Greggory Masterson

Comrade Cody is back after a two-month sabbatical to analyze the last couple of weeks (and months) of Twins baseball, relitigating the trade deadline. Gregg recounts his night as a special guest of the Twins and his missed chance to throw out the first pitch. Lou is stumped in the end. Listen using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twins-off-daily-podcast/id1741266056 Listen using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tb78XlurcPTYYSsARdbD7 Listen using iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-twins-off-daily-podcas-167548600/ Listen using Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/nvclbt0w Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@twinsdaily View full article

Image courtesy of © Denny Medley-Imagn Images Maybe it’s irrational. But I’ve been rolling it around in my head for weeks. I think that there are a lot of things at play as Twins fans look at their favorite team and feel like there’s an anchor attached to the team. It’s natural to have fatalistic feelings in times like this, but I think there is something unique about the Twins’ situation. Literally one year ago, they were in playoff position, and today they’re vying for one of the top lottery picks. They just traded nearly half of their active roster. And it all feels stuck. I’m not about to point out what moves worked and what didn’t, who should be cut or fired, or anything like that. I just want to investigate why it seems like the Twins are trapped, and like it’s not going to change anytime soon. First, there are a lot of pieces of this roster that do feel lodged in place. Maybe not in the bullpen, and not for as long as it might appear, but they do feel stuck. There’s been very little turnover, year-to-year. After 2023, the Twins lost Sonny Gray, Donovan Solano, Joey Gallo, Michael A. Taylor, Kenta Maeda, and Emilio Pagán, then traded Jorge Polanco. They were replaced with Carlos Santana, Manuel Margot, Anthony DeSclafani, Jay Jackson, Steven Okert, and Justin Topa. That turnover largely consisted of downgrades, and after 2024, all but Topa were gone, along with Max Kepler, Caleb Thielbar, and Alex Kirilloff, this time replaced with Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe, Ty France, and (later) Kody Clemens. You’ll notice that the last wave was smaller. It’s easy to point at this factor as the key—there’s been very little new blood brought in from outside the organization, and in 2025, there was even little new blood called up internally. Luke Keaschall is the only notable prospect to see any real success with the Twins this season. That lack of additions can be chalked up to two factors: a tightening of the belt by ownership and a lack of activity from management. After the Pohlad family spent 10 months attempting to sell the team, fans patiently waiting for change there were rewarded with the most inconsequential version of said sale: additional minority partners. Thus, even as the sale was technically completed, ownership is still left almost exactly where it started. The inactive management team is also still here (at least for now). Don’t get me wrong; I was in favor of largely keeping the team intact after 2024. I also believed that the team hit a rough skid, but had the ability to compete for a division title again after a reset. But that doesn’t mean that the team doesn’t feel stuck in place, after effectively running it back in the wake of a disastrous collapse one year ago. One perplexing aspect of this feeling, however, is that inactivity is a recent phenomenon for this front office, not their modus operandi. This is a front office that, at least compared to previous iterations, tends toward risk-taking and creativity. Three times, they signed the largest free-agent contract in team history—once with Josh Donaldson, and twice with Carlos Correa. The first Correa contract started a league-wide spree of creative, incentive-laden three-year contracts with player opt-outs after each year. This is the same front office that traded a fan favorite and batting champion for a frontline starter, absorbing the risk of public discontent. This is the same front office that waited out a market and tried to sign Lance Lynn and Logan Morrison to pillow deals when they had nowhere else to turn. Even as recently as 2024, they traded Polanco for prospects, bullpen depth, and starting pitching depth, before using the salary saved to acquire a first baseman and another middle reliever—creatively skating under their spending cap and checking several items off their offseason shopping list. Obviously, I’m not speaking to the success of these moves; I’m merely pointing out that this very front office—one that has largely been the same for the better part of a decade, at levels from leadership to analyst, only growing—was making risky decisions on a routine basis relatively recently. Their risky 2022 trade deadline, in which they acquired a frontline starter, closer, and setup man, was followed up with back-to-back acquisitions of one middle reliever who didn’t finish the season on the roster in 2023 and 2024. It wasn’t always like this, but it's sure like this now. Even on the field, though, the sense of ruthless repetition is getting palpable. This was the fifth season in which fans asked if Jorge Alcala could take the next step; if we’d see a healthy and productive season from Royce Lewis; and if Trevor Larnach would finally hit his ceiling. Really—we’ve been asking those same questions since 2021. The same was true with Chris Paddack since 2022. Ditto for pop-up prospects like Edouard Julien and Jose Miranda. Is this the year they start acting normal? The big three in the rotation have all been around for at least three years, without anyone else sneaking into the conversation over the last two. There are bright spots on the horizon, like Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Kaelen Culpepper, or Connor Prielipp. But they also seem so far away, for a team that feels like it’s at its waist in mud, led by the same manager who has led largely floundering teams who just couldn’t quite make it work for a half-decade. Again, this isn’t an analysis of what needs to happen or what went wrong. I’m just trying to work through why it feels like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel today. Maybe that feeling stretches throughout Twins Territory. Maybe the prospect pipeline has you feeling some creeping hope, even amid the gloom of this finish. Either way, though, it'd be great to see some tangible change this fall. View full article

