jmlease1

I think the front office and manager are in lockstep about some of these overarching in-game strategies for lineups; assigning Rocco the blame for what was an organizational decision to try and jump on teams and generate a big inning earlier in the game through a platoon advantage seems silly to me. That said, I thought it was vastly over-utilized last season, so moving on from it seems to be a benefit to me. The concept wasn't terrible, but a) was overused, and b) didn't have effective enough RH hitters to execute it. (also? I think the Twins expected Margot to be able to play CF as he had in the past, and Farmer not being able to play SS as a bench player wasn't necessarily a problem; it's not like we were looking to sub for Correa when he was playing? the problem was neither of them hit, and Margot couldn't play defense worth a damn for the first time in his career.) I'd like Wallner and Larnach to get more opportunities to survive against LHP in the middle innings so they're available to hit in close and late situations against RHP. I think the bench is constructed more now to have speed/defense guys coming in late to hold leads rather than try to get them in the first place. I don't think this is a front office strategy designed to limit Rocco; I think this is collective action for a different direction based on the results of last season and the limits of the payroll and roster. Not for one second do I think that the front office makes moves designed to change Rocco's in-game strategy, because they decide these together. (It's why the "Fire Rocco!" crowd will be utterly disappointed with the next manager for as long as this front office team is in place...if you want drastic changes to the on-field decision-making, you'll need to clean house in the front office too)

Hard to know what the committees will do with relievers. Nathan not having a lengthy postseason record may hurt with that group, but if one of his old teammates or managers get on there to champion his case, then maybe. I think he's worthy; during his prime he was the 2nd best reliever in baseball, behind the guy who was probably the best reliever of all-time. But there are still those who don't think relief pitchers deserve to be in there at all. Torii was an excellent player, but isn't Hall-worthy. His GG's got...questionable, so him just having a ton of them might not help like people might think. He was very good for a long time, but I don't think he gets any real ascent under the BWAA, and after that he'll have to compete with other CFs that probably should have gotten more attention (Edmonds, Lofton). He's quite literally the epitome of Hall of Very Good. Santana has the best case; his dominance was massive. Sabathia's admission doesn't help him at all, really: very different pitchers and different cases. Sabathia's has more to do with longevity, Santana's is all about peak value. Personally, I think Johan was inhumanly awesome enough for long enough that it shouldn't matter if he didn't have 3-4 more seasons in his 30's to pile up counting stats...but I'll admit to bias on Johan.

He's a fantastic story. I'm rooting like hell for him. I hope he keeps crushing the ball in AAA, playing good defense, and pushes his way on to the 26-man roster. I have no problem with him starting the season in AAA; he had a great season but it's not like he's shown it over a couple of seasons in pro ball. It's a fairly small sample at the high minors. If he keeps hitting like this, he'll get a chance.

I'm utterly uninterested in either of these guys on the 26-man roster. if one of them wants to sign a deal that lets them go to AAA on a MLB-level salary to serve as insurance if Correa misses extended time? fine. But otherwise...nah. I get that Willi Castro might not really be an acceptable SS at this point, but Brooks Lee is. he can certainly handle the backup innings. DeJong started out well and had a great 2019. He's been in decline ever since. there's a reason he's bouncing around the league now. Urias looks like a total mess right now, and him not cracking the Mendoza line since 2022 is a problem. his defense (such as it is) peaked right at the same time as his offense, which makes me think he might be one of those guys that carries every AB with him on to the field. I mean, if you're not going to play Castro at SS, adding one makes some theoretical sense, and the only guy you're pushing out here is Austin Martin who hasn't exactly demanded a spot. But I'd rather ride with Brooks Lee and give younger guys a shot than bring in this kind of veteran, who if they stink we will hang on to for too long, hoping that we'll recoup some value before the end. Like many teams, the Twins do poorly on the sunk cost fallacy and adding guys like this gives them more chances to blow it...

