PatPfund

Projections are great offseason fodder, and pretty meaningless once real pitches are thrown and bats swung, and balls chased. Still it is the offseason, and it's nice to have a data-based guess for now. And a reminder that this team actually has a LOT of talent. (My favorite part of the summary is that there is no mention of Mickey Gasper projections!)

There is zero reason to play Lewis at 2B right now. (Last year that started because Santana pushed Miranda off 1B, Miranda was hitting too well to not play, and moving Lewis to 2B freed up the jam without locking that trio to a DH rotation). Nobody at 1B in the current organization has the ability to push Miranda off 1B, meaning there is no need other than rest/DH days for Lewis to come off 3B (and for the first time since before the pandemic, it would be nice to let the young man learn to play through a full season). (If I were thinking another position for Lewis, it would be LF, but only if his knees are stable, and really only after a healthy 2025 is over. Dude needs some stability first.) I get it is offseason, and most everyone looks mainly at last year's, but development isn't always linear; Eddie Julien in particular has been a fairly elite hitter at every level (including his rookie MLB season), and I'd pick him for a big bounce-back. (Even if you want him "traded", you should want that, because if he smells like last year, the difference in a trade versus releasing him will be marginal.) I can see him backing up Lee at 2B, Miranda at 1B, and DHing, but only if he earns his way back onto the MLB roster. Castro can help all over, but I still think he is the most likely to be traded if the Twins make a sizable move. An additional move I'd make with the current roster is to work Larnach out at 1B as a lefty backup to Miranda; that both gives insurance if Julien blows chunk again, and it gives Larnach's dangerous bat a lineup spot beyond DH if/when Rodriguez forces his way to the majors.

Guess baseball is great then! Or... maybe the issue isn't stupid future owners, but a future where a change in economy finds a struggling owner and a franchise made unsellable by huge deferrals on an old/retired player. (Sort of like the current Twins ownership whose financial foundations may have flipped upside down with the collapse of downtown commercial real estate. Where what used to be a gold mine becomes a financial black hole.) And maybe it doesn't matter how payroll matches inflation, but how it matches income. MLB attendance peaked in 2009, and last year's post-pandemic high of 71.3 million is still 8,000,000 lower than the high water mark. Most clubs including the local one are taking serious media revenue hits. At any rate, I look forward to the series!

Looking forward to the series. Deferrals are big (I think Paddack makes three times Ohtani's actual payout this year, and current ownership in LA may be spending a future owner's money). The system probably needs a spending floor as well (some teams are taking shared revenue without using it to be competitive). Plus the media contract mess. (And constantly growing contract spending with the public interest stagnant at best, which is a disconnect that can only go on for so long.)

Like this, because it gives some solid perspective. But... You can't totally discount the lockout year, because several teams DID act early in making deals before the league shuttered transactions. Plus, "top free agents" don't always sign early; ask Bregman about that, or some Boras clients who waited until late, then settled for short contracts with opt-outs. The deadline also fits today's date, but the pressure starts before Feb 1; the Twins essentially scored Carlos Correa twice by waiting (the Boras thing, then after the big spenders backed out, on Carlos's current deal). It is also worth looking around at others playing the game; the Twins COULD have signed Lorenzen last year for roughly Margot money, and they likely win the division if they do (he pitched well was flipped for assets at the trade deadline, and then helped another team in our division make the playoffs).

I guess I don't mind them trying stuff in ST with Sands. (I never liked the idea with Jax, because he's slighter in build, seems prone to wearing down, and doesn't seem wild about it himself; he would know more than anyone how much extra juice came from restricting his innings.) Sands is slightly taller and 25 pounds heavier; maybe he can take the extra load. But... I think the OP undersells the potential drop in velocity; it is likely (based on Sands' past history) to be more like 2-4 mph than 1-2. My recollection of Sands a couple years ago, is that he was best when he got ahead on offspeed/breaking stuff. If he didn't command that, and he had to throw the fastball when the batter could guess that, he got ripped. Take 2-4 off, and I can see that happening again.

Interesting players are all over, but I just don't see the fit here. Our cheap, young left-hitting outfielders had MLB 'OPS+'s of 116 (Larnach) and 149 (Wallner) last year with no sign it was a fluke. We have another lefty OF at AAA who is one of the top prospects in all of baseball. And 104 as a breakout doesn't really cut it at 1B.

