The Great Hambino

A team could definitely win a Super Bowl with Derek Carr as their backup QB Or maybe he's just long-windedly saying that he's not coming out of retirement

40% of the time that 4th day will land on a Lopez or Ryan start, so you're losing any benefits you're theoretically getting on those days. It's theoretically possible if you were to pair two guys together and tell them "the first eight innings are yours come hell or high water" and that was your fifth spot in the rotation, and you were committed to letting your top guys and others who are on a heater pitch deeper into games. But that falls apart in practice because that's not a reasonable expectation. It would be different if they were in evaluation mode like at the end of last year and you can live with the downsides in order to gain more experience/information, but they're in competition mode. So, yeah. Unworkable

I'd rather pinch hit with Bell/Caratini/whomever else is available off the bench and bring Rodman in for defense and use Larnach's salary on the bullpen or maybe towards better middle infield depth. I realize Bell and Caratini weren't on the roster at the time he was signed, but surely they knew they'd be bringing in someone who could hit righties given the $14MM they spent on those two. Walking from Larnach would've been one of the easiest ways to rebalance the roster given their constraints. I was in favor of tendering Larnach because I thought he could be moved for a reliever. And maybe he still can. I also don't think they're legitimately competitive, so an alternate answer is "I don't really care, stop wasting our time/your trade resources and get on with the rebuild." But that ship has sailed

Is it assumed that Larnach and Wallner are the starting COFs? I don't know if it's ideal to have them both in the outfield at the same time. That leaves a lot for Buxton to cover, and it's not platinum-glove Buxton out there anymore. I could see Martin and Roden/Outman (Rodman?) taking care of LF the majority of the time early in the season. Bell can play 1B if you want both Larnach and Wallner in the lineup at the same time (the one not in right takes DH), since I assume that means they're facing a righty I wonder if Zoll would take a mulligan on tendering an offer to Larnach at this point if given the chance. I thought he'd have been traded by now if there had been any interest in giving up a competent reliever for him at his arb salary

After all the Yakety Sax plays Twins pitchers made trying and failing to throw the ball to first base in the early portion of last year, pitchers fielding their position doesn't sound like a bad area to focus on in day one of camp

Now that we see why he was released, and given Tommy P's insistence that improved vibes will lead to 10 more wins on its own, I think he needs to be signed immediately

Fair enough. That was a good call then

I completely forgot about Topa, he obviously takes one of my NRI slots Where am I off on Banda? Some are reflexively panning the move out of habit, while bunsen is ready to throw himself a victory parade. I feel like I'm pretty lukewarm on him

Clearly a good value, but at first glance it seems like an odd profile in that in comparing his 2023 2022 to his 2025, he cut his ERA in half (6.75 to 3.18) while his FIP actually got worse (4.50 to 4.52). It does look like he did well in his limited high-leverage opportunities. Hopefully can sustain that because he's probably the #1 high-leverage option now So now Banda, Sands, Rogers, Funderburk, Orze are probably veteran locks, which would leave three spots to be filled by failed starter prospects and non-roster camp invites. Will it be 1 and 2 or 2 and 1? My guess right now assuming full health (LOL) would be Festa, Altavilla, and Hendriks. Maybe one of Adams/Klein/Morris take one/both of the NRI slots. I'd prefer Raya show some degree of competence at AAA before getting a shot in the bigs, even if they've already decided to transfer him to relief EDIT: 2022, not 2023. In my defense, his BBRef page is a mess

It would be kinda strange to put someone that's not even on the 40-man at the top of the depth chart, wouldn't it?

It's worth noting that, based on things I've heard multiple times but can't seem to find in print, attendance reactions to team performance generally operate on a one-year lag - apparently, most tickets are sold before the season begins. That's why they set their attendance record in 1988 and not in 1987. So where were those one-year-lag bounces recently? In 2020, they got COVID-ed, while in 2024, they right-sized themselves out of that bounce. Tom basically admits it with this quote from this very article: I think it's safe to blame ownership when ownership blames ownership

Bell is another addition to the amorphous blob of mediocrity gumming up 1B/DH Caratini potentially could raise the floor the most, but that's partially due to simply replacing Vasquez, who was a bottomless pit at the plate. At least he provides some cover for the position next year. This was probably my favorite move. Rogers was needed, but he's not a high leverage option on a good team anymore. The amount of proven high leverage options in the bullpen still maxes out at one, and that's being very generous toward Sands. The trades were little more than shuffling deck chairs. Depth has improved, but something will have gone wrong if any of them find themselves to be regular starters this year. You could argue that every move raised their floor and that none raised their ceiling. They need to raise the ceiling if they're serious about being competitive. And since there are no more ceiling-raising moves to be made without sending out some near-major league ready prospects (which they aren't going to do), then they're just wishing/hoping/praying on internal development to raise that ceiling. In other words, they're putting out what's largely the same starting unit as the end of last year and expecting different results. Is there a word for that?

