Rod Carews Birthday

The best thing he can do is ignore the Royce Lewis hype train that so many fans are on. I think he's going to be a big, big star, but it seems unlikely that he is going to be a the several highlights per week player that we saw in his limited action this past season. He needs to pace himself, stay healthy, and go out there everyday at his best. It's a long season. Based on what we have seen so far, the numbers will take care of themselves. The most obvious, and most likely place for improvement will be on defense, as he continues to get used to playing 3B. He makes his share of highlight reel plays, but have the routine plays become just that, routine, for him will take him to the next level (see Correa, Carlos).

Count me in the "likely no" category as well, but you always need to check out the possibilities, no matter how crazy they seem. That also helps you understand how other teams value (or don't value) your players and prospects as well. I'm generally anti trading away a bunch of prospects for a one year rental player, but for the right (low, low) price, we certainly can listen. Thinking about the numbers and trade values, if Kepler could be part of the package for Soto (with probably two more pieces), that does take $10M off of the payroll next year and makes Soto fit the budget much better. His presence also lessens the level of prospects that need to be included. Even better if one of the guys we don't exactly have a home for like Larnach and/or Miranda. If the Padres are really interested in a salary dump, I'm there listening.

Completely agree. Also, don't limit yourself to traditional sources for talent. Suzyn Waldman from the Yankees is excellent and she was just a baseball fan that they pulled off a theater stage. (Plus have you heard her sing the National Anthem?!)

We need to tap the brakes just a little bit on Brooks Lee. I do think that he will become an excellent big leaguer, but he didn't really tear up AAA last season. I think going back to St. Paul will serve him well and help ensure that when he comes up to MLB he'll be able to stay. Right now, we have two players at 2nd bass who are pretty good in Julien and Polanco, so Lee is without a spot to play on the current iteration of the Twins team. I like what @Blyleven2011suggested about getting him some reps in LF, where the door could be wide open (Wallner to RF if/when Kepler is traded). If he could get some solid experience at LF for a half season or so, Lee might fit perfectly into the team picture. For now Mr. Lee, go to St. Paul, get additional defensive flexibility, keep working on the hitting, and we'll see how it's all working by July.

I think that Willi Castro should serve as a warning to those who want to see minor league players promoted -- RIGHT NOW! He came up with a little flash and then struggled enough that a bad team DFA'd him. A year or two longer in AA and AAA and a year like 2023 might have been his rookie year. If that was the case, we would be talking about what a star this guy was going to be. I'm really glad he is a Twin. As is, he would appear to be a really great utility player with the upside that he can hold his own at a number of positions on the field and with his bat and feet as well. He's a better version of Marwin Gonzalez, who we signed a few years back to much fanfare. I'm not sure I want Castro to be the starting CF'er, not because I don't think he could be OK, but because we really need him in that super utility role to which he has become so indespensible. It's sort of the opposite of the Byron Buxton problem from this year. Buxton occupying the DH spot didn't really help the team. Willi Castro playing all over the field will continue to help the Twins immensely.

It would appear that some patience would be in order with Joe Ryan. He had an absolutely outstanding first half of the season, followed by injury and some struggle. Let him start the year healthy and see if he can stay that way. If he does, I'm willing to bet he will be just fine (Sonny Gray 2023 fine? Who knows?). Fans with short memories are forgetting that he was recently the opening day starter because he was the best we had at the time. Now that the rotation has been beefed up, there are others who have taken that mantle and we are suddenly worried that he is a #3 or #4 or #5 (even barely!). It's not a black and white world with pitchers, and somewhere in those shades of grey lies Joe Ryan. He's at Driveline working at pitches trying to keep improving and I think he will be a very worthy member of the rotation going forward.

I'm in agreement. The challenge is to decide whether he has a great deal more potential because he is somewhat successful without advantageous mechanics or whether his lack of those mechanics will never allow him to get there. Sometimes, a player looks great and does everything right and is no better than SWR is now. In such a player there is no potential. In SWR, if things can be unlocked, he could still be very good - whether that's in the bullpen or the rotation. It would be exciting to be his coach, but also potentially very frustrating!

