Western SD Fan

Seems sad, but accurate, when even the NY Post writes a story suggesting that the Twins are the fix on what is ailing the Yankees. Yankees' woes disappear as they top Twins for much-needed win

We are seeing in real time what the pitching "pipeline" has produced. A slew of pitchers who don't have the stamina to get through five innings. This includes Adams, Ohl, Raya, Prielipp, SWR, Festa. We at least now know that the piggy backing pitcher experiment is failing. Snark comment #1: Can we trade Julien to the Winnipeg Goldeyes for a container full of walleyes? Snark comment #2: I almost believe that the Yankees AAA team (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre) could beat the Twins at Yankee Stadium.

I understand that this isn't a satire column, but I would have given the award to the wet paper sack. The Twins certainly couldn't hit out of one this past month.

I watched a couple innings of the game today on Roku and it looked like he had really good movement at 3b making one good play where he charged in on the ball. His power arm will definitely be an asset over at the hot corner.

FWIW, Correa went 3-12 over the weekend in Boston with a HR and 3 runs scored. I haven't been able to see whether he is running out at bats or not, but I could see an uptick in production. It seems like he was trying to manage his body in MN at the cost of offense and the immediate shift to 3rd has done wonders for him.

I was actually semi-hoping that Urena would hit Ramirez in the pocket. Not that I want anyone hurt. I just want some excitement in this game and plunking someone would certainly help that.

This loss should be directly laid on Rocco and the coaching staff as well as the FO. Definitely an execution problem early when they couldn't get Clemens in from 3rd with nobody out. Even that I put on the fault of Baldelli and the coaches for not having the players prepared to actually execute a small-ball strategy. We all noted how well Cleveland executed their opportunity in the latter half of the inning. I kept watching Ohl and it appeared he stayed in one inning too long. I was hoping he would complete his duty, which was one trip through the order, which he did. Just two outs short of finishing the 8th inning. Ohl did his job. This is one of the few cases where Rocco needed a quicker hook to prevent damage. I would have liked to see Austin Martin actually PH in the top of the 9th instead of being the PR. Rocco suddenly goes off-script again and attempts to make Keirsey Jr bunt the runner over. After the entire season of not prioritizing or using the bunt, you decide to use it here!?!? Yes, it made sense, but, no, you failed your players in preparing them for the situation. As other commenters have suggested, this is a failure all the way up the developmental process where they focus on hitting with spreadsheets in their eyes rather than watch the game situations. Speaking of spreadsheets, maybe in all of the fire sale chaos, the Pohlads didn't renew Rocco's Microsoft 360 (and Excel spreadsheet) subscription and didn't have everything moved over to a lower form of Google Docs at the time of this game. I'm sure that Julien will get some sort of extended run, but I think I've seen enough of him. His poor defense and even worse offense are just becoming a dark hole in the lineup. His 9th inning hit that he barely ran out of the box for kept him from reaching 3rd and forced another bad move in having Martin pinch-run vs pinch hit and may have given us a better chance to at least tie the game. Rocco & Co will need to take a more hands-on approach as there's hardly anybody left among the players to help guide the younger players like he has been depending on ever since he was hired in 2019. I don't see him up to the task and it doesn't seem that he reprimands players at all, doesn't force them to have fundamental drills like bunting, PFP, base running, etc.

You forgot to include that they rehomed TC Bear to an undisclosed location to keep those pesky insider sources from leaking out and King Emperor Falvey won't have to answer so many questions.

When I heard of the quote about Correa wanting to transition to 3rd base, it made a lot of sense since we can see that his range has been declining and it probably doesn't put as much stress on his feet as short would. The FO had an entire offseason to work it out and shift Lewis to 2nd base or 1st base and have Lee play short. Whatever issues you would have had with Lee at short, working with Correa on footwork, mechanics, and ball placement would have done Lee wonders. In the end, we still have Lee at short, just without the training or insight from Correa while he was still with the team. I honestly do believe that Correa wanted to build a winner in Minnesota. I think he, like the rest of us, got a slap in the face in learning what "competing" means to the Pohlads in late 2023 and has likely been looking for a way out ever since. I do think we will see a Correa resurgence back in Houston and that if they were going to go full rebuild, then Correa had to go somehow and I'm fine with Correa leaving. I'm curious what your opinion was on the Rafael Devers situation. Devers was originally told he would be a permanent DH, then told he needs a 1B glove and to get out there and play. In today's age of advanced metrics where WAR, OAA, and DRS are being used to value a player as well as SDI, which is used to help determine Gold Glove winners (and potential bonuses). I too would be concerned that switching positions so quickly would hurt my value, especially in a player like Lewis, who will be going through the arbitration years and everything that can be used to hurt a player's chances at arbitration can and will be used against them. Very few people are like Cuddyer, Punto, or Astudillo that just says "F it, give me a glove and I'll figure it out".

