jmlease1

Players also want to play. There's opportunity to do that in MN (boy howdy is there opportunity). Sure, you get a more likely chance to contend by going to the biggest spenders (Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, etc) but they also don't have opportunities for 6-7 positions. Are the Brewers or Mariners more likely to be able to sign someone this off-season? Sure are...if they'll pay. If MKE brings everyone back and looks to buy to improve the squad, they'll have one of the best chances to win for anyone in baseball. But how many players will take any kind of discount to go play there? They'll need to pay fair market value. The biggest reason teams at the bottom payroll don't sign significant free agents is a) they're in tank mode and not trying, and 2) they simply don't spend. Tampa is frequently good, but they basically never sign anyone. Money isn't the only thing, but the idea that the Twins couldn't possibly sign anyone without massive overpays is simply wrong. Will ownership authorize a payroll that makes it possible to get quality free agents? Will the front office make the right choices? Different issue. But they can sign good players if they pay for them.

Pay them and they will come. Pretty much no one is taking a discount to come here, but if the Twins offer market rate they won't have trouble signing players. The issue is, they won't offer market rate, at least not for significant free agents. The front office won't have the budget to sign any stars, so they won't sign any stars. Despite the issues on the roster and things looking dim for 2026 (unless some prospects show out early), player will still come here to play. If the money is right. The organizational leadership may be terrible at business, dreadful at PR, and staggeringly tone-deaf with the fans, but they've got a good reputation around the league for taking care of players and their families. Target Field is a great park to play in. Twins Cities in the summer isn't a barrier. It will simply come down to money.

I would like to see evidence that Festa is recovered from his thorassic outlet syndrome issues before I count on him for anything this season. I get that they have this as the "good" kind with the least impact, least invasive treatment, and least recovery time, but it's still effin' thorassic outlet syndrome.

Reasonable picks. one of these guys pushes Funderburk down to the 2nd LHP in the bullpen and lower leverage roles unless/until he proves himself capable of handling more. It would be a good start and shouldn't cost too much. I'd probably rank them as listed: Coulombe, Rogers, Thielbar in terms of preference (I guess I'm more nervous that age will smack Thielbar harder than I am about Coulombe's injury history, but I could certainly be convinced to flip 'em) Still will need 2 RH relievers capable of handling some high leverage work, but it should be possible to get the bullpen back from "staggeringly dreadful and predictably useless" to "functional and possibly reliable" without breaking the bank. My general preference is to build your bullpens internally, but they stripped things down so far that's simply not realistic, even with some potential options available in the organization.

never let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to crap all over Falvey. :P

I'd say the Pirates had slightly more success after Shelton was fired, it's not like Don Kelly turned them around and taught them how to hit all of a sudden. They still had plenty of 8-game losing streaks and still weren't even a .500 team under Kelly. Did Shelton "deserve" to keep his job? Deserve's got nothin' to do with it. (tm Clint Eastwood) Did Kelly's tenure so far significant change anything for the Pirates? Doesn't really look like it. If they add some hitting and don't trade Skenes, they'll be better in 2026. If they deal Skenes and/or don't improve the offense, they'll be 5th in the NL Central again. (likely regardless, unless you think StL is on a bigger downswing) I've never been all that impressed with the performative nonsense of managers screaming and yelling or the idea that you need the manager to be the dugout hype man in order to inspire players to do better. It probably makes some fans feel better when things are going badly and you're desperate for someone to do something, anything...but when was the last time you felt more inspired at work when your boss chewed your ass out? I'll be curious to see what Shelton does to try and improve the defense and baserunning with the roster, how he manages a bullpen, and whether or not he'll stick to the Rocco-era trick of pulling a guy in the middle innings to try and get the big inning using the platoon advantage then, and risk it going the other way late. (I think that was seriously overused and worked against the team more than it ever helped, by YMMV) I'll be very interested if anyone can get any real intel on how Shelton's staff will be put together and whether he'll be forced to keep anyone he doesn't want, or denied bringing in someone he doesn't. (I'm sure some people will be certain that he's going to be "forced" to keep anyone that carries over form Rocco's staff, but it's not necessarily true and it could very much be completely false. But I think it's going to be very difficult to find out for sure; Twins don't leak on this stuff often)

