NYCTK

The players don't want a salary cap for obvious reasons, it does nothing but steal money from the worker to give to the boss. The solution to competitive issues would lie more in greater revenue sharing and/or greater competitive imbalance penalties on teams like the Dodgers and Mets. If we get down to it and there is a work stoppage in 2027 in MLB because the owners insist on a salary cap, remember that the players are almost certainly the good guys in the negotiations. I remember people complaining about the GREEDY players back in 1994, and those people were easily duped marks.

He's built a team that has gone to the playoffs once in 5 years, 4 of which are in the new era of expanded playoffs. I, mostly, do give him a pass for 2024 because of that payroll situation. But this is 2025 and his team, that he built independent of the Pohlads involvement, still sucks. Are we just going to give him this excuse in perpetuity? As long as the Pohlads are around is Falvey shielded from criticism?

Checking Tankathon every Monday the rest of the season. Here's hoping the Twins can "catch" the Braves, if not the Athletics!

He DID try to trade from redundancy when it was obvious (Polanco) and people here largely hated it. But otherwise I can't really think of who he could have traded away for value in the last offseason that would have satisfied TD fans. Duran/Jax and maybe someone like Ober or Woods Richardson might have improved the team. Meanwhile, everyone was asking to trade away Paddack or Vazquez, who had zero, if not negative, trade value. This team was so poorly constructed going into the season, which is completely on Falvey, that these sorts of trades really wouldn't have done anything to offer more flexibility or real improvement for 2025. The best move would have been getting out of the Correa contract earlier, while his value was still significantly higher. But we agree here. Falvey is out of his element and has failed miserably in his job.

I think you're underestimating how common it is for a team's top pitcher to miss half the season. And Ober? He barely missed any time and instead has niggling injuries? That's, again, very common. The Tigers currently have 9 pitchers on the IL. Blue Jays 7, Reds 8, etc etc. Good teams are built with depth and are able to overcome inevitable injuries. The Twins were never built with depth and injuries have long just been an excuse as to why they've failed in recent years.

Yes. The Pohlads suck. They're indirectly responsible. Falvey is DIRECTLY responsible.

I agree it ultimately falls on them, cause they should have fired Falvey and Rocco last October. But Falvey is the one that built this terrible team. He's the one that constructed an opening day roster featuring Randy Dobnak, DaShawn Keirsey and Mickey Gasper, despite a pretty healthy $140 Million payroll and a fairly healthy roster. Joe Pohlad is a wealthy dope, but that's not on him.

Sure, but the front office isn't overly concerned about the Ws and Ls in 2026. Rightfully so, and the fans should reset their expectations accordingly. They made a good decision to blow up the team, so they're not going to change course immediately by trying to contend just one season later. This is how I view both him and Roden now. Not surprisingly they've both been worth exactly 0.0 fWAR. Neither of them are young or prospects anymore, but there's enough skills present that you can expect them to improve to the point they can be a 1.0-2.0 WAR player. Not anything you're building a team around, but perfectly good starter that you can fade into a IF or 4OF bench role. Yeah, all of Sands, Topa, and Funderburk will be present in the 2026 bullpen and that's fine. They're all reasonably priced and they all have options in the event they need roster flexibility. Tonkin will likely be brought back but he's always a good candidate to be DFAd and shipped off to the next MLB bullpen that needs an expendable arm for a few weeks. But that leaves 2 spots for some Free Agents, and 2 spots to shuffle through failed starters in the minors to see who might excel. The bullpen situation is fine despite everyone losing their minds over it. It's very easy to feel discouraged, but all of the moves made were completely defensible in an effort to try to actually contend as soon as 2027. People are showing too much negativity and despair, especially with this idea that the Pohlads will just completely change their ownership style now, and just become the Pirates. They suck, no doubt, and next year's budget is going to be small, but that's not even necessarily an ownership driven decision. It doesn't make sense to inflate your payroll during a rebuild. Just remember: Falvey is way more responsible for this team's woes than the Pohalds.

Weird fact: for all the fretting about how the Twins have ruined their chances for many years by trading away controllable bullpen arms, the Twins bullpen has performed better AFTER the trade deadline than they did before it. The lack of production from the position players is the real concern. I want to like Roden and want to see him in the mix next season. I think the front office recognizes next year is sort of a punt year with minimum effort put into to building a true contender. It'd be a bit foolish to expect a bunch of prospects, great (Jenkins) and middling (Gonzalez) alike to come to the show and contribute positively. I think Roden was being counted on to be a sort of a low friction placeholder, there until someone forced their way to the majors. And his skillet seemed a decent fit to then move into a 4th OF role. He's been so bad though that they can only really consider him a 40 man guy, barely higher in their depth chart than Austin Martin. Both players given a few more chances, but someone they could give up on with little concern.

