In My La Z boy

Biggest takeaway of this year just may be the blockbuster Berrios trade. New post at mlbtraderumors sounds like the offers on the table are exceeding expectations. We can only hope for a best case scenario and we may have come upon one. Multiple teams, bidding war. It all sounds like a perfect storm. Oh boy. I'm a little nervous. And maybe excited. Not sure.

Demoralizing loss yesterday. I feel for our batters, and to hear a trade of Berrios isn't going to be helpful. What are we doing? Seems impossible to believe a trade this week of Berrios helps us next year. Pohlad just said we're competing next year, no blow up. We already have no pitching. Yesterday was just stupid. FO literally made the worst signings they could. We will get zero for all of them, Happ/Robles/Colome/Shoemaker.

"In April, this club seemed to be dealt a good amount of bad luck" That is a very generous way to assess the 1st 24 games of the season. For whatever reason Rocco/FO was obsessed with deeming Colome as our closer. This didn't have to be the decision. It should have been Rogers job to lose. For whatever reason, it was Colome's job to lose, and he should have lost it at least 2 weeks before he did. Our best starter in March wasn't given a starting job (the Dobber) - but they gave the 5th spot to Shoemaker. The rest is history, Shoemaker stunk, and Dobs never helped us and is now wrecked. For whatever reason we decided that our best leadoff hitter, and our best contact guy (Arraez) would NOT be given a starting position on the field. This led to spending 10M on a shortstop - so, instead of signing a 12M starting pitcher, we signed a 2M starting pitcher. This also led to the ever changing by the day line up, and led to a very decent 2b man having to be a very average to poor LF'er. And of course going back to the prior year, we tried to land a stud pitcher, we could not, so we jumped at adding Donaldson, which moved Sano to 1st - now blocking both Kirilloff (not anymore), and now blocking Miranda - and putting a 24M hole in our pitching budget. The proof of these personnel mistakes is here. We'd love to trade both Simmons and Donaldson. Proof we blew the roster construction game. Would we have been much better off this year with Arraez at leadoff every game and playing 2b - former all-star ss Polanco at short - Sano was a 3b until a couple weeks ago, now Miranda is playing there - Kirilloff now manning 1b daily. Just a shame really - not to mention the LF difficulty's we wouldn't have if Lamont Wade and/or Eddie Rosario were still here. Personnel roster blunders, and managerial mistakes are everywhere. We made our own bad luck Ted.

I have heard this before. I think the Giants are one of those teams who've been known to covet Kepler for a while to some degree. I suppose a lot depends on the field you play on, and how right-handed you are. We've got a mess on our hands. Unless we could acquire some much needed pitching help, dealing Max would be a mistake in my opinion. We are the team that needs affordable quality. I think Max looks like affordable quality for 3 more years to come. Now if we can surround him with enough quality for him to be our 4th outfielder, then we've built a better team.

Donaldson has only been on one sub .500 team in his career. He is a winner and he wants to win. I do not understand the dislike for Donaldson except to say we are all too Minnesota nice apparently. Trade him to a team that wants to win and plays like it.

Implying attitude as much as anything. Bite Scratch Claw - a mindset - a toughness - a determination. Rocco takes calm cool and rational to the point where it stops looking like calm cool and rational and looks more like unsure aloof unaware and apathetic. This style he has is unsettling to me, and doesn't look like leadership.

I can appreciate this critique - brevity is the soul of wit - much better than the novel we could all write, of which this particular critique wraps up a portion of it. The Rocco in-game mismanagement mistakes are plenty this season. I wish we had a manager, and an organization that fed off Donaldson's type of energy and emotion. We don't. Might as well deal him to a more aggressive fired up organization that prioritizes winning at every turn, and doesn't mind getting down and dirty to do it if that's what it takes.

Good for Donaldson. Who is going to manage this team when Josh and Cruz get traded?

After what we've been through I do not believe we'll be DFA'ing any outfielders. Cave will go on a re-hab assignment, and we'll see what happens. No way Larnach goes back down. He is here to stay. Wade is having a great rookie year. I just don't think we give any more guys away - and certainly not before the trade deadline.

Their assets all expire at years end - if you include our assets as being Berrios Rogers and Buxton we've got them beat on assets. Put it another way - if we suck this bad next year, and we still own these 3 valuable assets - we would be on par with this years Cubs. And - if that were to happen, we blew it.

I wonder what Buxton is thinking, and hope he is more anxious to get back with us, than anxious to get away from us. I am embarrassed about this. We just generally don't play well. We need Buxton, and we need to hang in there with him. The white sox have an excellent starting 5, and a great closer, and we are not competitive against them. We must build an excellent starting 5, build something decent around Rogers, and dig in on Byron Buxton. I expect we move most of the expiring vet contracts one way or the other to get our prospects on the field in Aug/Sept, and we have talent - what we don't have is a white sox pitching staff.

I wonder what Jim Pohlad is thinking and if he cares? Has anyone heard any comments from him?

Jeff Passan of Espn wrote "the Twins are the team almost every contender is waiting on" Not sure exactly where he is going with this, but it sounds positive, and let's just hope we capitalize on great opportunities.

I think we're still in this and I think the Sox and Indians are weak leaders. I also think we are sellers for sure. I hope we keep Cruz for the rest of the way. I heard Arraez talking about what he has learned from him - I think for what we would get in return, it isn't worth it. The moves we need to make are to set us up for next year. We have a lot of 2B/3B talent - we have a lot of 1B/Corner OF talent - we have a lot of Catcher talent. Trade from surplus talent while opening up spots for the future talent. Not sure on next year SS, but an infield of Kirilloff 1B/Arraez 2B/Miranda 3B looks like a clear winner. I'm hoping other teams come calling for Kepler/Polanco/Sano and Donaldson. Those are probably the 4 contracts to go, (other than expiring vet contracts) making room for young players, and making room for free agent Pitcher signings.

