Danchat

Eh, for a guy whose niche should be mashing lefties, his career line isn't very impressive. He's basically a lesser Kyle Garlick in my eyes.

If that's all it takes to write-off a season, then this front office will be around forever because injuries / funks / regressions are going to happen to every team.

They've gotten seven years and their promise of sustained competitiveness hasn't panned out. They're only 'competitive' this year because of the division and would be in 4th or 5th place in another division (8th/9th out of 15 in the AL). In my opinion they haven't fielded a playoff contender since 2020. The only other thing other than firing Falvey/Levine would be moving them elsewhere in the organization and having someone else run the team. I agree, but it should be up to the new FO to decide his fate. Many of the rationalizations around Baldelli's coaching have been misguided (for example, Rocco gets praise for letting starters go longer in 2023 compared to 2022, but that was because the majority of his starters sucked the third time through, and now he actually has a good rotation that can be trusted), or the bullpen issues that everyone complains about, but he's been forced to put in relievers who are not up to snuff into places they don't belong and people criticize even the tiniest misuse of a player. It goes to show that the roster just isn't good enough. The core from 2017-20 has been mostly dismantled and what we have now is middling, with the top talent we do have spending far too much time on the injured list. The pitching pipeline never materialized, forcing them to make several trades for starters (which aren't bad moves individually, but we were expecting a Cleveland-like pipeline that we would be able to draw from), and they have the hardest time building a bullpen (which is something I expect a hiccup from with the volatility of the position, but the past few years of Joe Smith/Emilio Pagan/AAAA arms/forcing them to acquire arms at the deadline has not worked. Frankly, I don't know. Perhaps reboot the team culture / fill out the coaching staff with new faces and see what works. Maybe that doesn't change the status quo or even backfires, but "trusting the process" without any results is futile. When it comes to the players/talent I don't believe a full-on rebuild is required to get this team into perennial playoff contender status, but the franchise needs a reboot via a new GM / team president.

I know the whole hindsight thing annoys people... but I and some others called in in that "the Twins don't need to add relievers" thread right before the season began. There were far too many question marks, and the Twins made too many assumptions (Lopez would rebound, Alcala would be back to where he left off, no injuries, a veteran cast-off emerging or other young arms emerging). Pagan did rebound and Stewart was a big find, but that and adding Floro is not enough if this bullpen is going to make it through the playoffs. I suppose if the goal is to win the division then continuing with this cobbled crew could work, but if they are serious about winning in the playoffs then they're going to give up runs like they did in 2019-20.

Late August at earliest, he will probably start a rehab assignment in a week or two.

I'd be ticked off if I were a Cleveland fan, a single 1B prospect for 2.5 years of Civale? I'm sure he's good, but you should get multiple prospects in return for multiple controllable years of a quality starting pitcher.

Impressive, I'm glad you did the research - though I have to say I'm interested to see if any sweeps happened earlier in the year? I also didn't realize how horrid their winning percentage was at this point... woof!

Lewis is coming back late August at earliest, so I wouldn't call that imminent. Perhaps their insatiable desire for 8 relievers will be what it takes to force them to DFA Gallo to get Ortega or the like up.

Crazy how he doesn't hit free agency until age 35... but I'd consider it, he's got stellar numbers over the past 3 years.

I'll willing to bet Cano's play going forward will be more dependent on the walks - reminds me of Brusdar Graterol, who's got consistently low K rate but rarely ever walks anyone and has a pretty darn good ERA & FIP.

I wouldn't call a top 20 prospect of ours a "fringe", and he's recently been ranked as one of their top 10 prospects - not to mention, he was the primary prospect of the trade, the guy the Orioles wanted. He's not someone I'm losing sleep over, but our current stable of pitching prospects is mediocre again and we could use him (best used as a trade chip for someone of actual value, not a sub-replacement level reliever).

