Rod Carews Birthday

Spectacular! These always make my day!

“I don’t know about you, but when I see the White Sox make a decision on something borderline, I make the assumption that they’re wrong” THIS. It should be hard to take a franchise with some solid talent and decent payroll into the crapper, and yet the White Sox have managed.

Here's an interesting comparison. . . Puckett had a higher BA but Mauer had a higher OBP. Puckett had a little more power but Mauer won three batting titles to Puckett's one. OPS+ is identical. Mauer's peak was higher but Puckett's career was good until the end. Except for the championship teams involved, they are more similar than different. Puckett got in on the first ballot with 82% of the vote. I think Mauer will either make it in or be tantalizingly close his first year.

As a potential add on to your list, do you really think Alcala will eventually put it together and make things happen? I know the Twins have decided he is worth tendering an offer to, but that might be wishful thinking at this point.

While these are definitely guys on the fringes, it’s still a tough call. The reality is that none of them may ever develop into an effective MLB pitcher, but with the ridiculous extreme variability of relief pitchers, it’s also possible that one of them (or more!) could be good to excellent as soon as next season. Some will certainly be gone as roster space is taken by acquisitions, but two or three will likely stick around. For my money, SWR stays just based on age and being a part of a major trade, then it is Headrick based on left-handedness. I think Balazovic has the highest upside, but seems least likely to find it out of any of these guys, which makes him a little tantalizing (nice way of saying frustrating). Winder and Sands are completely fungible and easily replaceable with pitchers just like them off of the free agent list or waiver wire. OR, I could be wrong and Sands or Winder will make the all star team next summer for the Kansas City Royals.

Mattingly and Williams are in the Hall of Very Good - stats no better than Mauer and don't play catcher. If Mauer is only a maybe, they become no way. A Rod and Clemons are the steroid poster children, that's a different argument but one I'm not willing to have. Andy Pettitte is a guy with solid counting stats that benefited from pitching on a bunch of really good teams - a little like Jack Morris, who probably wouldn't have gotten in were it not for the 1991 WS. Good players all, but probably not hall of famers. Your mileage may vary.

Completely agree with this. A factor that makes his candidacy more complicated is that Mauer is definitely viewed in more favorable terms outside of the Twins market than within it (but without getting the big market bounce). Here, he suffered from unrealistic expectations after he signed his long term contract, which hurts his image immensely, even if he didn't deserve it. Somewhere along the way, some Twins fans decided that since he wasn't perfect and immune to injury, he wasn't any good. That's unfortunate. Bottom line, I think he gets in along with the aforementioned Beltre and Helton. I personally think (and others don't, I get that) that the "first ballot hall of famer" designation is ridiculous. Hall of Famer is Hall of Famer. Period. Either he deserves to be in or not, and Joe Mauer is a Hall of Famer.

If we could sign Brandon Woodruff to a two year deal that was fairly cheap, I might do that, but with potential payroll issues right now, I'm not sure if that makes sense. I would interested in Alex Trivino as a cheap veteran sign for the bullpen. I might sign Spencer Turnbull on a minor league deal. Overall, not a lot of amazingness there, but chances are someone will have a good year in the group.

Every player is always available for the right deal. If Spencer Strider becomes available for Brooks Lee or Royce Lewis, I don't think we're walking away. We would probably never shop any of these guys, but you never know.

I only think he's "surplus" because I don't think that he's the one to put out there every day. You're correct. The Twins don't have a bunch of guys knocking down the door yet, but at this point, I'd rather have Castro in LF daily than Larnach, so it's probably time to cut bait and give the guy a chance to go somewhere else. Maybe down the road E-Rod and Jenkins are a part of the mix, but they have more development ahead of them before they get to the majors. I think next year's outfield is Kepler, Wallner, and somebody (certainly not Larnach) in CF with Castro as the #4. That CF'er could be Austin Martin, but I'm guessing not right away. Buxton is the biggest question mark, and Larnach's presence doesn't solve that issue. IF the Twins think that Buxton is an outfielder next year, then they should put him out there and see what happens with Martin as the backup plan. If they don't think that (ARGH!), they need to sign a guy like Michael A Taylor. . . Hey! There's an idea!

