jmlease1

You are correct: 87 wins rarely wins you a division. (It does happen, and did in 2023) That said, since they expanded the playoffs, every team with 87 wins has gotten in. '21 had one miss (smaller playoff), '20 everyone projected to 87 wins (not sure how else to evaluate) made it in, and '19 (again, smaller playoff) had one miss. So 87 wins gets in the playoffs, and a chip a chair and a chance is the #1 priority, right? I one division winner with 87 wins during baldelli's tenure was...baldelli. We also need to move past the idea that the AL Central is the "worst division in the game", because it's simply not. even with the CWS being trash, the AL Central is better than the AL West. the NL Central isn't any better, and the AL East has 3 good teams (maybe one great team in Philly) and 2 awful ones. not a ton of difference there, really unless you want to weight the good teams much heavier. (go ahead and make the case?) the payrolls might be the lowest in aggregate, especially with no one spending this offseason, but that doesn't mean the teams are bad. 3 out of the 4 teams in the AL Divisional round last year were from the AL Central.

Martin's terrible fielding last season was surprising to me, because all the reports from the minors were that he was a good OF, who could handle CF and might end up being a plus in LF because of his range. And he was bad defensively last season. There's no way around it, and I'm a guy who likes Martin and believes in him. The jump from AAA to MLB is a big one and it's where a lot of talented players stumble. This feels like a bit of a make-or-break season for Martin: get on base, play good defense and carve out a role, or get passed by guys coming up through the system (Rodriguez, Keaschall if he doesn't stick on the dirt, and Jenkins are all making their way). Maybe the different parks and sizes and lights messed him up. Maybe he never got comfortable anywhere. Maybe he didn't put in the work. Maybe he's just not that good. Maybe it was a fluke (which does happen with defensive stats, but Martin didn't pass the eye test last season either). He has the physical tools to do it. But he's not going to get there with sloppy defense and an OPS under .700. With the utter failure of the team to do anything to improve the team so far, he's got a window with Rodriguez coming off surgery and only having a few ABs in AAA, Keaschall coming off TJ and never playing above AA, Jenkins likely to start in AA, Kiersey not impressing at the plate in his cup of coffee, and helman rarely being healthy. But he needs to play much much better defensively, make more contact, and get on base more.

It really is the biggest cliché in professional sports.

The idea that Luis Arraez will bring in 3,000+ fans per game all by himself is pretty silly, though. Signing/trading for anyone to improve the club would certainly make a difference in attendance, especially early in the season and would help contradict the awful end of season narrative. Ownership screwed themselves and the team with their tight-fisted ways after 2023 and it has nothing to do with Arraez. Here's the thing though: Arraez probably doesn't actually help the Twins all that much. He's a limited defender with a real injury history. He doesn't hit for power, and he's not taking walks like he used to. His OPS is also 145 pts lower against LHP, and one of the bigger needs for the Twins is some thump against LHP. I'm sure if he;s healthy Arraez will be somewhat better than last season, but he's still going to be below average or worse against LHP: he's basically never been good against LHP. So how is spending $14M on a limited player who doesn't really address team needs and should be platooned a good idea? SD's not taking on money to move him. He's just a bad fit. And I say this as someone who likes Arraez. Fun player, good dude. But bad fit for the cash-strapped Twins who need a RH hitter, not a slow singles hitter who is meh defensively and can't hit LHP.

Quite a drive-by on Trevor Larnach. hope that it's not true (or if it is that he's grown up a little since it was a couple of years old). 13 is not a great jersey number for the hometown team, lol.

I think that's right. I do feel like the bullpen is in a place right now where we don't have to count on Stewart being healthy all or most of the year to have a good, productive bullpen. Which is where you have to be with pitchers like that, IMHO. Set yourself up so that if they can pitch you go up a level, but you have options in place that doesn't leave you desperate if/when they can't go. I'd like to know where Larnach is as well: he was battling turf toe all season, even when he played and i don't know that he was ever fully healthy. How is Miranda doing? he didn't need surgery (good), but is his shoulder going to be strong enough? how's his back? What's Brooks Lee's injury status? Again, no surgery (good!) but how's his back going into the year? Sounds like Buxton and Lewis are in good shape as well, but they're two guys I'd love to hear more about their health status and how they're approaching the upcoming season. I'm sure it was a relief for them to not be coming off surgery this off-season!

