Hawkeye Bean Counter

Bean again, your issue primarily appears to be with ownership, their decision with comcast and their decision to cut the payroll. Again I have told you before and in this post if you want to have frustration with ownership be my guest. Secondly we are all fans. Attacking one's fandom appears to be a pointless attack. You having season tickets has no extra bearing on the situation. I live 5 hours a way in state that has blackouts, in some aspects that I continue to be a fan despite the hurdles is a feat in itself. Whether making mini vacations, watching them in Kansas City, or this year I took my son to a Saints game in Des Moines, and watched Lee, Wallner, Dobnak and Julien; we continue to be active in supporting the Twins. Your purchase of tickets does not validate your opinion over anyone else's, it is a sunk cost. Lastly, you may have had some positive posts in threads I have not seen. The threads I have seen there has been an overly negative tone. Earlier this year, I told you I thought the front office was a top 5 team in drafting. I was laughed at a bit in the thread, but I also stated, give this a couple months and they will likely be viewed much much better. At this point, they have a strong farm system, with what currently appears to be a decent pitching pipe line(I can understand you wanting to see it come to fruition), and several young players in the organization. That is effectively what this thread is about. So you can have a dissenting opinion, but if the opinion is to trash players that are viewed favorably in baseball circles and on this website, yes I think you will see several that are questioning your dissenting opinion and its validity. Me and Chpettit have had some fun threads in the past, where we both went a little too hard. Neither one of us was going to change the others opinion. Here I do not expect to change your opinion, but I do hope you stop invalidating the opinions of others based on whether they can or cannot purchase tickets. Take care.

You can't throw at the velocity he is with just aiming a ball. Having a control and pitching where you want it. Here is the issue. With emphasis on pitch zone for strikes, pitchers are going to be more honed on just throwing strikes. His stuff was good enough to miss a lot of bats in the lower levels. With the jumps he has made, the hitters are much better. Even still I have no doubt he can make some adjustments. Just look at the adjustments he has made this year so far. I still have very high expectations for him in the future.

Ive done 2 posts, but ive come to the conclusion, Bean really doesn't want to see anything positive with this organization, or team. I can understand frustration with ownership, I can even understand questioning decision making by the front office. However the quality of players in the organization from top to bottom is great. I really am optimistic, and hope at some point, ownership begins to open the purse strings again like they did a couple years a go. I really think he does want to win championships, so hopefully there is still a glimmer of hope. I am more concerned about possibly losing Falvey and Lavine at the end of this year.

I was going to give a pass but man . . . I really think you need some happy pills. Early this year you were complaining about the lack of pitching prospects, and now that players are truly performing you want rain on that parade. As to the overall depth, I don't care about age as much as how many years of control and where we have them. And ultimately you can trade or find RP, getting the SP is the costly factor. Right now - 2 more years of cost control for Lopez Ober and Ryan a couple more years of control 5 years + on SWR, Matthews and Festa Then you have all the other prospects. No offense, that is depth and control that very very few other teams have. That is the envy of probably 20-25 other organizations. I have a feeling the salary situation will work itself out and be similar to what we are working with now.

True, but you often can't have elite pitching without first having those stud prospects. The more eggs you have sooner or later 1 or 2 or more will hatch. Also on your analysis of the bats. You still have a good core of controllable decent bats. Royce Lewis being 25 is obviously your player with the highest ceiling. I still think between Lee, Miranda, Julien, Martin, Wallner, and Larnach you have enough talent to supplement Buxton, Correa. I have very little concern about our bats, and we have enough hitting prospects to continue to fill in holes for under performance or injury.

