkins, the only guy with any kind of a vibe is Winokur, and he really needs to start playing CF exclusively and be done with the SS/3B experiment. The International guys are all over the place. Fedko is kind of intriguing, but I don't get the sense he's highly thought of. His age was probably why no one took a chance on him in the Rule 5.

chpettit19 makes an interesting point regarding a best case scenario of Jenkins and E-Rod staying in the corners in a future Twins OF alignment. We're STILL looking for a pure SS to step in for the Twins, and the top prospects in this year's amateur draft are SS's. Might the Twins use their 2nd or 3rd pick on a CF prospect who can run down a ball in the gap consistently but may not have the power profile of a high 1st round selection? I don't think there's really a "can't miss" CF prospect coming out of the college ranks who could make it to the Major Leagues faster than a high School prospect. But the Twins should really be planning on having something in place when Buxton either moves to a corner OF spot, or even leaves the team via a trade.

My eye test doesn't think Buxton has slipped that much. But my eyes will be 68 in May. I didn't think Willie Mays had slipped that much until I saw him play CF for the Mets in the 1973 World Series. And then I looked at the chart Cody provided. This is an inevitable progression for formerly great CF's. But as Cody pointed out, it doesn't have to end badly if the player can adapt to the shift quickly and rather than their peak skills being at 95-100% they are merely at 85-90%. This is probably not something that would happen to open the season though. Jenkins will probably not break camp with the team. Would E-Rod be better than Buxton? And will he break camp with the team? Maybe Alan Roden, if he found his hitting stroke? But while Roden might be a good corner OF who could fill in at CF occasionally, would Roden be better than Buxton in CF to open the season? Probably not. But I like the idea of taking a highly stressful defensive position away from Buxton to improve the odds of his staying healthy and hopefully benefitting from a repeat of his 2025 offensive numbers. The Twins have a starting rotation that can compete in the A.L. Central. They have a BP that while not necessarily complete, has started to take form and could be adequate. They are still not a good defensive team and their offense has a lot of question marks. Having Buxton healthy and producing for 130-140 games would sure be helpful.

Agree LA Vikes Fan. A relief pitcher, either on the Astros major league roster or at AAA would be the best addition to a Jeffers + Larnach for Paredes + Relief Pitcher deal. This makes a lot of sense for both teams. As many have pointed out in the past, it's kind of baffling sometimes to see some of the disparity in values that BBTV has for a player. Especially when you have some familiarity with their value over 3 to 4 revisions in a 3-6 month period.

Paredes has a BBTV of 12.8. He can play 3B as well as 1B. Larnach only has a value of 2.0, so he wouldn't be enough for Paredes. But Jeffers has a value of 12.8 and he's a perfect match for Parades. After we signed Yanier Diaz's primary backup at Catcher away (Victor Caratini) Jeffers has much more value to the Astros at 12.8 than Paredes. A deal of Jeffers and Larnach for Paredes and a minor league talent works for me. A RH power bat like Paredes at either 3B or 1B allows Josh Bell to be a full time, switch hitting DH. Caratini and Jackson take over the catching duties and the Twins get salary relief for 2026-Larnach. Paredes is owed $9 million in 2026 and has a club option for $13.35 million in 2027. That's pretty good value for a 25-30 HR bat. Possible Twins lineup with Paredes: (If you expect better years out of Lewis and Wallner) Keaschall-2B Buxton-CF Lewis-3B J. Bell-DH Parades-1B Wallner-RF Lee-SS Caratini-C A. Martin-LF That's a lineup that certainly has more potential than one with Larnach and Jeffers and your defense gets a little bit better. Eventually, Jenkins or E-Rod takes Martin's place in LF (or Culpepper moves in at SS for Lee) and the lineup and defense gets a notch better. Couple that with good SP and an average BP and the Twins look better in the A.L. Central in 2026.

My initial reaction was mixed. While Banda has some upside I was unsure I would have included International Bonus Pool Money as often times you get a pretty good return on your investment (the Twins shortcomings in recent years acknowledged). But now that others have explained it was money not yet spent for 2026 I'm firmly in the camp that this was a good move. I like the idea of approaching Kopech with a decent $5 million dollar offer to round out the early season BP. I know Doc Bauer is still banging the table for Nathaniel Lowe at 1B and at some point, that would have been a much better plan than Josh Bell because the Twins could have installed Matt Wallner as the full time DH. But that plan is out the window with the Bell, and to a lesser degree, the Wagaman moves. Larnach still needs to be traded and then your looking at Jenkins, E-Rod and Gonzalez as well as Culpepper and trying to determine who moves up when others fail. I'd love to have a better immediate option than Brooks Lee/Orlando Arcia at SS. The Tigers and Royals still look better than the Twins. Cleveland always seems to find a way, and the White Sox will be better. How much better remains to be seen. It's still very hard to determine where the Twins fit in the A.L. Central.

I'm giving them an "F." Here's why: I'm on board with the Caratini signing because it gives the Twins a clear off ramp to trading Jeffers so they can maximize his value rather than just letting him walk as a Scott Boras FA. The other move where they spent some money was Josh Bell. In the case of Bell and Caratini, $7 million or so for each of them represents a "massive" investment for the Twins. This is the foundation for an "F" grade. Bell fills a position that by all logic, (if improving OF defense was actually a goal), Wallner should be filling. Put Wallner at DH and spend that $7 million on Kopech and your roster construction already makes much more sense. But everywhere else they have added at the fringes. Taylor Rogers and Liam Hendricks in the BP could be a masterstroke at the money invested. But they don't appear to be needle movers. And both are clearly far out of their "prime." We have a Black Hole at SS. Lee is universally thought to be a 3B or 2B. NOT a SS. Culpepper "could" be a SS but the opinions on him sticking there are "mixed." That's not really a ringing endorsement. Marek Houston can certainly play the position, but can he hit a lick? For a defensive position that is crucial, that is thought to be the most important position for a major league defense, the fall back plan is Orlando Arcia ??? That's front office malpractice. So much for Tom Pohlad going BIG...he should just go home. In an off season where each A.L. Central team made solid moves to improve (yes, even the White Sox) not a single move made by the Twins is even close to comparing. Our "plan" was to essentially run things back, with a BP decimated at the trade deadline and no Carlos Correa at SS. In what world do the Twins show a chance of improving in 2026? Only in a world that has Byron Buxton healthy and duplicating his 2025 season. Where Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner each hit 30 HR's. Where Keaschall stays healthy, plays in 150 games, has an OPS approaching .780 and steals 35-45 bases. Lee reaches 20 HR's and plays "passable" defense and rookies like Walker Jenkins, E-Rod, Prielipp and Gonzalez all exceed expectations. (Not to mention that Ryan, Lopez and Ober ALL stay healthy and perform at peak ability). How likely are ALL of these things to coalesce and come to pass? We get an "F."

I would like to see the Twins sign Kopech. He would provide potential upside and closing ability. This would allow Festa to throw less leveraged innings early and if things go well, higher leveraged innings later. I'm O.K. with signing Liam Hendricks. He's a lottery ticket and a feel good story on top of that. I hope he's healthy and can show Twins fans he has something left early in spring training. As a couple others pointed out, this is a low risk/possible high reward signing. I prefer to live my live with positivity rather than negativity. Good Luck Liam Hendricks !!!