You're reading subtext that may or may not be there. Which is fine, go right ahead. But don't expect others to just buy into your interpretation of events as fact when the facts present don't follow.

I just skimmed the relevant section. So, sounds like it was a relentless Houston owner that sold the deal. Not the Pohlads being cheap penny pinchers. Pohlads seemingly were intrigued by Cranes pitch and asked Falvey to look into it. "The Pohlad family got back to Derek Falvey, Twins president of baseball operations. They suddenly were curious." "We know they forced the Correa move" seems like an entirely inaccurate portrayal of the events as reported. Doesn't sound to me like they forced anything at all. The Correa trade was such a defensible baseball driven decision, I and others on this site said a successful trade deadline would rely on getting rid of the contract, despite likely having to pay up to a third of it to move him.

That's the curious thing about Roden, is he HASN'T struck out a lot in the minors, including AAA. So, why the shift to a strike out heavy player in his short time in the majors so far is a big question mark.

Probably something to do with the fact he has a 600 ops in the 200 PAs since he was sent down. He's simply not good.

I don't necessarily disagree, but his actions don't really show that at all. The opposite if anything. The team sucked, and he sent away good spreadsheet guys because they weren't better than the sum of their parts.

Do we actually know that? I've not read Dan Hayes athletic article, but that wasn't my impression of it at all. Ownership giving an OK is not the same as forcing something. I just don't agree the deadline sell off was financially motivated by finances because bullpen arms aren't prohibitively expensive, least of all Varland. This front office recognized their team sucked, and that their highly touted bullpen wasn't actually all that valuable, collectively. They have all the confidenc and that they can rebuild it in a couple years and I think that's a great bet. As for Correa, I know there was communication between owners, but it was instigated by Houston by my understanding, not some requirement set by ownership. I hate the Pohlads but I do think they're getting too much blame for Falvey's failures, and his eventual recognition of them.

I probably thumbs downed you for misspelling the pohlads name and, more likely, for unironically using woke as a pejorative. Smart people are woke. Get over it.

Path #2 would be extremely foolish. This team can put together a somewhat competitive team in 2026, but there is no world in which they are contenders. They should try to extend Jeffers but there's a slim chance a Boras client takes a contract extension on a bad team a year from free agency. And if he doesn't we can debate the merits of: A) trading him in the offseason B) trading him midseason C) losing him for nothing. There's a chance there's little trade market for him, seeing as we know there wasn't any real interest in him from San Diego at the trade deadline, so it might be worth just keeping him and seeing if you can be somewhat competitive, and if not, trade him at next year's trade deadline. The Twins SHOULD trade one of Pablo Lopez or Joe Ryan this offseason. They can try to work out an extension with either of them, but there's no chance both of them are on the roster in 2027. The Twins should be able to trade from a strength and get two near ready players to fill some of the many holes in their roster. Crochet returned: 2 top prospects, an additional MLB ready, 45 grade prospect, and a RP. Cease returned: 1 top prospect, 2 additional 40 grade prospects, and a RP. Tyler Glasnow: 26 year old MLB ready SP and a 40 grade MLB ready OF prospect. Just as an example because I know their system well, and I can fill in some fits for the team, I'll say the Twins trade Ryan to the Mets for Jett Williams, Ryan Clifford, and Chris Suero, 50, 45 and 40 grade prospects all in the high minors at MIF, 1B, and C. The Twins SHOULD buy up 3 good bullpen arms in free agency. Hire someone like Kenley Jansen who isn't top of the line anymore, but wants to keep closing in order to pad his career stats. He'll still command 8-10 Million probably, but on a 1 year deal that can be shopped at the deadline. In addtion the Twins can try to swap Larnach for a decent RP. With Roden on the team as a placeholder OF, Larnach is even more redundant than before. The Twins should also bring in a veteran MIF, like Kyle Farmer. Brooks Lee is a huge question mark as is the timeline for Culpepper's development. This would prevent a massive blackhole forming if Lee just isn't up to the job, or injury strikes. SP Pablo López CF Byron Buxton SP Zebby Matthews DH Matt Wallner SP David Festa 3B Royce Lewis SP Taj Bradley C Ryan Jeffers SP Bailey Ober RF Emmanuel Rodriguez 2B Luke Keaschall RP Danny Coulombe 1B Kody Clemens RP Justin Topa LF Alan Roden RP Taylor Rogers SS Brooks Lee RP Cole Sands RP Phil Maton IF Kyle Farmer RP Kody Funderburk OF James Outman RP Michael Tonkin PH Edouard Julien RP Brooks Kriske C2 Jhonny Pereda A $115 million roster looking something like this wouldn't be terrible come opening day, but would really just setting up for the following year with a good batch of 45 and higher grade prospects in the high minors, competing to take that next step: 45 Kendry Rojas 50 Jenkins, Walker 50 Connor Prielipp 45 Gonzalez, Gabriel 45 Mick Abel 47 Kaelen Culpepper 45 Marco Raya 45 Ryan Clifford 45 CJ Culpepper 50 Jett Williams 45 Andrew Morris 45 Tanner Schobel 40 Simeon Woods Richardson 40 Chris Suero 40 Hendry Mendez 42 Payton Eeles Brooks Lee and Alan Roden need to take big steps forward in order to avoid being AAAA, but they can still work out to be valuable role players in the majors.

