jmlease1

My initial thought is that Festa's raw stuff is better but his control is shakier. Matthews is better at throwing strikes, but less able to get people to chase. I'm not sure which one I like better at this point; they both have things to work on, but they also are showing real potential. If you forced me to pick, I might go Festa; just feels like his arsenal might hold up better over all. Hopefully the Twins are able to put together a good off-season plan for both of them, because we need them to be successful.

I think the impact of the manager on W-L is frequently overrated, sometimes massively overrated by fans, so I'm not that spun up about whether Rocco comes back or not. Overall, I think he's been average to good as a manager and seems to have done well at managing the clubhouse and personalities. Tactically, I think he's been generally fine; there are some things to quibble with: bullpen management (i.e, I thought they handled Alcala poorly this season), pinch hitting (not just Margot, but the practice of pulling the LH hitter early enough in the game that the pinch hitter was going to get another AB against the platoon side later in the game. Over-relied on the "try to jump on the big inning early" move), and failure to engage more in the running game despite having more players this season with the skills to utilize it. but Rocco hasn't been bad, even with the collapse. he ran out of levers to pull with injuries and ineffectiveness; at the end of the day players have to play. It's not like he was a clown like Grifol in Chicago who never had a plan and very quickly lost the team. If they'd moved on from him, I wouldn't have been too upset; Rocco's got plenty of money and will do just fine. He's very likely to get another MLB job if he wants it. And if the team underperforms next season, he'll be gone. If they bounce back and win the division, then he's going to contend for manager of the year. The manager is a good target for fans and occasionally players, but we frequently overrate their impact when they're not obviously in over their heads (i.e., Grifol) or some of the few truly superior managers (i.e., Francona). 3/4 are in a mushy middle class where any of them can win Manager of the Year if their players kick butt and any of them can get fired if injuries and underperformance strike.

Sports franchises are different though: there's far more profit to be had from the appreciation of the asset than from the operating of the business, which makes it different than almost any other business. It's why the Boston Celtics are going up for sale this year: it doesn't matter if they've lost $200M operating the franchise (they probably haven't), they're about to make $3B on the sale.

It's the revenue sharing that has kept the NFL so healthy more than anything else. Even the non-guaranteed contracts weren't really a difference-maker (there's more guaranteed money than ever and it's totally fine). but local revenue in the NFL was also limited to game-day revenue and merchandizing, and the MLB and the NBA have much bigger local pools working. The NBA has been able to manage their way through it a bit with stronger salary cap rules and huge revenue growth nationally on TV contracts...MLB has almost none of that.

I'm probably a little more generous to Rocco, Falvey, and Maki? Rocco couldn't pull the right levers this season, but once again ran out of options late in the year between injuries and ineffectiveness. Dude can't swing the bat, catch the ball, or throw it for any of the players. (I also think that most fans overrate the impact the manager has in wins and losses via strategy decisions, though) But there did seem to be some factures in the clubhouse at the end, and he very stubbornly stuck with some strategies that simply weren't panning out this season, especially around pinch-hitting. C- to me, but how much difference does half a grade really make? Falvey and front office made some bad bets this year, but were hamstrung from Day 1 by ownership. The Santana signing worked out well in the end. The farm system development is going well, with real options emerging form the minors for starting pitchers. fewer apparent busts down there too. But Margot was a flop, and they really put too many eggs in the basket of injured pitchers. Getting next to nothing out of both Stewart and Topa was a worst-case scenario, but was also more problematic when you go dumpster diving with guys like Staumont, Jackson, and Okert. Who's responsible for no reinforcements before the deadline, the FO or ownership? I think that's ownership and payroll, personally. C, mostly because I blame ownership for hanging the front office out to dry. Maki did ok to me; SWR pitched valiantly and made adjustments through the year, the bullpen started the season wonderfully, and I'm not going to overreact to the collapse at the end. The FIP argument matters to me; Maki didn't control the defense (which was poor), and you have to give him some credit for Sands turning into a reliable guy and Jax becoming elite. demerit for being part of the poor handling of Alcala (who still finished with a better ERA+ than Sands or Duran). And he probably did have some say in picking the garbage fire retreads. C+ If there was a grade lower than F for the Pohlads and St. Peter, I'd give it. they are the truest of all poop tiers for this season. An absolutely shameful performance, especially in totally mucking up the tv and streaming deals. the payroll cut was rotten, but when put in the context of also making a cash grab on the broadcast rights that a) should have at least eased some of the payroll limitations and clearly did not, and b) being party to making it harder for fans to watch the games after promising better access they deserve all the shaming in the public square one can muster. St. Peter is a nice guy, but he utterly failed and needs to retire or be retired. Sadly, the Pohlads are too rich for shame.

