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LyleCole

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Everything posted by LyleCole

  1. LyleCole
    They had Eisenreich on the 1982 opening day roster AND starting lineup. But Kirby represents another aspect of the full rebuild: it needs to extend to through the entire organization. Look at Kirby's career. 3rd overall pick of the JANUARY Phase of the 1982 draft. The Jan Phase meant that he got 305 plate appearances in Rookie Ball in 1982. In 1983 he played at Visalia, A ball. Then in 1984 he played AAA and then 121 games with the Twins. His OPS in AAA in 1984 was sub .700. The Twins moved him rapidly through the system. In a rebuild you cannot move methodically and slow. You have to get your prospects up, especially the more advanced college drafted players. Another critical point I will raise is that it is almost impossible to rebuild 100% of the players needed on a MLB roster. A team like the Twins needs to do MOST of the rebuild internally, and once that core group matures fill in the blanks with players like Al Newman, DANNNN Gladden, Jeff Reardon, Juan Berenguer, and Bert Blyleven/Roy Smalley reincarnations. The 1991 team added Shane Mack (probably the best player on the 1991 team), Chili Davis, Brian Harper, and Jack Morris.3 But you got to get to that critical mass with the internal prospects (I include players like Tapani who were prospects acquired in trades). The Twins CANNOT rebuild via free agency.
  2. LyleCole
    AS I said a long time ago, rebuild is the way to go. The trade value of Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are at a maximum because they are coming off healthy seasons and their compensation levels are minimal to the teams that would be looking to acquire them. I would add Ryan Jeffers to that group too. I would trade Lopez only if you get a solid offer. Otherwise, keep Lopez and Bailey Ober and see if they can produce healthy results to start 2026. Then move them to a contender. The management MUST move the young prospects to the forefront. Jenkins and Rodriguez should be in the opening day lineup. Culpepper should be too. I would keep Royce Lewis and hope that he can turn it around because he could still fit into any competitive timeframe. Keep Brooks Lee as a super utility guy too. As I have mentioned before, rebuilds take time. Not every prospect you bring up is going to be a successful major league player no matter what their performance was in the minors. Not every player will stay healthy. One of the examples I use from the 1982 Twins Rebuild was the original center fielder they plugged into the lineup was Jim Eisenreich, who went from A ball to starting in centerfield for the Twins. But Eisenreich unfortunately flamed out even, and it wasn't until 1984 that they brought Pucket up. If they wait until 1983, or even 1984 to put Eisenreich into the lineup, it probably pushes Kirby back at least for some time. Get GROUP A of players up to the major leagues. Find out who can play and who cannot. Then bring in players to replace them from the farm.
  3. LyleCole
    What value can a 41 year old player possibly have for the Twins. Seriously. If the Twins litter their roster with 30+ year old replacement level why bother? One of the secrets of rebuilding for a team like the Twins is to rebuild cohesively, not piecemeal. If you have a bunch of old replacement level players like Turner taking developmental at bats from young players the Twins are foolish. But that is what I expect, btw. And, the time to trade Joe Ryan and Byron Buxton IS NOW. This offseason is the time of their maximum value. Lopez is another issue in that his value is probably down because of his injuries, but you trade him if you can get a realistic offer. Otherwise, keep him along with Bailey Ober and hope they bounceback enough to be trade bait during the season. Then you pack your team with your current prospects, plus the high end prospects you get for Buxton and Ryan. Rebuild giving the kids a long rope to develop.
  4. LyleCole
    Really? Name them.
  5. LyleCole
    The guy had a .825 and .826 OPS at AAA. Hit more than 25 doubles and more than 15 home runs in both opportunities. I like his 70-118 BB to K ratio which shows a reasonable level of professional at bats. He actually had better AAA statistics than any at the lower minors but has always posted solid OBP. Not sure if the increased slugging is a ball park impact (Scranton Willkes-Barre). When I look at the Twins roster I do not see real first base prospects with power potential. So I am taking this dude in the Rule V draft, paying the $100,000 and plugging him in for 80-100 games as the first baseman. If he can't play, just return him and it cost $50k. If he shows some promise, then perhaps we have found an option at the position we can move forward with. Remember, wins and losses really do not count. Developing players to go into the future does.
