Danchat

I see Roden is hitting .970 OPS since returning to AAA... at this point you have to wonder what his future with the team is. He'll be on his final option year next season and is probably going to use up that option with the outfield already full (Buxton-Jenkins-Rodriguez-Keaschall/Clemens). Might make sense to throw him in as part of a trade. Reminds me of Luke Raley, Twins didn't find room for him and shipped him as part of the Maeda trade, he struggled in his first 140 PAs but then was a quality hitter for a couple seasons. I wouldn't be shocked if he did something similar.

Raya and Gonzalez are firmly top 20 prospects in the organization, Raya has been good in a hitter's league lately and has MLB-caliber stuff and could be a part of next year's bullpen... and Minter has nothing to do with it. There is no downside to DFA'ing Rogers, a soon-to-be free agent with a 1.6 WHIP. Jackson is not a prospect and I wouldn't consider the likes of Ben Ross to be either. Gonzalez's stock has fallen but he's going to be on the 40 man roster next year, and not considering Raya to be a prospect is a strange take.

The Jets signed a bunch of older vets and aren't blatantly tanking like the Dolphins are (who have more dead cap than actual payroll in 2026!) - their HC is trying to keep his job. I have them landing outside the top 5 draft picks but still in the bottom half.

Give me a break, Bradley is going to refuse an extension because we played some prospects in September? Offer him the right amount of money and he will accept it. This isn't pre-Moneyball, Bradley's camp knows teams aren't going to pay him less because the team lost more of his games in September. We have stats to track how much the defense affects the pitcher, if anything he should be upset that we've fielded a below average defense for the entire season. That'll affect his stats far more than Gabriel Gonzalez being a degree worse than Josh Bell in the lineup.

Jackson isn't a prospect, he's an almost 31 year old fringe backup who was DFA'd and cleared waivers 2-3 weeks ago. They don't have a catcher in AAA who has a chance to be a major leaguer, so in that case they should keep playing Jeffers. Seems like he's just up to get a cup of coffee and then get DFA'd after the season is over. No reason to call him up just to sit and take up a 40 man spot over the offseason if they actually believed in him. What's with the gatekeeping for at bats on a non-playoff team in September? This is the time for tryouts for next season. Give the young hitters a chance to face major league hitting so maybe they can help the team next year. Have them - like Jenkins is now - take their lumps now so maybe they don't have to next year. Oh, and Raya should absolutely be up too. Since August 1st he's got an ERA of 2.76 with strong peripherals. He didn't get much of a chance last time up and they can easily DFA Rogers.

The idea that the likes of Larnach and Bell are the only thing keeping some fans in the seats is laughable. Most casual fans couldn't care less who is playing or not, any diehard/tuned-in fans would know that sitting a couple of vets that aren't hitting above a league average level doesn't change much and certainly isn't going to influence their decision to attend a game.

Rodriguez needs to be up in the majors ASAP to see where he's at facing major league pitching. Play him every day over Larnach, easy decision there. As for Gonzalez, he was bad for most the year at AAA and while still young, he doesn't seem close to ready to face MLB pitching. I'd still play him over Larnach... but I dunno, even Mendez probably deserves a shot over him. Not sure about Martin's future. He was the team's best hitter for the first 50 or so games and was hot at the end of last year, are we sure his cool-off over this summer should end his Twins career? I'm not convinced and I think a rebound could absolutely happen, but there's also just not that much upside there. Even with his play falling off he was getting on base at a .350 clip... better than Larnach who's having a career year even with his last 30 games being bad. I also don't see any reason to play Bell any more, we know what he is. A league average DH who is very streaky... the next couple weeks shouldn't determine whether his option is exercised. Play the kids.

Talent always trumps culture/leadership/etc. Young talent counts too, even though it doesn't always pan out.