There's going to be a real danger of actually having a problematic tier system within MLB related to revenues where teams like the Yankees, Dodgers and a small handful of others (maybe Mets and Cubs?) are operating with revenues that are far and away beyond what any other club is generating locally that gives them the ability to not have to change their models significantly when everyone else is cutting back substantially. You'll have a large chunk (15-20) teams that function somewhat in the same ecosphere for payroll, and then a handful of teams that are flipping out non-competitive payrolls. but what's problematic is those structures, especially at the top can ossify. Look at what's happening in the Premier League, where clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Arsenal live in an entirely different world of revenue generation, in part because they've been so consistently in the top 6 of the Premier league for so long, elevating their status locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally and drastically increasing their ability to generate sponsorship and merchandising revenue, not to mention match-day revenue. The attempts at financial fair play rules imposed to stop another Citeh coming in and buying their way up the top and staying there until their revenues catch up have also made it safer than ever for those "big clubs" to stay at the top, no longer fear relegation, etc. How do you manage baseball if the Yankees and Dodgers are always so much more successful than everyone else? or is MLB fine with that? Do they think that expanded playoffs with short series at the start provides enough upset potential that it doesn't matter if a big market big money team wins 110 games?

Well, this is why they're dumping the entire hitting staff: the utter collapse of the offense for the last 4-6 weeks of the season. But as with most things the answer regarding Popkins success/failure as a coach is probably a little more mixed. Julien regressed badly this season, but was excellent last season. You seem to be suggesting it was bad coaching this year, so what about 2023? We don't really know about Lee, really: this is his first time up in MLB, he only played in 50 games, and didn't break 175 ABs. Lewis joined the slump parade in the second half...until then everything was hunky + dory. So it's only bad coaching when the player stinks? Miranda had a dreadful end to the season...but it sure seems like he was hurt and trying to gut through it. Bad coaching or injury? Jeffers wore down at the of the season...bad coaching or injury? vazquez had a rotten year at the plate (again), but showed real signs of life in July/Aug...was that good coaching to get him out of the slump or him ignoring bad coaching from the start of the year? And blaming Popkins for AK's inability to stay healthy seems silly: Kirilloff didn't regress, he got hurt again and again and again. If they think they need a new direction, then you have to totally clean house in the department, I think. Hard to set a new course if someone like Rudy Hernandez is still there and has been for a decade or longer. (not to single Rudy out for blame; there's plenty to go around) I'd say Tommy Watkins needs to be reassigned since he was frequently a mess as 3B coach, but that's just me. we'll see if this matters. Lots of player have their own hitting coaches nowadays and I'm betting that's who they listen to first.

The starting pitching depth in the high minors is in a good place right now. But we'll need at least one or two of these guys to really step forward and show out. the good thing is, there are enough guys there with upside that the odds are actually in our favor on that one for once. I suspect Paddack will still get a shot at the rotation next season, for better or worse. So that will give us Festa, Matthews, Morris, Adams, Lewis, Raya, Nowlin, and Culpepper as the most likely next group between AAA and AA. Good grief, I just ran off 8 names and Pierson Ohl wasn't even one of them. Macleod and Prielipp are barely on the radar yet. Let the best pitchers rise.

