Rod Carews Birthday

I completely agree with this viewpoint. It's easy to come up with things that a person can agree or disagree with, but the combination of those things is really the truth. I'm certain that the Pohlads are not saints, but I'm equally certain that they are not the personification of evil that some would suggest. Over the course of the last 40 years, they have done many things that have benefited people, whether employees, the community, or just fans. I think that they deserve a measure of credit and respect for that, along with some criticism for their perceived shortcomings. It's not black and white, just shades of gray. The attempts to get in one more jab at them are a little over the top at this point.

Does that mean that we can have Disco Demolition Night 2.0? Sign me up!

Indeed, the open suspended 4th is nice, but it's only good if we get some resolution. It is pretty easy to argue that professional sports are extremely competitive - played by extremely competitive athletes that will do almost anything to win, and coached/managed by extremely competitive individuals who are always looking for the latest angle to win. In this dogged pursuit for advantage I believe lies the problem. If a little of something works, then an extreme amount must work better -- until it doesn't. It takes a while to figure out just how much of a thing is useful and what constitutes overuse - a delicate dance if you will. Sometimes there is even a reaction to it. I introduce you to Arnold Schoenberg, a very good composer who started as an exploiter - writing some of the most syrupy sweet music of the late, late Romantic period (think early 20th century, actually "The Transfigured Night" - 1899). He was good at it, but it's too much of what was considered to be a good thing. He had a bit of a reaction and produced (invented actually) the 12 tone system of writing (Suite for Piano, op 25 - around 1920 - it will sound very harsh to you probably, because it is). The explanation for this is messy and complex, but essentially he abandoned the "beauty" that he was writing for the "structure" of something new. He was an exploiter. who became an innovator. I would agree with your analogy that Falvey, Baldelli, Levine, et al are most definitely codifiers. They are looking for the way, and sometimes stumble upon it and experience some nice success, while at other times producing a product that seems to be wandering in the wilderness. Their biggest challenge, aside from the deficiencies of the numbers themselves, is that the solution changes as personnel changes on the team, and it is only when the personnel can match the strategy that there is real success to make them exploiters -- 2019 comes to mind. However, now they have young players, with all of the uncertainties that entails, so their strategies need to continue to adapt, so the target continues to move and their attempt to codify fails, because the raw ingredients are no longer the same. Being a codifier isn't fun. The process is fascinating, a little like defining creativity. Go Twins!

Even though I’m late to the party, I thoroughly enjoyed the article and I completely agree that the answer is both/and not either/or. I also like your above statement about plan development and change. I offer the following on it. I am a musician (retired band conductor actually) and as such, have studied (or was forced to study) a great deal of music from different composers and different eras. I found much of it quite confusing as describing one composer’s music compared to another’s can be pretty esoteric. However, in graduate school, I had a music theory professor who described composers in terms of what their process was. His thesis was essentially this: There are three parts in the process of composing and developing music. Composers are either innovators, codifiers, or exploiters. A good example of an innovator would be Beethoven or Wagner - what they did changed the world of music, even if they didn’t have it all figured out yet. It’s why they are still famous. Innovators always get lots of credit. Exploiters are people that take other peoples’ mistakes and learn from them, then figure out how to do something better than anyone else can, even after others have moved on. In the music world that’s J.S. Bach, whose own sons thought he was old fashioned and stuck in the past. However, because his music is the best possible example of its type, it remains popular hundreds of years later and he is on the “Mt. Rushmore” of composers. Guys like him are kind of the GOAT. It’s the codifiers who don’t get a ton of credit. They are taking that innovation - using and applying it in new and different ways. Sometimes they are successful, but often they aren’t or their success is middling at best. We don’t name a lot of these guys because they get lost in the process of “progress”. Some of these guys were excellent composers in their own right but didn’t take the ideas to their peak. I think that all of this applies to a lot of different things, including the use of analytics in baseball. We are currently deep in the codifying world. There were some great innovators that had some success and now everyone is trying to figure out how they can do it better than anyone else. The problem is that within the certainty that statistics provide there is indeed a lot of uncertainty. The Twins are no different in this than anyone else, even though there is WAY too much kvetching about “Rocco’s Spreadsheet” (I did like the line - “how do we know what is on it?” That was funny and so so true.). At this point (maybe thankfully) we are still quite a distance from figuring it all out so I don’t think that we really have any exploiters yet, even though some would like to claim that they are. So. . . What does all of this mean? Not much except that we keep on trying, mixing in a both/and kind of way in hopes of perfecting at least one part of it that we can exploit against the rest of the league. . . . until the next week when the rest of the league figures out what we’re up to and adapts to it. Argh! This might be the answer, but what do I know? I’m just the (retired) band guy!