  6. LyleCole
    Proven mediocrities with limited upside at best that will cost a lot more money. Lets go with a guy who hasn't proven their limitations, yet.
  7. LyleCole
    In Roden's professional baseball career he has played exactly 1 inning as a first baseman, in 2023, at A+ level. I am going to give Roden about the same type of run as hypothetical Rule V pick Rumfield, about 80-100 games. 20 in left. 20 in right. 40 as the LH DH. I am not going to platoon him to start because we need to see how he handles major league left handed pitching except as the DH. That will give Roden about a full season of MLB experience under his belt. These are the types of prospects you try to expose fast, rather than piddling along for years up and down the minors. But you have to be willing to lose games, which the Twins should be in 2026 and you have to be willing to accept failure. Failure just means NEXT GUY UP.
  8. LyleCole
    I would take TJ Rumfield and just pencil him in as the starting 1B to begin the 2026 season. Why not. What other 1B options do we have? I understand he isn't a platoon guy to use with Kody Clemens, but Kody can get ABs at other positions too, and both can be DHs. Give Rumfield 80-110 games to preview what he has. The downside is $50,000. The upside is a player that can contribute.
  9. LyleCole
    HE was the 6th overall pick more than a decade ago (2014). The "pedigree" has worn off and you don't get any of that shine anymore when you are 30 years old. IS it possible that he doesn't regress to his career average, and perhaps he can have a year like 2025 in which he showed decent pop in his bat? Sure. Somehow he hit 5 HRs in 91 at bats to boost his slugging percentage to .473 which drove his OPS to 11% above average. His .253 Isolated Power measure was almost double his career totals (which includes that outlier). But, his strikeout rate was pretty much in line with his career 45.5%. I also looked at exactly who Jackson hit his home runs off. Two were off legitimate MLB pitchers. One in Tampa against Ryan Pepiot. One in Baltimore against Garrett Crochet. But two of his other homers were hit against low level MLB pitchers Nestor Cortes and Kyle Freeland. The other home run was hit in an 18-0 route of Colorado against our old friend Kyle Farmer pitching in a mop up role. My biggest point is, again, this management group has always seemed to believe in outside replacement level players over their own internal prospects. While I agree that the trade value we gave up was low level, why not save $1 million in salary and just roll with the internal catching prospects. Ricardo Olivar has better minor league totals than Jackson and is just 24 years old. Or perhaps Cardenas or Nate Baez or Andrew Cossetti. The value of developing these internally developed players is worth much more than having Alex Jackson whiff 45% of his at bats. But perhaps the front office knows more than we fans, but then, that is really telling on their own performance. They selected/signed these minor leaguers. If they think they can't match Alex Jackson's most likely offensive output that is very telling.
  10. LyleCole
    We got him. With them DFA Keirsey they need another sub .200 hitter to take his place on the 40 man roster. The Twins looked at that .137 batting average in 2021 (151 PAs), that .157 average in 2021 (123 PAs), the .122 average in 2024 (155 pas) and said, WE NEED THIS AND WE NEED IT BAD. I will concede that he actually hit pretty well in 100 plate appearances last season with Baltimore from an OPS standpoint. But when a .220 average and .290 OBP are major statistical aberrations for your career it probably indicates a return to the mean is inevitable. Still, I agree that for a team conserving payroll and $1.8 million is a huge amount of money for the owners that are pushing to a low budget rebuild, why not just add Ricardo Olivar to the 40 and pencil him in as the backup C and give him some other chances of playing LF to see if he has MLB value? Olivar is younger, more versatile, and his minor league career has been more successful. If Olivar can't do the job try someone else like Nate Baez, Noah Cardenas, or even Patrick Winkel. What is the fascination with journeymen that this team's management seems to love?