I mean, it's fair to say that Pittsburgh has been a far bigger mess than the Twins, with fewer assets, worse player development, etc. But it's also reasonable to wonder if Shelton is the right guy to help players reach their potential in MLB, and there's not a lot of evidence from the Pittsburgh time. Is it just because Pittsburgh sucked out loud and gave him nothing to work with until Skenes? I suppose some of this depends on how much responsibility Baldelli and the most recent Twins MLB staff should take for players like Miranda & Julien flaming out, Larnach not developing further, Lee struggling, Festa & Matthews being inconsistent, etc. If you think Rocco & Co are responsible for that falling apart, then you probably think Shelton should have done more for the Pirates? We'll see. He seems ok to me, but the real issue is going to be the roster. I suspect he will have little to no honeymoon from some because a) he was hired by Falvey, b) he's probably not going to start bunting a lot, c) he's still going to use analytics to inform on-field decision-making, and d) will pull starting pitching before the 7th.

The 31 starts and 178 2/3 innings in 2024 suggest otherwise. he might miss a little time through the course of a season, but it's pretty reasonable to expect 25-30 starts from him. It's going to be very interesting to see where Ober lands next season; there's a case to be made that the loss of velocity or the lack of sharpness in commanding his pitches or both are what pulled him down last season and figuring out how to alleviate that is the real issue for him. I was looking at the contrast in his seasons between 2024 and 2025 through the lens of Game Score, and where Ober really fell off this past season was in those high quality starts, anything with a Game Score of 55 or higher, which generally gives you a starting pitching performance that gives your team an excellent chance to win, and probably has the pitcher exiting either tied or with a lead. Ober had 19 of those in 2024, and only 12 in 2025. The poor starts (anything with a Game Score equal to or under 40 remained the same (6 each), and there wasn't much difference in the ones in between either (6 in 2024 and 8 in 2025). Even the truly awful blowups were basically the same (Game Score of under 30 was 4 in 2024 and 3 in 2025) Not getting as many of those high-end starts is what really dragged Ober's season down; he only had 1 with a Game Score over 70 in 2025 (his last start of the year, in fact), while he had 9 of them in 2024. Finding those stellar starts again might require getting back a little of that velocity AND the command to go with a sinker? I'm certainly not ready to give up on Ober, and trying to trade him now would be a classic case of selling low. If they can get the hip right in the offseason it might make a world of difference.

Were they really all that much better? They were 13 games out of first when Shelton was fired, and finished the season 26 games back. They won 6 out of 8 at the end of the season to fluff the record a bit. They did a little better under Don Kelly, but it's not like he transformed them or anything once the yoke of Shelton was removed. I don't think crediting Shelton for the success of a generational talent makes a great deal of sense, but he didn't mess him up. Is it Shelton's fault they only had 1 hitter on the whole team who wasn't below average?

Doubtful. There are so few MLB managerial jobs, and while 4-7 of them open up every year there's a LOT of people who want one, and more than few that will bet one themselves rather than take a pass because it's not perfect enough for them. Plus, once you get in the door, you can add "MLB managerial experience" to the resume. And while the Cheap Pohlads are cheap, the cost of a manager isn't that significant. Or do you really think people interviewing for the job were demanding $4M AAV on a guaranteed 5 year deal?

I think the biggest complaint people are making about Shelton (that he's going to be nothing but a yes-man for Falvey) is one you could make for any hire made by this front office. Since ownership decided to keep Falvey & Co, they were the ones making the hire. You never know about this stuff. Sometimes the guys who flunked out in the first managerial role excel in their next one. Sometimes they flunk it again. At the end of the day, it's going to be more about the roster, the players, and how healthy the team is for how successful Shelton is. He wasn't my first choice, but he's not a disqualifying or embarrassing one. Hope he learned some things in Pittsburgh (what not to do , if nothing else).