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Image courtesy of © Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images Obviously, every player is playing for their jobs. If you play poorly, you’re constantly at risk of seeing yourself pushed out of an organization. However, that pressure is amplified for young (let's just say under-30) players who have used up their minor-league options. Major League Baseball has many convoluted rules, and no set of rules may be more confusing to fans than those related to minor-league options. In short, players on the 40-man roster can be on the active MLB roster or in the minor leagues. However, players on the 40-man roster cannot be kept in the minor leagues indefinitely. If a player spends more than 20 days in the minor leagues while on the 40-man roster, they use one of their minor-league option years. They have three such option years. If the player has already used their three options, they must stay on the active roster and can only be moved to the minors if they are waived (meaning any of the other 29 teams can claim them) and then removed from the 40-man. Why does this matter in this discussion? Well, the Twins have a small handful of players who are out of options next season. That puts a bit of a target on their backs, because the organization needs to have some confidence that they’re big-league contributors. A player like, say, Mickey Gasper isn’t a guy a team has confidence will stick on an MLB roster, but because he has options, he can stick around as a depth option. When a player transitions from a fungible depth option to a roster lock, the bar rises. And when that bar rises, the calculus on keeping him around changes. Over the offseason, that might mean some guys will be out of a job. As the season winds down over the next couple of weeks, the Twins have five such players who will force decisions that might not happen if they could be sent down. (Ok, technically, there are eight, but three of those are Thomas Hatch, Michael Tonkin, and Génesis Cabrera, relievers here to soak up innings. I guess you could make an argument that fans should care if you have a favorite reliever in that bunch, but I’ll skip discussing them for reasons that should be obvious.) Jose Miranda Did you forget about Jose Miranda? Many have. This one appears to be the clearest case (no pun intended) among notable players out of options. Miranda was demoted in April, burning his final option, and has been one of the worst hitters in Triple-A this season, slashing .194/.271/.303. It’s probably the end of the line for his Twins career, and nothing he does down the stretch will change that. Edouard Julien Julien was a fixture in the Twins' 2023 lineup and slated to be a mainstay at the top of the lineup for years, but he’s sputtered in 2024 and 2025, burning his last two option years as he oscillated between Triple-A and MLB. He was called up after the trade deadline fire sale for what might be one final opportunity, and he’s played more often than not against righties either at first base or designated hitter. He’s been squeezed out of second base reps, with even Austin Martin getting time there over him. And he hasn’t been good, slashing .188/.284/.299 in the majors this season, with a .548 OPS since his August 1 tryout began. Julien has theoretical upside as a hitter, but he hasn’t flashed that in two years. The Twins could be talked into chasing that dragon again in 2026, but with Julien being out of options, that’s a harder bridge to sell. Kody Clemens You could call Clemens Julien-adjacent, as there might be something of an internal battle over who the default lefty first baseman is going into next season. There might be room for one of them, but not both, and Clemens has hit better this year, played a better second and first base, and shown flexibility in the outfield. If we were having this conversation a month ago, it’d be much more straightforward, but Clemens, the only player on this list currently out of options (which is why the Twins got him for cash considerations from Philadelphia), has struggled mightily down the stretch, slashing .154/.214/.282 as the Twins’ primary first baseman. Given his great start and middle of the season and his flexibility, he’d probably be a no-brainer to at least be penciled into the plans next year, but his skid and lack of options muddy that. He probably has a better chance of hanging on the roster over the offseason than the first two on this list. James Outman The prized jewel from the Brock Stewart trade everyone loved and totally understood, Outman is a lefty outfielder for a team I’m pretty sure has no other left-handed outfielders. Outman has a very clear path to playing time, given that there are no other left-handed outfielders on the major-league roster or in the high minors, so I’m sure his being out of options won’t play a factor in any decision-making for him or adjacent players. Certainly, he won’t be given