LyleCole

Rodriguez who has been ranked in the top 3 prospect for many years has to be the starter in RF. The concept of "isn't ready" isn't the proper way of evaluating the decision. Of course he will not "be ready" for major league baseball. Very few young players are when they reach that level. There is a developmental curve for almost every player at the major league level. When you rebuild you expect the young players you put into the lineup to "not be ready". You expect to LOSE games. But those losses are an investment in the future of the team. Long time Minnesota Twins fans know that the 1982 team wasn't ready and they put 22 year old Frank Viola out on the mound despite his 5.21 ERA and 4-10 record (followed up by a 5.49 ERA in 1983) knowing he "wasn't ready". And, as the 1982 team knew the other aspect of rebuilding is who the hell else are you going to throw there? Mickey Gasper (29 yo, .479 OPS), DaShawn Keirsey (28, .324 OPS), Jonah Bride (29, .511 OPS), James Outman (28, .456 OPS), Ryan Fitzgeral (31, .551 OPS). Throw Genesis Cabrera and Noah Davis out on the mound to "eat up innings" and a bunch of 30+ pitchers like Jose Urena, Erasmo Ramirez, Brooks Kriske, Joey Wents (not 30+ but hey), Anthony Misiewics? IF Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodrigquez, Kaelen Culpepper cannot hit better than the guys I listed above then we have overrated them so badly that the scouts should be ashamed. And if we do not have pitchers in the system who cannot pitch better than these below replacement level players then that should make the entire organization ashamed. The last point, and I know I dragged on, is another factor of the 1982 rebuild that should make it a model is that basically the entire roster was in the "same phase". They came up together. They lost together. They got better together. They won together. Half way measures give half way results. I don't think the Twins management will do this because I think they believe they can at least contend for a wild card spot by filling in low level replacement players around Lewis, Buxton, Lee, Wallner Lopez, Ryan, and Ober, finding a cheap but somewhat mediocre closer and set up guy. I don't think it is possible but I don't run the team.

I think your counter is pretty simplistic in that it was a "different era". It still had the same development structure and similar timelines. Whatever Kaelen Culpepper's career potential is it will not be different if he skipped AAA completely and started as the Twins SS game 1 in 2026. He either is a good player or he is not. He could make the MLB adjustments starting in 2026 rather than 2027 or later. The only difference is that his rookie/develomental mistakes will create losses at the big league level rather than less impactful minor league games. But when you rebuild, wins and losses are immaterial. Development is the key. As I have demonstrated, the Twins development approach has not really worked with the vast majority of their internally developed players. Since the ownership will not spend money to bring in higher cost players they depend on these developed players to make up the team. Unless we get huge turnarounds by Lewis and a huge jump in Brooks Lee, Wallner, and a couple other players, and perhaps another above expectation years similar to Kerschall along with a return to form for Lopez and Ober, we will have another poor year out of contention. The other aspect of "pushing" players is that not every one of your prospects, even your top level guys, will be successful. In the Twins original core group of what would be their 87/91 World Series team Jimmy Eisenreich was the starting CF jumping all the way from low A in 1981 to starting in MLB baseball in 1982 and Lenny Faedo, their 1978 first round pick was the starting SS. Eisenreich had health issues and Faedo couldn't hit. But by 1984 and 1985 they replaced them with better players (although that is a bit unfair to Jimmy because he was playing very well) in Kirby Puckett and Greg Gagne. If you delay getting the player to the big leagues in a rebuild, you delay getting the determination of who is going to be the quality players and who will not. IN a franchise that cannot buy its way to success, this time frame is very important. Get the main group of prospects to the Twins next year and start the rebuild now rather than pretending the team is something they are not and keeping the low end mediocrity going. Of the 12 players that had plate appearances in today's bust of a game against the White Sox, half are low end replacement players at best (Outman, Fitzgerald, Clemens, Gasper, Julien, Martin). Why bother. At least on the mound, as bad as the starter was, getting Bradley and Ohl innings at this level is important. Just like how the Twins handed the ball to Frank Viola in 1982 and 83 when he had ERA's above 5.00, they need to get Ohl, Abel, and Bradley the innings to close out the year.

