LA Vikes Fan

This makes a lot of sense to me. Moving a family business through multiple generations is incredibly hard to do and usually breaks down over time. Boars Head is a great example. The problem is that there may be internal agreement on what to do amongst an older generation and then you have some people in subsequent generations who have different viewpoints. Here, I could easily see that some of the family wants to treat the team as a business and maximize profit, while some see it more as a hobby and value winning over profit, and some don't care about the business and may want to cash out their their share. The only way to solve that is to either have one person or a small group buy out everyone else's shares or to sell the asset.

Two thoughts. First, if there is a major trading of assets for prospects it is much more likely that is being done at the behest of a certain buyer group who want to see that happen without taking the PR hit. I don't think that the sell off would improve value so I don't see it happening unless that's what a new buyer wants. Inertia is more likely. Second, I think they have something(s) already in process. I think they know that the sale is likely to happen either to one or maybe multiple bidders and they announced it to see if there is any other interest out there and to leverage suitors. I expect a relatively quick process.

I agree that the Twins should be open to trading almost anyone on the roster for the right return. The issue is what constitutes the "right return". The premise of the article appears to be that we would trade Duran for high-end prospects and thus save money as well as potentially improving future years. I didn't see anything in the article that Duran could or should be traded either individually or as part of a package for a middle of the order bat or quality starter. I think this one is simple. If you can trade Duran alone or with a package that might even include someone as good as Keaschall and get a true middle of the order bat or middle of the rotation starter with multiple years of control at relatively low cost then you should absolutely trade him. Otherwise, no. He is more valuable to the Twins as a closer during the upcoming years where the expensive veterans are still hopefully nearer their prime than their decline than he is as trade bait to get even 2 or 3 of another team's top 20 prospects. So in short, trade him for something that makes the 2025 Twins demonstrably better like a middle of the order bat or quality starter? Sign me up. Trade him for prospects? Really bad idea IMHO.

Don't forget that Moreno had a sale lined up and bailed because he just couldn't bring himself to leave the exclusive "owner of a pro sports team" club. He got the price he was looking for, at least the price he said he was looking for. He also still thinks he can develop around the parking lots and make big bucks. I don't think the Pohlads will have that problem. Their problem is they may have waiting one year too long, so they're selling with a negative TV situation.

Guys. I think this one is pretty easy. Every team needs at least 7 starters a season, most need 9-10. With Paddack we have 7 counting Festa and Matthews, both of whom are likely to start at AAA. Varland proved this year that he is a relief pitcher, not a starter. There simply are very few decent starting pitchers out there one can get for $7.5 million and to get one, you have to take a major risk on someone knowing that at best you're throwing away your money on a mediocre innings eater and it's usually worse. Every now and then you see a Flaherty, but not very often. I really think this is a no-brainer. Start the season with Paddack in the rotation. Hope you can get 100 – 120 starting innings out of him with an ERA under 4.25. That means probably two trips to the IL during the course of the season. He can always be moved to the bullpen if he is ineffective but there's no reason to start him there. Festa and Matthews start in AAA and are up in that order for the inevitable injury or ineffectiveness of one of the starting five. We can also hope that guys just now hitting the AAA level like Raya, Lewis or Morris would be additional depth and show enough to get an opportunity in 2025 at the MLB level. What you don't do is deprive yourself of someone who showed he can at least be an average starter at the MLB level by making him a middle reliever or trading him for not very much.

