jmlease1

I'm not that surprised that Houston has hit the wall in his first full professional season. It's a little more surprising from Winokur, who has been through this grind already. But it's been a pretty rough August for Houston. Hopefully they can find a few days off for him and he can get his second (or third) wind. Not panicking; this happened to Culpepper too. Tait is doing pretty well. Still a huge upside for him and he's been hitting well for the last month. Be great if he finishes the season strong. He's got really ugly splits, so it'll be interesting to see if he learns to hit LHP or if he's a platoon bat going forward.

Lol, I don't think either was unfairly ended here, but I'm hardly surprised they both landed elsewhere. It was pretty funny the people around here who swore neither would work in baseball again...

He's not particularly good at any defensive position and is barely a league average hitter. He's literally gotten worse every year since becoming a regular. Cincy's cheap-ass ownership is going to pay him $6M in arbitration? I guess if we have a salary floor by then, maybe. It's great that Francona loves him, and I'm sure he's a good guy and all too. It doesn't mean he's a starting quality MLB player, or that because he's willing to run out and play a position that he's actually good at it. Cincy is a pretty bad team, despite some good starters and Steer is unlikely to help them improve much, unless you see a sudden renaissance at 29. His only defensive position is 1B and he doesn't hit enough to be an asset there.

The Varland trade was bad at the time, and is bad now, even if Rojas shows potential and is substantially younger and controllable/cheaper. It only really made sense if you were going for a more complete tear-down, in which case Falvey should have just traded Ryan as well. But even then it's looking poor: Roden looks like a Quad-A guy (even if he's mostly just the swap for France who wasn't sticking around) and Rojas has a lot of work before he gets to Varland's level. Hells bells, they even botched it with Rojas after they brought him over, forcing him up to AAA on scholarship as if to prove "no no no, trust us, this guy is great!" Now, the ranking for the Duran trade is too harsh. Abel was really looking like he could be a guy before going down with injury, and still has a very bright future as a rotation piece who could be a playoff caliber, front-line starter. Tait hasn't lit the world on fire, but the tools are impressive and he's very young. You have to show some patience there and downgrading the trade because he didn't immediately crush A-ball is short-sighted. This one could still pan out to the Twins advantage, and if Abel starts 25 games next season this trade grade changes drastically. The Stewart/Outman trade was fairly meaningless but ultimately bad...but not because the deal was all that terrible. Taking a flier on Outman was ok, and Stewart's health makes him too unreliable to ever count on in your bullpen. Has he pitched well this season? Sure, but he's hurt...again. The real failure on this was not cutting your losses on Outman after his awful 2025. Handing him a job this year, despite him being terrible, wasted a roster spot for far too long. The trade itself wasn't that horrible, really...but if it meant that the FO thought it had to keep trying to extract value from it into 2026 makes it a bad deal. I think the Castro deal is also treated a little unfairly: Castro was gone after the season, and flipping a rental (who was absolutely a rental for Chicago, especially after being terrible) for an asset that at least has some upside and could provide some depth in Gallagher is a solid deadline move for a team that was cooked. Sure, Gallagher still has control issues and may not make it. But Willi Castro, despite being a great dude, was never sticking around: we weren't going to pay him, nor should we have. This was a reasonable deal for pitching depth.

It definitely seemed to happen to Culpepper last season. There's a real adjustment that guys need to make to the rigors of the long pro season, and Houston might be hitting the wall. Hopefully he can get a few more days off and finish out strong. It shouldn't be a surprise and it's another reason why the people insisting he be promoted to AAA needed a cup of Calm Down Juice. Diaw had a very nice week and is having an excellent season. He's an intriguing prospect. Gonzalez and Young both had good hitting weeks as well; Young is definitely a guy who has tools that need polishing. He can make loud contact that makes you see why he was drafted where he was...and then have a week where he misses everything and you wonder if he'll ever get out of A-ball. We'll need to be patient with this guy. GG has been inconsistent this year; hopefully he can finish on a high note. He should be competing for a job in spring training next season if he can get back on track. I still like his RH bat?

