LA Vikes Fan

Because he is 2 years younger than Fitzgerald, has better MLB stats in limited opportunities, and pretty similar MiLB stats. In other word, he's pretty much the same guy except 2.5 years younger with better bt speed so there's still hope for improvement. Look, this is hardly exciting news but let's not overreact like losing Ryan Fitzgerald and Nate Baez is somehow a big deal.

I guess my thinking was that Clemens plays a decent 1B, can play 2B, and is a better OF. Now that we have Bell and Wagaman, Clemens won’t be seeing much 1B time. Makes him a lot less valuable to this roster. Maybe the choice really is between Larnach and Clemens after all. If it is, Larnach is the better player…

I like this add. Cararini is actually a decent quality major league catcher. He would go great as the slightly shorter part of a 60/40 catching platoon with Jeffers, with Jeffers catching roughly 95–100 games and DHing another 25–30. I don’t really much care what happens to Jackson. He can either be optioned down to AAA or, if he doesn’t pass through waivers, somebody else picks up his salary. Obviously, more interesting thought is this is the first step in a two step where Jeffers gets traded, hopefully for some high-end prospects or a high-end prospect and a real high leverage relief pitcher. My bet is actually that they won’t trade Jeffers at least not until the trade deadline. He’ll be held, maybe be traded at the deadline, and Caratini winds up being the stop gap to the next generation. All in all, I actually like this one.

I think the offseason strategy is pretty obvious. They ae going to maybe pick up one or two more relievers to go with acquiring Orze, try to get something for Larnach, and otherwise stand pat. Martin, Roden, Keaschall, Bradley, SWR, Lewis, Adams, Ohl, and Lee will get significant first half playing time to see if they can be long term solutions. We might even see one or more of Culpepper, GG, Jenkins, or Emma to see where they are. Maybe the new manager instills life in a few guys. We'll play the first half and see if we are at .500 or better. If so, we'll try to add at the margins and hope for contention. If not, fire sale time, Everybody, and I mean everybody, will be available and we'll make at least 4-5 trades of big leaguers for prospects. The second half then becomes try out camp for the guys listed above plus Abel, Klein, Raya, etc. YOu have any promise at AAA? You all get a shot. I think the odds are 60/40 we're in try out camp mode by August but I do think there's a chance we'll be better. It all depends on how Lewis (in particular), Lee, Keaschall, Wallner, SWR, Bradley, the new bullpen, etc. play. They don't all have to hit but most of them do. Hold on tight, bumpy ride a comin'. But hey, could be fun. Besides with the Dodgers now signing Kyle Tucker, aren't we all playing for runner up or Miss Congeniality any way?

I think there is a difference between relief pitching, back end starters, and top 3 in a rotation staters. You almost always get more for relievers at the deadline as teams replace injured guys or think they're just a better bullpen away. Same for back end starters most of whom are acquired to fill injury holes or as starters today, playoff relievers tomorrow. The high end starters are are worth more in the offseason because of more market participants but sometimes you can get just the right fit at the right time at the deadline. My view that its usually better to wait on most guys and guys like Ryan are worth a kings ransom regardless of when you trade them. I don't see any need for urgency.

Agreed. Martin was actually a very good left fielder last season based upon OAA, borderline elite. He’s got the tools, just needs some coaching. I would love to see Taylor work a lot with him. I see similar potential in Roden, albeit with a lower ceiling. I think bringing in Taylor to work with those two specific guys and our current crop of AAA outfielders is a very smart move that could actually have some real positive consequences.

Oh, is that what it is? I thought I saw a piano on his back when he was running.

While I would like to see the Twins trade for at least one or two established relievers, I do support the idea of making some conversions from existing starters. David Festa is the most obvious example. High velocity guy, one good secondary pitch, arm problems. Classic conversion, and he could be closing by midseason. Connor Prielipp should absolutely be in the bullpen for the same reasons, John Klein is clearly headed there as well, and probably Andrew Morris wI’ll join them. Leave Matthews as a starter along with Abel, and Rojas. I would like to see Festa and Prielipp in the opening day bullpen and used in relatively high leverage roles right out of the gate. I get that starters make a lot more money than relievers overall, but the path to a starting pitching job in Major league baseball is a difficult one where most people fail. Show you’re good enough to be a starter and you’ll be a starter. Show you’re not good enough to be a starter, like Varland and Jax, and you’ll be a reliever. If you’re not a dominant starter at the AAA level your chances of being a number three or number four starter or better in MLB are pretty small. Grab the opportunity, get the bullpen, and show everybody what you can do.