I don't think this is Very fair. You can't say "ignore his good years because he didn't have to do anything, look only at the down years" any more then you can say "ignore the down years because of injuries, look only at his good years". You have to look at all of the years. The good is that he has a solidly winning record overall, the Twins won 2 division titles so far during his reign, and won one playoff series. I agree with you on at least some of the bad; I think he is too rigid when he platoons, two loyalty to underperforming veterans, and he doesn't use small ball enough. The latter may be the result of the players he has not being able to execute. But if it is the players execution, that's on him and the coaching staff. All of these guys can be taught to move runners over, bunt, etc. and should be. The thing that bugs me more than anything is the platooning and his loyalty to underperforming veterans. I said at the beginning of this season that this should be a development year because a playoff spot was within reach without having to win 90 games and this was the year to really develop the young guys before Detroit and Kansas City started getting better. Turns out I was a year late on Detroit and Kansas City, they are already better, but this was the season we needed to find out whether Wallner, Larnach and Julien could hit left-handed pitching well enough to play every day, whether Miranda could play first base, and whether we had a backup centerfielder in St. Paul. instead, a lot of ABs went to veterans who we knew were not going to be part of the future like Kepler, Santana, Margot, and Farmer. Santana actually performed to be fair, but the rest did not. We do know more about the young starting pitching because it was forced on us by injury, but not so much about younger relief pitcher. Now we have to find out about our younger players abilities in 2025 because the veterans that got in the way of those learning experiences will be gone AND we have to do it in a context where Cleveland looks likely to end and 90 games, and both Kansas City and Detroit look like they might be at that same level. This is no Bueno. It is directly on Falvey and Baldelli. I'm okay with Rocco returning for another season. I hope he learned something this year and we don't see that same rigid approach in 2025. Frankly, I don't think the Front Office is going to give him any veteran players due to payroll constraints so he won't have a whole lot of choice other than to play and develop the young core. That should have happened this year. It didn't, and that's on Rocco.

We probably should have seen this coming after he went so long on the Boston GM interview trail last winter. I think he's either looking to move up to a more powerful role in a less constrained baseball club, or will move outside of baseball for awhile. I do expect there will be a market for his services so best of luck.

Agree with you on the first 4 (although I would rather have Keirsey as the 25th roster guy than the AAA CF), but I think it's too early to write off Lee. He's only had 172 MLB AB. He moved up rapidly so I think we have to let him have a 400 + AB year before we will have a good sense of his offensive potential. I expect that he will be the starting 2B, possibly in a semi-platoon with Julien or Castro, We will know a year from now if he can be solid MLB hitter. It's worth the investment of time IMHO.

Thanks for doing this analysis. It kind of meshes with my thinking after watching these guys, with one exception. Lee has a chance to be a quality MLB starter if he can learn to be more selective. He reminds of Larnach before this year where he would let a hittable pitch go by and then panic into flailing away at pitches outside the zone. He got over that hump this year and I think will be quality hitter going forward, at least against RH pitching. I think the ZIPS projections are low for Lee, particularly on the SLG side. I think he can be a solid .750 OPS guy or better within a couple of years. I agree that Martin is what he is, a contact hitter with no power. He could be a 4th/5th OF type if he improves his fielding. I hope he's playing winter ball in the OF every day. Helman is a second UTL guy at best and more of a AAAA player. Camargo may develop into a backup C that hits .225 with 10-12 HRS, but probably not much more than that. The exception to me may be Keirsey. I think he can be more than a .630 - .650 OPS guy, much more. I would like to see the Twins keep him as the backup CF next year because of his near elite defense. Let's give him 300-400 ABs before writing him off. I think he might be able to generate an OPS much closer to .700-.725 with a .330 plus OBP, which makes him a playable CF with his defense and speed. I'd much rather do that than play Martin or Castro in CF or go out and sign a low end backup CF.

This is likely where baseball is headed as a business. I think most if not all of us on this board would strongly argue for the NFL model of near complete revenue sharing. Unfortunately the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and maybe Cubs would not, and MLB cannot survive as a viable entity without those markets. I see a significant shakeout coming starting with teams that just have never caught on like Miami and Tampa. Allowing in private equity money may be a short-term patch but those guys are very bottom line oriented. They will squeeze the teams at the payroll and other levels like something you've never seen before. The only model that really works outside of the big markets is the vanity model where a billionaire owner doesn't care above money, only winning on the field. There aren't very many people like that. That isn't how you become a billionaire. I'm hoping that the interim step is the 13 soon to be orphaned teams form a collective package on Apple TV, Hulu, Prime or some similar service. Local contracts can show half the games, and all are available through a streaming platform and on MLB.com without blackouts. The streaming services might be willing to overpay to buy inventory and get a foot in the sports door, especially those that have access to public capital markets for seed money. That will give MLB time to figure out the next step. I do think the next step is going to be pretty ugly.