I think this is probably right for the 26-man projection, but I could see Gasper making it if he looks good in spring training and the Twins want Lee playing every day, especially if Julien looks like he's gotten back to the 2023 version. Pitching staff is probably right as well; if they didn't think Castellano was worth a bullpen slot, they wouldn't have picked him, and I think Stewart starts on the IL. Rotation is: Lopez, Ober, Ryan, SWR, and Paddack (for now). Bullpen hierarchy is probably: Duran, Jax, Sands, Coulombe, Alcala, Tonkin, Topa, and Castellano. Lineup: C: Jeffers, 1B: Miranda, 2B: Lee, SS: Correa, 3B: Lewis, LF: Larnach, CF: Buxton, RF: Wallner, DH: Julien? Bench of Vazquez, Castro, Bader, and Martin. Batting order will be interesting. I'm not sure who leads off here? Maybe it's Julien, Correa, Buxton, Wallner, Lewis, Larnach, Jeffers, Miranda, Lee? Julien sees a fair number of pitches, takes walks, and runs the bases pretty well (good SB numbers in the minors too). (Clearly, I'm not nearly as ready to give up on Julien as some are around here.)

I think there's a huge advantage to not having it be a black hole offensively, but it wasn't the end of the world in 2024 to be sure. CLE had worse offense from their regular CF than Bader (and their backups weren't any better) and they did just fine, PHI was even worse getting production at CF and they were one of the best teams in baseball. NYM went to the NLCS and their primary CF was...Bader. Right now, if you're getting close to league average hitting and good defense from your CF, you're doing pretty well. It's why Christian Vazquez still has value even though he's been a pretty bad hitter lately: so few catchers are hitting much these days that a good defender who doesn't embarrass themselves at the plate still gets work. Same principles are applying in CF now. If Bader shows a little improvement at the plate, or simply hits LHP well consistently, then he can be a useful player that keeps Castro from having to play in CF, gives Larnach/Wallner breaks against LHP, improves the OF defense in late & close games. My concern is that he's about to turn 31, hasn't had an OBP over .300 or a SLG over .400 since 2021. He didn't hit LHP particularly well last season, but he also only had 137 ABs against them; he crushed them the season before but it was an even smaller sample. I think it's a fair bet to look to career splits, but you never know. This move raises the floor a bit and provides useful insurance against a significant Buxton injury. But I think that's about it, which is why I'm a little unimpressed with the deployment of very limited resources here.

Canha is only perfect in that he's likely to be cheap and leftover. I mean, there's nothing wrong with him per se, but he raises the floor (maybe) and not the ceiling. On a 1 year deal for $3-4M, he's...fine? Fairly low risk, might have a bounce back year left in him where he get the SLG% back to around .400 and lands a solid enough OPS of .740, decent defender, solid veteran. but is that going to be better than what we could get from the younger guys, as noted above? Jose Ramirez is going to out-hit him if healthy. Michael Helman might be a better option. Doesn't really move the needle for me

It might be pride effin' with Coulombe too. Balto balked at the $4M (YMMV on whether that was good or not) and after the rejection he may not have wanted to come back ("screw those guys!") even if the money was similar. This happens a fair amount when teams decline to offer arbitration or pick up an option, I think.

that's the biggest reason to like this one: while he's death on lefties, he's still quite effective against righties. Okert did the job very well last season against lefties, but gave it all back against righties. I agree with you: the LOOGY is dead (and it will not be missed, IMHO). Let's just hope he stays on the field. Missing nearly 3 months makes me nervous, and I'm guessing Balto felt the same way or they would have brought him back. But when he pitches, he's a quality bullpen piece. (it is a little sad that Danny Coulombe is the most interesting thing we have to write/talk about here these days though)

Isn't Atlanta part of a publicly traded company and so have their books more available? i haven't had the wherewithal to try and dig that out, but I'd be curious to know whether it actually gives real information on their finances.

