RpR

5/135 for Seager, might need to add 3 years and 100 million to that

Anything to keep Cave off the roster.........

Gordon had a few stretches batting that tantalized among long stretches of futility and didn’t field well enough. I’d think he earned enough to not get DFA’d until the spring and compete to be a super-utility player, but not enough that I’d be willing to consider him in a starting role in ‘22. He would not be a 26 man lock for me at this point.

Good work. Another thing to consider is league batting averages have declined significantly too.  JD's line drive rate was down and flyball rate up. Still, an OPS+ of 127 was higher than Polanco (125) even.
JD at 3B-DH for the Twins next year is not a problem that needs fixing.

Decisions should be pretty easy this round. Of course, the Twins might actually win a couple of the cases to their advantage, too. Buxton is soooooo interesting. Let's give him a big raise, but how many games did he play this season, and last season, and.....
 
Rogers is a lefty. As is Coulombe and Thielbar. All three are within reasonable amounts to keep on the team at this point. All three can be traded or basically removed if someone better comes along. Same with Duffey. If they all come to spring training healthy, and the Twins have struck out in the free agent marketplace, they are trade chips.
 
Gant is interesting, a swing man no doubt. Did he like Minnesota? Would he sign for less, or consider signing for less elsewhere? Curious top see what the demand for his services would be.
 
Minaya is cheap and has stuck with the Twins as a free agent for two seasons. Reward him and see if he excels again.
 
Yes, the days of Willians may be at an end. Again, another guy that would be curious to see what the demand for his services might be. You can make him a highly paid AAA guy, but do we rally care that he can play somewhere anytime.
 
Cave will find a new home. Refsnyder will still be available. At one point he looked like a lock, a keeper. But the Twins could probably do as well elevating Kerrigan or Contreras when the time comes. Refsnyder is behind Larnach, Rooker, Celestino right now.
 
Really, Arraez is a Super Two? I think they got this one wrong.

The only way I see the Twins trading Polo is if they get an established MLB starter AND a top prospect. Polo is that valuable. With his talent, history, and contract, he should pull in a heck of a sure deal plus a pretty good bet on a prospect.

You hit it on the head not only with Simmons, but with Austidillo, and Jeffers as well.  Anyone who watches Austidillo and sees him swing out of his helmet and on to his knees, can see he is thinking power all the way all the time.  And the one thing that impressed me the most when Jeffers first came up last year is how he would square up on the ball and hit line drives; now he is doing slightly more of an upper angle and, again, looking for power numbers, and not squaring up as often as he is capable of.  Austidillo puts it in play 94% of his at bats, and Jeffers can do much better in that area if they both would just use their natural talents.  Simmons will do better, somewhere, as well.  If we would let them be themselves, they could all do better here and solve a lot of our holes (and not cost too much; did I mention we need money for pitching?).  Just my extremely humble opinion.  

I'm with you Mark. There's plenty of reasons why the Twins did soooo bad this season and Simmons isn't one of them. If Polanco remained at SS like so many wanted, he'd continued his downward spiral and we'd have totally  tanked along with Polanco, possibly w/o return. The problem w/ Simmon's  bat is the importance the Twins put on HRs. When he hit those early HRs it went to his head and he over swung on everything. That plus the long pause he looked terrible. The focus needs to be is to stay inside yourself, who you are, not who you aren't. You can't look only at errors, you need to look at range. The old infield bled to death with grounders always fining their way through. Going back to the old infield is not an option.

