MeleMouth

As someone who was reading Bill James more than 40 years ago, I'm confident he would say that decision-making is much more important than analytics, which is just utilizing data as a tool to gain insights for decisions. In that vein, all the analytics in the world wouldn't help the Twins be better than Milwaukee, if, for example, Milwaukee makes better decisions about which pitchers to trade and when, and which pitchers to acquire, or if Milwaukee makes the hard decisions about which prospects and rookies to sign to long-term contracts and gets it right when they do. Nor would more analytics help the Twins be better than Tampa, if, for example, Tampa makes better decisions about when they are not competitive and trades veterans for prospects, and acquires better prospects when they do, and acquires higher-end talent when they are competitive. You could probably find other areas where Milwaukee and Tampa, as well as Cleveland, Los Angeles, and even the White Sox and other teams, generally make better decisions than the Twins. This year, an analytics staff of only one person would have been all that was needed to tell the Twins that their offensive results in the first half were likely to regress, they had a small chance of making the wild card, and a miniscule chance of going much further. A team of just average smartness would have said it was time to fold 'em, but not the "go big or go home" Twins who, instead of trading for next year, went out and made a lot of drama about tinkering around the edges and then crashed into a 77-win year with the dubious consolation of probably drafting 10th instead of higher. That's bad decision-making, not bad analytics.

Somewhere in the top 20 it should include starting the season with seven of the eight positions being covered by players who were either poor at terrible at defending those positions. Also, a different way of saying 10A could be defining success wrong and not trading veterans for prospects to complete the rebuild. If you put together a roster full of mediocre players, a bad bullpen, and a starting rotation that includes three pitchers who haven't established themselves, it's not their fault they didn't achieve your goals.

Hey, if you'd rather have Jeffers than, say, the 2026 performances by Arraez and Murakami, you can have that opinion, or if you think that the relievers I listed at under $20M would not have been at least as helpful to the 2026 Twins as Jeffers, you can have that opinion, too. It would be a big mistake for the Twins to give $20M to a half-time catcher whose fielding is in the bottom quartile or a 1B whose hitting is median or below, especially if his performance is likely to decline over the four years of the contract. You can come up with all the short-term reasons to do it, but long-term it would be a mistake.

Your whole comment was excellent. I excerpted these two paragraphs because I agree with 100% with the first and 99% with the second, except that the 2026 Twins actually did win only 77 games.

Some of what you said is reasonable, but you lost me when you say that Jeffers at $20M is better than the players listed were at under $20M. Also, you said 75% of the roster will be on rookie contracts, but this is almost certainly wrong, unless you define "rookie contracts" as including players in their Arb 3 and Arb 4 years or the Twins get rid of nearly everyone eligible for arbitration (Larnach, Ober, Kremer, Sands, Banda, Nance, Clemens, Bradley, and Lewis). At least five players (Lopez, Ryan, Buxton, Hoffman, and Caratini) will be on post-arbitration contracts, for approximately $65 million, and nine players on the current 40-man who made more than $23 million in 2026 will be eligible for and due for raises in arbitration, for a total of 14 (more than 50%) of the players currently on the MLB roster not to be on rookie contracts. Although some of the players in arbitration may not be back, others (Kremer, Clemens, Bradley, even Lewis) might get decent raises. Assuming four of the players in arbitration are not back, that still leaves 10 players not under rookie contracts, meaning that about 60% of the current roster will be on rookie contracts. However, this 60% estimate of players on rookie contracts will be true only if the Twins don't, as requested by many on twinsdaily.com, either (a) sign long-term contracts with any of the pre-arb players (such as Lee, Keaschall, Culpepper, Abel, Jenkins, and Prielipp), or (b) acquire a few other players through trade or free agency.

This is exactly right. These catcher skills aren't noticed nearly as much as offense, but they are more correlated with winning and they often cost less.