  11. LyleCole
    I want to reiterate why I think they should trade Joe Ryan and Byron Buxton: Their trade value will almost certainly never be greater. Buxton had a MVP level season and played what is for him a Lou Gehrig number of games. What is even more valuable to a contending team is that his salary of $15.412 million is locked in through 2028. Even if he hits all of his potential incentives (plate appearances and MVP voting) for almost every team in MLB that is a bargain basement price for a player of that caliber. You also have to factor in putting him near the top of a more potent lineup. You don't trade him away for nothing, obviously but I think every contending team would bid against each other to get him for the next three seasons at that price. For the Twins, $15-20 million is a hefty contract, but to the teams that Buxton would be extremely valuable to, he is the difference maker who could move them past their rivals. The same issue is with Joe Ryan. While you can argue all you want if he is a top of the rotation starter or a #2 or 3 starter, for a contending team his $6 million estimated arbitration contract for 2026 is an accounting error. Ryan has two more years under team control making him huge get for a contending team even if he is SP2 or 3. Even if Ryan pitches with similar results, or even slightly better, the contract control premium value is ticking away. If they wait too long, and have to dump him for pure contract reasons his value will plummet, all the while incurring injury risk that could make his value go to zero, or near zero (lets say Bailey Ober's trade value). For the Twins, the other element to factor in is each of Buxton and Ryan will be over 30 next season. They simply have to understand that the timeline of the remaining years of their careers and the timeline of the Twins being contenders of any sort do not line up.
  12. LyleCole
    I think the worse thing to do is try to straddle between being a contending team and a rebuilding team. The half way approach does not work. Either invest the salary budget needed to be a contender, or commit to rebuilding with prospects. Take your lumps, including lots and lots of losses, and hope your blue print for rebuilding works. Proper rebuilding takes years if you do it right. Not every prospect works out, there are injuries along the way that there isn't enough depth to cover, and even the management of the team can be wrong. This was all part of the process from 1981 through the World Series teams. The real question on these trades is what is the value of these players and the timeline for competitiveness. I would argue that for Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are at their maximum trade value right now. Buxton just completed a probable top-10 MVP season and is relatively underpaid for that level of output and is still a relatively good CF. This is peak value for him, and although he has indicated he does not want to be traded, moving to a more competitive team would change all of that. Ryan is a little less of a sure thing to trade because he still has two years of team control. But that is a chip that increases his trade value to any team looking to acquire him. Then depending on what returns you get from those deals, you can decide on Jeffers and Lopez. For example, a Ryan trade to Chicago Cubs that brought back Ballesteros might make Jeffers expendable. Then commit to losing 100+ games and getting your young guys up to MLB level.
  13. LyleCole
    Sure, you are probably correct but at the same time he is a hitter that went into the crapper after showing some promise.
  14. LyleCole
    I don't think it is the worse hire possible. Personally, I would have hired Toby Gardenhire. He would have been an internal candidate familiar with many of the prospects that will be on the roster for this coming rebuild. He would have pleased the ownership too because he would have been an inexpensive hire keeping the overall budget to a minimum. Perhaps Shelton can figure out what is going on with Royce Lewis, Brooks Lee, Miranda, and other hitters who just cannot seem to find consistent results that their overall talent should deliver. I am sure Shelton is also a low cost candidate that can be discarded with little dead cost though, another plus ownership values.
