LA Vikes Fan

Agreed. I see him at 2B against LH starters in place of Julien and at DH when Larnach is in the OF and Keirsey sits, or in place of Larnach. I just hope they give him some ABs while he's up so we can see where he is and whether he's ready, close, or still needs time. I would rather see Keaschall bat this weekend than see any ABs for Gaspar or Bride. Let's give Keaschall at least 2 starts this weekend.

Saw that. Good move. Hope he provides an offensive spark.

The Athletic is reporting that the Twins have called up Keaschall. No corresponding move announced as far as I know. Assume it's either an IL for someone like Castro or Correa or a demotion for Gaspar.

Just saw in the Athletic that Keaschall has been called up. No corresponding move yet announced.

I think you have this right if Castro and Correa don't go on the IL - Julien is the primary 2B subject to sitting against a LH starter in favor of Bride or Castro, with Correa, Lee, Bride, and Castro handling SS and 3B. If one of Castro or Correa goes on the IL, then Julien plays 2B every day with Bride part of a 3 man team at SS and 3B with the remaining two since both Lee and the remaining one of Castro and Correa can man SS. If both Correa and Castro have to go on the IL, Lee is the SS, Bride the 3B, and they probably have to bring up Fitzgerald as the backup to both spots so they have a second SS. All of this takes Castro completely out of the OF mix except in a late inning emergency so Buxton and Bader play every day, Kiersey plays most days, and Larnach is an occasional LF and primary DH.

Wow, this is going to be one ugly lineup. especially if Correa or Castro has to go on the IL. Here's Julien's chance to seize the every day starting 2B job.

Wallner is going on the IL today with hamstring tightness, assumedly retroactive a day. Who comes up? This decision is a little more complicated than usual because Austin Martin is on the minor league IL, we can't make Castro an OF because we don't have enough left side infielders unless Correa can play, and Larnach isn't running well. Add to that you look at the statistics for the St. Paul Saints and the only three players were really hitting much are Carson McCusker, Ryan Fitzgerald, and Luke Keaschall. McCausker has only had 145 PAs (132 ABs) at AAA between last year and this year, going 38-132 (.288), with 8 HRS, 13 RBI, 48 SOs (33.1%!), and 13 BBs (9%). He's also 6'8", 250 lbs., so I'm guessing not a speed merchant. Good average and OPS, some but not exceptional power, high strikeout rate. Keaschall is in his first year at AAA with a slash line of.261/.379/.348 (.727), and coming off Tommy John surgery so is limited in the field. Good on-base guy, not much power, uncertain defensive home, not an outfielder. Ryan Fitzgerald is hitting with a .882 OPS and can play SS, but he is 30, not really a prospect because of his age and prior performance, and also not outfielder. Emma is not really hitting much at AAA - .704 OPS wiht no HRs and 6 RBIs in 45 ABs. This also Jefferson Morales who placed some outfield, but he's really a catcher and is sitting.238/.304/.405 (.709) so he's not really setting the world on fire. So what do you do? I would call up Keaschall, put some combination of Bader, Keirsey, and Larnach in the corner OF every day, and have Keaschall play 2B some and DH some. I'm banking on Correa being able to play so he and Lee are the primary left side of the infield, with Castro an occasional fill in and also available as the fifth outfielder. Frankly, it's not ideal. It would be better Martin was available, but he's not. By the way, I wouldn't be upset if they combined this with bringing up Fitzgerald to have some infield coverage at SS and 3B while sending down Gaspar. What do you guys think we should do?

Way to give that lead away quickly!

The throw at 3rd sucks but like the aggressiveness with 2 out. We are really in trouble if Wallner is out and either Bader or Keirsey have to play every day. The weak get weaker.

Keirsey can't get the bunt down! Error bails him out but this is pretty pathetic.

Well, isn't that special. I guess Keaschall or Emma may get that shot early after all.

Just tuned in. What happened with Wallner?

This. C'mon guys, a young pitcher going a solid 4 2/3 in his first MLB start of the year in April is something to celebrate, not criticize, One unearned run, 4 SOs. He could have gone longer but we didn't field well and once again we didn't score any runs. Score was tied 1-1 when he left so we didn't have a lot of room to let him go further. With that said, treating this as a retooling/rebuilding year makes a lot of sense to me. To be more specific, I would either trade Paddack now or after one more start to improve his trade value. If he can't be traded for a bat, I would move him to the bullpen as the long man and either keep Festa up when Lopez returns or call up Matthews to take his rotation spot. I would demote or DFA Gaspar and replace him with Keaschall now so we can see how he performs while Lewis is out. Vasquez may be a great defensive catcher, or at least good, but we can't carry his bat. He is released, Camargo up. Keirsey either plays 3-4 days a week instead of Larnach and/or Bader, or if they really have no confidence in him trade or demote him for McCusker. To me, that's a start. More coming if guys don't get better.

