Ctwink

He was beaned on July 28, 2024. Here are his stats in 2024 in 139 AB's after the beaning. They do not support the beaning as the issue for his decline since he continued to play well. It was a good thought though - more likely its his shoulder (or just simple regression). Batting Average (AVG) .288 On-Base Percentage (OBP) .318 Slugging Percentage (SLG) .424

Not sure why anyone would suggest trading for ANOTHER LH outfielder.......................

Well if they trade Correa away, as someone suggested above, they would certainly lessen the infield crunch. Have Miranda at first, Willi at 2nd, Lee at short, and Rolls Royce at third - and shade Lee towards third to make up for Royce's deficiency in the field. Then you sign a cheap UI who can play third half the season when Royce is out and wait for another infield prospect to coming knocking on the door.

I was replying to the article's assertion that he would bring a ML player and a Top 25 prospect. "IF THAT WERE TRUE", then he would probably bring a better starting pitcher if we deleted the prospect.

If Julien has so much value, why wouldn't we just trade him one-for-one for a starter rather than getting an average ML player and a Top 25 prospect especially when the ML guy we are getting has had middling success the previous two years between a serviceable K rate which doesn't make up for his high walk rate. And his walk and K rate have gone in opposite directions this year which implies some of his success is luck. Sure he hasn't had a walk since June 12, but he's also only had 1 K (11 games and only 1K!). Not only does he not profile as a pitcher the Twins FA would target, seems like the only upside is that he isn't eligible for Free Agency until 2030 and he's left handed. Pass....

Apparently you skipped over the parts of the article where he talked about Vazquez sucking at the beginning of the season.....

Pass - he has one of those projectable flabby bodies that do not age well. I give him one or two more All Star years before he turns into a liability.

Its amazing how many World Series over the years were won by players who clearly needed a day off to rest their owies. Imagine how much better all those Yankees teams of yore would have been if only they knew their players should only be playing 4 days out of 5 rather than hitting homeruns EVERY day.... <tongue firmly planted in cheek> The whole idea of workload management has been pushed as a requirement by the union to make sure players play to their full ability. What its really been doing is keeping good players off of the diamond for no reason at all. If workload management was really an actual thing, we would see players who are "properly rested" perform beyond expectations when they are allowed to play. We don't. The whole idea is idiotic...

COME ON!!!! These people aren't playing for a 5th Grade participation medal because their FEEWWWINGS will be hurt if they don't win. These people are playing a professional sport for billions of dollars. If a player comes hard into 2nd base and avoids the tag, but the fielder gets knocked back, loses the ball, and there are no other infielders nearby, is the "right thing to do" to have the runner call himself out or go back to first???? NO! He runs like hell to 3rd. That's called playing the sport. Grow up Matthew............

"blah blah blah" Point is the Twins picked up another broken starter. You can parse it anyway you want, but the facts still remain.

Think its time for us to do some major praying for Lewis - clearly he is the current Twins "hex" recipient in the long line of stellar Twins players since 2000 cut down by injuries. Jason Kubel, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano...

"Snarky writer lampoons readers who are simply pointing out Twins Front Office's track record of trading for starting pitchers who immediately get hurt"

April being Correa's "theoretically most healthy month" is of course a misnomer. Similar to all recent Twins injuries, Correa stated that he had been struggling with the foot issue for awhile - I'm betting he suffered the injury in spring training and decided to see if he could tough it out. That's not excusing his pedestrian season last year or discounting signs of decline, but saying he should have played better in April is not really fair.

Thank you - I was going to say the exact thing - Julien is praised for power in the article and Kirillof is tanked, but their Homerun rates are very similar. Kirillof has 22 HR's in 706 PA while Julien has 16 homeruns in 408 PA. If you extrapolate Julien's number to the same 706 PA, Julien has 27 HR. So what's the difference? Kirilloff has been hurting for half his ML career and has been unable to pull the ball while in Julien's one partial season, he had zero issues affecting his swing. I have a suggestion - lets just let Kirillof play and see what he does. Don't judge his career projection off bad data.

I agree with everything except the end of the article - Polanco was going to be moved this year whether the Twins had cut salary or not - his contract was just too valuable to not move to another team especially when the Twins have several IF options who are younger and cheaper. I don't really like the return on the trade - it seems to me they could have done a 1 for 1 and gotten a GOOD starter - but you can't fault the Twins FO for getting four players including a Top 100 prospect for him. If the Twins were the Yankees or Dodgers, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this, but they aren't.

Yeah they are exactly the same other than Puckett is in hindsight considered to be probably the worst 1st ballot HOF selection, an overall weak HOFer, and his good guy persona was shown to be a gigantic lie which ultimately got him fired from his dream job and getting roundly vilified for his double life. Puckett was an absolute SUPERMAN for those of us who grew up on 80's and 90's Twins baseball, but let's be honest here. Mauer is a decent 1st ballot selection, already a better HOF selection, and I'd be shocked if he turns into Curt Schilling....

