LA Vikes Fan

I hear that quandary. Maybe the answer is you keep Ryan and Lopez and trade Ober along with a minor leaguer for a bat. Particularly a C or 1B unless Keaschall is moving to 1B.

I think this constitutes a small shake up of the core with the rest coming in the offseason. Larnach is gone in the off season, IMHO. Miranda does not fit in the long term plans. They are trying to see if Julien or Outman can be the guy he was in 2023 and, if they can't, their a bench player or gone. The new "core" is Keaschall, Lee, Lewis, Buxton, and Wallner, with Clemens a possibility and Outman maybe sticking around in a bench role. They need a couple more guys and 1B and LF are open, the 2 easiest spots to fill. They're looking for relief pitchers and #4/5 starters. There's tryout camp going, with Matthews and Hatch looking like pieces so far. Expect a tryout camp through September for the rest of the spots. This is your chance if you're Outman, Martin, Clemens, Julien, SWR, Abel, Bradley, Festa, and Ohl. I fully expect that the Opening day 26 man roster in 2026 will have at least 10-12 different faces than the Opening Day 26 man roster in 2025.

I really like the idea of moving one of the young starters into a short relief/closer bullpen role and I think Festa is the best choice. I honestly don’t think the plan is to trade Ryan or Lopez this off-season. The Twins will have at least 12 and as many as 15 minimum salary guys next year on the team. You can run a $100 million payroll easily without trading either of those two guys and have $10-$15 million left over for a free agent or two. More if you move Larnach.. Festa makes perfect sense as a closer if he can handle the role mentally. He’s got the high octane fast ball and a good secondary pitch, but it doesn’t have a deep arsenal. He’s also had shoulder issues. I think he could thrive as the closer and I hope the team takes some opportunities in September to try him in that role. I think the current plans for the rotation next year is López, Ryan, Ober, Matthews, with a competition for that fifth spot between Bradley, SWR, and Abel. The two who don’t make it then go to AAA with Rojas and Prielipp and you have a pretty strong AAA rotation to pick from when inevitable injuries hit. You then have Topa, Sands, Festa, and Funderburk in the bullpen. Hatch has really shown well and can also serve as your sixth starter/piggyback for SWR guy. I agree with top gun that you then spend five or $6 million on a decent reliever and the bullpen starts to look somewhat competitive.

That’s also my thinking on SWR. I think we’ve seen enough to know that it is unlikely he is going to be a starting pitcher that can go more than two times through the lineup on a regular basis. That means he slots in as the number four or number five in a quality rotation. I think a quality late ending reliever has more value than your number five starter, so I think it might be worth seeing if SWR can be that late in relief weapon. We also now have some significant starting pitching depth so it would be a good time to give this a try. All this goes out the window of course if we trade our established starting pitching. I hope we don’t.

By the way, I also agree with you on Alan Roden. Way too early to consider giving up on him and his MiLB track record is stellar. I think people want to put him down because they see him as the return for Varland, the beloved successful local boy. I don’t think a lot of posters here are giving Roden a real chance. And, by the way, the return for Varland is Rojas, a 21 year-old left-handed starter just moved up to AAA. Roden and France were the additions to even out value. Toronto got the best player out of the four and the worst, we got numbers two and three with the potential upside that one of those two will be as good as or better than Varland. Frankly, it was kind of a classic baseball value trade for both teams given that Toronto is a contender and we are not. I still wouldn’t have given up Varland myself, I would’ve made him the closer, but I think the idea that we somehow got the wrong end of the trade is just not correct from a baseball perspective.

I think you’re probably right on the three young starters if Abel and Bradley show something this year because then we will have a surplus to trade from. I personally like Mathews in the rotation; I think he has the highest upside of the three. I think between him and Festa one is in the rotation and the other one should get the first audition as a closer. I really think we should think about SWR as a late inning relief arm. He strikes me as a guy whose fastball isn’t good enough to be a long-term starter but who’s fastball could tick up 2 or 3 mph in the bullpen and become a real weapon ala Jax.

Abel to start today. Urena DFA. Abel’s performance the rest of the way could have a lot to do with what happens to SWA.