Same owners. Unless you are the Dodgers, Yankees or about 4 other teams, down cycles happen. I’m happy to not be in one.

The unknown is often scary, and I’m definitely guilty of feeling that way sometimes. Maybe it’s the MN fan in me, but things overall have been OK. Not amazing, but also not terrible (I know many others have MUCH stronger feelings). I do know that almost anything can be screwed up much worse than it has been so far. I lived through the late 1990’s.

1. Orioles sale. The exception not the rule. The new owners of the Angels. . . Oh, never mind. . . but I’ll wait. Hence my original comment. Calm down. 2. In my understated way, I was saying that the Pohlad group was “a long ways” from the worst and that there are others out there that are worse. I did not say that there were only one or two worse ones out there. 3. Stadium clause. I already knew that. Research done. BILLIONAIRES have a way of negotiating away agreements, no matter how iron clad they appear to be to us mortals. If the Twins become some billionaire’s vanity project, a a few tens of millions here or there aren’t going to keep them from moving the team if they really mean it. It’s not the most likely possibility, but it’s at least as likely as your Orioles scenario above. I’m not willing to bet on the good intentions of someone who can spend my net worth every day and never even get close to touching the large pile of cash in the center. 4. Those two WS championships were under the patriarch of the family Carl Pohlad. I was around for those. They were amazing. I have a great deal of grace for the people that brought those to my fandom. It was so much better than the previous ownership (a dumpster fire if there ever was one), you probably can’t even imagine it. 5. I’m taking the theory that they were “right sizing” things last year to get the books cleaner in preparation for a potential sale (that may or may not be true). If that is true, they certainly aren’t going to do anything crazy (or even substantial) right now when they are in the middle of trying to market and sell the team. You may disagree, which is fine. I’m cautiously optimistic, but as someone else said, heavy on the caution.

Oooooo. Wow! They moved to 26th. That’s certainly impressive.

We all need to calm down. 1. These things take a LONG time usually. 2. We may not love the Pohlad family ownership, but there are surely MUCH worse ones out there. 3. Moving the team, while certainly unlikely, is also not impossible. 4. The two WS championships, while admittedly long ago, are more than MANY other clubs have in that time. AND all of the name calling is irresponsible. 5. As others have stated, this likely puts a further damper on much happening this offseason as things get figured out. Put me in the “this could be good” category, but the devil will be in the details.

Nope. It isn’t. Sorry.

As your justification for trading Correa, you point out all of the issues that make him essentially untradable - and that’s before you even get to the no trade clause. Doesn’t seem likely.

Santana - maybe, but skeptical he can keep it going against Father Time. Farmer - I think he is cooked. He was pretty terrible offensively for most of the season and doesn't seem to be as good defensively as he was a year ago. Kepler - Please NO. As a long term Twins fan, I don't recall ever seeing a player get so much leeway in the lineup while contributing so little to it. He's a very good defensive right fielder, but in all his (NINE!) years as a Twin, he produced 1 good year, 1 good half year, and about 1 good month (probably twice) offensively - while at other times producing a tremendous number of weak groundouts. That's a player who was above average offensively about 1/3 of the time he was here and yet we kept holding out for him to sustain it over a longer period. Hope has left the building for me on Kepler. We have Larnach and Wallner to put in the corners, and while they won't play as good of defense, I'll take their offensive production all day long and they are still young enough to possibly raise the bar a little.

