Rod Carews Birthday

It would be wonderful if he would be a late blooming player who really materialized into something special. Remember, Nelson Cruz didn't get good until he was 28 and it seemed to work for him. That being said, when there are minor league players with big numbers that seemingly have to wait too long for their chance in the majors, they tend to flop -- it's almost like the clubs have more insight into this than we do. I'm still rooting for him!

Gallo to a contender for immediate but temporary slugging help, then Larnach to a poor team for a bet on the future, then Kepler for a bag of balls/other salary relief only.

OK. I'll play. 3 P Santana 1 C AJ 5 1B Killebrew 5 2B Carew 1 SS Guzman 3 3B Rollins 3 LF Mack 4 CF Hunter 4 RF Allison 2 DH Winfield 2 CL Reardon I pained over this way too much. Lots of really good players to choose from. My "value" plays were Santana as a $3 pitcher, Reardon as a $2 closer, and AJ as a $1 Catcher. Moving my closer from Nathan to Reardon saved me $3 which was enough to get me Allison and Rollins from back in the day. My "core" if you will, were Carew and Killebrew, with a capable but cheap Guzman and AJ to bring the costs in line with the budget. This lineup would definitely compete, but I don't know that Santana would hold up very well being the only pitcher in a 162 game season. Not even Blyleven could do that (unless you ask him!), and he costs more!

Completely agree. With strong pitching, anything can happen. Ryan, Gray, and Lopez are a pretty solid top three in a playoff rotation.

Sorry. This is the "he's been around for a long time so we should keep him" argument. I'm not in the "Max Kepler is a disaster" club, but calling him one of the best outfielders in team history is statistical interpretation cherry-picking at it's finest. He had one pretty good year and one great year, combined with a lot of not very much. His glove isn't that valuable unless he can man two positions at the same time. I will agree that the Twins list of all-time outfielders isn't that impressive compared to some other teams, but they have had a number of "really good" outfielders out there like Tori Hunter, Dan Ford, Tom Brunansky, Lyman Bostock, Shane Mack, Caesar Tover, and more. Those players aren't in the Puckett and Oliva category, but they are still preferable picks to Max Kepler.

IF all of those things worked out for him a big dollar deal would have worked out for him too, BUT they didn't. In his current situation, he had one really good year two years ago and is now missing most of next season. So. . . on a 2025 season contract, it seems likely a best case scenario that they would get 125ish innings at maybe a 4.00 ERA. That to me doesn't say $20M dollars. Instead, I think it only says $10M or so for the second year, and that is again, IF, he recovers properly -- an item that is now taken for granted, but still really isn't a sure thing. I don't think people will be lining up at his door this coming offseason.

It will always boil down to "how much?". I'm not sure I want to pay him 2/$20M. It seems like $5M is a lot to be paid to "recover" and $15M is a lot to pay for the first year back, which tends to be just OK in the best of circumstances. The contract either needs to be for less money or for more years so that we can benefit from the recovery. Three or four years seems better at $25M or if it must be two, then 2/$12M. There is also the question of how his shoulder is doing. If that is directly related to the TJ than it should be fine, but if not. . . . hmmmm. . . . .

I was hoping out loud!

Just trying to figure this out. Is it possible that Garlick is up because they are hoping he gets a hot couple of games so they can trade him somewhere for a low level prospect or a bag of balls? At some point, when everyone (if everyone) gets healthy, they will need a room on the 40 man roster, so somebody needs to go away. Maybe that's Garlick and they are just prepping it weirdly. I'd rather think it was Kepler, but I think the experiment of hoping he gets hot has probably fizzled by now (and several times over the past couple of years) so that seems unlikely.

Or Patrick Murphy?

I agree that he is really stretched as a starter on a good team (that needs offense!), but imagine where we would be without him. I suppose we could trade for Jake Cave!