So you think a couple of weeks of AAA will make a difference? I am not against promoting Walker, I am just saying the AAA seasoning isn't required if the player is going to be good. Gary Gaetti number of ABs in AAA - 0 Age debut 22 Kent Hrbek number of ABs in AAA - 0 (Nbr of ABs in AA - 0) Age debut 21 Tom Brunansky number of ABs in AAA 343 Age debut 20 Kirby Puckett number of ABs in AAA 80 Age debut 24 You can either hit, or you can't. While Larnach etc might be on the roster, they make no difference to winning or losing. We will just be mediocre at best plugging them into the lineup. Rodriguez, Culpepper, Jenkins are the future of the team. Move them up. Let them develop now at the MLB so they take their lumps like Frank VIola did in 82 and 83, as well as many of the other developing players sooner rather than later. This also plays into the ownership reducing payroll, so we might as well do it in 2026 rather than 2027 or later.

The issue is who else are you going to play in the OF next season? Trot out Keirsey and his .324 OPS? Austin Martin? James Outman, with the emphasis on out. Does Trevor Larnach move the dial any more than he moves the dial in 2025 and previous years? Next, in reality has the Twins development plan really worked with any hitter? If you look at the players on the 2025 roster that were drafted by the Twins since 2017 would you say "wow their minor league system really developed them?" I see Brooks Lee struggle, a top 10 pick and he hammered AAA pitching in 2024 before he was called up. Matt Wallner? Again, he hammers AAA pitching. Larnach? Jeffers? Julien who has regressed in a major way since he was called up to MLB. In my opinion, every single one of these players would be the same player they are right now if they would have all skipped AAA and it is hard to really claim otherwise. Edouard Julien is a career .899 OPS minor league hitter. In his 2nd and 3rd season with the Twins (2024 and 2025) he has a OPS around .605, and has not had an OBP > .300 in either of those two seasons. Send him down to St Paul and he has a OBP of .415, Tons of examples like this exist like Jose Miranda and others. A young player is going to develop in the majors. Why not have that year be 2026, rather than 2027? If they are good players, like Hrbek, Gaetti, Puckett, and Gagne just to name a few, they will develop into good players even skipping AAA. If they are bad players, you can send them to AAA for 5 seasons and they will not improve their value. I doubt the Twins do the move I suggest. They want to delay losing a year of player control as long as possible because they are cheap. Plus, they will have unrealistic views on competing next season although thye probably hope to try the core group of Lewis-Buxton and Lopez-Ryan-Ober for another season to see if they can squeeze a wild card appearance. But it is doubtful they will improve the supporting cast, especially replacing the bullpen arms they traded away at deadline. Instead they will bring in other team's cast off for bottom of barrel contracts and pretend they are giving the fans what they deserve. At least my idea, plugging in young developing players has the chance of moving the team forward.

Again, the Twins need to be aggressive in rebuilding. I would commit to having an outfield of Jenkins-Buxton-Rodriguez (if you don't trade Buxton in offseason). I would start the season with Kaelen Culpepper as the starting shortstop. These guys are the top prospects in the system, and if they cannot replace the players we have on the roster then having them play more in minor league baseball will not make a difference. Pushing them gets the rebuild process that much faster. Delaying just drags out another terrible to mediocre year for Twins fans watching Jonah Bride and DeShawn Keirsey level players lose for no purpose. AS the greatest core group of players in Twins history proved, you have to take your lumps at the major league level, but if the players are real talents they will develop and develop together.