Forgetting the baseball for a minute, as someone who lives out of state I just wanna say hang in there, Minneapolis. This can’t be fun to go through regardless of your politics. Just remember that this too shall pass.

Agreed. Based strictly on the numbers, Cardenas looks like the one we should be looking at to make an MLB debut this year if there’s an injury. Are there some holes in his bat or defense, or other problems that make that unlikely?

No need to panic early on Ryan. The hearings are at least 2 to 3 weeks away. It is pretty standard practice for teams to exchange numbers with players and then find something in the middle. I suspect that will be what happens. As for Larnach, I agree with the rest of you guys. The likely thing is to trade him for a not so great relief pitcher or someone coming off an injury who was once good. Hey, that’s better than this releasing the guy if you can pull it off. Guys, Austin Martin was one of our best players the last two months of last year. That doesn’t mean he will be this year, but that should earn him the chance to try. He should play every day in the field, where he was above average and improving to way above average, and hit in the top of the order as long as he can maintain that .370 OBP. We need an on base machine at the front of the order and he is the closest that we have to it. Start him, play him every day, and see what you got for 6 to 8 weeks.

This all sounds like classic speculative, hot stove, rumor with no real basis. The Phillies need a catcher so a writer looks around to see who might be available and then speculates that the Phillies would be interested. Doesn’t look very real.

I think the trashing of Wagaman here is a little overblown. Yes, this is not exciting but the play here is pretty obvious. Wagaman hit .268/.319/.425 (.744) last year after the ASB, and hit .283/.321/.462 (.783) against lefties last year. He also has 3 options. The hope is he hits like last year's second half, not the first, and then he's actually a better than average MLB hitter. If not, he could still be a platoon bat or be sent down. We gave up very little for him, a guy whose ceiling appears to be a fungible bottom of the pen reliever. The transaction makes sense. Losing Fitzgerald is no big deal - he'll be 32 in June, hit .196 in limited ABs, and has never made it in the majors. I too would rather lose Gaspar but it's like getting bad or really bad seats at a game, i.e., hard to care. What wouldn't make sense to me is to move Keaschall to the OF so either Clemens or Julien can play second base. Both frankly are not good unless Julien an re-harness 2023 which seems unlikely. Keep Keaschall at 2B and give him a shot to see if he can lock down the position in the field. Whatever you do, don't use him to replace Martin - Martin actually looked the part of an above average LF for 2 months last year. He plays every day until he shows he can't. If Keaschall goes to the OF it's to replace Wallner, with maybe Martin moving to RF. That makes no sense to me with Bell on the roster to DH, so effectively moving Keaschall so Clemens and Julien get time at the expense of Martin (and Roden) is a big time dumb move.

Agreed. This obsession abut RH power is puzzling to me. Jeffers, Buxton, Lewis, and Keaschall all hit from the right side among the everyday players and all have 15-20 HR potential or better. Josh Bell is a switch hitter, pretty good against lefties until last year, and is likely to play 1B or DH 5 days a week. Martin is also RH, and will probably start every day in LF at least to start the season - albeit with no power. In other words, we got plenty of RH bats. What we need is is better hitting overall from pretty much everybody except Buxton. The lineup makes the point even more starkly. Where is this mythical RH power hitter going to hit if we want to avoid an almost all RH lineup? Right now, here's the opening day BA - Some combination of Buxton, Martin, and Keaschall (all RH) in spots 1-3, Bell (S) as #4, some combo of Lewis, Jeffers and Wallner in the 5-7 slots, Lee (S)#8, and whoever makes the lineup at either RF, 1B, or DH to go with Wallner and Bell. I think it's Alan Roden to start the season in RF unless we trade for a 1B and leave Wallner in RF instead of moving him to a DH/2 days a week in the OF guy. In short, the likely starters are 2 switch hitters, 5 RHs, and 2 LH IF Roden starts. The two LHs are likely to hit 6 or 7 and 9. If we trade for a RH hitting 1B, it's already 6 RHs in the lineup. Another RH hitter isn't what we need. What we need is another 2-3 Good Hitters, no matter from which side they hit. The 2026 Twins are NOT a well balanced lineup looking for a specific piece; they are a lineup 2-3 cards short of a full deck that needs to find those cards wherever they can. We can worry about perfect construction once we actually have 9 guys who should be in the everyday lineup of a good MLB team. Right now, we got 3 by my count - Buxton, Bell, and Jeffers, 1 more who could solidify that status this year early in Keaschall, 2 intriguing should bes/may bes in Lewis and Wallner, 1 guy who showed pretty well for about 70 games last year in Martin, and a whole lot of may bes but more likely nots. We don't just need RH power hitters, we need hitters period. Let's either trade for a couple or get our AAA guys like Roden, GG, and even Fedko up here pronto and find out of they can help and if they can't or others fail, get Culpeper, Emma and Jenkins up.

