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Wow, not a great look

Not arguing that Arcia won't get the backup IF slot, but I'm curious how the 40-man roster decisions will shake out, the more veterans on minor-league deals that get spots. This roster has (IMO) a large middle tier of players who aren't reliable building blocks but have some upside, and players with a little less upside who have seemed at some point to be in serious consideration as MLB depth. In other words, it's not a great team as built now, but there's not a lot of true end-of-roster chaff. Potentially or likely they need to make room for: one or two relievers, if Chafin and Hendriks show anything even close to old form, or if someone else from the non-roster group (Altavilla et al) steps up; and then Arcia if he's really the best IF backup.... Cuts: Alex Jackson is likely (as covered in the article); Outman maybe, if the team trusts someone else to be the backup CF; Zak Kent was another team's 41st man a couple weeks ago and could probably be dropped. Hard to see a lot of other easy cuts, absent an unfortunate injury or a late trade.

Do they DFA Kent to make room for Altavilla? In the roster projection here, Jackson ends up DFA and Chafin needs a spot, so that series of moves is neutral, but the 40-man is currently full. I could see a late trade changing the calculus, but I'm not sure Altavilla (or any of the non-roster pitchers other than Chafin or a healthy Hendriks) offers enough promise to force a roster decision otherwise.

If one of the team's big bullpen acquisitions gives up a left-on-left grand slam to a minor-league infielder wearing #90 ... Is that good?

Gray is interesting, in that he seems to have some potential to hit enough not to be an offensive black hole for a utility guy, and that raises the floor of the bench. However, I remember talk when the Twins picked up Kreidler that he was capable of playing both SS and CF (he's currently listed as an outfielder on the official team roster.) If they decide in spring training that Kreidler can back up both spots, then I think he starts the year in the backup SS gig. It makes for an efficient use of a bench spot and gives them more flexibility to use corner-only (or corner-mostly) guys like Roden, Martin, Larnach, et al.

Seeing Andújar’s contract, I wondered whether the Twins would rather have done that deal (or, say, beat it by $1M) than Bell at $7M.

If money is truly no object to the Dodgers, I wonder how much of Teoscar Hernández' contract they would eat in a trade...

I'm trying to squint and see this as comparable to acquiring Willi Castro a few years ago (because I assume the Twins imagine Bruján starting out in a role like Castro did with the team.) The comparison doesn't quite work. Castro was a better hitter with the Twins than before, but was also a meaningfully better hitter than Bruján has been prior to joining the team, and was a couple years younger than Bruján is now. Bruján does have just 600-some PAs over 5 years in the majors (Castro had almost 1100 before joining the Twins), if that adds any glimmer of hope for him making real improvements, unlikely as that is. In any case, if the Twins think Bruján can back up shortstop, then I imagine he is ticketed for the Castro role or at least has inside track on a bench spot over Ryan Kreidler and Orlando Arcia. Low bar to clear, but that seems fine.

So under this scheme, Wagaman gains at-bats while Martin and Roden lose them - I still don't get why that's a good thing.

Despite James Outman and Alan Roden being likely to start the season on the 26-man roster, Kreidler could also serve as one of Byron Buxton’s primary backups in center field... If they don't think Outman is the best backup/a necessary backup for CF, I don't see why he needs to be on the roster. Out of options, I know... but trading Stewart for Outman is a sunk cost now, and they're loaded with outfielders. Time to move on.

Even with the defensive shortcomings, Bell adds a legitimate bat to the middle of Minnesota’s order. When he elevates the ball, he does so with authority. Statcast ranked his 96.4-mph average exit velocity on line drives and fly balls 25th among 251 qualified hitters. His isolated power of .507 on fly balls sits well above the league average, even if it falls short of elite territory. Bell’s long-standing issue has been his tendency to hit the ball on the ground. Last season’s 45.7% ground ball rate was actually the second-lowest of his career, trailing only the 44% mark from his 37-homer season in 2019. Even so, that number remains well above the league average. The usual qualifiers about not nitpicking about content on a free site apply, but ... Most of this two-paragraph excerpt is strikingly similar to a section of the MLBTR article on the Bell signing. It's not just the same facts cited (which are relevant, and of course people are bound to cite some of the same stats), but also sentences that are structured the same with a few word substitutions, almost to the point of direct copies in a couple places. This is not to say that this article doesn't read well, but if I were the MLBTR writer happening across it, I might not be pleased...

This is a good question and a very natural comparison to make. Since (IIRC) there were Durán-Mariners rumors at the deadline, maybe it was about the second piece? Like, the Twins may have seen Ford > Taít in value (as lots of us lay people seem to do), but Seattle wasn’t willing to offer another player they valued as much as Abel? Speculating of course.

Recent speculative Twins trade target Harry Ford, the Mariners catching prospect who looked pretty blocked by Cal Raleigh, reportedly is heading to the Nats for lefty reliever José Ferrer. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/nationals-to-trade-jose-ferrer-to-mariners-for-harry-ford.html

“Rumfield is arguably the most talented hitter Minnesota could add to its 40-man roster, while playing a position of need.” The blurb doesn’t say anywhere what position he plays…

I don't always follow the full labyrinth of MLB roster rules, but I don't think (...?) this is the case. The 6 players who were added to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft have their roster spots locked in until spring training, and the Twins aren't going to cut any of the 7 arbitration-eligible players now or they would have done so today. But there are still pre-arb players who could be cut (and those happen to be the guys who most people here complain about being on the roster, anyway); and anyone could still be traded. Any number of still possible moves could clear a 40-man spot before the Rule 5 in December.