I hate the "wait wait wait" until the end of the off-season and try to bring someone in at the last minute who didn't get the contract they wanted or spinning a late trade. not sure it helps the team prepare well to scramble the basket just as spring training starts or in the middle of it. But this is what we get with the self-imposed payroll limitations the Pohlad's have imposed on the team after botching their tv and streaming rights, demonstrating a fairly unimpressive business track record, and general unwillingness to invest in the team. I'd like Falvey and Zoll to be more aggressive, but they're certainly limited by ownership, and since everyone in Twins Nations knows about their limitations the rest of the league does too and I'm sure they're using that to try to chisel trades out of the twins that don't land well for us on a talent standpoint as they use our financial limits against us. few teams in the league are actually stupid and/or incompetent any longer (FL? CWS...who have new decision-makers, and may have gotten it together? Angels? Mets are a little like the old Yankees, but can buy their way out of trouble. Oakland has an even worse ownership than the Twins, but their baseball staff isn't bad. Colorado? Are they stupid or just in a rebuild?) I did like the Cartaya move, but it's very low wattage. I like the twins squad quite a bit, in part because I do think some of the collapse late last season was a bit fluky. I like our pitching staff. But this team is aching for a RH corner OF/1B/DH bat, and those guys were on the market, but we had no money for it. because of ownership. And I guess because management couldn't figure out how to shed salary/make a deal early enough to move Paddack/Vazquez to free up cash. I'll put that 70% on ownership, 25% on management, 5% on the rest of the league for (smartly) looking to squeeze the Twins. I hope the sale comes soon, the twins start the season winning, the fans come back to Target Field, and we find some positivity. making a good trade to fill a hole would be a good start.

Nothing like Luis Arraez to derail a thread about whether the Twins should invest in the rotation! I'd love for the Twins to add Cease to the rotation: superior starting pitching wins a lot of games. I think we can survive losing Vazquez (a terrible hitter at this point), but I don't know how high we'd have to go on the prospects to get it done, and I'd be concerned about him being a rental too. It certainly would make it easier to deal Paddack if the rotation was starting at Lopez, Cease, Ober, Ryan, and SWR. (and if SWR was part of the package, Festa slots in just fine). Boy, that rotation looks good. But I wouldn't trade Ober or Ryan as part of that deal, because with our current payroll limitations, how do we keep Cease? It'd be a big gamble on new ownership. (and it's pretty laughable to think of Arraez coming back to the Twins this season; SD is looking to move him because of salary; the Twins are going to take on $14M in salary for an injury-prone singles-hitting DH who doesn't hit LHP well and can't run just because his AB's are fun to watch? Whose salary are we shedding to fit Arraez on the roster and make us net worse just to make the people who hate Ks happy?)

Team HoF is going to be a different standard than MLB HoF to begin with. Koskie was a key member of a bunch of good Twins teams that emerged after a long time in the doldrums. As a 3B he was one of the better ones in the AL when he was a Twin (you can make an argument that he was right there with Glaus for 2nd best in the AL behind Chavez during his peak), and was popular with the fans and great in the community. Not his fault they didn't win a title during his time. 116 OPS+ and 22.1 bWAR during his time as a Twin is pretty dang good and he locked down 3B nicely. Gaetti is frequently seen as the best 3B in Twins history (I mean, technically it's Harmon, who hit so much better than anyone that it didn't matter that they never should have made him play 3B), but he racked up an OPS+ of 100, and his bWAR of 27.1 is more...but is also over more seasons. Gaetti the better defender, Koskie the better hitter. But they're fairly close, aren't they?

loved Koskie. he was a heck of a Twin. Might have (should have?) won a Gold Glove if it hadn't been for Chavez out in Oakland, which is pretty impressive considering he initially looked like he was playing 3B with a frying pan at times rather than a glove. But he really put in the work and improved. Huge part of that 2002 team that needed maybe 2004 Johan and a little better bullpen luck and they could have been one of those special teams.

I'm hoping he's at least twice as good as Lew Ford, or consistently as good as Ford was in 2004 (aka, his one really good season). Much as I love the fact that Ford loves baseball so much he kept playing Indy league baseball until he was 46, I'm really hoping Keaschall has a significantly better MLB career than Ford. Lew Ford is another one of those Twins players where his best season was both desperately needed at the time (the Shannon Stewart magic was wearing off, Kubel's knee exploded, Cuddyer was still trying to make it on the dirt, and Restovich was a bust) and would have been so much better if it had come in 2006 when Mauer & Morneau were rolling, Johan was the best pitcher in baseball and a bunch of guys in the lineup were looking good. Getting those peak seasons from your supporting cast at the same time really makes a difference. (Hi, Kevin Tapani! Thanks for being your best self in 1991!) I like keaschall a lot. Hope he recovers well from the elbow injury. Serious injury, but a lot of hitters have responded well to that surgery before, so hopefully by midseason he's destroying pitching in AAA and pushing guys in MLB to be great or lose their jobs.

