JCT66

Have they earned back our trust yet? Of course not. Do they seem to finally be saying the right things? Yes. We will know soon enough if the actions follow the words. For me it’s not as much about the total payroll amount. It’s whether they make some big moves to address the two or three obvious needs. 1). Make the qualifying offer to Jeffers. I have no idea if he will take it, but if they don’t even make the offer then I don’t think they can be taken seriously. 2). Sign a big right handed bat at either 1B or 2B. 3). Spend money to get at least two back of the bullpen arms. Not $2m or $3m or arms. $5m or $6m arms if they do that they would have earned back my trust.

This an interesting post but it ignores the reality of the situation. Both Kremer and Ober have no options. So if they aren’t on the opening day roster where are you putting them? One or the other has to go. Neither is a legitimate bullpen option because of their cost and skill set. Matthews does have one more option year but at 28 is he really a good AAA candidate. I can’t understand why you would put Prielipp behind Matthews and Able on the rotation depth. Able has a lot of upside, but he’s going to have to prove it for more than a handful of games and Prielipp had as about as good a rookie year as one could have hoped for. I’m not sure what to make of Zebby. So inconsistent. He’s had three years to show what he can do and the results are inconclusive. His career really tracks the same as Varland. Let’s see what he can do in the bullpen.

I’d say they need starting pitching depth that runs about 9 pitchers. I’d like the Opening day rotation to be Pablo, Joe, Taj, Prielipp and Kremer. Bid a fond farewell to Bailey and wish him the best wherever he lands. Able, Festa, Rojas at AAA with hopefully Riley Quick as well. Not sure about Zebby. Might be time to go to the Bullpen where I absolutely believe he could dominate.

Instead of throwing out round numbers like 30 million or 60 million and opining as to whether that’s good enough, why don’t you actually do the work of figuring out what holes they need to fill in order to be a good team and then determining how much money they would need to fill those holes? They have a lot of positions filled with fairly young and inexpensive players so I don’t really think they need to go back to the 2023 payroll to be competitive They need a bat first catcher on a one year deal. They need a bat at either 1st base or potentially 2nd base if they want to move Clemens to first, and they need at least two set up quality relievers. I would suggest dedicating real money at those positions would indicate they are serious about 2027. $15 million each for the two position players and another $12 million for the two relievers would represent a huge free agent investment for the Twins compared to the last few years. Thats $42 million in new money. I would recommend parting with Ober, Royce and Larnach so that probably saves ~$15 million. Not sure what adjustments for the remaining arbitration eligible players would total. Perhaps $10 million? That would put total payroll in the $145 million range. I think that could put a competitive team on the field in 2027.

Well if they only need the potential to reach 4 WAR as opposed to actually do it that becomes a whole lot easier. 1). Buxton. (He’s already done it 3 times in his career) 2). Lopez, Bradley or Ryan (Ryan did it in 2025) Bradley and Lopez have not but I think in a good year any of these three could reach 4 WAR 3). One of our 3 call ups from this year (if one of Jenkins, Rodriguez, or Culpepper have a 75th percentile outcome I think that’s a 4 WAR season) 4). If they resign Jeffers he won’t hit 4 WAR playing catcher but he could definitely have another all star caliber season which is what we are really talking about. 5) My big ask for Christmas is a big bat at 1B. Whoever that guy is could reach 4 WAR There are a lot of ways this team could have 4 to 5 guys with the potential for 4 plus WAR in a season My words on “playing to potential” were poorly chosen. I meant something like if the majority of our players would play to the 50th percentile or better of their potential in the same year we have enough solid players with enough high ceiling talent to be a competitive team.

I agree with you on Clemens. But I want Clemens playing 2nd base. Sad to say, I think it’s time to move on from Royce and I want ownership to spend real money next season to bring in a big bat at first base.

