Andy MacPhail

I have to admit that I don't know a lot about CWS, but I've liked how they have focused on young promising catchers. This year, they didn't have a very good pitching group but they instead of sending their future SPs to AAA (wasting their bullets), they have plugged them into their MLB BP. They became one of the best BP in MLB that aided their ailing rotation. Almost every pundit predicted CWS, who have had consecutive 100 loses, to finish last in the AL Central. I predicted that they'd surprise many, Pat Murphy early this season said "Mark my words right now: That Chicago White Sox team will be something to be reckoned with in that division” I have advocated for years for Twins to focus on promising young catchers, finally they are doing this (better late than never). Together, I've advocated to get our promising MLB-ready SPs feet wet by plugging them into our MLB BP, to aid our rotation by using long relief in tabu ways. I have advocated for us to poach MIL's staff. CWS have poached MIL's Matt Roffe to head their scouting staff while MN has reduced their scouting staff, I admire how MIL has run their org., I see CWS heading the right direction & I agree with Murphy that they're a force to be reckoned with, I'm frustrated about how slow MN has transitioned from the old mindset. If the Twins weren't so much in my blood, I'd change my allegiance; but they are, so I'll have to suffer through this.

It has taken a while, with a lot of pundits' critique, MIL has put together a team the right way, that can become a dynasty for years to come.

You put in the right order. Culpepper should step in & contribute. Jenkins was developed right; he might have his up & downs & wonder about his ability to stay on the field as well as Emma. I like Emma best as Buxton back up, but how his hitting translates in MLB is questionable. In the MiLB, he may think he doesn't need to change but, in the MLB, he'll need to see that he'll need to adapt. He can be a force once he does.

I'd say that I'm in the extend a QO camp. And that it'd be irresponsible not to. It's a gamble I'd take because I believe that Boras won't take it. "Of course, one thing that held down Jeffers's playing time totals during his Twins tenure was outside his control. In the last two seasons of Rocco Baldelli's tenure, the team used the most careful alternating pattern of catcher starts in the history of the sport." Twins always looked to Jeffers as their primary catcher, but he never stepped up to do so. & even under the tandem situation, Jeffers petered out the 2nd half. It's has become uncommon for a catcher become a primary catcher.

I selected the Brewers to win it all. The best series was the MIL/ SD, the best against hottest teams. IMO, SD came into the postseason as the 2nd best team. TD played MIL tough. I rank 3nd, Most every "pundit" predicted the loaded LAD to win it all, some said easily, I'd rank #4. CWS & CLE were impressive, IMO, the best WS I've seen for a while, MIL have done everything well, they deserved to win. Congrats, Brewers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Transactions are a gamble. Twins have been between a rock & hard place. Like last year, Twins need to field a winner to draw back fans. My stance is the same; I'd gamble in trading away regular players who should be traded for young players who can impact the team now (not maybe 4yrs. from now) in a way that we still compete now & in the future. So, I'm for trading away both Ryan & Ober in the offseason or at the deadline if can come up with good trades, even if we are competing. We'd need to obtain promising young MLB-ready SPs to compensate for their loss. IMO, Lopez will come back & will be open to sign a very reasonable extension. I'd pursue that. Ryan & Ober's careers have been intertwined from the beginning.

Normally so, especially in catching, but IMO, Lackey has enough talent to supersede that. & the hope that the development process has improved.

I'm not a big early extension fan but Lackey would head my exception list. Injuries are always a concern but development is not.

Scouting is good for gathering intangible information. International scouting is where the Twins are proportionally the weakest. Twins' philosophy have little scouting, just get a bunch of prospects & throw them against the wall & see who sticks. Scouting is only as good as the decision makers,

Rortvedt played almost 2X as games as Jackson, that qualifies him as a primary catcher. Rortvedt had .8 WAR, Jackson -.4. As I said Rortvedt was doing great until the primary duties got too much for him, Coming off injuries & only had spot catching duties, that'd be understandable. Only other time he had quality ABs was with LAD, when Will Smith was down before the WS; and he did well. He's a very good defensive catcher & if you throw out his spotted MLB catching duties & when he was overextended; his hitting would be somewhat impressive. IMO, Rortvedt isn't a primary catcher, his sweet spot would be strong or weak side tandem. I don't see Jackson anything more than a 3rd catcher.

I trust LAD's superior evaluator's judgement & they have overwhelmingly chosen Rortvedt. I don't get how so many except Twins' pitching evaluators' selection, who chose pitchers with bad #s while state how they can change their role, pitch selection & mechanics; claiming to find their sweet spot & key. Yet quickly reject position players, who are very good defensively who had bad past overall hitting stats & completely ignore how they were previously used. Rortvedt is a far superior catcher if used correctly.