I think you make an excellent point. A simple cap and floor system is not, by itself, going to provide the competitive balance we seek. It has to be combined with increased revenue sharing such that the floor is closer to at least $100 million. It can’t be $50 million or $75 million. Using current economics, it seems to be a reasonable range would be a floor of about $100 million and a cap of about $225 million. There is still going to be big advantages for some teams, but it will raise the floor spending for others, give teams an incentive to at least chase midtier free agents that can improve their team, and should keep the middle level of players from being simply discarded for Younger, cheaper models. That should provide a more competitive environment. Unfortunately, therein lies the rub. The only way that works for certain lower revenue teams would be to have increased sharing of TV and other media revenue, which doesn’t really work for some of the teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, etc., who were being asked to share their revenue. It also frankly also goes against the grain of some of the baseball owners who don’t want to spend money and are only interested in squeezing out short term profit. I think the real underlying issue here is that you have a subset of the owners who simply are not particularly good business people, only interested in squeezing nickels out of not great situations, and have no vision that includes putting a better product in the field at increased expense in order to generate increased revenue. It will be interesting to see if the inclusion of private equity makes the situation better or if the private equity money is even more short term focused, and therefore simply makes the situation worse. Could go either way. Anyway, I completely agree that a simple camp and floor system is not going to solve the overall problem unless it’s part of a new system that includes increased revenue sharing. In other words, become more like the NFL and NBA. I don’t see the baseball owners as a group, or the players for that matter, having that kind of vision. They look more like a group of people desperately trying to hold onto what they have as it erodes than they do a group of people willing to take risk to increase the pie. Unfortunately, the most likely result of that attitude is a slow erosion of baseball’s profitability and position in the sports landscape. In short, a continuation of what is already occurring.

Agree with that, but the MLBPA is controlled by and beholden to guys like Bryce Harper. The view at the top is no cap means guys like me can make more and more money. The players view is that the way to help the bottom is to raise the minimum salary and give players free agent rights sooner. I think that's just as one sided and economically unviable as a salary cap with no floor. The top earners in baseball are willing to help the bottom as long as it doesn't in any way restrict what they can make. Current union leadership listens primarily to the top earners. Put the owners tight fisted positions together with that, add in a powerless commissioner who is interested in preserving what we have rather than growing the pie and what's the end result? Gridlock. And that's what we got.

And that is one of the reasons that the NFL and NBA are more popular than baseball. No matter who you cheer for in those leagues, you have a chance to win a championship. Well, unless you cheer for the Vikings.

Preach.

Yes, at least from what i read. A salary cap would be combined with a salary floor. Unfortunately, this creates opposition on the owner side from the teams that spend little money like Oakland/Vegas, Tampa, Miami (why is it h that the cheapest teams are in Florida?), Pittsburg, etc. Seems like a math problem to me (revenue share plus gate receipts minus non-player p expense = floor), so I don't think a floor should create owner opposition. It's an absolute if they want the players to even consider such a system.

Agree here and with Whitey333 to a degree. Every prospect is a suspect until they prove otherwise. Still, it is better to have a highly ranked system and the more good prospects you have, the more likely a couple will hit. The Twins really aren't any worse at getting prospect hits than other teams, we just are trying it so often it feels worse than it is. I completely agree on Emma. I know he's young and I hope I'm wrong, but at this point I think he becoming a longshot to make it at the MLB level. He's never hit above .258 at the AAA level, his power is more occasional than consistent, and his big calling card is drawing walks. Hmm, isn't that walk thing also true of Eddie Julien? It's a lot easier to draw walks in the minors than the majors because guys who walk people in the majors get sent back to the minors. I think Emma is still at least one good AAA year away from having a real shot at the MLB level. He's a late 2026 or 2027 prospect, not a 2026 prospect. Same for Jenkins because he just got to AAA. If we're going to get outfield help to start 2026 it's Martin and/or Roden, and if it's in May or June 2026, it's going to come from Gonzalez.

