Dman

I wanted to see what Ellwanger looked like so watched that game on MiLB TV. Ellwanger can throw hard as I heard them say he got to 97 and I wouldn't be surprised if he threw faster than that, but the control wasn't there. He was very lucky to work his way out of a couple of jams. Only one game, but it looks like he might be at A ball a while until he can throw more strikes. In that same game they turned to Moring and I expected him to likely have a rough debut. Here is what TD wrote when drafted "A righty out of UCSB who had limited innings in 2025. Moring had a 3.60 FIP, striking out 28% of hitters (great) and walking 16% (less great) in just 17.2 IP." So given the walk rate and limited innings I expected him to struggle especially in the windy conditions. Man was I wrong. It was utter domination. He had their hitters so off balance and swinging at air it was crazy. He was up in the zone and the bottom of the zone and throwing in curves literally and figuratively that had hitters baffled. That was an impressive debut. If he can keep that up the Twins might have something there. Jones had a great night as well. He couldn't match Moring's swing and miss stuff, but I think he broke like 5 bats or something and was throwing 94-96 all night. Actually I saw 96 in his last inning. Very efficient night for him going 5 innings in 54 pitches. We'll see if that stuff plays that well as time goes on, but it looks like he's got a heavy fastball and was tough to square up at least in the freezing cold in CR. While I do think Fort Meyers is going to be hit challenged this year they did have to face the Phillies number one, third and fourth round draft picks from last year in this series. Wood their number one pick was on the edges all game and looks like he will be moving up fast. I was kind of wondering if the Twins would take him where they picked Houston, but with some arm issues at the time I can see why they didn't. Still he looked too good for that level or maybe the Muscles hitters are just that bad? Not sure just yet. Young's body looks ready for the Majors right now. He is a big guy,, but he played well at short and when he hit his triple he ran well until his legs slowed down as he looked a little tired heading to third. His triple looked like it would be up in the air long enough to be caught, but he hit it so hard it went over the fielders head. He's got some big boy power. Not sure if he will be able to hit anything but fastballs though. April is a cold month for CR, St Paul and Wichita and some players play better in the cold than others. Lot's of hitters seem to struggle in the cold. Hopefully the weather warms up soon.

Happy to see DeBarge hit for some power. Getting the ball in the air was an issue for him last year. If his hit tool comes around he could be a nice option for the infield. Ross with a heck of a game. Hopefully he can finally crack AA pitching. Gallagher with an up and down outing. He didn't look as sharp I've seen him in the past. Betting he'll look better as time goes on.

I'm in on Lackey too. It is so hard to find elite defense with good offense. I know it's early and most sites have him around #5 right now, but here's one that thinks he can challenge for the number one pick., 2. Tampa Bay Rays – Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech If there is any player in a position to push Cholowsky for 1st overall, it is Lackey. Coming into the year, he was highly regarded as one of the best athletes in the whole draft who just happened to also be a plus defender behind the plate. He has shown the ability to play multiple positions in the field while also stealing 18 bases last year. The main concern was the power output. With elite bat-to-ball skills, Lackey hit .347/.421/.500 with only six home runs and only 25 walks in 60 games. That aggressive contact-first approach would always limit his potential, but in 2026, something has shifted. Lackey already has exceeded his home run total from last season without any regression to his bat-to-ball skills. He has nine home runs through 20 games and is showing impressive plate discipline with 20 walks to 10 strikeouts while hitting .479. That success is backed up by the data, where he has an 88.3% contact rate, a 13% chase rate, and an impressive 93.7 mph exit velocity and 62.1% hard-hit rate. From a data and production standpoint, there is starting to be an argument that an elite athletic catcher with those batted-ball profiles is the better selection than Cholowsky. I don’t see it happening as of now, but if Lackey keeps it up, it will shock me to see him get past 2nd overall.

Right now Vahn Lackey would be my pick. A possible good to elite Defensive catcher who can hit would be a nice get at three to me. Does anyone know if Flora is a Skenesian like talent? If so might be hard to pass on an ace arm as well. I still like Emerson too. Could be tough to choose who take at #3. Might come down to who cuts a deal.

Happy to see Raya get off to a good start to the season. I feel like the more he stays away from his fastball the better. Breaking stuff has really good movement. Hopefully he throw them for more strikes. Really hoping he can be an elite pen arm in time. Will be interesting to see how things go for him this year out of the pen.

He's had a nice spring. Hopefully he keeps it up.

I get that spring training numbers don't mean much, but I'd still give the nod to Abel for that last spot. Abel's ceiling is just higher than Zebby's and all he really needed to improve on was his control. If his control is under control I think he has the better pitch mix and better stuff. He has the the potential to be mid or higher caliber arm. Still as this article noted they might still give that last spot to Matthews and give Abel some time at AAA since he has the least amount of MLB time. In the end I don't think it will matter much as I am not convinced Ober will last long to start the season and Abel or Matthews will be called up relatively soon anyway.

I just don't see Ober lasting the season. If I'm Matthews, Morris and maybe Rojas I'd be ready. Ober looks pretty shaky to me. The starting five could be quite young this year. We'll see what Ober has left in the tank, but given his velocity isn't climbing back up it doesn't bode well for his future.