I've been reading all of the "We can't survive without Polanco" talk here. I like him a lot, but the time comes when his value may be better represented by the players you can get in trade for him and by the roster space freed up by not having him around anymore. No. You can't trade him for a front line pitcher by himself, he's just not as valuable as Arraez was last year. You can, however, put him in a package to do so. OR, you trade him for prospects to flip into a pitcher (or a CF'er or a power bat 1B'er). Do we know exactly what Lewis will do? Do we know exactly what Julien will do? Wallner? How about Miranda? Nope. We don't. But we also don't know exactly what any other player will do either, including Polanco, Kiriloff, Correa, or Buxton. They all have causes for optimism and all have causes for pessimism. I would rather take my chances with the youngsters being healthy and productive. For any of the Julien, Wallner, Lewis crowd, last year might have been the warmup act to something remarkable. It would seem that there will be no magical breakout for Polanco, Correa, or Buxton. Good as they are/have been, we know their ceiling. I think we will be pleasantly surprised by what we see from the youngsters this year.

I can agree with many of the things you say here. It is certainly important to evaluate how the minor league pipeline translates into successful major leaguers. It is especially relevant for a mid-market team. However, it isn't unusual at all for players that have floundered a bit on one team to find just the right situation to succeed on another team. Steer and CES may cause regrets for a while given the major injury to the primary target of the trade. Rooker, on the other hand, bounced around quite a lot until he got to Oakland, a team without much in terms of talent, threw him in the lineup. I'm glad he found success, but I don't think he likely sustains it. I'm certain that plenty of thought, analysis, and resources go into talent evaluation, perhaps more now than ever before in Twins history, but it's definitely not an exact science. Bottom line, Larnach is probably worth more in trade than he is to the MN Twins. Time to package him and move on.

I completely agree that Polanco will likely be traded this winter. There are lots of reasons this makes complete sense. 1. $10M payroll savings. We're a team on a short budget. This will help. A lot. 2. His replacement - Eduard Julien - is already in house and mostly outplayed him last year in the majors, certainly offensively and by the end of the season the gap defensively was closing as well. 3. Polanco's 2 years of team control make him quite valuable - likely more valuable than anybody on the free agent market at second base. 4. His health has been a little scary for a couple of years -- a lot will depend on what the team doctors think of that situation, but I think that makes us want to deal him and replace him with someone younger with a likely less injury risk. 5. The other obvious trade candidate (Kepler) isn't as replaceable in house. I would likely trade him also, mostly for the payroll savings, but that's a harder call to make. 6. Polanco's trade value is relatively high and his presence is blocking young players with great potential. Remember a catcher named AJ Pierzynski? He was 26 year old former all-star coming off an .824 OPS as a catcher. It didn't work out so well because the intended catcher got hurt, but the next year we found out why the trade was made. The same thing happened midseason in 2004(?) when a Gold Glove winning first baseman was shipped out to make room for a future MVP Canadian slugger. I'm not declaring that Julien and Lee will be as good as Mauer and Morneau, but they are pretty valuable. 7. Saying that Polanco on his own won't return a front line starter is correct, but that's not the point. As the major league piece of a good package, he could definitely bring back an excellent starter. The Twins definitely have prospects to trade, and if they just trade Polanco for prospects, then they have even more prospects to trade. I have long been a big Polanco fan. I thank him for his contributions. I wish him well in the future. Then, I trade him for something that fits the team's long-term plans.

This is a solid list and the Twins need to give trades some serious consideration, both for on the field reasons and for 40 man logjam reasons down the road. I would likely include Eduard Julien on the list as well. My first thought is that one of Lee, Julien, and Polanco will be traded -- especially if the team isn't sure that Byron Buxton won't be clogging up the DH spot. These three guys seem destined for the same spot in the field and all have pretty serious trade value, from prospect hype to young controllability to veteran presence. Who gets traded depends on who the target is and what the situation is for the other team. A team in win now mode takes Polanco, but a team trying to build a core takes Julien or Lee. IF we trade for a young-ish controllable starter, one of these guys is the headliner on the trade. My second thought is that Duran probably isn't this high on the list. Make no mistake, he's an awesome relief pitcher. For the most part, however, guys who are "just" a relief pitcher don't tend to be headliners in a trade. I'm also not sure that the league is that sold on Wallner. He could be really good, but he doesn't look like as much of a sure thing as Royce Lewis or Eduard Julien. I don't think the Twins trade Festa or Raya either. They've worked pretty hard to try to develop some pitching in the system and these guys both look like they could be solid MLB starters down the road. With the consternation over the budget for 2024, it would seem that trading is definitely on the table for the offseason. I for one am completely a fan of trades - especially ones that can be win-win situations like the Arraez/Lopez trade. Let's sit back and hopefully watch something happen.