This is a tough one, because there isn't much money and there are always "creative" ways to make things happen through trades (which sometimes open up another hole). I completely agree that a decision needs to be made on Castro. They will certainly offer him a contract, but they need to decide whether they are trading him or keeping him. Unfortunately, that may be on of the few places to save money and get something back in return that the team can bear. I would probably trade him, with catching being my number one target. I would be willing to add to get to the right target, but not a lot more than Kiriloff or Julien. I think we leave the catcher position alone, as it will cost money to get rid of Vasquez and you won't get anything back in return -- UNLESS we pull off something amazing in the Castro trade. I let the rotation ride on. The starting five is solid and we have backup plans available. Maybe an "emergency starter" type veteran that can be stashed at AAA would be useful just in case. I trade Paddack, as I think he has at least a small amount of residual value and that clears $7.5M from the payroll. Someone will take a chance on him. Bullpen. . . I am in the market for a good left handed option. Maybe from one of the trades, but more likely searching the free agent world. You don't need one if ALL of your right handers are studs, but that's too big of an if. I'm putting Louie Varland there permanently, which gives us Duran, Jax, Sands, Varland, at the back end. It's possible there could be a leftover young starter that needs to go to the bullpen (I'm looking at you Prielipp!). We need a first baseman, unless you want to ride with Miranda and Julien and hope for the best. That's not completely crazy as both have demonstrated that they CAN do well, even if they haven't put it all together yet consistently. Kiriloff is out of the picture. Severino in AAA could be the emergency backup plan. Maybe we resign Santana, although his battle with Father Time is going to be lost sooner rather than later. In a perfect world, I would like Lee to start in St. Paul. He got his doors blown off by the end of the season and needs a little re-set. I also get Lewis over to second base (perhaps kicking and screaming) so that Lee can take over third when he comes up. Miranda can man the spot in the meantime. My backup plan in CF is E-Rod. I'm going to hope that Buxton can start the season healthy and that we can survive with some Austin Martin for rest days. If an injury happens (and we know that it will), hopefully it will be late enough that the youngster is ready for prime time. It's not pretty. It's not sexy. But it does put a team on the field and manage to hit some payroll marks that have been imposed on the team. There should be a few bucks available to try to find that lefty reliever or find some lightning in a bottle in a one year veteran deal. That being said, I think that they can compete (always barring catastrophic injuries) in the division next year, and given the improvements shown by KC, Cleveland, and Detroit, that won't be an easy push.

The only reason you trade Jeffers is if you really want to start over completely in 2026 with no returning catchers. That seems short-sighted at best. If you could trade Vasquez for something, great; but I don't think that is likely without eating a lot of his salary -- which defeats the point of trying to trade him in the first place. I also don't think Caimargo is the catcher of the future. Why are we rehashing Garver and Rortvedt? Neither are doing well these days, so moving on from them was an excellent move.

The only truly tough decision here is Castro. He's a terrific player and probably worth the money he will be paid, but he may have priced himself out of the Twins' plans. Topa is a bit of a who knows. He has proven to be a good reliever in the past, but couldn't pitch at all this year for the Twins (yet somehow will get a raise?!?). I can easily justify either way with him. The Twins, who have access to all of his medicals, should have a better picture than I do. The others. . . Kiriloff - DFA, we have several players in whom I have more faith to play first base/DH. Duran - Not offering him arbitration would be baseball malpractice. Practically EVERY team in baseball would pay him $4M to be in their bullpen. All of that said, with these and other players, there will be some trades this winter.

There is a lot of hand-wringing going on about whether the Twins spending $30M more on payroll would have gotten them in the playoffs. There is no way we can know that it definitely would have or wouldn't have. At the end of the day, the implosion by multiple players sealed the team's fate. What is uncertain is who the Twins would have or could have signed for those additional dollars. There are certainly options out there that would have turned out poorly, however, there were also some that would have turned out well. Plus, you can never know if a player who performed one way for a different club may have performed for the Twins -- again, not knowable. What I do know for certain is that the odds of improved performance most certainly go up with payroll going up on an annualized basis. Maybe not this year. Maybe not every year. But certainly the odds move in a favorable direction. I'll certainly take that bet over the alternative. Much has also been made of the teams with lower payrolls doing well in this year's playoffs. Young teams with lots of players under team control tend to be that way. If they want to keep those teams together long term, they will have higher payrolls also. It's a function of where in the cycle of young/old they are, unless the young players aren't any good and they don't retain them, in which case they can replenish with more young players. If you have a low payroll and a bad team, nobody gives you much credit. This year, embrace the exception.