I realize I am still a minority on this subject, but since I first started truly following the game in the mid '60's, and from what I hear and read decades before that, teams prioritized defense at SS and catcher.  Corner infielders, corner outfielders, and sometimes 2nd or center would produce the pop; the two most demanding positions were considered SS and catcher and offense wasn't a first priority.  Teams would have .180 and .190 hitters at these positions while their pitchers hit as well.  In the '60's the Twins had 2 or 3 pretty good hitting pitchers I used to see pinch hit for position players in late or extra innings, the hitters were not as good but played the field, and the pitchers wouldn't have it any other way.  Now, in the AL, we have hitters who do nothing but, so teams are even more capable of keeping the gloves they need.  The concept that Simmons has hurt the team is bizarre to me.  A .220 hitting exceptional glove, and yes, he is still an exceptional glove, is more than acceptable on a team that is what?  2nd in the league in home nuns and middle of the pack in almost all other offensive categories?  If we had a manager who knew anything about manufacturing runs.......arrgg, don't get me started.   The only problem I have ever seen with Simmons is his price tag.  He needs to come down, and he will after this season, but an affordable Simmons is better than moving Polanco OR taking a flyer on an unproven rookie.  The infield needs stability, and constant moving parts are killing us.  Keep this group together, and everyone will be more comfortable with each other.  And Simmons will pick up the pace; his career record suggests this year was the anomaly, not the norm.  (although I might spell Sano on the field a little more often)  
Don't get me wrong, if we can pick up a top tier SS on the open market, by all means.  But the kind of money I see bantered about day in and day out being spent on payroll, isn't as realistic as people would like to believe after 2 straight years of huge losses, as well as a new CBA looming.  Put the money into pitching, and keep the gloves behind them and where they belong, not moving around the field like musical chairs.  We have enough talent to cover the flaws as we stand today; keep moving the parts and the crap shoot continues.  Oh, and did I say we should put our money into pitching?  If not, we should put our money into pitching.  

No on Polanco playing SS. He's an all-star at 2B, giving fantastic offense and above average D. Moving him to SS really weakens the D, especially if you slot in Arraez/Miranda or even Gordon (who would be the best of the three there but is still not as good defensively as Polanco), and that's ignoring the likelihood that playing SS again will have negative impacts on Polanco's health and offense. but more importantly, no matter how many times fans bring it up, the front office has made it very clear they want Polanco at 2B and they don't see him as a full-time SS. So can we stop wasting time on this?
I'm happy to see the back of Simmons; the offense is dreadful and he's slipped enough on D to not make him worth the scratch. He's still good on D, but too stinky at the plate now. I do think it's likely that he has a bit of a bounceback on offense next season; this year has been a career worst and it's not even close, so it wouldn't shock me at all if next year he was closer to 2019 Simmons on offense (which would have been a satisfactory season here too), but he's not worth making the bet that he's going to hold his defensive value and improve his offense while paying him anything of significance, especially with so many other options.
Just a note: the article is incorrect on Austin Martin: he has played SS since joining Wichita; his splits were 20 at CF, 16 at SS, and 1 at DH. Can he stick there? I'd say it's less likely than Lewis, but it's still not outside of the realm.
Personally, I'd love to get Trevor Story and I hope everyone forgets about him but us...his defense is very good, he can hit, and we might be able to buy a little low on him. (probably not, but he's a player I'd be happy to go in on.)

Simmons will certainly be available on a one year deal again, for cheaper. He can't possibly hit worse than he did this year, right??

Totally agree with you Mnfireman, defense is very important. And often overlooked in favor of HRs. Like MinninPa, I love to watch Simmons, Donaldson, Buxton, Kepler and Polanco work their magic on the field. The problem is there is a big drop to their replacements, I quince every time I see them play.

That team is on the level of Minor League baseball, no matter how one wants to glorify women's sports.
Women's golf is still second string and it has been around a long, long time with a Minnesotan Woman, Patty Berg who was one of the best.
I nearly bought a set of her golf clubs at a large flea market at the Minn. State Fair Grounds, twenty years ago, as they were long enough for me, I am six feet tall,  but while  I have never broken, or bent a golf club, at that,  they looked a bit fragile;  I was curios what it would be like, playing with the golf club heads she had.

i dont watch every game...but i'm usually very impressed by the D.. ..Simmons and Polanco are wizards out there and Donaldson plays well at third. I have seen games blown by some errant throws by Arraez and a backup 2B earlier in the year..and Austudillo has bumbled a few at third.(but i luv the guy). the D is not the problem..its the below average pitching staff..and possibly pitch calling / location. i swear i've never seen so many opposition hits with an 0-2 count !! drives me nuts!! pitch shouldn't be catching any part of the plate!!!

