FlyingFinn

Very few position players get drafted in the Rule 5 draft. Baddoo did but, after several people rued the Twins losing him, he faded in the Bigs (possible because he was forced to skip his continued development through the minors). Do not add him to the 40 man roster.

The way he started the season, to be the Twins MVP is incredible!

I would fine tune the challenges. You should have a much higher % of winning the challenge in the first 5 innings. Hitters who aren't good judges of strikes shouldn't even be allowed to challenge early. Catchers did fine but tell them to be sure that their early challenges are correct. Get more aggressive with challenges as the game goes one. The one problem I saw was running out of challenges late in games when an obvious challenge opportunity presented itself, in a crucial situation.

Some didn't, but I always thought it was a good gamble to draft the injured Prielipp in the 2nd round.

Yes, he is flying under the radar. That's because of his early season injury and the higher walk rate. The improvement was late in the year, great, but not everyone was still tuned in to see it. As @tony&rodney, said, next year will determine things for him.

It really is about player development, mostly for the top 25% or so of the minor league players. I love the minor league articles throughout the season but people get way too excited about great stats from guys like Rosario, McCusker, etc. becoming key major league players. While their hitting stats are good, if they are bad at in the field, their hitting stats have to be great at every level to make it as anything more than a brief look in MLB (often not even given more than a few AB's to "prove" they belong). Thus, the important guys to look at on the farm this year - hitters Jenkins, Culpepper, Houston did great. Rodriguez injured again. The problem this year was pitcher development as the Twins generally are not taking most of their pitching with the top pick. Thus, we need some Zebby Matthews type development. Sure Soto and Ellwanger were injured again and we traded Hill (not smart in my opinion). Prielipp and Quick were the two best stories on the pitching side. But it seemed we didn't advance many of our pitchers into what I call "important guys" in 2026. We should revamp our pitching coaches in the minor leagues as we don't have much of a pitching pipeline right now.

Who would have thought, Sonny Gray frustrated by his manager!

But without Taj Bradley, would our starters have been good enough to make the playoffs? And, if we really had an internal cap, keeping Duran probably means we don't have enough money for Bell. I just don't think standing pat would have made us good enough to make the playoffs.

Generally, the more defensive minded a team is, the more team speed it has. We need that as well.

4.74 ERA wins Twins minor league pitcher of the year. Ouch!

Love that LF defense by Rodriguez. Makes some of our other LF's look like they are running in cement. I wonder how many hits would have been outs had he been out there all season. Even though some want him traded, you can see the skills that excite people.

The DH will be more by committee in 2027 as we want to play Jenkins, Rodriguez, Buxton and Keaschall all at the same time and they belong in the OF or DH, when the OF is filled with the other three.

The Twins were very careful with Raya throughout his minor league career. They were successful in getting him healthy to get to the majors but not a high level to stay in MLB (yet, and it appears so for the future IMO). Not sure if that says the process was right or wrong.

No, Maki has done a good job. The bullpen was mostly AAA players to start the year and Lopez got hurt. There are young guys picking up the slack like Prielipp (pitching more innings than he has for years) and Morris. SWR and Ober just don't have the fastball for today's MLB.

And what would you be saying if Rodriguez got just the 5 AB's after being called up on September 1.......................