jmlease1

I mean, I don't mind doing the risk/reward thing at #54, you know? A team should take some of those risks. I think there's a feeling around here at times that teams are supposed to always hit on their first 3 selections every draft, and that's just terribly difficult.

Kirilloff was ruined by injuries, not a lack of talent. Not a lot you can do about that. Lewis has also been sapped significantly by injury. Some of that is just bad luck. Larnach has been hampered by some injury issues, but he's simply been just ok rather than good. Jeffers has been quality, a good starter. Duran became an all-star closer and was traded for what we hope was a lot of value. Honestly, things like that are going to happen with your top prospects. The bust rate looks high, but if you control for injury then it's probably not about flaws in talent evaluation and development, at least? The back half of the top ten does look much worse; the Cavaco pick was dicey from the jump and while Sabato was also a stretch, at least it wasn't a top 10 pick. They both got ranked too high on the prospect list here because of their draft status more than their actual project and ability, which is a good reminder to be careful about giving players too much credit on scholarship. Balazovic was well-liked by a lot of people but some injuries and him being something of a headcase ended his time as a prospect. Enlow is a reminder of TINSTAPP. I do wonder how much the pandemic screwed up the development of guys like Cavaco, Balazovic, Enlow, etc. Canterino of course has been ruined by injury and was a calculated risk from the jump I think. (it hasn't worked out, but I still don't mind the process on it...and I'm still rooting for him to be healthy enough to pitch) Having Rooker, Sands, Wallner, and Miranda in the final quartile is pretty good, actually. Wallner may be despised by a segment of Twins Daily fans, but he was a hardly a prospect miss. Sands is slotted in the bullpen and should be a solid setup guy. Rooker didn't figure it out in time here, but the talent was there. And Miranda was doing fine until the beaning wrecked him; I can't hold that against him or the Twins development staff...and frankly, I question the humanity of anyone who does. The big misses by Twins Daily on this prospect list were over-hyping Cavaco and Sabato based on draft position, probably being a little too high on Larnach (though there were decent reasons) and Celestino (who I would argue was mismanaged and is one of the bigger developmental fails by the organization).

I think this grouping shows that Mendez was definitely rated too low, lol. I do still believe in Raya's talent, but I am glad that he's getting moved to the bullpen. He's been passed by quite a few guys on the pitching charts and he should have the weapons to roll in the bullpen. I'd probably have Young lower because there's so much unknown on him. Trying not to hold his family relations against him; not his fault Delmon was a Twin. Hopefully the Twins will move Winokur off SS for good; he's never going to play there and he should focus on positions where he might actually have a defensive home (3B, CF, maybe even 1B where his size and athleticism would play up nicely). At some point though his tools have to start translating into more production or it won't matter. I'm a little skeptical on him. Morris would have been one of our top pitching prospects not all that far in the past, so having him land here is a good sign we're developing more and better prospects. I don't think a 6-pitch mix will play, so he's going to need some of his offerings to be where he puts his focus, IMHO. And he needs to stay healthy. To me, he's not really competing for a rotation spot even with Pablo out and Festa getting shut down; Matthews, Abel, Bradley, and even Rojas look ahead of him right now. I suspect he'll be in AAA as a starter as the 2nd option or so to come up in case of injury or ineffectiveness. (which is fine! let him prove it) Quick has the most upside of this tranche, and it'll be fun to see how he goes this season. I think he'll be very strong in Ft. Myers and might even get a promotion to Cedar Rapids earlier than expected.

Does he really bring great defense, though? That's part of the question. At least one respected prospect evaluator isn't enamored of his ability on that side of the ball, which is concerning. I don't know how much we're supposed to really hang our hats on the minor league gold gloves at this point. (KLaw said they're not worth much, and while he can be a thin-skinned jerk, he's also pretty thoughtful about his prospect evaluations and doesn't just make guesses off other people's work)

Diaw is the most interesting prospect here I think; someone who is a good enough athlete to play both catcher and center field is something we haven't seen recently (ever?) so it should be fun to see how that progresses for him. It'll be interesting to see if the power production he showed last season is for real; he didn't play a lot of games so it's still a pretty small sample. He seems to have a solid understanding of the strike zone, and it wouldn't surprise me if he advanced up to AA fairly quickly. Hope he can stay on the field. I'm not as high on DeBarge as some. The way his bat showed less and less pop as the season went along is worrisome and he finished the season looking pretty awful at the plate. The steals are fun, but it's A-ball: the catching isn't good enough yet and a lot of pitchers do little to hold runners on. The minor league Gold Glove may be overstating his defense as well; I specifically asked KLaw about this and he said the minor league defensive awards are not to be trusted. Maybe he was dealing with some nagging stuff or just got ground down by the long season, but I have real questions about his bat. Culpepper is properly ranked: talented but needs to stay on the field. Hope he does? Ellwanger is a wild card. It'll be interesting to see how he responds to pro baseball. He's pretty wild right now. There's an interesting ceiling here but he could also end up in the bullpen quickly. Mendez is interesting. I have to wonder if he's going to be spending more time at 1B? Hard to argue with his results last season: he hit well in his first taste of AA, responded to a trade by hitting even better. I think there's some additional power in there, but there also doesn't seem to be much of a need to tinker with his approach right now. He could start in AAA, frankly, and I wouldn't mind seeing him seeing him in Saint Paul as the primary 1B...

