Dman

I'm still a believer. Not ready to give up on him as a starter just yet. He does seems to have some of the same issues Varland had. So I get that a pen move makes sense, His biggest issues are getting into long counts and then gets homer prone. Still he is just a put away pitch from being a mid rotation arm. They just need to find him another weapon or improved pitch and he could be really good IMO. I'd give it more time.

I might be the only one but I'd have Lackey at number 1. He looks like the better runner. The stronger arm. At least as much power as Jenkins and will play arguably the most important position on the field. I think if just based on projection the ceiling is a bit higher on Lackey IMO. Still there are a lot of things in Jenkins favor. He is the same age as lackey and already at AAA and doing well there. Even at such a young age he has a balanced batting line at the highest level in the minors. Jenkin's looks like the stronger bat moving forward and being young for the level and having the kind of success he is having bodes well for star potential. There's a lot to like. The order is just preference at this point as they are so close. The nice thing is we have two or three top 50 players in the system right now. I agree with the rankings for the most part except for Soto. I was so excited when they picked him. Now I have concerns his arm\shoulder will never hold up. I think until healthy again I'd drop him further down the list. Everything else looks good to me with Tait in danger of dropping with the poor plate discipline. Right now he is young for the level and barely holding his own. Hopefully he can make more improvements. It's a really nice system but won't be top 10 for long as guys will be graduating if not in 2026 for sure in 2027.

The only source I saw was Jim Callis via Bleacher report on X. He doesn't have all the Twins players, but ones on TD look like the same ones he tweeted.

I have been back and forth on trading Ryan. I guess mainly because there was a point there where this team looked like the misfit toys might actually be something. It just fee;ls like there isn't enough depth for this team to make it IMO. If they did trade Ryan they would need mainly arms back. Not sure what systems can accommodate that. Most I have looked at don't have much that I would be interested in. Maybe Atlanta as they have Cameniti in the top 100 and a couple of other arms that seem interesting. I just think it might be hard for the Twins to trade him at the deadline since their needs are specifically arms. Maybe some three team trade could get it done? On top of that Tom Pohlad seems pretty intent to compete sooner rather than later and might want to run it back in 2027. Will just have to see how badly teams want to pony up for Ryan and see if it's enough to force the Twins hand. It will have to be good arms in return though.

I agree with this. If we wind back the clock the Twins had added a lot of arms to the 40 man in 2025. Klein, Morris, Prielipp, Rojas, Abel along with the added 2024 arms of Matthews, Adams, Raya and Festa. That was a lot of new arms on the 40 man and they needed to find out who fit where and get them playing time to see if they were starters or pen arms. They had to know they needed at least the first half of the season to find out who was gonna work where and who wasn't. While I still think they should have tried to sign at least one dominant arm in the off season they seemed to feel Topa, Rogers Orze would be enough. Eventually grabbing Banda at the end. Still I get they likely wanted to be able to try those newly added arms to the 40 man out as you can't keep everyone on there unless they perform. I still think they should build to 2028. They have decent pieces in the pipeline now. Keep getting younger with controllable guys and maybe they can have a longer window for once.

I only include him as core as he has several years of control left, but you are correct at 27 next year not young. So if you don't want to include him I am fine with that definition.

He might not be. We just don't know yet. I don't love his profile but he has been very successful at AAA and he is better defensively than some players we have. Given Keaschal is playing outfield now along with likely Rodriguez and Jenkins he likely is the 4th outfielder if not traded. Still he is young and controllable and part of the future core until he isn't. That goes for every player I named. They have to succeed once they get to MLB and that is very hard to do. If they do they form the core if not then next man up.

Why trade for short term assets especially since we don't know how much baseball there will be in 2027? There's too many holes to fill and they will need prospects to hopefully fill them. They have several core pieces ready to come up in Roden, Culpepper, Rodriguez, Jenkins, and hopefully Houston next year. Along with Gonzalez and Mendez as bat first guys I'd be more inclined to trade for prospects than trade them away. Unless it is the defensively flawed Gonzalez and Mendez. I especially hate trade number 2. Why trade three potential top 100 prospects for a guy who currently has a .695 OPS? Kreidler is currently hitting better than that and we have Culpepper on the way to play short. I think these are the types of moves that leaves a team bad for along time. If you trade for Garcia who is having a good year what are you doing with Lewis? Since Lewis came back from AAA he's been close to an .800 OPS bat so how much are you really gaining here? Trading Gonzalez doesn't bother me too much, but I just don't see the overall value for the team. If you really want to push the chips in on this year I can get behind trade #1, but giving up a possible ace arm, and 5 tool player along with Lewis seems steep to me. Still at least this trade is for arms which is the weakness of this team. If I had to choose one deal that would begrudgingly be it.

I agree with you. I think it will be hard as leverage can change depending on the outcome. My two cents on this. First it seems doubtful the owners will get everything they want in the new CBA and with what players said at the all star break (i.e. Baseball, the sport has never been in a better place with current rules in place) it seems changing things will be hard to do. Still one has to calculate what the future looks like both ways if doing deals before that agreement is complete. Unless an entire season is cancelled I don't see the players moving off their position and the PR hit both ways could really hurt the game and everyone's pocket book. Even if changes are made there is going to be some type of grace period for teams to get ready for a cap. Since the Twins are so far away from what the cap would be I don't think negotiating a contract with Bradley should matter too much for either side especially if they only go 5 years. Still it would be nice to know what the rules will be and as others have mentioned on this board some teams are hedging their bets by signing guys to 8 year deals while they can. So teams or player agents are preparing for those changes to happen even if they don't come to fruition. It's going to be an interesting offseason in a bad way IMO.

