Beast

Well, he’s not wrong. It’s malpractice to go into the year with Paddack and Varland penciled into the rotation. It doesn’t matter what people believe or think about those two. This is what losing poverty franchises do, rationalize however you want.

No. I expect Correa to be better once healthy. He was our best player in the playoffs while injured, and is the only Twins player I’ve seen in 20 years that didn’t curl into the fetal position in the playoffs. He’s a legit piece. Lewis won’t sustain what he’s done thus far. Not to say he’s not a really good player, but I think the expectations for him going forward are a little off the rails. IF he can stay healthy (big if), he may be a legit piece. I’m not convinced he’ll stay healthy. Buxton is only as good as the number of games he can play in CF. He’s just not that great at the plate to be a “championship core” piece while DHing. Talking about this squad and championships in the same breath is a waste of time. If you would’ve asked me after the season if it’s possible with this core, I would’ve said they still need to invest in a big time hitter and pitcher, and clean out some of these guys that folded like origami in the playoffs. Knowing now that they’re unwilling to make anything that even resembles that level of investment, I think it’s much more likely that I die or the world ends before I see this team win a World Series. Absolutely no shot.

Seems like a good idea to let a Cy Young Award finalist walk because you think you might be able trade some negligible trade value for a worse starting pitcher. What could go wrong there? “The plan.” That makes it sound like they had a choice, or think they can di better than a Cy Young finalist for $25 million. In reality, they won’t pay the money. There is no “plan.”

I don’t think it’s a mystery. They’re not playing 3D chess, here. They’re trying to get out ahead of it now, hoping the bad taste it leaves fans and season ticket holder wears off by spring training. Same reason why major negative news always gets dumped on Friday. People have the attention span of a vegetable these days, and they know it. They also need to align it as closely as possible with their “historic playoff run.” Look at all the cover that’s run for them on this website alone. “They’re not cheap and only concerned about the bottom line, it’s a genius organizational long game philosophy that’s won them absolutely nothing….but wait for it. You wouldn’t understand unless you’re a true MN ball guy that faults ownership for nothing.”

It is a bad thing that they’re likely to seek only “complementary” guys (you put it kindly). Guys like Brock Stewart (who had a flashy ERA, but hardly pitched and gave up a couple monster HRs in the playoffs) are the exception. The odds of you finding someone good off the scrap heap are very low. It’s a losing strategy. That’s why the teams that win most often usually don’t employ it as their primary means of player acquisition.

I mean, it’s worth a conversation, but let’s be honest. Dealing

The ripple effect is huge. First, when a team comes out and publicly says, we’re more concerned about $20-30 million dollars than winning. Who the hell is going to want to play here? We lament players opting to sign elsewhere for the same or less money….this is why. What do you think that does the clubhouse? Imagine your boss came into work and said, “huge project coming up, figure out how to get it done. Oh, that help we talked about? yeah, we decided we’d rather clear an extra $20k and tack it on to our executive bonus package. I don’t really care if you succeed or fail, I’m getting a corvette.” How hard are you going to want to work? How much more likely are you to want out? Whether it materializes or not, they already said it in the media. How freaking dumb is that? Unbelievably poor management and long-term business strategy on all fronts. What a **** show.

The trade articles have been hot any heavy since the FO basically said big name FOs are out of the question. But, if they won’t sign a free agent to a significant contract, why would they trade for somebody with a significant contract? They’re just not trading for Glasnow, Alonso, Corbin Burns, etc. I get that articles about which utility guy they’ll sign for a 1 year for $5 aren’t going to generate the clicks….but that’s what we’re looking at. You know it’s going to be exciting when they come out say what they did immediately after the season ends. They wouldn’t say that willy nilly.

Having a top 10 roster before free agency doesn’t mean much when the FO already came out and said they’re not signing anybody significant. That will change, possibly significantly. For this premature, meaningless ranking of rosters that aren’t finished to come to fruition, we need to find a way to keep some of these players on the field. Not sure if that’s factored into the projections. But, Lewis and Buxton missing weeks to months at a time nursing hamstrings, etc. is a big issue.