I'd do that too.

I like all your predictions. They should trade, Lewis, unfortunately, but not this offseason, he's not worth much right now. I'd wait at the deadline, IMO, he could put up some #s the 1st half. I'd also trade Ryan. I'd trade both of them even if we happen to be in contention for young players that can impact the team now.

For years we have drafted 1B/ DH type players. Where are they? Fizzled out. But still, we have plenty of in-house players. Let's stop the expensive FA merry-go-round, where we never develop the position & never solve the problem. Let's put Keaschal at 1B, make him a strong fixture for a long time.

I'm a big fan of managing the pitchers' workload. Overextending them tends to injuries & tired arms. Even when we make it to the postseason our arms are shot. That's because of mismanagement. If Ryan were to sign an extension, he'd be signed already, so, he's in his last season. It's too late to be concerned about his 2nd half because he should be gone by then.

Torii Hunter on advising Minnesota Twins GM Thad Levine What I disliked the most of the Flavine regime was the secrecy of who was responsible for what. It was hard to blame anyone because you didn't know if Baldelli, Levine or Falvey was responsible. In the beginning Levine did most of the talking & gave direction, but the Twins wanted to lean more heavily in analytics, so they made Falvey the head even though Levine had more FO experience. Flavine started out with a great coaching staff & they leaned on Ex Twins to help out. But after the '19 season, all the attention went to Falvey's head. He phased out Ex Twins influence, he let good coaches go, pushed his bad philosophies & took more & more control. I remember when Levine stated that they were adapting the piggy-back system, they signed Bundy & Archer because of it. It started out well, but Falvey changed direction & wanted all their SPs to go 7 innings, that ended disastrously. I have little patience with GMs & ex GMs who think they are pundits; they talk a lot but say nothing. But listening to Levine's interviews, I'm impressed with his insights. I wanted to post a different video of Levine about implementing BP games etc. & focusing on drafting & developing contact hitters; but I couldn't find it, maybe they removed it because he's talking MLB tabu. Levine is a baseball person & you want these people to be your GM, not Falvey who is not. Twins made a big mistake making Falvey the head. When I 1st checked out "Roster & Rings" there were very little content, now I see there is much more & I'm looking forward in going through it, this offseason.

Great job Seth, I'm looking forward to your point of view, covering both MIL & MN. I have beat the drum for years for the Twins to drop their philosophy & look to TB & then MIL. as models. I can say a lot but I'll just limit it today with drafting. MIL in particular had a better evaluation approach away from the popular slow poor defensive slugger; to a fast, athletic defensive contact hitter, they also put a lot of importance on intangibles like character & heart. Because they always had winning records, they had to depend on this superior evaluation in their low draft picks to continue their winning ways. Philosophies also shape in how you develop your players. MIL have a lot of faith in their development so they can draft young prospects. Let's say it was good idea that MN didn't go that way. MIL has also done a much better job in drafting & developing international prospects.

Steven Okert at #5? I liked him when we got him. He did well but petered out. I'm all for Minter getting back. His performance asks for less than the 11M. He's familiar with us & IMO he'll be better in '27.

Martin is another victim of poorly evaluated & developed promising prospects that has plagued this organization for years, My evaluation is a promising quick, contact hitting 2Bman. Instead of finding his strengths & focus on them in development in who is, they tried developing him into someone he wasn't. You can check my blog Twins Failed 2B & Hitting Philosophy Has Failed Martin - Twins 2B Failed Philosophy - Twins Daily After every stage of doing this he has rebound to his original self. before platooning him in '26, he faced 2X as many RHPs & has had very good splits. Baseball has always clamored that his OPS was too low even while his OBP was crazy. high. Martin is a very good contact hitter with good ABs, those hitters usually don't fall into big slumps. So, what happened to Martin? After eliminating many options, IMO, after sending Wallner down they wanted to increase Martin's slugging & tinkered with his swing again. Martin never fitted into the Twins failed HR above all philosophy. Since Polanco got hurt, we have suffered greatly at 2B, especially defensively. If Martin was evaluated & developed correctly, we'd have had an elite 2Bman the last few years. Eventually, IMO, Martin would have been squeezed out of 2B & OF, but at last we'd have a decent player to trade & get something back. IMO, Martin will regain his swing again & be a good platoon player. Maybe after that we'd trade him for something. Besides Twins losing out, they have wasted many years of Martin's career & that's sad. Twins past failed philosophies has been a lose/lose situation.