LOL, never let accuracy get in the way of people bashing Falvey...

Jenkins or Rodriguez, and right now it's probably Rodriguez? I think because of the injuries people don't think of how athletic he is, but he's definitely got the tools to hold down CF.

I hope they're not planning on a lot of Caratini at 1B; as a catcher his offense plays, but as a 1B it gets a lot sadder. I get that Bell's defense is not great, but maybe the Twins can help him a bit and it'll be tolerable? I suspect we'll see Clemens come in for defense if we get into late innings with a lead, and I'm fine with that. Clemens is a reasonable 26th man, but he's unplayable vs LHP and even if last season's "good" stretches weren't a mirage, you have to minimize his exposure to LHP. His positional flexibility is useful (he's at least acceptable at 2B, 3B, and a corner OF and pretty good at 1B defensively) but expecting him to handle a starter's load is foolish. I guess people remember the hot stretches a lot more than the bad June and horrific August? Maybe Mendez will be a guy that can make it work at 1B? It's been the position the Twins have shorted themselves on for a while, since Mauer retired. And with the payroll from the Bad Businessmen Pohlads tightening up, finding external help is going to be chancy. I year we get a good Carlos Santana, the next year...who knows?

GG had an excellent 2025, and you can see exactly why the Twins wanted him in the Polanco deal. He clearly understands how important being healthy and staying on the field was to his progress last season, and I hope he's able to repeat his good health from last year. Glad to hear he's working on his defense: if he becomes even an average defender in the corners that would be a nice step up, because I think his bat will play. Will want to see if he gets back to a more patient approach; he was swinging a bit more when he got to AAA and you'd like to see better control of the strike zone. But he also made a lot of good hard contact and looks like a player who could hit for average and solid pop, and I'd love to see his RH bat in the Twins lineup. I expect he'll start the season in AAA, but I hope he's also knocking on the door and demanding the Twins give him some run this season because he's punishing balls in Saint Paul. Lot to like there.

I should note, that as much as I bash Outman and don't think he's a good fit for the team, if he goes out and wins the job by killing it in spring training (showing that he can really play CF well, hitting effectively and showing a good process, proving that his speed is back, etc) and outperforming the competition...then fine. My biggest beef with him is presuming that he gets an OF job and a 26-man spot because he's out of options. No scholarships. Go win the jobs.

It's spring training, it should be a time for optimism! After last season's dreadful start in AAA, where it looked like the Twins had pushed Rojas to stick in Saint Paul when he really should have been in AA, I was thinking Rojas wasn't really going to be an option to pitch in MLB this season and would only see time if the rotation was utterly decimated by injuries/ineffectiveness. While I don't think he's a true contender for the rotation on Opening Day, it's great to see for ourselves why he was rocketing up prospect boards and why he was the prize in the Varland deal. I like having an open competition between Bradley, Matthews, Abel, and maybe Festa and Rojas or even Morris for the last spots in the rotation. Much like the OF, I want to see prospects WIN the jobs not for anyone to get handed a key role on scholarship.

I'll take any result that doesn't mean the Twins carry Outman on the roster via scholarship, whether it's Roden or Rodriguez tearing the cover off the ball or something else. I just want that 4th OF position to get WON by someone, not handed to them.

Maybe, but they certainly don't need to do it right now. They can have him build up like he might start and shift him to the bullpen, but you can't go the other way without wasting 2-4 weeks, so might as well have him proceed as he is. With Pablo done for the season already, there's 2 spots in the rotation up for grabs and while I see Bradley, Matthews, and Abel as the most likely contenders, Festa could still be in the mix and they might feel the need to have more than whichever one of those three doesn't get the initial nod plus Morris and maybe Preilipp in AAA waiting on the call to start. Moving Klein to the bullpen seems more urgent that Festa right now, at least to me.