I do think there's a certain amount of scapegoating here but the hitting coaches had to go. This team is too inconsistent at the plate and really lacked the ability to engage in anything close to situational hitting. That last part is on the coaches and, to a certain extent, the manager. I run an organization that I have found that people will do what you ask them to do if you're clear on what you want and on what they will be judged, and what you want is different from each person. What these guys need to do is quit telling everybody their job is to hit home runs. Everybody's job is different. For example, Castro and Julien should be told they will be judged on their on base percentage, not their slugging percentage. Buxton, Lewis, Larnach, and Jeffers should be told that their job is to keep rallies going and drive in runs and they will be judged on how well they do that regardless of whether they hit 15 – 20 homeruns or 30+ home runs. On the other hand, Wallner should be told that he will be judged on his power and slugging percentage and on keeping his strikeout percentage below 35%. We may quibble with some of the details, but the point is everybody's different. I think for example that a lot of Julien's problem last year was he had a bunch of home runs in April and somehow decided that was his highest and best use. It's not. Castro doesn't seem to understand that taking a walk is good rather than chasing a double and striking out. That message then needs to be constantly reinforced because these guys get congratulated and high-fived more in the dugout for hitting doubles and hitting home runs than they do for hitting a ground ball to the right side in advancing a runner to third base with less than two out. I would sit down with Julien and tell him his on-base percentage needs to be over .350 with a less than 25% strikeout rate or he is never getting out of AAA. Tell people what you want and hold them accountable for giving you what they want or they can go elsewhere. I don't think the Twins do that or if they do, they don't do it very well.

You may be right that first base will be a mystery position going forward. I do think Mirnada is going to get the first shot at holding that down, maybe in some sort of timeshare with Julien. I think Miranda could potentially be a solid hitter at the MLB level going forward. I think Julien is a complete crapshoot both at the plate in the field. I do not see the Twins bringing back Santana or bringing in a free agent first baseman so I think those guys are the only two real options. Enjoy SoFi! Should be a good game and they'll be a lot of Vikings fans in attendance. I'm in a season ticket group for the Chargers and was there when they played the Vikings at SoFi. I would guess the crowd to be at least 40% Vikings fans, most of them in Vikings jerseys. The venue is nice and the fan experience pretty good. Just two words of warning - the parking situation is not good or very well organized (although after complaints it is getting better), and the stadium food is bad. They apparently contracted with Jerry Jones' company to provide the stadium food and its overpriced as expected but also pretty low quality. I would eat before I come to the game. They do have a lot of bars though so it's pretty easy to get a beer and they have some craft beer selections.

I saw that two of the Twins hitting coaches have been let go (Popkins) or are likely to be reassigned to the minors (Shomon) if not let go. I do expect a shakeup on the pitching side as well. The biggest shakeup the Twins could and should do to improve quality of the business is a complete shakeup of the marketing and operations staff. I live in LA so maybe the marketing is better than what I read here, but it sure sounds like the Twins are stuck in the 1970s or 1980s where all you were selling was a baseball game, not an entertainment experience. People now want more. You need to have more giveaways, bobble head nights, after game concerts, group promotions, free or heavily discounted tickets to schools to fill up the bleachers, etc. You can either drive attendance by having an elite team, something no one really seems to be able to do year after year other than the Dodgers and the Yankees, or you can make the ballpark an entertainment experience that people want to have which also includes a baseball game. That's what the Twins need to create and I just don't think Dave St. Peter is the guy who can do that.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, take a look at Miranda's hitting before he got hit in the head by 97 mile-per-hour fastball in Detroit and after. Totally different guy. He would stand up in the batter's box blinking away like his contacts for moving and then react a tick slow to the fastball. Strikes me that getting hit in the head by fastball may have given him a mild concussion/psychological aversion to anything inside. Hopefully he will be the same guy he was the first four months of the season next year or at least something close to that. He will be the starting 1B or 3B on Opening Day 2025 unless he is injured or the Twin somehow miraculously sign a veteran free-agent 1B. Almost laughed out loud when I said that thing about signing a FA. Santana ain't coming back, not at five or $6 million or anything close to it. Fine defensive 1B, average hitter for that position overall, but a substantially below average hitter from the left side. Add to that that he can't run at all and will be 39 next year (he may not fall off a cliff but he sure can see it from where he is) and Santana is really a short side platoon player/defensive replacement on a good team. Whether or not you think the Twins are going to be a good team in 2025, I have a high degree of confidence they are going to pay $5 million-$6 million for that kind of player or anything even close.

