jmlease1

2020 was a tough year. And with so few picks, the twins aren't going to get back any value for missing on high draft choices with good development of late-round picks, which they've done in other drafts (like 2019). I'm still not sure what I think of Raya, who has talent, but has had a different kind of progression through the system, where they've handled his innings very carefully. I'm fond of Rosario, who I know is something of a longer shot to make it in MLB (he's not a good defender, he Ks a lot, he's not consistent, and now he's coming off a significant injury after just being ok in AA) but development is not linear so I'm holding out hope. I think a lot of us questioned the Sabato pick at the time. Coming on the heels of Cavaco, it was more than fair to wonder if they knew how to handle 1st round picks! It's definitely gone better since then: Petty yielded Sonny Gray, Brooks Lee has already made it to MLB, and Walker Jenkins looks awesome. the 2021 draft is the one where there's going to be the lowest yield from high draft picks (Twins have traded their top 5 selections: Petty, Miller, Hajjar, Povich, and CES) but still might get ok value out of the draft class as a whole with MacLeod, Adams, Festa, Ohl, and Nowlin still progressing as starters with Festa looking like a real find. MLB draft is tough.

Wallner belongs. He's pretty underrated by a lot of Twins fans because the K's aren't pretty when he's missing the ball, but at the end of the day he's put up an OPS+ of 139 in MLB to date with a ton of power, which is awfully good production for a corner OF. His arm will play nicely in RF, and I'm hoping he might improve defensively a bit with it being his only home outside of some action at DH. He can actually cover a surprising amount of ground, so with a little improvement on his route-running he can get up around average as a fielder. His stats won't show his complete defensive impact (how exactly do you show the number of baserunners that didn't go for an additional base because they feared Wallner's arm?) but he will be appreciated by his pitchers even if he doesn't have a ton of OF assists. The aesthetics may drive some Twins fans bonkers (I get it, 3K days are not fun to watch and he's never going to look particularly graceful in the field) but the dude can absolutely play and I'm looking forward to him getting 140 games in RF. He might not be Juan Soto (who is?) or Kyle Tucker but he certainly could be a borderline all-star if he gets a full season producing like he has over his MLB career to date. Very valuable to the Twins.

You act like Jeffers is a poor defender at catcher, which really isn't borne out by his play. Jeffers is probably best suited to more of a job share at catcher to keep him healthy and shouldn't be looked at to play 130+ games at catcher, but he certainly can be the primary, getting 90-100 games there. Look at someone like Ben Rortvedt, who is a quality defensive player at catcher (and a poor hitter). Who do you think TB would make their primary catcher if they had both players? Pretty sure Jeffers would get more time...and would be substantially more productive, just like he was in 2024. the teams with the best success at catcher (Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dodgers, KC, etc) all had catchers who could hit getting the majority of the time, rather than the defense-only guys. You just bump up on the ceiling too fast with guys like Rortvedt, who is a quality defender, but can't hit.

Hopefully. coming into a season without having any off-season surgeries and having a normal prep to a season will help position him to do better and stay stronger throughout the season. I expect the twins would have given him some breaks in August/September last season, but they were short on options with Miranda and Lee both fighting injuries, Castro being needed elsewhere (and being overused as well), etc. he might just need to get used to the grind.

Larnach is probably a bit high for me; he did well last season despite the turf toe, but he's got almost 1000 ABs now in MLB and there's been a lot of stretches where he's struggled. Maybe he's figure out how to survive against off-speed pitches, but maybe not. If he's healthy then he should be a useful player; he's not a bad fielder. Jeffers I might have higher. Catchers who can hit are really valuable and while he may not be able to hold up under a 125 game workload, he's still a solid backstop who can hit. So many catchers are just garbage at the plate, as either no contact or no power swingers that can't get on base enough and add nothing else on offense. Jeffers will take his walks and give you some pop and he's a really valuable player.

It's funny, we've become so accustomed to this being the narrative on the AL Central, but it's really not true any longer. CWS are bad. likely still the worst team in baseball. But the rest are not. The AL West is probably the weakest again this year: the A's are still bad, betting the under on the Angels is almost always a winning proposition, and I'm not exactly impressed with Texas. Seattle would look worse in a better division; they got crushed by everyone in the AL central except the dreadful CWS.