I think without knowing names of any of the other possible bidders it's easy to make the Ishbia's the front-runners. On paper, they're a very good fit for what MLB wants in an owner: vast resources, already been vetted by MLB (Justin as minority owner in CWS) and the NBA (Mat as majority owner in the Suns, Justin as a minority owner), and a known love for baseball (so that it's not purely a financial move). but we don't know anything about any of the other groups that might be bidding. Zip, Zilch. Nadda. For all we know, this is something the Ishbia's are trying to get out there to avoid a bidding war, or to push the Pohlads to move and take the sure thing rather than dangle it along. I'm fine with the Ishbia's buying the Twins; Justin might be a much better owner than what we've had, more willing to invest. better at working the business side of the house and growing team revenue. There's some signs in Phoenix that they're looking to build fan support through more than just "if we win, they'll come". It's hard to think they could do much worse. but until we know who another bidder or three is, the Ishbia's are just the front-runner by default.

yes, Julien sucked to end the season. (Correa & Buxton were good. Wallner, Larnach & Santana were fine. Basically everyone else crapped the bed) How was Castro's finish to the season? .200/.296/.267 (.562 OPS). But hey, he didn't strike out as much, so I'm sure it's fine. The people who are done with Ed Julien as a player have essentially decided the 2023 didn't happen, only 2024 matters, and that he has no chance to bounce back and be the player who was 7th in RoY in 2023. It's a bold and unforgiving stance to give up on a player like that after one poor season. Is that what smart franchises do? Throw away a young, cheap player immediately after things go sideways? Maybe he'll never figure it out. Maybe he's too passive at the plate and doesn't make enough contact. Or maybe he makes adjustments at age 26 and gets back to being a plus hitter. But he should be in the mix for 2025.

Castro's value increases when you can move him around the field, and it's particularly valuable when he can pinch hit or pinch run for most anyone in the lineup without needing to make another move defensively. He also clearly wore down last season and might be better suited to the super utility role. Slotting him as the every day 2B reduces their options from the jump. I'm also waiting for all the people who were insisting that the Twins let Jax try starting because he'd like to do it to immediately jump in and defend Lewis not wanting to go to the OF...

My preference would be to slot Royce in there from day one and let him cook. His glove is well-suited there, and it would minimize the pain of his more scattershot arm. Yes, this opens up an issue at 3B, but Lee looks excellent there defensively, and I have confidence his bat will come around. Miranda can play there (he looked better there defensively than at 1B, really) and Castro is an excellent backup there. If Lee struggles early and needs to go back to AAA, you still have options at 3B, but this is the right time to transition Lewis to 2B. Let him try and become Ryne freakin' Sandberg. It's way too early to be thinking about Keaschall until we know where he is after the injury. I think he'll be fine, and his talent is impressive, but until he gets back on the field and shows his elbow is ok, he's a non-factor on this. Eeles is a wild card. He had an amazing season in 2024, and the fact that he kicked butt at every level he was asked to play is great. Would I like to see him repeat it in AAA for a few months before asking him to tackle MLB? Sure would, but you have to like this kid's drive. Much like Keaschall, it's too early to plug him in anywhere for MLB. I still like Julien's bat, and I'm a little baffled why for some people his 2024 season (which was poor) means that we should ignore everything about his 2023 season. (BTW, when sent back down to AAA for a re-set, he did fine started looking like 2023 Julien again) My preference is for him to move to 1B, but he's still a decent option to fill in at 2B if Lewis gets hurt.