It is unfortunate that this can happen, both for the team and for the player. Mostly though, it really does show us how difficult it is to predict future MLB success. There is no one perfect path to the majors. Sometimes it's no one's fault -- injuries, etc. Sometimes it's a player moving down (or being moved down) the wrong path for them - imagine making Luis Arraez into a power hitter. Sometimes the player loses commitment and interest. Sometimes they're just not as good as we imagined or hoped that they would be. And that's just for the front offices that have way more information than we do! That's why I mostly try not to get too excited about prospects coming up until they are absolutely ripping up AA and/or AAA. The good news is that one big reason prospects drop is because other prospects rise to take their place. Hopefully they can live up to their new ranking.

Wow! Didn’t see that one coming. Sounds like changing the tire on a car. If only that were the case all around!

As proven by this year’s playoffs, going in with a gaudy record guarantees exactly nothing. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that picked either of them to make the WS outside of their own fan bases, and yet, here we are. These results should make Twins fans a little more positive (but it likely won’t for some) about this past season. Getting in the door of the playoffs is like getting in the door for a job interview. Everyone starts with the same clean slate and nearly anything can happen. Back in 1987, the Twins were no juggernaut. They simply had some good players and they got hot enough at the right time to win two playoff series. People generally only remember that they won, not how they got there. Let’s hope next year’s version of the Twins can duplicate that.

I think we are likely either to stand pat completely or to pull off a couple of trades that make fans say “They traded (Insert Name Here)! That’s terrible!” It doesn’t sound like there will be enough folding money to go out and sign any impact guys — at least for more than one year with the current broadcast rights situation, so making a trade or two would seem to be the best way to improve the club. I completely agree with @tony&rodney that the key will be to make a mutually beneficial trade for both teams. They already have the track record of doing so in the Arraez/Lopez trade, so that should make more teams willing to talk to them. The guys who they trade for are unlikely to be household names, but rather guys that could be on the cusp of something special. It’s a tough chance to take, but one that must be taken. The obvious trade candidates at the moment would seem to be Farmer, Larnach, and Polanco unless we can trade a pitcher plus a sweetener for a better pitcher. The difficult part is whether to trade any other young guys. What could you get for Julien? With Martin and Lee on the horizon, would this be the time to trade high on a player who could be replaced in the lineup by another prospect? I don’t know the answer, but I could definitely guess the tires will be kicked on such a move this winter.

I am also a fan of Joe Ryan. Aside from the obvious thrill of getting a legit starting pitcher for a couple of months of Nelson Cruz in a down year, he has to be looked at as a long term really good piece in the rotation. He's only going into his third full year which is a time when a lot of pitchers really make a step forward (see Viola, Frank or Radke, Brad plus plenty of others). Heck, Johan Santana wasn't even a starter until his fourth year in the majors. By those Twins comparison, Ryan is doing really great. It's anybody's guess what his long term career looks like. Will he be able to master a full season of "good" Joe Ryan and be in the running for a CYA? Will he be a consistent solid pitcher like Kevin Tapani or Brad Radke? Will he become a Twins great? He seems like a guy who doesn't get flustered by much and who has established an exceptional floor (pretty solid even while injured for part of a season), so now it's time to take a step forward and show us what his ceiling can be.

This isn't a reaction to your post. It's a reminder. You have now actually seen a Twins playoff win. You've got some business to take care of. Name change time! Ha! Ha! Enjoyed the original post!

I dislike this tremendously, but you're absolutely right!

MAYBE Odorizzi on a Keuchel-like deal. No way to the other two. When a guy like Torii Hunter came back, he had been and still was a star, not someone hanging on and scraping by. No soft spot for any of those guys. If we don't have better options in the minors, I'd be surprised, and if we don't, we should be looking elsewhere for some trades or FA's. Maybe Big Papi wants to come out of retirement. I'm sure he's not in shape!

