LyleCole

I think it is long past worrying about the entire way the Twins scout, draft, and develop players. Twins Daily has long presented the Twins system as favorable to pitcher development, but I don't think the facts support that proposition. Of pitchers drafted and developed by the Twins, how many of them have reached the point of being "established"? Bailey Ober who had 2-3 years as a regular starting rotation pitcher with high level of productivity. OF course, the last two seasons he has fallen off that level. And I would argue that because of his low velocity he is an outlier. Griffin Jax as a reliever not a starter Other than Ober and Jax? Connor Prielipp Zebby Matthews Andrew Morris Travis Adams Cole Sands Cody Lawyerson Make Paredes David Festa

I am not fooled by anything. But I also will state that there is a progression of prospects and that certain members of your organization can earn their chance to make it to the big leagues. Aaron Saboto has earned a promotion. WIll it be a long one? IDK. But I don't see how promoting him and giving him 100 plate appearances would hurt anything. If he strikes out 60 times, well..... But that is better than bringing in another waiver wire replacement level player.

I agree with the idea that the only way I send Luke to AAA is if they bring up Culpepper, but I would also add Kyle Fedko to the list, or maybe Ben Ross. If they are sending him down so they can squeeze another "designated for assignment" 31 year old cash deal replacement players then no. Have him work out his problems at the major league level.

It is pretty impressive that the Twins Daily mock draft earlier has three guys Law now projects to be drafted in the first round.

Yep.... we got ourselves another designated for assignment TREASURE.

I think the team control is a bit overstated in that he will be Arbitration-1 eligible for next season. I would estimate he is going to get around $2.5 million in arbitration for 2027 tripling is current salary. Then assuming a similar season, around $4.5 million (See Trevor Larnach). While in modern professional sports contract values that is not a huge amount, I think it is for Kody Clemons. But I also agree with those who state that the price has to be right. Its still a cheap contract, and that adds value to the team who is acquiring, but if you can't get a guy that at least has some potential of being a MLB player there is no sense in trading him. Just keep him as a versatile veteran presence who has some pop in his bat. The value in trading him is not just getting a propsect back, but clearing the way for some of their AAA players. I would really, really like to see them give Aaron Sabato a chance with enough time left in the season to give him 150 plate appearances. Aaron has paid his dues since being a first round draft pick in 2020. He has obviously worked hard and has seemingly improved. He has cut his K% down somewhat, he ha a .360 OBP and .615 SLG%. He is 27 years old so his opportunity window to make the Major Leagues is getting close to being shut. If he strikes out 78 times in those 150 PAs, which is a distinct possibility, you saw him strike out 78 times but still gave him a chance. I think it is important to the organization to give opportunities to draft picks like Sabato who have moved up the organization and got better each year. Otherwise, why even have these players in your organization.

I would probably still be on the Lackey bandwagon for the #3 pick, but I am also a believer in isolating statistics of draft prospects in any sports and only looking at their stats against the very best competition they play. I think the catcher position is still underwhelming in our system even with the 2025 acquisition of Tait and Lackey could be a guy that is with the team sooner rather than later. But if they analyze what he did against the best NCAA pitching and see too many flaws then they have a lot of options. Assuming the first pick is Lackey, I don't see pick 43 being a high school hitter. I would prefer a college arm like Jack Radel. He probably doesn't have the highest upside, but I think he has a decent floor, good size, starter combination of pitches, and again could be contributing in a year or two with the Twins. And I agree with you that the Twins need to keep pounding the 2-3-4 round with college pitching prospects, and need to take at least 2 college pitcher with picks 43-74-79, with the other pick being a college OF prospect. Of course, my knowledge of baseball prospect, literally thousands of them in HS and college, is only surface deep.

Speaking of colossal wastes of time, your comments are the King! Good job. Do I think that Fedko will "cure the ills" of the Minnesota Twins? Nope. What I do think is that: 1. Kyler Fedko can be a better performer than James Outman who has demonstrated he is a below replacement level player ; 2 Fedko is a guy the minor leagues were designed for and he has essentially got better each step of the process ; 3 Fedko has EARNED the promotion to the Big Leagues, six years in the organization and advancing and improving, seemingly doing everything his team has asked. Fedko's career path reminds me a lot of Brian Dozier except that Dozier's increase in power came well after his major league debut. We know what we have in Outman (and a few other players). We don't know what we have in Fedko. He has earned his shot and the Twins should reward a 6 year member of their organization with the deserved promotion. S

Why would the Twins want to do that? They have James Outman with a solid .493 OPS on the MLB roster. There is still more than half the season to give him more plate appearances so he can strike out 43% of the time. And, when we get too tired of that magnificence I am sure there are several 32 year old waiver wire candidates out there. The Twins give very few chances to players that have actually been drafted by the organization and besides, since Kyle is 26 years and 256 days if we brought him up now that would be rushing him to the majors and threatening his future development. We don't want that. What if he fails? And, of course we don't need a versatile player with a little bit of pop in his bat that will take professional ABs.