a spot due to the sunk cost fallacy and will instead get a lot of playing time because there’s a clear role for him on next year’s team. (Hang on, I'm being handed a note...) At least he plays center field. And has a .642 OPS as a Twin. Who knows, honestly? I’m not mad; I’m still just confused. Simeon Woods Richardson Okay, joking about Outman aside, this is the big one. This is the case that got me thinking about the topic. Woods Richardson kept the Twins rotation afloat in 2024, providing much-needed depth, with a 4.17 ERA in 28 starts. He struggled early in 2025, necessitating a trip to the minors, which burned his final option year. Woods Richardson has been a productive backend starter. Not sexy, but competent enough. However, the Twins have eight MLB starters (or seven, pending the health of David Festa), and the 2026 rotation is not yet apparent. Joe Ryan, Pablo López, and Bailey Ober seem to slot in ahead of him, and Zebby Matthews is likely ahead of him, as well. Taj Bradley has about the same amount of big-league action as Woods Richardson, and he’s viewed as a higher-upside youngster. So what does that mean for Woods Richardson? He’d be a perfect next-man-up, but he can’t be stashed at Triple-A to open the season. There’s no clear path for him in a bullpen role either, given his pitch mix and stuff. There may be a trade of Ryan or López that clears this logjam up, but Woods Richardson seems like the odd man out, unless they demote Bradley or Matthews, and that says nothing about other prospects vying for depth innings like Mick Abel, Connor Prielipp, or Kendry Rojas. He hasn't looked great over his past three starts since recovering from a stomach virus, running a 6.59 ERA across 13 2/3 innings in three starts. Woods Richardson is a competent backend starter with four more years of team control, but that may have to come for another team. It’s difficult to map out a role for him going into next year, with the pitching corps as constructed and no ability to demote him to the minors. That will be the story for more than one of this quintet. View full article

Sweet Lou and Ol Gregg livestream, discussing the current state of the franchise, prospects, and fan appreciation. Listen using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twins-off-daily-podcast/id1741266056 Listen using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tb78XlurcPTYYSsARdbD7 Listen using iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-twins-off-daily-podcas-167548600/ Listen using Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/nvclbt0w Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@twinsdaily View full article

I’ve gotten a couple of comments on this, and I agree that the slide has been happening longer than the past decade, but it accelerated a lot in the recent past. And yes, you can cite examples like Kent, Soriano, or someone like Daniel Murphy, but they’re still the exceptions. I wrote a couple years ago about balancing the bat and glove at second to produce value, and I agree. however, the weakest hitting position in baseball this season is second base, implying that good defense is still valued there, probably highly, by most organizations.

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images Can you name the 10 players who have played second base for the Minnesota Twins this season? Read to the bottom to see the list. Most of them aren’t very good at it. To answer the initial question (from the teaser about the last time the Twins had a good defender as their everyday second baseman), I’d have to go with the first half of 2019, when Jonathan Schoop patrolled the keystone daily. Since then, it’s been a mess. Although Schoop maintained a lion’s share of the work at second in 2019, the Luis Arraez Era started in May of that year, and by the end of the season, Arraez was seeing the bulk of starts at second base (when he wasn’t patrolling left field). Since then, the Twins have treated Arraez (2019-2020), Jorge Polanco (2021-2023), and Edouard Julien (2023-2024) as their everyday second basemen, and it wasn’t pretty. With the 2021 signing of Andrelton Simmons—who supplanted Polanco at shortstop—the Twins had to make a second base decision between Polanco and Arraez. They elected to stick Polanco at second base every day and allow Arraez to bounce between positions based on need. Technically, Polanco was an upgrade to Arraez, but he was no great asset at second. In mid-2023, the Twins had to make a similar decision between Polanco and Julien, this time electing the one seen as a poorer defender, Julien, to stay at the position. Polanco added third base to his repertoire. Both had to be in the lineup, and it beat moving Julien anywhere else. Julien stuck there for parts of two years, but his defense was so bad that Kyle Farmer had a full-time job just relieving him at the end of games to provide competent defense. Arraez; Polanco; Julien. All three of them are first basemen or designated hitters, now. It’s a bit perplexing, given the history of the second base position. Second base has historically been a spot for light-hitting, good-glove, diminutive players. When constructing a defensive spectrum—ordering the importance of defensive competence necessary for the position—second base has generally been ranked in the top half. Sometimes it’s tied for the middle spot with third base, and it’s consistently ranked below catcher and shortstop, but it’s at times either ahead of or tied with center field. Not so for the Twins in recent years. Instead, they have used the position to stash their best hitters, much like teams often do with left field and first base. There has been a movement in baseball, over the past decade, to rethink the second base position. Names like Mike Moustakas