I'm comfortable leaving the PED guys off and letting them get evaluated further down the line in history, when hopefully more the emotion has been taken out of it. Lot of complexity and nuance to these issues, IMHO. But they brought this on themselves through the choices they made, and no one is entitled to a Hall of fame vote. Ichiro is easy. For me Billy Wagner is too: reliever is a position in baseball, so to ignore them makes little sense to me. Wagner is one of the best of all-time, and owns every LH relieving stat. I would have voted for Sabathia: he had peak years, longevity, and I'll admit I'll give a little extra credit for a guy overcoming alcoholism to get back his career. He was always considered a guy who could lead your pitching staff and threw a ton of effective innings. I'm a yes on Utley: the peak years are unbelievable. I don't care if the post-Philly injury years were unimpressive, or if he didn't clear 2000 hits (he did clear 1000 runs, 400 doubles, and clawed his way on base a ton). Utley was the best player on those Philly championship years, and deserves to be in. yes on Beltran too: yes, he was part of the Houston cheating scandal, but that was as a coach, not a player. in his prime he was a great combination of power, speed, and defense, and was a useful player almost until the end. he did some of everything, which is why he's probably not as well-regarded as he should be (playing for KC early in his career didn't help), but I would put him in. The fact that the Hall screwed up on Lofton and/or edmonds isn't a good reason to perpetuate the problem by keeping Beltran out. I'm a yes on Andruw Jones too. yes, he fell apart after he turned 30, but the peak was so high and the defense so good, that I think he's worthy. I don't know what to do with Abreu, who was very good, but didn't have the MVP kind of years (and the Gold Glove was a joke) I'd like to see at least once? But he did get on base a ton and was consistently deserving of being an all-star even if he didn't get there often. Borderline for me. Pettite & Buehrle are close but no cigar for me. Pettite's got the PED issue, and was good forever rather than being great most of the time. people seem to want him to get extra credit for his postseason pitching, but he was more often good rather than great there too; how much extra credit should he get for playing for great teams? how often was he seen as the best pitcher on his own team? Once? Twice? Buehrle was about as good as Pettite, but didn't have the advantage of playing for great teams nearly as often. He didn't have the post-season record, but also got very little opportunity, and he was great when CWS won. he doesn't have any PED issues, and gets a little extra credit from me for keeping a game moving: I hated when the Twins faced him, but also kinda loved it because the game would MOVE, at a time when games were starting to drag. both fit into the Hall of Very Good for me I liked how Jaffe grouped Torii Hunter and Jimmy Rollins together: both were "face of the franchise" kind of guys, who had excellent careers, were very popular, and in Rollins' case won a title. but neither are real Hall of Fame candidates to me. Rollins won an MVP when he wasn't the best player on his own team, let alone the NL; Torii never really came close to that kind of peak. Torii was very good for like 13 seasons in a row, which is no small thing, and stayed good deep into his 30's, but his defense was overrated (he wasn't as consistently great as the GG's would suggest). Love the dude, but he's not a Hall of Famer, especially not compared to guys like Beltran, Lofton, or Edmonds who were contemporaries.

Considering what their likely stake would be, they're much more likely to be Ambassadors than Investors, really. The new ownership group wants someone with ties to the community, ties to the team's past success (even if it's individual rather than team success) who can stand with them and help them transition into the ownership. Maybe they'll have some advising responsibilities, but it's more like that it's a way to get a bigger name Twin to hang out with and help the community think of them as One Of Us sooner rather than later. Hrbek and Mauer both make a lot of sense. (I'm presuming Hrbek has the money; he's done enough commercials that he shouldn't have blown all of his money on beer, hunting supplies, and fishing boats unless he got ripped off by a financial manager like so many athletes) Smalley is a good fit too; he wasn't playing when the big money hit, but he's well-known to be a very sharp financial operator, a super nice guy, and good team ambassador. The actual amount of their stake will probably be 1% or less (unless it's maybe Mauer and Joe wants to drop some of his money into a safe holding with the team). you can have 0.02% and still be an "owner".

I think that's right, and it's why the Twins haven't been investing a lot into the bullpen: too many RP aren't consistent year over year. I think strategically we're better off developing bullpen weapons internally (converting starters with good stuff but can't make the leap from AAA to MLB makes tons of sense) than throwing significant money at FA. Duran and Jax have been consistently good (even if Duran has been on a downturn), Alcala has been good except for 2022-2023, when he was hurt/recovering, so that bodes well for his ability to repeat. Sands is the biggest question mark for regression: he was much much better last season than 2023 in MLB and was far better than ever at limiting free passes. That said, he also looked a lot more like the guy who pitched well in the bullpen in AAA in 2023. So which is more fluky, the small sample size from 2023 in MLB when he was still transitioning to relieving, or the excellent work in 2024? I think this season will tell us a lot about whether Sands will be a consistent reliever or Just Another Guy. but he's in his prime with good stuff, so there's reason to be positive. Health is going to be really important: Cleveland's BP was really healthy last season especially at the top and it made a massive impact for them. Twins are unlikely to have that kind of health with guys like Topa & Stewart in the mix, so their depth will matter more. That may be why they decided to bring back Tonkin: they think he's likely to be consistent in those middle innings while they sort out a few of the other guys.