Last winter, the following players signed for less than $20M/year: Murakami, Iglesias, Robert Suarez, Nick Martinez, Dustin May, Tyler Rogers, Arraez, Luke Weaver, Mahle, Soto. The Twins would have been happy to have any of these 10 players for the amounts they were paid. The following players signed for $20M/year or more: Merrill Kelly, Polanco, Ha-Seong Kim, Gallen, Woodruff, Edwin Diaz, Framber Valdez, Bichette, Kyle Tucker. The Twins would be grateful not to have had any of these 9 contracts on their books. Maybe you read the value and availability of players making more or less than $20M differently than I do. If a salary cap happens, there will be downward pressure on wages, making $20M a potentially big problem for a team like the Twins. Even without a salary cap, the Twins should not spend $20M (more than 10% of payroll) on someone who has only had one half-season of excellent offense in his career (Jeffers had good results in 2023, but much of it was caused by unsustainable BABIP) under a plan that he would play 1B in 2028-30.

Whoever put a team together that included Lopez, Outman, Topa, and the rest of the bullpen - that's who should win LVP.

The team immediately kicked him out of the dugout, his teammates stopped talking to him, and the Twins conducted an internal investigation under Zoll's direction. They had two requirements for Bender: admit to everything and apologize for it. He apologized, but wouldn't say what he was sorry for. The Twins then decided they couldn't trust him and removed him from the organization. They had all the proof they felt they needed. No good would result from public comment by anyone, but that doesn't mean there isn't proof.

What you defined could "meat" (sic) the criteria for the most disappointing player, of course if you define it that way the award could go to the rally sausage. In contrast, the least valuable player, at least from an economics standpoint of value, is the player who provided the least benefit for his cost.

Pablo Lopez was the least valuable player on the roster, although it's not his fault because he was injured. The Twins should have traded Lopez and Ryan before the season, because they were expensive luxuries for a not-great team who nonetheless could have brought back some good assets for future teams and, as pitchers, they are always at risk of career-changing injuries. Because the Twins kept Lopez and Ryan in order to have a mirage of competing, Lopez ended up costing almost $22 million (more than 20% of the team's non-Correa payroll) while providing 0 innings. You could combine Lopez with acquisitions like Outman and Topa, as well as the architecture of the season-opening bullpen, and give the LVP to the front office. If you were to rank the performance of major league front offices over the last several years, you'd put Angels and Rockies on the bottom, then you'd have Twins and Reds, just below Pirates, Athletics, Royals, and Mets.

The Twins should not drop Marco Raya. But I guess they often do drop relievers like Raya with good pitches but needing one refinement that the Twins don't seem to find or make (Anderson, Cano, Headrick, Megill, Henriquez are a few recent examples) and another team will pick him up and turn him into a 1.5 WAR reliever.

There's a bigger issue here, which is being able to identify crises and address them on a timely basis. The other day, there was a thread about the 2028 pitching staff. This 2027 catching situation is the opposite of that, if you look at it from the perspective of last year (before drafting Lackey). 2028 pitching, from the standpoint of 2026: already have five or six competent starters on MLB or AAA teams who will be under team control, plus others in the minors with potential to pitch in the MLB in 2028; these starters may improve between now and 2028; competent options at reasonable cost are foreseeable to be available => not a crisis today. 2027 catching, from the standpoint of 2025: have no competent starter on MLB or AAA teams who will be under team control; maybe one player in the minors (Diaw) with potential to catch in 2027; few competent options at reasonable cost are foreseeable to be available=> crisis as of 2025. I would say this crisis for 2027 catching was foreseeable even before 2025. Yet the Twins did nothing in all these years, other than bring in an aging back-up in free agency plus trade for an emergency third catcher last winter. This summer, they even traded away their best defensive catcher who was closest to the majors and had potential to have some offense (Sprock) to get a fungible reliever. Just in the last year, the Twins seemed to have at least three plans for Jeffers, and maybe five or more: (1) he hasn't shown what we want to see, so we're not going to sign him until we see more from him; (2) he's doing well, so we're going to trade him to restock our system; (3) he's doing well, and we're surprisingly doing well, so we're going to hang onto him so we can compete; and possibly (4) we're going to offer him a QC and get draft pick compensation; and (5) we like what we've seen so we're going to try to sign him to a contract that will probably be a lot more expensive than what we could have signed him for a couple of years ago. Multiple, varying short-term plans usually means long-term plans fail or become much more difficult to achieve. If TP wants to use his money to cover these mistakes in decision-making, that's fine, but it's sub-optimal, especially because there are only so many ways to use money to cover poor decision-making, so overpaying for Jeffers could prevent other good uses of money. Further, it doesn't fix the root cause of the problem, which is poor decision-making, which will create more problems than needed for TP to solve with money. Until they're decision-making problems are fixed, they're going to continue to turn foreseeable problems into expensive crises.