I think the difference between this year and some of the past years is that some of us see the potential for this team. For the first time in about forever we have a starting rotation that is playoff worthy. We are leading the division despite the offense playing at a lower level than we think they are capable of (and we are still middle of the pack in runs scored). The bullpen is at least OK with the potential to improve. IF (and that's always a bit IF) the pitchers keep doing their thing and the bats start coming around, this team could be quite good. That is enough to get excited about and and mostly an improvement from past years (yes 2019 was great, but what was the pitching like?). This is much better than the teams from the past where many players had career years and we still only won 84 games. As to the "style" of baseball being played, last time I checked there were no wins or losses based on style points. You can not like their current style, but it has given us at least some semblance of success. Whether the trade of Arraez for Lopez was a good idea is certainly up for debate, but it's ultimate success or failure cannot be judged for years to come. They are both young and talented. We don't know the final result of 2023, let alone 2024 and beyond. Will Arraez' knees hold up? Will Lopez' arm hold up? Who knows. I'm sorry if that displays too much positivity for some posters. I've been watching the Twins since Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva were playing for the team (and Caesar Tovar and the first iteration of Bert Blyleven as well) and have very much learned how to take the long view. The seventies and early eighties were tough, as were the post WS 1990's. We aren't the Yankees or the Dodgers, so taking the "every year we must win the WS" approach isn't practical (it's actually not practical for their fans either, but that doesn't stop them). I choose to see the potential here, find some joy in it, and enjoy the season rather than nitpicking every part of it.

It is a convenient time to bash this trade, with Arraez in the middle of a hot streak that has raised his batting average above .400 and Lopez has been quite hittable for the last month or so. Neither of them are likely to maintain that pace. Arraez might hit .340 or .350 and win a batting title. He is quite valuable. He’s was one of my favorite Twins and I’m not here to bash him, but let’s not turn him into Rod Carew or Ted William. He’ll be on another team by the time he racks up the kinds of titles they had. Whatever there is to be said about his hitting, his defensive position on the team was easily replaceable. Evaluating Pablo Lopez is a little more complicated. Starting the year, we would have been OK, because we still had Maeda and Mahle pitching. When they went down to injury, we called upon Ober and Varland to fill in and they have done so admirably. Now subtract another pitcher (who has been a “workhorse” at 70+ innings 1/3 of the way through the season). Where do those innings go? Who are we calling up to take his place? I don’t necessarily think that Lopez is the pitcher he was in April, but I also don’t think he is the May version either. So, let’s make him the 4.00ish ERA guy he has been with close to 200 innings pitched for the season. That’s a key part of the overall team picture for the year. In the past, we would have been thrilled to have a guy with those numbers on the team. This year, that probably makes him our 4th starter (at the moment). As to the awards that are likely to come, Arraez may win another batting title or two for Miami. That’s not nothing and is very impressive. IF Lopez were to win a Cy Young or even finish in the top five or so, that is much more valuable. Do I think he will? Not necessarily, but he has the stuff to be in the picture for that award in the future. When you can get a guy like that who is “on his way up”, it makes a lot of sense to deal from an area of perceived strength on your team. It’s a trade you have to make.

This was a nice hit for the Twins, and with a couple of years of team control as well. It is definitely “found” value. Good job! The alternative way of writing this comment would be this. . . . Wow! I can’t believe the Dodgers let this one get away, especially when they had a guy with an 80.96 ERA on their team. No wonder they never have any decent pitching! The team is always bad and this is why. The entire management team surely must be fired. See how silly that looks?

It sounds like some of us are eager to blame and unwilling to credit the Twins for anything and everything. If you are going to slam a trade, great. That’s your right. But the reality is that the team got to a position where they are contenders while many teams are not. They have made trades that have worked out and ones that haven’t, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to question their motives or intelligence based on cherry-picked information long after the fact. I may be be wrong, but I was under the impression that TD was a place for some intelligent dialogue (and even disagreement) and not just drive a drive by. A deeper dive would consider more factors than the quick surface view. For the people who don’t like that, perhaps a new team or a new sport to root for might be in order.