Let me be clear: I didn't think it was crazy to take a shot on Outman this year. Next year? That's a different story. Keeping Outman looks like throwing good money after bad. If he sticks on the roster, we're likely to see him hitting poorly, playing little, and wasting a roster spot for months even if (as is likely) one of Rodriguez, Jenkins, or Gonzalez is ripping it up, especially if Larnach is still on the roster. There are 5 hitters on the roster that out-performed Larnach last season: Buxton, Jeffers, Keaschall, Wallner, and Martin. Larnach unfortunately, was closer to Kody Clemens than he was to any of the others (99 OPS+ vs 96). Martin may have only gotten 50 games, but did well, showing real improvement and value in LF, an ability to get on base and do things with his legs (some of them not so great, but it is what it is). Roden still has options, so the Twins could elect to start him back in AAA with all of the other high upside OFs they have piling up there, but picking Outman over any of them at this point seems more like ego than intelligence to me. While I don't dislike Larnach particularly, his limitations (adding nothing defensively or on the bases) added to his seemingly limited upside and increasing cost makes him almost a liability. I'd prefer to start filtering some of the OF talent from AAA sooner rather than later.

Or they simply can't communicate how they were able to do something to players with lesser talent. One of the biggest issues today is the stars have made so much money, they don't need the job or the income. Many of them already have other business interests that are more impactful on their lives. (Torii Hunter might make more off his BBQ empire than he would as a MLB manager)

It's possible for them to drop the payroll all the way down to the $65-70M range, but even for the Cheap Pohlads and their terrible mismanagement of the business aspects of baseball, that seems unlikely. If you take their words (leaked and otherwise) at face value, they were claiming a loss of $30M was pending on a payroll of $142M. Again, if you presume they're being honest about wiping out the team's debt with the addition of limited partners, that should take $12M off the books at a minimum (presuming a favorable 3% interest rate on the $400M in debt). If $112M was the break-even point in 2025 and you're taking $12M of costs off the books, you could assume a payroll in the $120-125M range would be supportable without losing money on an annual basis. (let me be clear: under no circumstances to I think anyone should ever believe a professional sports owner when they make claims about their money unless you have the books in front of you and a forensic account by your side...and even then, you should probably get a second opinion) Now, I'm quite certain that season ticket and ticket package sales are in the dumpster right now and attendance will be substantially lower than last season's poor showing, but even then it should take additional bungling for the team to lose money on a payroll of $110M. It's certainly possible, of course: they've botched the business of baseball even more than the on-field product over the past 30 years. I would guess the floor is somewhere in the $105-110M range, with an upper limit of $125M. But with the Pohlads at the helm, anything is possible. I'd hardly be shocked if they forced a Pablo trade and tried to sell the fanbase that we should be happy they "let" the front office spend back up to $95M. We've come to expect tone-deaf and clueless statements from them for sure.

With Roden on the roster and Jenkins and Rodriguez in AAA (or maybe in MLB) you don't really need to bring in a Margot or Bader to cover CF, do you? (not that bringing in Bader was a bad decision; he worked out quite nicely, and arguably had the best season of his career) And keeping Outman is dangerous because of his lack of options. This team is terrible (and to be fair, most teams are like this) at cutting their losses if a player isn't performing and cutting them from the MLB roster means they are likely gone from the organization. Teams chase getting value back from under-performing players constantly and for every 2023 Max Kepler there's at least one 2023 Joey Gallo. Beyond that, Outman's defense in CF looked shaky and the metrics on his defense have backed that up. The fear of Outman getting 300 horrible AB's is not crazy. Larnach provides an ok floor as a hitter at least. Backing Outman is like trying to convince people that Ed Julien's rookie season is still more determinative than his last two seasons. (And I was on Team Julien) Outman is in a very similar spot.

The fear that the organization will keep Outman is not a great reason for keeping Larnach. Larnach is definitely better than Outman at this point, a much better and more consistent hitter. Whatever else Outman offers (much better defense, potential speed on the bases) doesn't make up for it because he appears to be completely lost as a hitter. While I disagreed with the trade at the time, and still think it was a mistake even with Stewart getting injured almost immediately, taking a shot on fixing Outman in the second half of a lost season isn't in and of itself a crazy idea; the guy was 3rd in Rookie of the Year in 2023, so you never know. But he was awful in 2024 and worse in 2025. At his age and with these results, he looks like a Quad-A player. I'd keep Larnach over Outman for sure. But with our self-imposed payroll limitations from crappy ownership, I'd move on from Larnach too. Outman should be a candidate for a minor league deal after being cut, and keeping him to justify a trade is more sunk cost fallacy from this front office and another reason to move on from them.

