Andy MacPhail

Caratini is 33 yrs. old & has been at best, a backup catcher. When he got regular ABs he did well until it got too regular & too long. Caratini is far from an elite primary catcher. Like Kriedler, his drop off was to be expected. Looking at '27, Krielder is expendable & like what was said we are stuck with Caratini. We need Caratini but he needs a lot of help. Tanner Swanson saw potential in Ben Rortvedt & took him to NYY. He got injured, when he came back he became Garret Cole's personal catcher but didn't really develop his hitting. He was traded to TB & became their primary catcher. With regular ABs, he hit really well until the grind & Florida summer got the best of him. He's been floating around but LAD like to have him in the org, as much as possible, His 1st year with LAD, in the playoffs, he did real well until Will Smith came back & bumped him. Rortvedt is from Wisc, so he's acclimated to our weather, he's a very good defensive catcher, LH hitter who, IMO, if managed properly can hit. He's not a primary catcher but if used in tandem with Caratini (Ben could be used more) they could be productive, especially if they get a promising young 3rd catcher like Edgar Quero, who I think still has 2 options, to fill in until Lackey is ready. More than likely ex-Twin Rortvedt will be DFAed some time, I recommend picking him up.

"Zoll struck a balanced note. He emphasized that the team also has to think about the future when weighing possible moves, rather than focusing solely on getting back to the postseason as soon as possible." That statement tells me that the Twins won't focus on buying expensive 30+ yrs. old FAs, who don't want to come here. Which is fine with me. NYY can go out buy these FAs to fill out their roster that they can't develop. MN doesn't have that luxury; they have to draft & develop them. If MN has extra $ to spend. they should spend it on extending our valuable players who want to stay, not trade them!

Before last night's NLCS game, almost every podcaster & broadcaster who I listened to, predicted that LAD with all their big-name bats & pitchers that filled their lineup, rotation & BP, were going to beat MIL & some said easily. Don't get me wrong, LAD do many things right; but MIL has to do them better. Plus MIL has more intangibles in their favor. The Miz didn't have his best stuff but the defense, with DPs & slick plays, their BP & clutch hitting helped to pull out a close game. I know big sluggers & hurlers are sexy in today's game. For me playing the game right is sexy, From the GM landing a needed trade to a manager knowing how to use his BP to defense turning a slick DP, to a runner turning a double into a triple to a hitter laying down a perfect bunt excites me; hitters striking out, bad defense & pitchers giving up walks & HRs do not. Winning is sexy, losing is not. That's the name of the game.

Amen, Bly! I don't do this to get clicks, I just want people to rethink what they've been told. I appreciate your support.

The people have spoken & I agree with them. A RH hitting DH is very low priority & we have better candidates in-house.