We have a current much better pitching situation top to bottom in the organization than we have had since the early to mid 2000's. As to Soto, yes small sample size, but you are showing a pitcher that can get his fastball up to 98 with up to 5 pitches and in his last start throwing 69% strikes. He has effectively dominated A ball the last 2 months. There is still things to work on, but he has a higher ceiling than Chase Petty. Whether as a trade chip or not he is another great asset to the organization. As to that 2023 I had stated several times, that draft has the potential to be a franchise altering draft. 1st Walker Jenkins (top 10 rated prospect) - has the ceiling of a HOF type player, but still wide variety of outcomes here Ca Soto (could be pushing top 100 lists, looks like a #1 to #2 type pitcher) 2nd round Keaschall - amazing production - in top 100 lists and looks like a player that could have all star potential. 3rd round Winokur - sky is the limit with this kid. Ceiling may be just slightly lower than Jenkins. Lots to work on still but looks very very good. The remainder of the draft you have had some decent performances. Of those I still think Hall has the best chance at becoming a legit prospect. Just needs to increase the velocity and tad more, and regain his command that he had in college. You have 9 other pitchers with several already in high A ball, that I wouldn't be surprised if a couple make it to the big leagues similar to the path of Ober, Festa, and Matthews. As to the organization, if we keep pumping out pitching prospects like we have this year, it will make life relatively easy for the organization. We still need to produce a number 1 type pitcher and you are starting to have some options. Soto, Priellip, and Hill on paper have the ceilings to potention to reach that level. Matthews may as well. He obviously has immense control, but will need to learn to pitch outside the zone more with better hitters. Say what you will about ownership, I will still say this front office is top 5 in drafting. As long as they can continue to keep that performance up, the organization should be in good shape.

I agree, I don't think you can look anymore where they were picked, rather how much was agreed to in the contract. The biggest thing with Julien was he was always going to be a harder sign, then he exploded in the CWS last few games (after the draft). This allowed him much more leverage, and when he feigned going back to college, the Twins upped the amount. In either case, neither were a 1st through 3rd round signee. In either case you cannot argue with the Twins strategies, find hitters early, and then come back with tons of pitching picks later in the draft. They are also going for 1 big swing, on the pitchers in the early rounds as well. As to this year, as you have stated, the most likely hitters to succeed would be Culpepper, Amick and Debarge, but there is some talent in the later rounds. More than anything they needed to round out the overall roster after picking so many pitchers last year. A ball needed a massive shot in the arm, and this draft has provided it.

What this season is showing that we are developing more and more pitching. Like Festa shows, they still have some things to work on. However, they add value to the overall organization. Festa, Matthews, Soto and Priellip have major green arrows and all look like pitchers that help the big league team (wither currently and/or in the future). For what was considered one of the organization biggest black marks, it has quickly turned into a major boon for the organization. Who would have thought we would have this many quality arms in the minors. It also gives us some trade chips in the future. For young pitchers you have SWR, Festa and Matthews that all could command pretty high value if you would want to trade one. Soto could have the highest trade value of any of them. We will see what Varland can do for the remainder of the season. In either case that is a lot of depth to go into next year with.

You do have Julien and Holland (finally started looking like could make it to the big leagues this year before his tibia fracture) from the 2019 draft. Even still I fully agree with your assessment.

There was major questions how good of hitters were in the draft class, the expectation was prospects only up to about the #60 to #70 range were decent hitters then a pretty big drop off. So when the Twins continued to take a hitter heavy approach, I understood it as they went very heavy pitching wise last year but was curious how they would perform and look. For a game, and a single game, I think we can say that narrative was wrong. Those hitters looked like they belonged. We will see if it develops into anything more than that, but for now we she all be pretty pleased.

LOL you tend to be furious about a lot of things. We have the batters to compete. Pitching, you have the potential to have 3 strong SP going into the playoffs and a pretty deep pen. To me it looks like you have enough. Ryan is the one I get concerned how he would do in the bright lights. As long as we don't go into a tail spin to end the season it looks like a pretty successful season. We also have the 3rd highest percentage to get to the WS out of the AL teams.

Hall has taken a little longer to figure things out. However, he is starting to show signs of figuring it out. He has always been known at control pitcher with quality secondary pitches. The concern was always if he could increase the velocity. Now it does appear, his control has gone down this year as he has tried to increase velocity and quality of the stuff. Ultimately I think he will begin to get more comfortable, and his control will really begin to stand out similar to Andrew Morris. He is still one that I am going to keep an eye on, because he has the ability to take off like Morris has this year.

We will know in the next 2 weeks. Really need to sweep the Sox this weekend.

The quality of pitching was not good and the cost was high, and we needed to shed salary to take on a pitching contract. That is a pretty tough scenario. I do think we could have renegotiated with Flaherty and the high asking prices wouldn't have been as high as was earlier. However I am not sure this management would have been willing to take another risk on player that is dealing with a significant injury (bad back, has had 2 injections in a month). As I said in the run up we are likely better hanging on to what we have, and we seem to have enough depth of pitchers and hitters, to handle injuries as they come. I really hope we start to get healthy.