I think the Twins approach makes perfect sense. The Division is wide open, why relegate yourself to non-contender status before the season even begins? For those who would say we are non-contenders even with Ryan we are just going to have to agree to disagree. My thinking is that IF (and its a big IF) the starting pitching stays healthy and we can cobble together a bullpen, the pitching alone is good enough to stay above .500 and that's title competitive in the AL Central. It's even more competitive if Detroit is dumb enough to trade Skubal out of the division. It's also the right way to play it given the trade deadline fall back option. I disagree with the poster who said you get better value in the offseason. That's only true IF you're trading MLB players for MLB players. IF we trade Ryan (or Lopez or Buxton for that mater), we're tearing down to rebuild. We aren't looking for MLB players; we're looking for a prospect haul and we'll take guys 2-3 years away like Gabriel Gonzalez when we got him from Seattle. By the way, that's a trade that's looking like it might be a good one since Polanco is in New York after having one lousy year and one good one, and Gonzalez is our best MiLB hitter and the second most likely to be an above average MLB hitter behind Jenkins. When do you get the best prospect haul? At the trade deadline when teams convince themselves they are just one #2 starter away from the WS so go for it now. And this is all without considering the message trading Ryan would send to the team and the fans, how it would depress interest and attendance even further, and how having veterans around helps develop young players faster. Keeping Ryan makes sense on both a baseball and business level. I don't agree with a lot of what this FO has done and is doing but keeping Ryan for the first half of 2026 makes the most sense to me. I'm glad to see that's the play.

You're probably right or close on the years and total value for Ryan. Where I differ is that I would actually think about making this happen if he's interested. The contract is back loaded so we could trade our way out of it, or maybe some of it, if the team is uncompetitive in 2028-30. The real risk is injury but you got to take some risk. Given the inflation in BB salaries, I think it's likely that a All Star starting pitcher will be getting $40M a year or more by 2030. A pitcher like Ryan will be more than $30M a year by 2029 and 2030. It would be the team betting on itself to improve on field performance and thus improve attendance, tv rights value, merch sales, etc. to cover the contract. Might provide some excitement to the roster and the fans now when this team desperately needs a reason for people to get excited. By the way, signing Ryan O'Hearn for 2 or 3 years at an AAV of $12-15M might also get people excited. Just sayin'... Well, forget that. Pirates just signed O'Hearn for 2 years $29m. At least I was right about the salary range.

I have to agree with your basic premise - the kind of player that will really improve the team is not going to be available for the Ober on down starting pitchers. I also agree that we shouldn't trade starting pitching for anything other than a premium prospect(s) or an MLB ready guy who is better than the guy we now have in that position. We should NOT trade starting pitching for relief pitching or depth players. I think a trade of starting pithing that meets those parameters is very unlikely and I'm against anything less.

I'm not sure where all this uncertainty comes from - this off season will be a half measure. Ehy? Because they honestly don't know which way to go and we don't either. Everything we've seen so far tells us we ae still in evaluation mode and that we know the starting lineup for 2026 with one possible exception at 1B. The lineup is Martin (LF), Buxton (CF), Keaschall (2B), Bell (1B), Lewis (3B), Wallner (DH), Jeffers (c), Lee (SS), Roden (RF). The only possible change is to sign or trade for a 1B like O'Hearn (my choice), Mountcastle or Casas - Boston traded for Contreras and Baltimore signed Alonso so those two should be available relatively cheap in prospect cost. That's the lineup guys. Would love to see them spend the money to sign O'Hearn for $10-15M a year, put him in the 4 hole, move Bell to DH and the 5 hole and everyone else down one, put Wallner back in right, and make Roden the 4th OF. More likely, Wallner is the DH, Bell plays first and the cornerr OFf spots start with Martin and Roden. Even if you sign O'Hearn that still should leave you $10M or so to sign 1 higher end guy like Pierce Johnson or Seranthony Dominguez, or two lower end pieces like Coulombe or Rogers. Larnach is traded for prospects because he's not worth MLB talent. In other words, a half measure now - not a tear down and rebuild but not a contender either - followed by a full measure in July. The first half of 2026 is all about finding out what we can on Lewis, Lee, Martin, Wallner, Roden, SWR, Bradley, and the guys I think go into the BP right away from Opening Day - Festa and Prielipp. By midseason if we aren't contending for the division, that's when you explore a trade of pretty much everyone and lean into the tear down. If we are, we trade to fill a hole and strengthen the bullpen and go for it. I don't expect much in the offseason other than above at most.

I think you’re right about Festa. He is the most logical candidate for the bullpen. High velocity, lots of SOs, struggles second time through, arm trouble. I would start him out in a high leverage role to see if he can handle it. He could be the closer of the future. I would put Prielipp in there as well. Both have arm issues that make a starter role unlikely long term. That still leaves Matthews, Abel, Morris, and Rojas to start in AAA. Put Klein and Raya in the AAA bullpen as next guys up so they can transition there.