jmlease1

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.

Pretty fair assessment of the season and the utter collapse down the stretch has unquestionably taken the heart out of the fans, many of whom have felt badly used this season to begin with. It's been a seriously disappointing season from a team that should be in the playoffs and even though they're technically not eliminated, they've felt like they've been on the beach for weeks now. I won't say the players quit or choked. That's far too harsh. there's going to be a lot of blame for such a disappointing season thrown around, and it's going to mostly be deserved. No one covered themselves in glory this season.

Always a little sad to see the end of the minor league season; there's always hope to be found within these reports and new prospects to envision as part of the MLB club. While the clubs didn't have the best seasons in terms of wins and losses, there was quite a lot of success in player development in the farm system this season. Looking forward to seeing where the next prospect list lands and what the community thinks of the top 30!

I hope Kiersey gets a legit shot to make the club out of spring training next season. The defense is for real and he's got nothing left to prove in AAA. Let's see if he can make it work in MLB. I'd much rather see Kiersey on the roster (even if he's LH) than Margot or a similar kind of veteran pulled from the bargain bin. Embrace the youth movement.

agree 100% with this article. Really poor decision-making by the franchise to sit on their hands at the deadline when it was clear they needed pitching reinforcements. I don't have a problem with them choosing not to add starting pitching: the options weren't that impressive out there and there's a wave of young starters in the system. Happy to go with the youngsters. But the bullpen unquestionably needed the help and there were options out there, and the Twins certainly had the trade capital to get it done. They needed a reliable LH reliever, they needed another consistent arm to bridge to the top guys and/or give Jax/Duran some more relief. And they didn't do it. Have to wonder if it was the front office being gun-shy or ownership refusing to add salary. I'm betting it's the latter.

nice work from Raya. It's going to be interesting to see who fills out the rotation in AAA next season! Real possibility that you have Festa, Matthews, Morris, Adams, Nowlin, Lewis, and Raya all battling. A couple of guys might get slipped back down to AA for a few weeks. Good problem to have, especially since it makes it easier to not spend money on a back of the rotation veteran, since I expect the ownership to cut payroll again.

Man, the offense really needs to find itself. I mean, great that they pulled it out in the 12th, but how about scoring 6 before the late innings and giving the pitchers a nice lead to work with? But right now you take a win however you can get it. Festa did ok. He's got things to work on for sure, but you can definitely see him being a real guy in the rotation in the future. Hopefully he can keep improving and refining, but I think he's learning some important lessons right now.

Santana has done a fine job this season after a horrific start. But I think I'd rather roll with the young guys next season than gamble that he's going to beat Father Time and be able to repeat this performance again. for all that we've loved his defense, it wouldn't take a lot for him to fall off significantly on that side, nor would it take that much to drop well below acceptable on the offensive side of the equation either. And one thing we know is this franchise will not let a veteran go early, even if they're a disaster. sometimes that works out, and sometimes you have a black hole for an entire season. Miranda's splits against LHP this are a little out of whack this year, but it's still a fairly small sample size. I suspect he'll be fine. No, he's not great defensively, but he can improve. And he hits. Julien can get some time there, heck have Larnach pick up the glove and work on a little 1B in the offseason. Jeffers can fill in there too. I think roster spaces are going to be at a premium next season, and I'd rather ride with the younger guys. We need them to play well anyways, because I don't expect any investment in the team from ownership, who almost certainly are going to botch up the tv deal and streaming rights and cry poverty.

The first one would probably help. Owners might go for it, but players would have to give something back in the CBA. The second is one I want no part of. The pace of play has drastically improved and if you give managers more options for platooning and longer bullpens, they WILL use them. I have zero interest in seeing game after game with 12-15 pitchers being used and sub after sub coming in.