Can't ask for much more than we've gotten from Kremer so far. Nice to see the trade deadline guys generally playing well and showing why they were acquired. Pretty good offensive showing. Could have had even more runs early, but nice to exit the LH starter early by clogging up the bases with runners. Would have liked to see Adams pitch better with such a big lead and Rogers could have been better as well, but these guys are probably now in the bottom 3 of the bullpen which is a much better position to be in. (Baltimore can't be happy with Garcia or Wolfram last night; the former faced 4 guys and retired none of them, and Wolfram immediately surrendered a 3-run dinger. ouch.) Interesting to see former Twins prospect CES get in a game; he was the prospect I thought we might really regret losing, but so far he really hasn't done much (injuries have been a problem too). Mahle might have busted out for us because of injury, but the "big prospect haul" we gave up was more suspects than prospects (Hajjar out of baseball, CES got sold for cash, and after a nice rookie season Steer has turned into a utility player who probably won't be offered arbitration...)

I doubt the Mets asked for Jenkins in any conversation for Minter, unless they were obviously joking, because they didn't want the Twins hanging up on them and saying "these people are disconnected with reality" to everyone else around the league too. There's aiming high and then there's being insulting. Literally no team does that trade, even Dombrowski, who never saw a prospect he wouldn't deal, would have laughed at that and called them stupid. The different between Neto and Minter as a trade chip is night and day. Come on. I wouldn't have sent out Jenkins in a package for Neto either. With Culpepper and Houston both looking so good, I'm unclear why the Twins were supposedly so in on Neto, but either way, Jenkins was never going to be the centerpiece for that kind of deal: it would have had to have been Culpepper or Houston as the prime piece and that's probably not enough from the Angel's perspective. Now, the Angels have been terrible in almost every aspect , so who knows?

Diaw is having a wonderful season. Really liking what we're seeing from his hit tool. I think there's a little more pop to unlock as he matures, but with his athleticism if he could stick at catcher or play CF? He's lining himself to be in AAA at the start of 2027. Gotta feel good about his trajectory right now.

A very nice win. Good to see the offense get it done against a good LHP. They really tried to stack up the RH bats and it paid off. Bell and Lewis were stinging the ball and we definitely needed it. Did it lead to a less than optimal defensive alignment? It did, but that's the way it goes. With Lee scrabbling at the plate there weren't exactly a lot of other choices. Could they have swapped in Larnach in OF to get Clemens back at 2B and Lewis at 1B? Sure, but would that have made that much difference? I did like how Clemens pushed a bunt, considering how cold he's been lately. He was bunting for a hit, with the secondary bonus of moving runners up and he's been rough against LHP. Culpepper did fine. A little rocky on D, but on a couple of the plays where he couldn't find it the likelihood of him actually getting the runner was pretty low. The double play he hit into looked like a rookie not waiting for his pitch after ripping a homer. But the homer looked great! There's going to be some bumps, but I think he'll be fine. Great to get that first hit out of the way. He's got the first game done and it should smooth out some nerves. (man, his family looked so damn happy out there! was nice.) Not a great outing from Zebby. Left too many pitches out over the plate, wasn't finishing guys off well enough...but he gutted through it without a lot of help from the D. Bullpen on the other hand stepped up. Made it a little nervous, but the results were great.