I kinda doubt Falvey has the team he wants: I'm sure he'd like to have brought in a RH slugging 1B/OF/DH type to shore up the lineup, but ownership isn't going to allow it with the budget. They're holding the line tightly on payroll, especially with the sale pending, almost certainly to make sure they extract as much profit as possible before finally moving on. It's so exhausting and frankly stupid, because this team has a lot of talent on it and with other teams like Cle and Det not making significant moves (and KC mostly just hanging on to what they have), there's still a window in the AL Central. Despite the collapse last season, the Twins weren't a bad team in 2024. Finished with a winning record and should have been able to hold a WC slot until wheels came off the wagon in Sept. Outside of Santana, we haven't lost anything significant. (Kepler wasn't good last season, Thielbar finished the year ok but hadn't been good for most of the season) There's several players that should be ripe for improvement over 2024 (Julien, Lee, Lewis) and others that will improve the team if they're simply able to play more for the Twins in 2025 (Wallner, Larnach, Correa, Buxton). There's a lot of depth in the pitching staff along with real top-end talent. It's incredibly disappointing that a team that should be able to compete under any reasonably objective assessment can't add anything to help push themselves over the top because ownership. They're desperately trying not to lose any money on the team, and through their short-sightedness they're probably going to lose more money because of such an uninspiring off-season. Early season ticket sales are going to be garbage because of the way the team finished and the fact that ownership has denied them the ability to improve. They'll probably find a way to somehow screw up the TV and streaming again too. It's too bad. I think this team is still going to be competitive even without a substantial move, unless they're forced to dump a bunch more salary so the Pohlads can improve their bottom line a little more.

Part of the problem with that is definitely the feeling that ownership would not reinvest the money, but would simply pocket the savings on their way out the door. I don't think it's a wise move to deal either Buxton (whose contract isn't really that burdensome) or Correa (who plays at an elite level at a position the Twins have had a lot of trouble filling), but it's not an unreasonable idea as a way to restructure the club and potentially avoid a late-season collapse. But I have zero faith that we'd get to reinvest anywhere near the salary savings that might be realized from a trade of their highest salaried players. It's good news for the Twins that the ownership in other AL Central cities seem to be adverse to investment in their clubs as well. I'm sure the losses in TV money are impacting those teams as well, and CWS needing a total rebuild is fortunate timing. Still doesn't let our ownership off the hook for choosing more operating profit over winning. I'm sick of this ownership group and can't wait for them to be gone. (Justin Ishbia might end up being a meddling shmuck, but at least he loves baseball, and he and his family are rich enough they don't need operating profits every year to maintain their lifestyle...or other businesses)

Because the "Rocco only does what his spreadsheet tells him" isn't "Baldelli uses analytics to inform his decisions", it's a pejorative that says he's a useless robot. It's entirely designed as an insult. I think you know that the twins don't have an elaborate decision tree set up on the iPad that tells Rocco what decision to make after every single AB throughout the game, but for the people that either don't like the use of analytics in baseball decision-making or just dislike Rocco this has become the cheap shot attack, repeated over and over again without any nuance or real accuracy, designed solely to denigrate the manager (and the front office) mostly because you don't like the way modern baseball is played. There's real areas to criticize Rocco's game management but the "he takes orders from a spreadsheet" one is consistently and spectacularly dumb IMHO. Criticism of late season collapses are absolutely allowed, but this is another one of those areas where people overrate the impact of managers in baseball. Maybe another manager would have been able to pull Royce Lewis out of his horrific slump or get Willi Castro going again, etc but I'm skeptical about any "new manager bounce" in baseball. Rocco and the coaches get some blame for not being able to find a lever to pull to get anyone out of their slumps, but the players should get most of the stick because too many of them just stunk and came up empty when they needed to. In 6 seasons, Rocco has 3 division titles, a .525 win %, and 3 playoff wins (including one short series). That's pretty good, but not out of line with the talent level of the team IMHO. Could/should any of those teams have done more? I'd say yes on the 2019 squad, maybe on 2021 group (who had more talent than a last place finish, but obviously the sell-off mattered). is it on Rocco that the 2019 team only scored 7 runs in 3 games in the playoffs? The record overall has been good.