I doubt the Twins will mess with his pitch mix much since he was having success. They seem to do tweaks more on guys that haven't made it yet or aren't having success, rather than trying to mess around with someone who has things working. the fact that they have gone 4-seamer first with many relievers may be more of a way to increase their velocity and try to improve their results. Jax threw more sweepers than anything each of the last 2 years, so it's not like they avoid anyone who isn't primary fastball. I suspect someone will start the season on the IL, but there are enough fringe pitchers on the 40-man that there's room for Coulombe. but hopefully, this means they're packaging Paddack and someone and getting 1B taken care of? The fight for the last bullpen slots will be interesting. Right now I'd say it's: Duran, Jax, Sands, Alcala, Coulombe, Tonkin, Castellano, and one of Stewart/Topa (I'm betting one of them will be either hurt or "hurt"). feels like the Twins think they have something in castellano that they won't want to let go.

There's certainly some room to designate some of the more fringe pitchers, but you have to hope that the Twins are going to be able to maybe package a couple of guys as part of a trade. The 40 man has room to maneuver, but they will have to be shuffling pitchers with so few slots taken up by position players. The 26-man is pretty inflexible: max 13 pitchers. Coloumbe's a solid pitcher; he's been an effective LHP who does the job against LH hitters without getting destroyed by RH. Bigger issue is whether or not he can stay on the field, which is the part I like less. Missing almost 3 months last season makes me twitchy, but he did come back and finish the season so he should at least start the season ok.

It's easy to forget in the underwhelming offseason the Twins have had because of the self-imposed payroll limitations dictated from the Pohlads that their AL Central rivals haven't exactly set the world on fire either. I'm mildly skeptical about projection systems, but part of that is in my head I want to use them for the wrong things and treat them as being more predictive than they're intended to be. one thing I fine interesting about systems like PECOTA is they're not as infected by recency bias like fans are. The late-season implosion in 2024 by many players isn't going to be seen as predictive for 2025, just another 6 weeks of the total season. There's some good in that. (There may also be some bad in that as it's possible that players may have gotten exposed down the stretch and a projection system can miss that) I do think the Twins roster is still a good one, with hitting strengths, quality starting pitching (and depth) as well as a bullpen that is very good at it's top end with potential to be great with decent performances/health from some of the guys further down the line. Biggest weakness is defense right now; while there are some quality defenders, there's also some areas where it's tough. I will say I'm not surprised to see Castro rated relatively poorly. His Tigers track record will be taken into account, but he also had a poor second half, belying his all-star status. I think he was probably a bit overused last season myself.

The bullpen wasn't just great on paper last year, they were legitimately good until the end of the season when you had implosions going on as some of them crapped the bed like almost everyone else on the team. Ask yourself how many teams have proven "backups" in their bullpen at the start of a season? And while we don't have a LHP in the bullpen right now, maybe we're better off letting guys like jax, duran, and sands face more LH hitters rather than run out a guy like Okert who shuts down the lefties, but gives it all back against the righties. It's interesting to see people demand that relief pitchers have a "defined role" that only involves specific innings or saves. Can't they also have a role that relates to "if the 2-6 hitters are coming up in the last 3 innings, you're gonna pitch if we have a lead"? While does it have to be so determinative based on innings and saves to supposedly get the best out of guys? because isn't what really happens is that your best relievers get to pad their stats a little by setting down the bottom of the order in late innings, rather than face the best the other team has to offer as much? Duran and Jax have shown success in high leverage roles for multiple seasons in a row which certainly suggests that they'll be good again, especially with so many of the peripheral stats being in their favor. It'll be interesting to see if Cleveland repeats their success; their bullpen wasn't as dominant in 2023; Gaddis was still starting, Smith hadn't arrived yet, and Herrin wasn't good. Clase was nowhere near as good in 2023 as 2024, but his 2021 & 2022 seasons suggest that he will continue to be good in 2025, even if it's not as insanely good. It's fair to see some potential for regression there. Cleveland also had amazing health in 2024 from their bullpen, and who knows if that will continue into 2025?