This is why I think they should go to first stage rebuild. I mentioned that they should have a starting OF of Jenkins-Buxton-Rodriguez in another comment even if they decide not to go full rebuild (Never go full rebuild man...). I doubt they do this and I doubt they even consider a rebuild since they figure to throw out the Buxton-Lewis core position players with the Lopez-Ryan-Ober core rotation one last shot believing their will be competitive. I still bring Jenkins and Rodriguez and start them and let them swing, they can't be worse than what they have had on the roster this season. Then if the season slips away they can dump Buxton and Lopez, maybe Ober in season with competitive teams competing for them. The only risk in that is what if one of these guys gets hurt and you can't move them. I probably would just say f it, lets rebuild. Move Buxton and Lopez this offseason. Get a good return and put those players right on the roster and play them to develop them.

I personally believe that the opening day starting outfield for Minnesota should be Walker Jenkins- Byron Buxton - Emmanual Rodriguez. Larnach-Roden-Fedko would be in competition to be a 4th OF with Wallner who probably should be the DH. When you rebuild, you rebuild. It isnt as if Rodriguez or Jenkins are 18 years old. Rodriguez will be 23 next season, prime MLB debut age for a player that has been in the system5 years. Jenkins will be 21, an age many young stars debut and I don't think he should go to AAA for a single AB.

Totally disagree with the concept. The 2025 year was lost and the Twins got what they could out of it. And while it isn't his fault and Buxton is a great player, the problem with Byron is he is a great player for 80-90 games a season. His max games played is 140 in 2017 and he has had just one other season playing in more than 100 games (102 in 2024). Injuries are probably not a player's fault, however, in 11 seasons of MLB baseball Buxton has only played 857 games of the possible 1,782. The real problem is not just ownership (the cheapness of the Pohlads at the expense of the fans has been a topic I have talked about for a long time). It is that the direction of the team simply was fading as the core players could not sustain a full season of play. Here is the real issue: I think this group only has one more season before you see a real fire sale of the roster. If 2026 goes the way of 2025 I doubt Buxton will not be traded (assuming he is healthy). Ryan, Ober, and Lopez could be dealt. It will be complete rebuild. This scenario has to be in the possible projections of the GM so getting a head start on that isn't totally bad management.

Culpepper will be 23 years old next season. If a player is going to be a MLB player he can play with at his age and experience. It might take a season to adjust, but in my opinion you cannot "create" a major league player. They either are one or are not.

I am repeating myself, but if they want Danny Coulombe back again in 2026 they just have to resign him in the offseason. Same situation for several of the players they traded including Willi Castro. I think the plan is a fast rebuild around Lewis, Buxton, and the three top starters. It probably isnt going to happen next season fully, but then maybe a 1-2 year window. If they can get some of these prospects up and develop them in 2025 and 2026 then by 2027 they might be a playoff team again. They have a lot of work to do because htey have to find a closer and build the relievers, but if they get lucky on just one or 2 prospects it could really kick start that process. Also, dumping Correa means that there is room in the budget to sign more than a cast off in free agency. Personally, I would be very aggressive in promoting our young prospects at teh end of this season and starting 2026. I think Culpepper should be the starting SS. Emmanuel Rodriguez might as well have an ab strain at the MLB level than AAA. I would be very tempted to have Walker Jenkins on the roster in 2026 too. Move Matt Walner to 1B. C Ryan Jeffers 1B Matt Wallner 2B Brooks Lee SS Kaelen Culpepper 3B Royce Lewis LF Walker Jenkins CF Byron Buxton RF Emmanuel Rodriguez DH Luke Kearschall If we are ever going to be contenders, that is the lineup that needs to get it done.