The "baldelli/spreadsheet" insults are pretty tired. the collapses in 2022 and 2024 are pretty different. In 2022 the team literally ran out of MLB-quality players; we used 13 OFs that season, including an ill-famed cameo in CF by Royce Lewis. The team had a ton of injuries down the stretch and ran out of options in the minors. And they protected against that in the next season by adding veteran OF help, having players with more flexibility, and keeping some of the best prospects in the minors longer to ensure they didn't run out of depth in 2023. 2024 they actually weren't that bad off in terms of health: sure, there were guys battling some issues and we'd lost some important players, but the reality was the team just fell apart with multiple players falling into dreadful slumps with no time to correct. in 2022 we had 24 position players get in 12 or more games. In 2024, that number was just 17. Different situations entirely.

I don't mind these kinds of minor-league deals in order to raise the floor/provide emergency backups/etc. Where I get cranky is when they'd rather give AB after AB to a poor performing "veteran" rather than give a younger player with far more upside the chance and a long leash to get through the bumps. We'll see where this lands. I don't think he solves the problem and I'd definitely start Miranda and probably Julien over him (unless Julien shows up to spring training still paralyzed or flailing at the plate), but I'd have no problem with him as a backup if he looks very strong in spring training or as veteran AAA depth. I'm fine with taking flyers like this so long as they know when to cut bait. And I don't want a 32 year old journeyman with limited upside blocking a player like miranda (who still has real upside) because the vet needs less hand-holding or whatever. Unsure of the team's judgment on handling those marginal veteran players.

the 2023 team was very fun. I like winning, and the playoffs were amazing. Loved the starting pitching, Duran nuking people as the closer, and the sheer joy of Mr Grand Slam in the second half. But if you're pining for a return to the baseball of the late 70's early 80's with lots of bunting, starters throwing 300+ innings, and astro turf as far as the eye can see, then you're not going to have any fun watching baseball these days.

well, the idea that a manager can't be effective if they're in the last year of their contract is a myth that's been promulgated by...managers and coaches, across almost every sport. It's self-serving at best, complete BS at worst. But I'm not all that surprised that an extension hasn't happened for several reasons. The team had an epic collapse to end the season, the second one in three years (although Baldelli was hardly to blame for the first one) and it's not unfair to wonder whether he was starting to lose his grip on the team. With the current ownership group selling the team, not extending the manager is a gift to the next ownership group, who may want to put their own guy in place, not because it's always the smart decision but it's just the sort of thing new owners do. new owners always want to make a splash, show they're in control, that there's a new sheriff in town, blah blah blah ownershipcakes. Picking a new manager is a nice high profile move, and usually easier than anything on the player side of it. I think Baldelli is...fine. When his players are healthy and playing well, he looks great, and when they're not he doesn't. he's not a disaster, despite the loathing he engenders from some of the folks around here (the hatred is almost comical at times, especially as people make up things about him to fit their narrative, pretend to be able to read his mind, or act as if the modern style of baseball is something uniquely related to "Baldelli Ball" or something). he was overrated when he won Manager of the Year (which much like in the NFL goes to the manager who is believed to have overachieved from what their perceived talent was in the preseason more than any kind of objective "best"), underrated when the team finished last, and falls into the mushy middle of baseball managers. In terms of managers that win more games than they "should" because of their consistently superior game management; that number is perishingly small, and most fans drastically overestimate the impact of managerial in-game decisions. A lot of what constitutes the modern managerial role is behind the scenes in handling the egos, player development, strain of the long grinding season, etc and fans have less information about that now (despite the internet) than ever, because players are much more carefully handled by their own management teams and management doesn't talk about it. I won't be crushed if Baldelli gets moved on by a new ownership (he's plenty rich, he'll be just fine), but i won't be rejoicing either. (Baldelli is fine and baseball managers are frequently overrated).

Free agents are flying off the board while we sit back because the ownership hamstrung the front office by cutting $30M+ from the payroll. If ownership is setting the payroll at $130 when it should be at $150-160 because the billionaires need more cash to prop up their other businesses, that ain't the fault of the front office. And the idea that Buxton would be a backup on anything but a handful of teams is a contender for the Preposterous Statement of the Year Award. I'll give you Judge & Duran, but Rodriguez and Merrill were healthier, not better. I'll hear arguments on Varsho, but Buxton hits a heck of lot better. Doyle? healthier, not better. It's incredibly hard to find a player who can defend in CF and hit like Byron Buxton. Want to claim Buxton is a "backup"? name names that would start over him on a "real" team.

