NYCTK

Last year was a pretty remarkably healthy season for a MLB team. Lopez missed half the season and the most significant position player injury was to a Rookie. 2024 wasn't really the fault of injures either, with Ryan missing a third of the season and then Lewis and Correa missing large stretches. I'd wager the Twins have been in the top half of healthiness the last 3 seasons, not the bottom half.

It is. And who knows what the owners agree to with the new CBA, meaning this sort of spending spree might be unrepeatable. Other owners were allegedly very upset with Seidler (and Mets owner Steve Cohen). The CBA is not going to result in a salary cap, but the owners themselves are going to have quite an interesting fight amongst themselves that addresses this sort of team management.

The Dodgers are notorious for pitching injuries actually.

The year is 2017. The San Diego Padres and the Minnesota Twins are each coming off of 94+ loss seasons, sitting in comparable media markets, each sitting with a similar $1B valuation, but are about to take very divergent paths. At first glance, one might assume the Twins were the ones being set up for success, headed into a season where they'd make the playoffs 2 of 3 seasons, winning 101 games in one of those seasons. However, with the patriarch of the Seidler family recognizing you can't take it with you, the Padres would soon become a free spending model of success. Having been a pretty poor franchise with little success to match it, the Padres would start to become reckless spenders starting in 2018, with a near doubling of payroll which continued to balloon towards it high point in 2023. And the people took notice, with pre-covid attendance being unrecognizable from their near league-leading attendance figures post-covid. Meanwhile, well, we know what happened with the Twins. Their fiscally conservative ownership also maxing out in 2023, $120 million below the Padres, and then... As it turns out, while the Pohlads couldn't find anyone to meet their asking price of $1.6B for the Twins, thanks in large part to the fandom understandably having lost loyalty to a middling product with zero ownership commitment, the San Diego Padres fandom is alive and well, and apparently that's...good? So good, we can just about put a dollar figure on it, and it's nearly $2,000,000,000. If only someone had told the nepo-baby business geniuses in charge of the Twins the very unknown adage "you have to spend money to make money". Less than a decade to turn a franchise from a mockery into a perennial contender. But only if the billionaires are comfortable spending money. Small price to pay in order to rehab the family name, one might argue.

If this were the case, the Twins scouting department needs to do a better job finding players that don't have such inflated egos. Mentality is one of those intangibles that teams do need to hone in on, and coach when possible. Just really, really sad to see the #1 overall pick, now 27 years old, having seemingly become a marginal player that is on the cusp of being a non-tender candidate: a .226/.278/.375 hitter with a .294 xwOBA over his last 629 PAs coming off the IL in July 2024, and a mediocre all-around baseball player providing minimal value with his defense or legs. And, yes, with questionable clubhouse presence, due to his multiple misguided comments to the press.

That guy had seemingly had a stroke. Someone check in on him!

I have no expectations for this team, but I am a T-Mobile user and get MLB.TV for free. As a non-Minnesota market individual that means the next 6 months will have me getting home at night, seeing the Twins are playing and being able to watch the last 3 innings. It's not going to be pretty, and there will be far more wins than losses, but I will enjoy seeing some of the Twins play, and some of their opponents as well. I love baseball, and I'm happy to have it back on the menu.

His outfield jumps are just really bad. His instincts are poor. His route running is OK, but his lumbering nature doesn't help. He just doesn't cover much ground out there, and that's been consistent for 3 seasons now. To his credit, he catches most everything he actually gets to, and his arm does prevent the occasional extra base. But even still, he's a liability out there. I find it unfathomable that he's never played a game at 1B, at least since high school. They had to have tried him there at some point, right? Especially now that the team is an uncompetitive nightmare, they should be moving players down the defensive spectrum when they're liabilities rather than making all the pitchers jobs significantly harder.

I see you're still tilting at windmills.

Don't look to biased fans for your talent evaluation. Don't even look to Twins commentators, like Provus or...whomever is radio play-by-play. This is how a lot of fans get too high of expectations for players coming up. The only player that's deserved that level of hype the last decade has been Royce Lewis. And the only one currently worthy of that sort of hype is Walker Jenkins.

