Dman

I think this pretty much sums up where I am at. When you have a valuable asset both in terms of skill and payroll fit you should be getting back things you really need not just some guys with potential. You are giving up a known asset you should make sure you mitigate the risk involved in trading that away. Getting a guy who might be a lessor version of Larnach and Wallner just doesn't make sense. Not to mention he doesn't look like he belongs at the MLB level at the plate anyway. Why take on all that risk when the player doesn't appear to project as a difference maker. especially when your top two prospect are left handed outfielder that appear to be difference makers. I get the attraction to Rojas as he is a lefty that is performing well with great traits, but the Twins seem to be blind when it comes to injured\injury prone arms. They went for Paddack when other teams wouldn't. They went for Mahle when no one else was that interested. They got burned both times. It's like they don't factor arm risk into any calculations they make. I don't get it. Look I don't know a ton about Rojas, but he has to the reason they pulled the trigger. A lefty starter is something this team has just never developed. They could really use one. I hope their evals' are spot on, but I gotta say I don't trust them or the scouts to get this right. Especially given the past history. They gave up a difference maker. They better get one back.

Hypothically? Probably the best infield this team has had since the Tom Kelly Years.

I tends to agree. If anything Buxton's teammates have let him down. The FO believed in this team and the players around Buxton. To the very end they appeared to be looking for signs not to move players, but the team was so bad after the All Star break they didn't leave them much choice. This team had time to prove they deserved more support, but fell flat. Add in the pressure to reduce payroll after the TV deal became even less lucrative. Also Attendance dropped and you can see they weren't going to hold this team together for much longer anyway. They might not be done right sizing. We'll see if Pablo makes it through the offseason not being traded. They certainly didn't "need" to move on from Jax and Varland, but one requested a trade and they liked the deal for Varland enough to pull the trigger., Those were not cost saving moves though. As I have written before I have a ton of respect for Buxton. I really appreciate his loyalty to my favorite team. Baseball is a business and performance is a big part of it. This team needed a shakeup and it got one. If they keep all the starting pitching and can find some hitters and bullpen arms in the offseason this team can still compete. If they decide to sell some starting pitching that might make things more difficult. Still this team isn't that far away. If I am Buxton let's not overreact and let's see how things look next year.

Let's hope the Twins can find some sleeper players and make something out of them. Will be interesting to see if he can adjust in time.

I thought Adams pitched really well. A lot to be encouraged about. A bummer giving up that Home run, but even so it was still a solid outing. Loved the K's he was getting. Hopefully he keeps it going and the Twins can say they found something. Nice to see Larnach and Wallner with Home runs. Some improvement with the bat for both of them would go a long way next year. On to the next one as guys get more experience they should know who can help next year and who can't.

My man Bohorquez gave me quite the scare starting the year not being able to find the strike zone. Happy to see him putting up some nice numbers last month. I agree with the OP that it would be nice to see what he can do at HIgh A. Nice numbers for Prielipp too. Glad his arm is holding up. They might want to get him some AAA reps as well. They also could call him up since he will be on the 40 man the end of this year anyway. It's a lost season would be nice to see how his arm plays at MLB level. Gallagher got blown up badly in his debut. It's a very Twinsy profile though and I expect they will work on some things. He was all around the zone, but the other team was getting a ton of solid contact. He gave up three Home runs. Nice to see him on the list. Hopefully the next time out will be better. Abel is stud at AAA. Just needs to translate it. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

I was reading some scouts thought Rojas was undervalued and a good pickup for the Twins. The caveat is I don't think he has thrown more than 60 some innings in any year so far. So can he handle a starters load? Still I can see the attraction from the Twins side as we haven't had an effective left handed starter in a long time. Maybe Rojas is it. Abel just needs a pitch to handle lefties and gain some control and he looks like he could be mid rotation to me. Control isn't easy to fix though so we'll see. He looks too good for AAA. Needs to move up IMO. I agree on Tait. A lot of his value is tied up in being a catcher. I'm not sure how long he can maintain that swing with how violent it is, but we'll see. The hype is the high exit velocities and the fact that not many 18 year old's make it to high A ever. It's a short list. Guys that are young for the level all way up tend to do better than most. With his good contact rate he could be a unicorn bat. So his position might not matter, but if he can stick at catcher it sure would help this team. I do agree with you that I think at the moment I like the pitchers better, but Tait has the upside to beat them in the end. We'll know more next year.

I haven't watched every game. but I have seen him boot a few balls and make mistakes. I have also seen him go deep in the hole and make good throws. He seems to have good range and sets himself up well for strong throws. Most prospect evaluator's have walked back there comments that he might need to move to 3rd base, to he can stick at short and make all the plays there. I don't how good he is but he seems solid there for sure. He played third last night and boy did he look good there. Much better than Lewis IMO. Nice grabs, sets feet well and made long and accurate throws to first. He looked like he could be an All Star talent at 3rd at least in that game. That kid is quite the talent. He probably could play anywhere, but yeah I think he is going to be good to great shortstop from what I have seen so far.

