BsuNemo

Gray, Lopez, Mahle, Ryan, Ober would have been fun to see for a year... Still have to score runs though.

A lineup of Miranda at first, Lee at second, Correa short, Lewis third, Wallner right, buck center, Larnach left, jeffers catching With Castro, Vasquez on the bench is competitive - everyone else is tradeable Pitching with Lopez, Ryan, Ober... Jax Duran and Alcala - is competitive. Everyone else is tradeable. This leaves us with 11 spots to fill either via trade or from within. Those 11 spots plus staying healthy will determine if we are competitive or better than that.

If we have this many players "fail down the stretch" maybe it's bigger than the players. I was trying to think of one hitter we've developed that has had major success through the minors and sustained success in the majors... Lewis maybe? It's definitely not anyone else on the team right now. It makes me worried about players like Rodriguez and Jenkins. It's not AK (.904 OPS over 7 minor league seasons - .728 majors) Miranda might be closer ( .777 OPS eight minor league seasons, .707 majors) Larnach (6 seasons minors .838, .726 majors) Wallner is fairly close(BA minors .271, majors .251, he's nearly identical in slugging and OBP) .886 minors .856 OPS Julien .904, .732 Jeffers .839, .737 Martin .760, .670 IF new owners come in and can't or don't want to spend more money - then we better develop the players we have. It doesn't feel normal for players to drop 100 points consistently as they make the final jump. It's not like we can say well this one guy is just a AAAA player... It's nearly every player this organization has developed over the last 6 plus years. I just don't think it's normal and that's where I'd start as a new owner...why spend more money if there's talent to be unlocked right here and the current manager isn't doing that. (also why are our top minor league players taking 6 plus years to make it to the majors) 🤷‍♂️

"trade for players or find players across baseball that help us..." like Richards? Really!? Come on man. This starts from top down..... 🤷‍♂️

It seems to be a management/FO theme. I truly think some of it goes back to how they go about spring training and some of it goes by what the manager puts in their head.

Twins late September signing of Trevor Bauer for league minimum along with stellar performances from Lopez and Ober led them to their 2024 world series championsh....beep beep beep beep... damn alarm, time to get up and go to work....... 🤣😂🤣

It's fun when you can see a future that could be elite while watching some from the recent-past minor leaguers (Lewis, walner, Julien, swr, alcala and now Festa and mathews) keep us in contention now.

Max has never been extremely passionate about baseball. It's like he sees it as his job, but not his life. It may be a job he well enjoys but he has even said he has had moments where it has caused him some mental health issues. Maybe he's willing to take a two year deal with a lower salary to stay here and then if he feels like two more years and he'll be ready to hang it up. Maybe moving elsewhere for two years isn't worth the hassle of uprooting his family. It would be great to see him end his career here.

He's one good off speed pitch away from being a solid #3 or a dominant closer in 2025. Right now he's a power arm that doesn't have the endurance. Let's roll varland 7th, Jax 8th Duran 9th right now!

I guess I'd say more wins are a higher probability than more losses if you put someone in that gives you a better chance to win... Which it sounds like most people think varland would be... I mean could we say that we'd have more wins if buck and c4 were healthy? Not for sure but a higher chance than we'd have more losses right? I feel the same with varland. As for your bullpen game scenario... Maybe you're right. Maybe we'd just be better with rolling the dice with Dobnak and see if he can get thru 3 or 4 then varland 2 or 3? In all honesty, if we get to that point, especially if it's Ober or Lopez that goes down... We better just be in a place on offense to out score the other team. That would be a scary (in a bad way) scenario!

It's great that we've played as well as we have through the injuries that we've had but it's also okay to say we should have two to three more wins this month. Would varland have helped in the pen in one or two or all three that's hard to say but probably... My biggest question is, it seems that there's a fairly high amount of confidence that varland would improve our bullpen... What's the drop off like between varland and whomever would be our fill in starter if need be? Because if that gap is smaller than our confidence level in him out of the pen then he should be in the pen and we should roll with Dobber or Morris or even have a pen day with varland starting. With how bad Varland has been the second and third time thru the lineup I'd say dobnak/Morris could do just as well in a spot start. Let's get him throwing gas in the 7th/8th inning now.

I see Glen Perkins when I watch varland.

We could've offered him 100 mil - he wasn't staying. You can make up whatever reasons you want.

Rocco's best pitcher last year wasn't allowed to pitch into the 6th. He left because of that and without him our pitching staff has fallen farther than any other staff from last year to this year. Francona didn't pinch hit his best players. Didn't have his best pitcher not willing to resign with he team because of his analytics. You prove my point. Francona used both and did it very well. The team you are seeing this year is the fruit of his labor just as baldelli benefitted from the team and players molitor built his first year. We won't agree, and that's fine but this team would be better than they are with a different approach by a different manager. Zero doubt in my mind.