How many teams move a player down the defensive spectrum before they have to? And if players are moving down early, then they're frequently flawed as defenders at any position. If you draft someone out of HS or college at 1B, they'd better be able to hit a ton. The reality defense at 1B just isn't as important as hitting at 1B. Carlos Santana's Gold Glove this year was great, but it would have been pretty hollow if he'd put up a 90 OPS+. Just like Max Kepler's 2021-2022 stretch where he was an average starter, but below average offensively and drove people insane with all those 4 bouncers to 2B... I'm pretty sure Royce Lewis could play a fine 1B with his good glove, but his bat is more valuable if he's able to hit at 2B or 3B and defend reasonably. I think the Twins were always pretty positive on Kirilloff's ability to play 1B, but when was he ever healthy enough to actually play it? His lack of health and (understandable) inability to hit through some awful injury problems kept him from ever settling in. Twins brought in Santana because they couldn't count on Kirilloff staying healthy, not because they didn't think he could evolve into a functional 1B.

because he's currently their best player? and while we could certainly use $20M to improve at say 1B/DH...do you really think that signing Pete Alonso to handle that role will actually make up for the loss of Correa's production? I mean, who else are we signing? or is that 420M getting eaten up with someone else's "bad" contract in return? Look, you could still have a winning Twins club without Correa if you signed Alonso and he played well, Lewis stays healthy and produces, Buxton stays healthy and produces, Lee has a breakout season, Julian returns to form, the pitching staff stays steady/improves, etc. But the risk goes up and the margin for error shrinks. And taking a player who produces like an all-star off the roster and replacing him with a couple of average starters doesn't move the needle much for this team. Might be different if Royce was coming off a healthy season where he finished strong or Lee had already had his breakout. But that's not where we are.

Do they really have question marks at all of those positions? Wallner is locked at RF and while Twins fans who hate the aesthetics of Ks don't like him, he's a fine corner OF. Larnach certainly played well enough last season to deserve a shot at LF, but I guess if you want to make him a question mark you can. Brooks Lee and Royce lewis are excellent prospects who have some injury issues that need to overcome, but between the two of them they should be able to handle 2B and 3B, and we still have both Miranda and Julien if either of them falter, so while we may have questions at 2B and 3B, we also have plenty of answers. But maybe stop pretending you can read the mind of the manager and declare that this is what he "wants". This is what he has. they are platooning LH hitters they don't think can handle LHP, not because they like it. They're giving Buxton days off to try to keep him healthy the entire season, because they're much better when he plays, not because they like it. And they don't actually give Correa very many days off when he's healthy, but after playing with injury in 2023 and not hitting well, they took a different route in 2024. (this sort of nonsense about what Rocco "wants" reminds me of when people claimed he "wanted" the DH spot open so he could cycle players through it and didn't "want' a permanent DH. But Rocco clearly had no problems penciling in Nelson Cruz at DH every day, and even said publicly how nice it was to always have that spot filled. What do managers really want? As many players that can play at elite levels as they can possibly find. All the rest is usually the fans imprinting what they want.)

I think Pete Alonso is going to regret turning down the long-term deal he had on the table with the Mets. Not seeing much of a market for him, but he would actually be a good fit for the Twins to add that right-handed thump and he's always hit LHP well. But ego might get in the way of him taking a pay cut even to rehab his rep on a 1-year "prove it" deal with a team like MN. But if he were willing to take a Goldy-style deal, I'd love to see him here in 2025. I doubt we'll come up with the money, though. Congrats to Carlos Santana on a getting a big pay bump coming off a gold glove season. not sure he's going to replicate last season at age 39, but he's a good dude so go get paid, sir. Please feel free to change your Evil Ways when you play us, however. Wade's LH bat and unimpressive defense makes him a bad fit for what the Twins need, even if he is a capable hitter. Polanco is one of my favorite Twins. But I dunno about him at 1B, and while his switch-hitting is nice, he's better as a LH batter and was more of just decent hitting LHP as a RH batter. Think I'd rather roll with Miranda and Julien as the platoon at 1B, allowing Miranda to back up Lee at 3B and Julien to back up Lewis at 2B than jam in Wade or hope that Polanco can bounce back from injury again at a new position.

Adames also has never had a 5 bWAR season in his career and despite playing 75 more games than Correa in 2024, he still ended up with a lower bWAR (which is a counting stat). Henderson, Witt Jr, Seager...who else are you sure is better than Correa? And I'm amazed that you think that the 7th or 8th best player at any position is replaceable.