I've been on the fence on Klein. Just not sure what his pathway is considering how many baserunners he allows, as noted in the article. I suspect he'd be more effective as a short outing reliever, and I certainly believe in giving starters who clawed up to the high minors a shot at relieving before moving on, so I'd lean towards protecting Klein. I think there's enough chaff to be culled off the 40-man (things open up further if guys like Outman and aren't around) to make room for someone who could be of use. (and I think this is why CJ Culpepper gets protected as well: both he and Klein are guys that could be stashed in a bullpen for a season and I could easily see a team taking a shot at them to see what they can get out of sticking them in the bullpen. They certainly wouldn't be attached to keeping them in a rotation) I'd rather keep someone like Klein at the back of the 40-man than a retread like Genesis Cabrera.

I'm guessing Mendez is hurt. He'd have to be to miss an entire week? Been a tough haul for Winokur and Amick. Neither have been able to use the AFL as much of a springboard into next season, which is a bummer. Boadas has done well, but 6 BBs in 10 innings isn't sustainable.

You have Outman on this roster? Good god, why?!? He's been dreadful for 2 seasons in a row at the plate and his defense has slipped to where I'd rather have Martin play backup CF (and I don't really want that) than him. There's zero competition there.

How are we getting those players on the roster to actually get ABs if we're keeping Larnach? Maybe your argument is really keep Larnach over Wallner? Personally, I would keep the cheaper one who at least has a defensive asset (his arm) and has produced at much higher levels previously as a hitter, but it's an argument. I'd like a full-time DH to produce at higher levels than Larnach, and the team's defense would improve if neither Larnach or Wallner were patrolling out there regularly. Did Roden play well enough to deserve being handed a job? No, but it's not uncommon for players to struggle in the first taste of MLB, and he may be able to handle CF, at least as a backup. Roden, Rodriguez, Jenkins, Gonzalez all have higher ceilings at this point than Larnach; is it really that useful to the Twins to win 76 games with Larnach and 74 games without him? Or might we win those extra couple of games by spending the money "saved" on a competent relief pitcher and figuring out which corner OF (let's not forget Fedko) is ready to make the jump by actually giving them MLB AB's? Larnach isn't a terrible player, but he's limited. He doesn't add anything defensively or on the bases, and even though he's on the better side of the platoon, he doesn't punish RHP so well that you're terribly excited about him DHing most days. That .759 OPS against RHP is ok...if you add something else to the table. Wallner has a career OPS of .881 against RHP. Larnach has never broken an OPS of .800 against RHP in any season in his career. For a team that's rebuilding, why are we spending very limited resources hoping for...ok? Also, let's not pretend Larnach has any real value on the trade market. He was clearly shopped and no one bought at the deadline, and with his price increasing I wouldn't expect any more buyers.

Here's the thing: for Larnach to have a rebound season, you have to buy that 2024 is his real level as a hitter. There's a real possibility that 2024 was his peak instead. Larnach has most been protected against LHP...because he's quite bad at hitting it. Career OPS of .585 is brutal. Did he improve last season while facing more LHP? Sure, but it was marginal (.608 OPS is still putrid). And while he hits RHP, he doesn't really mash them. Even in his best season as a pro, he only put up a .784 OPS against RHP. That's not bad, but it's also not good for a guy who adds nothing defensively any longer, nothing on the bases, and is unplayable against LHP. Larnach is a primary DH platoon hitter, and he's getting more expensive than his bat is worth, while also blocking younger players with more upside. At 29 he might hit better than he did last season, but the ceiling isn't high. Considering the exceptionally low payroll the Cheap Pohlads are likely to impose, is $4M+ on Larnach the best use of funds? I think I'd rather free the team up to play Wallner more at DH (a much better masher of RHP) and see what we have with Roden/Rodriguez/Jenkins/Fedko/Gonzalez, FIVE players who have hit in AAA and who all play much better OF than Larnach. Keeping Larnach at this point is just raising the floor and limiting the ceiling. The team is unlikely to be going anywhere next season unless multiple young(er) players have a breakthrough; keeping Larnach at this point pretty much ensures that fewer of them will even get an opportunity, and for what? An upside of ok performance against RHP from a platoon DH?