Yes but it is a million dollars incremental. The Twins think in these terms.

I knew there was another waiver wire, replacement level player out there the Twins just could not wait to get their hands on! Like some of the other commentators, I did not have a problem with them DFAing Woods Richardson. But I also knew that their response to that release would be to find some older, never has been arm to "bolster" their bullpen instead of giving their own internal prospects the opportunity to move up. This has been the real "Twins Way" for quite some time. I really believe they need a complete overhaul in how they develop their pitching prospects, including their draft evaluations. One issue is, their conservative approach really doesn't seem to work in any way. Our young pitchers have plenty of arm problems that the conservative approach seems designed to prevent. Instead of "bolstering", give Mike Paredes more opportunity. They aint "rushing" Paredes as he is currently 25 years 310 days old and just made his MLB debut. Maybe he isn't "ready" for the major leagues, but lets also give him 10-15 appearances to actually find out rather than running out to the waiver wire (I get this was a "trade") and excitedly getting another guy who will take up opportunities for our young prospects on a rebuilding team.

Why has Reitz only thrown 6 innings this season?

Maybe. But we don't really know everything about what the Nationals were offered. The Twins are willing to take just about anything in return to dump contracts, and if you read my entire point was contingent on Bell getting back on track as the season progresses. But even if they can't dump him, the Twins are also a team that saves every dollar. His 2026 money is guaranteed so if they cannot dump him, they will probably just keep him to save money on his replacement.

This is something that has to happen. One thing I have pointed out many times with rebuilding teams is that not every prospect you bring up is going to be successful. You have to give them their time, and if they fail move on. Going back to the World Series team development, the initial SS for that group was Lenny Faedo not Greg Gagne. The original CF was Jim Eisenreich, not Kirby Puckett You have to weed out the failures (I will categorize that Jimmy Eisenreich was not a failure on the field) quickly. And to make the rebuild work you need to "glut" your prospects together (Hrbek, Laudner, Gaetti, Brunsansky, Puckett, Bush, Viola) weed out the ones that do not, find better prospects that work, and then fill in the holes with guys like Jeff Reardon and Dan Gladden. The problem with the Twins is that they are refuse to "rush" their prospects and prefer to play replacement level players in the lineup who will never be part of a core group of a rebuild. Specifically with Woods-Richardson the reason why he was DFA was he no longer had upside. I get he wasn't given much of a chance working from the bullpen, but as a failed starter the writing was on the wall. As a reliever he simply did not have enough upside to stick with the team. Of course, that only makes sense if the Twins utilize his spot on the MLB roster with a pitcher they are trying to develop in that rebuild, rather than bringing in another 31 year old waiver wire pickup special, their preferred type of guy. I wanted to make a note about Josh Bell. While I think signing over the hill players (but cheap) players is a stupid strategy for this team, I am very surprised how bad he is hitting. Josh Bell was a 110 OPS+ player last season. 100 OPS+ the year before. He has had only one season with a OPS+ under 100, that was 2020, an injury year after his All Star year in 2019. He is a career 112 OPS+ hitter. He is hitting 40 points below his career batting average, 63 points below his career OBP, and 106 points below his career slugging average. The reason why they will keep Bell is they are paying him what is for the Twins a huge contract of $7 million. There isn't any reason to dump him now and they can hope that he starts to hit better so they can dump him at the trade deadline for a team looking for a veteran switch hitting bat.

The only question that is really relevant is this (which assumes Joe Ryan remains at this level for 2026 and 2027): In the 2028 offseason are the Twins willing to sign Joe Ryan to a long term market value free agent contract? I would estimate that a model Joe Ryan market contract would be at least 5 years, $200 million. If the answer is "No, we will not sign him to that level of a contract" then the time to trade him is at or before the trade deadline. While we still have two seasons of team control, those control years are very valuable and will maximize his trade value. Each year we hold onto him pretending to compete means his trade value declines while at the same time we absorb the risk of injury degrading that trade value. Frankly, I think even if the Pohlads decide to sign Ryan to an extension in 2028, it will just be a token and they will not make similar moves to upgrade the roster.