Danchat

I thought Mejia could be a passable #5 starter, but apparently not.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing that a guy who needed 930 PAs at AA will figure out AAA and become a MLB contributor within a reasonable amount of time. No harm in trying, but it seems like most of our power-only prospects sputter out at this point.

Geez, talk about adding insult to injury. Crazy how this team went from looking like a bottom 5 team, then 12 game win streak and suddenly they look relevant, now they're heading right back to being terrible. But they ran back this same roster that continues to break down with injuries, can't really say I'm surprised when Lewis blows another hammy. And it's a borderline miracle Buxton has lasted this long.

I don't think we can blame Alcala any longer...

Welp, I guess this is the Paddack regression that one article was warning us about. Just in time as the rest of the rotation crumbles...

I don't have a problem with the last guy on the bench collecting cobwebs when it's a guy who is organizational filler, better Bride going unused than a prospect.

Sometimes good pitchers like Ober and Sands get shelled, it happens... though I do wonder if Ober needs a stint on the IL if it's true the velocity dip is from knee/hip problems. I know we can't afford to lose another starter... guess we'll just have to rely on the pitching pipeline we supposedly have.

Lopez was put on the 60 day list to open a spot for him, so they're at 39. Tonkin will probably take the 40th spot.

Alcala has been traded to Boston, so Wentz will take his spot.

In the past 15 years, the closest example I could find was 2019 Trevor Hildenberger, who got to pitch 16.1 innings at an alarming 10.47 ERA. Good gracious. Matt Belisle in 2018 had a similar 9.15 ERA in 23.2 innings. I remember how infuriating that was.

Excuse me, Alcala has sustained a 9.25 ERA now! Who was the last Twins reliever to get at least 24+ relief innings and had an ERA as high as that?

We're at nearly a half season of Alcala sustaining a 7.60 ERA... enough is enough. Time for him to get a reset in another organization.

I guess if Topa is going to have a bad outing, today is the day to do it.

Not game over, but oof that hurts. Jax had only given up 1 run in his last 9 outings.

Stewart

I have to wonder if that 12th gets bumped up a bit further if you remove Julien's and Miranda's blunders.

Who's Kyle Teel?

Time to give up on Raya as a starter... it's not like he was that particularly good at AA last year either. If they are insistent on developing him as a starter, send him back to AA and have him prove it - he's only 22 years old... and it's not as if he's eating many innings while starting. They're probably just better off fully moving him to the pen.

And at worst, I think his floor is a quality major league reliever. He has good stuff that can get strikeouts, and that'd be amped up if he were to transition to the bullpen. Not that he should make the move now, it's way too early to give up on him as a starter. But like Varland/Sands/Jax/others it will be worth a shot if he can't figure out how to go through the lineup a third time around.

I don't think that's an accurate conclusion as this series has been against a bottom 3 pitching staff, if they keep this up against playoff teams, then I will agree.

Going back to the GM discussion, I'm fine with extending KAM but I don't like that they also extended assistant GM Ryan Grigson. He was the architect of the ruination of Andrew Luck's career and now is part of a new regime that hasn't shown the ability to draft very well, including being part of one of the worst draft classes of all time and choosing to move picks for players, resulting in the last three draft classes having less picks than average, resulting in us likely having the oldest roster in the league or being in the top 3 (again). A couple notes on the 2023 draft class - I didn't see a mention of Jaquelin Roy's name, he was a high 5th rounder that they moved up for and wasn't good enough to crack the 2024 roster. Also, the Hock trade flipped our 2nd for Detroit's 4th, resulting in Jay Ward. Our original 4th was traded in the 2022 draft to move up for Akayleb Evans. In the first two drafts, this regime moved up for Booth Jr, Evans, and Roy - three unrosterable players. I really have to wonder about our scouting department - from what I've seen, it still has a large number of scouts from the Spielman era, but KAM has added more bodies without much subtraction. They've done a stellar job at finding value on the free agent market and making great subtle moves like snatching Theo Jackson on waivers, winning Ivan Pace Jr on the UDFA market, and balancing the position values of S/LB vs WR/T. Having the guts to move on from Kirk was commendable and they've avoided blunders that other teams might have made. But I can't give them a mulligan for the horrendous 2022 draft class and jobs need to be lost if McCarthy/Turner don't pan out... but they just got extended before that was determined. Which is why giving a 4 year deal to a new GM was too short given how much rope teams will give their new regimes.

Lopez got hurt? Details please

They may have a bullpen pipeline, given how Jax and Sands went from middle of the road starter prospects to capable relievers, several of these arms will probably have similar trajectories. But a pipeline of starting pitchers... I'll believe it when I see it.

As one who wanted to trade Paddack at the start of the season... I say keep him and ride it out. Trading players at peak value is more of an offseason thing in my opinion, unless the season is going off the rails. Keep him in the rotation so we only have to see one of Matthews/Festa/SWR starting and not two of them. At the end of the day he'd be a rental, so the price of trade wouldn't be as high as you'd like.

I'm on board with moving a pitching prospect or two for a bat, hitting is a long-term need and they can absolutely survive moving two of Prielipp/Festa/Matthews/Raya/Soto/Morris/Culpepper. If this is indeed a pitching pipeline, then they will be fine replacing the outgoing arms. Of course, it depends what bat we are talking about...