I’m hearing an awful lot about lower revenues, operating losses, etc. The numbers on the income statement mean nothing for an MLB baseball team in terms of available resources. There is so much non-cash crap running through there (depreciation, amortization, deferred, and unrealized items). The items I want to see on their financials that will tell me what they can really afford: Balance sheet, Cash Flow Statement and Statement of Retained Earnings. People make it sound like they have to decrease payroll or risk some sort of insolvency. That’s absolutely absurd. They could run a payroll much larger they are and still be making money hand over fist. They use numbers accounted for on a different basis to fit the “affordability” narrative. I see the defenders switch from cash basis, to accrual basis, to whatever meaningless pile of numbers they can to paint a picture. It’s disingenuous financial analysis. In reality, the average MLB team value went up 12% in 2022. They bought the team for $44 million. They’ve earned nearly $1.5 billion in unrealized gains sitting in retained earnings. That number doesn’t get factored into what they can afford, and the argument is “noncash.” In the same breath, people will say, “they’re not cheap they had an operating loss last year.” That includes all sorts of noncash stuff. You need to the full picture, which nobody has. What’s the EBIDTA? Bet it’s nowhere near a loss. What’s the owners draw from the company every year? Bet it’s pretty healthy. People like to talk like they’re so sure of the financial situation of this team, but have no idea what these numbers mean and how businesses actually accumulate value. Freaking Amazon operates at a loss every year while Jeff Bezos has created a net worth of $150 Billion. Would you buy it if they told you they had to cut salaries next year because they might lost a little bit of revenue that’s relatively insignificant to the companies actual value? It’s insulting for them to come out and say “we can’t afford this or that, but everyone come spend absurd percentages if you disposable income on $12 cans of beer and tickets to watch us lose every GD year.” All while they increased the cost of buying anything in Hennepin County by .15% to pay for their stadium, which increased their personal net worth by hundreds of millions. Just a little perspective from my career experience. I don’t blame them for making money and being frugal, good for them. That’s how you make money in business. But, all of the “they’re not cheap - look at the operating loss” I’ve been hearing lately is based on a false premise.

He may be “worth it” in terms of the analytics used to determine a players value. That’s in a vacuum. The Twins aren’t going to be spending a ton of money. I’d prefer to see those resources allocated elsewhere. For example, maybe somebody who can hit a little, so we’re not pinch hitting with Willy Castro with the bases loaded in the playoffs. Maybe somebody that can be used in a relief role the in the playoffs outside of 2 blowout losses, and do that while performing a bit better than 3 ERs over 4 innings with a negative WPA. There seems to be this belief that our bullpen was nails in the playoffs. Duran, Jax, Pagan, and Paddack were great. Stewart was good outside of the bomb to Alvarez. Everyone else stunk pretty badly. I’d rather not rely on Pagan in high leverage roles going forward and Paddack is going to want to start. That leaves 3 bullpen arms that have proven they can shut down good hitters in the playoffs going forward, assuming they are healthy. Duran’s health scares me, a human body can only throw 104 for so long - we saw him crack a bit down the stretch. Stewart hardly pitched. Jax is a freaking roller coaster ride. I’d feel a lot better adding one, stable, fairly high impact arm to the back of that bullpen and let Maeda walk.

I’ll be surprised if they do anything significant. Maybe they try to bring back Gray on a team friendly, short-term deal. But I think he cashes in one last contract somewhere else. There is zero chance at someone like Snell, Nola, etc. Not happening. I could see a cheap, short term deal for a veteran. Something to the Rich Hill deal a few years back. My guess is they let Sonny walk, bump everyone up, and backfill the back end of the rotation with a cheap free agent or internally. I could see a prove it deal for an injury case like Severino, Paxton, or Montas. An underachiever like Flaherty or Keller. Lopez, Ryan, and Ober are locked in. Paddack will be given every opportunity. I’d guess Varland will also. SWR is taking up a 40 man spot. They won’t run him off without another chance. What I’d like them to do, realistically, is sign someone like Lorenzen or Heaney, and also bring back Mahle. That’s about the max I can actually see them doing.

Getting beat 3 games to 1 in the division series is not a postseason run.

3-3 in the postseason with 2 wins coming at the hand of an absolute hammer of a SP does not make him a successful manager. Im not even saying he isn’t, but good grief we have a low bar around here.