$20 million per year for an above-average, but not great, hitter to play 1B in a potentially salary-capped league seems like a risky way to spend. Further, the Twins are likely to be closer to the floor than the ceiling, so Jeffers could be well more than 10% of the payroll. Yandy Diaz is now more than 10% of Tampa's payroll, but he's a better hitter than Jeffers, and his current contract was 4 years/$36 million.

Not enter into a four-year $20 million per contract for a catcher's age 30-33 seasons, especially if the catcher was in the bottom third of defense, unless they think his first half offense will become close to his standard going forward. Otherwise, see the next comment.

You have to discuss these topics long before a Boras client gets close to free agency. Signing Jeffers now will cost tens of millions more than it would have a year or two ago.

Once again, you have not addressed the examples I gave you of successful pitching coaches who influence their entire organization's pitching development strategies. Once again, you have not given examples of pitching coaches who are just "mechanics" (your word) who are limited to working with major league pitchers. You are raising a red herring regarding analytics. Whether analytics is a good or bad way to guide a pitching strategy is separate from the level of authority the major league pitching coach should have over strategy.

Mendez hits lefty. Last year, Gonzalez had an 86.2 EV and 30.6% hard hit rate in AAA. He didn't walk much, as he never has. The Twins don't need right-handed hitters with low OBP who can't hit the ball hard or field better than average.

"The performance was difficult to sustain. Versalles remained a major league player for several more years, but he never again approached the level he reached in 1965. His WAR dropped to 1.3 in 1966, underscoring the dramatic difference between his career defining season and the years that followed." When you write these articles, please do a little research beyond looking up their stats and applying a cliche like "difficult to sustain" to characterize someone's career. Versalles was a top AL shortstop from 1962 through 1965, but had a quick decline after winning the 1965 MVP not because his performance wasn't sustainable, but because of health reasons and a freak injury. In the beginning of the 1966 season, he had bad case of the flu that affected him for several weeks, then in the summer a heel injury somehow caused blood leakage, swelling and pain in his back. His back pain then sapped his speed, mobility, and strength for the rest of his career and harmed his life post-career. Without discussing his prior good years, which included MVP votes in 1962 and starting in the All-Star game and winning his first Gold Glove in 1963, and the cause for his decline, this article is almost disrespectful, as it seems to characterize Versalles as having had one great year and then immediately not playing anywhere nearly as well.

Trading your best trade chip for a guy whose ceiling is 3 WAR, but whose 2026 performance was a large decline from 2025, and will definitely be declining when Jenkins, Culpepper, Lackey and others should be starting to reach their potential is a poor way to maximize a competitive window.

Langaliers is not a good defensive C and he's about to become expensive and enter the decline phase of his career, so his prime will not align with the Twins' young core.

Busch is about to enter the decline phase of his career, as a 1B, which doesn't align with the expected growth in the Twins' other position players nor the young starting pitchers.