When you're as wrong as you were, from the moment the ink was laid down on that paper, you kind of bring it on yourself. You were the number 1 cheerleader against that signing, and I still don't think you really understand why you were so wrong about it.

A lot of people here seem not to understand every contending team carries old vets that are only expected to get 2 games a week and fill in when holes open up. The obvious example is the Twins fans complaining about Ty France, only for Ty France to go to the Blue Jays where he made the World series roster. And sometimes, when you so completely misunderstand MLB rosters you fight against signings like that of Harrison Bader and you show you don't know ball.

You could tag @RpR and ask them rather than be a passive aggressive vocal bystander over it. Not every down vote requires a comment. You're allowed to just disagree with someone.

That 40 games was over the entire season. And, yes, a large chunk of those games were over the course of one month, when Larnach got demoted to AAA (I think I said injured, but that was earlier in the season). I really don't think a one month trial with a veteran role player plugged in is demonstrative of a team that is overly reliant on veterans over young players. They gave the job to a young guy, he sucked, and then they gave one of the veterans a month, and then moved on from him to go to the young player. This goes against what you think it does. You wish it was 2 weeks instead of 4? Great, sure, hindsight is 20-20. It's very easy to argue in hindsight that they should have just gone to Wallner, and I don't doubt there were people at the time saying as much. And I might have been saying the same were I paying attention at that point in the season. But it's also worth keeping in mind Wallner had a 32% K rate at the time Larnach was sent down and still played his terrible OF defense. The Twins could have been very intentional with what they were working on with Wallner in the minors and didn't wish to bring him up and get sent back down right behind Larnach. This narrative around Gallo is just fans being petty. A bench player came in, was around replacement level and helped them get into the playoffs. And rather than just forget about him and think back fondly on the season, so many here can't stop ****ing on him and the one month he kind of sort of blocked Matt Wallner. Get over it.

If there was no revolving door, how did all of Castro, Luplow, Gordon, Garlick and Stevenson start games in LF in addition to Larnach, Wallner, Kirilloff, and Gallo? The Twins weren't reliant on Gallo as a player to start the season. He was essentially given the role Bader filled last season, not expected to be a star with the bat but just to pop a few dingers while having the positional flexibility to play any of the OF positions, as well as the vacant 1B position. He was actually one of 3 veterans brought in at the start of that season to play those veteran support roles (4 if you count the waiver claim Castro) yet no one ever talks about all the other role players and their combined 6.4 bWAR. They just constantly complain about Gallo. All this complaining about a veteran that LOST his job due to ineffectiveness, as evidence the Twins refuse to move on from veterans. And all complaining about the roster of the only decent Twins team in the last 5 seasons. It just gets really old. I was a Day 1 DaShawn hater. But you don't just cut people without someone to replace them. As ****** as DaShawn was, he played at least some role. And when Martin was hurt, there was no one in AAA that could fill that role. But, that's because of complete organizational failure.

Gallo did only start in 40 games in either Corner OF position. But there was a month long stretch where Larnach got hurt [EDIT: not hurt, but sent down to AAA] and during which Gallo took over primary LF duties. I think 100 PAs is a fair estimate of the number of plate appearances that Gallo withheld from Wallner, but overstating it a bit. During that stretch Gallo received 69 PAs with his typical low BA/OBP high slugging 737 OPS. But then Wallner was called up, because he wasn't blocked, and the Twins decided to stop playing the veteran because he was playing at a replacement level. Which is what we all wish for them to do. You can hope they have a quicker hook, but the fact that Wallner was called up and was essentially an every day player after that date is the only evidence necessary to prove that Wallner wasn't blocked.

There was a revolving door. And that revolving door tried internal options and they all stunk even worse than Gallo. He stunk, but he still had a 300 OBP and decent OF defense, making him effectively a replacement level player. Cutting a replacement level player without any plan to replace them is far worse roster management. Joey Gallo was not the top of the list of the 2023 Twins issues. The team actually managed him and his frustrating season pretty well. DaShawn Keirsey was barely any better with the glove and significantly worse with the bat. He was very obviously a below replacement level player (which is why Margot never lost his job in '24), but I still didn't lead any sort of charge for just cutting him without anyone else to replace him. That was the reason I was such a big fan of the Bader signing. In fact, I'm pretty sure I argued against cutting Keirsey because there WERE no better options in AAA or on the waiver wire. False narratives that take root in this community, which can be argued is the entire basis of the article.