I tend to agree with the Twins philosophy on bullpen building; too many of these veteran bullpen guys are fungible and throwing $7M at a guy when it's a flip of a coin whether they're be great, average, or awful isn't the best use of limited resources. I think other teams think about it the same way: better to develop relievers internally or acquire them when they're cheap & controllable to see who can get it done 2-3 seasons in a row and either trade them as they get too expensive or sign them for their prime seasons when you already know they're more dependable. A strong bullpen is important, but can be built without needing to invest substantial FA $. Cleveland did it that way: they had an incredible season from their bullpen (especially remarkable for how healthy the top guys were) but of their top 4 Clase was acquired via trade when he was cost-controlled and Smith, Gaddis, and Herron were all drafted/signed by Cleveland and came up through their system. Maybe they've guessed right on Sewald, but is he actually going to be any better than Avila (who was sent down to make room for him)? is $7M for Sewald going to get you substantially better results than Tonkin for $1M? Much rather develop relievers from within than chase guys like Colome or Robles and hope they you catch them on the right year with the right small sample.

I would argue 2020 was a success: Maeda was great for us, exactly what we needed. (and following 2019, which had been an unqualified success with the "early" signings of Cron, Schoop, and the big one Nelson Cruz, adding on Marwin late worked out very nicely) but that's also part of the question; Twins didn't really wait out the market in 2019, did they? sure, they added Marwin late, but they signed Cron, Schoop, and Cruz early to normal in the FA window. I don't really think the Twins have a defined strategy for waiting out the market. I suspect they're simply a team with limited resources and haven't always been able to compete earlier on, not without taking on more risk. Nelson Cruz is a good example of this: very good hitter with a long track record coming off a down season at 38. A 2-year deal for a DH-only player with that profile has some risk, but the Twins paid it and landed him. I'm betting they could have landed Goldschmitt this year if they'd had the money to go to 2 years and $25M...but they didn't. When the market for aging 1Bs bumped over $10M for 2025, the twins were pushed out. I'm sure they were talking to 1B options in December, but no one was signing for $6M at that point and the twins didn't have more to play with because of the ownership's payroll limitations.

the player's association hasn't been interested in serious revenue sharing. they've always preferred that the richest clubs retain their revenue and spend wildly because that benefits the top end of the players the most. Better revenue sharing would benefit more players, but wouldn't necessarily keep the top-end salaries rising as fast. So yes, complicit. I'm not suggesting the players or their union should be accepting a cap or playing pocket protector for the owners. but they'd be better positioned for their overall membership if more teams had higher payrolls and that's going to be harder to achieve without better revenue sharing and last contract negotiations was the first time the players association actually started taking that somewhat seriously. because the biggest clubs can only sign so many players.

Pooling all of the broadcast revenues might have worked but it's complicated substantially by teams like the Yankees owning their own network, which generates substantial revenue for them, but can be hidden quite easily with various accounting tricks, much like Hollywood studios manage to have wildly successful movie somehow "lose" money so they don't have to pay anyone net participation points. but they need to do something because the gulf has grown so wide. the player's association isn't going to be much help on this either; they've been complicit for decades because as long as their top players keep getting massive numbers, they'll keep playing nice about luxury tax numbers and things like that. Their leadership wants LA, NY etc to have a big advantage to keep pushing the markets higher, and their leadership has been significantly controlled by the top players & their agents rather than representing the association as whole. Now, their version of "trickle down economic" has in fact resulted in higher salaries for the middle class, but you're also seeing some of those guys get priced out of the game sooner too. Expect that trend to get worse. not sure what the solution is; the NFL's model works a lot more easily when you only have national TV contracts. the NBA's model has worked, but they're looking at some real problems with their model going forward, even with the increases in national TV contracts they've put together. (how many players can be "max" players in this size of a league? and look at how restrictive the "second apron" actually is for team salaries)

Bet the over on Lee and Festa, and the under on Kiersey and Camargo. Lee's bat will play up much better assuming he's healthy (and the ZiPS projections do). I'm definitely a believer in Festa. But I understand if people are skeptical. Until a starting pitcher proves it, he could be anything. varland looked like a starter in his first opportunity and he's gone south rapidly. I like Kiersey, but I just don't know if he can hit in MLB, and I don't think he'll get enough run in CF (mostly because of the bat) to rack up much. he's a fine defensive player, but even ZiPS has his OPS under .700. Cmargo just seems to be falling further out of the Twins plans. I think if they had this much faith in him they wouldn't have been adding catchers in the high minors/40-man.

