jmlease1

It's definitely odd. Wallner was excellent for the Twins. Equally confusing to me are the people who are putting Lewis back in the outfield: the team has said clearly that he's staying on the infield next season as well, so we should all stop with any roster construction that puts Royce in the OF. He's not going to play there absent an emergency and they're 100% NOT going to set up any plan for the season that expects him to play there. He might move to 2nd if they think having him there and Lee at 3rd is the best alignment in the future, but until Lee shoves his way up to MLB, I would expect Lewis to start the season at 3B.

All three of these players could be factors for the Twins next season. I'd add a 4th: Jair Camargo, in part because the bat has really developed and in part because it just seems unlikely the Twins will beat the odds and only use 2 catchers next season. I'm a huge Brooks Lee fan, but I'm not interested in dumping Polanco to hand Lee a position. He played well last season, but his bat didn't exactly dominate last year, especially in AAA, certainly not enough to hand him a starting job in MLB from Day One. No scholarships; if he's good enough to win the job, go out and win the job by looking great in spring training, destroying AAA, and forcing his way onto the roster. Martin is a player I find very interesting. He gets on base, he's a quality baserunner who will get steals, he's got good contact skills, and he can play all 3 OF positions and 2B. The RH bat makes him a nice fit as a 4th OF, but it would be a real risk to make him the backup CF out the gate. We don't know how well he's going to hit in MLB. Severino is a player whose development makes me feel comfortable about not needing to get 1B depth behind Kirilloff, if he's slow to recover from surgery in the offseason. He's going to K way more than some will find acceptable, but the ball explodes off his bat and he's got the hit tool to be successful. I haven't liked his D at 3B, and I think 1B is where his future is, but that's ok. His switch-hitting makes him a little more interesting and could increase his value. Depth was hugely important for the Twins in 2023; players like this make me hopeful it will be a strength again.

I'm still on Team SWR. He didn't have a great year in AAA and didn't take a step forward in 2023, but he's still very talented and has the stuff and pitches to be able to succeed. His biggest issue right now seems to be consistency: he has these stretches where he's a mess, then he puts together a run like he did for the end of the season where you see exactly why he's been a top prospect. Some of his success comes from having the different release point, which probably makes it a little challenging to tinker with his mechanics. You don't want to get away from that release that gives him deception and difference. If they can incorporate his legs a little better, add a little more velocity, that could give him a little more room to execute and might help him be more consistent? I think 2024 is going to be an important year for SWR because he's likely to get an opportunity in MLB if he's healthy and pitching well. How he responds to that placement will show some things about his development and potential. Right now he's probably 6th or 7th on the starter depth chart (I think 7th behind Festa right now, but he also could easily be the first call up from AAA, assuming Varland is in the MLB rotation or bullpen from the jump). I was expecting him to throw more in MLB in 2023, mostly because I figured the Twins would need more starters, but the reality was they didn't really need him. I think they will in 2024, and I think he can do the job.

I'm still on Team SWR and believe in his talent. but 2024 will be a big year for him: either he figures it out as a starter, or he's going to be heading to the bullpen. Right now he's still arguably 7th on the depth chart for Twins starting pitching (assuming Gray and Maeda are gone and Varland doesn't move permanently into the bullpen), which is a position I would have felt better about a year ago. I think the control issues were his biggest problem last season; it'll be interesting to see if there might have been a mechanical flaw that they can iron out over the winter? He did finish the season in better shape, with 7 straight starts going 5 of better, but he also only had one game the entire season where he went more than 6. Saint Paul was a tough environment for pitchers though. Prielipp was a risky pick, but it was worth a shot. Hopefully the Twins will be able to get him rehabbed and be able to see who he still might be as a pitcher before they have to make decisions on him via Rule 5. You have to push him down the ranks, but he was still a player worth taking a risk on. Salas was always probably ranked a little too high? He's still really young, at least. I can't see him getting protected from the Rule 5 draft and there's seemingly no way he gets tapped. He's nowhere near ready for MLB and wouldn't even contribute much defensively. If the three biggest fallers on a prospect chart are a guy with a significant injury, an A-ball guy who was something of a throw-in on a trade, and a AAA pitcher who has still thrown in the majors...I feel ok about the overall state of the minors.