You look at Bradley's stats at the MLB and they aren't much different than Paddack's. They both have a sub par K rate though Bradley keeps more balls on the ground. They Both have two good pitches and don't really have a third and the Twins didn't seem to help Paddack all that much since they got him. I don't know much about Bradley as I don't think I have watched him pitch. It is hard to break into a starter in MLB and he is young and still has time on his side. Like the OP I put him in the Festa, Matthews bucket with less K potential. At worst he should be a very good pen arm. Still I like the potential for Tampa better. They are getting an arm that has pitches that miss bats with a great K rate to show for it and multiple plus pitches. It's a far better foundation to start with IMO. If they stretch him out next year as a starter it will be interesting to see the results. I wouldn't say the Twins got hijacked in this deal, but I do question if they will help Bradley be any better than Paddack. Hopefully I am wrong and he becomes a mid rotation starter.

Yeah I agree. They traded the players everyone knew would be traded in Coulombe, Castro, Bader, Paddack. While that cleared salary it was an expected move any team would have done. Trading one of Duran or Jax made sense and Duran had the most value and was going to make the most money. They got their request of two top 100 prospects overpay for him so they moved him. The one's that were the hardest to understand were the none salary dumps in Stewart and Varland. They both were on league minimum salaries with years of control left and solid arms. They were not salary dumps. Jax to a lessor degree since they traded Duran they could have kept him. Pretty sure he would have held his value into next year, but they decided to move him but not much of a salary dump there IMO. Even the Correa move didn't seem to be their idea. I thought they were approached by Houston? Yeah it ended up a salary dump, but it kind of seemed like the right thing to do for everyone concerned. Correa wasn't going to be a shortstop anymore. Lewis is at third with Keaschall and Lee for second base and outfield. Culpepper will likely step in at short. It seemed like Correa wasn't going to fit the team moving forward all that well IMO. I hate the fact we have to pay 10M per year for him to play elsewhere as we have limited funds as it is, but at least they recoup 20M per year to make different moves. It is really heard to understand baseball finances with no cap, but I thought I read the Team stands to lose 40M this year with I assume attendance being down and TV revenue not being what they thought it might be. So to those questioning whether these saving will get invested back into the team if that report is true then it seems unlikely.

And just to pile on. On a day when the Saints had 10 runs on 11 hits with 4 walks he was one of two players without a hit that day. Of the 7 strikeouts that game he had three of them. Almost half the K's came from him. I don't know how this guy put up a .970 OPS at AAA. It looks like he needs glasses or something. It's hard to believe he can even be this bad. Is it travel? an injury? Sickness? I don't know but he is off to a horrible start if he wants to be back in the majors. Come on Outman make me eat some crow. Your career depends on it.

Yeah I agree with you. Kody is just a solid player. Makes the plays he should make. Competes at the plate. Nothing flashy just solid fundamental baseball IMO. It's nice to see the lunch pail guys do well. I have gained a lot of respect for how he plays the game the more I have watched him.

Man I got to get my act together because I don't even remember seeing Brennen Oxford in any box scores. Old for the level but nice to see him doing well. I don't pay close attention to the FCL but glad Anderson Ramos made the list as I didn't have a clue he was that young and doing that well. I was hoping Chivilli would make the list but it looks like he hit a rough patch. Ramos appears to go after guys and still has a .50 WHIP. With that K rate and WHIP he might have some special stuff. Will be interesting to see how he does as he moves up. I hope Hoopes is something. We could use more hard throwing pen arms. I hope he finds a way to handle to AA and can be a potential answer next year.

Yeah they are going to have to trade more guys or DFA them. There isn't going to be room for everyone. Or take the risk guys don't get lost for nothing in Rule V and those loses are the toughest because those are pre arb players that you developed that would be helping another team. Pitchers get taken because they can be hidden in the pen. I don't know much about Mendez, but it seem he has an up arrow because he came into some power this year. I don't know if they would add him or not, but assuming since they traded for him they probably would.

I think that is a good point in regards to Julien, Gasper, Miranda and I'd include Larnach to some degree. You look at the Rule V guys for next year and it is quite the list. 7 arms on that list with two for sure adds and I'd argue at least 4 more that are likely. That's a lot of 40 man space to take up. Kind of makes you wonder if that is why they were somewhat willing to unload the pen arms as some these will need to move there. They can't wait on all of them to be starters. If Julien shows something he could be an asset and they should find out. Larnach looks like he could be sold as a platoon bat if he continues to hit to the end of the season. I like that Outmen and Roden are better runners, but they'll need to show progress with the bat as well. The FO needs to figure out what they have going into the offseason as I think they will be looking at more trades to finalize the roster. While they have the room I'd assume they add some of the potential Rule V guys early if they plan to add them later anyway. Connor Prielipp Kendry Rojas Andrew Morris CJ Culpepper Christian MacLeod John Klein Corey Lewis Gabriel Gonzalez Hendry Mendez Ricardo Olivar