This is the 2nd post I’ve seen stating tha a winning team needs 4 to 5 4+ WAR players. Where are you getting that stat? I can’t find any teams single team in 2026 with 4 players with 4 + WAR on FanGraphs. The Brewers, Braves, and Dodgers all have 3 players that will finish the season with over 4 WAR. The Rays have 2. The Guardians have 1. We need the talent we have to play to its potential. We need to hang on to our higher end starting pitchers, we need to add to the Bullpen, solve our situation at catcher and add a big bat at 1st Base. If we do that I think we would be very competitive in 2027.

Thanks for writing this. I could not agree more and I get so frustrated with the commenters who seem to willfully misunderstand what you are saying. You mention a creative extension. He’s 32 and signed for two more years. I would argue for a 1 year extension with multiple year options after that. That would keep him signed through age 35 with the possibility to keep him through the end of his career if both sides agree. now he may not agree to those terms, but I suspect he might given the loyalty he has shown the Twins to date. Sure he has been injured a lot, but as your article makes clear he still has provided excess value to the Twins despite his injuries (a lot of excess value). He remains one of the fastest players in the league. And he would be a natural candidate to finish his last year or two as a DH given his power. A creative extension could be done that would minimize risk while offering an opportunity to an all time Twins great to accomplish what he has repeatedly said he wants. To finish his career as a Twin.

Sonny Gray received a qualifying offer. i can’t believe this is actually in question. The Twins will obviously make the qualifying offer to Jeffers. I don’t know if he will accept it or not, but I would be absolutely shocked if the Twins don’t make the offer.

You say “They could always give him the qualifying offer, which would be worth roughly $24 million, but it's unlikely. The only scenario where it would make sense is if the Twins knew for a fact that Jeffers was going to turn it down.” Why is it unlikely? And why does it only make sense if they knew that Jeffers was going to turn it down? I don’t know if it is unlikely or not, but it seems imminently sensible to me. If he turns it down you get the compensatory pick. If he accepts you have arguably the best offensive catcher in the league for 1 year at $24 million. Trade Caratini and the cost is only ~$17 million. and in 2028 Lackey is hopefully your new catcher.

I don’t understand the Buxton hate, and I really dont know where you came up with your numbers. here’s a few different numbers for you. Since 2021 Buxton has averaged 93 games per season. He’s also averaged 3.55 WAR. In any given year about 4 to 5% of MLB players hit 3.55 WAR or better. That’s about 60 players a year. The QO for 2026 (which represents the average salary of the top 125 players) was ~$22 million. Buxtons salary since signing his extension has averaged $16 million. Even hurt as much as he has been Buxton has been a huge bargain for the Twins. To say he is a “problem” is just completely wrong.

What team other than the Dodgers is going to have three 4 WAR batters? The Brewers, Braves and Rays are all going to have 1 or at most 2 this year. I would consider them true playoff contenders.

The other recent rule changes were done primarily as a way to offset coaching and strategy trends that had negatively impacted the game (i.e. limiting the shift, limiting the amount of pitcher substitutions, and trying to ensure speed, baserunning, and stealing remained relevant). These changes were very successful because they were helped to return the game to its roots. The one exception to that is the Ghost Runner in extra innings, but that was probably worthwhile in order to end the occasional marathon games that would occur. This proposed change is just idiotic in so many ways. Think of the impact it could have in player statistics, which is one of the great advantages that baseball has over other sports. I wonder how many extra HR's or RBI's Aaron Judge would get in a season if he was given an extra plate appearance every game.

This was a really insightful article. That graph really provides a clear picture of their problem at the plate. I'm just not sure what is driving the September decline. Given the injuries and amount of IL time for so many of our players you would think if anything they should be less fatigued than other teams.

2-2 against Cleveland will leave them in good shape. I think 6-7 over the last 4 series gets them in. If they do that the Tigers or the Mariners would have to go 9-3 which seems unlikely with series against the Royals and Orioles (for the Tigers) and Yankees and Astros (for the Mariners). If necessary, Ober and Lopez can each be able to pitch 3 more times. Any kind of reversion to the mean offensively should allow for 6-7.