AK might be the most difficult player that the Twins have to evaluate. On one hand, when healthy, he has shown flashes of excellence that would make him extremely valuable. On the other, he's hurt. . . a lot and some of these injuries are likely to sap some of that potential away. Wrist. . . is it truly behind him and can he hit the ball as well/as hard? Shoulder. . . same story. Back. . . . yikes! That's the scariest one yet. I think the odds of him becoming the guy he looked like he could become a few years back are really slim and if you can only keep two of AK, Julien, and Miranda, I think AK is the one that needs to go. Having two guys to evaluate at first base (plus maybe Severino) gives them a better chance at a fair shake than adding another player to the mix. I don't love it, but I think he gets DFA'd or used as a throw in on a trade.

I agree with all of those things. I’m just pointing out that this “sure thing” hasn’t taken the league by storm. He still can. There’s still time, but his performance (albeit in a ridiculously small sample size) so far has more flashing red and yellow lights than green ones. Assuming that he’s going to jump in next year and be a star isn’t really any more assured than Julien recovering from a sophomore slump or Miranda staying healthy and hitting. My fear is that with budgets being what they are, Lee will be handed a spot to lose instead of competing for a spot to win.

I agree with you. I’m not writing him off, but there need to be some alarm bells going off in his head and the Twins’ collective heads. He was billed for so long as the “sure thing”, but he is looking a little wobbly in his first taste of MLB action.

With the front three spots in the rotation locked in, I think Festa starts the year as the #4/5 starter with SWR, and Matthews needs some time in AAA to really get his feet back on the ground. Can you imagine the whirlwind he felt over his rise during the season? Wow! His head is probably still spinning. In 2025, he will be an awesome resource to have available at AAA in case of injury or ineffectiveness at the MLB level. In 2026, he will force his way into a permanent spot in the rotation. My one fear is that the Twins think of Festa and Matthews as fully developed and ready for full time status at the MLB level, and decide to trade one of the top three in the rotation. This would leave us “functional” to start the season but placing a lot of faith in very inexperienced arms and with no room for error in the rotation.

I was thinking the same thing. If AI is only as good as what goes into it, and ownership could control the inputs somehow. . . . . Hmmmm. . . . that could be their best answer. It would defend their position, while maintaining the illusion that they are caught up on all of the latest technology trends. BTW. . . Great article as usual. Makes my Friday immensely better all the way around.

I think that given the budget constraints, you probably roll with Miranda at first base starting next season. He plays passable defense there (no, he’s not Santana) and when healthy, can hit. That said, I think he has a short leash as there are other possible players to fill in at first — each of whom has question marks of his own. Kiriloff. . . . Julien. . . .AAA guys. I think it is likely that we see a bit of a revolving door at first base next year.

None of these guys look like they are going to be a major piece of the puzzle next year at the major league level, but some may contribute on the margins. I hope I’m wrong (or that they’re not needed at all!). Austin Martin appears to be an OK platoon bat with no power that is worth having around to pinch run and play a utility role (if you don’t care much about defense). Keirsay is certainly useful to stash at AAA for CF insurance (which will undoubtedly be needed). Hellman, on paper, could be useful due to his positional flexibility, but I don’t think he’s really a major leaguer at this point. Camargo probably isn’t a starting catcher, but there are certainly worse guys playing backup catcher in the league. This brings me to Brooks Lee. His stats were extremely underwhelming and while he has at least a little power, wasn’t strong at the plate. Overall he’s no better than Julien or Martin. Defensively, he plays a solid third and can back up shortstop (which is very useful potentially), but I don’t think he can be the super utility guy that Castro has become (nor do the Twins want him for that I believe). However, if he weren’t a highly touted prospect, we would all be writing him off right now. Somebody referenced David McCarty earlier. Sadly, that is possible. It has always seemed like Lee didn’t have a super high ceiling, but we’ve taken solace in the fact that his floor seemed to be very high. Right now that floor looks pretty low. I’m not writing Lee off yet, but it’s time to play if he’s really going to be a part of the future.

But that’s the point. The monetary part has little to do with their success. All of the variables are different, so that makes the comparison impossible. Compare talent, sure. Compare prospects, sure. Compare management, you bet. But there are too many moving parts to tie it only to the payroll cut.

Different team. Different talent. Different city. Different league. Different management. Different prospects. You're comparing apples to trains.