Catching for the Twins is definitely in better shape than it was; as much as Vazquez brought to the team in terms of defense and working with pitchers, the utter collapse of his bat made him a liability. (it's hard to say that signing worked out particularly well; the cost ended up being too high because the defense wasn't elite enough to make up for the black hole on offense, but the thinking was still reasonable. They just projected Vazquez would likely be putting up an OPS+ more in the 75-90 range, and instead he never cleared 60.) Jeffers is a solid enough catcher, Caratini adds switch-hitting and very respectable offense...at catcher. The more he plays at 1B or DH the less effective he'll be I'm afraid. It'd be great to slide Jackson to AAA and hope no one wants his salary as their backup, but I wouldn't keep him on the 26-man as a 3rd option. Tait and Jimenez really improve the upside in the system, where they've been struggling to find the successor to Jeffers. You never know with prospects, of course, but these are guys with real upside. Much less squinting required to see them in MLB. If Tait continues to progress, he could be an option in 2028 for sure, and if Jackson sticks in AAA we're fairly well covered for 2027 even if Jeffers leaves and Tait isn't ready yet.

Outman's lack of options should not be a reason to hand him a job. That's scholarship BS. Make him win it on merit, because he'll almost certainly pass through waivers, and if he couldn't win the job in the first place he's not a great loss of an asset anyways. Would much rather see what Roden, Martin, Rodriguez, et al can do. Opening up a spot by trading Larnach is fine, but no scholarships.

If he can stay on the field, I think he's going to be quite good. I'd rather have a hitter with good strike zone awareness need to add aggression than try to have one learn patience after swinging at everything, and Emma has certainly shown he can make loud contact. He's athletic and skilled enough to handle CF, and I'd vastly prefer to see him on the 26-man than Outman. Hard to tell with this club whether they would consider him early or not; they've often made guys sit and wait behind mediocre veterans...but they also rapidly promoted a guy like Keaschall too. Health really has been what has held Rodriguez back I think. Only 112 games played in the last 2 seasons combined. He needs to stay on the field, so hopefully his off-season program has prepared him for it.

Morris is going to be an interesting one to watch this season. I suspect he will have to trim his pitch mix, at least initially, if/when he gets to MLB; it's hard to see him having 6 pitches that are actually usable against MLB hitters. But it will be interested to see whether focusing on a smaller arsenal allows him to improve those pitches and command them more consistently, or whether he was fooling people more often because there were so many choices for what was coming at the hitter? It's interesting. Even if he cuts things down to being a fastball-sweeper-cutter pitcher, that could be enough of a primary arsenal to stay in the rotation, depending on how his L-R splits start looking. Curious to see how the cutter develops for him and if that is the pitch that becomes the best 3rd offering for him. Hope he stays healthy. Too me he looks ready to slot in as one of the first options up from AAA if/when we need reinforcements. My guess right now is that the MLB rotation starts out as Ryan-Ober-SWR-Bradley-Matthews, with Festa a candidate to a) not be ready from Day 1, and b) move to the bullpen and then have Abel as the first call up from AAA with Morris right behind him. (I think Rojas needs work after a mess of a time in AAA in 2025, and won't be a real consideration until midseason at best) If they leave Festa in the rotation, then he's probably ahead of Morris presuming equal health. (I really don't know where Preilipp fits at this point?) Morris has talent. Hope he can stay on the field and pitch enough to continue his development by refining his pitches.

Expecting the Twins to have a 50% increase in payroll in 3 seasons seems unrealistic. While I have zero interest in protecting the Pohlad bank accounts, the issue for the Twins ain't getting to $200M in payroll, it's going up to $150-160M and then ratcheting back to $100M because you're so terrible at business that you somehow managed to claim tens of millions in annual losses. $200M was a top 10 payroll in 2025. That made the Correa, Lopez, and Buxton contracts feel unsustainable, when in fact they're market rate for Correa and well below market rate for the others. Hells bells, if we'd just managed to make $150M for this season we'd have been in good position to go for a quick turnaround, adding some real thump to the lineup and some proven bullpen options on top of what they did with Bell & Caratini. But we have terrible ownership, not just because they're cheap, but because they've been utterly terrible at the business of baseball over the past decade, minimum. Anyways. Wallner. Seems like a good dude, and I think he can bounce back and have a quality season slugging for the Twins where he seems like a very reasonable and impactful clean-up hitter. Would like him to move to DH more, especially if he still looks slow and clumsy in the OF like he did last season, which was notably worse than in 2023 or 2024.

It would be great if he can do it. The stuff is real, the command has been shaky. If he finds some consistency then he could be a guy. I'll be interested to see how the competition for the last 2 spots goes (you would think that SWR has the 3rd spot locked down unless he's an absolute mess in spring training). I hate losing Pablo, and losing him early like this. But we do have a bunch of starting pitchers with real potential, so let's see what we got. I'm a little baffled by the people who seem to have given up on every Twins pitching prospect already; it's almost like people are rooting not just for the team to be bad as another middle finger to Falvey (who is gone) and the Pohlads (who we are stuck with regardless), actually rooting against the players for some reason.