come to mind: power hitters with questionable gloves who can fake it at second base for a while, as their teams enjoy the benefits of having another plus bat in the lineup. The viability of this strategy was dampened with the advent of the 2023 shift ban, though, making it more difficult to hide a poor defender. Moustakas also wasn’t a full-time second baseman, only playing there for an entire campaign in the shortened 2020 season. He wasn’t terrible there. In his 613 innings, he was worth -2 outs above average (OAA) at the position. That doesn’t sound good, but compared to the Twins’ primary second basemen, well, you’d be surprised. Arraez accumulated -15 OAA across 1,248 innings at second base as a Twin, and Polanco wasn’t much better, racking up -16 OAA over 2,273 innings after sliding into the position. At the pace Moustakas accumulated OAA, he would have had -4 with Arraez’s innings and -8 with Polanco’s. Julien has played 1,343 innings at second base and comes in at -9 OAA, about in line with Polanco at half the innings and better than Arraez with about the same number of innings—though still worse than the Moustakas benchmark. And remember, zero is average. Beyond the quick turnover among the everyday players, the Twins have also gone a year and a half without an everyday second baseman, which again suggests the left-fieldification of the position in Minnesota. Hopefully, the emergence of Luke Keaschall will bring new stability to the position, but he has also looked shaky in the field. Much of that may be attributed to not playing in the field much over the past calendar year due to a UCL tear and broken arm, so it’s too early to assume he’ll be rough, but in his first 276 innings, he’s already been worth -2 OAA. That’s only about 30 games' worth of time, so don’t overreact, but if that sort of play continues, so will the shakiness of one of the most important defensive positions for your Minnesota Twins. Other players to have played the position since 2019 with any level of semi-regularity include middle-of-the-pack (or worse) defenders Willi Castro (2023-2025, 522 innings, -1 OAA), Nick Gordon (2021-2023, 431 innings, 1 OAA), Brooks Lee (2024-2025, 319 innings, -3 OAA), Kody Clemens (2025, 280 innings, 1 OAA), and Donovan Solano (2023, 117 innings, -1 OAA). The only two Twins defenders since Schoop (983 innings, 4 OAA) to show any hint of above-average defense at second were Farmer (2023-2024, 586 innings, 5 OAA) and Marwin Gonzalez (2019-2020, 184 innings, 3 OAA). Of course, defensive statistics are messy, and you can quibble with them, but OAA’s assessment lines up with the eye test for most (if not all) of the players listed above. It’s perplexing. For the better part of a decade, the position has essentially been left field 2.0, where defense is often overlooked and players tend to stay for only a short time. Many Twins players have been earmarked as second basemen, which may explain some of the turnover—in part because shortstop and third base have been more locked down this decade—but it’s been a revolving door of poor defenders who can sometimes (actually, I’ll give them this, it’s been most of the time) hit well. They’ve even tried Mickey Gasper there, for crying out loud. This may speak to an organizational philosophy, downplaying the importance of second base defense, a lack of development of infield skills, poor scouting, or a combination of all three. Who knows? I just saw Austin Martin starting a game at second last week, and it got me thinking about the question in the teaser—when is the last time the Twins had a good defensive everyday second baseman? Maybe the better one is: When will they have one again? Oh, and to answer the question, here are the Twins to have played second base this year, from most appearances to least: Clemens, Castro, Lee, Keaschall, Julien, Jonah Bride, Ryan Fitzgerald, Martin, Gasper, Ty France. No Royce Lewis, at least not yet. Admit it, though: you'd forgotten Jonah Bride ever existed. View full article

I can’t believe you haven’t had the privilege of meeting Marlins Man

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images At the onset, I want to make myself clear; I love my favorite baseball team, and I’m not being malicious or trying to rub the organization’s nose in it. I had the thought a few weeks ago, and I’ve been turning it over in my head. If you consider how involved each team is in the modern baseball landscape, their history as a franchise, and how prominent they are in the culture, I think that the Twins are the least relevant team in baseball. Please understand, I don’t mean the worst team in baseball, or the worst organization in baseball history. I mean: If you were to start talking about baseball with a stranger, how long would the conversation go before the Minnesota Twins were mentioned? The Colorado Rockies are more notable than the Twins right now, for instance, because their losing ways are so extreme. You could probably throw the West Sacramento Athletics, Chicago White Sox, and Pittsburgh Pirates into that pile, as well—they’re so bad that they’re relevant. There's relocation intrigue in one place, and the specter of a wasted generational megastar in another. On the flip side, obviously, there are a ton of teams who are clearly more relevant to baseball than the Twins, based on historical success, their market size, or any other unsubtle reasons. The Braves and Cubs, America’s national cable teams, fall under that category. So do the historically entrenched Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, and Philadelphia Phillies. Some combination of market size, history, and recent success also exclude the Houston Astros, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Francisco Giants. There are some less