It's really good news for both the Twins and for Kirilloff. Much more likely that we don't need to invest significant resources in 1B depth in the off-season and can stay focused on improving the rotation, strengthening the bullpen, and ensuring that we're covered in CF. Kirilloff has hit when he's been healthy. It looks like they've finally solved the wrist problem through the Kirk Gibson surgery he had done last season, and this shoulder issue was relatively minor. His history means the Twins have to be prepared for him potentially missing time during the season, but we also have good internal options to support in Julien, Miranda, and Severino to provide depth. There's few bench spots available on this roster because the Twins will carry 13 pitchers (even when their starters are going long enough consistently enough that that last man in the bullpen doesn't pitch more than once a week at best), so there's only room for 4 bench jobs, and 1 goes to a backup catcher (Vazquez), 1 goes to a backup SS/INF (Castro/Farmer), 1 goes to a 4th OF who can play CF (Taylor again?), so there's not a lot of space for anyone else.

It feels like an overpay, and it almost certainly is...but it wouldn't be catastrophic just because it's a 1-year deal, you know? I don't think I'd go there, in part because I have no idea how well Maeda can hold up through a full season any longer and whether or not he'd actually be a superior performer to Louie Varland...but it's not crazy, exactly. I'd rather try and bring him back on a smaller deal than overpay him by $6-8M, because he feels like a guy who is going to get a 1 year $15M deal or like 2/$24 with year 2 being some kind of mutual option based on appearances or something...

Festa is on a really good track right now. I expect to see him working in AAA to hone a 3rd pitch and get deeper into games, both of which will be needed for him to succeed in MLB. He's got some great tools and his performance has been strong. I've been a big Rosario booster for some time, and he had a great season. he's still very young, and I think his experience in the AFL will help him. He's going to have to keep working on his contact skills, but the ball definitely explodes off the bat and he's going to get opportunities to show his talent. It's exciting to see a player of his youth develop quickly so that you start to know who they are and have them in the upper minors before they need to go on the 40-man. Schobel...well, we'll see. He should have dominated high A, and he did. He might be one of those players who adjusts when he repeats a level, and those guys can have success too.

This sounds like very good news for Kirilloff, and should increase the odds that he is rehabbed and ready to go by Spring Training. There are no guarantees, but this is unquestionably a less severe injury than if he needed repair on the labrum or rotator cuff. I'm going to guess that come the winter meetings, the Twins will have a much better idea of his progress and what level of depth they'll need to have in place. This also makes me think even more strongly that an in-house option for depth is more more likely than a significant free agent, but we will see. Miranda's recovery will probably influence this to some degree as well; if the indicators are that he'll be fully rehabbed before Spring Training that would make an external depth option even less needed, which would allow for resources to stay focused on CF (they simply can't go into the season planning on Buxton playing a full year there), the rotation, and the bullpen. Good news for Kirilloff, who needed some luck to go his way.

It's not out of the question. And it would be amazing! We will have to keep in mind that prospects don't always move in a linear fashion and there may be bumps along the way even for someone as elite a prospect as Jenkins, and even if he stays healthy (which is never a guarantee). But Buxton debuted in his age 21 season... He's fabulously talented and should be really fun to track through the minors. Seems like a good dude who has his head on straight too.

I would think. If he continues to rake, they'll move him up to High A closer to midseason when the weather warms up. I could even see him get a cup of coffee in AA at the end of the season if he keeps rolling. I think the Twins won't hold him back, but they're also only going to be as aggressive as his performance warrants.

Odorizzi did some good things for the Twins, but he's very much a "5 and Fly" pitcher even when he's healthy, and he hasn't had a great track record of health the last several years. On a minor league deal? Sure, he'd be nice depth to have in AAA if he's reasonably healthy, but I suspect he's not interested in anything but a MLB deal and I'd prefer we not go in the bargain bin for a 5th starter over Varland. I mean, that should be the minimum standard for a FA pitcher: better than Varland (and I'd like them to think more about ceiling than floor). Hicks would be interesting if I felt more confident about his ability to play CF. yes, he played about half his games there last season and the O's ran him out there quite a bit...but his D wasn't good and he's only been a quality defender out there once in his last 4 years. If we bring in an OF, they're going to have to be capable of playing CF without worry, like Michael A. Taylor did this year, as insurance against Buxton getting hurt again. It's too risky to rely on Castro to be the backup CF all the time, despite him doing yeoman's work out there and learning the position on the fly. The bat might be a solid fit, but the glove seems a little too iffy. Sano is a flat-out no. Twins have better options in-house to fill 1B and there's just no reason to bring back a guy who flunked out here and didn't play last season at all. I don't even want him on a minor league deal; would much rather have Severino get that time in AAA learning 1B.