I think overall this is a lot more complicated than most fans are making this out to be. I do think Falvey and Levine have done a pretty good job, there have been some missteps, but overall very good outcomes. I do think they are struggling with the owners, which I will get into in a bit. I think the Pohlads are feeling the heat, its why when they got doxxed with their phone number, their was a pretty strong reaction and Falvey really tried to walk back anything regarding ownership. My feeling yesterday was this was really the beginning of the end for Falvey and Levine without a new contract. To me seems to be a very stupid decision by ownership if they do let them walk. But lets be clear, Falvey came from Cleveland where they are more financially constrained than us. Also the transition of switching from cable contracts to a streaming/local broadcast model is going to affect every organization. So unless you are going to a top 7-8 org., I am not sure there will be a significant different, plus they have built a very nice war chest of prospects and young players. Going to restart somewhere else with a much shorter leash and a tougher division than the AL Central isn't everything its cracked up to be. Ultimately we needed to trade Kepler to take on any pitching trade, and that went by the wayside when the Yankees pulled the trade on Flahrerty. I really think it was pretty close to a straight up trade with maybe a slight prospect from our end. Ultimately, am I disappointed with ownership. Yes, I was hoping for a 1 year reset on salaries, that we jumped way to high, due to the Correa opportunity. It appears to be more than that, but I also think it is a bit out of Ownerships hands as well. Now they have done a horrible job at PR and framing things and trying to look like they are doing their best to put a competitive foot forward. They have allowed the framing of this to be the ownership are tightwads. I'll be curious to see if new contracts are offered, if new contracts are accepted, or if there is a clean break and reset. For all those who have criticized the job Falvey and Levine have done, it can get much worse. Lets win this division and then see where everything breaks. Ultimately winning heals a lot of wounds, and if we win with our players without any big trade, we have more ammo for trades in the offseason when trades are much more balanced.

He signed a 32 million dollar contract as a poor defensive left fielder. I don't know, I think it really come down to his end of the season. He could push closer to 50 million on a 3 or 4 year deal due to the better defense if he gets hot down the stretch.

Thought this was an actual move LOL.

There is a possibility they can find something there, that is the one thing with relievers, you never know when things can suddenly click. Whether Thielbar, Jax, or Stewart. The Twins do seem to find value. Even still I am not highly optomistic and I think this may be very similar to a Floro situation last year.

Kepler is a very good right fielder, he is dependable, solid in the field and when his bat gets hot is one of the better outfielders in the game. There is still an outside shot he gets really hot the remainder of the year and the Twins can tag him hoping to get an additional 1st round pick. With the organizations allergy to increased payroll right now and Kepler just being good not great so far, this is not the most likely outcome, but still a possibility. I do wonder . . . Falvey said they had something in the works that effectively fell through. I am wondering if it did include in some format Kepler going to the Yankees for Cortez. It was pretty evident Cortez was on the block dependent on them getting Flaherty and that obviously fell through. What is weird is they went and got another SP and still didn't trade Cortez. Who knows what was going on there.

Yep its right . . . Ummm, you are saying you couldn't find anyone to trade Staumont to for a prospect in a sellers market?

if you are facing 2 lefties in the next 3 batters it isn't.

He fills a role, don't put him in leverage situations against righties, and he does pretty well. Wish we could have gotten a slightly higher quality reliever, and maybe they think they can tweak him. Jay Jackson from Toronto doesn't give me a lot of hope though 😉. Oh well lets see if they do anything else. Hey but no one can say they didn't make a trade at the deadline . . . LOL.

Eh, for what we paid, can be a useful piece in the bullpen. Really we didn't have that many holes. Unless something jumps out this is likely it as I suggested earlier. The prices were just too high to get much accomplished with a long term goal of competing year in and year out.

Since Tarik is divisional rival, and they don't have to trade, and there seems to be a massive premium this trade season, I think that calculator is a tad off. How about 4 of our top 6 prospects to get those 2 players. That is probably what you are looking at.

Now Baltimore getting Rogers.