LA Vikes Fan

While I think this is a good approach, there is a fit problem with Castro on the roster. The problem is that he's been a consistent .660-.680 OPS guy against LH pitching over the last 3 years so he really isn't a viable platoon guy or replacement for the guys that struggle against LH pitching like Wallner, Larnach, Miranda, Julien etc. Those are the guys for whom you'd like to have a player who excels against LH pitching playing a couple of days a week. Still, he has value so don't just give him away for salary relief or a B/B- prospect unless you take that money and use it on a starting pitcher or quality bat at 1B or in LF. My thought is that if we can get a quality reliever or B+ prospect near the MLB level, trade him in the offseason. In the more likely event we cannot, he is on the roster as a quasi super utility player (starts 3 days a week or so mostly against RH pitching, late inning PH or PR, good injury replacement), Have him really focus on 2B, 3B, and LF. Then look at the trade deadline where teams are looking to fill holes created by injury or subpar performance and trade him for a B+ prospect or a decent reliever. If he's hitting, that should be available. If he's not, we lose the gamble. If he's somehow stepped up to being a true key piece on a contending roster, we keep him.

This kind of matches my eye test and what we've seen the last 2 years. This is about an 85 win team with the current roster. If they have significant injuries - last year Ryan was the big one - they drop to 80 or so. If everyone hits at the same time, they win 90ish games. Good enough to make the playoffs if things go right and maybe even win a series; not good enough to contend for a WS berth unless they bring in outside talent or every single young player takes a big step forward at the same time. Deja Vu all over again.

Agreed. They're slimming down the organization by losing some of the less successful players. There's no way they could hire a good baseball GM right now - nobody good would take the job when ownership is likely to change in the next year and they could be forced out by a new owner., Rightly or wrongly, St. Peter wears the attendance drop and recent marketing failures. He gets kicked to the side in favor of the guy who presided over the team's improvement on the field and they promote and keep a guy as GM who has a good pedigree but to whom a new owner doesn't have to have any loyalty. No long term contract or commitment but maybe an opportunity. These are classic moves to reposition a business for sale. I would expect some additional slimming down/ retirements in other front office positions. The goal is to reduce overhead and give a new owner maximum flexibility to put his or her own stamp on the club coming in. Conversely, I don't expect any on the field changes until they have a buyer identified. Then we might see Correa kept or traded, free agents signed or not signed, trades to reduce payroll, etc. I think that when we see those kind of things that's a signal that a buyer is closing in and will get a sense for how that buyer intends to operate. I personally think they were down to a handful of potential buyers when the announced the club was for sale.

I got to the end of hte article assuming that the proposed trade would be Paddack to Milwaukee for Perkins and a decent prospect. You know, a combination Salary dump/ bench upgrade. Sending Ryan or Ober is frankly ridiculous. Now, Paddack? Maybe...

Agreed. Let's stop complaining about Sonny Gray leaving. Not paying him $25m a season was the right decision. Now, we can complain about not spending that $25m or even $15m on someone else.....

I think the truest statement in this article is that mangers get too much credit when the team wins and too much blame when the team loses. I live in LA and Dave Roberts is regularly savaged as an "idiot", yet he is the best by the stats listed above and the Dodgers just won the World Series. Before you say "Roberts gets no credit, it's the payroll", the Dodgers won by playing better fundamental baseball at the margins to beat a Yankees team with better pitching, far fewer injuries, and better middle of the order bats. Roberts deserves a lot of credit for this year's championship. And to think I thought he was an idiot. The stats above point out the objective truth - Rocco is an average to maybe slightly above average manager. His weaknesses are at the margins. The Twins don't and really can't really play small ball on offense to eke out runs and wins, the baserunning is ok but not an asset, and the defense is adequate but not above average except at SS and in CF when the starters are playing. Yes, part of that is the talent and the FO staying a little too long with the three true outcomes approach after 2019. The Twins don't have small ball players and have no speed to speak of. But that's not the whole story. Rocco doesn't seem to emphasize the running game or defense. On the positive side, he seems to have good rapport with his players and the team competes hard for him. He's fine, but not a guy who will elevate the team. The truth is there aren't very many guys who will so it's more likely that a change would hurt rather than help.

Reading the contrary postings on Miranda, I really am wondering what the plan is for 1B if it isn't Miranda. Santana is more $$ than the team is spending these days and at 39 more likely than not to regress as a hitter. Julien hasn't played there and can't hit. Larnach or Wallner could play there I guess but haven't. There's no one in the Minors knocking on the door. Kirilloff is no longer an option - maybe he was the first choice before. Add to that the video showing Miranda was working out at 1B while on injury rehab and it sure seems like he is at least an option and at this point, the option. Nick, you have more sources in the org than the rest of us. If playing Miranda at 1B isn't the plan, what is? And where does that leave Miranda? As trade bait, a part time player, a DH? I'm genuinely curious.

This is important. The Twins biggest offensive issues are too many low wOBA guys combined with a glaring lack of speed. That makes it very difficult to manufacture runs with less than 3 hits unless you hit a lot of HRs. The Twins did for awhile and then didn't, resulting in a offensive drop off that led to collapse. It's easy to diagnose the problem and see the theoretical solution, but it's really hard to actually make that solution happen. The Twins need to replace/augment the roster with some speed and higher OBP guys. The problem is we don't have those guys just sitting around in the Minors with the possible exception of DaShawn Keirsey and Michael Helman, and the FO legitimately questions whether either will be able to hit at the MLB level. Lee, Lewis, Larnach, Wallner, and Miranda aren't going to get faster anytime soon (although Larnach, Wallner, and Miranda at least have a reasonably strong OBP). To me, this is a key issue the Twins need to address in the off-season. We need to get some on base percentage/speed kind of guys who are good enough to play every day or at least be good platoon players. They don't have to be superstars, just guys who can hit .260 – .280 and have an OBP over .325. We have openings in LF, at 2B (I think Lee is going to wind up at 3B or 1B, and may start next year in AAA working on his hitting) and at 1B. We could also use one of these speed/OBP guys in the field assuming they have a strong glove and move Wallner, Larnach, Lewis, and/or Miranda to be a 50% DH type rather than everyday fielder. We need to fix this in the off-season to be successful next year.

Agreed. What we're really talking about here is the back end of the bullpen - pitchers 5-8. We actually may have the top 4-5 for 2025 in Jax, Duran, Sands, and then a healthy Topa, bullpen Varland, and roughly 30 innings of Stewart. What happened last year is everything we tried at the back end basically didn't work or if it did, it only worked for a few weeks. Frankly, I think that's pretty typical of every team's experience in MLB with the exception of those occasional years were one team seems to get a great run from everyone. My view would be that going forward we should either populate those back ends with either (A) starters from our own system simply couldn't seem to handle the heavier workload or five innings plus outings; (B) pitchers that we specifically develop as relievers in the minor leagues; and (C) failed starters from other systems who might be available. I think we should stay out of the "I was once a good reliever but I'm coming off a down year" market because that seems to almost always fail. Everything is a complete crapshoot in this market and will be every year.

Indeed they are. They are having an intrafamily fight over ownership and direction of the company. This has lead to less concentration on operations and innovation as management gets drawn into that fight and/or gets conflicting policy direction. An intrafamily ownership squabble can then lead to a loss of focus on the business leading to some significant operational issues, including the listeria issues. That's why I think the two situations may be parallel. For example, for all we know Joe Pohlad wanted to pay to add Kikuchi at the deadline and was overruled by other family members who wanted to maximize annual operating profit.

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".