LyleCole

Post Script to my above post. This "rebuild" that I projected as the correct path for the 2026 season would have also come after the Twins learned they would have the 3rd overall pick in 2026. Tanking in the rebuild would probably give the team another top 3-5 selection that they can add to their existing group of prospects, plus the prospects that you receive in any veteran trade. That the Twins chose a different path shows they are not serious and no matter what the language they present to fans, they just do not care.

I am not surprised by this and am surprised that anyone could possibly be surprised. This has been the "Twins Way" for a long time. In 2025 37 pitchers (which includes position players pitching in blowouts) pitched for the Minnesota Twins. Of those 37 pitchers, just 7 pitchers were 25 years old or younger (Woods-Richardson 24, Zebby Matthews 25, David Festa 25, Taj Bradley 24 Pierson Ohl 25 Mick Abel 23 Travis Adams 25). They were willing to try just about any 28+ waiver wire/replacement level arm without an ounce of potential they could find in the garbage bin (I don't mean anythng personally negative to these guys): Thomas Hatch, Michael Tonkin, Jose Urena, Genesis, Brooks Kriske, Erasamo Ramirez, Joey Wents, Jonah Bride, Darren MCCaughan, Noah Davis, Anthony Misiewics, Scott Blewett) not to mention Brock Stewart, Justin Topa, Danny Coulombe, Jorge Alcala, Cody Laweryson, and Randy Dobnak who at least were signed with a little bit of potential to be relievers. Think that is a fluke? In 2024 they went through 34 pitchers. 2023 just 29. But 38 in 2022. And the same thing is true with the positional players. They have a delusion which they present to the fans that they somehow have a method of developing these types of players when the end result is just miserable production after miserable production. I think some of it is based on fear. They seem to have a terrible time getting their prospects over the hurdle from the minors to the big leagues. they seem to have created a development path of producing the so called AAAA level players, players that perform well in the minors but struggle in the big leagues so they create extended delays keeping them in the minors, prefering to roster a guy like James Outman, Ryan Kreidler, Tristan Gray, or even victor Caratinin and just about everyone on the pitching staff instead of giving the PAs and IP to their young prospects. The examples are there for the pitching especially. David Festa. Zebby Matthews. Andrew Morris. It cannot be claimed that their struggles at the MLB level have been because they were rushed. Not one of them made their MLB debut earlier than 24 years of age. This was obvious before the start of the season. They should have pulled the plug and went full rebuild, trading Buxton and Ryan, perhaps others like Jeffers, at what might be their peak value rather than risk them being injured in 2026 (a major risk). Call up all of the prospects as a group, weed them out, and tank to build a winning team in the future.

Rebuild. THere is no reason to keep Rodriguez and Culpepper in AAA. In fact, there is no reason to keep Jenkins there either. Call the entire lot of prospects up. There isno chance of this team competing for anything, which was obvious to start the season. And, they should be pushing to find a trade partner for Byron Buxton, and perhaps Joe Ryan, and if there is any trade value to him, Bailey Ober. There is no sense in keeping these guys around, and the prospects we get in trade for them should be paired with the internal prospects in the rebuild.

Well, what is "optimism". In fact, I think the "optimistic" view of the Twins 2026 is disastrous. Why you may be asking? Because that simply isn't good enough. The BEST CASE scenario for this team is an 86 win season and squeaking a Central Division title our by one game and then getting destroyed in the playoffs. That is if everyone remains healthy, they get a lot of luck (for example, the other Central teams have bad seasons), every player improves, several players have career years and did I say everyone remains healthy? But that approach just sets up the band aid, low economic pretend "contenders" approach for 2027 when everything might not go perfect. If they really wanted to be contenders, then why the sell off last season at the deadline? This half way approach is not how you build a championship team on a budget. That takes investment in losing to develop the players that can make you a contender. You build the solid core of the contending franchise around your prospects you either drafted or traded for (Hrbek, Gaetti, Puckett, Gagne, Brunansky, Viola, Bush, Larkin in 1987) (mostly same core in 1991 with Knoblauch, Tapani, Erickson and Aguilera). Then add the smart additions that fill in the gaps where your prospects did not develop (Reardon, Gladden, Smalley, Bert, Reardon, Berenger in 1987) (Mack, Chili, Harpe, Jack Morris, Big Train Willis). That is the only approach to winning in Minnesota. I would add they almost did it in the Mauer-Mourneu-Hunter-Santana-Nathan years but they just could not plug enough of the gaps like the 87 and 91 team did.