All 4 of the reported finalists were fine...but Shelton seemed the least inspiring. Flaherty had bench-coach experience with a well-regarded manager (Counsell) and was rumored in connection with multiple openings. It certainly seems like he could become a trendy name in manager searches, and time will tell what if anything the Twins missed out on there. Rowson had the connection to a good recent Twins team, and his succession of jobs since then indicates he has qualities as a coach that MLB organizations like. A friend with Pittsburgh ties but no particular MN ties asked me today what I thought of the hire, and it occurred to me: the Pirates under Shelton's watch almost seem like the recent Twins' strengths and weaknesses magnified. Some really good starting pitching and a bunch of hitters who can't quite put it together in a sustainable way. It's hard to say how much of that is on the manager (certainly some of it is out of his control); it's also hard to say he got the most out of the talent he was working with. I'm ready to be wrong, and hoping that by mid-next season, this will look like a great choice in hindsight. Time will tell.

It seems like all the errors on the initial list are consistent with it being a year old. For example, Clayton McCullough, Will Venable, and Don Kelly are on the list and all have manager jobs now, in addition to Miguel Cairo getting an interim manager gig. So the reason Bochy's not here is that he had a job a year ago. Noting from recent reporting (facts or rumors) that John Gibbons is not returning to the Mets' coaching staff, and Schumaker is reported to be the favorite for the Rangers job.

It's a couple hours before game time. The AL playoff field is set, but the East and Central are both tied, with the de facto "winner" currently determined by tiebreaker rules. So either division could be won outright in game 162 (and obviously there are playoff seeding implications.) The NL divisions all have been won and the 1-5 seeds are all set, but the last wild card is down to the Reds and Mets. Either team could claim the spot outright, and if neither does, the tiebreaker goes to the Reds. Since the Mets are my second rooting interest, I am rooting for them to claim the final WC, but I'm also enjoying the chaos. It's been fun to keep an eye on races (the ones above, plus Tigers and Guardians) that still feel like they have real stakes.

I kinda think either or both of Outman and Fitzgerald could survive the first round of cuts. Outman as a recent trade acquisition (whether that sunk-cost logic is really valid or not) with some brief history of MLB success and defensive skill the org seems to value, and Fitzgerald as a backup SS, for which there isn't really a clear plan B at the moment. I know it's good to do major roster cleanup right after the season, so you enter the offseason with a clear picture of where you're going to add, but if a player like one of these guys is in the team's plans tentatively, barring another roster move, it should be no issue to cut them later. The finer points of when teams choose to cut players are not always clear to me, though.

If the Phillies swept the Twins and the Brewers got swept by the Reds, Philadelphia would move past Milwaukee for the first seed in the NL and home-field advantage throughout the NL bracket. That combination of sweeps doesn't seem especially likely, and the small gain in home field from 2nd to 1st seed may not be worth going all-out for. Winning the Rangers series felt good at the end of this ugly season. I would like to see the Twins win some games in Philly too. It's crazy how Nola has struggled after being so consistent for years, but this kind of seems like the most winnable game of the series.

I don’t dispute much of what you’re saying, but one counterpoint: the Diamondbacks have by far the ugliest uniforms in the sport, and that is and has been consistently the case through any alt jerseys, design identity updates, etc. Not sure anyone’s choice to sport that cap or jersey really confers more iconicity or relevance on the team.

Getting swept four games at home by the White Sox—after leading two of the four games into late innings—really feels like the low point of the year. The one minor silver lining I can see: one of the pitchers who fueled the implosion last night is getting sent out to make room for López today.

The idea behind building a pitching pipeline, or stockpiling guys considered potential impact pitchers, is that having more of these pitchers to work with gives the organization a better chance at scouting and development wins. The established arms discussed in the article all represent clear successes of scouting and development in some proportion—López maybe heavier on scouting, but tweaking his pitch mix was a developmental step as well. Even if Ober is not really "front of rotation" at this point, he is a clear scouting and dev win for a later-round draftee. The trouble with trading these pitchers: trading the guys who are scouting and dev successes ratchets up, significantly, the difficulty of the org's task with pitching. It's not just a simple exchange of "trade one guy we succeeded with so we find the next one." Trading the guy who was a gamble that worked out, for the next set of gambles, just multiplies the chances the org takes and the downside where none of the new guys turn out nearly as well. ... Especially when a trade candidate is as relatively cheap as Ryan is. I get that the Rays (to name the most obvious example) work in a financial model where they have to do this kind of roster churning pretty ruthlessly. But if the Twins need to pare down so much that they can't keep a front-end starter on a 2nd-year arb salary, that is a dire state for the team and undercuts anything Falvey may say about trying to win.

I don’t think Fitzgerald sees AAA again this year. They need a backup shortstop.

This Adams start was and still is exciting, but they flew a little too close to the sun