I'm not expecting both Topa and Stewart to be on the active roster from Opening Day; neither one has enough of a track record of health that they should be counted on for significant roles. if we get anything from them, it's a bonus, potentially a big one as they are talented. the good thing is, we have a good bullpen without them. Duran, Jax, Sands, and Alcala look like a very nice core and while I'm not super enthusiastic about Tonkin, he is well-suited to a middle relief spot. Hopefully, Castellano can be the 2 inning middle relief guy that throws once or twice a week to bridge a short start and keeps the bullpen from needing 4-5 guys most nights to get through a game, He's an interesting talent, but unproven. Since I'd bet on either Topa or Stewart not being ready for Opening Day (I'll bet on Topa having knee inflammation or something if I need to pick), there's still a slot open in my mind. I'd either go with Varland (who has been passed by SWR, Festa, and Matthews already) or send Paddack to the 'pen if there's no moves by Opening Day. Better would be to sign a LHP who doesn't get killed by RH hitters. The bullpen is good. I'm higher on Alcala than some (including the team it seems like) and as long as Jax and Duran are the firemen it's going to shorten a lot of games.

Bet Provus will tell a few Uecker stories!

Yeah, it'll be interesting. On the one hand, these are all guys that should be in their primes: they're basically all in their mid-20's. On the other hand, they had a bunch of guys whose FIP was quite a bit worse than their ERA, which suggests there may have been some luck in there. They had great health in their bullpen last season, with 4 guys making 70+ appearances (Twins had 1), and it was their best 4 guys too. Is it sustainable? We'll find out, but I think it's fair to expect some drop off. If you're going to predict drop-off for Jax or Sands, then you should also be predicting the same for Clase or Gaddis or maybe Smith. Of course in part 5 we're going to see why Cleveland needed such an awesome performance from the their bullpen last season...

I think a LH specialist in the bullpen is increasingly overrated with the rules on minimum batters faced, so giving that slot the same impact as the closer/fireman or top set-up guy doesn't work for me. frankly, having more depth in your bullpen is more important than having a LH specialist IMHO. But ranking Cleveland over the Twins is...fine? I think they're very close, and very strong in comparison to the rest of the division and the league. I know a lot of people are very down on the Twins bullpen, but even in a down season Duran was good and has never been bad for the Twins. That matters when relievers often vary so wildly from year to year. Alcala had some notable implosions, but even with those on his record, he was very effective for the Twins, and he's arguably their 4th or 5th best reliever? The depth is really good here, especially if a couple of the injury guys (Stewart, Topa) are able to go, and that's really impactful over a long season. Don't let recency bias drag you down too far.

Henriquez looks like the perfect guy to add to a package with Vazquez/Paddack in order to acquire a RH COF/1B/DH type. Or a proven LH reliever. He's got talent, but no clear role with the Twins, and we have other relief options. But you never know when trying to work a trade. I don't hate on Henriquez or anything, but I'm not sure he's one of the Twins 10 best relievers, let alone one of the top 8.

Varland had more MLB success as a starter than Jax did; while Varland was bad last season, he was good in his initial cup of coffee and showed promise in 2023. Of course they were going to give him a chance to start in 2024. He failed, and so now he's almost certainly going to the bullpen...we've seen nothing that suggests they intend him to start in 2025. Who exactly are the teams in MLB who wouldn't have given Varland a couple of chances to start in MLB after being good in his initial shot in 2022? I'd love to know. People need to move on from this fantasy about Jax as a starter.

When you look at the total body of work in 2024, the Twins bullpen was quite good, and they're bringing back every key contributor from last season. Why wouldn't they be highly ranked and well-regarded? Recency bias is clearly driving down some people's opinion of the bullpen; they had some struggles down the stretch along with every other part of the team not named Buxton or Correa, with some high profile blowups (Jorge Alcala, are your ears burning?). But that doesn't mean they're bad, especially in the context of the rest of the league. Jax was elite last year, Duran was only good, but still has all the tools to be great again. Sands came on strong and seems to have found himself as a reliever, and while Alcala had a couple of bad blowups, his overall season was quite good. That's a very strong foundation for a bullpen, with 4 pitchers that can be used in high-leverage situations. Add in the rest of the options (Varland, Topa, Stewart, Castellano, Tonkin) and the Twins should have a strong bullpen that's missing only one element: a trusted LHP. But after the Okert Experience maybe it's not as critical to get a lefty out when the next 2 righties blow you up, especially when you have excellent RHP that can get LH out quite well. I'd like to see them add a LHP who doesn't get crushed by every RH who can hold a bat, but that's literally the only hole in this bullpen. Most teams are trying to figure out if they have enough backend guys, trying out a new closer, or hoping that 2-3 guys can handle the role. Twins biggest barrier is whether they can get & keep guys like Stewart & Topa healthy enough to get value out of them...and they have options already behind them. It's a good group.