Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Rod Carews Birthday

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,695

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Rod Carews Birthday

  1. Rod Carews Birthday
    Argh!! My Eyes!!!!!
  2. Rod Carews Birthday
    If you are going to build (almost) entirely from within — draft, etc., then everything has to hit at the same time. AND there needs to be an opening, no big juggernaut team in the way. The 1987 Twins were definitely no juggernaut, but they had a bunch of guys playing well enough to sneak into the playoffs and they got hot at the right time in order to win the WS. The playing field, however, was a lot more level back then in terms of payroll. In fact, Kirby Puckett was briefly the highest paid player in the league in the early 1990’s. Do we have a bunch of guys who are the equal of Hrbek, Gaetti, Bruno, Puckett, et al? Maybe, but again, it all needs to hit at the same time and that is the difficulty. The Twins are never going to be able to have the dependable depth at almost every position that teams like the Dodgers have under the current financial conditions in the league, so that means that they also have to stay healthy. Again, a pretty big IF that hasn’t materialized in the last few years. In answer to the original question. It could be soon. It could be later. It could be a lot later. All the Twins can do is develop, develop, develop while they make a few trades and try to put themselves in a position to win on a yearly basis. If they get a little lucky, they might just break through, just like the 1987 team did. . That’s why I don’t like the so called “aggressive rebuild”. It operates on the fallacy that if we tear it all down and get really bad, that will result in the team being really good in a couple of years. Sometimes a step back is just a step back, and it certainly is with limited payroll. I know I’m in the minority on TD, but I would much rather watch decent baseball the next couple of years instead of the putrid product that the field the past two months. YMMV.
  3. Rod Carews Birthday
    I don't know the whole picture as far as how many guys they will need to protect, but he is someone I would consider protecting. He's probably at least as good as some of those other guys and could be useful with plenty of options.
  4. Rod Carews Birthday
    The Pohlads indeed have a “decision making majority”, however, the investors have invested REAL money, not just my meager life savings. While that doesn’t constitute controlling interest, they surely will have a very loud voice in the room where decisions are made. The only way that wouldn’t be true is if it were just an investor that had spare money laying around that they didn’t care about. It’s unlikely, but theoretically possible.
  5. Rod Carews Birthday
    I know what I would do. I think I know what they SHOULD do. However, I have lost all faith in trying to know what the Pohlads WILL do. In theory, they could mostly keep the players that they should and add some free agents, maybe make a baseball trade, and still come in with a payroll of $120M — not enough, but not a full-gut of the payroll. That team might even be competitive. It is also not lost on me that there are (supposedly) new minority owners. They have invested REAL money in the team, and they’re not going to want to see the on the field product completely tank and along with it, their (probably local) reputation, attendance and equity growth. That’s actually the one thing that gives me a little bit of hope — not enough to hold my breath, but at least enough for an optimistic pause.
  6. Rod Carews Birthday
    I completely understand the spirit of where you are coming from on this, I just happen to disagree about the best way to get to a 90+ win team. I think it is easier to utilize the foundation of an 75-80 win team to form the next 90 win team. That 75-80 win team is also much more fun to watch than the 60 win team that results from gutting what we currently have by trading Wallner, (Ryan, Pablo, Buxton, Jeffers, etc.). IF we do gut the team and things go almost entirely right, we will probably have a team in 2028 that’s about as good as the one we had in 2024 and 2025. That means we’re no better off than we are now AND we’ve had to suffer through two years of abysmal baseball. If I want that, I’ll start going to more White Sox games. I say, keep most of what we’ve got (i.e. Wallner, et al) and trade Larnach for some relief help, sign a couple of free agents (with the payroll space that should exist) and try to compete.
  7. Rod Carews Birthday
    There is a lot of “irrational exuberance” about the OF prospects that we have coming up. (If you’re old enough, you’ll know what that’s from). The odds of at least half of them never living up to their potential (ala Larnach) are pretty strong. Opening up one spot in the OF to see what you have with them is likely a good idea. However, opening up more than that seems like making a living playing the lottery. That being said, I do think that trading (if possible) Trevor Larnach is a good idea. His best year stacks up as being equal to Wallner’s worst year, and he’s getting more expensive. He may go on to do well somewhere else. Oh well. It happens. It’s not a crime.
  8. Rod Carews Birthday
    I think there is a danger in this view. Jenkins, E-Rod, Roden, and Gonzales have proven exactly nothing in the major leagues. They might all succeed (wouldn’t that be nice), but they also might all fail to live up to the lofty expectations that people have for them. At very least, they are going to go through the same kinds of growing pains that Wallner and Larnach (and Julien and Lee and Lewis) are currently going through. Opening up TWO outfield spots and rolling the prospects out to start could very easily blow up in their faces. It happens all the time because Major League Baseball is harder than minor league baseball, both offensively and defensively. Wallner had a pretty bad year by his previously established standards. However, it only looks bad because he was so outstanding in limited action the past two years. In fact, if Larnach would have had Wallner’s stats in 2025, we would be talking about the progress he had made. I am more than willing to keep Wallner in the lineup and bank on a bounce back to previously offensive levels. Defensively, he really should be the (mostly) full-time DH, still available to play OF when needed. We definitely need his power bat in the lineup, because someone not named Buxton has to be able to hit the ball out of the park too if this team is to be competitive. Trading him for the sake of trading him is a little bit like trading Louis Varland for the sake of trading him that we did at the deadline.