Everybody who has watched Money Ball, should remember the brainstorming of targeting potential players they could afford. Each had their own idea who they should get. But GM Beane shocked them & vetoed them all with his candidates. What all his candidates had in common was that they were cheap & had high OBP, Analytical OBP revolutionized MLB forever. A cheap high OBP player could replace a more expensive high BA player & be more productive. Because it doesn't matter how you get on base as long as you get on base. But analytics have morphed since into HR focused stats. Most team focuses in how to hit more HRs & chase after expensive non-athletic sluggers. HRs are everything & OBP, hitting clutch, bunting, defense, pitching, intangibles, stealing & taking extra the base are irrelevant. Their idea of winning was to sign, draft & develop such players. Contrary to many baseball fans philosophies, HRs do not equal wins, Looking at some MLB teams' HR/ game rankings- MIL is #29, CLE is # 27, TB #22, SD #15. MIL, who had the best MLB winning record was 2nd to the last in HR totals & many who didn't have good HR totals still made the postseason. MLB isn't a HR derby or HR favoring stats-based fantasy baseball, thank God. It's how you play the game. OBP, hitting clutch, bunting, defense, pitching, intangibles, stealing & taking extra the base are important! You still need scouts to evaluate the intangibles. But I say it doesn't matter how many HRs you hit, because it's easier to hit a bunch of HRs when it doesn't matter & strike out when it does; it matters more to be able to hit when it does matter, whether it's a HR or not. Which would you want an expensive poor defensive slugger that strikes out a lot when it matters or a cheap defensive contact player who hits when it does matter? Sadly, many prefer the prior. NYY do very well in today's HR analytical mindset. If you hit a lot of HRs, you don't need to have good defense, baserunning, fundamentals, instincts, character & intangibles, and it doesn't matter if you strike out a lot. If they don't matter then you don't need scouts, good drafting, coach development & player evaluators who enforce these qualities, right? You can get by with just analytics. The focus was to sign the best FA slugger that money can buy. In '19, baseball was enamored with the "Bomba Squad" & it went to MN's head. The "big apple" HR mindset was then able to influence the "minnie apple" to adapt the same. IMO, MN has gone downhill since, making wrong decisions. NYY has dominated MN because they have become a cheap copy of them, NYY are a big market, we are not & NYY are not a great team. IMO, MN is starting to wake up & see the need to break away from this model. They need not only break away but also set a different model. I have advocated for years that MN needs to break away & adapt MIL as their new model. Brewers are a small market that win; therefore, they never get high draft picks, yet they still come up with great players. How is that possible? That is a question that MN relevantly needed & still need to ask & come up with the answers. Here are some of my observations & what I think some the answers are. 1st, Brewers are the anti-thesis of the present analytical mindset. Analytics are important but I think that they're bias & don't tell the whole story, Brewers know that. They don't focus on big slow defense-deficient sluggers that become Scott Boras clients, They have a cheap athletic pure hitter model who they can easily extend. They also value heart, instinct & character & have scouts who scour nationally & internationally to find such players. They have coaches who see the qualities of each player & maximize those qualities while teaching them true fundamentals. Thus, producing many MLBer who can make an impact. those impact players, who they can't extend, they can trade for future impact players who can replace them. Why does MN bring up so many players that can't make a lasting impact? Why are there so many prospects who could be MLBers, aren't given proper opportunities? With a superior player evaluation model, they can draft better & they can trade better too. To go along with that, when they can see a need, they proactively trade for that need instead of hoping & waiting for that trade to fall in their laps & so many times, settle for an inferior player. GM can delegate to others, drafting, players evaluation, development, coach selection, etc but IMO the most important role & obligation of a GM is proactively make trades. Managers are also very important; MIL has a very good manager. What are important characteristics for a great manager? Create good culture? good communications? good feel for the game? give & demand respect? have good philosophies? knows how to manage his pitchers, especially the BP? good instincts? good motivator? have an understanding of analytics? maybe, if he has assistants who do that, maybe not. Here are some that come to mind, maybe you have more. Now shifting away from hitting to pitching. In the slugging mind set, high strikeouts aren't concerning. OK, so does that mean low strikeouts aren't concerning in pitching? No, in pitching, high strikeouts are everything but in hitting, it's not concerning? In this correlating slugging philosophy that defense isn't important, pitchers are forced to depend entirely on velo & their stuff to get outs via strikeouts. Because groundballs go through the INF like a sieve because the INFers can't field. Another reason to abolish this mindset is to have better defense, especially the INF, DPs & fielding grounders that usually become hits & runs help pitchers. Presently groundball (GB) pitchers are extinct, If a GB pitcher has slick fielding INFers backing them, they can flourish. Big SO pitchers are expensive to sign. soft GB pitchers are cheap. especially under this current popular mindset & normally are healthier. Throwing more GB producing pitches, give pitchers more options where they aren't so dependent on their velo & spin & also saves their arms. Moneyball 2.0 is how to economize to compete outside the big market. To be productive with low-cost players who get on base (high OBP), hitters who drive them in especially in clutch situation; good scout to find them & good coaches to develop them with better defense & fundamentals. With better defensive INF, make cheap GB pitchers work & expand other pitchers' repertoires that save their arms. & GM & managers who buy into this. I want the Twins to be more like the Brewers & more, not the Yankees. What do you think?

