Western SD Fan

I think the key word missing is ATH-letes.

Oh good. The run expectancy graphic came up. It's almost like a kiss of death. That, and bases loaded has a better kill ratio than Medusa does turning people into stone.

When I first checked the trade boards, I saw a crazy rumor that the Astros were interested in Correa. I about ruined what was left of my back to jump up and down in celebration and then read the next sentence: "They are far away in negotiations." DON'T SCREW THIS UP FALVEY!!!! Let us out of the mousetrap!

I wouldn't even say that. For reference, the Rockies have been above .500 since the ASB (6-5) as exhibit A. We created a monster out there in Colorado.

Especially when it was Rocco who recruited him to sign with Minnesota.

I didn't watch the replay as much as a few of you so I can stand to be corrected. It looked like Clemens looked at the fielders while rounding second base and was expecting the decision for the stop sign. I'm sure he was just as surprised as us when Watkins sent him to the plate. If a blame game has to be assigned, I'm guessing it's Clemens because he should only be looking at Watkins and not looking himself and then wouldn't have slowed down between second and third?

And we always wonder why our pitchers can't get through five innings. When they have to get 4 outs every inning, that takes a toll on the pitcher. This is the second straight inning that the Twins need 4 outs to get out of the inning.

Only in Spooky Hollow. Not currently in Minnesota.

Apparently not per Jeff Passan. Or else no one has been able to get confirmation yet. MLB: Was Jhoan Duran Traded? Twins' Pitcher Spotted Bidding Farewell to Teammates

Welcome back to Minnesota, Jorge Alcala!

Almost like they are the same player. But one is from Minnesota and one was a trusty veteran. Almost don't know who to choose? 😑

I do have to wonder if there is a case for something Plouffe mentioned a couple weeks ago. He made a statement about some teams having more support staff in their minor leagues than other teams and that the teams who have the additional support staff seem to produce more major-league ready players.

Mulder and Scully still haven't shown up yet! What are they waiting for?

The high mark today was 16 runs set by the Orioles. Something to look forward to.

We can still bring back Bartolo "Big Sexy" Colon. He is still active in the Pakistani Baseball League pitching for the Karachi Monarchs. Karachi Monarchs Roster | Baseball United

I do too. One is given away every October or November. OH.....you meant one coming to Minnesota. That's a much different timetable. Currently behind the Vikings on bringing a Super Bowl Trophy to Minnesota.

I'm guessing that "Hug Watch" has reached the bench as the batters have quit trying and just want the game done.

And not the original one either.

There was an article about a month ago about testing these starters to a max of 60-80 pitches and seeing if they can turnaround every 4th day. They had already been testing this with Raya and Adams piggy-backing each other during games in St. Paul. Agree that it's a good way to ruin decent pitchers.

The TV broadcast was comparing Cory to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew in a look-alike contest. That did give me an idea of having Statler and Waldorf do the Twins games as an alternate broadcast. Definitely would be worth paying for.

Reported light-headedness. He was disoriented heading to first in his first at-bat. Maybe he foreseen how this game was going to go and decided he was done with it.

I think that ESPN views the Twins as many of the other big sports pundits do, as a high-end pseudo farm team for the "worthy" teams. They have been licking their chops over how they can steal Joe Ryan, Jax, or Duran from the Twins for two weeks now, as we have covered here on TD as well, but from a different perspective. Any minor trade that doesn't generate clicks or move the needle much (such as this one) won't be viewed very favorably. I think this was a good trade for what it accomplished. Paddack is traded to a contender to clear room for the young guys to get a chance the rest of the year. We get a player that will hopefully challenge Diaw in the future and maybe can be used in a tandem with DIaw at some point in the future if everything goes right. Dobnak was likely thrown in as an in-division trade tax. At this point, Dobnak was likely keeping a position in AAA that was needed for a young pitching prospect. I love the Dobnak story and wish him the best, but it's been his time to go from the organization for a few years now when it became clear that he would never be considered for the rotation again. EDIT: This is what I was going to say on yesterday's thread about the trade but missed my chance to comment as comments are now closed and cannot be viewed. I'm sad I missed it as it appeared to be quite spicy.

I would argue that even if Correa is faster than Vazquez, Vazqy runs harder to first base. Sometimes appearance make a difference.

Great game by the Twins. Great game by Zebby. Someone must have hidden Rocco's spreadsheets to make him let Zebby go out for the 6th inning. (sarcasm)

After reading the article and all of the comments, there isn't much to add to this so I will try to find a few things or highlight things that I think are important. Ownership's apathy and lack of communication is the overarching issue with this total system failure. As one of the earlier posters noted, I find it hard to believe that Falvey signed Correa knowing that ownership would slash payroll and basically make the contract toxic as soon as the ink was dried. In 2024 when the Twins signed back up with Bally, we had pleaded that they would spend some of that money on the team knowing that there were holes that needed to be filled and even $10M would have done wonders in 2024. As for 2025, I remember early on in the offseason that there was a rumor that ownership wanted payroll pared down to $130M and we were discussing articles about having to trade Castro, Vazquez, anybody that had a little too high a payroll. I remember discussions about trading Jax or Larnach because they made over $2M for this season and signing France was going to kill the payroll. From this standpoint, ownership should be given a little grace for allowing the payroll to naturally rise in order to allow Falvey to fill out the team. The FO seems to be lost on what they are trying to accomplish as an organization. I seem to remember a FO interview early on that the purpose on drafting players like Sabato and Larnach was to trade them for pitching or better prospects, similar to what they did for Steer and CES. I'm not sure if the philosophy changed after the Mahle trade or if the FO, like us fans, fell too much in love with our prospects to be willing to trade them for the pieces we actually needed. Now it seems we have a glut of prospects, failed prospects, and future prospects all in or about the same level (AA through the ML club). In drafting, the Twins do the same thing as a lot of other teams do, which is to try to draft players that are willing to sign "under slot value" and save money for the later rounds. One issue of doing this is that we are constantly drafting players with apparent injuries or an injury history. The only phrase that is consistent with all of our top prospects are "if he stays healthy". Plouffe made a good point that one cheap, easy improvement is to hire more coaches and staff for their minor leagues. One complaint has been that these prospects shoot through the minors only to then plateau early on at the ML level but doesn't correct anything when sent back to AAA. Spending and extra $2-3M in the minors would do wonders for the preparation of the players when they make it to the majors. I'm not sure where the Twins lie in terms of coach/players, but they need to out develop their players compared to their counterparts. I've been on the fire Rocco train all year (and it keeps gaining steam). With that being said, Rocco & Co can still only work with the parts that the FO gives them, and they don't always do the best with the ingredients they are given. Bullpen usage seems to be at the highest of my complaints from Rocco & Co. Rocco never really holding anyone accountable is also frustrating. I look at Detroit in awe and wonder on how AJ Hinch has taken a younger team and made them play better. Baez, the Tigers most expensive player, was riding the bench at times last year. Torkelson was sent back down to AAA with the understanding that someone was already taking his spot and he had to earn it back. You don't see that same fire put under Royce Lewis, Wallner, Larnach, or Lee and then wonder why it doesn't look like they put forth their best effort. Finally, the players, to me they are the lowest of the blame on the totem pole. While there is definitely blame to be assigned for lack of preparation or in-game execution, much of this starts with the expectations of the players themselves and that starts with the coaches/manager/FO establishing expectations with accountability attached to it.