Totally agree with you as usual. LA had to be thanking their lucky stars the Twins were there to help give them another nice bullpen arm for nothing. There was talk they might have to DFA Outman next year to make room for the Rule V adds. I get Stewarts arm is a problem too, but I can't help but feel this FO got played on that deal. How is Outman that much better than Keirsey right now? And does that mean they just DFA Keirsey because they don't need two of these guys on the roster. Yeah Outman has been great at AAA, but do they really think he going to turn things around like 2023? He has a 40% K rate at the MLB level this year. I'd like to see the plan to overcome that. They better be right about turning him around or they wasted a good asset for nothing. Because I'd rather have Stewart than that. I'd rather have two lottery tickets than that. I still can't help thinking Tampa outsmarted the Twins as well. Granted Bradley is a starter, but barely a 5th starter type at this point. What are the odds the Twins are better at fixing him than Tampa who fixes just about everyone? Probably pretty low. In the meantime they'll probably take Jax a guy who misses tons of bats turn him into a starter and then flip him for a larger return. We'll see what happens but I can't help but feel we were the patsy's once again. Then there is the Varland trade. Why trade a super successful reliever with 5 years of control left? Teams just don't do that without getting a haul and while the Twins got some decent prospects back why headline the deal around a left handed hitting outfielder? Something you have an excess of already and your two highest prospects in your system are left handed outfielder's? It almost seems like gross incompetence. The thing is they weren't forced to do that deal they had tow pre arb years left and he could have been traded later. This is the deal they couldn't pass up? If there is a plan I can't decipher it. Maybe that's because their plan is just that good. Or maybe they just decided to collect assets and deal with things over the offseason. We all get trading pen arms, but get value back or things you need back especially when you hold all the cards with years of control. Maybe all these deals will work out and I'll look like an idiot, but odds are they have wasted a lot of value for nothing.

Unless they don't believe in Varland I really hate this trade. First Louis is one of us man a true fan favorite. He has 5 years of control nobody trades that away without heisting the other team. They didn't even get a top 100 guy here. This seems like malpractice on this one. On to trying to be positive. They got what they believe is going to be a solid lefty starting arm in need of improving his changeup or he will end up a pen arm. They also get Roden who just last year was ranked 7th in their system, but like most of the guys we have on our team hasn't been able to translate things to MLB. The kicker is we have like 6 left handed outfielders either on the team or ready to come up. They didn't need another one. Maybe they feel really strongly about the lefty or feel they need a lefty starter, but I don't love this deal. Yes they got good value, but they should have gotten something they needed instead of another outfielder with little current value. They might have essentially swapped their fan favorite for a lefty version with one more year of control. If he ends up even being any good. I haven't seen these guys play yet. We'll find out how great our Twins scouts are real soon. IN a vacuum if the lefty works this is a fine deal if the bat works out as well a great deal. if they both fail to make it a horrible deal Edit: I think I am just hurt by this trade. Looking into more especially on Fangraphs the got a 50FV guy in Roden and 45 FV in Rojas with a chance to be more. It's a pretty good get especially if they work out. With so much movement of controlled players I am probably overreacting. I guess I just don't see the plan just yet. I think they might need to make more moves in the offseason especially with all the left handed outfielder's they have. It would seem Larnach and or Wallner could be pieces that get moves to make room for other guys. Their play down the stretch is likely going to who stays and who goes.

The return seems light but I think this might turn out pretty well for the Twins. He was injured and I have to believe he was on the Twins radar in the draft but Texas got to him first. He is just in A ball but pitching well there. It's a leap of faith pick for sure, but they must feel the potential is higher with this arm than others they were offered. Will need to give this one time to see how they did.

Ryan Gallagher for Castro might be the best return they got got an expiring deal. Good fastball, Slider and change and great K rate. It's a good solid arm. You can see there was competition for Castro as they managed to snag a top 10 prospect. Armstrong seems pretty average, but maybe the Twins see something they can fix. If nothing else he can be placeholder arm so that other AA arms can move up. Great trade wish I could feel this way about all of them.

They traded a reliever for a starter. A starter with team control to 2030. He is essentially a cheaper version of Chris Paddack in his current form. Pretty much the same K rate, same ERA. Bradley walks more guys but keeps the ball on ground better than Paddack. I still don't know why they couldn't have gotten a couple of throw in's but maybe that just isn't how things work at the deadline. Still it's hard to argue getting a solid starter that might get better for a reliever even one as good as Jax. Not that it matters but Bradley was Tampa's number one prospect in 2023. He has a plus fastball. Hopefully he can find a little more and turn himself into a mid rotation starter. I think it makes sense especially if they plan to move any starters in the offseason.

It looks like with arms they got they might be setting themselves up to get rid of Pablo or Ryan or both next year if they don't make it to the playoffs. Maybe the offseason. Who knows.

My guess is one of Larnach or Wallner are going to Houston which is likely why they targeted Outman. Unless Houston wants Outman?

It looks like new ownership will get to build this team from the bottom up. There isn't much left for star power. Those young bats in the Minor's need to come through.

Correa just traded. Burning things down?