Sure, some of this sounds great, but I think offense was hurt more missing Correa for a big chunk of the season, pretty bad seasons from players meant to be key contributors (Julien, Kepler, Margot, and during the collapse Lewis found out slumps do happen while Miranda's back injury left him punchless). The two bigger problems for me are a pitching rotation that was 60% rookie at the end (one of whom was clearly not ready yet), a blown 'pen, and mediocre to bad defense. That last in particular lies at the manager's feet; the lack of fundamentals, the moving of players all over the place, the player comments coming out of the clubhouse in September, Rocco's own clueless non-specific 'Hey we need to play better' comments all speak to a void the manager should be filling. The fact his main answer seems to be diversifying the offense rather than an overall fundamental approach (pitching, defense, then yep a diversified offense) isn't great; if you have to score 5 runs a game to win most days, and your fundamentals are weak, you've got problems hot streaks at the plate can't cure. I'm pretty sure the only thing that kept Rocco from being canned was the pending sale of the team (and a 'let the new owner pick his management' philosophy). Rocco should manage this year as if his job is on the line, because it likely is.

Martin is a symbol of two franchise trends that drive me nuts. 1) 'Hey, let's bring in crappy veterans at the end of their career to block better prospects!' 2) 'Hey' (says Rocco) 'let's move players all over the place sacrificing defense so I can play L/R hitting matchups more often!' A couple years ago, Matt Wallner spent far more time in the minors than he should have, because Joey Gallo was blocking him off the roster. Last year, Martin was flat out better than Margot at almost everything, but getting regular reps, especially regular reps at one position was a lost cause with the need to get Manuel playing time. And now we still have Martin questions. So, yeah, play him a ton of CF, keep him in the OF, and don't sign another crappy roster-blocker. By mid-season we'll know a lot more, and if it doesn't work, OF is one of the cheaper/easier things to fix in-season (hell, the Braves replaced their whole outfield and won the World Series a few years ago).

That probably is up to your cable provider; my best guess is if your current service includes a package of regional sports networks (like FanDuel), Twins.tv will slot into that package. If not, you might need to balance an upgrade versus just streaming the Twins. Your provider may not have the details yet, but ultimately they'd be the ones making the final coverage calls.

Look. Trade Wallner or Larnach to upgrade the team, sure. But the obsession about too much LH hitting is foolish. We don't need to ditch useful bats just because they hit LH and are "corner outfielders". (This just in; corner outfielders are only 2/9 of a lineup.) Say we face a lefty; you can field a lineup with either catcher (or even Camargo), Miranda, Lee, Correa, Lewis, Castro/Martin, Buxton, and Wallner. 8 RH bats, one lefty (a REALLY powerful lefty).

It is the offseason, so you can raise 'what if' questions about any position on the field, and most require a lot fewer 'what ifs' than 2B. Sort of "What if Lee, Julien, Castro, Martin, Helman, Keaschall don't work out, 'cause then we have a problem?" As opposed to "What if Buxton gets hurt?" or "What if Correa gets hurt?" or "What if Lopez gets hurt?" or "What if Lewis gets hurt regardless of where he plays in the field?" That last one is my biggest actual worry about 2B, because I think moving Lewis - a bat the Twins MUST have healthy and in the lineup to succeed this year, and somebody who has already had two major knee injuries - to 2B is the most foolish idea since moving Sano to the OF. 2B is a position that features a LOT of playing with your back to baserunners, and physical pivots; it features the shortest physical height average in sports (because you have to be nimble to survive), and it regularly devours its players with gruesome knee injuries (ask Utley or Pedroia about that). Lewis would be one of the largest 2B in MLB this season, and an injury waiting to happen. No. Please.

We'll see about Ryan. The other two were never claimed by me to have a cap other than by useage history, but the reason doesn't matter. If you can only average 5 innings (or less) that is major innings for the bullpen to cover. If multiple starters are doing that regularly, that is a problem. You left them out in your comments, but SWR made 28 starts (and essentially saved the year for a while), but he averaged under 5 IP per start with a marked weardown at the end (he never made it to 5.0 IP after August 21), and Paddack, well... is Paddack. You don't have to agree, but my main burning bullpen question remains as I stated.