That team is on the level of Minor League baseball, no matter how one wants to glorify women's sports.
Women's golf is still second string and it has been around a long, long time with a Minnesotan Woman, Patty Berg who was one of the best.
I nearly bought a set of her golf clubs at a large flea market at the Minn. State Fair Grounds, twenty years ago, as they were long enough for me, I am six feet tall,  but while  I have never broken, or bent a golf club, at that,  they looked a bit fragile;  I was curios what it would be like, playing with the golf club heads she had.

I agree that is sad and am going to actively celebrate the Lynx.

Sports is now money, if it does not bring in large amounts of money, it is a lessor sport; sad but very true down to so called amateur sports.

The WNBA draw similar numbers to minor league baseball teams per game and they only have 30 games a year. Overall attendance and interest in the WNBA excludes it from being generally considered part of the major sports discussion. Essentially, nobody outside of Hennepin and Ramsey county cares about the Lynx enough to even know where they play so using a WNBA team as a source of state pride in a discussion will get you laughed at in 99% of cases. Even using a dramatically more popular MLS team will probably get an eye roll and chuckle.
Conversely, a lot of people would recognize the name Floyd Mayweather and would be interested in watching a bout with him or some other boxer who isn't in the heavyweight division.

That team is on the level of Minor League baseball, no matter how one wants to glorify women's sports.
Women's golf is still second string and it has been around a long, long time with a Minnesotan Woman, Patty Berg who was one of the best.
I nearly bought a set of her golf clubs at a large flea market at the Minn. State Fair Grounds, twenty years ago, as they were long enough for me, I am six feet tall,  but while  I have never broken, or bent a golf club, at that,  they looked a bit fragile;  I was curios what it would be like, playing with the golf club heads she had.

That team is on the level of Minor League baseball, no matter how one wants to glorify women's sports.
Women's golf is still second string and it has been around a long, long time with a Minnesotan Woman, Patty Berg who was one of the best.
I nearly bought a set of her golf clubs at a large flea market at the Minn. State Fair Grounds, twenty years ago, as they were long enough for me, I am six feet tall,  but while  I have never broken, or bent a golf club, at that,  they looked a bit fragile;  I was curios what it would be like, playing with the golf club heads she had.

That team is on the level of Minor League baseball, no matter how one wants to glorify women's sports.
Women's golf is still second string and it has been around a long, long time with a Minnesotan Woman, Patty Berg who was one of the best.
I nearly bought a set of her golf clubs at a large flea market at the Minn. State Fair Grounds, twenty years ago, as they were long enough for me, I am six feet tall,  but while  I have never broken, or bent a golf club, at that,  they looked a bit fragile;  I was curios what it would be like, playing with the golf club heads she had.

Honestly at the time, Happ was a lot safer of a signing than taking a flier on Kluber. Happ had pitched to an ERA below 4, 5/6 previous years. No one expected him to be as bad as he was. Kluber was coming off surgery and hadn't pitched professionally in 2 years. Interesting thoughts on the Walker signing .. Maybe there is a conspiracy ..
This comes back to depth. The front office knew that they couldn't get by with AAA guys making spot starts so went after quantity. I believe this is the case for the previous years as well. 

Expecting anyone to come in and be a number 1 as a first year player is fairly unrealistic.
The past has also shown that expecting a less than league average pitcher to be something like an ace is also unrealistic

"Hi, my name is Roy Hobbs. They told me you need some help."
"How old are you son."
"Younger than that coach, but older than you, Manager."
 
"Can You Hit?"
"Only if I can use my own bat, and if one of your guys is on the mound pitching."
"We got a former Twin on most every team. Be ready to suit up...Roy, is it?"
 
"Sure is."
"Pretty good looking for a ballplayer,"
"Well, then make sure they get in real close with the camera for my at bats!"

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.