  15. LyleCole
    The Twins should be "Buyers" in the Rule 5 draft although they are probably the only team in MLB that worries about the $100,000 fee to draft a player. Find the best available relief type pitcher available and just plug him into the roster for the entire season. If we can't find a player better than John Klein in the Rule 5 draft we aint looking hard enough. When considering the 40 man roster, even though there seems to be a lot of room on the 40, there is some dynamic movements that will happen. Even the low budget Twins will sign a handful of players in the offseason that would replace players on the 40 man roster. Michael Tonkin (his 36th birthday is coming up) Kody Funderburk Cody Laweyson Anthony Misiewica Genesis Cabrera Thomas Hatch James Outman Ryan Fitzgerald DaShawn Keirsey Carson McCusker Jose Miranda Kody Clemens Jhonny Pereda Along with FA Christian Vazquez If I was running the Twins I would go with a full rebuild that moved Walker Jenkins and Kaelen Culpepper to the major league roster (along with Emmanuel Rodriguez). That is two potential 40 man roster spots, at a minimum, that no one is talking about now. The time and cheap owner budget has come for a major rebuild of this roster centered on Jenkins. I think they should trade Buxton and probably Pablo Lopez (adding more prospects to the 40 man roster), and perhaps even Joe Ryan. Gut it, rebuild it. If the present management cannot get it done, dump them.
  16. LyleCole
    YOu can never have enough sub .400 OPS hitters on your roster. The Twins certainly do seem to love them. It is almost as if they prefer giving these types of waiver wire pickups more opportunities than their own internal prospects.
  17. LyleCole
    A team with proper ownership would have easily kept Berrios with Lopez, and more. The Twins are a mediocre at best team because they have cheap owners.
  18. LyleCole
    Well, that seems to be the definition of pipeline. Draft---> Develop. I would argue that the Twins under this front office have not done that well. Since 2017 here are the pitchers drafted in the first 4 rounds through 2022 2017 Landon Leach (2) Blayne Enlow (3m $2 million bonus) Charlie Barnes (4) 2018 none (Cole Sands 5th round) 2019 Matt Canterino (2) 2020 Marco Raya (4) 2021 Chase Petty (1) Steve Hajjar (2) Cade Povich (3) 2022 Connor Prielipp (2) Andrew Morris (4) Their best move was trading Chase Petty for two seasons of Sonny Gray plus a compensatory pick when Gray left which they used to select Kyle DeBarge.
  19. LyleCole
    Wrong because if we have Berrios in our rotation through those years it would have solidified that rotation throughout. Berrios has been away for 5 years now and we have had minimal contributions at best from the players we received back in trade. The other problem with the Berrios trade is it was just pure salary dumping by the Twins ownership and we really have not replaced their contributions of these types of players. If the front office has shown one skill it is that they could identify reasonable pitching talents developed by OTHER organizations in Lopez and Ryan.
  20. LyleCole
    Because it isn't in doubt. Jose Berrios had one bad season in Toronto (2023) otherwise he has been a more than average pitcher for them. Simeon Woods Richardson has been average at best for two partial seasons with teh Twins. This trade, even giving benefit of doubt to Twins was a bad trade.
  21. LyleCole
    I totally agree that any claim of a "pipeline" is fully exaggerated. Bailey Ober is the only true home grown prospect that has made any real contribution to the starting rotation developed in this leadership. Cole Sand is a fringe reliever they have developed from a 5th round pick in 2018. I question their ability to draft pitching and think their reputation that is spread on this site if way over stated. While they got a 12th round pick in 2017 to be a quality starter with a 9.2 WAR, who else have they drafted. In the 2017 draft they selected Landon Leach in 2nd, Blayne Enlow in 3rd with a celebrated bonus move, Charlie Barnes in 4th, Widell in 7th, and Faucher in 10th. (The fact is this regime's entire draft history has been a failure unless you want to count Brent Rooker's 8.8 WAR with the Oakland A's a success especially comapred to 1st overall Royce Lewis' 4.1 career WAR). They have been somewhat successful in trading minor league pitching talent and other trades, trading first round pick Chase Petty for a couple of years of Sonny Grey (and gettting a comp pick for when Gray left as a free agent). They identified solid pitching talent in Lopez and Joe Ryan, and Duran. I will also add that the Twins cheap ownership has hindered them somewhat in development. The Twins were not going to pay Jose Berrios the market rate for a starting pitcher of his quality (about $15-20 million) so he had to be dumped. Everyone knows the Twins will dump a player once they cannot control their salary so the return for Berrios seemed better than it was (Martin was the 5th overall pick the year before the trade) but it really has not panned out. Having a starter like Berrios in the rotation WITH the other guys could have made a huge difference in competitive level. But Berrios, like Duran and Jax this season, was dumped because the owners are not going to pay salary to keep a competitive lineup. Simeon Woods RIchardson is mediocre the past two seasons (Berrios was traded 5 seasons ago) and that is about what we can ask for as Twins fans.