I do think with Miranda one has to wonder how much he was impacted by injury. He went on the IL with the lower back strain in July, came back and promptly got hit in the head by a 97 MPH fastball on July 28. He was hitting .324 at the time. He then regressed big time and hit .232 in August and .196 in September. Even worse, when I saw him on TV he was constantly blinking like a man whose contact lenses were moving around and he seemed just a fraction slower to react to things. He very easily might have been fighting a mild concussion and/or a psychological reaction to getting hit in the head by a fastball. I don't mean this as an excuse for Miranda's performance. I just mean to suggest that his performance the first four months of the season suggests he's a much better hitter than he showed the last two months of the season after getting hit in the head. I expect him to be the starting 1B next year and am hoping/expecting that he will hit something like .275/.325/.425 or better in that role, playing against both right-handed and left-handed pitching. It should be noted he hit right-handers better 2024 then he hit left-handers. I see him as a solid #5 or #6 hitter, albeit with some defensive limitations. I don't think we will bring back Santana. He was average or slightly below average hitter for a 1B, and definitely very good defensively. He will also be 39 in 2025, can't run at all, and was one of our least clutch hitters in the last couple weeks of the season. He can't hit left-handed very well at all anymore so he's really a short side platoon player/defensive replacement at this stage. We don't need that and let's be honest, we're not spending $5 million plus for that for 2025. I expect Santana to be signed mid-to-late spring training by somebody else to replace an injured player and/or the play for a younger team in need of a "veteran presence".

I think you've identified the obvious trade candidates here - Paddack and Castro. Vasquez isn't worth his salary, and we have no backup catcher if we trade him away. They aren't going to trade young pitching. I could see another team taking a chance on Paddock at $7.5m, particularly since the price is likely to be 1 or 2 solid but not prime Minor League players at least a year or two away. He is replaceable by combination of Festa and/or Mathews, most likely Festa. I actually still hold out hope that they are going to talk to Miami about trading for Jesus Luzardo who is still in the arbitration phase. The price will likely be high in terms of prospects, maybe Miranda plus Keaschall. My guess is that they are at least thinking about if not already working on some kind of deals involving Paddack going and/or Luzardo or someone like him coming.. Castro is a tougher call. He is valuable, but really only because of his versatility. He is a very average bat, doesn't have a high OPS because he strikes out too much and walks too little, and his defense is more in the range of solid then very good or elite at any position. He can be replaced at second base by Lee, Miranda, Julian, Keaschall or a combination thereof. He is not a true backup CF and our starting corner OFs next year are likely to be Wallner, Larnach, plus either Martin or a very cheap FA. I would not be surprised at all to see the Twins trade him, again for one or two solid prospects who are at least a year or two away from appearing at the MLB level. There isn't much else they can do other than that to bring down payroll and that probably doesn't significantly improve the team. I do expect a pretty quiet off-season. John may only be talking payroll, but I think his napkin properly identifies next year's Opening Day roster except I think Dobnak is a starter in AAA again with Alcala in the bullpen in his place, and the TBD on the bench is Keirsey as a backup CF. If we trade either Paddack or Castro, the replacement will be a guy like Festa or Matthews on the pitching staff for Paddack, and Payton Eeles or Keaschall in an IF utility/part-time 2B role for Castro. I think were looking at a pretty lukewarm stove indeed this winter.