It al depends on the amount of the investment and the deal. The guys you mentioned are celebrity investors with small stakes and are typically just "names" put in groups to get approval. I've done and litigated a lot of deals with minority investors and you can do anything you want. The reason that it might be different here is that the new investors may be better business people, fanboys replacing family members who don't care, or maybe they don't want to be associated with a loser, or at least not with a non-competitive loser. On the other hand, these may be hard money people who are interested in cutting payroll to the bone now, making any money they can next year, participating in a 2027 lock out, and then cashing out in 2028 when there's a new CBA and new TV deals that may improve the value of the franchise. Or it could be anywhere in between. Or maybe Joe wants to run a 120m payroll but couldn't with the debt service and now can without it. The point is that none of us know how the new investors will change the franchise direction, if they change it at all. You assume the worst without knowing, although admittedly not without any any basis given what we just saw at the deadline. You may be right. Or we may see something different. None of us know. The one thig I do think we "know" is that the core we had was going nowhere fast so in some senses there's nowhere to go but up.

Yeah, I think you and I are really answering different questions - should we trade Lopez and Ryan vs. will we trade Lopez and/or Ryan. I don't think we should trade either and particularly not for prospects. To me, that just not a smart way to build the team. At this point though, there may be other financial interests of Pohlad that trump baseball. It will be interesting to see if the identity of and power of the new investors makes a difference. think you're right about Joe Pohlad. I 'm just hoping that the new investors are smarter and have enough clout/power to do things a better way.

Thanks. I live in LA and have been watching on MLB.tv. Works well and is very inexpensive, but I do get games with the Angels and Dodgers blacked out. Curious as to what will work best next season.

You're right there, brother.

Is that also true or those of us who still get cable (what!) that has ESPN?

By the way, CBS spots and Dan Hays at the Athletic are reporting that Bradley and/or Abel are likely to get a start this weekend in Chicago. Perfect team to let them start with.

I disagree but not completely, which is why I mentioned that another $10m in addition to the $5m already allocated might get us either a quality BP piece or a middle of the order bat. I think both Buxton and Wallner are starting MLB OFs. I agree the rest should be 4th, 5th or AAA OFs (although I live in LA and Outman may be better than you think), but I think it's worth half a season to see if Gonzalez, Jenkins, or Emma (or Outman or Martin) can hit the ground running and/or be a MLB caliber starting OF. The BP is a complete crapshoot. Who knows who will be available. Coulombe is a FA that has pitched poorly for Texas so he might want to come back, there may not be room for Stewart on the Dodgers' 40 man so he might be available, and there are always guys out there to pick up. A bullpen is the one thing you can build on the fly for not a lot of cash. The big hole is the closer. I would actually try Festa there if only because the Grim Reaper would be a cool closer moniker. Seriously though, I think Festa could be an awesome closer and I think SWR's profile and pitch mix screams stater turned late inning reliever whose 92 mph heater now hits 95 and he has the breaking stuff to go with it. I see SWR as a better version of Jax. I understand why people want to move Lopez and Ryan, I just don't think it works if the rest of the team is young guys learning their way. You have to have something that keeps the games competitive if you want the young guys to learn - they need to be put in crucial late inning situations to get better. That 8th and 9th inning at bat isn't as instructive if you're down 8-3 as it is in a tie game, that 7th and 8th inning relief assignments not as helpful if you're down 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6) as with a small lead or in a tie game, and that start is more pressure packed and instructive if the team is around .500 and being mentioned in the wild card race as it is if you're 10 games under .500, etc. Players develop in competitive situations more quickly and better than on uncompetitive teams. Keeping Lopez and Ryan makes it much more likely we will be in competitive situations and I think that would really help speed up the development and frankly the evaluation of guys like Keaschall, Wallner, Lee, Lewis, Mathews, SWR, Adams, Ohl, etc. Lots of guys can play well on a team that is out of it by May, just look at Brent Rooker. We need guys that can play well when the games matter and you don't develop those guys if the starting pitching is so bad that the games never matter.

I would agree with this if Lopez and Ryan were in their mid-30s and likely to head down over time, but Lopez just turned 29 and Ryan will turn 30 on September 1. Lopez is signed for a team friendly number through his age 31 season (2027). Ryan has 2 arb years left (also thru 2027) and will be 32 when he hits FA. These are the type of guys you try to trade FOR, not the guys you trade. Even if you don't think this team will be competitive until 2028 or later, you keep these guys at least until mid season next year when their trade value will be maximized and trade them if the team stinks because the young players aren't any good. That way you give your young players a cornerstone to start next year with starting pitchers that will keep the team in 2 games out of every 5. You need that to develop young players; you can't have a team without any established pitchers that gets blown out every night because then the young guys don't develop. Why not? Because then they don't play in high stress situations where they learn the little things that win and lose games. It not only makes financial sense to keep both; it makes baseball sense. Ober's a tougher case. He's the same age as Ryan and also has 2 arb years left, not anywhere near as good, and much more replaceable by a Matthews, Festa, SWR, Abel, Bradley, etc. He has less trade value; a whole lot less. I would check the market on him. If he alone or with a good A ball guy can fetch a high upside AA hitter (particularly a catcher) or a blocked guy who's tearing up AAA, I'd really think about pulling the trigger much as I hate to give up a competent mid rotation starter who is less than $6M a year. Those guys are very hard to find.