Too harsh on Alcala, I think; his actual results weren't pretty close to where Sands landed. Sands was more consistent, and that seems to be a theme in these evaluations where players get extra credit for consistency and the boom or bust guys are getting punished. Healthy for the first time in 3 seasons, Alcala put up an ERA+ of 129, and had a positive WPA, despite some notable implosions (which tells you that when he was good he was very very good). I would say that counts as a success, especially when you look at how the Twins managed him. (of all the relievers, they seemed to have the worst/no plan for him the most) Matthews is hard to evaluate in this company. Overall in terms of his development it was a very successful season, rising from A-ball to pitch in MLB, and he showed he could compete. But he also has things to work on and wasn't good in MLB yet. A lot of his numbers ended up disturbingly close to Varland...who got an F (and deserved it). In terms of his MLB experience, he was a D. But looking at the totality of his development and rise from the minors, he does much better and expectations were certainly lower for him than someone like Varland, who has already had bites at the MLB apple. he's getting graded on a different curve, which is both correct and unfair. :P Twins have got to come up with a better solution for a LHP in the bullpen next season: Thielbar looks cooked, Okert can't survive in today environment being so helpless against righties, Funderburk hasn't been healthy enough or effective enough to be the top lefty...Headrick making a full-time transition? (I don't even want to talk about Cole Irvin) I feel somewhat positive about the pitching staff going into next season: Ryan will be back, Ober is proven now, Lopez has shown he can lead a staff before so I expect him to have a better and more consistent season. SWR threw more innings than he's ever done as a pro and did it at the MLB level...and competed. Between Paddack/Festa/Matthews/Lewis/Morris/Nowlin/Raya we have options for the 5th starter with reinforcements to handle injuries/ineffectiveness drawing from serious prospects rather than washed up retreads or rookies with little hope. the bullpen has a solid base to build on with Duran, Jax, Sands, and Alcala but will need some reinforcement. I have hope for Varland, but he's not there yet and you simply can't count on Topa & Stewart with their injury histories. This season was worst-case for both, but you can't presume best case either. I'd love for the Twins to get a high-end starter and raise the ceiling, but I don't expect investment from the latest edition of Cheap-Ass Pohlads.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to look at OPS+, adding the league context helps keep things in perspective.

It's just recentcy bias, really. Miranda was absolutely awful down the stretch and was helpless at the plate when we needed him the most. It's easy for the recent crap-fest to get stuck in the memory. I think the grade is too harsh considering his earlier work and would probably match him with Larnach.

I agree. I think they expected Margot to be a more able option in CF going into the year and failed to course correct when it became clear he was much more of a "break glass in case of emergency" there. Of course, I'm sure they didn't expect him to have a career-worst hitting season at 29 and essentially become helpless against RHP, instead of just not very good. But with Buxton's injury history they simply don't have room on the roster to carry specialists like this, and Margot certainly wasn't good enough at his "one job" to make him worth keeping. They've got some real work to do on the hitting side considering how poorly the season ended for Jeffers, Julien, Miranda, Castro, Lewis, and Lee at the plate. I'm curious to see what the analysis is on why all them struggled so much in September. Hopefully it's fixable.

the biggest issue the Twins had in 2022 & 2024 were injuries. 2023 was a successful year unless you're a "world series or you're fired" kind of person: won the division, won a playoff series. I think the FO is showing they can develop starting pitching (which for me goes beyond just drafting a guy and having him make it to the majors). They ID'd Joe Ryan & Pablo Lopez as trade targets and long-term solutions to the rotation. The acquired and developed SWR (who had a solid season and was desperately needed), drafted and developed Ober (clearly he'd been on the team's radar before falvey & levine arrived, but they still pulled the trigger and the development work was excellent), and now we have Festa, Matthews, Raya, Morris, Nowlin, Lewis, etc in the upper minors to sort through. Some of those guys are going to flame out and/or get dealt...but someone like Festa has a lot of better chance to succeed than a Meija or Romero. they're not perfect by any means and they need to recalculate how much injury risk they can take on again, IMHO. And there should be a reevaluation of their pinch hitting strategies, I think: they're jumping on the platoon advantage aspect to get away from a LH v LH matchup too early in the game leaving the bench thinner at the end and a lesser hitter getting more late game ABs. While I can support the strategy of deploying a pinch hitter earlier to increase the impact by striking earlier in the game, they seem to be overusing it. they probably need to look at what they're doing defensively as well to ensure we're stronger there, and they appear to be a little behind on utilizing the running game to their best advantage. but at the end of the day, players have to play and I'm not going to bash Rocco or even the FO too much for Miranda, Castro, Lewis, Jeffers, Julien, and Lee not being able to hit water if they fell out of a boat for the entire month of September...

