JADBP

Yeah I put the twins clearly under 70 wins this season. But, not because the team in the field today underperforms—but rather because they will have to bring up all the kids and trade Ryan + others exactly because the team on the field today is soooo bad! This “competitive” team will likely end up in the bottom. 2-3 teams in September. I understand the optimism but then reality smacks you in the face. I wonder how long it will take for TP to figure out that fans would rather watch Jenkins and Emma struggle and learn than Larnach and Wallner striking out?!?!?

Again: it will take 3-4 years to work through the messes that Falvey and Rocco have baked into this team. First, bad drafting. Second, some horrible trades. Third, some even worse non-trades! Just bad roster-planning and -building all around. I agree, Falvey did make some excellent trades (Ryan, Lopez) but that just doesn't overcome so many bad trades. While I love Joe Ryan, I highly doubt that he will resign with the Twins, so we may have missed an outstanding opportunity to trade him last deadline or offseason. The Red Sox offered two of their top three prospects, Payton Tolle, Jhostynxon Garcia, or Franklin Arias (all top 100 MLB prospects) in any combination. Apparently, Falvey asked for even more. This is the Twins problem: the roster is a mess because Falvey built this mess. The skills have not matured at the MLB level because Rocco did a poor job of coaching (except for perhaps pitchers--many of them arriving via trades (Lopez, Ryan, etc). Now the next wave is sitting in StP, but the Twins remain committed to proving that this mess will be "competitive." Maybe it is an ego/pride thing....they don't want to look like they made a bunch of bad decisions over the last several years....but THEY DID. The best thing they can do now is capitalize on the talent that is going to replace some of this mess, and as quickly as possible! Next time, bite on the Ryan trade! Unless he is willign to resign for a 3-5 year contract, let him go sooner rather than later so you can get a haul. Get rid of all of these AAAA or one-dimensional players, like Larnach, Outman, Wallner and Ober. Trade them out. And start bringing up Emma, Prielipp, Culpepper, and Jenkins. Make a plan to get MLB reps for additional players like Raya, Gonazles, and Rojas. The Twins don't need a teardown. They need to face REALITY! Wallner might hit 20-30 HR but he will cost 10 runs in RF and will K more than anyone else on the team. Is he worth getting play over Emma? No chance. Who would you rather have in LF: Larnach or Jenkins/Emma? Start making smart decisions, instead of hoping that this team of misfits suddenly purrs like a NASCAR engine--its never gonna happen, so ......??????

Not that long ago....Eddie Rosario hit 109 RBI in 2019. Cruz hit 108 in the same year. Before that, it was Josh Willingham with 110 RBI in 2012 and Delmon Young 110 in 2010. Now, if you are looking for someone that the Twins drafted, developed, and played for the Twins to hit 100 RBI, its Rosario, then Morneau who hit 129 in 2008, 130 in 2006 and 100 in 2009. Kubel hit 103 in 2009. So, yeah, it has been a very long time since the Twins drafted a player who hit 100 RBI in a Twins uniform. Honorable mention: Polanco came very close (98) in 2021 and Dozier hit 99 in 2016.

If this team can't rely on their one single star, Buxton, then they have zero chance of competing. Buxton overrunning 2B? I can't recall ever seeing that before. Buxton striking out in the 8th inning, down two, with the bases load? That was ridiculous. It was a fastball in his wheelhouse. So, yeah, and if Ober keeps this up, he is gone. And, unfortunately, I think he will. For some unexplainable reason, he has completely lost what little velocity he had. He has never hit 95 mph, ever. It's gonna be hard relying completely on twisty pitches. Its gonna be a loooong season.! Oh, one more thing...don't get too excited about the SP's in KC. At least one and maybe two games will be rained out.

Wallner is a one-dimensional player. HR or nothing. Lousy fielder. I guess maybe 2 dimensions: rocket arm. But that's not enough for RF, and Emma is banging on the door. So, don't give up on him, trade him or move him to 1B. But he can't keep this up in RF.

Whoops, you are right about the Dodgers and Pitchers! Seems they abuse them and are willing to take on injury-prone or already injured P's. Ouch. Maybe I am glad I am not a LAD fan!

Sorry, I didn't mean to equate Larnach and Wallner. Larnach as become virtually unplayable in the field but was actually a better hitter than Wallner last year. Wallner edged him out on HRs (22 vs 17) but otherwise Larnach had better hitting (AVG .250 vs .202, K's 24% vs 34%, OBP: 32% vs 31%) and was in 142 games vs 104 for Wallner. You are right, it is kind of a Sano versus Kepler comparison. Wallner is sort of one dimensional--an HR or nothing. Larnach is a more rounded out hitter. Both are somewhat below average fielders. At least Keps was a good fielder. My point was that we can do better with an outfield of Buxton and take your pick: Jenkins, Rodriguez, Gonzalez with Roden or Clemmons as backups. While some of them need more time in AAA, I think Emma should have made the team. I am not in charge of the roster, but if I were, I would have handed Wallner a 1Bman's glove at the end of last season and said this is your future with the Twins. Because with the rookies coming up, he is working himself off of the team--like Larnach has done.

