LA Vikes Fan

Bader hasn't been hitting at all for the last couple of weeks. Maybe he's turning back into the .650 OPS guy he's always been before. I know we want to give Wallner a chance against LHs but it's tough to watch.

Ten bucks says Bader strikes out again . .

What happened to Castro? He looks lost and late at the plate. Kind of like last year when they played him every day. There may be a message in there. ... Guess he showed me.

Brooks Lee is just … not good. Probably should be in AAA.

Good analysis. I think sometimes we forget that the return for Berrios was more than just SWR and Martin, but it was also the payroll flexibility to sign Gray and then DeBarge as the comp pick. That package out has to also include Petty. Looked at it in the full analysis, it’s actually pretty even or maybe a slight Twins win depending on the three non-MLB players. I personally have more hope for Martin than anyone else, I think he could be a solid third or fourth outfielder. SWR looks like a soled #4 starter. DeBarge looks interesting. On the other hand, Petty could be a frontline starter in five years so the final tally is still not yet complete.

Wow, is Lee slow.

Jonathan Long of the Cubs AAA team first. Blocked by Busch, hitting .312/.397/.503(.900) in AAA. Second, an MLB ready Catcher blocked by someone good - Samuel Basallo (Orioles), Dalton Rushing (Dodgers), or Jeferson Quero (Brewers). I also really like Ballesteros, Mclean and Tong. DePaula of the Dodgers is off limits. The Dodgers are not willing to trade him but would love him if they change their mind. All of these guys are likely to cost us Jax at the least. Castro plus a prospect won't be enough. I would be willing to trade Jax for one of these guys plus a 45+ FV type prospect.

Maybe I'm just bored at work, but I thought it might be good to have a blog where we track the MLB players traded, see the returns, and see how that effects what the Twins might, should, or could do. Here's a start with the first 3: Ryan McMahon to Yankees - Rockies traded 3B McMahon to Yankees for LHP Griffin Herring (Yankees #17, 45 FV grade) and RHP Josh Grosz (not in top 30). McMahon is a much better fielder than Castro, Castro a much better hitter (112 OPS+ to 92 wRC+). Suggests Castro is worth one top 20 prospect and a flyer. Actually sounds about right. Does take the Yankees off the board as a trading partner for Castro. I don't know about you but I'm not in favor of helping the Yankees anyway. Gregory Soto to Mets - Orioles trade LHRP Soto to the Mets for RHP Wellington Aracena (20, somewhere between 14 and 25 in Mets system) and Cameron Foster (26, unranked power RP just moved up to AAA, maybe close to majors). Foster is a power guy who dominated AA but off to a slow start in AAA: could be a decent MLB middle reliver soon. Aracena throws 97+ with shaky command at the A ball level but profiles as a possible late inning reliever if he can refine his control. Not a bad haul for the rental Soto. Coloumbe is older than Soto but much better this year. Maybe we can get a better headliner prospect that's doing well in AAA plus a flyer like Aracena for Coloumbe. Do it if we can. Josh Naylor to Mariners - DBacks traded 1B Naylor to Seattle for rookie left-hander Brandyn Garcia and pitching prospect Ashton Izzi. Naylor has a 123+ OPS, Ty France 85+ and Naylor is a better 1B. No comparison. Garcia was Seattle’s 11th-round pick out of Texas A&M in 2023. He ranked 13th among Seattle prospects at MLB Pipeline and 19th at Baseball America. Izzi, 21, is a long-term development play. He pitched well in Low-A last season but has struggled to a 5.51 ERA across 12 starts in High-A this year. In other words, 1 top 20 and a flyer. France will be lucky to get us the flyer. Trade him for whatever you can get. Returns so far make me optimistic that we might actually be able to get some quality prospects for both Castro and Coloumbe. Still prospects though, none of whom are MLB ready this year or probably next year. I would trade Coloumbe for a similar or better return and maybe try to re-sign him in the off-season. I would try to re-sign Castro now and if not, also trade him for the same or a better return and follow the same path in the off-season. What do you guys think about the return and how it impacts the Twins? Would you make similar deals?

I think this argument really works as a reason not to trade Duran. Not so much for Jax. Three of the last four years Jax’s actual numbers have been much less impressive than his peripherals, and he is close to leading the American league in negative impact on expected wins or WPA. Frankly, the numbers are similar to our old friend Emilio Pagan when he was here. For example, his blown save Thursday changed the Twins from an 80% win probability to a loss so the high overall number tells you he’s been in a lot of high leverage situations, but does not have a particularly strong record in those situations. Frankly, that complies with what I think I see; he’s usually good, always great against weaker teams, tends to get beat up by better teams. That’s why it’s my view that the Twins should only consider trading Duran for an already established MLB middle of the order bat but should be willing to entertain a high-end prospect return for Jax. Why? The chances of the Twins trading for prospects that become as valuable as Duran is pretty small. Conversely, Jax tends to be overvalued by us fans, and as much more easily replaceable, so it’s worth taking a chance on a highly rated prospects.

