MeleMouth

Why are they playing Lewis? They know what he can do. At this point, the best reason to play him is to make him struggle so much that they can get inside his head.

The Jays were happy to dangle Martin because they realized quickly that his rep was better than his ability to play major league ball. Same with SWR.

Radke and Silva were pretty good, and when Radke retired Baker was pretty good. Bradley could have replaced Boof Bonser as #5 if Gardy and his pitch to contact philosophy didn't mind the higher number of walks.

Josh Bell at $7 million for a DH with a 105wRC+ is like going to an expensive fine dining restaurant and ordering the lo-cal dinner. And I like Josh Bell.

Somebody needs to do these jobs. The Twins need a plan for what they will do if it happens. They also need to be sure they have the best leader to deal with it. The suggestion is that someone outside the organization could address losses in player development better than Zoll.

Ryan Fitzgerald would have been great as a bench utility guy. He could hit a little and play solid defense. Oh, wait.

Management must be tired of Royce Lewis Superstar and will try to get more for him than they got for Julien. Depending on the length of the lockout, Buxton may be ready for Opening Day. 99% chance Bell won't be on the 2027 roster.

Hoffman lasted longer than Dyson, but contributed the same amount to playoff success. Congrats to Zoll and Pohlad.

Zoll can be proud that Hoffman lasted longer than Dyson, although Falvey was smart enough not to tie himself down to the next year for a reliever.

Johan Santana? You mean when Bradley was five years old?

Ober? Kremer? Sounds like someone who ruined his coffee.

Regardless of Falvey's title, one of the first things Stearns is going to ask Falvey is if anyone in his network could help the Mets.

By FanGraphs' all-in-one "Def" metric, Caratini was 20th of 40 catchers with at least 500 innings in 2026. Now, he was 16.9 away from #1 and 11.0 away from #40, and he was 25th in Defensive Runs Saved, with 0, so he was a little below average, but also not awful. It also looks like all of the catchers who are free agents this year graded below Caratini.

This actually may be understating it. In more than a few games, particularly early in the year, it looked like poor defensive play, such as by a former 3B, kept innings alive, directly leading to further runs, and indirectly causing more wear on the pitcher.

Cleveland lost through injuries and suspension three all-star pitchers in Bieber, McKenzie and Clase who were in their 2026 plans just a few years ago, but kept trucking on. They also traded several pitchers they developed so they could fill other needs, and kept trucking on. They didn't lose anything from their pitching development program when they lost Falvey and the Twins didn't gain from him anything close to what he was hyped as bringing.

Jackson: 14 SB, 2 CS - 12.5% CS Caratini: 63 SB, 12 CS - 16.0% CS Jeffers: 59 SB, 7 CS - 10.6% CS Certainly there are things other than stats, but stats make Caratini look better than the other two and the fact that all three grade low suggest other factors may account for the Twins' poor CS stats. Caratini also graded better at framing.

There are no great defensive catchers available in free agency (the legendary Austin Hedges this year - sheesh: 42 SB, 3 CS; negative framing). Jackson didn't have a great year defensively, either, and he was really lucky on offense. But you're right - hope for improvement for Caratini (he wasn't that bad: 63 SB, 12 CS; positive framing), get a good defensive catcher at a reasonable cost to be the #2 2, and put the money elsewhere. Then pay whatever is needed to hire the best catching coach possible for Diaw, Lackey, Tinney, Tait, etc.

It would be difficult for Shelton to say he wants different players, but this may be as close to saying that as he'll go. Of course, if anyone picks up their game, he wouldn't be against that.

Maybe nobody cares if Steve Cohen's Mets hire Derek Falvey, rots of ruck and all that, but it could really harm the Twins off the field. Falvey, backed by Cohen's mega-wealth, could hire away some of the Twins' baseball ops people. Even while Falvey was here, other teams would poach staff, and with Falvey in New York he will know who to go after. If he does, the Pohlads would unlikely to match Cohen in money, and besides that, what would keep people here? The lack of a clear direction? An owner who doesn't know what he doesn't know but nonetheless involves himself in decisions? Esprit de corps from battling and losing repeatedly? Sure, how Cohen made his wealth might be yucky, but the league admitted him as an owner and baseball people want to win. The lure of the Mets could be strong. If that happens, the Twins' front office and development program as currently constituted could be in trouble. Zoll was part of Falvey's team, which means he was part of Falvey's network. If much of Falvey's network follows Falvey, which would be common, Zoll could have to pick among the rest and look for others who might be interested in taking new jobs. There's a good chance that going to the Twins may not be attractive in the current environment, because, in addition to the questions about ownership, there are questions about whether Zoll is a true leader and whether the major and minor league players in the organization are sufficient. Clearly, the team needs to rebuild it's "pitching pipeline (tm)," as evidenced by pitching staff on the twinsdaily.com minor league all star team. Also, the decision to trade instead of rebuild at the deadline this year further depleted the cupboard. Therefore, the person who may be most immediately negatively affected is Zoll. To the extent that ownership thinks he's ill-equipped to restock either the front office or development program, or the major and minor league rosters, ownership would be well-advised to promptly look for a new general manager from outside the organization, who could bring in his or her own team. People may be available, but being part of building something new may be more attractive than joining an operation that's sputtering. If Pohlad committed to keeping his hands out of baseball decisions, that could further improve the attractiveness of working for the Twins, and the cherry on top would be if he committed to spending more on the team and the organization. Finally, when hiring a new baseball ops leader, Pohlad should not make the mistake his family made with Falvey, where he insisted he do nothing for a year. Hire the best person you can and let them do what they think is right. If the person is wrong, they will have to replace him, but continuing these middle-ground methods, such as hire new, but keep the old; and rebuild, but compete; has proven to be the least successful path of all.

