The Great Hambino

I think they should give serious consideration to cutting Hockenson. With the way he's been trending, I don't think it would be too difficult to cheaply replace him (it's easy to see him being a well-below average TE at this point), and he could save them almost $16MM with a post-June 1 cut If they truly want there to be a legitimate QB competition for JJ, then I think Geno Smith is the play. It's hard to separate his awful 2025 from the organizational rot he had to deal with, so he has real bounceback potential - at least as much as you could reasonably expect from a 35 year old. At worst, he's still an upgrade from last year's backup QB situation. Like Kyler, he's basically free. And unlike Kyler, I think he can be signed without a guarantee of a starting spot. Whichever direction they go at QB, I hope it's a cut veteran that can be had for the minimum. There are no long-term solutions available (assuming they don't go nuclear with a trade), and they need as many resources as possible to patch up the rest of the roster

I don't know how we ended up in a spot where three weeks before the season, my most tangible source of optimism for this year is Alan Roden (fudging a bit cuz it's really probably Abel at least as a 1A-1B type deal, but I'm trying to make a point here). I did not have that on my Twingo card

Yeah, but other teams are well aware of that too, though. I'd be absolutely shocked if they can get a first rounder for him in any year. If they can, take it and sprint away before the other GM changes their mind. I'd even jump immediately on an offer for a second rounder

Regardless of the type of beer actually sold as part of this deal (I'm assuming Coors Light and under, and anything else is a bonus), I look forward to trying to revive a game I used to play with my wife when she was pregnant. It's called "I Drive There, You Drive Home"

34" vert at 325 is terrifying

Unless these figures changed significantly at the end of last year after he came over from the Dodgers, Outman's track record isn't exactly a glowing endorsement of their predictive abilities. As has been said upthread, he was given away by the Dodgers for a broken reliever. He really needs to hope that the Twins don't see Roden or Martin as viable medium-term CF options. Being the only one in the system that's not Buxton or someone subject to service time manipulation is his best path to making the opening day roster

Touche, I forgot about VeRsAtIlItY Speaking of, who is the backup 2B? Is Martin in that mix? Clemens? Kriedler/whomever takes the vet backup slot? By the end of the year is it Lee?

A healthy Austin Martin gets left off the roster for a fourth underwhelming option at 1B? I don't buy it

When I read the headline I thought he was talking about the club itself, not the players

Ephesians Prysock is a 1st ballot HOF name

That's a pretty damning indictment considering the bulk of their offseason spending - Bell and whatever portion of Caratini you'd like to allocate to 1B - was made with this position in mind

It's hard for me to say this first half can be considered more important than 2002. Right on the heels of narrowly avoiding contraction, the 02 team got off to a 20-11 start that jump-started fan interest with a fun team that led three straight division titles, even more fan interest, and ultimately the approval of Target Field by a very narrow margin. It's not hard to see an alternate reality where that team stumbles out of the gate, fan interest never fully recovers, the new stadium doesn't get pushed over the finish line, and the Twin Cities are currently jockeying to be an expansion target because the Twins left town So I'd call that more important than the fulfillment of Tom Pohlad's quixotic quest for fringe competitiveness. But that's just me.

I think there's one thing that's going to keep the owners from going to the mattresses over a salary cap in this round of negotiations: TV rights going to market. Baseball is at a crossroads in terms of how their product is distributed and consumed. The RSN model that has propped up revenues is on life support, if not effectively dead, and this next round of media rights will determine how they replace that revenue. Manfred's strategy has been to bundle local rights as much as possible and bring everything to market at the same time, which is why they've made every effort to have all existing media contracts end after the 2028 season. Bringing all those rights to market on the heels of a significant loss of games would be utterly catastrophic. There will be a whole lot of posturing and maybe a delay to the start of spring training, but they'd be crazy to torpedo their largest source of revenue to get a cap from the players. It wouldn't be worth it. Just ask the NHL how they liked putting their games on the Outdoor Life Network. I think the real salary cap battle will happen with the next round of CBA negotiations after this one.

Split squad games today and neither has a TV broadcast available? Harumph

Pro tip: be sure to lift with your knees when you're carrying a rotation

Realitire? Yeah, satireality is better

Clemens has an eephus with plus upside. Does that count?

These are really starting to blur the lines between satire and reality.

Certainly starting to look like "none of the above" is the likeliest closer. This bullpen screams closer by committee The plan must be to keep it all together with smoke and mirrors and bubble gum and duct tape in the first part of the year and hope a converted starter or two with upside can transition to high leverage roles by the end of the year. That's not a good plan if you're truly expecting to compete

I might be in the minority on this, but I like having a red home alternate option. Balances out the blue road alternate in the Rain Man part of my brain, plus I thought the red ones with the TC logo over the heart looked pretty good a few years ago. The M hats should be exiled to wherever they decided to stash Joe P, whether that's the offices of another business they want to run into the ground, some remote Caribbean island, or a utility closet at Breck. Those hats stink and they should be using the TC - which is unique, iconic, and good - full time. The cream Twin Cities alternates are great

You're not wrong. But changes to revenue sharing without an effective salary floor are also pointless. Otherwise you're just taking money from teams willing to spend and giving it to those that aren't wiling to spend with nothing keeping them from simply pocketing it. Can't imagine why the union would be opposed to that. They're all needed in tandem to achieve the desired effect.

It's also just an unsubstantiated claim made by the owner. We don't know what was actually offered, if anything. Just his claim that "we totally thought we had a 20% chance". Well I think there's an 87.625% chance he pulled that number out of thin air. There are no silver medals in free agent acquisition. If you're actually serious about getting him, you immediately pivot to your next option if it doesn't work out. It was Feb 4 when Valdez's signing was first reported. I'm sure they're TOTALLY IN ON plan B

It's because they're not trying to increase their endurance. They're trying to increase their velocity. They've decided that they're better off having starters go shorter but harder, then handing it off to a platoon of relievers that also are throwing harder and harder. Sort of how even the world record holder in the 400 meter dash couldn't hold a candle to a mediocre 4x100 relay. It's not as romantic or as aesthetically pleasing as seeing a Bob Gibson go the full 9 every time out, but it's coldly more effective against lineups where just about everyone is a legitimate threat to go deep. Bob and his friends didn't have to face that in their day. And if they came up today, they'd be throwing shorter and harder too. And before someone goes "BUT BUT MADDUX!!!", we're talking about someone with perhaps the greatest command of his pitches of all time. Unicorns don't disprove general trends. To me, it's the logical endpoint of the race against batters to neutralize each other's power. Players throw harder, swing harder, hit more homers, and strike out more often as a result. I do wonder if this cultural shift is a byproduct of the steroid era. Today's MLB pitchers were just starting their youth careers in the aftermath of that time period, and I wonder if the all-encompassing quest for velocity had permeated all levels of baseball instruction by then. Secondarily, I've gotta believe that these lab-designed breaking pitches (which are also incredibly effective) aren't necessarily the best things for elbow ligaments. But pretty much everyone has them now, so it's just next man up if someone goes down. What's the solution? The best I can come up with is reducing the size of pitching rosters (with fewer available relievers, starters would have to pace themselves as a necessity), but that could just as easily create more problems than it solves. It's also treating a symptom, not the disease. I don't know how that genie gets back into that bottle.

The union doesn't want to be broken by the owners, so they're proactively breaking themselves Bold strategy, Cotton

The Red Sox need starting pitching. They gave up real prospect capital for damaged goods with a FIP on the wrong side of 4.50 in Johan Oviedo while letting Giolito walk. Maybe that should tell us something