Not to be a jerk, but this is NOT a good news story. Taylor really just needs to get on-base and steal bases from the #9 slot in front of the Twins REAL power hitters and here he is striking out 32% of the time (!) in order to hit 10 more HR's in the year. The amount he has added to his SLG (app 70 pts) almost exactly equals the drop in his BA and OBP and while his OPS is up 28 pts, his OPS+ is down (90 to 88) from last year. Considering everyone on the Twins wants to swing from their heals and strikeout all the time, having someone who actually could get on-base and take advantage of the new SB rules sacrifice almost all of it for a little more power is "stupid".

Bravo - 1 game where they actually hit a little. Yes I see in your article that “the process” will take awhile, but this is at least the third similar article about the Twins hitters deciding the have had enough or they are going to make a change or there is a different feeling around the clubhouse - all of them came to a win or two and a return to strikeouts and dead-pull flyouts. In order to prove mgmt is serious and to put a jolt into the team is to fire the hitting coach - players are already running the hitting meetings.

Really should have a qualifier in the title "...of the last 30 yrs". You can't have a list like this, call it the best prospects in HISTORY and ignore the first 30 yrs of Twins history......

These players are paid to play ball. They aren't paid to force their opinions down our throats. I don't care what the subject is - do it on YOUR time - not during MY game. Just like Hollywood actors, I don't care what an athlete's opinion is - it won't sway me one way or another - so shut up about your pet project du jour. I don't care. Just like this opinion - we all have one and they all stink. Just because you are Lebron James and are a gazillionaire doesn't make your opinion more valuable than mine. This elitism has led to the downfall of Hollywood as the actors/directors care more about making "meaningful works of art" and telling the unwashed masses what to think than entertaining their audiences and then charging us $15 for a ticket to see their crap. I don't care about how you are planting trees in South America or your newest electric car or what your purple/pink/blue/gold ribbon signifies while you talking on the red carpet. If professional athletes aren't careful, they will kill the sport in the same way. If you care more about making a statement than doing your job, you are going to piss off a major portion of your fanbase. I already have turned off ESPN radio because other than Dan LeBetard - who understands his show is meant as entertainment and a vehicle for MAKING MONEY - the rest of cast of fools think I need to hear from one athlete after another babbling about their opinions. No - I listened to ESPN radio FOR FREAKING SPORTS!!! These people need to understand who are paying their millions.

You missed Trevor Larnach at #78.

I know your post was about saying "have fun and collect cards - its neat". Which I agree with. However, the economics are upside down and you could/should have done a better job of underlining this. To highlight pictures of your "lottery tickets" where you got cards that are worth more than the pack that you bought is a rarity and finding a card that's worth three figures is close to 1 in a million. If I was talking to someone who had never collected cards, I would want to underline (several times) that they need to do it for the love of collecting because 999 out of 1000 people won't find any card worth more than $5. Considering a pack can be $15, this is not a way to make money. Collecting sports cards hasn't been about making money or stocking up an investment at any time after 1985. I buy a pack of cards a couple times a year just for fun and haven't found a valuable football or baseball card (worth more than $5-$10) since like 2001. Instead if you love baseball AND you want to collect cards of value, I would suggest that people get into collect cards prior to 1979 - especially if you are interested in baseball or football history. Not saying collecting cards SHOULD be about making money, but too many people open up pack after pack after pack hoping to find that golden ticket that never shows up and then they get burned out with their stack of worthless cardboard. No one should be getting into card collecting to make money.

I’d make this trade for days. Fair mention, Diaz is playing well this year (for once) and has been at AA for a month. However, I can think of several guys who are 40 man eligible at the end of the year who are farther along or more talented than Diaz. This is a phenomenal trade for the Twins. You add a serviceable reliever, get a good AA starter AND you get a ptbnl all the while clearing a name off the long list of players you have to make a decision on in October. What’s not to love? Diaz was probably the most expendable “blue chip” prospect the twins had. Not sure who is runnin the show in Miami - they must have REALLY liked Diaz to trade three players for him. 1B/DH types are not hard to find...

If Falvey gives up that much in a trade for Bumgarner who is clearly just ML average at this point, no matter who the reliever is that is tossed in with him, he should be fired...

Still think we should go after Max Scherzer. Yes, we'd have to give up alot, but if you can't produce that #1 starter type you have to get him from somewhere. And by slotting that #1 guy in, moving everyone down, sticking Pineda in the pen for the rest of the year (where he can rear back and just fire away and the Twins can limit his innings), and getting rid of whoever is the worst reliever, you strengthen the whole team and then the hitters don't feel like they have to win every game 9-5. You can also use it to thin out the 40 Man Roster herd. So we send them Trevor Larnach, Wander Javier, Jhoan Duran, Lewis Thorpe, Nick Gordon, and Stephen Gosalves. You get 6 top 20 guys that are either ML ready or who have a high ceiling and we take on ALL of Scherzer's salary and call it good. That's the kicker in all this - his salary. Sure if we asked the Nats to pickup part of the out years part they'd want Lewis and Kiriloff to just start talking, but we are also taking on all the stupid parts of Scherzer's salary.