Interesting idea. I agree that Julien has at least some value and could be that additional player in a 2 for 2 or 2 for 3 kind of trade. There is no realistic path for him to the Twins at 2B so he's going nowhere unless he becomes a 1B option. He should be on the trade radar. I would actually keep Martin unless a real opportunity arises. He's hitting well in AAA this year, albeit with not much power. And let's not forget, he actually hit some last year at the MLB level - .253/.318/.352 (.670) in 253 PAs, 223 ABs, with a 20% SO rate and a 10% BB rate. Not great, but not bad for a guy getting his feet wet at age 25. No, he is not much of a CF but he isn't bad in the other spots. I honestly don't understand the venom on this board towards him. Miranda is a complete mystery to me with no trade value. He looked like a fixture and then fell of the map. Completely. Is it his back or another injury? Is it a personal issue that has him distracted? IS it a technical approach thing that we just can't fix? Throw him in if somebody wants him, but be prepared to find out that another team figures out the problem and has a solid starter.

Absolutely correct. I think Matthew may have misread the MLB Trade Rumors post or I misread his post. The scuttlebutt is that Twins want to Top 100 prospects for one of Duran or Jax. not for both. So, I would reevaluate based on the trade of one of the two. In my case, I trade Jax. I do not trade Duran for that kind of return. He is worth substantially more as a proven Closer. The two hardest kinds of pitchers to get are a frontline starter and a proven Closer, that's why they make the most money. Durand is a proven Closer. He stays, but I would be open to trading Jax for the right return and replacing him with Varland. Assuming those conditions, I like the Mets package the best. I know that getting two high ceiling pitchers doesn't solve our offensive woes but adding pitching allows us to trade for bats in the off-season and you can't have too many good pitchers. I would consider the Dodgers deal if they add in another solid prospect in the 40-45 FV range, and I would consider someone in A+ ball or even A ball as that extra player. I like the Dodgers pitcher a lot. Rushing, on the other hand, is far from a "can't miss" prospect. I live in LA and have seen him play. The eye test and what I read suggest he is another Brooks Lee type – high floor but ceiling is probably a slightly above average regular, not a star. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that at the catching position with catchers so hard to find, but that's why you have to add the other prospects. I'm not interested in the other packages. The Yankees, Cubs, and Phillies players aren't good enough. I wouldn't make the deal with Detroit because then he's in our division.

I tend to agree with the posters who say that the failure is on multiple levels. I would rank them in this order: (1) Ownership - Not only have these guys been bad, they have gotten worse over time. Signing Correa to a big money deal and then "right-sizing" payroll relatively shortly thereafter is just a stupid business strategy. It also completely hamstrings your Front Office and stifles creativity and roster management. We should not be surprised that such a strategy happened when they clearly assigned the team to the least business experienced, and probably least competent, family member to run. Joe Pohlad is simply not good at this and it's hard to believe experience will make him better. I also think that the Pohlads are suffering from fairly common second generation inherited business flaw; that next generation doesn't care about the business, it only cares about the money it generates. The business is not something this generation built so they have no emotional connection to its performance. As a result, progress and innovation are stifled in the name of maintaining profit for lifestyle and the business suffers. No surprise that Thad Levine left; he was the most dynamic and creative of the management group. It's hard to attract dynamic incompetent front office people when your job is to maintain a machine so that the owners can maintain a lifestyle. Ownership has made turning this into a winning team very difficult. (2) Rocco and the Coaches - I wouldn't say the coaching staff has done poorly, they just haven't done well. I think Rocco and the coaching staff are very average. They don't get teams more wins than their talent but they don't cost the team a lot of wins either. This is a problem because the very job of a good manager and coaching staff is to get the absolute most out of players and squeeze out extra wins. This group simply has not done that in any meaningful way. I was a little optimistic because finally we have started to steal more bases and play more small ball. This roster doesn't have the hitting talent to win any other way and it should not have taken the coaching staff half of the season to understand that. I think managers often times get too much credit and too much blame. Here, I think the team's performance is very reflective of their talent level, or even a little below, and Rocco and his group appear incapable of improving that record. They manage this team not to lose, they don't manage this team to win. It also looks like the players are pretty much tuned coaches out. It very well may be time for Rocco to go and I've always been one of his supporters. (3) The Players - The bottom line is that we are not playing well because the players are not playing well. We can rail about coaching not teaching fundamentals but these guys have been playing baseball since Little League and know the fundamentals. They just aren't executing. They are freezing up in critical situations, having poor at bats with runners on base, and pitching their worst in late and tight game situations. Even worse, I haven't seen many if any stories about guys getting in extra batting or fielding practice, agitating for more running or anything like that other than Lewis getting in extra batting practice. And guess what, he's starting to hit. I don't even mind him going off in the newspapers like he did recently because that shows he cares. Ultimately, a player's performance is up to the player. This team has to win at the margins to be successful and most nights, they don't. That's only partially the managers fault, it's mostly on the players. (4) The Front Office - While these guys are far from blameless, I actually think they have done a decent job assembling pitching talent. Having said that, they have done a poor job of evaluating hitting talent and have only recently gotten better at drafting talent. They also were far too slow to adapt away from the power driven three true outcomes approach when MLB changed the rules. Overall, I think they been basically a neutral to below average, not elevating the team but not dragging it down either. Realistically, this team is a little short on talent to be a true contender, particularly on the hitting side. Even so, there's enough talent to win 85+ games and I don't think were going to get close to that unless something dramatic happens. This team needs an infusion of new ideas. Maybe new ownership will help, maybe a new manager is necessary, and maybe we need to turn over 35 – 40% of this roster. But we can't do is continue to run out the same group night after night and have them play in the same way. That is a recipe for disaster.