I’m not sure that these playoff statistics are really all that usable. Yes, some players hit well in these six games while others didn’t, but obviously this is a ridiculously small sample size — playoffs or not. During the regular season, players have great six game stretches and poor six game stretches all the time and it doesn’t really register as a blip on the radar. Remember that Kirby Puckett fellow? Before becoming a playoff monster, he had a .583 OPS in his first five game playoff series in 1987. Certainly Carlos Correa has demonstrated over a long period of time that he can come up in big moments. In fact, he has as many playoff at bats as Royce Lewis has at bats in the majors, which leads me to think we need to learn a lot more about Lewis (and Julien) before we crown them as playoff bats, whatever that actually means.

I think the contract looks amazing from the Twins side of things. I'm just not convinced that he would take it. I'm guessing it might take some up front money in a signing bonus plus bigger numbers on the option years. While you can never predict potential injury, he's been able to go very well since he's been in the bullpen. He's also been as good as anyone in the league for two years, so the value is certainly there.

I would take duplicate numbers in 2024 gladly.

After Miranda shows signs of complete recovery, I think this could be a potential option. Solano isn't getting any younger and Miranda can potentially replace him at the plate. He may not currently be better, but could definitely get there. As for no second base, we have a bunch of people who can play second base, so that isn't very important.

And also magically, if the strikeouts are cut dramatically, the We Hates Strikeouts crowd will declare that This Club Strikes Out Too Much - kind of like the starters' innings pitched per game!

I'm less enthusiastic about trading Vasquez. Camargo looks like he could be an adequate backup, but to think we will make it through another season where two guys catch 162 games is probably a fool's errand. Because the Twins have Jeffers for so little money, it sort of balances what they are paying Vasquez to make it work. I know that seems crazy and unfair to the better (at least right now) player, but that's unfortunately how it works. As to signing a pitcher. I am very much in favor of this, but signing Blake Snell scares me a lot. Signing high on a (probable) Cy Young pitcher makes you very vulnerable to some regression, not to mention injury. Snell hasn't been consistently good for long enough to make me want to pay him 25M+ for 4 or 5 years. I would rather they look for pitchers (who we can't even name) who seem like they could take another step and become good to great (like Lopez or to a lesser extent, Ryan. I agree that a lefty would be handy and Ed. Rod could fit that bill for less coin. I more worried about CF than 1B right now because I think corner infielders that can hit aren't in short supply league wide so filling that later could be OK. The CF situation has me baffled. I agree that thinking Buxton is going to play the lion's share of the innings (or even any) in CF isn't very realistic and I would like them to bring back MAT to play again. He was great in the field and OK enough at the bat to not hurt us. I think that Castro is absolutely fine as a sub for a day or two or even a week or two if necessary, but he's not the full time answer. I think that Gordon is a roster casualty and Martin isn't an option until mid-season. Interesting for sure!

It's easy to find something you disagree with in a manager and use it to decide that the guy is an idiot. You can do the same thing with your boss or the CEO of your company. Those things are like watching the stock market minute by minute. There are people that do it and it's probably ridiculously stressful. If you take the long view of the stock market (at least so far!) things will work out in the end. The same thing is true with baseball managers. I've written many times that they get too much credit and too much blame, but what is undeniable is that he has the support of his players and they just had a successful season, particularly in the second half. That makes him a good manager. At the end of the day, what he decides regarding pitchers, pinch hitters, batting philosophies, or making Castro his fifth starting pitcher just for the fun of it doesn't matter. We can decide that we would do it differently, but that doesn't make the manager a fool. There are just too many decisions to be made for all of them to be "right."

While PECOTA (and other projection systems) takes a great deal of data into account and works very hard to come up the best projections they can, there are innumerable human factors at play that throw everything into flux -- injuries, unexplainable ineffectiveness, crazy unexplainable breakouts, etc. They are just another tool to try to predict what will happen. Sometimes, they hit on a few things, sometimes they miss by a mile. It's always interesting. I commend them for their efforts. I wouldn't want to try to do it better. However, the fact that the predictions aren't more accurate is why we play the games, and frankly, what makes it more fun!

What about the President dating Taylor Swift?

I don't think it's a case of wanting to get rid of Polanco. I think it's a case of looking at the lineup and potential surplus spots where there could be some trade value, and he is a pretty logical candidate given the number of alternative infielders on the team and his potential to still be a good player for a team in need of a second baseman.