The Great Hambino

At first glance, it seems reasonable to think that whatever floor-like mechanism exists in the new CBA could make a QO to Jeffers a little more palatable to the Twins The problem is the chances of the new CBA being ratified before the deadline to make the offer are extremely slim

How'd that work when the owners tried to do basically the exact same thing in 1995? They were found to be negotiating in bad faith (which they were, and would be again) and were forced to return to the old agreement, meaning they essentially pissed away the 1994 World Series for nothing and achieved zero of their goals they were trying to negotiate for in the first place. This would be the worst possible thing the owners could try to do. Legal precedent says so

Uh oh, bullpen game He's opener and closer Sir Andrew Morris

I was in favor of a QO until I realized how wacky that price would be relative to other top catchers. If the QO was scaled by position sorta like the franchise tag in the NFL, then it would be a no-brainer. But due to his position, I find myself ultimately settling on no. If he can't re-establish his trade value before the deadline, they'll have to settle on the imaginary goodwill they think they'll be generating when they're "totally in on him" and "made a real competitive offer" and "why aren't you renewing your season tickets? Can't you see how totally serious we are about thinking about competing?" when he signs elsewhere in free agency

"If you love someone you set them free, and if they come back it was meant to be." - Ross Atkins, GM, Toronto Blue Jays

Wow, I'd forgotten he was ever even a Twin

Junior?

The fact that they didn't even try to conjure up an IL stint with. like, shoulder fatigue or something vague like that tells me they saw him as unsalvageable. I'm surprised and disappointed that it came to this before we even hit June - I thought he had established himself as the low ceiling/high floor type that fit comfortably in the back of a rotation

I think this has been my favorite thing about Shelton's managerial style: his willingness to let both starters and relievers go out for an extra inning that he doesn't intend for them to finish. It has extended starter usage (and more importantly with this club, decreased reliever usage) and found more favorable matchups for starters and relievers alike. It's the kind of small marginal advantage that really adds up over the course of the season.

There aren't even going to be winter meetings this season due to the lockout. I'm not yet convinced there will be missed games next season, but there 100% will be a lockout that halts all offseason business. Because of this, I don't think we see very much trade activity leading up to the official lockout date given all the uncertainty there will be at that time. But this year's postseason isn't uncertain. And the idea that being sorta within shouting distance of the last wild card is not real contention. Were the Reds contenders last year? To me, they were not even though they happened to fill the playoff bracket. And if teams in this position do think of themselves as contenders, then that means the pool of buyers (demand) will be big and the pool of sellers (supply) will be low. That is a very good environment in which to be a seller. It will suck, but Ryan will and should be traded at the deadline.

Bell runs like Happy Gilmore's boss

The Dianna Russini Memorial AJ Brown Trade To The Patriots also became official today A 2028 1st and a 2027 5th ... is that good value? Hard for me to tell

Shouldn't a lower K rate hurt your FIP? I'm being a little facetious as 5 is obviously too small a sample to make broad generalizations, but I think it's something worthy of further examination. Is this just noise? Is it skewed by looking only at a group of fringe guys? Or is there something of a foundational blind spot within the Twins' development model that causes them to crank out worse results than expected? This is the third season in a row where the team ERA is fairly substantially higher than team FIP (42, 46, and 38 points higher in 2024, 2025, and 2026 respectively). I'm not a huge fan of FIP as the bedrock of pitcher valuation since I don't think it's wise to ignore roughly two thirds of a pitcher's results, especially nowadays when there's so much data available about the quality of contact allowed on non-three-true-outcome PAs. But it's still a tool that can tell us something. Perhaps the Twins should be looking a little harder to see what it's telling them

One interesting thing I see in this pile of blah is that every single guy had an ERA worse than their FIP. Some variation should be expected, but 5 for 5 in one direction, and not particularly close for most of them? It's like they play crappy defense at an organizational level or something

