Possumlad

Much more than I thought I'd be after 23 games! As I've gotten older I've started to care less about championships & deep playoff runs - although both would be fantastic. I just want a competitive, fun-to-watch Twins team - and this group has been well above that bar so far this year. Twins game are the soundtrack to a MN spring & summer. I'll always tune in, and always take my boys to 10-15 games a year so long as they're not utterly dreadful. Enjoying the squad so far this year! So far I've also enjoyed Shelty much more than Rocco. I'm not an analytics denialist, but Rocco was just so robotic. I enjoy the more consistent line-ups and longer leash w/ starters. (Good riddance to 5th inning pinch hitters). Rocco sucked some of the fun out of it for me. And I'll point out that the record so far doesn't seem to be a mirage. Our run differential (+14) is 9th in the majors. With a better bullpen, we'd have one of the best records as well.

If Prielipp has a couple great starts and SWR puts up another clunker, I think SWR's spot may be in jeopardy when Abel comes back. Results matter, and SWR really hasn't looked good. Outside of that scenario, though, I agree with you. Not many other realistic options behind Prielipp.

The Varland trade was the weirdest at the time & continues to be.

Agree, The trades are looking net positive at this point (both current & long term), but separately the bullpen now sucks. We should have been able to add back 2-3 more competent bullpen arms this offseason. My suspicion is the FO didn't really plan on us being competitive. Will be interesting to see if we become bullpen buyers if we're above 0.500 closer to the deadline.

Unfortunately the Twins don't have a prospect anywhere near as good as McGonigle.

Remember that the Dodgers cut him....

Why not Kendry Rojas?

I mean... if Bradley and Abel are really legit MLB starters the combined deals were a win on that basis alone. Rojas & Roden turning in to useful big leaguers would be a cherry on top, and Tait reaching his potential would put it in to "all-time coup" territory.

I If necessary I'm guessing they'll try out some other lefties vs. LHP. Larnach would be a logical choice at some point given his start. Also would be a logical spot for Fedko or Gabe Gonzalez - either would make sense as part of a platoon during their 1st stint in the majors.

Not to be alarmist or negative (hey, we're gonna lose once in a while), but I wonder what the leash will look like for SWR & Wallner this year. Genuinely curious. Shelty clearly values consistency & has a longer leash than Rocco, but in my mind those two are most likely to lose their spots if they sputter along for another month. At the very least, I gotta think Wallner's back in a RHP platoon role unless he turns things around. While he clearly has the most pure pop of about anyone, I have no faith at all watching him flail away at the plate. The inability to touch high fastballs is a potentially fatal flaw.

Three things I've seen from Shelty so far that I far prefer vs. Rocco: More consistent starting line-ups; fewer early/mid-game pinch hitters; and allowing starters to go further in to games w/ more pitches.

Agreed - having more people around helps a lot. A lot of mid-size cities got weird during & coming out of COVID. I lived in Chicago (the city, not the surrounding area) for 20+ years & took public transport nearly everywhere. I felt a lot more unsafe in downtown Minneapolis than nearly anywhere in Chicago from 2022-2024. You need people, activity, and action to keep things safe & livable. Things got real weird in the cities when it was a near ghost-town. Definitely getting better, and I'm not suggesting folks shouldn't go to the North Loop or MSP in general - we do it all the time! But I also think it's silly & disingenous to pretend you don't need to be meaningfully more careful & aware than you do most other places...

This is untrue and willfully misleading. The North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis has a crime rate of 107.4 per 1000 residents per year, putting it the bottom 2nd percentile in the US (less safe than 98% of areas in the US). The area right around Target Field & Target Center specifically is pretty much identical: https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-north-loop-minneapolis-mn/ I have no issue going to the area or bringing my family there, but it's not true to say that any concerns must ben from someone who hasn't been to a game in 10 years. We go to 15-30 games a year between the Twins & Wolves, and on probably 1/2 those trips we see some crazy, wacked out nonsense that makes our kids scared or uncomfortable. I'll just say it's very common that you have to cross the street for your own safety around both stadiums. Anyone saying otherwise is either grandstanding or willfully misleading.

Fine point broadly, but not really relevant given our other internal options at 1st...

These numbers are mostly meaningless, or at least not useful in the way most people would take them. Unbelievably small, self-selected sample size. ~11,000 total fans responded to the poll - if every team was equally represented, that would be around 345 fans per team. We can reasonably assume that worse teams--especially those in smaller markets--got far less fan participation than average. Assuming the Twins were underrepresented as a % of the total (which I think is pretty safe), there aren't many possible sample sets that get the Twins to a 4.3% "Optimistic" result. The options are basically: 1 Optimistic / 23 Respondents 2 / 46 3 / 69-70 4 / 92-94 5 / 115-117 6 / 138-141 7 / 161-164 8 / 184-188 Possible it's a bit higher, but I doubt it. At the very high end, you're looking at ~15 positive responses out of a self-selected group of fans who pay for the Athletic & care enough about the Twins to click through the pool. The very low number probably accurately represents how pissed off die-hard fans are at the current regime. But those fans opinions can change very quickly.