  22. LyleCole
    I think the chance of going to a team that is a real contender will outweigh any connection to MN. And, the trade value of Buxton will most likely never be higher than in this offseason. That is a double witching hour set up for a trade.
  23. LyleCole
    Well, the Twins leadership knows their plans better than we do, but I think when Buxton evaluates his baseball future he will see being traded to a contender being more in his interests than his comments to date about not wanting a trade which were mostly designed for public PR consumption than actual plans. But the dismal showing of the team, the ownership situation, the change in managers, and the strong possibility that this team will just be going through the motions in front of sparse home field crowds will change what Buxton's real interests are in staying in MN. For the Twins, this is a huge opportunity to sell high on Buxton. He not only is a good player but his contract is very manageable by a team whose ownership actually invests in the players of the team and wants to win. But, then, I am not sure if the Twins management sees the world in realistic terms and I would not doubt we see another pretender on the field next season destined to lose 85-95 games.
  24. LyleCole
    I would be surprised if the Twins did not find a trade for Byron Buxton. He will be 32 years old for the 2026 season and I cannot see how that fits into the clear rebuilding/payroll slashing plans of the team. It would be a trade maximization point too. Not only is Buxton coming off perhaps the best year of his career, for most teams his $15 million salary plus bonuses is ridiculously low. Even with a career year from Buxton the Twins are a 90 game loser. Next year they might be even worse and attendance is not going to be strong. A trade of Buxton would require two of a teams absolutely top prospects plus additional compensation. That would be a reasonable input of talent to a rebuild around Walker Jenkins.
  25. LyleCole
    I have been saying this for a while. I think they need to commit to a consistent plan and make the moves accordingly. Either go low budget-rebuild or go Twins max budget (which isn't very much) and try to be competitive building around the core group of players. While I think the first move meets the ownership's fiscal goals, I think they will not do this because they are looking at investors/sale over the near term and no one wants to invest in a loser. And the second option, actually investing in a team that has a real chance to be competitive is against their fiscal wishes. So, they will chose a the third option, which has been their stand by: Low budget pretend to be competitive. I think the rebuild should be the plan though. Even if ownership put some money into the payroll, it will take almost every one of these 7 things to go right to move this team into the competitive ranks. They would need to find a closer, which they had in Duran but dumped him. They would need to find a bullpen, which they mostly had, but they dumped that too. If they really wanted to they could have resigned Coulombe (who has pitched poorly in Texas) and Stewart in the offseason and rebuild their bullpen again, but with the top of it traded away they can't. So they will find a bargain basement closer and bargain basement bullpen arms again. The real question becomes what do you do with the core veteran players they have like Buxton, Lopez, Ryan, Ober and even Lewis. What is interesting is that all of the key players on this team are essentially the same age. Buxton is 31, Ryan, Ober, Lopez are all 29. Jeffers and Larnach are both 28. Wallner is 27. This is not a young team when you really look at it. I think the age factor is why you need to make the moves this offseason. Trade Buxton at the peak of his value. Trade 2 of the starters. Get solid prospect packages and build them right into the opening 2026 day roster along side the best prospects from our system. That team is probably going to lose 100 games in 2026, but if they made good prospect decisions, that is Jenkins and Rodrguez and Culpepper etc are the real deals like they have been talked about for years, they should be a good team in the future.
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