"The nice man’s name is Cory, the man who always sounds upset about the way things ought to be is Dan. " WWHCD --- What Would Herb Carneal Do? All joking aside, I do really miss him on the radio!

I'm giving up. I keep hitting the button too soon! Admin: Please delete. Sorry

More later.

Take. a. deep. breath. everyone (almost). This is not a black and white situation where one way we are a powerhouse and the other we are a cellar dweller. It's much more gray than that. Most of the people in hysterics on this are reading something into the statements that just isn't directly there. It is likely they will pull back a little, but it seems pretty unlikely that we're talking about 25% or more. They just aren't that foolish. We don't know exactly what Falvey's intent was with the statement. He could be softening the blow, or he could be setting the fan base up to be impressed when the payroll doesn't drop that much. As stated by another poster, he could also be putting external pressure on ownership to NOT cut payroll. Let these people do their job and see what they put together. They've done pretty well so far (your mileage may vary!). We weren't signing Ohtani anyway, and probably none of the other big bucks pitchers. That doesn't mean the Twins can't be a good team. We just need to trust some of the people we already have and add judiciously from the outside world, either through trades or sneaky good signings in free agency. OK. . . .now you can breathe again.

You are likely correct, but that won't stop fans from fretting that he is "the next David Ortiz!"

I wish. . . There’s still the Buxton situation to work out. If he can play CF, that would be awesome, but alas, I’m not putting any money on it.

I’m sure that the AFL assignment this fall was his final chance to punch the 40-man roster ticket. At a .215 BA in an offensive environment, he hasn’t done that. I wish him well and think he will be selected by a rebuilding team to put a few balls in the seats and strike out a lot. We, as Twins fans, need to relax next spring or the following spring when he is leading the league in HR’s for a month or so.

I think the only way to replace a 5.0 WAR pitcher next year is to trade for someone good and get a little lucky when he has some real growth. (Like a Pablo Lopez) As much as I like Gray, he’s unlikely to duplicate this year’s success while a year older. The young guys have potential, but none of them are likely producing that yet. The free agents, perhaps a couple might to that, but I don’t think we are going to sign any of them that are going to be in the $25-30M range. That being said, with the floor being as high as it appears to be in the Twins rotation, it may not be necessary to directly replace it with one player. A little growth from many along with someone who could be described as “solid” might be enough. My personal vote is to sign Jordan Montgomery or Eduardo Rodriguez if we can get it done without totally breaking the bank. Either of them gives us a change of pace lefty in the rotation and both have the potential to be very good for a few years.

I like it. The addition of Jordan Montgomery is a good one, although I think Eduardo Rodriguez could be an easy substitute. I would be nervous about the lack of a CF option outside of Buxton. In my world, Trevor Larnach and Jorge Polanco (plus probably a prospect) get traded for some CF help and/or a bullpen arm or two (especially in case Caleb Theilbar's arm falls off one of these years). That leaves us with Martin and Lee in the wings for substitution on the position player side and Louis Varland on the pitching side.

Exactly this. He strikes me as the kind of guy that will retire on his own terms when he feels like it - which most guys won’t do. I have serious doubts that he would want to keep playing if he loses his ability to be competitive doing so. That helps insulate the contract from becoming very bad.

Thanks Boomstick for a great couple of years in a Twins uniform. He was a fun baseball player to watch and by all indications a fantastic teammate. Hall of Fame seems out of reach, but that takes nothing away from a great career. Enjoy retirement. Take a summer vacation for the first time in your life!