This is just a continuation of the way the Twins have operated the last several years. They seem to have a major preference for replacement level players over their own developmental prospects. They have played this low budget pretend to be contenders just hoping that they can slip into the playoffs in the weakest division in baseball. It almost seems like a fear to bring their prospects up and see them fail. How many sub-200 hitters can a team roster over the years: Christian Vasquez, Mickey Gasper, James Outman, DaShawn Keirsey, Jonah Bride, Ryan Fitzgerald, our own Alan Roden, Jose Miranda, Caron McCusker (755 plate appearances in 2025) It seems like this team drools waiting for the next waiver wire player to be cast off by other teams. OOOOOOHHHH, he has a career .505 OPS!!!!! We need him. The 2026 season should have been a rebuild season from day 1. Instead, they made these half way moves and poor roster decisions in the pretense they can make the playoffs with 85 wins and pretend to the fans ownership/front office gives a .......

I am not advocating EVERY player be "rushed" to the major league level. But if you think Culpeper is a top prospect with talent then by all means especially since your roster is not competitive. It would be different if there was extreme talent and they could not get the game innings, but that is not the case. The other aspect is it isn't as if I am advocating this for a 19 year old player. Culpepper is 23. If you look at the MLB Top 100 Prospects (Top 100 Baseball Prospects | MiLB.com) look at the age that the players that have already made it to the MLB level. Trying to compete as a low payroll team is ridiculous and just prolongs the misery.

That this is a "battle" is a sad commentary on the Twins talent level and their farm team development over the past several years, and the cheapness of their ownership. That a manager has to consider two absolute bottom of the barrel players for a roster spot is damning. It would be different if the rest of the roster was stacked and this was just a decision on a specialty player. But it isnt. To me the real problem, however, is the Twins development strategies. I believe that players develop best at the major league level. I see no reason why we should be looking at these two guys on the active roster and sending Kaelen Culpepper down to the minors (just one example). Talent is talent, and if the player is truly talented they need to develop at the highest level possible. And playing time isn't an issue either. Culpepper can play every game rotating between the infielder positions (and maybe even some OF too). In the end, the only real evaluation of a player is at the Big League level. Many players have mashed the minor league circuit only to fail at the major league level. The quicker you get the read on the talent level, the better when you are developing. But the Twins constantly prefer to fool themselves that they are contenders and that these waiver wire replacement level players are what the fans deserve.

It would be very foolish to send Rodriguez back to the minor leagues. He has already proven himself at every stop in the lower leagues. Of course, the injury problem has been one of the biggest question marks against him but that issue in itself makes it imperative for him to start the season on the 25 roster. Why? Get him in action against major league pitching immediately and see how well he performs. With his very professional hitting approach he may do very well to start. But, if he is injured then you have that performance to guide his future. But if you send him to AAA to start the season and then he is hurt, it will further delay his major league debut. The Twins are just too conservative in their approach to prospects. The other issue is if we had real players ahead of him. If they keep Outman over Rodriguez after ER's spring success it is just foolish and more spinning of the wheels.

The key word is contributor. Right now if you stack Matthews, Sands, Festa, and Varland together you do not get "contributor". You get incomplete maybes. Jax was a 3rd round pick, not mid-round so he doesn't count. The only real measurable contributor has been Bailey Ober. The Twins management's ability to develop pitching has been significantly overstated.

I have a very simple rule about evaluating players: If their extra base hits are under 25% of their total hits they are going to struggle in the major leagues. I am not going to say there aren't exceptions and the corollary of the rule is not a rule (that would be if they have more than 25% of their hits go for extra bases they would NOT struggle in the major leagues). But if you do not have power major league pitchers arent going to worry about you. Such a hitter can be very selective and have a high walk rate in the lower minors but advanced pitchers are not going to walk them. Those pitchers will just blow their fastball by them not worrying about error. Houston had 6 extra base hits in the low minors out of 27 total hits last season. That is 22% of his total hits. Since he was brought up, Andrelton Simmons had 73 extra base hits out of a total 296 hits. That is 24.67% of his hits, right at the edge of the rule. But one thing that Simmons did in the major leagues was double his home run percentage of hits. He had just 7 home runs in the minors out, or 2.4% of his hits were home runs. In the majors he increased that level to 70 home runs out of 1169 hits, even though his overall MLB slugging percentage and OBP decreased about 10% from his minor league totals. I hope Marek can develop into a starting caliber shortstop for the Twins. I think, however, that his lack of power will make it very difficult to even reach the level of offensive production that can be acceptable given his defense.