Jose Abreu is a husk of what he used to be. He has a .680 OPS this year while being protected by Alvarez and Tucker. He’s not good. Brantley is a punchless singles hitter that has hit 20 home runs in his last 1,000 ABs (not plate appearances, at bats). Good hitter, but has only hit more than 20 HRs one time in his career. He’s now a legless 37 year old. The fact that these guys “killed us” is an indictment on the Twins, and merely demonstrates how easily we die. We’ve been talking about how much of a powerhouse our pitching staff is, and that we ran into a historic juggernaut. Well, that juggernaut got shut down by Jordan Montgomery last night. Meanwhile, the guy we didn’t need (Garver), had a .857 OPS and 7 RBI in 3 playoff games for the Rangers. Jeffers just put up a .105 slugging and .366 OPS with 8 Ks in 6 games. Not that they should’ve kept Garver or Jeffers is awful (although, add the Garver trade to the list of stinkers)….just how it seems to go with this club. We don’t get killed by other players, we kill ourselves. It’s OK to admit that.

He has done a good job. A pitching powerhouse is a bridge too far. Lopez preformed exceptionally well in the playoffs, as well as a couple of bullpen guys. Aside from that, Gray walked a tight rope in his first start and was bad in his second. Ober was bad. We’ll never know in Ryan, but they clearly have no confidence in him. Theilbar got thumped. It was a good regular season. No doubt. The playoffs were pretty good pitching-wise, although Houston proved to have a better/deeper staff. Some good, some bad. I can’t use the word powerhouse when we just got bounced 1 games to 3 from the division series and were out pitched.

I agree. I thought Baldelli was actually decent in the playoffs. Not his fault Gray was leaving pitches out over the plate far too often and his “sweeper” was awful. Not his fault the offense were absolutely, embarrassingly, putrid in games 1, 3, and 4….and for the 2 game Blue Jays series for that matter. I believe that had Ryan stayed in that game, he would’ve eventually gotten lit up. A pitcher that only throws 92 mph fastballs up in the zone is a poor matchup against that team (against any team, really). Believing Ryan was some top of the rotation starter was a premature, IMO. He just doesn’t have the dominant stuff required. The “water polo” arm angle thing can only get him by for so long. Decent pitcher. Just like Ober, fine for the back end of the rotation during the regular season. Not someone you can rely on in a playoff series. Especially when your team can’t hit the baseball. Baldelli and the FO was smart enough to see that.

Not even close. The bullpen put up some good numbers. But, let’s face it, nobody is scared of facing Thielbar, Pagan, etc. decent bullpen, but nowhere near “perfect.” Nobody wants Brock Stewart’s small sample size or Thielbar’s 92mph heater up there against Alvarez in a big spot. Same with the rotation. Get by Lopez and it’s nothing special. Even Gray, maybe, depending on the day, but you know he’s not going beyond the 5th. Nobody is losing any sleep over facing Ryan, Ober, Maeda, etc. The Astros proved to have a much better rotation. Our lineup stinks. Look around at the other lineups in the championship series. We aren’t even in the same planet in terms of premier hitters. We have nobody even remotely close in terms of slugging. Royce Lewis hit a few home runs, which was impressive. But, otherwise, we were going station to station and coming up empty. Some significant work needs to be done in the lineup, even if Buxton is back. Can’t have Kirilloff, Wallner, Jeffers, Castro, etc. up there looking like deer in headlights in the playoffs. Im not sure why this team is being thought of as some sort of historic Twins team. They weren’t that good.

I find it hard to be excited about an 87 win season, in which we may not have even made the playoffs had the division housed another competent baseball team. I find hard to be content with merely ending the the most incompetent run of playoff losses in the history of sports. If they had put up a fight against the Astros, there may be a moral victory I could glean. But, collectively grabbing their throats and collecting 6 hits, 30 Ks, and 3 runs in 18 innings in front of a home crowd…..making Javier and Urquidy look like perennial Cy Young contenders…..that’s absolutely pathetic and embarrassing. I’ve never been more disgusted watching baseball. I’ve never seen professional athletes fold that readily. Completely spineless. The series was over before it started. Couldn’t muster even the weakest contact in big situation. Flailing strikeout after flailing strikeout. And we were offended that nobody in Houston or nationally took this team seriously. The playoffs put a lot of things into perspective for me: This lineup is putrid. I don’t care what they did in the regular season. We have 3 guys I care to watch swing a bat ever again: Lewis, Correa, Julien. Ship everyone else out of here. This was an overrated pitching staff. Lopez, Jax, and Duran were great. Houston basically had their way with everybody else, including Gray. It’s depressing that our baseline as Twins fans is so rock bottom, that we’re celebrating this. If this was an acceptable season to you as a fan, more power to you. I demand more. We’re almost a decade into this regime. Figure something out or fire these guys. If we ever want to get somewhere, we have to quit accepting mediocrity, let alone being excited about it and making lists of the moral victories.