But the question is, who was he stealing playing time from? Over the course of the regular season there are just long stretches where you just need warm bodies. That seems to be how Gallo got any playing time in the second half. Gallo played a lot of 1B because Solano and Kirilloff missed time. He played a lot of LF because Larnach missed time. He played some RF because Kepler missed time. He didn't quite meet the desired expectations, but Castro and Solano exceeded them, and as a result they both won the playing time given everyone being healthy. Gallo only started two games in September! Are fans really still upset about the 13th man on the roster on the 2023 Twins, and that it wasn't someone like Kyle Garlick, Nick Gordon, Andrew Stevenson or Jordan Luplow instead?

I'm sorry, but this is just very foolish. No, Harrison Bader did not need to be 4 WAR player for the contract to be a work out well. He only needed to be a 1.5 WAR player. This explains why you looked so foolish about his signing from the very start. And goes to prove my original point. Are you forgetting the 2025 Twins were wishing for Miranda to be able to win that job? France was not Plan A. To claim he was is revisionist history. In fact, Ty France was a perfect signing to a team wishing to give runway to an internal player they want to win the job. And, Bader was the perfect signing to help out in the OF for a team with a fragile CF, a primary LF that can't play LF, and with a lot of prospects in the high minors that you're hoping can breakthrough in the near future.

And he didn't need to have a career year for that signing to be a great move. He was added as a 4th OF to take away playing time from DaShawn Keirsey. It was a great signing from day 1 which is how I know so many people here have extreme biases against external veterans that end up making them look foolish. He was perfectly fine and took playing time away from...Aaron Sabato? Jose Miranda? It was another good depth signing, and was from Day 1. It just really seems like a lot of people here are unable to understand the weaknesses of internal players while hyper-focused on the weaknesses of external players. Or at least initially, because once a player comes up and fails, a lot of fans are then completely willing to give up on them too. This is just a really funny thing to say about someone that was deemed good enough to be on a World Series roster. Not good enough for the Twins on a near minimum contract, but good enough for the AL Pennant winners apparently. I count on it. Always annoying, but always right.

I'm just saying that many here have an apparent instinctive hatred of external veterans, which is how so many fans here were made to look incredibly foolish when the Twins signed Harrison Bader last season, and even Ty France. Constantly complaining about a player 3 season ago now that didn't block any young players, and didn't even make the Twins only playoff roster in 5 seasons.

For all this complaining about the Twins refusing to move off of veterans, I fail to see any evidence. One of those truisms that lack actual truth. Plus, you don't actually want to see your young prospects come up and serve the role of these veterans. What good would it do Emmanuel Rodriguez to come up and play twice a week? Fans here just constantly complain about Manuel Margot and Joey Gallo, never mind that Margot's replacement would have been Keirsey (lose-lose) and Gallo's presence didn't prevent Wallner from establishing himself as a near every day player by midseason, and then Gallo didn't make the playoff roster. For some reason these same fans never mention Donovan Solano, Harrison Bader, etc.

It is pretty funny to read comments on the same website about how terrible Kreidler is (true!) after months or years of some other fans insisting the likes of Noah Miller (and now Houston) should be promoted regardless of how well they would hit. Not to say it's the same people with these countering ideas. Just funny to see the spectrum of opinions.

Fair. I guess I got confused and off track since they all suck at their jobs and none of them can build a respectable baseball organization.

Telling your idiot boss that he's an idiot, in politer terms, is a lot of people's jobs in every industry. My boss is an idiot in many matters. And it's my job to remind him of that when that's the case. And sometimes, it's fruitless, yes. But to oversimplify Zoll's job, if my only job were to hire staff and my boss disallowed me from doing my job competently, I wouldn't expect everyone else to have sympathy for me. If I were to stick around exclusively for the paycheck, I would also deserve the scorn. Yes-men are cowards, not victims.