If you mean you'll be able to watch Twins' home games with a regular MLB.tv subscription (and without the extra-legal use of VPN to hide your location) instead of an MLB.tv + Twins.tv combo, I hope you are right, and if you (as exPat) don't live in the area, that might be true. But local fans like myself will almost certainly have to pay a premium for live home games on top of the base MLB.tv subscription (or the Twins are terrible at business). (Though we should also be able to skip the MLB.tv part if we just want Twins.)

Because Ryan is coming off a shoulder injury, and barely pitched the last third of the season; pitchers are often capped under those conditions (even assuming he is as effective and doesn't re-injure himself). Because Festa (by usage as mentioned) threw more than 5.0 innings exactly once in 13 starts and one bulk appearance (not for lack of pitches; he is terribly inefficient, which is a known issue with him). Matthews? Because he never made it past 5.0 even once in his 9 starts, and five times failed to get that far. (The Twins went 3-6 in those starts, while Zebby compiled a 6.69 ERA, and looked talented, but unready for MLB.)

We were rated at the top last year, but injuries and and churn in the rotation (we were down to Lopez, Ober, and 3 rookies for something like a third of the season) washed out much of the impact of decent relief pitching. 2025 starts with a rotation that has at least one starter under a IP cap (Ryan), and another under Severe Injury Watch and an IP cap (Paddack), plus one that wore down last year (SWR). The top two replacements by 2024 usage (Festa and Matthews) likely have in-game and season inning caps as well. So my top two burning questions are: 1. Will rotation churn wipe out the bullpen again? 2. Can Rocco master the use of a long reliever (something his tinker-constantly impulses have pretty much prevented so far, but something a stretched out Varland might be good for)? (And OK, health, but I'd put Topa in there as much a Stewart.)

For sure, I'd give him a taste in Spring Training with a planned start in St Paul, and let his pitching determine next moves.

MLB.tv was required to blackout most local games due to contracts between the teams and various regional broadcasters. As teams move to MLB as their broadcaster (as the Twins have done) the blackout restriction goes away, so... If you live in the Twins' local area, it sounds like you would sign up for Twins streaming if you want to watch (almost) all of their games live, and if you want to see Twins and others, you sign up for MLB.tv. (If you don't live in the Twins local zone, you can just do MLB.tv and watch them since you are 'out of market'. The only exception is if you are located in a team-with-a-blackout-regional-sports-network contract (then you can watch all Twins' games except those against your "home" team). (I actually held on to a crappy internet service for a couple extra years, because the server was based in Chicago, so the Twins were 'out of market' according to MLB.tv unless they were playing the Pale Hose or Cubs.) @Original_JB as a regular MLB.tv subscriber, I'd bet money you will need to add a +Twins package to watch local games live on MLB.tv. Away games are likely free with your package, and you can watch home games once they are archived (about a couple hours after broadcast ends). @LambchoP my experience is not only that you get available spring training games on MLB.tv, but they tend to offer them even to non-subscribers to lure people into subscribing for the season. But the key word there is "available". Broadcasters don't televise almost every game as they do once the season starts; still fun to get peeks at your team's prospects, and the number of games shown goes up as ST progresses. Random thoughts: 1. The Twins are NOT the broadcaster, MLB is; that means any rough estimates of team "profits" should be scaled back. The reason the Twins stuck with a bankrupt RSN last year is even the crummy deal looked better than MLB's offer. 2. At the very least, this is at least a model than provides some incentive to make the team better (for the new owner if not the Pohlads); the better the team, the more interested fans, the more subscription revenue). 3. I'll miss Smalley, but then I'm old enough to have seen him play for the Twins. 4. Looks like I'll get to see more live Twins games this year. (Now I just have to figure out if MLB.tv is back or not, though the minor league game broadcasts are addictive enough I might have to re-up there, too.)