Cory Provus does a weekly chat with Dom Izzo on WDAY in Fargo. When Izzo asks for Cory's reaction, you can hear in Cory's voice that he is just as stunned and surprised as we all were. Although I believe that Cory is a consummate professional, it sounds like he really does get to know the players and even a little bit of a fan himself on wondering what the hell just happened.

"Joe Ryan appeared disinterested initially." - This makes sense for a player who is likely confused why he is still in Minnesota when everyone else of any intrinsic value to another organization was traded off in the last 48 hours.

In a related move, I heard they were able to rehome TC Bear to the Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot, ND as a way to keep him quiet and to stop the leaks coming out of 1 Twins Way.

You're right. I'm still in the wish category that some of these decisions could have been saved for when the new ownership was fully in charge.

I hope that this dumpster fire of a sale didn't scare off negotiations on a sale of the team. If you include lost revenues and goodwill, the Pohlads may have cost themselves $50-200M in value. All that to save no more than $20M in payroll. Now if they can manage to get Correa back to the Astros somehow, that would actually save some real coin and give an upcoming ownership group some flexibility.

Listening to MLB.com and one of the pundits made the comment that prospects get GM's fired. Apparently, they forgot that the Twins exist.

Sounds like the mystery box that Falvey keeps getting back for his deadline trade deals.

Tell them we are sending TC Bear to Philadelphia as a Bader Tots buddy.

I've said this for some time now. Part of the Rocco's greatness was in his first year with a veteran lineup (Bomba Squad) and having Nelson Cruz as a player-manager. I think Correa wants to be that player-manager type, but availability is still important not only to on-field performance, but how other players respect you as a teammate. Rocco just really had to manage a few day-to-day activities and some egos. That seems to be what he does best. He certainly doesn't do well in managing an unproven team that still needs instruction at the major-league level.

BREAKING NEWS: TC Bear has been traded to Philadelphia for a 500-gallon gas tank full of fuel. Sources say the Bear has been the source of too many clubhouse leaks, a troublemaker, and needs to be run out of town to a fan base that will truly give TC what he is worth: the Phillies. EDIT: As part of the trade, the Twins have promised to run twenty (20) more MLB Green commercials per game.

I'm the crazy person that read most of the comments on this thread. 🤪 With that being said, I have a few points to make that I haven't seen as of yet or haven't been fully fleshed out. 1. The Phillies: I'm not sure how many teams were still involved in the Duran sweepstakes. It sounds like the Mets walked away and went to go sign Helsley. Falvey seemed paranoid on trading Duran to another AL team. If that is true, then Falvey had already cut his potential suitors by half and may have got the best deal that he thought he could get with the parameters he set for himself. 2. The money: Agree with the previous commenter that the Paddack trade seemed like a smart trade, expiring contract that will save some money. This one seems like a potential salary dump. Let's assume that Duran would have commanded $8-$10M next year. I personally believe they could have received a similar package in the offseason and still dumped said potential payroll. 3. Perception: Idk if this was a Falvey or Pohlad thing, but it seems one of them got sucked up in the national media attention that a Duran trade had to happen. Almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they got into the mindset that there was this huge market for Duran, got into it and realized that it wasn't as hot as was advertised, then couldn't get out as they were fielding too many calls. This is where Falvey needed to be firm and be willing to walk away ala Mason Miller of the A's. 4. The Team Sale: I don't know where the negotiations are at with the sale of the team, but this trade could give some clues about this as well. This may be a sign they are very close as Falvey is trading everyone that has a contract of any value to save the Pohlads money on the way out. If that is the case, the Pohlads could do one last kindness to the Twins and fire Baldelli. They basically have created a rebuilding team and Baldelli can't manage a quasi-pretender much less a clear, rebuilding team. This is the decision I wished that a new ownership would have been to make much less try to negotiate through the pieces that are left from the current one.

I'm starting to believe that the Twins misunderstood their mission for Earth Day in the MLB Green commercial. They were supposed to look for ways to reduce waste and recycle more. What they actually did was create a compost on the field.

I believe Clemens (Kody) actually came up to the majors as a pitcher so I was hoping for a little more heat than 50 mph meatballs.

I think I would be upset as well if I was supposed to be this elite arm and now being replaced by a position player especially since the position player inherits two runners.

The A's are still worse. They are currently playing in a bad AAA stadium, and the only reason payroll is up because they didn't want to go to court with the MLBPA. They would have sold off players like Bader and Castro for a Klondike bar just to save a little payroll.

While I largely agree with this, something has to be said about Falvey's fingerprints in this situation. I still find it hard to believe that he would be given the go-ahead to sign the Correa contract without knowing that the Pohlads wanted to cut down on payroll after the 2023 season. Absolutely the Pohlads are to blame for coming right out and putting a glacier full of water on the 2023 season by saying that they were going to "right-size" the payroll. But I would expect these payroll meetings occur multiple times a year and are usually planned out in vague figures multiple years in advance. I'm obviously not there so I don't know and maybe that says a lot more about how the Pohlads run a business.