The Twins clear $36M in a trade if they take no MLB players back. Do you really think this ownership group, with their track record, and their intent to sell would actually spend more than $15-20M of that "savings"? How many holes do you think you're filling in FA with that? Disagree that Correa's not an MVP-caliber player, but even accepting that: 5 bWAR players are worth a LOT and are very difficult to replace. From 2021-2024 the Twins have had exactly 1 player reach 5 bWAR: Carlos Correa. I love Royce Lewis, and I hope he reaches his ceiling, but his career bWAR is lower than Correa's bWAR from 2024.

I'd be fine with that? Minor league deal with no promises of promotion and no 40-man slot? sure, seems like perfectly fine insurance policy that would also be very tradable midseason if he's healthy and the Twins didn't have a roster spot for him. Biggest barrier is we might already have too many starters for the AAA rotation. Minor league "rehab" deals are reasonable business: add in insurance policies at low cost, get to know a player better, and it doesn't hurt your reputation around the league either. Just don't use them to block prospects and/or overpromise them.

The only people that would win would be a) the team trading for him, and b) the Pohlads, who would almost certainly pocket a substantial chunk of the salary savings. Trading Correa is the white flag of surrender for 2025. I still think this team can contend despite the rotten end to last season, the refusal to invest from the ownership, and struggles we saw from some of the younger players in 2024. You should never throw away a season in MLB, because a) weird things happen in the playoffs, and b) sometimes all you need is a couple of players getting hot at the same time. This isn't the NBA where the team with the best player usually wins the series and it's hard to get a star player from a middle of the pack team, or the NFL where you can rebuild in 1-2 seasons. Rebuilding in baseball takes longer, especially for a mid-market or smaller team. Keep Correa. He's a reason to go watch the team. He's the best defensive SS we've had since Gagne, probably the best offensive SS we've had ever (sorry Roy) and I love watching him play.

I'm confused by how the Twins seem to think of Alcala, who has a ton of talent and now that he's healthy has the tools to be a shut down flamethrower in the back of the bullpen. But there seems to be some attitude or mental discipline things going on there that we sort of hear rumors about the team being unhappy about but it rarely seems to get into specifics. Maybe he's the million dollar arm/5 cent head guy. or maybe they just need to settle him in a role as a late inning, 1 inning reliever and let him cook, instead mucky around with 2 inning stretches. The August 18 meltdown was pretty bad, but it happened so fast that they probably couldn't get anyone up in time to stop the bleeding when it quickly because obvious that Alcala didn't have it that day, coming off 1 day of rest. but even with that hellacious outing, he still had a very solid season. he shouldn't be in no-man's land: he should be looked at being right with Sands as the guys right behind Duran and Jax. But maybe some of the other stuff is impacting that in ways we don't really know?

I'd love to lock Joe Ryan up to a long-term deal, but I doubt it happens this season with the Pohlads trying to sell the team and likely wanting to keep the books clean. Their penurious nature as well limits the flexibility in drafting the contract as well; does anyone think that they would be willing to include any kind of signing bonus or other similar type of mechanism that would make it more attractive to Ryan? Hells bells, I'm terrified of any trade to free up payroll, especially involving one of our most expensive contracts, because I'm seriously concerned that the Pohlads will choose to pocket the savings on their way out the door. But I'm a big fan of Joe Ryan, and even if he can't make the leap to a #1 starter, there's no doubt in my mind that he can at least be a #2 on a playoff team, someone who should be trusted to start in a playoff game and give the team a serious chance to win. Plus, he's fun to watch. Works quickly, throws strikes, has a different set of mechanics, and has shown he can get deep into a game. Ryan paired with Lopez and Ober are a big reason I feel the Twins can compete in 2025 and beyond.

I hate to say it, but I think a lot of Twins fans around here are overrating Willi Castro, who is a very nice player to have, but fell off badly at the plate in the second half last season (batted .200 in July & Sept/Oct, with an OPS of .548 & .562 respectively. That's dreadful). Vazquez out-hit Castro in the second half last season. And Castro's defense was much much worse last year, and he was much less impactful in the running game in 2024. Other teams are going to look at him and see a useful utility guy but aren't going to give extra credit for the all-star nod. I like Castro a lot, but he wasn't our best player last season, he wasn't the most valuable, and it's not really very close. He gets extra credit for being able to play almost anywhere, but takes demerits from often not playing them well. I'd argue that one of the things last season showed us was that Castro might be more impactful when he's playing a little less. All of that plus a $6M salary limits what you can get in return for him.