NYCTK

Just because only one of the Mets/Yankees/Red Sox/Phillies could win that hypothetical division doesn't mean the others can't still make the playoffs. Wild cards wouldn't disappear, the playoffs won't shrink as much as I might want that. However, MLB could go from 6 Mets/Yankees games a year to 14. And 14 Phillies/Yankees and 14 Mets/Red Sox. The hope is more regionally driven rivalries could give a big boost to the league, not to mention a radical realignment creating intrigue to the more passive fans. I think this sort of shake up is a great idea. The Twins have no historically significant rivalries and I don't fear missing out on competing with anyone inside the current AL Central. They can easily preserve the rivalries deemed important (NYY/BOS, CHC/STL, LAD/SFG) and amplify some more (NYY/NYM, CHC/CHW, LAA/LAD, MIN/MIL) while creating new ones in the process.

Eh, I don't think that's an entirely fair way of judging things. I look it in terms of who actually achieves success. I believe there have been 13 different winners and 19 of the 30 teams that have made the World Series in the last 20 years. This is actually the exact same as the NFL that has also seen 13 different winners are 19 different participants, which technically means less parity since they have more teams, but call it even. MLB has the same "parity" as the any-given-sunday NFL. The salary cap is nothing but an answer in search of a problem. The owners want it for obvious reasons. And the fans are susceptible to propaganda.

He's on a roll. 3 terrible opinions, and this one is also paired with a "fact" that makes no sense. Why would it be the players that are against revenue sharing between teams. Your ire should be directed at either the richer owners for being against it, or the "poorer" owners for just pocketing the revenue sharing as it is and refusing to use it to try to compete.

It's a major oversight for the author not to include his huge propensity to strikeout as a reason for concern, especially when one of the biggest strengths is that he's an "on-base machine". We saw this sort of high walk rate with a massive strikeout rate with Julien coming up, and then we saw how it plays out in the majors. It's a too patient hitter, constantly falling behind in counts and watching a lot of strike 3s. Now, if Julien were a plus defender at SS none of us would actually mind, so there is a real chance for Rodriguez to still be a valuable player. Not to mention, he could be a true power bat with these massive K rates and on base skills and good defense. And we have...Joey Gallo. So, he could be good, or even very good, but he's guaranteed to be an extremely frustrating player.

Wow, another contender for worst comment of the year.

Busting the MLBPA is perhaps the worst opinion I've read on this website. Somehow even worse than Pohald defenders.

I'm not saying he should have that level of control. I'm saying the Twins failed to add anything at the 2024 deadline (and the 2023 deadline) and I can imagine that having a deflating effect on the moral of the team. I can imagine Correa buying into the Twins...and then throwing up his hands after the Twins front office decided not to support the players. I've been a "trade Correa" guy for a year, so I'm not even trying to defend him.

As it pertains to Correa, I think he probably did view himself as a clubhouse leader and cared about the culture and mood of the team...right up until the 2024 trade deadline. It was reported that he provided a list of players to Falvey that he wanted to see the Twins target, and after seeing them bring in a complete nobody, I can imagine him quitting on the organization. Even though he actually performed well in the second half, I think it's feasible that the trade deadline broke the camaraderie and culture of the Twins clubhouse. I'm only a fan, and that's the point I quit on the organization, so I can only imagine how much worse it would be inside the locker room.

Let's Go (whoever is playing the) Twins!

Idk what you're referring to with this. During last negotiations mlbpa basically doubled minor league pay.

Screw a salary cap. They lack of a salary cap is NOT why the Twins suck. It's not in the top 20 reasons.

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.