I do think there's more opportunity for stolen bases with the Twins, now that they have players capable of swiping more bags. Buxton will still probably limited in how often they want him running early next season; he's had too many issues with his knees and hip for them to be enthusiastic about letting him go. Julien in where I expect to see him running more: he was a good base-stealer in AA, but an excellent one in A-ball, so I would think with the rule changes he could do quite well in MLB. If Martin joins the team, I would expect to see him running as well, but he might not get the early nod; if Michael A. Taylor comes back (or they sign someone similar) I'm not sure there will be a place for him. Taylor can certainly swipe the occasional bag of course. I do think the Twins will explore this space more with Julien being more established, but more because they're getting more players that have actual ability at it.

I think it's too small a sample size to really make any significant determinations about most of the Twins hitters. Royce Lewis is immensely talented and it's wonderful to see him healthy enough to show it. He fears no one and nothing, but will have to keep working to ensure he doesn't expand the strike zone and continue developing his pitch recognition so he doesn't go a-chasin'. But that was on his list regardless of the playoffs (his BABIP this season was awfully high, for example) We'll see on Julien and Wallner, but there were encouraging signs: both continued to show real patience at the plate, which is impressive for young hitters in pressure situations. Julien did better in making contact, but that's always been the concern for Wallner: will he make enough contact to be a consistent threat? Jeffers is interesting: he had a great season overall, and really improved at the plate. He struggled mightily in the playoffs, but it might have just been bad matchups for him, he might have been a little worn down, or it might just be small sample size. His improvement for a full season is more probative than a handful of playoff games to me, but he still needs to show he can sustain his effectiveness against righties. There's plenty of talent in the lineup to be a playoff contender, but it'll need some better healthy and a little luck. Sounds like baseball.

No, but the TV market has changed a fair bit as well and sports packages like this are struggling to command the same kind of rates from cable companies that they used to. It's not that the market size has changed but the delivery methods and control that cable used to have to command bigger fees is falling apart. Look at the number of people who are "cutting the cord", because the cable companies sure are when Bally or the equivalent demands a kicker for being on a certain tier. Now, if they properly manage their streaming rights as part of this contract, it could make up for significant drops in fees for the cable rights...but streaming fees have been pretty volatile lately. And beyond that it means they're adding an additional channel that doesn't really generate more revenue, but instead is trying to make up for losses in old revenue. Again, I still think the Twins generate enough revenue and are backed by a substantially wealthy ownership that can easily afford to maintain a payroll in the $150M range. But the collapse of the RSNs through colossal mismanagement by Sinclair (and some seriously shady business moves) is a real problem for any team that was generating TV revenue this way. (going to be very interesting to see how the Wolves and Wild navigate out of this as well)

What else does he have to do to show he's elite? His stuff is filthy, he's really hard to hit, he keeps the ball in the ballpark, he racks up Ks with ease...he's an absolute monster out there, as good as anyone in the league.

Questions: Do you wonder if anything could have been done differently to protect your arm earlier in your career? What's the biggest challenge coming back from such a significant injury? Have you started to consider whether a move to the bullpen might be in your best interest? Talented dude, very difficult to hit in the limited innings of his professional career. Sucks that his opportunities have been so limited by injury. Rooting for him to get healthy.

Anyone else do a quick check to see if their time overlapped with the Twins? (spoiler: they did not: Serafini was gone by the time Mohr came over from CLE) Yuck, yuck and more yuck.

You are drastically overestimating how much additional revenue the Twins generated from 4 home playoff games. While I still believe the Twins can support a payroll around $150M if they get something reasonable settled with the TV contract, presuming they generated $15-25M in playoff revenue is going to give people an inflated expectation of what playoff baseball means for payroll. (remember, if they take deposits/advance sales on games that aren't played, that money has to be refunded or applied to next year's season ticket balance) The playoffs helps, but they're probably more in the $8-10M range for revenue, which is also gross revenue, not net. (as in, they still have to pay the costs of putting on the games)

agreed. Which is why Luplow will probably go and Gordon and Alcala will get arbitration offers. We know they like Alcala and Gordon and $1M in arbitration is nothing in the big picture. It would be another matter if they were due to get $3M or $6M in arbitration, but they're not, so it's only going to come down to the 40-man or the 26-man spots. Right now, Alcala and Gordon have value, even with their injury season(s) and the Twins aren't going to dump assets until they absolutely have to.

