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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

FWIW, the Twins 40-man roster as of right now (early afternoon) includes a couple guys from the trades who are indicated as being in the minors (Abel, Outman); and a couple guys who are not (Bradley, Roden), though they're not listed on the active roster yet. Could be a lag in updating data but I'd bet both Bradley and Roden are formally on the active roster by evening. Ryan Fitzgerald almost has to come up as the backup shortstop, no? Outman seems to fill a Keirsey-like role until and unless the Outman reclamation project takes off. I could see them wanting to start that project at AAA, and I also could see the major league staff wanting to get a look at him. Hopefully they won't see a need to have him and Keirsey in the majors at the same time.

Roden's not ranked because he graduated. I don't know if you can access preseason lists at MLB, but he was 3rd on the Jays' preseason list at Fangraphs. That writeup is worth a read—I don't like or really understand trading Varland, but Roden is intriguing.

Roden seems like a "now" move. He's hit well in parts of two seasons at AAA. His MLB debut didn't go well but that sounds like a player a team trades for when they think he's ready to do it in MLB. Time will tell whether the bet on him to hit in the majors works out.

Anyone pissed at this has good reason, but is it possible, just maybe, that the other MLB player or players in the deal are coming back to the Twins?

I don't disagree with the essential fact, but -- They've rostered Dashawn Keirsey for the entire season. A 28-year-old lefty hitter who can play all 3 outfield positions, and who's always hit .100 in the majors. Outman is a 28-year-old lefty hitter who can play all 3 outfield positions, who currently is hitting .100 in the majors, but who has recent history of actually hitting and being a useful contributor. It's a bad outcome for trading a good, cheap reliever. Absolutely. As a minimal upgrade to a weak spot on the actually existing roster, though, with a sliver of upside, it's not a complete cipher.

Also, wasn't it Outman who robbed a would-be game-tying homer from Correa during the recent Dodgers-Twins series?

This sounded provisionally fine with the first report that Outman was part of the return, but apparently it's one-for-one, which is less exciting: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/07/dodgers-finalizing-deal-for-brock-stewart.html

Age and injury history limit Stewart's value (with variation in different teams' valuations of course), but performance, low salary, and contractual control boost his value. I'd be very surprised if this was a trade for cash.

Very interested to see the return on this one. The other trades so far have tilted toward players farther from the majors—which is good for bringing back upside, assuming it's rare to add high upside and proximity in trades—but it seems like it would be smart to balance the overall return by getting some players (whether in this trade or another one to come) who could be in the majors in the next two months. The Dodgers aren't going to give up anyone they think is crucial to a playoff run, but they have depth, if nothing else.

Fangraphs on Abel: "Abel hasn’t developed as I hoped he would... He’s posted double-digit walk rates at each minor league stop and regressed on that score in 2024, when he labored through a 15% mark at Triple-A. There are still starter components here. The arm-side action of Abel’s curveball gives it utility against lefties, and his best sliders are 87-90 mph darts. Abel’s fastball velocity still peaks in the upper-90s, but it doesn’t sustain there, and his command and lack of explosive movement cause it to play down. He also has very little feel for locating his changeup, or really any of his offerings with any consistency. These have been Abel’s issues for several years now. "Now Abel’s option clock has started and he only has so much time to polish his strike-throwing before the Phillies will be forced to put him in the bullpen, or do something else, like trade him to a franchise that has the time and opportunity to keep developing him as a starter; the 'win now' Phils are less likely to have that luxury. If we can reasonably project Abel to have a velo spike with a shift to relief, then he should have the stuff to pitch toward the back of a bullpen even if he’s never able to start. That said, he probably still needs to develop another grade of command in order to be trusted in such a role." As always, I know nothing more about these minor leaguers than what I glean from the pros who write about them, but Abel is a name I'd heard of. It unfortunately gives a whiff of the Berríos-SWR-Martin deal, in that Martin had quite a bit of prospect name recognition, but from people who knew the Jays his stock was already down. Not that I think even the now-maligned Twins FO would trust reputation over current results—but is there a risk of trusting "pedigree" too much here?

The latest update to the MLBTR post says the Mariners are involved on Durán too. Harry Ford? Not rated as high as Painter but would be a great get as a talented catcher.

The Pirates acquire Taylor Rogers as part of the Ke'Bryan Hayes trade. The Mets acquire Tyler Rogers. The Mets getting Tyler clearly is a contender picking up bullpen help, but the Pirates getting Taylor seems like more of a salary offset between them and the Reds, and I wonder how interested Pittsburgh might be to flip him elsewhere.

It certainly makes sense to trade Coulombe, but seeing all this team’s other lefty relief pitching in comparison to how he’s pitched this year is jarring. Assuming they do trade him, hopefully one of the other trades made this month brings the next reliable LH reliever back in return.

Might be worth updating the bullpen chart to reflect that Thursday was an off day and last night’s game was Friday…

I expected this to be the toughest pitching matchup of the series. A lot of game left to play, of course, but I checked the box score a minute ago at the end of 3 innings, and it’s remarkable how closely Paddack’s line matched (or slightly bested) Glasnow’s.