This is a bad team. Not only is Lee a huge question mark, Wallner and Larnach are terrible defenders and there's no 1B. So that's 4 big question marks, and means the Twins desperately need position players. Like he said.

Yet those two players are valuable on a very good team, and Royce has been decidedly less so on a very bad team. Seems like they are, indeed, good value regardless of how they were brought onto the team. A player doesn't need to be a "building block" in order to be valuable or good. In fact, part of the Brewers success is swapping out valuable players for other valuable players, not insisting you can't trade away Corbin Burnes or Devin Williams just because they're really good. Those very good players can't be irreplaceable building blocks. The Twins will and SHOULD trade away both Ryan and Lopez, eventually, if not this offseason.

Arguably, and marginally so. But even so, Bradley has been better in both the high and low minors. And has shown better peripherals and significantly better "stuff". That's why there's no virtually no expectation that Woods Richardson will outperform Bradley going forward.

Chourio > Buxton if you're drafting today, even if it's not a keeper league.

One of Ryan or Lopez HAS to be sold. It's a common sense baseball trade. So that only leaves 7 "big league ready" SP in my mind: Ryan/Lopez, Ober, Matthews, Bradley, Abel, Festa, and SWR. Trading BOTH Lopez and Ryan isn't out of the question, but that leaves their rotation a little bit thin, and I would wager they wait until the following offseason to trade away the remaining of the two.

I don't know what you're talking about. Eeking out 2 WAR from a cost controlled player is a great way to build a competitive team. That's part of the reason the Brewers are contenders and the Twins are not. If Brooks Lee was eeking out 2 WAR literally no one would be complaining about him. Matt Wallner had JUST over 2 WAR in back to back seasons and everyone loved him. Not coincidentally, this season as a sub 1.0 WAR player everyone is criticizing him. That 2023 team didn't have any everyday stars, but had 10 position players contribute 1.5+ WAR. Filling your roster with valuable players is a great tradeoff for losing a Cy Young caliber pitcher. And Twins fans need to understand this with the likelihood of Lopez or Ryan being traded this offseason. The return isn't going to be an MVP or Cy Young candidate, at least not immediately. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Agreed, and while the NL Central isn't nearly as bad as the AL Central, the Brewers haven't been striving to just win 85 games and hope that's good enough for their division. 2025 will be the 4th season in the last 5 years that the Brewers win 90+ games, something the Twins have only managed once in their Minnesota history in 2002-2006.

I wasn't aware the the 9 hitter on the best team in baseball is automatically designated as not good pro ball players. OR, maybe Ortiz and Durbin ARE good baseball players. That is why they have contributed positively in the WAR column. Not because winning is contagious or whatever. While Twins fans are ****ing on Abel and Tait as the return for Duran, the Brewers fans are cheering for their new infield of Nick Punto clones to win ballgames. Just because you say it, doesn't mean it's true. Devin Williams: 0.5 WAR Durbin+Cortes: 1.1 WAR Or Corbin Burnes: 3.9 WAR Ortiz+Hall: 5.1 WAR You don't have to like the idea of moving big name players, but it is frequently the right decision. Depth is very important in the major leagues, need I remind you the Twins started the season with Gasper and Keirsey on their opening day roster?