I still have high hopes for Lewis...but yeah, RED Flag. There are two options that the Twins can take: 1) send him down to focus on hitting (something he should have been doing all off-season with the MLB coaches) or 2) play him until he becomes a liability to the team (a very low bar this year) then send him down for retraining (as long as it takes) or trade him. I am sure they chose #2 because he was a 1-1 draft pick and it would look very bad if the Twins had to give up on him at age 27. But, the reality is, IT DOES LOOK VERY BAD FOR THE TWINS! They have badly trained/taught/coached/handled Royce. From constantly training him in as a SS without really expecting him to stick there, then suddenly switching him to 2B or 3B or 1B or wherever they can discombobulate him the most. I think his constant injuries might could be traced to poor coaching, from either not addressing bad habits, improper daily routines, poor conditioning, improper game preparation, etc. The Twins, over the last 10-15 years, have had a seemingly immense number of injuries. Compare this to the LAD or NYY...how come you don't see as many injuries on these teams? They must be doing something different...or doing it more correctly than the Twins.

Well, when I was a kid, Killebrew, Versalles, Kaat and Allison were my favorites on a very excellent Twins Team. Not to take anything away from Ryan and Lopez...but I'd trade Ryan because he would bring such a haul, if traded well. I'd keep Lopez and even resign him if we get a discount because of the TJ time out.

geez, what about Johann Santana or Blyleven????

I guess since we are still paying $10 million if Correa’s salary, we should say Lee is an $11 million SS!

I have only one hope: that by season's end, that we have completely flushed out the Larnach, Lee, Wallner, etc generation and replaced them with our AAA team! Otherwise, I have cancelled my MLB tv subscription and won't follow the Twins until they bring up the next generation--this was was failure by Falvey with a big Baldelli BOO BOO! Good by and good riddance. Now I hope the new coaches, staff and GM can clean up the mess. The only ones to keep are Buxton, Keaschall and, if he improves, Lewis.

I keep coming back to the Twins just REFUSE to admit a mistake, on draft day, or trading or signing a free agent. They are desperately hanging on to Larnach hoping that he finally lives up to his first round draft pick. Same with Wallner. But they struck out, so give it up and MOVE ON already. It is just insanity putting Larnach in the field. It is just frustrating that they can't see that they have an budding star waiting in AAA (Emma) who just had a spectacular ST against legit big leaguers. I am damn sure that Emma, Jenkins, and Prielip would put more butts in seats than Larnach, Outman, and Wallner! When are they going to let go of their mistakes????? On the same insanity topic, then they trade for or sign replacements that are below average MLBers, like Outman, Roden, Bell, Kreidler, Caratini, etc. Mistakes on top of mistakes. I sure hope the new GM learns from this.

Johann Santana started out as a relief pitcher.... As far as trading out current players for RP's, I wouldn't mind if they traded BOTH Larnach and Wallner. Neither have a long term future with the Twins. Starting bringing up the stacked outfield options that we have. Bring up Gabby. Time to start rotating through Jenkins and Emma. We have Roden and Clemens to fill in the blanks. Right now, Larnach and Wallner are just blocking the future. But, the Twins have this fascination with highly drafted players (both Wallner and Larnach were drafted in the first round or CB-A). Maybe Wallner gets a good player in return. Best we can hope for with Larnach is clearing some salary to pick up something else. What a mess!

While I agree with trading Ober, who has never really had even average MLB fastball velo, I would bring up Prielipp before Zebby. He has been great this Spring. But, he is short on innings, so he might have to pitch on a longer rotation, maybe every 6-7 days. Or, AT LEAST put him in the bullpen. He needs to start pitching against MLB vets. I think he is ready enough.

I worry most about Royce. What happened that he has just completely caved? He has to find his swing or else he will be waiting out the season in AAA.

Wow...first Lopez, now Ober. We are down to one proven SP. Ober never was as high mph guy at any point in his career. So, moving to the bullpen isn't going to miraculously unlock his high end and he suddenly starts throwing 99 mph. He's got a near-perfect pitching body, long levers, long legs, great extension... I don't get it. Maki has been fantastic at unlocking speed out of our pitchers. Just what is Ober doing wrong? There must be something wrong with his delivery that holds back his ultimate speed. If he is out there firing 89 mph fastballs, he is going to be eaten alive, no matter how good his slider is!