I would like to see Chris Paddack in the #8 bullpen spot, with Matthews and/or Festa in the rotation in his place. I'm hoping that by keeping Festa up to make another start or two that the Twins are going to use the remainder of Lopez' time on the IL as a competition of sorts between Festa, Paddack, and SWR for the fourth and fifth rotation spots. Loser goes to AAA or the bullpen, depending on who loses. I even would be in favor of going to a six man rotation and giving Matthews that same opportunity now.

The facts regarding his launch angle bring to mind a comment he made earlier this year. He said he was coming up out of his legs too early and hitting the top of the ball, resulting a lot of ground balls. That's something that can be fixed with a tweak of his swing or, more ominously, he may have trouble "sitting" on his legs because of the foot injuries or something else wrong with his legs. I know I had to change my golf swing due to knee issues making it hard for me to sit back on my haunches without pain during a golf swing. Could be something similar going on here with Correa.

You're right. It looks like they kept Festa up and did not call up Matthews, at least not yet. Matthews hasn't pitched in St. Paul for a week since their earlier plan was to call him up for tonight. Wonder if he will go for the Saints tomorrow. If not, there may be a plan afoot to get him up to the MLB level soon.

Look, I understand we are only 16 games into the season and it's far too early to panic. Having said that, I do think it's becoming increasingly obvious that the current Twins roster has enough pitching to succeed but simply does not have enough hitting or a versatile enough offensive approach to score enough runs competitive. Adding Lewis will help (how much depends on whether we get the first half 2024 or the second half Lewis), but we don't really see much else on the horizon. Lee helps on the defensive side but not so much on the offensive side at least based on his performance last year. I think were about two weeks away from making what seems to be fairly inevitable decision: this is a retooling/rebuilding year with an outside shot at a playoff spot, not a championship contention year. Seems to me that certain decisions become obvious once you cross that bridge. You need to find a place to play the two real prospects we have in the minors, Keschall and Erod, at the expense of guys like Larnach, Miranda, and Castro. I personally think Julien can hit well enough and you need to keep playing him but it might be as a primary DH with only a couple of days a week in the field. You need to make a decision about whether you want to try to keep Ty France long term and, if not, start to reduce his playing time in the field so that Julien can transition to 1B. Maybe those two are the primary 1B/DH tandem. You need to pitch the starters likely to be here for the long haul, Festa and Matthews, at the expense of Paddack, who is traded or sent to the bullpen. In short, it's rapidly becoming time to treat this as a transition year where the only long-term fixtures are Buxton, Correa, Wallner, and Jeffers in the field, Lopez, Ryan, and Ober in the starting rotation, and Jax and Duran ( and maybe Sands) in the bullpen. Let's see if we have some replacements in the system over the next couple of months so we can decide how to handle the trading deadline. The old saw is the first two months the baseball season is to see what you have, the second is to try to fix your holes, and the third to just play. I do think keeping Festa up after his last MLB start and giving Matthews the start tonight is a good first step, particularly if we keep both of them in the rotation while Lopez is out. I think we need to start doing that on the position player side with Keaschall and ERod, and maybe even McCusker and some playing time for Keirsey. Let's see what we have now before we get too far behind to have any hope.

While this demotion can help, I think the team needs something more drastic to get out of this funk. Firing the manager would shake things up but I'm not sure who replaces Rocco. Tingler stunk in San Diego and who knows if Toby Gardenhire is MLB quality. Bringing up Keaschall to replace Gaspar might help fi we actually play Keaschall regularly, probably at the expense of Castro. A new lineup that puts Wallner in an RBI position might help, but only if someone actually gets on base ahead of him. I guess we should try all of the above since the one thing we know is that what we're doing now isn't working.

I admit that I may have given up on Julien's bat too early. The way the rest of the Twins lineup is playing, he has to play every day or at least every day against RH pitching. With France being one of the only other 2-3 guys hitting at all, 1B is taken. Julien will have to Dh and play a little 2B since we have to get his bat into the lineup. Maybe he can be taught to play 1B over the course of the season since France is on a one year deal, but I don't think Julien playing 1B this year is in the cards absent an injury. I don't think we can send him down to learn 1B while he's hitting even .250-.280 with a .750+ OPS. That makes him one of the best hitters on the team. Probably should be hitting 1 or 5. Maybe a better lineup would be Julien, Buxton, France/Wallner, Wallner/France, Correa, Jeffers, Larnach, Miranda, Castro. Lee slides in for Miranda when he returns. Lewis slides into the 3 hole when he's back, everyone slides back one, with Castro going to the bench and playing 2B/3B 2-3 times a week.