  9. Rod Carews Birthday
    It is my skepticism about a "rebuild" that makes me want to hang onto the good players we have -- Pablo, Ryan, Buxton, Jeffers. . . I can imagine nothing worse than tearing it down to the studs and being terrible in 2026 and 2027, while only losing 90 games instead of 100 in 2028 and 2029. Keep your best players. Sign some guys. Bring up some prospects. And compete for the playoffs and division. If we tear it all down, if we're lucky, we might be as good in 2028 as we were in 2025. Yuck!
  10. Rod Carews Birthday
    Sure, they know more than you or me, but injuries indeed happen. Correa’s plantar fasciitis, Pablo’s back, Ryan’s groin, Vasquez’ arm infection? Practically every pitcher’s arm and shoulder looks like spaghetti. I’m not a Falvey apologist by any means, but that was a pretty reasonable calculated risk and if the team is to get better there will need to be more of those.
  11. Rod Carews Birthday
    So the current version of Steer is essentially Larnach, maybe a little less. Mahle looked very good prior to injury and the Twins surely can’t be blamed for a bad trade when the principal player got injured, can they? If I could trade Larnach/Steer for a solid starting pitcher, I would do it in a heartbeat — every time. YMMV.
  12. Rod Carews Birthday
    Admittedly, this doesn’t look that pretty. That being said, how do Twins drafts compare overall to other teams in their division and league? Knowing what an unreliable situation the MLB draft is compared to NBA or NFL, I’m not sure that I’m surprised by this at all. Over the course of 10 or 20 years, what percentage of 1st-5th round draft picks wind up having MLB careers, or even cups of coffee? We would obviously like all of our team’s picks to hit, but I’m not sure what the odds really are for more success.
  13. Rod Carews Birthday
    On the subject of making him available/listening to offers, I would agree that it would be malpractice to not do so (for every single player every single year actually). However, I still need to be a little blown away to make a trade happen. Aside from my concern over the return and what might be settled for, I’m worried that now that it’s been in the forefront for so long, it is inevitable and the Twins’ front office will feel like the trade MUST be made. That’s when mistakes are made and trades made for poor returns. Remember, he doesn’t HAVE to be traded — we can still do that at the deadline or next year (or at next yer’s deadline).
  14. Rod Carews Birthday
    This keeps being said, but I’m not sure that’s the case. Although I’m certain he would rather be on a team headed for the postseason, I don’t recall him ever really saying that he didn’t want to be a Twin. Joe Ryan is a little weird — in mostly good ways. That makes him and what he says a little hard to figure out. I have.known many people in my (former) field that have been like that also. Their lack of enthusiasm and/or wearing emotions on their sleeve were more weird personality traits than they were negative intent. Could he want out? Sure, but I’m not so sure that it’s really as apparent as it first appears.
  15. Rod Carews Birthday
    I might agree with you, but I don't think his ceiling is as high. I think his best outcome is very good regular. I think Royce's is probably still star player -- but the certainty is much less at the moment. Lewis. . . well, I'm actually just hoping for playable. I don't think his ceiling is much at all. He may be a "smart" player, but I just don't really think he has the tools and athleticism to become anything more than a stopgap at shortstop or anywhere else.
  16. Rod Carews Birthday
    Well, at least the facility is readily available for the entire Halloween season!
  17. Rod Carews Birthday
    Probably too soon to make this determination. His rate stats and defense were largely very good, but his short time span and leaving the team as something of a scapegoat bring that down. Unlike some other positions like centerfield or catcher, we really haven’t had a long-term star at shortstop, so the field is pretty crowded without a clear run away winner.
  18. Rod Carews Birthday
    Lewis is probably the player with the widest window of potential outcomes on the team. At his best, he is an impact bat, but at his worst, as he was in much 2025, he is just barely playable. I’m a little (not overwhelmingly) optimistic on Royce Lewis, mostly due to his improved defense at 3B and his burst of speed at the end of the season. Those factors indicate a guy who is healthier, and more importantly trusts his legs, which is something that he obviously didn’t do in 2024 and in most of 2025. With Lewis, I see a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately with several others on the team, I don’t see that at all.
  19. Rod Carews Birthday
    Please no.
  20. Rod Carews Birthday
    "Intellectual?" Hmmmmm. . .
  21. Rod Carews Birthday
    I personally am glad that Torii Hunter took his name out of the mix. The expectations that would come with a former star player on his own team would likely be impossible to live up to, and he has no track record to suggest that he could do that. It would have the potential to be a bad situation for both the Twins and for Torii, and it would also likely tarnish Torii's good name/reputation/legacy with the team.
  22. Rod Carews Birthday
    The Twins batters were 11th worst in MLB for strikeouts. The Twins batters were 15th best in MLB for strikeouts. Pretty overall middle of the pack for both. Neither would seem to be an egregious problem.
  23. Rod Carews Birthday
    So what? If he plays mostly DH, the glove will play just fine there. In a down year, he still outhit weak groundout Kepler.
  24. Rod Carews Birthday
    Which is why many (most?) of the people on TD are advocating for him to be the full-time DH next year. That being said, a guy with a hamstring issue isn't exactly going to move like a gazelle out there. He admittedly was less than stellar in the field, but was much less bad in 2024. As a part time OF and most-time DH, that works fine.
  25. Rod Carews Birthday
    I recall some (more than a few, definitely not everyone) gnashing teeth over the loss of Max Kepler. It looks like at very least, Wallner has managed to do that, with probable upside available for the future. A meager success to be sure, but a small step in a good direction.
×
×
  • Create New...