Complicated question on injuries. yes, they're out of the player's control and certainly none of them wanted to get hurt...but in terms of actually evaluating what they did there's a fair argument that you have to consider them because of what they did to their performance or how much of an absence they created. That said, I would say too harsh on Miranda, who finished with basically the same OPS+ as Larnach. Larnach's consistency (good for him for finding that) shouldn't so completely outweigh Miranda's earlier production. feels like recentcy bias with how bad Miranda was down the stretch (when he was trying to play through injury?), and for all the issues with Miranda's defense, he finished with a better bWAR than Larnach who contributed little defensively as well. I probably would have graded Jeffers out higher as well; he may not have hit like 2023 for the full season (too many slumps) but last season was an A+, this was more like a B or B-. Another guy who really struggled in Sept. If Castro rates a B with his power outage and equally horrific September, I'd tick Jeffers up as well. (Probably meet in the middle: B- for the both of them, lol) The utter collapse of the offense in September was tough; by the time Buxton & Correa came back (and they hit through the end), Lewis, Miranda, Jeffers, Julien, and Castro had all fallen off the map.

You see what's missing from that long list of players, right? Starting pitchers. The team still had talent when Falvey came in (as evidenced by the surge under Molitor), but it was built on fog & mirrors, which was notable when the team went to hell the next season, and there were few reinforcements to be found in the minors. Gordon: injury riddled, had one solid season and 3 dreadful ones. Gonsalves: couldn't make the leap past AAA Romero: imploded Kirilloff: never healthy again after his breakout in 2018 I mean yikes. That was supposedly the best we had. How did Jay, Diaz, Stewart, Javier, Burdi, Palka, etc do?

I'm not particularly surprised. Falvey has rebuilt the farm system and the team has been substantially better under his watch than they had been in the previous regime. Rocco doesn't seem to have lost the clubhouse, and while I don't always agree with his tactical decisions (pinch hits the LH hitters a little too early, could do better with his bullpen, etc) he's been fairly good. Of course, I also think that most fans vastly overrate the impact the manager has on the team's success from a tactical perspective. There seems to be this belief that a "great" manager is worth a substantial number of wins all by themselves, just in how much better they manipulate batting orders, lineups, pitching changes, and/or calling for tactical actions with hitters/runners (hit & run, bunting, steals, etc) than the average manager. And I just don't think it's true. It hasn't been a great season...but it wasn't a bad one either, just disappointing. The injuries really hurt again, and a number of players struggled with performance. (i.e., Kepler & Julien, who were both important in 2023, were not very good this year) It's extra frustrating because they looked to have a playoff spot locked up for so long and just utterly failed down the stretch. If it sounds familiar, that's because it is: 2022, the Twins were in first place in the Central for a lot of that season before going 11-22 to finish out the season and crapped the bed. This year it's a 9-18 finish. Injuries ruined that season. Cutting payroll on top of injuries and poor performances wrecked this one, IMHO. My ranking for most responsibility: Ownership Players Front office Manager & on-field coaching staff Are you going to get better by firing the people who weren't as responsible for the collapse and keeping most of the ones who were? Because ownership isn't going anywhere (for better or for worse), and while some players will move on, most of them will be back for another shot.

And yet, some people will still claim that Calvin Griffith wasn't "really" racist.