successful teams and prominent teams that are also, nonetheless, more central to the conversation than the Twins. For instance, despite their recent struggles, the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles (even if these aren’t the original Orioles) carry a certain legacy as the current iterations of original American League teams. The Texas Rangers, without their recent World Series, may be in a similar relevancy class as the Twins, but it’s hard to ignore a Commissioner’s Trophy awarded in the past five years. Dallas-Ft. Worth is also an enormous market, even if it doesn't always feel like one in the baseball world. Likewise, their opponents in that series (the Arizona Diamondbacks) were vaulted a bit more into the spotlight. They’re also helped by their success in the recent past—and an iconic look. In the modern game, the attachment of spring training to Arizona also makes the growing Phoenix area play up as a baseball market. When baseball things happen there, they leave a heavier footprint in the national conversation than the sheer market size might imply. It’s not just about how good or bad the team is when we’re talking about relevance. The iconography of the Diamondbacks franchise, especially in their 1990s teal and purple, has staying power. The Milwaukee Brewers’ iconic ball-and-glove logo, the Florida Marlins’ teal caps, the Athletics’ Kelly greens, the Padres’ brown, the Royals’ baby blue. There are certain logos, insignias, and color schemes that lock into fans’ heads—and even the general population’s. The Twins do not have that type of staying power. The Twins’ 'TC' and 'M' are not fashion statements, like the classic Yankees or Mets 'NY', Dodgers 'LA' (formerly, 'B', or even the White Sox 'SOX' or the Pirates 'P'. This isn't because the logos aren't good, exactly. Maybe the problem is having gotten caught in between, and now using two different cap and cornerstone logos so evenly. Either way, the brand is diminished. With the exception of City Connect uniforms, all of the teams listed above wear the same logo on their cap every night. So, what do the Twins bring to the table? I think we’ve spent enough time on high fashion, but I hope that what I’m trying to say about cultural consciousness is getting through. They have been successful in the worst division in baseball over the last quarter-century. They won two World Series in 1987 and 1991. They have a handful of Hall of Famers wearing their caps—Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Bert Blyleven, Kirby Puckett, Jim Kaat and Joe Mauer. With the exception of Carew, though, it’s a group that doesn’t get brought up often. They had a few stars in their recent past—Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Johan Santana likely being the most prominent. But you know who the most famous Minnesota Twin of the 21st century is, for most of the world's baseball fans? David Ortiz. They haven’t been great recently, but they haven’t been comically bad, either—at least since the 2011-2016 run that placed them at the bottom of the American League. They have existed for a while in a middle ground that doesn’t command much attention. Even their 0-18 playoff losing streak isn’t a talker anymore, now that it's over. The Mariners and Pirates can tell you how quickly the extra notes in national columns and the buzz from other fan bases die down, once you go from an active streak of historical playoff absence or anguish to a merely recent one. I’ll speedrun the teams I feel are in contention for the most irrelevant team in baseball, and why I think they’re more relevant than the Twins. The San Diego Padres are one of the most exciting teams in baseball right now. The Cincinnati Reds are the “first” professional baseball team, they have an iconic look, they had a great Big Red Machine run, and they once employed Ken Griffey Jr. They also currently employ Elly De La Cruz, an objectively worse version of Buxton but a much more famous player, which is illustrative. The Washington Nationals play baseball in the nation’s capital, but they’re probably close to the Twins in relevance, if you ignore their recent World Series and their Expos history. They have a chance to tumble into the cellar in this regard, but it hasn't happened yet. The Angels are on the Twins’ level of recent success, but they recently employed the best two players in baseball (and still have one of them, a surefire, utterly fascinating future Hall of Famer), making them a national punchline, and they even had a more popular children’s movie than Little Big League. (We all know Little Big League is a better movie, but we're matching up Luke Edwards and Timothy Busfield against Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Danny Glover, here.) They also play in a huge market and are a semi-serious threat to sign a big free agent every winter. I like to think of the Milwaukee Brewers as a sister team to the Twins, matching their lack of historic success and star power (Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Ryan Braun stack up pretty evenly with Killebrew, Puckett, and Mauer), but they’re much more successful right now and boast an iconic logo. They're going to draw over 2.5 million fans to the park this year, not counting some October sellouts. The Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays also live in the Twins’ domain. However, their newness (and some bold fashion choices in the short history of each) plays in their favor. The Marlins have been so bad that they’re relevant—and have still won two World Series more recently than Minnesota. Tampa Bay has current events (their ballpark being damaged), recent success, and narratives about analytics attached to them. There are a lot of similarities between the Blue Jays