Future gold glover at DH, perhaps! 🤪

As for failure to extend (not let leave for nothing): Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Joe Ryan, Ryan Jeffers, Sonny Gray, Taylor Rogers, Emilio Pagan. Not a long list because this FO has struggled to develop guys, but not being able to retain any of them? You would think having fewer options would mean they have the wallet to afford extending a couple of them.

Almost all the deals mentioned are from 5+ years ago, the only one that isn't is the Lopez deal. I don't believe they've extended a single internal player since 2021 other than Lopez unless I'm missing someone... so yeah, I think it's fair to be disappointed by that. When the Kepler/Polanco extensions happened, I was a huge fan and was hoping that we'd see more of that going forward. We simply haven't since 2021.

That 31 doesn't include players on rookie deals including pre-arb to arbitration that can't reach $7M. It's a fine price for a guy they will probably use as the setup to Gomez and we'll see if Morris rebounds. Also worth noting if we don't play baseball next year, Hoffman will be 35 the year after. Plenty of relievers can go deep into their 30s, but it's worth noting.

Second half Joe strikes again...

Hmmm, that would be nice. Though Hoffman is under control for another year while Abreu is not.

Abreu is going to be a free agent at the end of the year and adding one good reliever wouldn't change that much... we're still in mostly the same spot with that trade made.

I'd like to see a full job search instead of just letting Zoll have the job without any competition. What has he done to deserve being handed Favley's head of baseball ops job?

Hitting .807 OPS in 250 AA PAs doesn't seem promote me ASAP, he's hitting well for his age but I don't see the need to rush him.

It's a base $8M deal, but geez, that's a ton of incentives for a guy who didn't exactly put up any notable counting stats last year. I hope he is ready to play in a week, I don't want to hear any excuses about him not having time to be ready.

I was surprised to see Raya's numbers at AAA are pretty good, the walks are finally down, the only issue is HRs allowed. So yeah, it is disappointing to see a guy who will probably be DFA'd by the end of the year get these reps instead of him.

I don't know who has been bad for years, but they needed to get more flexible with LH/RH OFs after they inexplicably horded more of them at the deadline. And then didn't move any in the following year.

Not a good start from Zebby today, but this offense can't continue to fold against every lefty they face. Why isn't Gabby Gonzalez playing?

Geez, did you make that with an AI from 2022?

People criticized Rocco for changing the lineup too much, guess we have the opposite now. Is it leading to better hitting like some claimed it would?

There weren't any centers worth taking at #18, but yeah, their two picks at the end of the third round was a great time to take a shot. Instead they went with Tiernan who I liked and you could call BPA, but then they extended O'Neill so Tiernan might be a starter in 2029. And then Jakobe Thomas, who like Felton the year earlier I thought was a multi-round reach, a one year starter in college with a scary high missed tackle rate. This was a weaker draft class than previous years, but they didn't need to take projects with those picks who won't play for years. Centers Sam Hecht and Connor Lew would have been great selections there IMO. Yup, I think a lot of blame should go on Ryan Grigson, Kwesi's assistant GM who was essentially the top 'football' mind in the front office since Kwesi didn't have a background in that. Grigson was the Colts GM who somehow bungled the team in the midst of having Andrew Luck in his prime. The Wilfs also extended him a year ago, but Teasley made the smart move of changing his job title, prompting him to quit and probably saving the Wilfs a good amount of money. My guess for the reasoning why is because the front office had already completed the scouting for the college season and scouts are almost always fired/promoted right after the draft. Which is strange given you let them do a great and then fire them. When new GMs are getting hired at the start of the calendar year, it's still usually the previous regime's scouts making the draft boards for the upcoming draft in the spring.

The conversation starts with do they tender Ober and/or Kremer... and of course whether they trade anybody. If nobody gets traded, do they pay up for those two when Zebby is better than them, Prieplipp and Abel have immense upside, etc? They need depth, but we also don't want to be in a situation where Ober/Kremer's maintaining a > 5.00 ERA and the young starters are ready to go at AAA but they won't cut the vet off because they've already sunk money into them. It's an intriguing situation with plenty of options.