I will disagree with the basic premise. This was a "fire sale" of the 2025 season. It is over and the management knew it. So they moved just about every player that was in their final year of their contracts and "sold" them as rental players to teams looking for specific talent. Of course, the return on a rental player is not significant but the fact is they got something for players that they would become free agents at the end of the season (they could literally resign almost the entire lot of them). Correa was a pure no doubt salary dump, but it is also a fact that Correa has not really played up to the level of his salary and missed a lot of time. Saving that money, even if they had to send a lot of cash to Houston is potential addition through subtraction. Signing Correa to his extension in Minnesota is one of the worst mistakes the team has made this century. The only true "core" players that were traded were Duran and Jax. I think the return for Duran was satisfactory. MLB has Tait rated as the 4th ranked Twins prospect and Mick Abel as the 6th. (Kaelen Culpepper is the 5th ranked player and while Most would disagree I would bring him up to the big leagues now). I am less impressed by the return for Griffin Jax. I am not sure about Taj Bradley as anything more than a 5th-spot starter on a good team. But if you look at the team's future much of their core players still remain. This was a team that they tried to build around Buxton and Lewis, the only flaw in the plan being that htey can never stay healthy. They still have a pretty solid top 3 starters in Lopez, Ryan, and Ober if they all stay healthy. They have some reasonable players like Brooks Lee, Matt Wallner, Larnach, and Ryan Jeffers to complement and perhaps it is time to go for broke on Emmanuel Rodriguez (if he could stay healthy), Keaschall, and the aforementioned Culpepper. Even if 2026 is a down year a bit, going young gives them time to develop the pitchers too. I think they need to commit themselves to rebuild aroudn the core players they have.

Walker JenkinsEmmanuel RodriguezLuke KeaschallKaelen CulpepperDasan HillCharlee SotoConnor PrielippMarco RayaBrandon WinokurRiley QuickAndrew MorrisGabriel GonzalezMarek HoustonKyle DeBargeCJ CulpepperBilly AmickKhadim DiawQuentin YoungEduardo BeltreRicardo Olivar

What is the deal with the Twins still not signing a single draft pick?

Strange reading this right after reading an article about Kyle Gibson retiring from baseball. Kyle was drafted in 2009. Seems like a long time ago. One career ends, another begins.

Obviously, since I was referring to the draft I meant they do not prioritize catching in the draft. If you look at the entire front office tenure since 2017 they have used very little draft resources at the position. Their draft model for the position seems to be to find an athletic catcher that can play other positions with reasonable hit tool or just draft backup quality college catching. They have drafted only two catchers in the top 7 rounds since 2017: Ryan Jeffers a hit first guy who became a better catcher and Diaw. Here is the draft year and the round they selected a catcher 2017 17, 21, 37, 38 2018 2nd (Jeffers), 8, 13, 25, 28 2019 29th, 38, 39 2020 None 2021 8th, 9th 2022 11th 12th 2023 None 2024 3rd (Diaw) 2025 none

On the current roster, I would sell everyone except Buxton, Lewis, Lopez, Duran, and Ryan. Probably Ober too because with his 2025 his value is probably too low and we are better off just holding that card. Castro, Larnach, Jeffers, France, Paddock. If another team wanted them we should make the move. If the front office does not realize we are sellers and not contenders, they are out of the loop.

I would say the Twins did a couple of things I thought were changeups from previous drafts. 1. We drafted way fewer college seniors than we seemed to draft in previous drafts. In 2025 we selected only 2 college seniors and they were late round picks (18th and 19th round). This means in the draft slotted rounds we did not take a senior NCAA player who normally are signed to lower slot values. In 2024 we drafted 5 (5th, 10th rounds). In 2023 we drafted 4 (7th round). In 2022 we drafted 5 (4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th). 2. We drafted 3 4 yr college sophomore eligibles including our 3rd and 7th round pick, along with 16th rounder. In 2024 we drafted 1 sophomore eligible, Merit Jones who we redrafted in 2025. IN 2023 we did not draft a single sophomore eligible. In 2022 we drafted one, Tanner Schobel who was our 3rd round pick. So we selected more in 2025 than previous 3 drafts combined. 3. This is just a casual obervation, but it also seemed to me that in the 2025 draft the Twins selected their players much more to what the different rating consensus was. If you use MLB draft prospect ratings, the Twins selected their first 7 players within range of how MLB rated them. In 2024 their 4th and 5th round players were not even rated in the top 250, and Diaw their 3rd rounder was rated much lower. And this is the pattern in the 2023 and 2022 drafts. I am not sure what the explanation, if any, for why they did not draft 4th years seniors, although the higher number in 2022 was probably due to the covid years. Just some thoughts.