They didn't play "meaningful baseball" in August, either, unless you define meaningful baseball as "well, maybe, you know, don't be so negative, it could happen!" Not only did they delude themselves by thinking they had a chance, the saddest thing is that they also failed to load up and board the Hawaiian Tropic bus that could have taken them somewhere better next year.

Maybe not, but Alex Jackson puts together a mean charcuterie board!

Good article and we should always respect a 12th round pick who becomes a multi-year mainstay. However, to elaborate on what was said by rv98, if Joe Ryan and his 13.5 fWAR are the most accumulated by a Twins pitcher since 2010, that's as much an indictment of the organization as the fact that Ober is fourth is a credit to him. Edit: in that time, only the Athletics, Orioles, and Padres have as their pitcher with the most fWAR someone with less than 13.5.

Falvey did modernize the Twins' front office, but it was a really easy base to improve upon. Before Falvey, video wasn't used in the minors and analytics was one nice guy without a technical background or other baseball experience. The Twins during the Falvey years had one of the worst playoff records in the major leagues, making it only four of ten seasons and going 3-9, and if they hadn't won the meek AL Central in 2023, when Toronto gifted them their only series win, they wouldn't have even made the playoffs as a wild card. He owns a lot of that.

Player development requires two things: (1) a good development program and (2) a large supply of good talent within the funnel. The latter requirement is why the Brewers, Rays, Guardians, and now the Cardinals trade a lot of their veterans: to increase the amount of talent in the funnel. Great prospects fail all the time and many OK prospects, e.g., Misiorowski, become stars. It is a numbers game. What the Twins do is largely the opposite. They, like the Reds, mostly hang onto their veterans, focus on their well-regarded prospects, and discard their OK prospects, which means they aren't growing their funnel. Then, because what appears to be a poor development system** doesn't convert the well-regarded prospects into stars, someone in the front office continually needs to pull rabbits out of a hat by finding 1-2 WAR talent on the waiver wire or among Tier 3 and Tier 4 free agents, but that doesn't replace developing your own 4-5 WAR talent. **We don't actually have measures that show the development system is poor. Some Twins prospects who are discarded actually do pretty well with their new teams. (Off the top of my head, I can think of four pitchers besides Varland who were discarded by the Twins before they were fully baked who soon after being discarded became All-Stars - Anderson, Megill, Pressly, and Cano. Five if you include Hoffman, but he couldn't have gotten much development by the Twins in only one spring training. ) I've always interpreted that as meaning the Twins were good at identifying talent but poor at developing it. For instance, the quick success for many of these pitchers with their new teams often came after just one tweak. However, perhaps overall this is actually evidence of a good development program and there could be other explanations for the relative lack of success of these pitchers with the Twins or the disappointments from talent like Julien, Miranda, Wallner, Lewis, and others. For example, an organization that keeps pinch hitting Manny Margot enough for him to set a record for futility very well may have an ingrained resistance to making changes based on new information. Falvey had a "smartest man in the room" vibe, and such people are often much slower to make change than are the people who truly are the smartest in the room.

The prospects with the best chances of contributing in 2027 are Kendle, Houston, and Diaw. Kendle: there should be room for him if he hits in St. Paul like he did in Wichita (assuming the Twins start promoting people when they earn it and stop their habit of promoting people only when someone else is injured or failing miserably). The outfielders right now look like Buxton, Jenkins, ERod, Roden, and Keaschall, but each has risks in his ability to hold down an outfield spot. (Caveat: Kendle had a ridiculous BABIP in Wichita this year, albeit with an excellent line drive rate, so it's about 100% that his BABIP luck will regress hard. That said, he had a normal BABIP and LD rate in Cedar Rapids, and he was still one of the best hitters in the Midwest League.) Houston: if he hits well in St. Paul and maintains his glove, he should be automatic. Let's go crazy for a moment. Dansby Swanson (3.6 fWAR, 3.2 bWAR) has slightly-below league average offense and plays great defense. Want a worse, more achievable comparison? Nico Hoerner (2.7 fWAR, 2.1 bWAR) is below-average on offense and merely good on defense. If Houston can meet either of those, he'll be called up. (Caveat: if Culpepper looks good, not messing with success could be the path.) Diaw: great offense, but iffy defense at catcher. The team has big needs at catcher, so if he improves his defense he will have a role, even if his offense drops. He had among the best line drive and swinging strike rates in his AA league (only player with 200+ PA to have more BB than K), and these are good core skills as a player moves up. (Caveat: it could be unfair to expect him to be better in his first year than Ethan Salas has been with SDP this year - 0.0 fWAR and bWAR.)