It's tough for him in two different measures. 1) he's not on the 40-man. Not a huge issue right now (there's room to maneuver there) but it is a thing. 2) he literally can't play anywhere other than 1B or DH, making him duplicative of Josh Bell from a position standpoint. That's tough when teams carry 13 pitchers. Now, could Sabato contribute more than Alex Jackson? I would argue yes. But his role would be start against the short side of a platoon, pinch hit, and maybe get a little more run to rest a guy like Bell if he's not hitting? Give Lewis another day off or Clemens if Lewis slides to 2B? It's not a huge role. But it's at least interesting. I dunno if Sabato will get a shot in MN, but someone will take a look at him now. And props to him for continuing to grind, make adjustments, improve, and give himself a chance, especially after everyone, and I mean everyone (myself included) calling him a bust. I respect the heck out of a guy who in the face of all that, with real adversity in the minors, fought through it trying to realize his potential. Baseball is damnably hard. I dunno if Sabato can really make it in MLB (they say the gap between AAA and MLB is as big as it's ever been) and I'm sure some people can't stand the idea of seeing him up with the Twins (either because he's a Falvey pick, or because he's a guy who swings big and K's a lot) but I think it would be a heck of a story if he got a look and he might have something to add. Rooting for the dude. prove me and everyone else who called you a bust wrong. Make us look like the dumbass keyboard klowns we are. :P

You would hope, but there have been people pushing Houston like crazy this season because he's had an excellent half year. Houston is a 2027 player (and I say that as someone who likes him) but you'll never convince some people. I'm excited to have Culpepper up. It's the right move, and he's got real skills and potential. Hopefully people won't immediately quit on him if he doesn't light world up his first week. That said, here's hoping he crushes it out the gate! Wouldn't that be fun?

I don't think the Twins are that worried about trying to close a RoY award. It's the most random award around. If Culpepper hadn't gotten hurt, he probably would have been up even earlier. I think they've been looking at him as being with the team at midseason for some time and the injury almost certainly got in the way of that. YMMV on whether they kept him in AAA too long (I say yes, but I'm an idiot at a keyboard) after coming back, but this has been coming for a while IMHO.

As a general rule, I prefer that the Twins not invest substantial resources in the bullpen, but the sell-off last season was so extreme that they literally had no choice unless they were planning on a full-on rebuild. Which would have been a waste IMHO (too many good prospects near MLB, would have driven Buxton out of town, would have driven the interest down even further, and frankly wouldn't have had any better odds of success in bringing a title here really. Would have saved the Pohlads a bunch of money. screw that). While it's a bummer to give up a prospect like Hill, who has big upside (and bust bust capacity as well), we neither added a rental or a marginal player. We've rebuild the bullpen enough in 1 season to no longer look at it as a disaster, but even a potential strength...and without committing too much in terms of dollars to it either. There's not going to be a single arm in there they're paying $10M+, and Hoffman will likely be the most expensive arm with his discounted salary. That's a good place to be in. I liked the fact that they were willing to strike early. I prefer to see flexibility from a front office in how they approach things like this. Don't wait too long and hope something falls in your lap...but don't overpay early either. I hated it when Terry Ryan would rush to finish out his wishlist early and we'd end up with a lesser player filling a role as much as it sucked watching every good player at a position of need came off the board under Falvey. You have to be able to read the market and take risks going both directions in order to get the best value and best fits. Hopefully Zoll, under Pom Tohlad can do that. I'm not ready to declare a big shift in attitude around payroll and taking on money. It's a lot easier for the Twins to take on $5-7M in salary after they've chopped off $40M from the payroll already. I doubt we take on any money if the payroll is sitting up at $150M, but YMMV. I think they had a pretty good trade deadline, and get a little credit for doing what they said they would do if in this position, and filling the needs they said they would try and fill. But it's a little credit. Not full faith and credit. And not necessarily a signal that they've made that significant a shift in philosophy.

YES! this is excellent news. Looking forward to seeing what he can do. Hope they plan to start him basically every day. Kreidler is best suited to be a utility guy (and his ability to play quality CF defense is great) It make take a little time; I'm trying to not get ahead of my skis on Culpepper, but I am excited to see what he can do. I think he could be a really good player.

Have you really never experienced it when your boss changes and the new guy wants to go in a different direction? The difference between being the head of the division vs still reporting to someone else? It's sports so fans love to declare the GM incompetent and expect instant gratification, but...whatever.