I have no idea how he got a nod as a Gold Glove finalist; he hasn't been a quality defender in 5 years, including this one. And Rosario was 2-12 in this year's playoffs (both of which were in a loss), so let's calm down about him coming up in big moments. Twins have adequately replaced him in LF, with Matt Wallner, and produced more value before that with Larnach and Kirilloff. The only way to say they haven't is to pretend that 2018 Eddie Rosario was the same guy in 2019 and 2020...and he wasn't. The reason people like me keep banging back every time someone brings up Rosario like this is we're tired of the fiction. He was a pretty good player with the Twins who had some solid seasons in his prime, and as he slowed down and didn't improve his patience at the plate became less reliable and valuable overall, which happened to coincide with him becoming more expensive. That's not hating on Rosario, that's just fact. I really like the possibilities of Miranda plus Julien filling in if Kirilloff isn't ready to go. It means Severino doesn't get pushed before he's ready, and keeps a depth piece in place, but also gives another opportunity to a player whose struggles last season were clearly tied to injury. Miranda has shown flashes of real ability and as a RH-bat can help protect some of our LH hitters. A little positional flexibility for Julien will help keep his bat in the lineup as well.

Moving Vazquez would be a poor choice. Because of his contract coming off a poor offensive season, he's not going to bring anything significant back, so all it would be is a salary dump...and even then the Twins would have to eat a decent portion of the contract to get someone else to take him off their hands, so how much do you really save? And then you need to get a backup in place, because even if you want to ride Jeffers a little more heavily you just can't count on a catcher going more than 120 games these days. If they go with Carmago for that role, they have no options if he's not ready to handle it, and pretty screwed if Jeffers goes down with injury. Might they look to move Vazquez after next season, if Carmago looks ready/continues to show things? Sure. And hopefully at that point he's rebounded a little more value on the offensive side and on an expiring deal would be much easier to move: not much risk in a 1-year deal. The defense is still good from Vazquez, and he can be a quality backup for Jeffers next season that can add more value than this season. If they really need to save payroll, Farmer or Polanco are more likely options to be dealt: both would bring back a better return and could be moved without having to retain any of their salary, and both are in positions of better depth from the team.

They really didn't. He was maybe the 7th best regular on that team. It has nothing to do with liking him or not (I actually liked Eddie quite a bit when he was a Twin). And regardless: he wouldn't be playing 1B for the Twins even if he was somehow still here, so throwing his name around in a discussion of who fills in at 1B if Kirilloff's injury pushes his recovery into next season is just weird. Twins 100% made the right call in declining to offer him arbitration, and it's worked out just fine for them.

It's definitely an issue, because it means his superior arm doesn't play as well. Correa used to be able to position himself deeper to get to more balls and use his arm to gun them out. The rule change favors quicker/faster players (and hitters, a little). I do think one thing keeping Correa's defensive reputation high is the lack of errors and that lack of big play creation for the other team via a major gaffe or wild throw. And that certainly matters: even if you're not getting to more balls, not making mistakes (especially in big situations) really does make a difference...but it's probably a bit harder to quantify because you can't presume that every throwing error leads to a big inning by the other team. I think it's likely his numbers tick up next season if the plantar fasciitis is no longer an issue, but with the rule changes limiting his positioning, it's going to put a ceiling on how much it goes up. He's still more than solid there defensively, and it's awfully nice to have that level of consistency even if he might not be adding as much high end defensive value any longer.

There's no wrong answer: these are all great! I think if I had to pick one it's either Royce's first Grand Salami or Wallner's GS. Goodness, those were big-time no-doubters. Maybe there's a little extra spark when it's a rookie doing it?

I think this regime values depth and is making it a priority to have players with positional flexibility and ensuring that the team is giving as few innings and ABs to bad players as possible. I do think they have a preference for veterans in bench roles over young players and believe in rotation depth. They're definitely less interested in investing money in the bullpen; they'll put assets in there, but I wouldn't expect to see big contracts handed out to anything beyond retaining someone like Duran. It will be interesting to see how the front office looks to have similar depth options in 2024 to what they did in 2023; I think they have more internal options this season than they thought they had at this point last season, and definitely more than they had in 2022. That may impact their thinking on how to approach free agency and the trade market. yes, there's still a bit of a glut of infielders on this roster, but there are also guys with injury histories. I think they're likely to try and add another starter, either through retaining Gray/Maeda, if they can make the contract terms work, and if not I can definitely see them looking for another guy, so as not to put too many eggs in Chris Paddack's basket and/ot Louie Varland's. It's not an indictment on either player, I just think they assume they're going to need at least 7-10 guys making starts to get through a season, and are more comfortable having another veteran in the rotation rather than rolling the dice on Varland/SWR/Festa being ready on Opening Day or coming in when someone gets a ding and needs 2-3 weeks off. that plus, they know that while they had excellent health from starters this season overall, they still had 8 pitchers make 5 or more starts...and right now I have no idea who that 8th guy would be for the Twins. Randy Dobnak? He was healthy, but not good in AAA. Winder, Sands, and Balazovic sure look like they're transitioned to the bullpen, though it's still possible one of them could get tried again in a starting role.