JD-TWINS

Definitely need more plate discipline - agree, comes with experience. Do need Kirilloff as well as a new talented bat to make our line-up SOLID through 6 guys. Assuming that guy is going to be Lee. That’s the kind of roster we have if Buxton can just hit .230 & bat 6th. Keep Kepler but drop him to 7th to stretch our line-up. ‘24 post-season line-up: Julien - Lee - Lewis - Kirilloff - CC - Buxton - Kepler - Jeffers - Wallner…….If Buxton can’t play OF I take a chance with Martin in CF & bat him 9th, as a 2nd lead-off type. Castro - Farmer - Vázquez - Martin on bench …………may re-sign Solano as insurance for depth & the first half while Lee & Martin mature through June at AAA. Maybe trade Solano or Farmer if it makes sense at the deadline? If we’re having success that’s a tough move in the clubhouse though!!

We traded Luis Arraez for a Marlin’s starter last year. Alcantara is out with Tommy John for ‘24. Luzardo is now their Ace. The skinny rookie phenom isn’t up to be traded! Who would trade a solid pitcher, Marlins or Mariners for Wallner???? I’d trade Wallner - Miranda - Sands ……….maybe be we get a 4th and starter for that group? I like Wallner - with another year of outfield refinement

Probably right - can’t hurt to see if the offer might fly. I don’t think his upside from here on out matches what we might get for $75M over 3 years. This year was most innings pitched for 8 years……he’s soon to be 34. Qualifying offer and then gaining a first round pick probably makes most sense.

Therefore, everyone else’s strikeout % would be lowered due to walks - sacrifices - errors - etc. I get it - been watching baseball for 55 years. Bottom line is that the Twins lead baseball in strikeouts. Must be reduced. I did put K totals next to the % so it’s easy to see the % for the individual of the Team’s whole total. We can debate whether acceptable level of % is 30% or 28% or 25%. We strike out way too much as a group and the shiny rookies that have better OBP are part of the problem as well, regardless of how many walks they draw or how many HBP they have. If I see Julien strike out looking, routinely taking pitches as if he’s Ted Williams, again next year I’ll have to start writing him personally. I realize his OBP is elite but he still doesn’t put the ball in play enough when making outs. Wallner has two big holes to attack in the zone (up & in ….. down & away) - and then, in his not big hole areas in the rest of the zone, he strikes out at a normal rate. Too many empty results in his PLATE APPEARANCES.

I’d offer Gray a 2 year deal for $26M/year…….a Team option for year 3 at $26M or a $4M buyout. This gives him a fair market offer for a 34 year old. Also, if he pitches well he gets a 3rd year or a goodbye present if $4M. That’s the simple OUT but I would prefer that same/similar deal offered to Jordan Montgomery of the Rangers. The Rangers have $ tied up in deGrom - Scherzer - Heaney - Eovaldi for ‘24 & they need bullpen help. Montgomery is a FA in a couple weeks. Would be good to get his experience and a left hander for our staff!! We could resign Maeda and let him be our fill the gaps starter & go with Lopez - Varland - Ryan - Ober - Paddack for our base staff. I understand completely the capability and great consistency that Gray brought to the Twins this year. The bottom line, we won only about 40+% of the games Gray started. If Varland can throw 30 starts and go 11–11 and we win 4 of his other 8 starts, we are ahead of the results we had with Gray this year. I think this is realistic - very realistic. Our team ERA will be higher - we may use a few more bullpen innings but the W-L’s could actually improve without Gray. Not saying Gray didn’t pitch well - saying that his talent & stats didn’t equate to a high win % in the games he started, whether or not he got a decision. Gray - Mahle - Maeda - Polanco - Gallo - the salary relief is $50M with these guys gone……….plenty of $ to pick up Montgomery or like pitcher & lower annual spending.