SWR has been quite good this season, and while he's struggled to get to the finish line (I suspect if we'd had more options, like Paddack coming back or Ryan not being done for the season they would have found a reason to give him a break/skip in the rotation) he's shown plenty to be in the rotation for next season. I'm impressed with how he's stayed healthy this season and made adjustments to keep surviving out there. He's still got upside and growth potential as he refines his pitches and deploys them better.

Great beginning to his professional career by Beltre. I'm guessing he comes to the states to play in the FL Complex league next season? I think that would be a good step in his development: working with the Twins developmental staff more closely, access to the Ft. Myers complex, etc. It's basically the new version of rookie ball, right? Seems like a solid fit at 18. Mercedes had an excellent season and in other years might have been the pick. Nice to have both. Some talented guys have won this award before.

If the other team commits 4 errors and you don't win...man. Twins sure tried to kick it back with all the baserunning issues. SWR may be gassed. This is far and away the most innings he's thrown as a professional, and he's done that at the highest level of competition. He's not ending the season on a strong note, but he's still been a godsend this season and I hope a bad finish won't sour too many fans on him. He's just turning 24 (Happy birthday SWR on Friday!) and has shown he belongs. About time the offense puts 8 on the board, though. There's too much offensive talent for them to have been as bad as they've been in Sept. The bullpen gets most of the stick because of the high-profile implosions, but the offense put them in too many situations where they had to be perfect night after night. Be nice for them to finish the season strong.

Waiting For Topa has been the worst movie of the summer. It's extra frustrating because he's exactly what we needed. One more trustworthy arm in the bullpen that could keep the workload from getting oppressive on Jax & Duran, coverage for Brock Stewart getting hurt again, etc. Getting next to nothing from him hurt. This is where luck plays into the season: Twins made a bet on Topa & Stewart being factors in the bullpen this season, and it came up craps. He's definitely got the ability to be a very useful member of the bullpen. But health has ruined multiple seasons for the Twins recently, so you have to wonder if they can continue to take these risks on player health when it's gone to hell multiple times.

The hitters are fine choices. DeAndrade & Rosario need time at or around this level of competition because they missed so much time. Ross is getting a test to see if he can hit enough to make his glove play. I like it. The pitchers all seem like a bunch of guys who might be getting sent to see if they can break out a little. Lotto time?

Rod Carew is a nice guy and may have forgiven Calvin, and he's entitled to believe what he wants. but the dude said what he said and did what he did. Twins ownership has never been great. Carl was willing to have the team contracted, an unforgiveable sin. Jim was cheap, but at least stayed out of the way. Joe...I'm not entirely sure if he's really in control of the budget at the end of the day, but if he is...his tenure has started out poorly because the people that deserve the biggest share from this season's failure is ownership. For me it goes like this: Ownership Players Front office On-field staff All are culpable to some degree, the priority goes like this for me. Players at the end of the day can almost never be lower than 3rd, because they are so far and away the biggest deciders on who wins and loses. There's enough under-achieving, poor play, etc for them to get 2nd. I rank the front office lower because ownership's unwillingness ot spend put them in a position where they took more risks on health than could be borne. yes, they missed on a number of things, but were almost hamstrung. I still believe that the managers and coaches in baseball have less impact on the game than any of the major team sports, so while Rocco & company have some misses this season, they rank 4th for me.

So our only choices are cheap billionaires who maybe don't care about baseball or a racist garbage fire who didn't have the money to resource the team in the first place? Ownership of this franchise has never deserved statues.

I think the transition of Varland to the bullpen will be a good one. He'll be able to max his velocity and his more limited arsenal plays better in the bullpen. I understand why the Twins waited so long this season; when you're relying on so many untested young starters (SWR, Festa, Matthews are all in that boat) it's hard to move one out of the pool when one of those guys might implode so badly that they simply can't be used or an injury forces them on the IL for a week or more. I suspect that if Ryan hadn't gotten hurt we would have seen Varland in the bullpen sooner. Too bad.