Rod Carews Birthday

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.

This is an easy choice I think. Outman isn't getting much done out there. Fedko is an interesting player but likely not a prospect. I say give him a chance to carve out a role for himself. At worst, he has as much pop as Outman, while playing a little worse defense. At best, he could be a little energy injection to keep this team hopping. Worst case scenario, you release Outman and Fedko comes in a bombs out. That's going to take a month or so unless he absolutely implodes. Then you decide who fits the team and deserves the promotion at that point -- GG, Emma, or Jenkins. I'll bet one of them is ready by June 1 at latest and at that point you might be ready to jettison another outfielder.

Point well taken, but you forgot that Mauer kid. . .

Buxton is a really good baseball player and a at really good guy. He’s exactly the kind of player that you hope the team and fans will embrace so that his entire career can be in Minnesota (as long as he wants it). He is undoubtedly a Twins Hall of Famer, and playing his entire career here would be special for all of us. IF at some point he wants to go somewhere, I would hope that he is accommodated, and if he wants to stay, I hope he is not hassled about it. He’s been through a lot and has earned that respect. I did not start out a Buxton fan — I was more a Polanco and Eddie Rosario guy, but he’s convinced me to join him on the Buck Truck!

Sure. . . and yet we had the great hitter Max Kepler there for years. Yes, I'm aware that he was a better fielder than Wallner (although Max's best fielding days are behind him), but there is a difference between a 114 OPS+ and a 91 OPS+, and it's more than a couple of poorly played balls to the outfield. To be clear, Matt Wallner isn't the next incarnation of Aaron Judge. However, as far as power hitters go, he is the player with the best chance to deliver power on the team not named Byron Buxton. Discard him at your own peril.

Sadly, at this point I would probably put as much stock in Gray playing/hitting as a decent shortstop as I would in Lee doing likewise. Lee has been riding the scholarship wagon for his entire time in the majors, and the evidence would seem to indicate that he just never developed. He was touted as having this tremendous floor so therefore he couldn’t miss. Oops.

Someone refuted the Larnach comparison above. On to Sano. . . . https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tiny/Otkz5 “Legendary Slugger” Sano had approximately three times as many home runs as Wallner — in approximately three times as many plate appearances. Other than that, the edge (OPS, OBP, SLG) goes to Wallner, and he certainly could develop more in the next 2000 plate appearances. Do I think Wallner is a great player? Nope. But to act as though he is a failure is a little over the top. Do I think he needs to keep improving? You bet. A 114 OPS+ isn’t bad in a down year, but admittedly his output last year wasn’t sexy. If only all of our hitters could get a 114 OPS+. We might be pretty good. Again. . . I don’t think that Wallner is destined to turn into Aaron Judge. I would prefer he be used as a DH much more frequently, although that displaces Larnach from his natural position (which would preferably be DH on someone else’s team, but it’s not). Do I think that he has “made the right adjustments”? Who knows. . . at this point the small sample sizes involved make any meaningful analysis laughable. Let’s see what he looks like in a month or so and see if he can sustain some good things. In the meantime, let’s get Lewis and Lee working on some adjustments.

It’s pretty simple actually. If Larnach hits well, it is possible to overlook his defensive deficiencies. The extreme example is Ted Williams (it is said he just didn’t care about defense). In this case, an .800 OPS would probably do it, and in 2024 he was close to that.. If you believe he’s going to get better, that’s not an unreasonable bet. If you think that was his peak, get him out of the outfield. I fully agree that he should no longer be on this team and that we should all be complaining about the other players in LF, but he’s here. Shelton is going to need to use him to the best of his capabilities whether we want him to or not.

That is indeed the affliction that many of us have. Maybe I'm just too stupid to know better, but I'm anxious for the season to start!

It’s baseball season. The Twins will likely lose more games than they win. They will likely frustrate us to no end, offensively, defensively, and every other way possible. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Once in a while we’ll see something really wonderful and it will keep us coming back for more. No matter what, it will be interesting and most days, there will be another one to play tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it, no matter what happens. Let’s go!

Baseball is fun. It’s also terribly unpredictable. I’m not thinking this team is going to be very good, but I do think they might surprise and play some exciting (sometimes for the wrong reasons) baseball games. How quickly we sort through the haves and the have nots on this current roster will likely determine how quickly we can become more likely to compete. I’m anxiously awaiting that development.