Pretty crazy how this current form of the team had its competitive window open in 2021, and then slammed shut and now they're awful again. I thought they'd at least have a few years of relevance, but all they have left is a couple good hitters, and a pair of solid starters and that's it. I have no idea how stacked their farm system is, but I'd say their outlook going forward is quite bleak.

Fangraphs had the two prospects at #3 and #9, so the return doesn't seem that high. I suppose both pitchers are hitting the free agent market so that keeps their value quite low... I am intrigued to see if the Angels can finally reach the playoffs with Trout and Ohtani.

I noticed some Marlins fans noting that Floro has a tendency to melt down in close games this year, so I did a little bit of digging: High Leverage - giving up .864 OPS in 75 PAs Medium and low leverage - giving up .692 OPS in 96 PAs When within 3 runs - .833 OPS, within 2 runs .853 OPS, within 1 .921 OPS, tie game 1.005 OPS When > 4 runs: .604 OPS So he's basically pitching like Pagan is, a solid middle reliever with a strong FIP suggesting he can be better, but can't handle high pressure situations. IMO this trade itself isn't an awful move, the awful part is that this front office turned Cade Povich, Yennier Cano, and 2 lottery tickets into two months of Dylan Floro. Not to mention failing to get Lopez right and receiving a net negative WAR from him. I would bet Floro pitches better than Lopez does the rest of the year so it could turn into a minor win amidst a very bad trade.

Welp, this confirms the Jorge Lopez trade was a terrible one, and they have sold low on him. Floro looks like another classic 'high ERA low FIP' reliever whose performance will be a mystery box, but most likely won't be here in 2024 and on. Can't say I feel any better about the bullpen... and it is seeming like the young arms aren't going to help much. Balazovic has looked like a keeper, but Moran just isn't good, Winder and Sands are mop-up arms. It's too bad they gave up too early on Cano but have given Moran more chances.

Seems like Sands is being treated like the mop-up guy, and doesn't have the trust to be used in any other scenario. It's unfortunate, but it's common for teams to carry a guy like this. Moran-Pagan-Ortega have not been overused and should have been able to handle this.

Correct, I forgot about him, I thought the other two players traded were international teenagers. Davis has 95 PAs between 2019-2021 coming in at .203 / .573 OPS. I do remember some being upset that he wasn't promoted after demolishing AAA. Looks like he's at the Mets AAA affiliate with a middling triple slash line with a pretty high strikeout rate.

Berroa is the first - and probably only - prospect from the Sam Dyson trade to reach the majors. He was traded to the Mariners last year for Donovan Walton.

If the Twins are serious about being a true contender, I believe the bare minimum would be to acquire a 3B, RH OF, and a reliever.

We have to get Buxton and Kepler out of the lineup, at least in the short term. They're costing us too much with their ineptitude. Even if Wallner strikes out a whole ton, at least it's someone else doing it. Julien needs to be the every day DH with how he's hitting, and get Buxton on an IL/mental health break.

Short starters are a pretty typical thing in the playoffs, as managers usually pull their starters at the first sign of trouble in the 5th/6th innings. Gray is by far the best rental piece out there, not counting Ohtani.

They should listen to all offers on Gray, but they should see if anyone tries to blow them out of the water. If not, hold on to him... but if they anticipate Gray will not be a Twin in 2024, then I think it'd be prudent to get something for him instead of only getting the extra draft pick from the QO. Of course, with the team in contention and the front office needing to prevent a third losing season in a row I don't anticipate they will seriously consider moving him.

Well, they did it last year when Royce Lewis was tearing it up in a two week stint and still sent him down when Correa was ready to go, despite our lineup badly needing him. Hopefully they have learned from that mistake.

The Reds have a lot of youth in their lineup and have another hot rookie coming up. Let's see how well CES converts his AAA dominance to the majors.

Great day by the hitters, but you have to be concerned with Maeda and Lopez's starts against this A's offense. Meanwhile, the bullpen has been quite solid even down several arms, barring that bad game against the Orioles.