TV deal could strangle the team’s ability to get to next level. Gotta assume the club’s play is worth some TV revenue from some local source - worst case 60% of Bally’s number?? That’s $32M. Reasonable assumption? Am assuming the attendance got to 2 million plus a few after 4 playoff games……what’s that revenue worth? Gotta be millions in advertising $ attached to Twins - not sure how that flows to the club? I’m in Cincinnati and don’t know average Twins ticket cost - little feel at all. Is $40 plus as an average too high? That would mean they got to $85-90M for the year. Gotta be some radio revenue for 162 games per year………..$ number? Concessions & Merch?? $25M additional revenue……..maybe $15M net to Twins. Anybody have better, more refined & view of finances? Without considering revenue - knowing Club spent $153M on players roughly in ‘23………I was hopeful Twins would be willing to spend $150M going forward - maybe a stretch?

Taylor had 130 K’s - 37% of AB’s Gallo had 142 K’s - 51% of AB’s Larnach had 72 K’s - 39% Buxton had 109 K’s - 36% That’s 455 K’s between 4 guys………3 of which have a shot to not be on the club going forward. The % is the really alarming number. Julien had 128 K’s - 38% Wallner had 80 K’s - 38% Gotta get the numbers into the sub 30% range and we’d be markedly better!!

Exactly. Again, averaged 76 games per year in 7 of 8 previous seasons to the 85 games in ‘23. No reason to think the rest of his physique will be bullet proof if his knee gets better. I still think that if healed, he still can only play CF 25% of the time & DH 50% of the time. If we are more aggressive with his playing approach his chances of going on IL are about 100% - even with a load mgmt. plan his injury chances are about 90%………sad but pretty realistic.

Sonny Gray re-signed for $25-26M/year is a fair deal at 34 years old. Couple years with Team option for a 3rd? Watching Jordan Montgomery pitch for Rangers for 3rd time in playoffs this year…….they have $ tied up in deGrom - $ tied up in Eovaldi - $ tied up in Heany - $ tied up in Scherzer. Montgomery is a free-agent. $25M to a lefty with fresh playoff experience for 2-3 years could be a nice replacement for Mr. Gray??? The $ would come from Gray’s plus Mahle’s combined ‘23 salary. Interesting thought!

Any supposition on how things will turn out & how he’ll play or not next year is strictly guesswork/fantasy. As I stated somewhere else tonight, it is my assumption that his best case is 40 games in CF - 80 games at DH - 10 games as pinch hitter - 30 games off (20% of the schedule) ………..this doesn’t have anything to do with his surgical results - I guess it assumes success - but it relates to preserving his ability to be in the line-up. BEFORE ‘23 Byron played 140 games one year……….,the other 7 years he averaged 76 games per season. He played 85 games in ‘23. IF he’s got a reasonable knee spring of ‘24, if used the way he has been prior to ‘23, he’ll break down due to some unknown. Need to temper his efforts - needs rest - we all know we don’t NEED his defense, it’s just entertaining.

Sorry this is so harsh, but I mentioned in another post, that Celestino won’t ever wear a home uniform again in Minneapolis - gotta say I feel the same way about Miranda. Miranda can’t play the position he was groomed to play at 3B. Moving him to OF is a worthwhile experiment I guess. Don’t see him catching up to nor surpassing any of our existing outfield options. Defensively, in the Twins organization, he’s behind Julien and that’s not a good thing. He can’t hit. Celestino can’t hit. Larnach looks way better with way more upside at the plate and he can stay on big club because he can’t hit well enough. I realize guys can improve but the window is open for a brief time, particularly on a team that is trying to get to a World Series now, not in 4-5 years. Miranda’s issues may be linked to injury way more than has been communicated or broadcast - hope so, then he may have a chance to bounce back!

There’s a helluva cavern between Nick Gordon and Bellinger, nearly $30M……..,,side note, Celestino will never were a home uniform in Minneapolis again. Can’t imagine not bringing Taylor back for $5M range - if Buxton is healthy and Gordon & Castro are creating a log jam in CF at the end of Spring Training somebody gets traded. If Martin has a nice Spring then he becomes a LF & CF option on the big club.

So, would love to see Buxton come back! The real issue, to me is that if he comes back fairly strong after this new procedure, his history in 7 of his first 8 years is that he averaged 76 games per season. He finds all kinds of ways & all kinds of things to get injured. I still think he can only play 40 games in CF & DH 80 games & pinch hit in 10 games while resting 20% of season over the remaining 30 games. With this PLAN we may start to get true value for his contract but more importantly value in his performance!