Go grab Jhoan Duran and you have a solid bullpen.....just sayin..... Sorry, I couldn't resist

There are some really interesting twists to this analysis. Twins top draft pics, for the last 4 years, have been: 2022: Brooks Lee, SS 2023: Walker Jenkins, OF 2024: Kaleen Culpepper, SS 2025: Marek Houston, SS And, in 2026, it is almost a lock that the Twins will draft another college SS with the 3rd pick. Most mock drafts taking Justin Lebron, another SS! He has Scouting grades of: Hit: 50 | Power: 60 | Run: 60 | Arm: 60 | Field: 60 | Overall: 60. In fact, he might go 2nd in the draft. OK, so we only get to put one SS on the field at a time. Lee is undoubtedly going to be pushed out but he's likely at 2B, 1B or Utility. Kaleen would be next on the hot seat until Marek, by far the best fielder of the lot coming but seemingly the poorest hitter of the bunch. If the Twins do draft Justin Lebron, he would displace them all, but he's probably at least 2-3 years away. If he improves his hit tool, he is a legit 5-tool player at SS. So, given this abundance of SS, WHEN DO WE START MOVING THEM to other positions? Maybe see how KC does at 2B? Or Marek? Keaschall might have a lock on 2B now, but he is probably better at 1B or in the OF (which is even more crowded!). I doubt that any of these guys will displace Royce if he remembers how to hit for average and power. I just don't see how all of these pieces fit together. We draft some some highly graded players but then what happens? Royce forgets how to hit. Larnach and Wallner forget hot to hit and field (or maybe they were never that good in the first place?). Lee seems to forget everything. So, while this roster construction is a confused mess, both IF and OF, there seems to be one key missing element: what do the Twins do with these top draft choices between draft day and their first day in the biggs? There seems to be a huge deficit in training, education, conditioning, coaching, etc. We just can't seem to turn elite draft pics into stars. I contend our last success was Buxton and probably Joe Ryan. As a small market team, it is critically important that we maximize the contributions from these top draft picks. What are the Twins so consistently bad at this? I sure hope the new management improves this critical failure.

Interesting, intriguing post. But, yeah, Twins NEED to make a trade or two now to unlock access to these budding stars; Jenkins, Emma and Gonzales. Starting the season with both Wallner and Larnach is just plain insane. There are so many other "replacement level" OFers on the team right now, they will lose nothing by trading them and hopefully gain two much needed results: another good RP (in the trade) and a runway for Jenkins, Emma and Gonzales to advance to the bigs. The Twins just seem stuck proving they were NOT wrong in drafting Wallner and Larnach. This is a childish reason to keep running them out there when they are in critical positions and are not even repacement level. Right now, sure, it's only ST, but Larnach leads the team with 11 K's (38% of ABs, batting .207) with Wallner just behind him with 10 K;s (36%) while batting .250. Emma is batting .421 and Gaby is at .500--the two highest averages on the Team. What is wrong with the coaches/management that they can't see the problem here? Trade Larnach and Wallner already! They had their many chances to prove who they are. MOVE ON! You blew these 1st round picks...let it go already.

My only worry about trading him now is that the next team helps him figure out hitting and he becomes the next Big Papi.

Yeah....you have to sign a 3-year contract knowing that at least one of them will be lost to injury.

Actually I have to lay a fair amount of the blame here on Falvey. Bad drafting, bad trades and definitely bad player development (particularly in the area of physical conditioning). The Twins focused on HRs in drafting despite their claim to select the “best athlete available.” Many on the list follow that pattern. But power is 20% of the skill set. If your only skill is power, then you are useless, except in the Twins RF. Larnach is not even 50 on any of the 5 skills. Why are these players still here? Simple: the Twins drafted them highly (poorly) and they just can’t stop believing they will suddenly turn into Ohtani. Sometimes it’s a long road (Buxton-but he was always a give tool player) and sometimes they come up and are great on day one (Olivia. Puckett. Hrbek). And the other problem: bad, or really bad player development! Development means working with the player to optimize their talents. Maybe it means switching to a new position. Or adding 20 lbs. or learning conditioning and repetition. Or training in the film room. Whatever. The Twins have not invested here. They have actually DEINVESTED in training. They inanely think that playing Moneyball will mean they can skip all that training expense. Just teach them to hit it over the wall and we will win the WS!

Yeah....that didn't work out well because Twins development process sucks big time! I hate to say this, but the time is right to start the rebuild process....I just don't know if we have the right coaches, up and down the MLB and affiliate teams. I can't say because we recently replaced many of them, but the track record over the last few years SUCKED. Maybe with the exception of pitching....we did OK there, not great, but at least OK. In position players, we sucked!

I couldn't agree more...why do we have to play musical chairs with positions? I have to believe that you want a player to take ownership and pride in their position. The way that Buxton does. Sure, he might move to RF or LF someday. But for now, he OWNS CF and no one dare come into his house. We want players with that mentality. So who else on the current Twins team has that mentality? I am sure Wallner and Larnach feel like they are on the hot seat--one bad slump away from being Wally Pipped by Emma or any of the above mentioned upcoming kids. No one at 1B!! I might have said Keaschall at 2nd but the team is yanking that away from him. Not at SS. Royce is going to be very very good to great some day, but not today and I am sure he is still not confident at 3B. Maybe the only one is Ryan Jeffers, but C's rarely play every day. That's pretty pathetic. But then seems like Shelton doesn't believe in giving a player a position to excel at...he'd rather have players who don't excel at several positions. When was the last time you saw a player who excelled at 3-4 different positions and could switch around at a moments notice? THey are out there (Cesar Tovar was the ultimate example) but are damn rare! 0.1%'ers!