"becoming another potential mid-round pick who turns into a contributor." I guess I am still waiting for this to be true for the team overall.

What I find ridiculous is worrying that Outman is out of options if he doesn't play well in Preseason. Only the Twins collect sub .550 OPS+ players like they are trophies. I pull for all of the players to have great seasons. I hope Outman comes down to Ft Myers and rips the cover off the ball and forces the Twins to keep him on the roster going back North. But if he just plays to his career norms, then who cares.

The problem with your position, which is what the front office has been doing for several years, is ownership simply will not provide enough payroll "to hang on to the stars" in enough quantity to meet those limited payroll objectives. And, an even more important problem, we just did not have these "stars". One of my biggest claims is that the reason to rebuild NOW is that the 2-3 stars the Twins have on their roster are probably at their peak trade value. Buxton played perhaps his best season ever. Maybe in 2021 he was "better", but he only played in 61 games that season. In 2025 he played in the 2nd most games in his career, 126, and only the 3rd time in 11 seasons (that is hard to believe it is that many) he played in more than 100 games. The probability that Byron Buxton has another injury season is pretty substantial, and if he is hurt again it will limit his trade value. Right now he is coming off a big season and his contract is very manageable for the contending teams that would want him. And many of those teams have high end prospects we can plug into the rebuild. Joe Ryan's trade value is huge because he has, at least for the high payroll teams, a modest contract and another year of team control. His trade value at this moment is humongous. Lopez' value is more limited because of his injury plagued 2025 season and Ober's is minimal. Therefore there is less downside risk of losing trade value, and in fact, with both of these potentially quality starters their trade value has 2026 upside. What other "stars" should we hang onto? Is Jeffers a star? Royce Lewis? For the right offer I would move Jeffers, but Lewis' value is low and I just keep him to see if we can get him back.

If they trade away Buxton, Ryan, and Lopez at what is probably their maximum value they would bring in a good batch of quality prospects. Add that to the prospects we already have, plus some of the existing players on the roster. You get those guys in the major league lineup, get them experience, weed out the ones that cannot perform, and add in some strategic signings/trades to fill whatever holes are left. That is the only real path available to a team like the Twins. It is a difficult one because the pieces have to work. I guess you can say that about the "no rebuild" team as I pointed out, but the prospect path of rebuilding now has the potential to be a longer term event. The risk the Twins have is that Buxton returns to his injuries and his trade value plummets. Ryan has the injury risk as well as losing a year of team control which makes his trade value huge. Lopez risks another injury plagued season and low return, although he like Bailey Ober might be more trade deadline type of values to move, hoping they bounce back. My lineup for the Twins would be OF Wallner-Jenkins-Rodriguez 3B Royce Lewis SS Brooks Lee 2B Luke Kearschall 1B - C- (I think the last two positions are somewhat screwed up by the limited "contending" free agent signings). Maybe you get a 1B prospect returned for Buxton. The starting rotation would to start the year would be Ober, perhaps Lopez... and then a bunch of the college pitching the Twins have drafted. If the prospects like Jenkins and Rodriguez don't pan out, the team will be in for a long streak of losing.

Of course it was not the "ONLY" answer. There are a lot of dumb answers available to every question. The real analysis is not asking "is it the ONLY answer", but was it the best answer. I guess finding out if it was the best answer is tied to what the objectives of the season are. Do the Twins want to compete for a title in a weak division with no real chance of winning the World Series (or even a first round playoff series)? Or do they want to position the team for a true run at winning? If they get great seasons out of Buxton, Lopez, Ryan, Ober. Rebound great season from Royce Lewis. More consistency from Matt Wallner. A follow up and healthy season from Luke Keaschall. And a breakout by Brooks Lee. And somehow find some relief pitching.... yeah they could win 90-95 games. The problem is that all of those rolls of the dice coming out the way we want are very improbable and htey may have missed the opportunity of trading Buxton, Lopez, and Ryan at the top of their trade values.