Cruz signed on Jan 6th, so it's not like he was super late in the FA period, and signed a market-rate deal. As I recall, there wasn't as much demand for DH-only hitters (NL hadn't adopted it yet), especially for ones who were turning 38, but I also recall the Twins targeting him, so it's not like we were just the last seat available when the music stopped.

Would I trade Vazquez, Varland, and Matthews for cease? Yeah, i think I would. Is that going to be enough for SD? no, i don't think it will be. Guessing it'd be more like raya, and keaschall to make SD happy. I'm less enthusiastic, even if I do have concerns about Keaschall's recovery from a significant injury. Raya and Matthews? now I have to think very hard about this. (I'm assuming vazquez's contract is involved somehow, and we probably have to move Paddack for an A-ball lottery ticket to make payroll work) Some of it comes down to whether or not Cease could be retained at all with new ownership. Pitching prospects are hot air until they perform in MLB, so who really knows what all the cheap season of guys like Raya and Matthews are worth? Does a great rotation win a title with this Twins team? Cease, Lopez, Ober, Ryan, and SWR is an awesome rotation. We'd still have Festa and others waiting in AAA (Morris, Adams, Lewis, etc). basically the real question is whether or not the Twins can pick the pitching prospects least likely to be for-real MLB starters and still sell them to SD. because we're all going to lose our minds if they deal Raya and Matthews to SD and then in 2026 they're both in SD's rotation and pitching well while Cease signs a $300M deal with the &#$@* Yankees and the Twins didn't get out of the ALDS in 2025... Twins volume of starting pitchers in the high minors is impressive, but none are sure locks, because almost no starting pitcher prospect is. I'll admit, I don't even know how to value some of these guys. the college pitchers they've brought in don't have high prospect rankings to pump their value, but their results have been good. What's Christian MacLeod worth on the trade market? or CJ Culpepper? Maybe the time is right to bundle up a couple of these guys and take a swing.

This is basically the "I hate our front office" version of the last 6 years. You don't actually know how any of these deals came together, so you're framing them in a way least favorable to Falvey, whom you clearly despise. You don't know who initiated the deals, you don't know if Falvey "sat passively back", etc. Our "fantastic catching core"? Garver hasn't caught more than 30% of his appearances since he left, and Rortvedt has been injured or bad or both for most of the past 3 seasons (and got traded again). Revisionist history in the extreme...

not even a little. (I'm not sure he's actually going to be worth $25M in 2025, either; he's declined in value each of the last 2 years, so if that's a trend...) But it's a shame our penurious ownership makes it an utter impossibility to realistically consider. Christian Walker would have been quite a good fit, and we were never in it at all. Goldschmitt might be cooked, but a bounce back season from him would have slotted in very well with his good defense and right-handed bat. Never had a chance there either, and $12M on a 1 year deal wasn't bad. Pohlad Twins are not gonna spend. So trade it is, hope they can find a good one.

I hope they've got a good one pending. Because as much as i still like the overall roster (I do think there are going to be some players who didn't do well last season who bounce back/step forward on the position side and I like the pitching staff quite a bit) there are still holes that can/should be patched. Would I love to see us get the payroll back up to $150M+ and bring in Pete Alonso? yes indeedy, but I'm also realistic. the outgoing ownership might not be chopping things back further, but they still have the purse strings tied tight. That means trade, and Vazquez, Paddack, and/or Castro will likely be on the move with 1-4 prospects. The Brinks truck you'd have to back up to pry Walker Jenkins out of the organization should be semi-sized, but no one should really be off the table. Just don't sell low. Go ahead and deal A-ball pitchers if that's what it takes. Hopefully there's a real deal out there that improves the team in 2025 without selling off 2026-2027. But I have zero idea what it is right now. Vazquez seems to have value, though. And I'm sure Paddack could be moved to open things up to take salary back in a deal.

never let stats get in the way of an opportunity to trash the manager. :P