MeleMouth

"qualifying" How about this: among 13 hitters who had at least 300 PAs "as DH," Bell is 8th in fWAR, with 1.0 (he's 0.7 overall this year). He's also #5 out of 5 with at least 450 PAs. 8th out of 13 is not terrible, but not awesome either.

I agree with you here. However, remember when the Twins hired Falvey, they also interviewed Chaim Bloom. Memory serves that Bloom and the Pohlads did not feel there was a fit between them. What I interpreted at the time, based on comments from the Twins at the time about what they liked about Terry Ryan and what Falvey's hiring instructions were, is that Bloom wanted to make bigger changes to the organization than the Pohlads wanted, and that Falvey was more willing to meet the Pohlads' requirements to take the job. Take that however you want, but there have been organizational restrictions for several years that have prevented general managers from doing everything they thought necessary to build a sustainable winning organization. This year was Exhibit A in the general manager doing things to meet short-term objectives of ownership that worked against building a sustainable winning organization. It's tough to blame the general manager for failing to build a sustainable organization while implementing instructions for short-term objectives. More importantly, it might not be realistic to expect anyone else to do any better at building a sustainable organization if ownership continues giving short-term requirements. To finish, St. Louis now hired Bloom, and he has done a great job quickly to revamp their organization, starting by biting the bullet to trade off every expensive veteran they could to get more top prospects. If you want to see something that might make you jealous, or at least match your thoughts about what the beginning of a sustainable organization looks like, look at (1) St. Louis's collection of young talent and (2) budget room for 2027. The sad coda here, at least for Twins fans, is that, even though St. Louis did this major rebuild instead of the fantasy "competitive rebuild," it also has a better record than the Twins this year.

That's probably the best option at a mid-tier price point, but not without risks. (1) Kelly will be 33 next year and could be trending down. (2) Kelly might more money and more years than we're comfortable with. It would be reasonable for him to want at least the same 3 x $10 million contract the Twins gave to Christian Vasquez, with a higher annual amount because it's four years later and he's frankly a more valuable player. That longer term would conflict with the mid-2028 goal, unless you're comfortable with paying perhaps $12 million/year for a back-up catcher. Note also that Statcast claims that Caratini's expected offense is actually better than Kelly's. Another option would be to go to the discount bin and hope that someone like Austin Hedges or Jonah Heim has something left.

Who would you have signed? The three most notable relievers who signed for $14 million/year or under were Ryan Helsley, Pete Fairbanks, and Kenley Jansen. All have been mediocre at best. Tyler Rogers and Luke Weaver had better years and were around that price point, but they are more the exception. Similarly, Seranthony Dominguez, Brad Keller, and Emilio Pagan were around there. No thank you. So maybe six of eight (75%) would have been bad signings. Further, if one of those pitchers had been signed, the Twins probably wouldn't have signed either Caratini or Bell. Neither of those players is an all-star, but they had value. It's Ee-Zee to criticize Zoll when you're at 100,000 feet and can just say "do better or else," but when you start looking at the details of the limits he had to work within and the actual choices he could have made, it's a lot harder.

On Twins Daily, that means not wearing your Brewers jersey while you type.

Among qualifying DH's, Bell is 13th of 16 in wRC+. Not great.

Oh, boy, he had at least fourteen million!! How could he have failed to get three great players?! Tell us: if you could go back to last winter, whom you would have signed for $14 million that would have made a big difference this year?

They should have been rebuilding this year, but chose instead to try to sneak into the playoffs with an 80-82 record. They're going to have to rebuild eventually instead of continuing with this "competitive rebuild" fantasy, unless, of course, Tommy P decides to double the budget, but even then there just aren't enough good free agents available this winter to make that plan likely of success next year. Nor do they have enough tradeable prospects to get a major talent infusion.

If you think Zoll should have improved all of these positions in the last year, under the budget guidelines and mixed messages given by ownership, the only person realistic to replace him with is Glinda the Good Witch.

Al, Bill, OK, just don't call me late for dinner.

I don't think Caratini is the primary catcher on a championship team, but I don't think he'll be awful, either. Also, the stats I see show he caught 101 games in 2021 and 90 in 2022. He didn't catch as much in 2023 because the Brewers got William Contreras or in 2024 or 2025 because Yainer Diaz was hitting well for the Astros, but he was solid when he played.