and Twins, but it’s probably a little egocentric to pretend that an entire country’s only team is less relevant than one of the medium-market US-based teams, and they certainly have more star power, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Even if half of Canada rejected the Jays as merely Toronto's or Ontario's team, that's a big-market behemoth. And they, too, have two World Series wins more recent than the Twins'. Within the division, Cleveland and Kansas City seem to be the best contenders for least relevant team in baseball. However, Cleveland was the subject of perhaps the most famous baseball movie of all time; have been more successful in the recent past; and have been the subject of national debate over their name for decades. (Not all relevance is good relevance, but it's a thing.) They also have the longest World Series drought, by far, dating back to 1948. That's a narrative that will capture attention every time they're good. The Twins, Orioles (last title: 1983) and Pirates (1979) haven't yet reached that level where the losing becomes part of the lore. Kansas City would probably best Minnesota, but they did win a World Series in the past decade, and like I said above, they have an iconic look. They also have Bobby Witt Jr., and while they haven't yet secured funding for it, a new ballpark is on the horizon. If there’s an American League sister organization to the Twins, it’s the Mariners. They have both struggled to have any postseason success for decades, and they exist in secondary markets. But the star power associated with the Mariners, such as Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro, or Griffey, far outshines the Twins. Their teal is iconic, and they’re more involved in the national discussion, whether that’s in their MVP candidate Cal Raleigh or their yearly high-profile fight against the Astros and Rangers for a playoff berth. The Twins' best case for national relevancy, at least since they were knocked out of the postseason in 2023, was when they were up for sale. Now, even that bit of intrigue has been canceled—not consummated, but called off. There's no way to become more invisible to the baseball world than to not pay off even when you do promise something of interest. But that’s just my opinion. How wrong am I? Do you think the Twins are more top of mind than any other franchise? I appeared on Locked On Twins with Brandon Warne to discuss this topic a few weeks ago, if you'd like to give it a listen. View full article

Sweet Lou and Ol Gregg assess some carnage, answer some pre-submitted mailbag questions, and react to some listener comments live! There's even a brand-new segment. Listen using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twins-off-daily-podcast/id1741266056 Listen using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tb78XlurcPTYYSsARdbD7 Listen using iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-twins-off-daily-podcas-167548600/ Listen using Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/nvclbt0w Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@twinsdaily View full article

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images David Festa is one of a handful of Twins’ pitching draft success stories. Although fans may disagree regarding how effective or promising Festa is, taking a player in the 13th round and turning him into an MLB pitcher at all is a success. Festa rose quickly through the Twins system, racing through both levels of Class A in 2022, then Double-A and Triple-A in 2023 after being an unheralded 2021 draft pick. At the time of his call-up to the majors in 2024, he was a top five organizational prospect and was appearing on global Top 100 lists. There was a lot of hope that he could help restock the rotation after the departures of Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda. And there still are Festa fanatics today. It’s not like he’s been a disappointment. It’s been rocky for the greenhorn, with a 5.12 ERA (83 ERA+) for the Twins across 117 2/3 innings in 2024 and 2025, but he’s shown flashes that can excite. He has three usable pitches—a plus four seamer that can reach the high-90s but sits 95, a plus slider, and a serviceable changeup. He has also attempted to add a sinker to diversify his pitch mix, though it’s more of a show-me offering that’s gotten hit hard and doesn’t grade well. There is legitimate reason to remain excited, or at least hopeful for Festa as a starter. As noted, he’s not been a disaster and he has less than a full season of MLB starting under his belt in sporadic action, as he’s yo-yoed several times between the Twins and St. Paul over the past two years. However, he has some factors working against his long-term outlook as a starter, including a couple of red flags that threaten THIS GUY IS A RELIEVER stamp. First, Festa has struggled to pitch deep into games with any regularity. Now, this isn’t some anomaly. Pitchers getting their first taste of the majors aren’t given free rein to rack up innings. They’re generally guided along, only biting off a bit of the game at a time. Festa himself is only averaging about four and two-thirds innings per start, completing a full five innings in thirteen of his twenty-five big league starts. Again, that’s not some travesty for a guy with 25 big league starts, but there’s more. Part of the reason is that Festa only makes it through five innings in about half of his starts. He struggles seeing offenses more than once. The first time through the order, Festa is excellent, holding hitters to a .498 OPS. The second time, though? A .909 OPS. Some of this can be attributed to youth and inexperience navigating an MLB lineup, but some can be chalked up to a limited pitch mix. It’s hard to fool hitters twice or three