Agreed. At this point, ending the season with a clear path forward for 2027 and beyond would be a success in my mind. Part of being able to sort out the bullpen will be some of the young starters realizing their potential and establishing themselves as core pieces of the future rotation. If no one can establish themselves there, then they're not really in a much better position come this time next year. I't's much better for the bullpen if they're making tough decisions about moving excess starting pitching potential - either to the bullpen or as a trade piece to balance out the roster - than having to keep some shaky starting pitching in the rotation out of necessity

Every year it seems like 10-12 of the 15 modern day finalists belong in the HOF. How they ever end up with fewer than the max of 5 going in is a failure of process. What they ought to do is start with a yes/no vote for every candidate without any constraints. No having to choose which deserving HOFer gets your vote. Then take the group with >80% of the vote and have your comparative discussions just within that group. When voters have to resort to game theory to decide whom to give their votes, you end up with artificially lower vote percentages than you'd get from a straight yes/no, because not all voters apply their game theory the same way. Kinda like the guy (I forget who) explained not voting for Belichick because he wanted to vote for the three senior players and could only cast three votes. Apply whatever caps you want to a class after votes are cast, not before. Oh well. At least Eli didn't get in (and I WILL die on that hill!)

The way the HOF finalist voting is structured, this means Roger Craig was deemed more HOF-worthy than Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft. An argument could be made that an improvement in process might be a good idea. ETA: as wackadoodle as the veteran/coach/contributor process was, I think the standard group produced a very good class. IMO, those were the four most deserving HOFers of the 15 finalists. But am I alone in thinking it's weird that Isaac Bruce is in the hall while Torry Holt isn't?

One positive aspect of the pitching portion of the roster: outside of Pablo, SWR, Rogers, and Topa, every pitcher currently on the 40-man has options remaining, many of them with multiple remaining. That should, in theory, allow them to be patient and flexible as the younger guys sort out their roles and grow into new ones if necessary. Whether their apparent desperation to win this year allows them to be patient remains to be seen

I thought that might be the case but I wasn't sure. So I guess 24-25 teams then could be possibly under the MLB umbrella come negotiation time. I'm not convinced the Cubs' set-up is on solid ground. And even if they don't cede all control to MLB, there's potential options - licensing agreements, etc - to get all teams onto a single platform for distribution. Or perhaps revenue sharing can be modified for teams outside of MLB distribution. The bottom line is the more teams that are distributed by MLB, the better it is for the Twins

Of the teams that still have their own deals, how many would be considered secure enough to last long-term? Definitely Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, and Mets. Possibly the Cubs and Blue Jays. Are the NBC-backed RSNs (Phillies, Giants) on solid ground? The rest would seem to be extremely vulnerable. So that means by the time they're negotiating new rights, MLB could potentially have as many as 24-26 teams in the fold. That may be past the tipping point that forces the elites to play nice with everyone else in terms of local TV revenue

If there's a silver lining to any of this, it means that Tom is much more concerned with their short-term prospects at the expense of long-term prospects (without any actual investment in terms of dollars), which could be an indication that they're looking to go back to market with the franchise post-CBA/TV rights renewals. Why care about what happens past 2028 if you're looking to sell the team? It's a flawed argument, but one you can see if you squint hard enough.

He's on record that he's against trading any of their all-stars. Keeping them is part of his strategy because he foolishly believes that constitutes doing something for the fans. If I'm wrong - and to be clear, I hope I am because this roster is screaming for a rebuild and delaying moving Lopez/Ryan just serves to diminish their potential returns (especially Ryan) - then I would expect one or both to be moved before Opening Day. If that happens, then I'll happily concede that it was Falvey going against ownership wishes in retaining those assets