It's stylistic. There are some people who despise K's and any hitter who generates a lot of them. They'd rather have a guy put the ball in play a lot even if they never walk, slapping singles around and hitting into easy outs, than a player like Wallner, who swings very hard but also whiffs a lot. And for the people that hate that style of play, they want the Wallners of this team gone, and the easiest way to get rid of them is to have them actually stink. If Wallner is actually terrible, they get to point fingers and say "see! I told you he was bad and this kind of player was useless!" Keep in mind, there's a fair number of people who refuse to believe that Wallner was actually really good in 2023 or 2024 as well.

Just a reminder that only 33 players in MLB cleared 30 homers in 2025. 34 dingers would have tied for 15th in MLB, and only 7 players cleared 40 homers last season. It's pretty dang hard to get to that level. Wallner isn't going to add much defensively; his poor quickness, bad routes, and slow reactions aren't good, and while his arm is excellent and will keep some players from taking an extra base, the impact is still much smaller defensively. So he's got to hit. The power production is good enough and his ability to get on base by taking walks and letting inside pitches bounce off him that he doesn't need to be a high average hitter to have success; it just can't be flirting with the mendoza line. If he's hanging out around .230 the other numbers should put him in a good position to be an impactful hitter. fewer grounders, more line drives and suddenly his quality of contact starts looking better, the BABIP shoots up and that OPS starts sitting in the .800+ range again. There's going to be some slumps, and the K's will mean that some people will never like him or give him the benefit of the doubt at any time, ever. He's probably better suited to DHing and avoiding LHP as much as possible, and moving on from Larnach would make that more possible? We'll see. he seems ripe for a bounce back season; unlike Julien he followed up his breakout year with another quality effort, even if it did require a minor-league reset. He's got a career OPS+ of 127 and that certainly seems achievable and would be a welcome threat in the lineup.

It's an interesting idea, and Pablo has shown an interest in security and certainty over maximizing his dollars in the past. But I don't really know what an extension would look like at this point? I too would love to keep Pablo pitching here: terrific pitcher, very fun to watch, incredible dude. I would love for him to be here long enough that he considers MN his team and becomes part of the organization long-term, because he's an incredible ambassador for the game, mentor for other players, etc. But it's probably going to be a difficult window to navigate.

It will be interesting to see if Lee can evolve as a hitter and add a little range as a defender. I think the former is more likely than the latter, but if he's able to consistently field the balls played to him he'll probably be passable at SS for the season...if he starts to hit. The good thing is reducing his chase rate would be pretty impactful for him and it's one of the skills that's reasonable to develop as you get more experienced. he doesn't need to clock 20 homers or hit .300 to be a useful hitter (though both would be lovely); he just need to stop chasing breaking pitches out of the zone and turning them into weak contact. Take a few more walks, wait for your pitch to turn on a ball, take good swings at strikes. We'll see. It's a bit of a make or break season for Lee. I hope he makes it.

I'd love to move on from Larnach, who seems to have little ceiling left at this point and if he's not mashing RHP adds basically nothing else to the roster since he's seen as primarily being a DH (no speed, no defense, can't hit LHP), but trying to flip him for a quality starting pitcher is a fool's errand. No one is giving up a rotation piece for Larnach. I mean, I'd deal Larnach for a 5th starter if one was on offer, but just because someone will need one before the season starts when a starter gets inevitably injured in spring training, and they'd be easier to move than Larnach. I'd still love to flip Larnach for a reliever. We have space in the bullpen for sure, and I'd much rather open up competition between the young guys to have someone WIN an OF job, not be handed one on scholarship. Make it possible for Bell & Wallner to DH more. Maybe it's one of the RH OF bats we have pushing their way up the minors. Maybe it's one of the LH bats that can actually cover CF. But let's sort it out, rather than give Larnach 120 games of league average offense at DH....

And there's a good school of thought that because the playoffs are much more random than the regular season, any year where you have any chance of making the playoffs, you should be going for it. And if you think the team might be 80-82...hell, maybe they catch a few breaks and end up at 83-79 and steal a Wild Card slot (worked for Cincy in 2025). Plus, the changes to the draft/lottery have really disincentivized the Astro Strategy of "lose a ton for 4 years, pile up the top 5 draft picks, and get it on", because you ain't getting top 5 picks 4 seasons in a row again, ever. Sigh. I'm bummed about losing Pablo. He was fun to watch pitch. Maybe we'll get lucky (for once) and Mick Abel or Zebby Matthews figures it out and turns into A Guy.