It certainly doesn't appear that the medical reports are the likely reason for Correa's offensive struggles, so I don't think that it is a reasonable assertion to make. It also seems extremely unlikely that the a third of a season is a reasonable basis with which to judge a six year contract. He has a track record. He will figure it out. That doesn't mean it isn't and won't be frustrating at times, but he is still very likely to be a cornerstone player for this team.

Nice deep dive. It puts a little science behind what I would observe as Joe Ryan still being a young pitcher who is developing and tweaking his repertoire. Based on what I have read about him, he seems like a really smart guy who will actively look for ways to improve himself. We can only be encouraged by what this year has brought so far and we can hope it will continue if this is truly a team level approach. As for Joe Ryan, I think he's going to have a very long and very successful MLB career.

The original question was what is Royce Lewis' ceiling this year and beyond. This year is tough, but I expect a slightly above league average showing the rest of the year with solid defense at 3rd base. Beyond this year, I think his ceiling is Carlos Correa, maybe with a little more power and speed, but a little less defense. But then again. . . who knows?

The Twins front office did not sign a .200 hitter for $200 million. They signed a player with an exceptionally strong track record of being a solid hitter and stellar defender, probably to a contract he would have gotten elsewhere if his free agency were totally opened back up. He's been struggling for a while with plantar fasciitis (it's really unpleasant - I've had bouts of it on two different occasions), which has certainly not helped. If you're making .200 the over/under for Correa for the duration of his contract, I'll take the over on that all day long. He's got a track record. He will heal and improve. A bad third of a season doesn't take Correa from being a star to being a bum. Exactly true. There are plenty of issues with the offense. The absence of a table setter doesn't solve the problem. Pitching is MUCH more difficult to acquire than hitting. Now if they can only find some hitting!

Mid tier reliever Dan Schatzader, washed up Steve Carlton, and very useful Don Baylor. They weren’t swinging for the fences but they were actively engaged.

EVERY trade involves uncertainty and frequently one team "wins" the trade and another "loses" the trade based on the statistics that the players accrue. However, that simplistic analysis doesn't take into account the specific contribution made to the mix by a particular player in a particular situation at a particular point in time. It is impossible for the Twins or any other team to wind up on top of the trade every time, or even really most times. I think both the trades in the article fall into this category. Yes, Mahle got hurt and therefore didn't produce, but injuries are the great wildcard. Trade deadline deals are especially fraught with difficulty. Either a contender, desperate to remain a contender, overpays for a player that they think will put them over the top. OR a team with a pending free agent sells a player too cheaply because the market just isn't there in the right way (i.e. you have a third baseman and none of the teams in contention need one). At the end of the day, the best trades are the ones in which both teams realize value, or at least the value that they sought. That way, both teams live to trade again another day and we can see good healthy player movement from team to team.

Was the 1987 Twins team a juggernaut? They won the World Series that year. Remember this is the team that had Les Straker as their third starter. They had three hitters with really good years, Hrbek, Puckett, and Brunansky. Everyone else was league average or much worse -- Laudner at catcher was a 65 OPS+, Lombardozzi at 2nd was a 70, and Gladden in CF was a 76. By the standards set for last year's (and presumably this year's) team, they should have sold off pieces and rebuilt. At some point, you have to go for it. Only one team wins it all and 29 will have guessed wrong, so it's easy to be critical in hindsight. I'm glad they stuck with that 1987 team, because not only did they win with it, the foundation was set for the 1991 team that was definitely better. If I recall, they won the World Series that year as well.

I’m sure the Twins developmental staff does ask this question, but it still comes down to the right thing said at the right time from the right person when the player is just ready to hear it. All coaching (and band directing) is like that. If it wasn’t, I’d have fixed my golf swing a long time ago!

And the sun shines a little brighter this week. . . .

That last paragraph would certainly make the game exciting to watch!