Tait is surrounded with hype; I never bought it. I wish Twins were better at evaluating & less influenced by hype. Poor performance at high A doesn't fill me with a lot of promise. He's far from reaching MLB if ever as a catcher or bat to meet standards at another, with only 1 yr left to do it. Yrs on the 40 man w/o earning it & then DFAed doesn't seem wise. I'd like to be optimistic, but I can't

Absolutely, everyone was very happy with the trade. A big WIN/WIN/WIN/WIN, a last-minute accident that almost didn't happen.

What! Don't you love Gonzalez? I agree with you in reality it's not even close to be fair. But if you add all of his hype, it's fair.

I am one of the few early critics that hated the sell off, The big names were at best debatably fair where we should have made a killing. We added to our LH hitting cOF glut instead of subtracting. The Jax/ Bradley trade was the only trade I liked & that wouldn't have happened if Jax hadn't demanded it. I could see the potential of an impact SP. Bradley has surpassed my expectations with vision of an elite SP as his command & savvy gets better.

It's a big overpay for 1 year of Gilbert. If they want an OFer they can have Gonzalaz back, that's a fair trade.

I like some of them but IMO, we don't need any of them.

It's frustrating to see homegrown pitchers stall out at the MLB level. Why do some go to a different place & they take off? In my observation, it's not necessarily bad coaching from the prior organization. Each player is unique & they might need a specific key from a different pitching coach that unlocks their potential that they aren't getting from the Twins. Twins seem do very well with pitchers that get their foundation from teams like TB- Odorizzi, Ryan, Bradley, & Gomez & MIA- Lopez. I've always advocated targeting these teams. Johan Santana became elite when he found the circle-change-up key that unlocked him. It might be personality that triggers something. IMO. it wasn't TOR that unlocked something in Varland; I could see that Varland could be a very good RP. Unless it was that they had confidence in him & he got the experience that he didn't get from MN. It might also be how they are managed.

Thanks Cory, great thread! In '19 Twins were deep in catching with Garver, Castro, Jeffers & Rortvedt. Somewhere along the line Twins deemed catching as not important. They let Castro & Swanson (catching coach) go, later in '22, they traded away Garver & Rortvedt & put all their eggs in one basket (Jeffers). Catching have been a concern for me ever since. Shortly there after, I discovered that Jeffers was a Boras client, then I saw the handwriting on the wall & started to look for promising young catchers. I wanted Rortvedt back, Endy Rodriquez was an early favorite, I liked Edgar Quero, Somehow lure Patrick Baily from SF & Gabriel Moreno ARI. I thought Drew Romo & Joey Bart were underrated but had potential, Jefferson Quero & Dalton Rushing were blocked. In the '23 draft I liked Teel & Cole Carrig (I thought he could be someone like Lackey if developed correctly) I thought Ethan Salas would be elite but too young, but early last offseason I put in offer for Salas (when his stock was low) & some good pitching for Ryan; he is turning out pretty good. I always get that good catching is too hard to trade for; it is if you sit back & wait. You have to be proactive. Adley Rutschman was traded to BOS & I was surprised that elite Patrick Bailey was traded cheap, Twins could have been in on them. Some of these catchers are off limits. too expensive or too late to develop (Carrig) now. We could go the cheap route & try to pick up one on the waiver wire. Teel might be off limits but maybe Edgar Quero would be available, a trade for Rushing? Sean Murphy has at least 2 yrs left on his contract. He'll be expensive but IMO, ATL could be motivated to pay down his salary to avoid the luxury tax, These guys could place hold for Lackey until he's ready.

Up 4- He's got attitude. That'll push him over.