The Great Hambino

Apparently popping it up is how you attack the Jays D

So Falvey is Frederik and Zoll is Igor? Does that make Tom Inspector Kemp or Frau Blucher? The Twins Daily community is definitely the townspeople

Gonna get a little cozy in the ABC ramps with the T-Wolves tipping off Game Six two hours after first pitch

In a vacuum the Varland trade theoretically makes sense. But when considering the rest of their actions since the fire sale, it's representative of a failure of process IMO. By trading expiring contracts, late-arb relievers, and getting salary relief for Correa while keeping Lopez/Ryan/Jeffers/etc, they were signaling their intention to still be competitive over the remaining term of control of Ryan and Lopez. Given that, it was imperative that they come up with high leverage relievers on the cheap. They had one in Varland. But then they traded him away too for a pitching prospect not ready to contribute and a redundant outfielder. A trade like that signals that your competitive window is likely coming after Lopez and Ryan are off the books. It signaled that a further rebuild was coming. But given the two paths these conflicting moves signaled they could be taking, they somehow ended up taking neither. They kept their most valuable trade assets without doing anything to reinforce their deficiencies that would prevent being realistically competitive. They didn't reinvest Correa's savings in the team. Instead, they thought they could be cute in remaining competitive while decreasing investment. It seemed like a bad idea at the time, and seems worse now that they're looking at the worst of both worlds: no competitive short-term window while failing to maximize the returns on your valuable assets. Now you're not getting anything for Lopez. Your other assets are diminishing in value in the decreased time of control that comes with waiting another year. It's looking more and more likely to me that Falvey wanted to continue the rebuild and was prevented by Tommy Boy, saw the impossible situation they had now put themselves in, and asked to part ways. Going into last year's Winter Meetings without a plan in place re: the rebuild may prove to be a decision that sets this franchise back years. We'll see if Tom wants to continue digging this hole come this year's deadline. Note that Varland's birthplace appears nowhere in this rambling manifesto

What exactly constitutes flaming out as a starter? How long should they allow them to fail? Festa's already 26 and Zebby will be joining him in a month. They're not young young anymore. I think they're squarely in the "ish or get off the pot" stage if they want careers as starters

You're probably right about it being too early in the season, but by the end of it I think at least two of Festa/Klein/Zebulon could/should be making their way to the pen

Completely passing on WR in the draft will make a little more sense if they end up landing Jauan Jennings

This game really highlights that trading for Rays pitchers can be a mixed bag

Game 31 of the season, almost through April ... and they still don't have anyone with more than a single save.

Well, somewhere out there Bremer was excited for a second

The patron saint of DFA'd relievers

Banda mowing down Raleigh/JRod/Naylor in succession? Sure, why not

Well, the leadoff hitter did hit a solo jack the following inning ...

Guy cut from bad bullpen is bad, who’d a thunk it. This move is very August 2025 Whats Erasmo up to these days?

Whatev, he's still bottom 5 among AL hitters in WAR And Wallner is dead last so you know it's legit

Louis Varland

The Josh Naylor get-right game

If the first two in the order are taking you deep or almost deep, you gotta imagine the three hitter is swinging some real powerful lumber

Knuck if you Buck

Leader in the clubhouse right here. Whitey Prielipp? WC Prielipp? We can work with this And just like with White Castle, you need to take some Pepto Bismol in the immediate aftermath - only now you're taking it to make watching the bullpen palatable

Bold strategy: they put out a high leverage reliever as starter, you counter with your 9 hitter as leadoff

After an abysmal 10-17 start to the season that included handing Lucy the proverbial football in giving Twins fans a fleeting sense of hope, the Red Sox have axed World Series winning manager Alex Cora along with a sizable portion of the coaching staff. Included in the pink slip recipients was Major League Hitting Strategy Coach Joe Cronin. That's interesting because: A) how in the Sam Hill is that an actual position? and B) impressive to see the Hall of Famer still involved in the game at the age of 119

Drafting a fullback in any round gets an A+ from me. This has absolutely nothing to do with me watching my former position go the way of the middle guard. We're not extinct yet!

Where are you gonna trade em to, the Atlantic League?

So they're comfortable with taking the injury risk because they're so confident in their own orthopedic surgeons, but he already had the surgery performed by presumably different orthopedic surgeons. This pick has a mild-to-moderate odor of desperate, wishful thinking - especially when there's no GM to own the consequences of the pick. Big guys with foot problems scare me, and it's not like he's sloppily out of shape (I can certainly see why his upside was so attractive) so I'm not sure this is a very fixable problem Normally I push back on the "why not just trade down???" line of thinking since it you can't just do so unilaterally (similar to "why don't they just re-sign Joe Ryan??" thoughts as if the player has no agency in the decision), but with the Eagles moving up right behind them, it sure seems like that move could've/should've been available