Fire everybody.

You hate the playoffs because players get criticized for not performing and/or praised for performing? Couldn’t you turn that around and say the regular season too large a sample size? Not predictive as to how a player will perform in a highly stressful playoff environment. I mean, this is what they play the regular season for. This is when playing baseball matters, not some random Tuesday evening in June against the Kansas City Royals in front of 2,500 people. A 2 game slump? Collectively going 2 for a million with RISP isn’t a slump. Striking out in embarrassing fashion every time you step to the plate in that situation isn’t a slump. We saw them do that all season. Granted, it’s not just “youth,” (Kirilloff and Wallner), it’s the whole group (except Correa). It’s institutional. I can’t disagree more with this notion that it’s somehow a role of the dice. Kirilloff and Wallner just happened to roll craps. Some people can perform in stressful situations. Some lock up and get lost in the moment. There’s a reason you see the same guys perform in these situations year after year. There’s a reason this franchise lost 18 straight playoff games, at 6 trillion to 1 odds of happening. It’s not luck if the draw. There’s not an alternate universe where they don’t “slump” and beat the Astros yesterday based on some extrapolation of regular season, low leverage, statistics. It’s a team of superior fortitude willing against a lesser. Also, we’re not talking about Mike Trout having a couple bad playoff games, here. These are players that have shown significant warts in the regular season, and they’re getting put under a microscope against the best team when it matters. You don’t get 162 chances. I guess I’ll just agree to disagree with the sentiment that they have to keep rolling the dice with these guys until they maybe win the lottery. That lets people off the hook. That discredits the people can get the job done. That attitude is what lost us 18 straight playoff game. I don’t just shrug my shoulders, chalk it up to some higher power randomly rationing luck, and continue the death march. You keep working and searching until you find the right formula to succeed. If that’s at some kids expense that couldn’t hack it when it mattered, so be it. This isn’t the YMCA summer league where everyone makes the team and gets a popsicle after, win or lose. We’re talking about the highest level of professional baseball, here. People win and lose. Feelings get hurt.

We have to find somebody that can get a clutch hit other than Correa. Everybody but Correa is now somewhere in the ballpark of 2 or 3 for about 35? You’d think you could at least luck into a few if you’re a remotely competent hitter. The endless strikeouts in those are spots are unacceptable. Royce Lewis may have taken the worst at bat in league history. He swung at three straight pitches with guys on second and third that weren’t even on the same planet as the strike zone. That was a tone setter. You can’t have guys line Wallner and Kirilloff on the team and be taken seriously going forward. Holy cow, those two are a couple of the worst hitters I’ve ever seen. The pitching wasn’t great. Not even close. But, you can’t get anywhere with this anemic offense. Going forward, gotta look at getting a competent hitting coach in here, rethinking this long ball strategy that clearly isn’t working, and rotate a few new guys in here. You lose this one in reasonable fashion, fine. But, this was an embarrassment and this team should be ashamed of itself for this performance. What a kick to the nuts of Twins fans who have shown up for this team in droves. They should’ve been boo’d off the field, IMO. Not technically over….but it’s over. Hopefully that humiliating loss is a lesson for some of these kids going forward.

Game over. What a let down. In the biggest spot of the year, Gray folds. Smoke and mirrors for 4 2/3rds per outing in a crap division all year…. Can’t hide from a real lineup. His season will always be a statistical anomaly and he’ll always be massively overrated to me after this game. He’s just not that good. If I had a dollar for every time I saw this spineless lineup leave a runner in scoring position with nobody out, I wouldn't have to go to work tomorrow. Going out with a fart noise like this takes the shine off of everything they’ve done at this point a bit. I don’t expect amything better tomorrow. Ryan is awful. I gotta bow out. They won a playoff game. Yippee. Hang a banner. Those still clinging to hope, enjoy the game. Hope they find a way to give the fans more than this garbage.

They’re huge reasons why it’s looking like we’re going to cough up this series. Nearly everyone else has found a way to provide something. They’ve been major liabilities at the plate, and Kirilloff has been a butcher in the field.

I’ve seen enough of Kirilloff and Wallner. Absolute black holes.