Julien is a strange one so far. He seems to be hitting the ball harder and his Baseball Savant page is much better but he has very little to show for it. As Mark G points out, 6 hits in 28 ABs with 8 SOs and only 2 BBs gives one pause. He reminds me a little of Larnach - seems to regularly hit the ball hard but doesn't seem to have enough power for many extra base hits so he hits a lot of "almost" fly balls and longer line drives that are caught in the OF. I like is new approach but, much like Larnach, it may not lead to much. That could be a real problem because we need both of these guys to be .800 plus OPS hitters (or one of them plus Miranda or a guy currently in AAA) or we will not have enough length in this lineup to be competitive.

You may be right about him but you have to admit it's a very small sample size. Still, if Keirsey can't hit MLB pitching, wouldn't Keaschall or Martin be a much better choice? Martin wasn't great last year, but was competent at the plate and have Bader for that late inning defensive guy. Keaschall hit well in ST. My point is this lineup isn't working and I don't think it's going to get materially better. I wish we had a qulity MLB hitter in the wings to help, but we don't. Let's see if we can catch lightning in a bottle or at least upgrade at the margins by trading out Gaspar and maybe Keirsey.

This. The only changes on the horizon are the return of Lewis (could help), and the return of Lee (unlikely to help much based on track record, but a guy can dream). One would hope Correa and Buxton start to hit better and it's possible that Julien, Miranda and/or Larnach could step up at least some. Add all that tougher and what do you get ? Marginal improvement at best. So why not give Keaschall, Martin and/or Keirsey a real chance. May be they aren't any better. But maybe they add some life to this team. Let's find out in the next month and not wait until July.

It looks to me like the Twins don't draw well because the team isn't particularly good so far this year, was bad in the second half of last year, and the weather has been bad. Add to that the epic collapse in the last two months of 2024, the lack of action from a team that doesn't hit the ball well, and the softening economy, and you have a recipe for a drop in attendance. It's much harder to convince people to pay the prices pro sports cost to go see a somewhat boring team that frankly appears to be going nowhere fast. It strikes me that if the team improves and become truly competitive, it is likely that the fans will return. I completely understand people not wanting to spend the $200-$400 it costs to take a family of four to a baseball game to watch an uncompetitive team that doesn't hit much or play a very exciting brand of baseball. That also explains why the other pro sports teams in the area seem to draw better; they are all at least reasonably competitive/playoff bound teams. At this point, Twins have not shown that.

"Failed" may be hyperbole but you have to admit neither Julien or Mirnada has provided much offensive help. Neither of them has or is likely to provide much defensive help either. I not surprised about Gaspar. Time to cut bait on him for now. Fun story but he's now 1-30 in his career with 14 SOs in 30 ABs, 37 PAs. He has made a critical error last night as has looked rough defensively. I would argue that Julien is a better 2B, a low standard indeed. This team isn't good enough to win other than at the margins. Keaschall and Martin might help at the margins, Gaspar is hurting us at the margins. I just have a hard time understanding why you would keep him on the roster.

I don't think you're right about Keaschall. He's playing every day in St. Paul, about half the time at 2B and about half at DH. I understand but disagree with the argument that it's too early but I don't think health is a legitimate reason to hold off a promotion. I'd be thrilled if Lee went .650, then .800, then .900 in OPS at AAA. But isn't that an argument to wait at least 2-3 weeks so he can adjust? I'm talking about what we should do now, not May 1. I think we can all agree that Gaspar doesn't bring enough to the table to be on an MLB roster. I think Keaschall is ready enough now to get an opportunity. That doesn't stop Lee from coming up even as soon as a week or two from now. He can replace Keaschall if he hasn't performed, Keirsey if we've decided not to play him (Castro becomes the 5th OF) or whichever of Julien or Miranda is still in the dumps. This isn't an either/or choice. We have a guy in Gaspar that is 1-30 career and a poor IF. His primary value appears to be as a 3rd catcher which would have value if we had 2 good hitting catchers that we might want to occasionally get in the lineup together or regularly pinch hit on their days off. We don't. Vasquez hasn't hit much in now in 2 plus years. I feel bad saying this but Gaspar provides no real value to this team. Let's get someone up who might.