This is where I disagree. In his initial press conference, when Gleeman pressed him on the thoughts of continuing the teardown, Tom had this to say: -------------------------------------------- The Twins signaled to teams at the end of November, after conversations with their new ownership structure, they plan to keep their All-Star players. It’s the “needle that we’re trying to thread,” Pohlad said, between fielding a competitive team next year while shifting to a younger core of the roster. “There was probably an argument to tear the whole thing down, get as much value as you can for our players, and really put an emphasis on two years from now or three years from now,” said Pohlad, who assumed control of the team from his brother Joe. “On paper, yeah, maybe that makes sense. But you can’t just look at things on paper. We owe the fanbase something. We owe our veteran and star players something. We owe this organization something. And that something is hope.” ----------------------------------------------- I don't know how to read this in any way other than Tom being fully on board with - insisting, in fact - that Lopez and Ryan had to be retained. If I'm wrong, then we should expect to see one or both traded before Opening Day now that Falvey is no longer there to prevent this from happening. And I'd be very happy to be wrong on this as I've been on Team Rebuild ever since the trade deadline

Tom is still insisting that the team will be competitive in 2026. He said that explicitly during is media rounds after they announced Falvey is leaving. That is a completely unrealistic expectation ETA: he also said this while begging reporters to "get off of payroll", meaning he is expecting this to be accomplished with diminished resources.

FWIW, FanGraphs has downgraded the Twins' win projection to 77 with their latest update after accounting for the bulk of this offseason's transactions

I'm going to make a few assumptions here that could change my opinion of how this all went down if they aren't true: 1. Tom had no involvement in the trade deadline strategy. I haven't seen anything to suggest that he did. 2. Falvey wasn't leaving meaningful budgeted money on the table in this offseason. Comments from both Tom's camp and Falvey's camp seem to suggest there's room for another modestly-priced reliever, but nothing that would suggest a budget even approaching last year's budget 3. The decision to part ways happened a few weeks ago. Again, this seems to have been suggested by both Tom and Falvey 4. Tom's strategy is insisting that the roster they had at the end of last season minus approx. $30MM in payroll budget will be competitive in 2026. If all that is true, then there was no possible way for Falvey to execute ownership's strategy on the baseball side of things, and certainly not by mid-January. The strategy is built upon the ideas that the team is good enough to compete as is with a drastically reduced budget, and that simply retaining players that were already a part of this failed roster constitutes giving the fans hope. That is an objectively terrible strategy. If Falvey was failing on the business side of things (which he never should've been put in charge of to begin with, to be honest), then Tom could've relieved him of just that portion of his responsibilities. If Falvey had left over that (plausible), then we're talking about a mutual parting, not a firing. Ask yourselves this: if you are continuing to insist that the roster Falvey put together under the constraints listed above will be competitive, why would he need to be fired? If you had already determined that he was going to be fired, why'd you trot him out front and center at TwinsFest? If Falvey's vision was so unworkable, then why are you handing the reigns over to his inexperienced underling? As far as I know, there's nothing interim about Zoll's current position. This isn't to say that Falvey was doing a great job or anything. There are strong arguments that he could've been justifiably fired at multiple points going back to at least the end of the 2024 season. But to suggest that Tom had needed time to evaluate the direction of the organization as if he was some complete outsider isn't really accurate. Tom hadn't been involved in all the day-to-day operations, but he wasn't completely out of the loop either. He was already on the board of directors. He'd been heavily involved in the sale process. He should've been at least semi-aware of the operations and the direction the team had chosen at the deadline. If he thought that Falvey's team outlook didn't align with his preferred strategy going forward, then he should've shown him the door at the same time as Joe. It was reported that the decision to pull Joe out and replace thim with Tom happened about a month before the switch was announced. These conversations about alignment on strategy should've been happening at that time. But once you've decided to keep him, then you have to let Falvey's execution on the baseball side play out. If/when the team shows that isn't competitive, you fire him then and have Zoll handle the trade deadline. But to fire him now due to improper execution of a strategy implemented after last year's trade deadline makes no sense to me.

The 2022 trade deadline that brought us Mahle and Jorge Lopez belongs in the worst-moves discussion You could argue that no single draft pick belongs in a conversation like this given their inherent low likelihood of meaningful success at the major league level, but if one did, the Keoni Cavaco pick might belong among the worst moves made. It was a real head scratcher at the time, and guys like Corbin Carroll and Bryson Stott were picked in the immediate aftermath. On the other hand, the Polanco/Kepler extensions were great examples of smart moves mid-market teams can make to help extend their competitive windows in a relatively cost-controlled manner. They handicapped their opportunity to capitalize with subsequent awful moves, but they could've really been cooking if they'd had some better success with some of the moves that ended up on the bad part of this list Speaking of Polanco, the remaining potential of Gabe Gonzalez and and Polanco's rough 2024 knock that trade out of contention for the bad part of this list. It wasn't good, but there are levels to this suckitude. It can't compete with those on the list