Thank you, It's about time to come clean. I'm not really Andy MacPhail. I have many favorite Twins but Twins Daily gives us the opportunity to be online GMs. I have always admired Andy for bringing 2 WSCs to MN. My intention is to honor him but my opinions aren't necessarily his.

Thank you so much for your debate. I've read your post several times. I think we agree more than we disagree, I've use OPS, WAR & Prospect Rating, when I look into players. because it's a quick & easy way to do so. As far as I know we don't have good stats to really gage players worth. Let me say it a different way. my agenda is to get people to think outside the box. Inside the box thinking, OPS, WAR & Prospect Rating, where HRS impact more than anything, are the gold standard, The game plan is simple, hit as many & as far HRs as you can. Yet this mindset we see a team like LAA who look good on paper but never made the postseason. I see the Twins in the same mind set, look good on paper but fall short. Thinking inside the box is not getting the job done. Hitting HRs is nice, look great on paper & sexy but can you not hit HRs & still win? That's blasphemy! no, that's outside the box thinking Baseball is a team sport, my focus is, that every player needs to play proficiently his position (not bat dictate it), have players get on base, steal bases, have players hit them in, have good pitching, evaluate the strength of each players & develop those strengths & fundamentals, using this outside the box mind set, make good trades, manage accordingly, you can win without hitting HRs. Many pundits say MIL can't win because they don't hit HRs*, yet they keep winning! They think outside the box & we need to do the same. It's not easy & will take time. Twins saw the need to better their baserunning but didn't have the runners. I like that they changed their strategy & not try to unlock Jenkin's potential power before developing his hitting. They changed around the INF to make it much better defensively, they still need to make changes to their in the box approach. I agree with you that Martin shouldn't play the OF, that isn't his position, I've stated as much. But if they develop him according to his strengths, as I've stated before, he'll be a great asset w/o hitting a ton of HRs. Not being satisfied with that & changing his swing to raise his OPS made him worse. * Yes, I know MIL has hit a lot of HRs this post season, IMO, it wasn't the gameplan but from adrenaline & working the count to get pitches to hit. Not the norm.

Thank you for sharing, but my focus wasn't using Martin to debunk OPS. My point was the Twins' failed philosophies & the organization efforts to conform players into them. I could have used others, but I felt Martin was a better victim. This whole process began trying figure out why such a good contact hitter with good ABs ending up less than expected. I try to look beyond stats & this is where the road led me.

4 great examples of players, who really tugged at our hearts & dreamed on. We still love these players but they came short of our dream expectations, Carew fulfilled our dreams but not all with us. Puckett & Mauer didn't fulfilled all of our dreams but still made the HOF.

I don't get the past regime philosophy of totally dismantling of one of the top BP if not top; into a plane crash, The same with the dismantling the '19 catching department. They were also one of the deepest if not the deepest catching crew. Back in '22 they put all their eggs in Boras's client Jeffers. I have advocated for better quality depth ever since; they have fallen on deaf ears. I was very happy when they finally drafted a premium catching prospect in Lackey. But there is at least a year or two gap because of their neglect. IMO, Caratini is a backup catcher, so we need to find someone to anchor our tandem. Because of the gap before Lackey is ready to anchor the catching crew, we need someone who can do so for 4 yrs. or more. I don't think that Davis is our man. I was very surprised when PIT drafted Davis #1 He was not deserving; I was never very big on Davis. I'm a big advocate for looking at talent not stats. Rortvedt is a very good defensive catcher & when given quality ABs & not overextended has been pretty successful offensively. But the problem is that he was injured early in his career, been behind other catchers so he hasn't had the quality ABs. At TB he started out very well but into the dog days of summer, he wilted. That why I always say you need to look beyond stats. Rortvedt isn't a primary catcher yet I think he could do very good well anchoring a tandem. Rortvedt will be cheap as a MiLB free agent. We still need a 3rd catcher with options. Davis doesn't have any options left. Maybe in-house? If Carantini was able to be a primary catcher, then, yeah, I'd consider Davis as a backup. But Caratini isn't. So, no to Davis.

If Twins need to spend money they should do it wisely. But when we look at MIL, TB, or CLE we need to take a deep look at what we've done wrong & what they have done right, not about money. IMO, we need to really shake up our mindsets & philosophy & copy theirs & do it better. It not so much what they do but more how they do it. I've been advocating that for years, especially MIL. Like Ash said, it won't be easy