The Twins don't have the pitching depth to even worry about this. One of the top three is coming off a serious shoulder injury and likely has an innings limit. #4 hasn't approached anything like a healthy season since 2019. SWR had a solid rookie year, but showed signs of wearing down at the end. The only pitcher you list in AAA that looks MLB ready is Festa, and even if he starts there (as Ober did two years ago), I have no doubt he'll be in the MLB rotation quickly due to injury (Ryan/Paddack?) or regression (SWR?) as Ober was two years ago. Zebby clearly needs more work in the minors, and Raya has rarely pitched more than 5 innings as a pro. Plus, there is also evidence (there was a recent Athletic article about the Dodgers' potential six-man) that lots of pitchers pitch worse on an extra day's rest. So, yeah it is possible, but this team needs to pray for general health, and use its minor league "depth" to spot spell IP limited starters, (And hope some of the other AAA assets like Adams and Morris step up. If they don't, and/or something happens to Lopez or Ober, we might be blackly laughing at SP depth articles by mid-May.

Great article defining the different systems for calculations. Skipping to the nub of the recent series on the Pohlad series (or some basic deduction from the fact the Pohlads' main business is now downtown commercial real estate, and recent stories on how the bottom has dropped out of similar businesses), I think (emphasis on I) what matters to ownership right now is real dollars they have to spend now and this year, not when it was actually spent or how future/past spending accounts for this year. I think they want to keep the value of their for-sale asset as intact as they can (to maximize return) without adding costs they can't recover in a sale as extra value. That fits with the holding pattern of retaining their arbitration players, while adding nothing substantial. Strip the null words off the statements, and you get a strong sense "we can do this forever" while hoping internally they really, really don't have to.

Castro makes the most sense as a trade candidate (unless you make a deal for Larnach or Wallner), because his flexibility has broad appeal, his salary is big enough to matter to the Twins but not many other teams, and he actually had a good year last year so there is actually a chance to return value. Throw in Tonkin on the Milwaukee deal (they get a cheap serviceable MLB RP in addition to the everyday player, we open a guaranteed salary slot for the new guy in the 'pen.

Apropos of nothing, @tony&rodney, I adore your screen name. First Twins debate I ever had was with my brother over the best Twin (I was an Oliva guy, Michael a Carew backer; no wrong answers there).

Polemics aside (and there is a LOT of that here; interest rates are only "high" now if you ignore historic context and the fact they "soared" in the early '20's from zero aka free money, and money can't remain free without destroying the value of that money including the money that makes up retired worker pensions), the series essentially boils down to Carl was an unpleasant businessman, and (most importantly) even though his kids may not be as bad, the collapse of downtown real estate (see recent stories on Madison Equities in St Paul or the Strib's look yesterday at Mpls) is likely driving the sale of the Twins. There is likely need for some liquidity, or at least stability in the face of other (big) concerns. The last paragraph, though, is pure gold. That indeed is our system, except I'd add a third option to screaming or fighting, and that is to emotionally opt out. Ultimately sports are a diversion, and there are a LOT of diversions out there. (Enough baseball fans are opting out emotionally that the sport at some point may have a reckoning between nine-figure contracts, and shrinking popular interests, the same way real estate is dealing with big mortgages and shrinking occupancy rates.)

Until there is an end to the offseason there is always a potential path. One might be the team changing hands quickly, the new owners authorizing a payroll increase, and the Twins sign Flaherty and Santander, trade Julien and Vasquez for a solid LH relief arm, move Paddack to the bullpen as a power arm, and find out Buxton, Correa, Miranda, and Lewis all had great offseasons and report healthy and ready to go. I'd call that a great offseason. (And why issue "grades" even once Spring Training starts? Only the regular season will tell on so-called grades. Remember the ones that gave the Twins an A for trade deadline moves a couple years ago, and gave Chicago and Cleveland Fs? The same Chicago and Cleveland that blew past the Twins after "Failing" the trade deadline?)

So Gasper is older than Helman, plays worse defense at fewer positions, is shorter, and would be an underwhelmingly weak bat at 1B especially with RH hitting Miranda on the roster. If he is rated as better than Helman by the Twins, they are just stupid. Though both could probably be waived without getting claimed, and neither has shown they are MLB players yet. Cartaya isn’t a top prospect any more and was dumped for a lottery ticket for a reason; he can’t hit upper minors pitching. So Camargo isn’t getting waived (traded maybe but not waived); Cartaya has an option as well so he probably makes it through camp and gets sent down. I also don’t see them dumping the pitchers you mention, because they have upside and may get claimed. Tonkin, Funderburk, and Headrick are all fungible talents you could waive and have a decent chance of them not getting claimed, or just replace them with someone else if you need spots ahead of ST.