They seem to have spent the last couple of drafts/signings sticking their system with almost catchers. They drafted Diaw in the 3rd round last season and he is hitting pretty well in Cedar Rapids. He is a catcher (25 games) and OF (10 games). They have Ricardo Olivar in Wichita and he is hitting pretty well. He is a catcher (28 games) OF (18 games) and DH (20 games). AA also has 2022 draft picks Andrew Cossetti and Noah Baez who are more traditional catchers. 2021 draft pick Noah Cardenas is in AAA.alog with Jair Camargo. While with the exception of Diaw I don't think we have much talent in the minors at this position, they have catchers enough to fill the minor league rosters. This does not seem to be a position that the Twins management prioritizes.

I am not as sold as some on this Twins draft and I think it is very questionable overall. I am not sold on the first round pick Marek Houston. I think the defense projects but there has to be significant questions on his hit tool. I mentioned in a comment, out of 28 hits in the Cape Cod Summer League he only had 2 extra base hits, both doubles. His slugging percentage was under .350. IT is very hard to be an effective MLB player, even an advanced utility player, with that level of power. I said this in another comment, but I think people are overstating his floor by a wide margin. I really like the concept of Riley Quick and based on his raw pitch potential I am actually surprised he did not get drafted well before pick 36. He seems like a pitcher that could advance through the system quickly except for the fact he has had arm troubles which will create a more cautious approach and that the sum of his pitches against live batters is much less than the raw effectiveness of the individual pitches which suggest command issues. I know he has starter potential but I wonder if they should move him to the bullpen like Jesse Crain to reduce the wear on his arm and concentrate on being a total fastball-slider with only mixed in change and lower pitch counts per outing. The last pick I really know anything about is Q Young. You can describe this pick as a major "hit or miss", but in the end that is what his professional baseball career will come down to. There is one hell of a lot of swing and miss in that hitting profile, and that is against much lower level competition and much less effective offspeed and breaking pitches. THis is the case with a lot of these young hitters and I think it is the most difficult thing for a young hitter to learn. Expect huge strike out percentages that will continue to climb as he moves up competition level.

Professional pitchers are just going to throw fastball strikes against him because he can't do much damage to them.

Yeah, true. But in the big leagues if you do not have power it is tough to advance. Pitchers do not have to worry about you being dangerous. I get the 15 home runs (11 at home) last season, but if you look at his Cape Cod wooden bat stats he only had a .329 slugging percentage. He had 26 hits for Bourne on the Cape, but just 2 doubles as the totality of his extra base power. An extra base hit percentage of 7.6% is pretty weak contact and while he had 28 walks on the cape and a .465 OBP, advanced professional pitchers are not going to walk him no matter how much plate discipline he has. You never know what is going ot happen with these prospects but I think the talk of his high floor is a bit much to tell you the truth. MLB gave Marek a 50 hit and 45 power but I think they are way overstating it to tell you the truth. A 35 power is more accurate and I just fear his hit rating just will not transfer to higher levels of pitching he will see in professional baseball. I think his floor is a poor man's Mark Belanger. I hope I am wrong and other hitters, Dozier being the best example, have developed pull side power as they matured. WHile I think some of the claims on his defense are a bit overstated too, I hope he can develop into a guy with a decent OBP and a solid MLB level shortstop in the field.

Riley was picked because he represents a chance to win every bench clearing brawl. But good power stuff that just needs command.

Boston took the guy I wanted.

Interesting selection to me since they drafted Culpepper, Debarge and Amick in the 2024 draft and Keaschall and Winokur (who they continue at SS) in the 2023 draft. Houston is probably the one true SS in that group, but it is an fully cluttred infield group in the minors now.

I would like to see the mock draft The Athletic presented with Oklahoma pitcher Kyson Witherspoon being selected at 16. That would be perfect. They have another college pitcher I would be interested in Santa Barbara Tyler Bremmer going 13th. Lot of high school and college middle infielders available in that range of the draft and my actual prediction of who they select is Georgia high school SS Daniel Pierce