Maki does deserve some serious credit. Easy to overlook the guy. I’d like to know if we could supplement his capabilities by poaching a staff guy (or some analytical equipment) from “Driveline” since they seem to have really helped a few of our pitchers profoundly. Seems like it would be a good hire - probably costly but I doubt there’s much more than a handful of guys affiliated with Driveline?? Worthwhile!!!

Why is Ryan being in or out a concern? We gave up 3 runs to the World Series Champs at home, pitching was fine no matter who was doing it………gotta score more runs to win the game. Period!

He sure seems to be a competitor out there on the mound - exciting to see! He’s got good stuff……rebuilt arms seem to hold up well (his 2nd time around) but with Paddack’s history there’s reason to be anxious. I would think that with Varland, we can get through the season giving each starter 2-3 week break at some point as needed. I like & respect Sonny Gray! Have no problem with re-signing him!! However, if we went 10-17 in games Gray started (probably missing a couple starts) one would have to think that Varland could get that many wins with a similar win % - right? Paddack should be able to get to .500 in his starts - right? With Ober - Ryan - Lopez - ……maybe Maeda re-signed - Varland it seems we have plenty of depth. We could seriously shift our full efforts on adding a bat if we vacate Gray - Mahle - Gallo - Polanco salaries ……that’s $45M from ‘23 to look around with. If things go a bit sideways, we could potentially pick up an arm at the deadline. Need an impact bat - maybe Lee can grow into this or maybe Buxton is all healed up but we can’t go into playoffs w/o some attempt to improve our offense.

Getting there & losing will create bitterness, a drive to achieve, a chip on their shoulder. Experience will help them overcome!

They lost 3-2 in the 4th of a five game series to the defending champions. “expeditious”? That said, I like Thielbar & Castro & Farmer all back for what they would save on releasing Polanco. Gordon is a good Spring Training guy & then trade if he isn’t going to make our roster (no options left). He should get a chance to compete for CF next spring. Don’t see him beating out Castro but they may carry both…….particularly if Farmer &/or Polanco are gone.

I don’t think your observation of how the team was/is built is accurate. Ober gave up a couple HR’s in his start but it was his first playoff start after his first full-time season as a starter. Not a terrible thing. Sonny Gray didn’t pitch well in 2nd Series - can’t give up 4 runs in first inning but this was preceded by an excellent outing against a tough Toronto club. Joe Ryan looked good in game 4. Probably the biggest misconception is that we were forced to use our Pen & that bit us! Our manager, rightfully so, laid out a plan that would utilize the number of fresh arms we had in the Pen. Thielbar gave up a hit to Alvarez (who hit nearly .500 for series) and struck out Tucker. Then he made a pitch that he says he would throw in the same spot, the same way, 100 times. Abreu made a good swing on a good pitch - it happens. Our Pen then held the Astros scoreless for the next 5 plus innings. We were a break away from winning Game 4 & forcing Houston to face Pablo Lopez again. The AB stats make sense in that the norm for a typical FULL season is 550 plus AB’s. It’s ridiculous to think our platoon system is why we didn’t have guys get nearly that many AB’s! Lewis & Polanco & Kirilloff …….3 core starters, were all on the IL at the season’s start. Kirilloff came late April - Polanco early May - Lewis late May. All 3 guys would go back on IL later in the season. Buxton played 85 games. Kepler was hurt (on IL) in May with a bad toe. Taylor was out with a bad hamstring - IL. Castro out with bad back & then paternity leave. Farmer got hit in the face - a month on IL. Wallner is a rookie. Julien is a rookie. The catchers are the only true platoon guys we have………the rest of the guys were filling in for the regulars who, unfortunately were hurt & unable to play regularly. Tough to get 500 plus AB’s if you can’t play.

Nobody comes back from a re-hab assignment without hitting full blown aggressive live pitching. There was nothing lacking in the Team’s ability to assess whether Buxton was ready to go Wednesday - he just got jammed with a good fastball.

We played Baltimore tough over 2 series. We beat the Rangers 5 of 7……we beat the Astros 4 of 6 ……..played the Jays & Mariners even. Boston & NY had no advantage. We had core guys hurt for big chunks of the year & still won our Division. The “we can only compete because we’re in the Central” is bologna!!