Balazovic is still in Wichita and Duran has arm trouble. 40 man is full 4/5 at best types Thorpe/Ober/Dobnak/Jax et all won't move the needle. Yes - They both have 1/2 potential. Get Winder up quick he is breaking out. We are no pitcher churning out factory like Cleveland I guess was the lament.

Sad situation really. Our better arms are in Wichita and below. Looks like all we have in Minnesota are potential 4th or 5th starters at best. And Cleveland keeps churning out pitching. I've never heard of most of Cleveland's pitchers. Look at their injured list. Yet they churn out pitching.

I like both of these comments, and both seem correct. In my opinion we now need to recognize this nucleus we built went up as far as they were going to go. Maybe we were in a pretty good place. Maybe if we would have signed the correct 2 starting pitchers, and correct 2 relief pitchers last winter things would have gone differently, but we didn't. We need a run now of at least 15 wins out of the next 20 games or this Terry Ryan nucleus is done being the nucleus. Maybe that will work out for us in the long run? We are back to hope. It's a very familiar place to be as Twins fans.

Who replaces the traded players depends upon whether we intend to compete in '22 or not. If we ONLY trade the above expiring contract vets, then all the above answers seem obvious. If the FO goes hog wild and moves players like Buxton, Berrios, Rogers or even a Polanco, Sano or Kepler then we bring along this winters rule 5 guys much quicker - and probably get in return players closer to major league ready. I'd love to sign the trifecta of Buxton, Berrios/Rogers - but what would that be, $50M annually? I do not see this team committing $50Million annually to 3 players. I see no chance we sign Rogers for 3/20 - more like 3/30. Someone will give him that in my opinion. The other 2 are $20M each. I wish we would. Can't see it.

Hard to put your finger on the reasoning behind the Chemistry & Culture change. All we know is we have a Chemistry and Culture issue we didn't have before this year. I don't know how to quantify the loss of a player as being a reason for this, every roster loses players from one year to the next. FO, manager and coaches are the keeper of the culture, not an individual player. I agree Eddie had moxy, and came up through the org with all these guys. It has to be on Rocco to mitigate whatever ill exists when you lose a brother warrior. Maybe the team friendly contract should have gone to Rosario instead of Kepler? There are only so many left handed batting corner outfielders we need? They drafted Larnach and Kirilloff - & just like the choice between Cave and Wade - they made a choice between Rosario and Kepler.

I do not have confidence in our FO to make the right deal. So far the duo is no Tampa Bay. "But most important is that we keep what we have" - mikelink45

Totally agree in "theory" with this sentiment - unfortunately, practically applying this principle may be impossible. Examples above in Major League Ready's post. I'd put Buxton right there with the Betts example. Likely this won't play out until over the winter is my guess, unless someone steps up and blows our mind with an offer in July. I would think Falvey waits it out. This would be a franchise make or break type of trade. I'd move heaven and earth to attempt a re-sign. This is a trade that costs the FO his job in 2 years if he blows it.

Is it time to get down on our pitching coach? Is it time to get down on our FO? If it's not broke don't fix it sound familiar? Considering all the many whiffs on off season signings, on rule 5 losses, on DFA's ending up on other rosters and being effective - I'll place the Dobnak blame on someone besides Randy. Hindsight is easy, but Dobs should have started the year in the rotation. My untrained eye says he is much better as a starter, than coming out of the pen. He was our best in ST. As explained above, the slider change is killing him, that probably wasn't his idea - and the contract - why the contract? FO smart guys getting over their ski's trying to "lock him up on the cheap" before he ever proved sustainability. I'm guessing the contract was a gamechanger in mental and emotional ways we could not understand. He wasn't ready for the massive contract says the results. (I say massive because $9M is massive to all of us regular folk, and Randy is regular folk). I hope they don't wreck him. Put him in the St Paul rotation, and by years end he will be their #1, and he will be back, and will be solid for us for years. Hang in there Dobs!

I wonder how much more in return we would get for Buxton and Berrios trading them next month vs over the winter? Is it significant? Same question for Rogers. I wonder how the impending negotiations and the strike potential of 2022 plays into trade decisions? Will there be a normal season? Does the FO hedge there bet against this and go rebuild for 2023/24? I wonder if Pohlad gets squishy, and insists on a financial purge considering this years results and next years potential partial/compromised season. I am guessing the Donaldson contract is in his crosshairs.

I needed this article. I do love Mitch, he is what I would call a gamer but, I also think if we are indeed way out of contention a month from now, Mitch is one of the key pieces to cash in on and move for a stud pitching prospect. I want the retool, not the rebuild - in the retool we are going to have to give up more than just our expiring contract veterans, to get back some stud potential help. Cruz/Simmons will both go, and we'll get something - but the bold retool moves a stud for a stud. Which of our studs should be traded? Garver is the least risky and painful I think - maybe Kepler as well? Berrios and Buxton are risky risky to move - Sano, risky and how good is the return? - not good enough in my opinion. Still wishing for a 10 game winning streak any time now and let's get back in this. Thanks Nick!

Now is not the time. Maybe 45 days from now, but I think I am taking the other side of the argument and keeping him. He is the main mentor among the players in the clubhouse. We most obviously need all the mentors we can get. I'm looking for some meaningful, move the needle trades. Trading Cruz doesn't bring us help next year.