I agree that the players haven't "choked" because that assumes current performance is substantially below expected performance. I'm not sure that's true. I think Correa, Buxton, Castro and Jeffers are going to finish right where their talent and health is in terms of performance and games played. I think it's wistful thinking to expect more from them. Same for the starting pitching staff with the exception of Ryan's injury. We've gotten about will be to have expected to get and more in Ober's case. The bullpen has performed below reasonable expectations but not by much given the talent level there, and anyone expecting Brock Stewart to give us more than 30 innings this year simply ignored his past body of work. This year's team was always going to be between 80 and 92 wins depending entirely on the play of the young guys coming into their own - Lewis, Larnach, Wallner, Miranda, and Julien (with hope for Lee), plus Varland, SWR and the rest of young pitching. That's the group that was going to make or break this season and they just haven't performed well enough to make us a playoff team in a competitive division. Wallner has looked great at times, and unplayable at times like early in the season and the last couple of weeks. Lewis has not been what we hoped he would be, not even close. Miranda has been past streaky at best and overall, pretty average, Julien is way below average, and Lee is overmatched at this stage. Larnach has developed into what he is – a solid left-handed hitting platoon outfielder. He is unlikely to ever be much more. Varland has been a terrible starter but might have potential to be a very good reliever. SWR and the rest of the young pitching has actually been better than reasonably could be expected but they been overstretched because of Ryan's injury and a lack of veteran depth so the wheels have come off. You are what your record since you are. That's absolutely true of this year's Twins - a slightly better than average team with potential that may or may not ever realized. This isn't a competitive playoff team that choked. This is who they are, an about 84-win team. This team will rise and fall for the next few years on the backs of those young players development. Let's all be prepared for a very rough ride. They may not be good enough.

I don't think the team has quit or that Rocco has lost the clubhouse - I think the Twins just don't have a lot of talent capable of carrying the team. This is the time of the season where someone(s) steps up, goes on a hot streak, and carries the lineup. That just isn't happening. I don't see who that would be. I hope I'm wrong.

C'mon guys, I think we all know why the Twins are in a tailspin they can't get out of - we're not that good as a team. We know that the pitching is very top heavy without much depth, and I think the same is true on offense The best 2 position players are Correa and Buxton. A lot of their value is on defense. Both are having good years at the plate but neither is have a kind of year where they should hit 3 or 4 and be counted on to consistently produce. That's not who they are. Correa is a #2 hitter, and Buxton should hit #6, maybe #5. Who is supposed to be the meat of the order that will carry us on a daily basis then? Lewis, he of 513 career MLB ABs, Wallner with 477 ABs and a career 40.9% (!) strikeout percentage, Larnach with 977 ABs and a lifetime .230 avg/.723 OPS, and Miranda with 980 ABs and .268 lifetime avg/.734 lifetime OPS? Is it the 38 year old defensive specialist Santana, or maybe the Tiger castoff Castro for whom we're celebrating a .250/.337/.394/.731 "breakout" season? Hopefully we aren't counting on Kepler, he of the lifetime .747 OPS/.232 avg, with the former inflated by his big 2019 (5 years ago) or Jeffers, who's a good hitter for a catcher, but only a slightly above average hitter for any other position. Neither of those last 4 guys hit above 6 or 7 on a contending team. Santana has hit 3 or 4 the last week and we wonder why we can't score any runs? Really? My point here is not to run guys down. My point is that this team has punched above it's weight for most of the season but we probably should have seen this coming. The Twins have about 2/3 to 3/4 of a contending team. We're missing real #3 and #4 hitters - think Jose Ramirez/Bo Naylor light at least - a real #2 starter assuming we think Lopez is a #1, not a #2, and a least 2 late inning relievers, one of whom needs to be left handed. We really have 1, maybe 2 All Star caliber players in Correa and Lopez, and a group of solid to pretty good complimentary players. Complimentary players are great when they have someone to complement. We don't. This has been a fun year but it's pretty much coming to an end. I don't think the Twins will limp into the playoffs, and they go nowhere if they do. They might be better next year if all of the young guys who have had so many MLB ABs or pitched so many MLB innings improve with the experience. I think there's a pretty good chance that at least SWR, Lewis, Wallner, and Miranda will be better next year. Looking back at everything, this was an 85 ish win team all along. Oh well, at least the Vikings are 2-0 (on their way to 9-8).

Great article. While I would love to see this team be more versatile and execute small ball better, they just don't seem to have the guys to do that. There really isn't anybody on the roster that "handles the bat well" as we used to say by hitting behind the runner, bunting well, singles to the opposite field, etc., except maybe Correa. Maybe in time some of the younger guys will get more versatile offensively but it's hard to see Wallner, Lewis, Larnach or Jeffers doing that in the next 10 days. They just haven't developed that skill. I don't think it's a coaching issue, I think it's a "who they are as a player at this stage of their careers" issue. The one versatile bat we had was Martin but he had zero power and is now in St. Paul. This team rises and falls on the home run. The poster is right, we don't have the pitching to grind out 3-2 or 2-1 games against good competition. The Cleveland series was a great example of that deficiency. Any hope of a decent last 9 games comes down to power production from guys like Buxton, Wallner, Lewis, Jeffers, and Correa. I hate to be a downer but that last playoff spot is Detroit's unless they hit a slump. This Twins team just isn't good enough to seize the spot themselves.