times when you have three (and a half) options to get them out. Whatever the case, though, it’s been an issue, and it’s easy for any armchair stat line scout to point at that and say, “What if he didn’t have to face hitters a second time? It's worked for Griffin Jax.” The second factor is his arm health. Festa has thrown just 82 innings this season, having lost about two months to shoulder inflammation and arm fatigue. It’s not some death sentence on his starter outlook, but having two arm injuries in a year isn’t encouraging, especially injuries that seem to be from normal use (obviously, most injuries are from normal use, but you know what I mean). When pitchers become relievers, it’s typically because they can’t rack up innings, either because of effectiveness or health, and Festa seems to be going down that path. Neither of these factors are damning at this point, but there are also a couple external factors that might expedite the process of the Twins altering course on Festa—and they’re related. First, the team needs relievers. After trading away six of the projected top seven relief arms during the season (I didn’t forget you, Jorge Alcala), there are nothing but holes in the bullpen. Seemingly only Cole Sands and Justin Topa have a better than 50% chance of being in the 2026 pen. Pitchers who might otherwise have been on a starter trajectory might be heading out to the bullpen out of necessity. That’s not necessarily a good thing. Starters are more valuable than relievers (see the Griffin Jax-Taj Bradley trade). Teams don’t want to give up on their starters. But hey, if it’s between that and spending $25 million on veteran free agent relievers, it’s hard not to at least consider it. Second, the rotation is crowded right now. Trade can disrupt that, but right now Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober are written into the rotation, Zebby Matthews seems an almost-lock, and the fifth spot will be between Festa, Simeon Woods Richardson, and newcomers Mick Abel and Bradley. Even after a trade, Festa may be on the outside looking in. Granted, the Twins like to stockpile MLB-ready pitching depth at Triple-A, and Festa has been one of the first men up in both 2024 and 2025. But with all those names, plus a handful of other Triple-A names who could also step in if needed, Festa moving to the pen (and even one of the other names, too) would release a lot of pressure in the crowded room. Put another way, the Twins are in a position to sacrifice some depth if it helps their dilapidated pen. And how would Festa be? Well, it’s hard to say. But he has some traits prevent the title of this article from being too hyperbolic. Obviously, as already mentioned, he’s been terrific the first time through the order. That alone is enough to start the wheel in your head. Why not see if that early-game success can translate into late-game success? His three-pitch mix plays much better out of the pen, especially if he can hump it up for 20 pitches at a time. It’s not unreasonable to believe that his mid-90s fastball could transform into an offering that sits in the high 90s, and it would enable him to lean more into his wipeout slider and rely less on his average changeup and weak sinker. There are always his control problems, but this is one of those cookie-cutter cases that baseball has seen time and time again. Next year will be his age-26 season, so it’s about time for the Twins to pick a lane with him, and it’s not unreasonable to expect that Festa might spend it pitching the late innings for your hometown nine. View full article

Wait which side do I have to join for the most biscuits and gravy

Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-Imagn Images When the Twins and their fans woke up on Aug. 18, 2024, they sat in second place in the American League Central. They were just two games behind the (eventual) division-winning Guardians, with whom they had split a series the prior weekend. Minnesota had just taken three straight games from the (flailing) reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers and were looking for a four-game sweep. It took five minutes to derail the Twins’ season. Pablo López pitched them to a comfortable four-run lead after six, but Jorge Alcala entered to pitch the seventh inning, and within five real-world minutes surrendered five runs on 19 pitches. The Rangers would walk off Jhoan Duran in the 10th inning. At the time, it was a disappointing game, but it was just a game. In the months since, it has become understood as the beginning of the end. The team that saved their season with 12 consecutive wins in April and May didn’t win more than two games in a row over the final seven weeks of the season, finishing on a 12-27 skid. They missed the playoffs, after projection systems gave them a better than 90% chance to make the postseason on that fateful August day. Nothing worked down the stretch. Injuries, performance slippage, and fatigue were too much. There were rumblings of clubhouse discord. There was a lifelessness observable on the field, as the players lived the same disappointment that we watched. All they needed was a couple September wins against the Marlins to eke in anyway, but they couldn’t even do that. Discourse about ownership reignited. After reducing payroll by tens of millions after the club’s first playoff win in nearly a decade, there was already a level of anger and vitriol among fans. But that went up another notch, becoming a go-to excuse, reason, or rationale amid the collapse. The team didn’t improve at the deadline. There were no meaningful reinforcements. Conversely, the familiar complaints about players, coaches, and management rose again. The players had no fight, the manager was incompetent, the front office was too