I'm finding the interest in Ron Washington in any capacity to be a bit baffling. The last 2 seasons for the Angels went poorly in every possible way and his managerial success was more than a decade ago in Texas. He may be well-liked and respected, but add in age and health and so forth he seems like a poor fit for any role that demands the daily grind and travel of a MLB coaching staff. I'm a little leery of Shelton; while it's not entirely his fault for the Pirates for sure...where's the evidence he dragged anything additional out of anyone? But who knows. None of these guys looks like an eff no on the face of it. Servais is the safest bet I suppose?

well, his barrel rate was down; after being at 18.8% and 17.5% he dropped to 13.8%, which seems significant, even if he was still better than most of the league. Combined with a career-low hard hit rate and substantially worse success against fastball in 2025 compared to the previous 2 seasons, I don't think it's just the eye test here. Now, he also may have had some bad luck here, but the results do show some concerning metrics. And we certainly saw the "heat zones" on Wallner showing how much better he was on balls down than up in the zone. I'm not out on Wallner or anything, but it does seem like he needs to make an adjustment to get back to where he was. I'm encouraged by the fact that despite his struggles he still was around league average for his chase rate and was able to keep taking walks at his same kinds of rates. A little better luck and a return to form on handling fastballs (however he does it) and he's a weapon again. It's very possible, but I'm not ready to predict he's going to be back as a 140 OPS+ guy yet. It would be a huge benefit to the Twin if he does, and I'm certainly not going to panic about his poor results with RISP or Late & Close yet; those are truly small samples.

Wallner is probably the most divisive hitter on the Twins roster right now. His style is going to be anathema for some people: lots of K's, lots of BB's, lots of HRs, not a lot else. If he slips, then the hounds will be after him. While I think Wallner was a bit unlucky last season, the real key for him is going to be whether or not he can handle high fastballs at the top of the zone. He definitely got exploited there last season, and my impression was he got attacked there more as the season went along. That suggests people are getting a book on him and if you show a weakness like that, which is exploitable by a lot of pitchers, even relievers with questionable control, you'd better adjust quickly or things will go sideways. He might be capable of bringing back some defensive value; while he's never going to be quick, he could still improve his route running and surety with the glove. He was substantially worse last season in the field than he's ever been, but it's hard to know if that's a fluke or a trend. It could be he's just too slow and not a good enough fielder to do more out there, or it could be he was more tentative after pulling the hammy and going into a new season he's back to being a solidly below average fielder instead of a dreadful one. But regardless, he's likely to be looking at a shift down to DH more. Which is fine if he's getting back to hitting like he did in 2023-2024. I'll be curious to see how Wallner does handling offspeed this season; he really struggled with it in 2025, but it wasn't a huge part of his diet, so that could have been one of those small sample flukes...or it could have been his success in previous years was the small sample fluke. If he lands at career averages in 2026 that will help tick things up a bit. He still takes his walks and reads the strike zone pretty well. I think he's likely to rebound some but until he shows he can handle the high fastball I'm concerned it will be a more modest improvement.

Is the issue with Miranda development or injuries? What if the real issue with Miranda is after the shoulder, back, and hand injuries he simply can't generate much power in his bat any longer, make enough hard contact, catch up with good fastballs, etc? Maybe the beaning impacted him a lot more than anyone realized? If that's the case, it won't matter if Tampa or someone else gives him a shot or not. It's convenient to blame Twins player development on Miranda falling apart, but he's hit in AAA just fine in multiple stints there (2021, 2022, and a cup of coffee in 2024). He struggled in 2023, a year where he was fighting injury in both AAA and MLB. His 2025 in AAA was the worst he's been at any level ever and it wasn't really close. Seems very possible that something has changed physically for him, even if he's technically "healthy"? It's a shame, but Miranda looks done with the Twins. He's unlikely to get offered a MLB contract with us with no options left, and I suspect he'll look elsewhere for a minor league deal or go overseas rather than try and make a comeback here. Such a promising 2022, and the first half of 2024 suggested he was all the way back from the injury-filled 2023. I mean, he was raking before getting hurt in 2024. Then he missed some time, got beaned, and it's gone completely to hell for him. Baseball can be cruel.