Hey, one appearance does not a point prove or disprove. You were right to call me out on my statistical error. Really Sucks that we lost today. We might have been able to get some momentum from a road series win against the Dodgers. Instead, yet another missed opportunity gut punch. This season is looking more and more like a slow descent into irrelevance every day. I hate the idea of trading Ryan (in particular), Duran, or Jax, but I see the logic. This lineup just isn't good enough and it's hard to see where the help could be coming from other than continuing the recent improvement from Lewis. Wallner and Larnach seem lost, Lee is decidedly mediocre at the plate, Castro is fading just like last year, and France is what he is and that ain't much. Buxton can only carry us so often. We literally have 1, maaaaybe 2 guys who should hit in the top 5 on a contending team (Buxton and maybe Lewis, who for some unknown reason is hitting 8th behind such luminaries as Wallner and France), a #6 and #7 hitter in Correa and Jeffers, and a bunch of guys who should hit in the bottom third of the order. Hard to contend with that. Add in a rotation that seems to have a least 2 out at all times and it's hard to get excited about the future of this season.

I hope you're right. Having a solid Lewis would really help this lineup. Now if only Rocco would bat him in the 4 or 5 spot instead of Correa or France . . .

Fair point and it does make the statistical analysis closer. If we add in holds, Jax is 80 for 101 in hold or save opportunities from 2022-2024, 100 for 124 if we include YTD in 2025 (20 holds, 0-4 in save opportunities). Roughly 80.6%. Now it is possible to get a save and a hold in the same game but it's rare so I didn't factor that out. That 80.6% didn't sound very good to me, so I asked ChatGPT what was considered a good save percentage in MLB. The answer that came back - 88% or higher. Other websites said 85% or better. Take that for what you will. Doing the same analysis on Duran, he's 100-109 since 2022 (his first year), for 91.7%. Significantly better than Jax IMHO. You're right I misread the stats for which I apologize to the TD faithful. Correcting them does however lead to same point, Duran has been better in late inning situations than Jax. In my view, keep them both. If you're going to trade one, trade Jax because we will miss Duran more than we will miss Jax. Why? Because Duran is a closer and Jax is not.

Makes sense. Now is the time to switch up the rotation to get your horse more work. He can rest in September if we're out of totally by then.

Agreed. That would work just as well. Does that work all the way through when we get to no off days? in other words, my goal is to have Ryan pitch as many as possible all on 4 days rest and not have a bullpen game.

I guess I wasn't very clear with what I meant by "statistical noise". I was attempting to refer to the tendency of fans to dismiss giving up the lead in the 7th or 8th as a blown save. Giving up the lead in the 7th or 8th is a blown save statistically and is a fair reflection of a relievers ability to close out games. The numbers don't lie, Duran is better at preserving leads of less than 3 runs in the late innings than is Jax. In fact, using the last 3 innings is a more valid statistical analysis because over time it tends to take out the variables of the size of the lead and portion of the order faced. Focusing on only one inning, be it the 7th, 8th, or 9th, skews the analysis. My point is simple, however inarticulately argued - Duran is better at closing out games than Jax, and by a fairly significant amount. My view is that the team would feel the loss of Duran much more than the loss of Jax so if I were to trade one (and wouldn't trade either), I would trade Jax. That's especially true since I think Varland can take over Jax's role.