Yeah I think IIRC that in the new CBA free agents signed by another team the max is 5 years and original team is 6 years. So if passed and that is a big if max contract years would be 6. So if teams\players want to go longer than that now might be the last time they can do that. Personally I think the perfect mid point for the Twins and Bradley would be a 5 year deal. He gets his life changing money and doesn't have to worry about losing out on a big payday if his arm gets injured or he regresses. He would only be 29 when that contract is up and if he has performed well would set himself up for an even bigger payday after that. That seems like a decent compromise for both sides if you ask me. Maybe Bradley would want to go longer hard to say, but even if they went 8 years and price was right I'd still think the Twins would\should be interested. The Twins know him best so we'll see if they do anything or not.

The Twins have rarely extended starting pitchers. The injury risk as arms creep over the 30 years old mark makes it a tough gamble for small market teams. Even Lopez whom they did extend proves their point getting TJ at exactly age 30. Still even with a 5 year deal Bradley would only be 29 so if they are ever going to get ahead of the game and do it he would be the rare arm that would makes sense for them. The Twins or his agent might want to wait and see how the new CBA works out first, if their is mutual interest I think this is a case where it makes sense for the Twins to take a leap of faith that his arm stays healthy. I don't have a lot of hope it will get done, but it's hard to find good arms. You can see at this deadline pretty much every teams is looking for arms. We'll see what the Twins decide. Maybe Tom has a more open pocket book and appetite for risk.

I always thought the Twins should have tried to extend him as he was hitting his arb years. I understand why they didn't though. Jeffers hadn't been that great with the bat and 2023 was really the only exceptional year he had with an .859 OPS. Every other year he was .750 or under for OPS. So good for a catcher but not great. This year he got off to a hot start, but we've seen him get hot before and cool down. Catcher is such a tough position as they get dinged up by foul balls etc. I feel like he has always wanted to get to free agency so maybe the Twins never really had a chance to extend him even if they wanted to. He bet on himself and it looks like it is going to pay off. Still kind of hoping the Twins can get something for him at the deadline, but we'll see.

Baseball is crazy hard to predict. IIRC there were a lot of experts that thought Ryan might end up a bullpen arm despite the good minor league numbers. I think he threw his fastball 70 or 80% of the time and there was no precedent for a starter to succeed relying on one pitch so heavily. It's interesting to me now that some experts thought Strotman had better starter traits and was the more likely arm to be a starter and if not then a solid bet to be a MLB reliever. Strotman never even made it to the majors. So the Rays likely thought they were giving the Twins two good to great bullpen arms with a chance to be a 5th starter. Seems reasonable in a trade for a big bat, but predicting what players might become isn't that easy and Ryan turned into an All Star starter. If the Rays knew what he would become they never would have traded him. Ryan does deserve a lot of credit for developing his breaking balls and being less predictable. He was fairly homer prone there for a while. He put in the work and now he will want to get paid. It is a trade that turned out really well for the Twins, but I don't think anyone saw just how good it would be at the time.

I think you first need to determine is this team a playoff team, because that sets the trade calculus. If they fall behind and what they did previously looks unsustainable why not trade what assets you have for future value? At the very least getting something for Jeffers and Bell who won't be on the team next year would make sense. They could hang onto Ryan if they think this team will be more complete next year. If they are a wild card team or within a game or two then sure I can see keeping Bell around because he is the kind of deadline bat you pick up when you are going for it. Same for Larnach as it's hard to find an .800 OPS bat even if only against righties. Jeffers is a very odd case scenario even if going for it as it seems they will need to keep three catchers on the roster or give up on the value in years and dollars they got with the Jackson trade. Someone has to go and while Jeffers is a big bat it seems like they should try and get some future value from him before he leaves. If they can get a solid deal it makes sense to trade him regardless IMO. Ryan will never have a higher trade value than at this deadline. If you want a haul this would be the time to do it. If you want go for it then you need to keep him. I will say with Rodriguez, Roden and Jenkins ready for the outfield and Culpepper and Houston on the way I'm not sure how much the Twins need more infield or outfield prospect depth. And I'm not sure what teams would want to give up multiple good arms or have the requisite arms to make a Ryan trade worth it. Trading him certainly would restock the farm with young talent, but losing him is a big hole for this teams chances this year and next. So yeah I can see hanging onto most of these guys or trading all of them. It just depends on how you see the present and the future of this team.

Those are some rough numbers on Bryan. Never had and ERA under 5.00 and K rate isn't great either. Also isn't real tall at 6'1". I guess this is one of those small school like the frame and see things we can fix projects? Sleeper really is a sleeper. 6'7" that's a big guy. Nice numbers, but I assume from another smaller school. Very interesting addition there. Seems like an arm that would have been worthy of a draft pick.