Rod Carews Birthday

Wait a minute. You want to trade Joe Ryan for one top 100 prospect and change? Nope. Trading a guy (or not) is ALWAYS dependent on return. Go ahead and trade him, but the return needs to be much more substantial than that. Otherwise, he can play another year for the home team.

Both. Put in complete revenue sharing and and add an NFL-style salary structure. It seems to work very well in football and would be worth a try in MLB. Getting the owners and players on board, however, would be quite a feat.

Someone needs to sub - in for TC Bear once in a while. That could be Royce.

I’m guessing that if his swing mechanics that worked in spring training were still working, there would have been no reason to fix him. However . . .

So making it to the majors is difficult. . .. who knew?!? Seriously, this does really underscore the major differences between the MLB draft and the drafts in the other major sports. Even fantastic college players sometimes don’t make it. Actually, Royce has played in 5 seasons (with approximately two full seasons of at bats), so he already has “made it” according to this study. What I think confuses people is that Royce Lewis had “a moment” where he was absolutely awesome (also unsustainably awesome) and fans fell in love with that version of him. Now, the shine has tarnished and he doesn’t look like he’s prepared to restore the shine, so people are lashing out about it. Do the Twins have some fault? Certainly. Maybe they should have drafted someone else. Do the coaches have some fault? Probably some, but it’s not like they were trying to prevent him from succeeding. Does Royce Lewis have some fault? Of course he does, because ultimately one’s performance comes down to the individual involved. Can this be fixed? Nothing is totally impossible, but it is probably looking unlikely that Lewis will return to being “that guy” from his early career. AND if he really wants to find his way back to the Twins, it would be idiotic for him to declare third base or bust. I don’t really think he’ll quite do that, but his lack of enthusiasm for flexibility doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

Sorry to be quoting myself, but I meant to add that it could certainly be worth a cup of coffee and who knows? But it's more likely that he's a guy who could be slightly useful in a very limited role (aka Kyle Garlick). Garlick was OK for a short period of time, but not the kind of guy that is a big contributor on a good team.

More likely two words: Kyle Garlick

Free Matt Mikulski!?

I think it’s nice to call attention to the good things that happen in unsung places like 3rd base coach. There will inevitably be “misses” but it seems like Borrego is off to an excellent start. When I started reading this article, I wasn’t very excited, as it looked kind of long for the subject matter, but I have to admit that it sucked me in all the way to the end. Nice writing!

Well, right now the Twins have some players on the major league team trying to play their way OUT of the long term plan, so having someone play themselves into the long term plan would be in order. He seems like a potential piece, but has quite a bit to prove in the upper minors before he merits a serious look in the majors. But, a guy can hope!

It’s actually pretty hard to criticize the trades of Duran, Jax & Varland based on the pieces that we got back. Varland being this successful is perhaps a surprise, but it’s a long season and reality may set in. My criticism of the trades isn’t based on one trade here or there. Trades are always a bit of a crapshoot - you win some and lose some. My criticism is that they basically cleaned out the entire bullpen without any backup plan in place and then proceeded to sign almost no one significant in the bullpen in the offseason. It’s honestly no surprise that the bullpen is struggling. They don’t really have anyone resembling a stopper in the group and that’s affecting the overall results immensely. Even ONE guy would help a lot. Maybe Sands will step forward. Maybe Orze could be for real. Maybe Rogers has something left in the tank. Maybe Funderburk can be good. Too many questions whose answers lean toward the negative and no solution in sight for the Twins bullpen.

It's the kind of flyer that nearly every team takes and costs just barely above nothing. He might never see the majors again, but who knows? You might catch lightning in a bottle and he might be very useful. I say go ahead and sign five guys with a decent track record like he had. It's why we were looking at Liam Hendricks and Andrew Chafin (among others). He's probably not going to do anything, but you never know!

I couldn’t agree more. Kreidler likely will not be very good offensively, but his defense everywhere is probably legit, which really makes him that universal piece that can be mixed and matched to make a lineup work. .250 would be nice, but .200 probably works too, especially if he can have even a tiny bit of pop for power. He’s an obvious upgrade in team fit and might actually clear the Outman line with the bat.

Nice article. Let’s hope they can adjust as pitchers adjust to their strategies. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts!

Since there aren't any obvious candidates for the "permanent" closer role, maybe moving it around helps make sure nobody gets crossed up in the mental side of things. If they don't really know it's coming, and they just have to be ready, maybe they are all fresh enough to be effective. I don't really know this, but it's possible that it keeps everybody a little looser. I think it may also keep us from having a guy completely implode out there -- there can't be five guys in a row in a funk. . . . can there? I too would like a strong back end of the bullpen, but we don't really have that yet, so I guess we make the best case with who we've got. It's working for now. Let's revisit this when it becomes a bigger problem.