You can just call me Bill.

Yes, those are this year's results. What I was trying to say is that "expected results" paint a better picture, and because expected results are better predictors than actual results, there is some reason for optimism that Caratini will have better results next year.

Here's the "Caratini will be OK" argument: 1. His defensive rating this year is higher than Jeffers' and it has generally been higher over his career. 2. Statcast suggests his offensive results were much lower than what they should have been, based on how he hit the ball. In fact, his expected offense this year was almost the same as his expected offense the prior two years, when he was an above-average hitter.

Actually, after years of being bitten by their seeming nonchalance about strikeouts, the Twins should be allergic to someone who strikes out as much as Torkelson.

Every time he's bad for a few weeks, Royce's defenders argue "you can't cherry pick your stats!" Yet he's at 1.0 WAR for the year and if you gave him another 1.0 WAR for the first two months instead of the negative WAR he created, for a mythical total of 2.0 WAR for the year, he'd still only rank #17 among qualifying first basemen. And you can't really ignore his first two months, because he's had periods like that almost every year, and you definitely can't just gift him additional WAR. The sad thing is that this year he has shown that he still has the athleticism to succeed, but his lack of humility seems to stop him from improving.

St. Paul Saints :)

Thanks for the article. However, a couple of questions about this sentence, which summarizes the organization's philosophy. "The Twins aren't drafting players and immediately attempting to rebuild them from the ground up. They have already identified qualities they like, whether that's a hitter's bat speed, defensive ability, athleticism or offensive upside. Now, they want to see those traits play against professional competition." Reports were that they had a different approach with Austin Martin and some others. Buxton is another example of a player who had much of his swing rebuilt. How does their treatment of Martin match this statement? Also, it would surprise me if they truly do let hitters like Quentin Young go long without attempting to make a correction. When do they start making corrections?

Going into 2023, coming out of his age 30 season, when he was a 134 wRC+ hitter with poor defensive metrics, Willson Contreras got a 5-year $87.5 million contract ($17.5 per). He also had an iffy reputation as a teammate. Going into 2027, Jeffers is coming out of his age 29 season, when he has been a 142 wRC+ hitter with adequate defensive metrics. Jeffers has a good reputation as a teammate. Four years of salary inflation later, Jeffers can reasonably expect to do at least as well as Contreras did in 2023.

1. Sign Mauer to an extension! 2. Mauer is terrible! 1. Sign Josh Donaldson! 2. Donaldson is terrible! 1. Sign Buxton to an extension! 2. Buxton is terrible! 1. Sign Carlos Correa! 2. Correa is terrible! It surprises me regularly that, for a sport as rich in historical and current data as baseball, so many opinions are based on anecdotes, narratives, mood swings, and the search for a villain.

For this one, the choices are either (1) Jeffers at $24M or a draft pick; or (2) a placeholder talent at catcher in 2027. Normally, I'd agree that $24M for Jeffers is too much, but you can't look at that decision in isolation and it is better than taking Door #2 with the placeholder talent. That would be the start of another year of hoping to back into the playoffs at 84-78.

Your point that a bunch of players on rookie deals including pre-arb to arbitration are playing as the 7th inning guy is exactly the main reason why the Twins don't need to pay $7.25 million for a 7th inning guy. The secondary reason is that the Twins shouldn't spend such a large portion of their budget on a 7th inning guy when so many other harder to fill positions need upgrades. Next year is the end of Hoffman's contact. If there's no baseball next year, he will be a free agent.

"Ryan's first three pitches of the day clocked at 94.2, 95.2 and 95.1 MPH. It was a bit of a statement after his relatively low velo in last week's Triple-A rehab start raised eyebrows." Great! Now trade him for what you can get ASAP.

Thanks. I now understand you're the arbiter of truth and reason. If your 2B has a higher OPS than your LF, RF, 3B, and 1B, and at lower cost than two of them, you think it doesn't make sense to worry about the other positions before you worry about your 2B?

You can say all the mean things you want about them on baseballtalk.com and they won't care too much, but a boycott that hit their revenues while their costs were stable would get their attention - much more than the promises to boycott that will come during the lockout.