I'm not sure where you guys are getting the idea that Jax can be the closer. His career record is 15 saves in 38 opportunities for a closing rate of 39.5%. Some of that is statistical noise from giving up leads in the 7th or 8th inning and going 1 for 7 in 2022, but in 2024 he went 10 for 16 for a 62.5% closing rate. Duran on the other hand is 73 for 82 since 2022, for a closing rate of 89%. This is why Duran closes and Jax does not. Jax is a fine, very good high leverage late inning arm. He is most definitely NOT a closer. Jax could be replaced by Varland (although I'm not sure who replaces Varland). We do not have a replacement for Duran. Nothing kills a team faster than losing late inning leads (we all remember Ron Davis). There is more to closing than throwing hard; you have to have the mental fortitude for the job and very few pitchers have it. You keep guys who can close unless you a are doing a tear down and rebuild or have one in waiting, which we don't. Keep Duran.

I agree with the sentiment but not with trading Duran or Jax, although I would listen on Jax. Also, I live in LA and follow the Dodgers. Rushing is not seen here as any sort of "can't miss" guy. He's a potentially good hitter but not a great catcher (which may not matter as much if we get the electronic strike zone). I think the comparisons to Lee are pretty accurate - much more likely to be a high floor, with a slightly above average regular ceiling than a star. You're right, we do need more hitting talent on the MLB roster. Maybe we can get someone by trading Castro and a 40-45 FV pitching prospect to a 2B or 3B needy team? Not sure I see much else.

I disagree. Not enough. Add in either Freeland or Quintero and I get interested and would even throw in a 40+ prospect like Winokur or Eeles. Duran is ta real deal closer with 3 playoff runs before he even becomes a FA. Once he hits LA, he won't leave unless he falls of because they will pay what it takes to keep him. Also, the Dodgers are a WS contender and they are desperate for a closer. BTW, I'd prefer to keep Duran over Jax. Duran has shown he can close. Jax has shown he cannot. Varland can replace Jax. We got nobody to replace Duran.

Is Misiewicz going on the IL? Seems like he should if he left after one walked batter last night. I half expected them to call up Ober to pitch today but now with Festa going on the Il it seems like the call is Ober for Misiewicz (IL) tomorrow with Adams staying as the long man. I would expect Ober to start Saturday or Sunday against the Nats. It stinks that Festa had to go on the IL, but we should be able to cover without a bullpen game with the 3 off days coming up if we jigger things a little so Ryan pitches Friday - on 4 days rest from last Sunday's start. Nats would be Ryan, Matthews, Ober. Red Sox would be SWR, Paddack, Ryan. Guardians would be Matthews, Ober, SWR. Tigers would be Paddack (if he's still here), Ryan, Matthews. Everyone is still on 4 days rest until after Festa is eligible to come back. And who knows, maybe we're close to Lopez getting a rehab start or 3.

This team isn’t going anywhere this year in all likelihood. Why complain about the FO not making acquisitions? This pig needs no lipstick. The rest of this year is about seeing if we have enough to contend next year. Through that lens, these 3 coming back are very important. Is Keaschall a starting 2B or 1B next year because he can hit? Are Ober and Matthews 2 of the 5 starters with Lopez, Ryan, and SWR/Festa? Both critical questions to be answered. So if this year is to see for next year, very important returns. As for contending this year, meh, not so much.

Or you could say that the Twins traded a broken down 31 year old fan favorite who we couldn’t use and who hit .213 in 2024, the year after the trade, with a .651 OPS. This year he’s hitting better with a .776 OPS but has to DH because he can’t play in the field well enough any more and can’t run. In return, we got a SP who did nothing, a RP who has been decent but not great in middle relief, and 2 prospects, one of whom is doing well enough in AA to warrant the article. Sounds like a fair trade, maybe even a win for the Twins now, and definitely a Twins win if Gonzales makes the MLB level for more than a cup of coffee. Im no big fan of Falvey, but this isn’t the trade to criticize. It’s frankly what we should do now with a couple guys, trade players who aren’t in our long term plans for players with upside who might be.

Thanks for making the list. I don’t really see anybody you’ve missed. The problem with this list is the problem with being a buyer in a nutshell. The guys you might actually want, O’Hern, Diaz, and Suarez, will be expensive and you won’t be able to hold them for very long. The guys you can keep, like McMahon and Laureano, just aren’t that good. Murphy is interesting but I’d have to know the price. To me, the smarter move is to play the guys we got and go shopping in the off-season. I would start with getting France off the roster. He’s the same guy the Mariners thought wasn't good enough to be on their team. Play Clemens at 1B everyday or in a platoon with Sabato. I would also send Keirsey back down and bring up Martin. Play Lewis, Wallner, Larnach, and Lee five days a week down the stretch and find 3 games a week for Martin and Sabato. Recall Funderburk and lose Misiewicz. Give Ohl and Adams a shot over Topa. Get these guys out there regularly and see if they can improve. We need to know for next year.