Agreed. I think this is a long-term short-term issue. For 2025, having Santana back makes defensive sense and may make offenses sense for one more year although it's pretty hard to say. His hitting is going to fall off the table soon, we just don't know when. For 2026, there is little to no likelihood that Santana will be a realistic option on any sort of contending team at age 40. So to me Santana might help us next year but won't after that. I just don't think it makes sense to give him another year because that limits playing time for others who we have to go with in the longer term. I think the better longer-term play is to play Miranda and Julien at 1B next year, with Lewis the primary 3B backed up by Castro/Lee, Correa at SS, and Castro/Lee playing 2B. We will need another IF so Kirilloff, Helman or a healthy Keaschall may make sense. Any money for FAs, if there will be any given the raises due Lopez, etc., has to go to pitching. 6 IFs in 2025 are Correa, Lewis, Miranda, Castro, Lee, and Helman/Keaschall/Kirilloff/journeyman vet. 5 OFs are Buxton, Wallner, Larnach, plus 2 of Martin, Keirsey, Emma, and Kirilloff. 2Cs are Jeffers and Vasquez.

It pains me out say this as someone who has advocated for more playing time for some of our young players, but RiverBrian may be correct. I think we simply may have overestimated the talent of these young guys or at least where they are in terms of development. It's becoming more and more obvious that Lewis and Wallner may have high upsides but are a long way from being able to consistently provide value, particularly Lewis. Larnach looks like he might be a solid platoon outfielder, but doesn't look like he will ever be much more than that. Castro had a nice run early in the season but he is what he is, a utility player will give you something like a .240 to .250 average, decent but not elite defense in three or four positions, occasional power, some speed, and a roughly .725 OPS. In other words, a nice 10th man but not a starter on a contending team. Miranda's future is becoming muddier by the day with a range from solid everyday player to benchwarmer, but not a middle of the order bat. I would tend to give the young pitching a bit of a pass because they're getting more run than expected, but it's hard to see any of them other than SWR providing value next year and only Alcala from the group of young relievers looking like he might have any sort of short term impact. In other words, this "emerging core" I thought we might have is looking less and less like the basis for contending team. After watching the last month (cue recency bias) and thinking about the fact that this team is likely to use these young guys next year and not pick up any more veteran talent, I see the Twins potentially taking a pretty significant step back next year and falling behind Cleveland, Kansas City, and Detroit. It's amazing what six weeks can do to one's outlook.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t someone be added to the 40 man for playoff purposes as an injury replacement? I thought I read somewhere that’s actually fairly common. So let’s say Matthews goes on the injured list tomorrow because of his blister problem, effectively ending his season. Wouldn’t that allow them to both put Irwin on the 40 and make him eligible for the playoffs?

Wallner has really helped carry this team offensively in the second half of the year. I agree with a previous poster in that I can easily see him being a .250 – .270, 30+ HR guy next year with an OPS north of .850. Yes, he's nowhere near as good defensively as Kepler but is adequate out there and could over time become above average because of the arm strength. He's a good guy to have on your team and can be an anchor in the middle of the lineup ideally hitting in the 5 or 6 hole, and even in the 4 hole if we have to. I would love to see Lewis mature the way I think he can to hit 4 next year, with Wallner 5 and Miranda 6. The strikeouts are definitely a problem, which is why would hit him 5 instead of 4. Still, we can live with one guy in the order with that level of power who strikes out over 33% of the time. The big thing to keep in mind as we can deal with 1 guy who does that, not multiple guys.

I agree that he seems to throw more breaking pitches early than he used to. He used to throw gas, get ahead and then use the curve and splitter to put guys away. Maybe that's an attempt to put hitters off balance who come to the plate gearing up for a 1000 mph fastball. The problem is he misses with that curveball too often on the first pitch or two, gets behind, and gets hit. Look, I'm just a guy behind a computer but I would like to at least see him come up throwing gas early in the count and use the breaking pitches to get guys out rather than trying to use breaking pitches to set up the fastball.