I think you maybe missed Scott Erickson - #2 in Cy Young voting in ‘91. Off the top of my head: Battey - C………back-up Harper Killebrew - 3B……..back-up Gaetti Versailles - SS………back-up CC Knoblach -2B…………back-up Polanco Hrbek - 1B…………..back-up Power Mack - LF…………..back-up Allison Puckett - CF…………back-up Hall Oliva - RF…………..back-up Brunansky Lewis - DH…………back-up Baylor Staff: Erickson - Viola - Morris - Kaat - Blyleven Aguliera - Reardon - Duran………………

I don’t think the Team nor the season were anywhere near perfect. However, we had a real chance to win Game 4 in the ALDS & certainly had better than a punchers chance, with Pablo throwing along with the recently reconstructed bullpen, in a Game 5. Can we agree on that? If so, we would meet the Rangers, who we won 5 of 7 games from in the last 30 days along with home field advantage. Obviously, we can compete with that club! So we weren’t near perfect but advancing in the playoffs is all about winning one more game than your opponent. With a fair share of games lost to injury spread across some key (line-up core) roster guys, we managed to stay competitive through most of the year. The wish list for an RBI guy - power guys - #1 or #2 starter - couple solid bullpen guys - etc. etc. - it’s not fantasy baseball! One writer thinks we only score station to station - we tied for league lead in homers - come on!! Our pen got weak through the year, Gallo was a failed experiment, Varland wasn’t ready to step in the 5th starter role………I’m sure, outside of the injuries to core guys in the line-up, there were other negatives. In the end we gave away the 162nd game of the year and were 8 games from 95 wins, which will win any Division 8 times out of 10 seasons. We can’t have a line-up that leads the league in K’s and expect we have the plate discipline to win tight games against good pitching. Per “MLB Network Experts” we need 4 impact players to compete in World Series and we have 2 (CC & Lewis)……..if Kirilloff is healthy he has this potential. If Buxton is healthy (long shot) he has the potential to be that. Hopefully, Lee has this potential. Julien is young but has enough bat to ball skills & pop & OBP to potentially get to be an impact guy. Wallner - Kepler - Jeffers - Castro - Farmer - Solano are all contributors but not guys that can be leaned on hard. Bottom line is there are no perfect teams & we need a couple changes in our line-up to beat the other big boys. We may have one or two answers that can come from internal options? Mahle - Maeda - Polanco - Gray - Gallo salaries add up to $50M plus so we should be able to get a starter for Staff depth & a supplemental bat, if we choose. We got a start this year with youth & some guys that are around for another handful of years - seems like a good culture & a cohesive group.

He has a contract & they are on the hook for 2 more years. He’s a good defender - good guy - not statistically as good as he once was at the plate but a good 2nd option. Nobody will trade for his offense & pay him $10M unless a first string guy gets hurt and they are desperate - very doubtful. He can start 35-40% of our games the next couple years - somebody has to spell Jeffers. He’s a great bench/clubhouse guy and he handles pitchers well. He’s not a big part of our problems! World Series winner with experience & a great attitude. Would like to see him get in better shape and it may help his play?

I agree. Bat to ball skills, particularly in tight situations, is what wins games! Need base runners - need to drive guys in when in scoring position. We tied for league lead in HRs……don’t see a need for some big power hitter/RBI guy like Alonso! He hit 46 HR & his average was .217 - not the answer. Wallner needs to get better or get moved next year. Need to make room for switch hitting Lee in the infield by mid-year next year. Lewis in OF may help strengthen line-up as a whole?Kirilloff needs to be healthy and he’s that RBI - bat to ball guy in middle of line-up. A guy like Lee hitting 6th would really lengthen our line-up. I think we take the Gallo - Maeda - Mahle - Gray - Polanco $ available after this year & re-invest in pitching - STARTER……maybe Gray? $50-$52 million available between those salaries from this year’s total. I really like and appreciate Donovan Solano but if we keep, as expected, Castro - Farmer - Taylor……..we may want our other guy to have more “potential pop” & additional speed off the bench. Donny was solid & there’s no perfect roster so resigning him and replacing him mid-season with youth may be a good move. Never can assume health - need capable depth!!