Late July: The Twins send off Bell to the Orix Blue Wave in a rare (inaugural?) trans-Pacific trade I have no idea if this is allowed, but it would be bold

I was responding to a comment about DFA'ing Bell, who is, in fact, making millions of dollars

If they weren't willing to spend any more than they did in the offseason, then I find it hard to believe they'd be willing to eat his salary during the season, especially since it isn't like there's a roster crunch blocking anyone banging on the door from coming up right now with all the injuries

These are initial offers. They were never going to be something taken seriously by the opposing party. This feels more and more like we're headed to something that blurs the lines between a luxury tax and a soft cap. You could argue that a luxury tax is a form of a lenient soft cap anyway. The owners will get some sort of formalized cost control in place and increased revenue sharing The players will still get to say they didn't agree to a true cap and I'd imagine they'll get some meaningful concessions along the way - higher minimum salaries, quicker path to free agency, the effective removal of Marlins-style penny-pinching, etc. And neither side ultimately wants to sabotage the upcoming media rights deals. Lower stakes obviously, but the same reasoning that kept the Americans and Soviets from nuking each other during the cold war I wouldn't put money on it (never underestimate the greed of the rich and powerful), but I think we're playing regular season games by May next year with perhaps a 140-game season, at worst

If you look at your Twins prospect rankings from three years ago, are there any patterns or common traits you can see compared to the rankings today in terms of high risers or guys that fell off a cliff?

I'm not sure how this is all gonna shake out. But "competitive integrity tax" is a great name for the reverse-luxury tax the players have proposed on teams spending below the minimum threshold

I'm not choosing because choosing one and not the other is nonsensical. Neither functions properly and as intended without the other. It's like asking if sauerkraut or swiss cheese is more important in making a reuben. It doesn't matter which you choose - if you don't have both, you don't have a reuben. After seeing the initial proposals put out by both parties ... I still think that there won't be a prolonged work stoppage because the looming media contract renewals are the mechanism of mutually-assured destruction that will prevent one. Neither party can afford to kill their media rights market after all the effort that's been put into getting them all on the same 2028 timeline. But I'm less sure of that than I was before seeing the proposals. This is going to be an awful offseason. Given the uncertainty and the ever-growing pile of mediocre teams that are "contending", it might be an awfully quiet trade deadline as well

No

Rough ground ball there for Provus Ground ball to the right side, base hit -- WAIT -- Keaschall comes up with it --WAIT -- Arcia comes up with it

First of all, this says as much or more about the pit of mediocrity that is the American League as it does anything else - they fall all the way to 10th in runs per game when looking at MLB as a whole Second of all, even that level of run scoring is interesting given that they're about as average an offense as you can have Twins slash: .238/.322/.386/.708 MLB avg slash: .240/.318/.389/.707 Twins 1B/2B/3B/HR/Total Hits: 288/85/7/58/438 MLB avg 1B/2B/3B/HR/Total Hits: 288/86/7/58/439 If this is messy to read, this means they are one double shy of exactly matching the league-average hit output by type, and are within 4 points of league average for every slash stat. They couldn't look like a more average offense if they tried, yet they're producing runs in the upper third of the league. Why is this? As best I can tell, they're outhitting league average in terms of OPS by a pretty decent margin (.795 vs .734) with RISP. Is that something they can sustain over a full season? I have my doubts. Do they even need to if the AL continues to have more playoff spots than playoff-worthy teams? I don't know - you'd have to think that someone from the Mariners/Blue Jays/Astros/Orioles/Rangers basket of underachievers will right the ship at some point - and that doesn't even include the biggest disappointments in Boston and Detroit When Tommy P insisted on competitiveness without any competitive actions being taken, I hadn't considered the possibility of the rest of the league sinking to their level. I guess it counts!

Every ounce of grief Outman gets on here is deserved ... ... but he's somehow outslugging Caratini right now. What is going on Victor? At least Outman isn't owed $7MM guaranteed or whatever next year