passive. Those complaints had waned as the team flourished at midseason. But as things got worse, the conversations became louder. It was an important offseason, ripe for change. On the ownership side, the biggest change possible was announced—or at least, the first step of that change was. In October, the Pohlad family announced that they were exploring a sale of the team. The much-maligned billionaire family had very few defenders, and the announcement was a welcome one among Twins fans who dreamt of what the organization could look like with a more benevolent, unknown owner. On the baseball side, that offseason ripe for change bore no fruit. Nominal change happened—Carlos Santana, Max Kepler, and Caleb Thielbar were out, Ty France, Harrison Bader, and Danny Coulombe were in. The same core that folded down the stretch in 2024 would be leading the charge in 2025. It wasn’t the worst decision ever, trusting that the team that sat at 70-53 on August 18 was more representative than the team that finished 12-27. But it was a gamble to dance with the girl that brung them. There was no great cleansing. The front office itself was also held in place, other than promotions ,following the historic collapse. Everyone was gonna run it back. In February, word leaked that that mysterious, benevolent owner was not just a hypothetical. Justin Ishbia—brother of Mat Ishbia, the owner of the Phoenix Suns—was strongly pursuing a purchase of the team. There was no guarantee as to how he would run the organization, but he would have been one of the richest owners in baseball; he’s a baseball fan; and his brother’s team had earned a reputation for spending to win. But as quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared, instead pursuing a purchase of the division rival White Sox, a team closer to home (and that he was already a minority owner of). And no individual or group seemed primed to fill his place. Amid all of this uncertainty, the Twins didn’t spend. That’s part of the lack of turnover, too. It was part philosophy, it was part circumstance. But the Twins opened the season with the same team they ended the prior year with, more or less. And they opened the year with the same play, more or less, skidding through the opening weeks and requiring another two-week stretch of consecutive wins to drag themselves out of the bowels of MLB. This time, they couldn’t keep it up. One of the most fascinating parts of the last year of Twins baseball is just how stale most of it was, and how that staleness accompanied so much change. Ownership was constantly in flux, but nothing truly changed. The team from the beginning of 2024 was more or less the same team as the beginning of 2025, but it played in a totally different way. By July, it became clear that change was finally coming. The Twins would be sellers, at least at the deadline, though there were questions as to how much they would sell. They sold a lot. In order: Chris Paddack, Randy Dobnak, Jhoan Duran, Harrison Bader, Brock Stewart, Carlos Correa, Danny Coulombe, Willi Castro, Griffin Jax, Ty France, and Louie Varland. All shipped off to the highest bidder. And suddenly, everything was changed. The team that spent so many months so stale was turned on its head. Eighteen players played in that August 18 game. Five are on the active roster today. After all those calls for a shakeup of the hitting core, the Twins traded… their whole bullpen. Much of that offensive core remains. Of course, they did trade Carlos Correa—the leader of the team. He was unceremoniously shipped off to Houston, paying the Astros to take his contract off the books. The era was just… over. Only 22 of the 52 players who played a game for the Twins last season are still in the organization today, and that’s after one of the least active offseasons you could imagine. And speaking of inaction, ownership. Just days ago, the announcement was released: The Pohlads would not be selling the team. Well, not all of it, anyway. Instead, limited partners will be buying a portion, but the family still has control. Twins fans went from being fed up with ownership, to hopeful for a new owner, to ecstatic about a real potential owner, to heartbroken, to grasping at any morsel of information, back to being fed up with ownership, or at least about three-quarters of it. On the field, the staleness turned to rot. The cooks hope that cutting off part of the loaf makes the rest of the bread edible again. This all started with a good team that seemed destined for the playoffs. How much different would we feel had that meltdown not happened? If, instead of being incensed, we were merely annoyed that the team could have gone a little farther with a little more investment? Instead of front office promotions following a complete self-destruction, what if they came after guiding a cheap and injury-riddled team into the playoffs? Instead of failing to fix what went wrong down the stretch, what if they merely banked on continual improvement and ran it back with a similar team? And what if today’s ownership, after all those months of questions, wasn’t the same ownership that the club had 12 months ago, plus a couple of friends? View full article

Sweet Lou and Ol Gregg discuss each of the Twins' nine trades and discuss where the Twins go from here. Gregg gripes about the word "moot." Listen using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twins-off-daily-podcast/id1741266056 Listen using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tb78XlurcPTYYSsARdbD7 Listen using iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-twins-off-daily-podcas-167548600/ Listen using Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/nvclbt0w Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@twinsdaily View full article