I understand the 100M payroll prediction but I'm optimistic that there's no need to trade Lopez or Ryan to get there, or Ober for that matter. I get to a 100M payroll including the 10M to Correa without trading Ryan, Lopez, Ober, or Jeffers and giving the latter 3 the likely arb raises. The only person I trade is Larnach. I also bring in 1 FA Bullpen arm at 5M (or that can be two at 2.5M like Coloumbe and another) and 1 FA 1B/DH at 10M (or 3 and 12, just a total of 15). I also use two of Matthews/Festa/SWR/Bradley/Abel in the rotation and 1 in the bullpen. I wind up with 15 (!) 820K minimum(ish) salaried players. 2 of the above 5 are in the rotation and 1 in the bullpen with the other 2 starting in AAA as depth, Sands, Funderburk, Adams, and Ohl are in the bullpen, Cardenas is the #2 C, Keaschall, Lee, two of Clemens, Julien, Fitzgerald and Eeles in the IF on the bench, or Culpepper if he's ready, and Wallner, Outman, Martin and one of Roden/Fedko/Gonzalez/etc. in the OF. Outman will be on the team - he is Buxton's backup and that's why they traded for him. So, I spend 77.5M on vets, 12.3 M on minimum salaried guys, and 10M on Correa and I'm at 99.8M. I actually think that this or something like it may be the plan. With that rotation and the right FA in the bullpen, we may have enough pitching to compete. The hard part will be scoring runs. Her's the roster: Rotation Lopez 21.5M Ryan 7.5M Ober 4.5M Matthews 820K Festa/SWR 820K Bullpen Sands 820K Tonkin 1.75M Topa 1.75M Funderburk 820K Adams 820K Ohl 820K FA 5M Festa/SWR 820K Catchers Jeffers 7.5M Cardenas 820K IF Keaschall 820K Lewis 3M Lee 820K Clemens/Julien820k FA 1B/DH 10M Fitz/Eeles 820K OF Wallner 820K Buxton 15M Outman 820K Martin 820K Roden/Fedko 820K Correa 10M Total 99.8M This looks like a rebuilding roster to me. Add another 10M to get a good closer and the pitching may be there. Add another 10M to get a good hitting OF and the lineup starts to look interesting. This is doable.

Agree. At least replace Urena with Abel, Gaspar with Cardenas, and Clemens with Sabato, and use Julien in a 1B platoon with Sabato. At least you feel like we're learning something for next year.

Ba Dum dum! C'mon folks, these are the jokes. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing...

Rooker looking like he did with the Twins.

Hey, at lest Larnach scored from first on Lee's double. That was actually good baserunning.

Well, that was not good. At least they're trying to be aggressive on the bases. Lee is pretty dang slow, though.

I hate to say it but almost anyone including Julien has a better chance of getting a hit right now as compared to Clemens.

They aren't going to let Clemens hit against a leftie are they?

I like this much better than what's in the article. It preserves the league identity and keeps cities with two teams having one in each league. It does however leave a really bad division in the NL South but the rest of it looks good

I would normally agree with you but I think there's a big caveat here with Lee. He already has 570 PAs and should be at around 700 by the end of the year, assuming he plays basically every day the rest of the season. He has probably of the second-most exciting position player prospect in the organization nipping at his heels in Kaelon Culpeper. Culpeper will be ready for the majors if he stays on his current trajectory by no later than mid season next year. By then, Lee will have his 1000 PAs. Frankly, Culpeper should get some major league ABs this year. The team needs to know whether Lee will be the shortstop or not by no later than the middle of next season, preferably by the end of this season so they can switch Culpeper to the outfield or to third base in place of Lewis. We can't just sit around and wait on him. Having said all that, I'm actually cautiously optimistic on Lee. His bat seems to be better when he plays shortstop every day and I'm guessing his fielding metrics at shortstop are roughly average or slightly below. Those metrics could improve with an off-season of flexibility and agility training and maybe get him to a solid slightly above average fielder at short. If he can do that and be even a .265/.325/.400 hitter, we have a solid major league shortstop for the foreseeable future. He is neither of those things yet but he potentially could be and that's what we need to find out.