It depends on many factors, including (1) how many OF they want on the 2027 40-man, (2) how many other OFs are in the system who could be called up, (3) how many spots they want for other positions, (4) how many open spots they want so they can add players, and (5) where they think cost-effective options to add players may be. Assuming Larnach and Wallner are gone, 8 other players on the 40-man can play OF: (i) Buxton, Keaschall, Jenkins, ERod, Martin, Roden, Kreidler, and Clemens. Other system OFs who could potentially rise to the majors in 2027 who aren't taking up a spot on 40-man include Kendle, Rosario, and Diaw, assuming Rosario isn't taken in the Rule V. That gives 11 potential other OFs. There are currently 23 non-FA Ps on the 40-man. That number will probably decrease, but cuts could be challenging to decide and it would actually be a good idea for the Twins to acquire a few more pitchers. They need better upper-level org depth at all other positions, and might want to upgrade at DH. Right now, the 40-man doesn't include a DH. Therefore, spots for OFs, particularly OFs who are poor at defense and don't look like 120 wRC+ hitters, could be hard to hold. Note that a poor-fielding OF with a 120 wRC+, Larnach, is himself on the bubble. It would be reasonable to keep both Gonzalez and Mendez on the 40-man through the winter to see how they do next year, although players in their situation may be harmed by the extended time off from a lockout. At the same time, it wouldn't be crazy for the Twins to remove them from the 40-man if they decided they wanted to use their spots to upgrade their talent elsewhere. The decision could come down to how much the team believes in their bats. Gonzales had a 91 wRC+ in AAA in 2026. Mendez had an exciting 142 wRC+ in AAA between May 6 and June 9 with more walks than Ks, although with a very high .368 BABIP and not much power, but just an 85 wRC+, even less power, more Ks than walks, and a BABIP of .286 for the rest of the season that is reasonable for a ground ball hitter with little speed. As you said, their youth suggests a chance for more development, although Gonzalez is considered to have little physical development left and slow players often stop developing at a younger age. Thus = bubble.

Gonzalez should be on the bubble, at best. Little about him looks like a player who will contribute to a major league team. Unless Mendez was affected by injury last year, he's approaching that status, also. The Twins don't need any more poor fielding outfielders or corner infielders who aren't likely to provide plus offense. Of course, this is a team that put Eric Wagaman on the 40-man in this calendar year, so who knows. Almost no players need to be protected from Rule V. Mercedes doesn't need to be protected and shouldn't be, because if he's protected now he'll be on a path where all three of his option years will be used up before he's potentially ready for sustained success in the majors. The team shouldn't worry about his having one lucky year for a bad team like Akil Baddoo did in 2021. Pasqualotto should be the top and probably only candidate for protection from Rule V, because he could give relief innings at least as well as many of the waiver wire pick-ups they've made over the last few years. Last year, in 70.1 innings in A+/AA/AAA, he had 12.21 K/9 against 3.34 BB/9, with an overall contact rate of a low 65.8%. If they don't protect him, several teams who have succeeded with previous Twins reliever discards, such as MLW, BAL, TBR, and even NYY, will probably be interested in taking him. Following previous patterns, they could probably find one thing to change that makes him successful, but which Twins development failed to do. Wallner should be in the "He Gone" category. Perhaps Sabato, also. Several of the 60-day IL players are also on the bubble, at best, including Festa. Only two players on the 60-day IL, Lopez and Abel, are "Locked In."

You're just repeating yourself at this point. Maybe that's how it was done when Dick Such was a pitching coach, but it's rare today. I challenge you to come up with examples. Again, I'll refer you to other pitching coaches who have been intimately involved with developing and guiding their organizations' strategies for pitching, which, as I listed before, include Wes Johnson, Carl Willis, and Kent Schrom. Another could be Chris Hook of the Brewers, who is credited for creating the "Pitching Lab" at their spring training facility. Frankly, you're repeating a common misconception, which is that an organization with a poor system can be improved by getting a great new hire from outside, whereas usually when someone with past success is put into a system that isn't great the previously great person fails if the system isn't changed.