Possumlad

I love TD & the work you all do, but man this is a bad list. A top 20 that includes Quentin Young and not Luis Fragoza?

I agree, Clipped is just not a quality baseball player. Reminds me a lot of his brother Clippy, who was never a good virtual Word doc assistant. Maybe time to be done with their whole tribe. Back on topic, though, Culpepper has been fun to watch his first couple weeks - I think we should try to find more guys like that.

I think there's close to a zero % chance Bell is on the roster next year. He was a one-year stop-gap, and we have plenty of ABs to distribute next year. Someone will pay him more on another one-year deal than we would.

I'd much rather keep Culpepper at SS until Marek forces the issue. You don't move a high-level young SS off the position for a prospect who's currently at AA (not to say I don't have faith in Marek). KC is proving right it right now at the big league level. If he ends up at 2B so be it, but I don't think you force it in the offseason.

No - the opposite. They started with Lewis at 3B, Keaschall at 2B, and Lee at SS because that was the plan for those guys (until things changed). They didn't start Bell at 1B because it appears that wasn't the plan. I have no way of knowing exactly what they were thinking when they signed Bell, just basing that on what they actually did.

Regardless of what was or wasn't said (or written about) at the time, I think the easiest way to evaluate what "the plan" was is to see what they did. Bell DH'd the first 7 games of this season. He rotated in some at 1B after that, but never more than a few games at a time. He was clearly signed as a bat-first guy w/ the idea that he'd play some 1B.

Twins need to put their best line-up on the field today (as they have the first two games). Shelton needs to send a clear message to the team that we're in the home-stretch & need all hands on deck for a sweep today & final push the rest of the year. None of this "getaway day" line-up nonsense. Put your best players out there & let's keep our foot on the gas.

The most liked, recognized, and marketed player on the team happens to be their best player. Imagine that!

There's a contingent on the board who like to pretend Jenkins can't play CF. You can identify them from the "laughing" responses to your note. I think most believe Jenkins can play a solid CF for the first part of his big league career, and will likely move to a corner eventually (or earlier if they just keep Buck in CF & he's relatively healthy). For those wondering, Jenkins has started 45 games at CF this year. 9 at DH & 9 combined between the Corner OF spots.

Do we have a weatherman in AAA ready for a call up? Guessing our current one would pass through waivers without a hitch based on today's performance.

Anyone know why? Radar shows a storm potentially rolling in around 11pm, but looks nice and clear till then.

I don't understand this team at all. They genuinely seem to have a deep fear of or hatred for the players they develop internally. What on earth is the deal? I honestly cannot think of a single way to explain calling up a 3rd (below average) catcher to fill a spot vacated by Martin. I would be absolutely livid if I were EROD, Jenkins, Wallner, or even Gabe Gonzalez. I hope every one of those guys start to look now for a way out of the Twins organization.

From what I've read/seen, weather.com tends to the be most accurate broadly available forecast service. They're showing relatively low chance of rain this evening in Dyersville (https://weather.com/us/iowa/city/dyersville/hourbyhour) A year or so ago I read a thorough article ranking the various services on historical accuracy & weather.com came out on top. (people likely don't know this, but weather.com is owned by IBM): "Weather.com (operated by The Weather Company, an IBM subsidiary) is powered by a massive blend of public government data, private sensor networks, over 100 global computer models, and a proprietary AI engine called WxMix"

I think we're due for a blown save or two from Gomez in the next couple weeks. Personally I'd shift Morris in to that role now rather than wait for Gomez to cost us a couple wins. Morris is our best bullpen arm. Gomez, Minter, Hoffman, Nance (and Funderberk?) would be a very nice 6-8th inning crew. I hope we never see Rogers in another medium/high leverage situation - he's done.

My greatest wish for the Twins is that we stop spending real money on short-term stop-gap guys with league-average production. If you're going to have a $150-$175MM payroll (which I expect in 2027 if we have a season), it should be barbelled between 4-5 stars & controllable low-money guys on good deals. Josh Bell & Victor Caratini have been fine this year (probably about average at their position), but it's tough for a team like the Twins to be paying $18MM total this year to guys like that.