Didn't know he had a 700 OPS in SEC play. Lot's of Scouts acknowledging chase rates were too high last year. Still there is a reason he has ranked number 3 pretty consistently on boards. They don't just put guys there willy nilly. If the swing does come along this year especially in the SEC that would imply a step forward for him. If not then certainly he will fall down the board. Happens all the time. Some guys go up, some down. Still pretty early. We'll see what things look like as the season progresses.

If Lebron can keep pace with the bat I still think he could go number one. Starting to think the Twins will end up with Emerson. I think Emerson would be a great pick for the Twins. With Culpepper, Houston and to some extent Lee on the way there having a player a few years behind those guys would be nice as they form another wave of talent. I am a big believe in Emerson's bat and his defense looks solid as well. There's a long way to go, but any of those three looks good to me.

I would have liked to see more of Morris and Klein. Klein didn't walk anyone and gave up no runs. Would have been nice to see a few more K's, but he made me curious as to what he might be able to do against better competition. Looks like he won't get that chance at least this spring. Rodriguez and Gonzalez were doing their thing but mainly as subs against lessor competition. Future still looks bright for those guys and they'll get more at bats at AAA as the Twins figure out the logjam in the outfield. No real surprises just would have liked to see what some of these guys could do or not do against tougher competition.

Yeah I saw that but he already was sacrificed and put on waivers by another team. The Twins might need room for Hendricks or Chafin or someone else who performs better. Unless of course Kent performs really well then he would earn that spot. Given someone else just gave up on him though that does not appear a sure thing.

We sure have a lot of these types of guys right now. I guess they can see if he can compete for a spot or try and move him through waivers at the end of spring training and see if he makes it through.

I agree I never thought Roden was a good fit from the beginning. The only thing I can think of is they maybe didn't have a ton of faith in Rodriguez or they figured they could get value from one of their other lefty outfielders in trade? That means the main reason for this trade was to get the younger lefty (Rojas) with potential to be a starter and Roden was just added as a lefty bat that is a better defender? I know the Twins had been looking for better defense in the outfield and Roden fits there better than Larnach or Wallner, but Martin defended well in left the end of last year. They will have Rodriguez, Gonzalez and eventually Jenkins to find room for and all but Gonzalez appear to be good to great defenders in the corners and can even play center if needed. The minute they traded for Roden they had to know they would need to get rid of at least one and maybe two lefty outfielders. I assume those two would be Outman and Larnach. I don't think I can let them live down that Outman trade. It looks like they just gave Stewart away IMO. We'll see what happens after spring training as injuries can change things, but right now the outfield looks very messy to me.

I tend to agree with the comments so far. The only guy on this list with starting potential is Gallagher. I think with a bit more refinement he could be a mid rotation guy, but given some of the contact he gave up last year he could stall out at AAA. Will have to see how well he pitches this year to get a better gauge of just how good he is. I do have faith that Culpepper and Olivaros could be relievers if they can find better command and control. Everyone else has pretty long odds to even be a contributor at the MLB level IMO. I assume the next list will have the young arms with higher ceilings on it.

I do think the Pablo injury could make the Twins think twice about an immediate bullpen role for Festa. He has some MLB experience as a starter and while he likely won't get you five innings he was pretty good at getting through 4 innings. As others have noted I like him better in the pen as in time he could be elite there. We'll see where things end up but as @DJL44 mentioned he is 26 already. Can't wait around much longer on a decision or you lose those MLB innings as he enters his prime years.

I agree if he is out that would be a huge blow for competing this year. The other thing not mentioned is how much can we depend on Ober this year with his Velo declining and another year older if he can't perform to expectations things get even worse. I like Bradley, Mathews and Abel, but odds are it takes time for them to adjust and one or more could fail to be effective as well. Pablo is a huge key to trying to turn this team around. Not saying they can't be successful without him, but it sure gets a lot harder given the rotation was supposed to be the one strength this team had given all the uncertainty everywhere else on the roster. Without him it feels like their is nothing to lean on.

Using International Bonus money means the Twins gave the Dodgers no real money, just the ability to spend the agreed upon Dollars on international players (cue the cheap Pohlads comments). As others have mentioned the ability to spend that money on some 16 year old that likely never makes it to MLB versus spending it on a pretty decent lefty reliever sounds like a great investment to me. Especially since there is no guarantee they will spend ALL of their allotment anyway. The Dodgers have been really, really good at finding good international players so it makes sense they would want more money in their pool especially with a very full roster as things stand. I think the Twins got a good deal here and LA gets a chance to recoup some young talent with long odds to turn out.

Was thinking the same thing. They could trade Larnach and Ober or Jeffers to get some money back. It would allow them to move Festa and maybe Bradley to the pen right away. If they needed more in the pen they could try Abel there and maybe later in the season Prielipp would make sense. If it all falls apart later in the season then you could still trade Ryan or Pablo to help pay for Valdez. Twins would finally have a Lefty starter and three top of the rotation arms should allow them to compete at least through the first half of games. If Tom wants to put his money where his mouth is it seems like something that could move the needle IMO. Not sure how much it would take to get him. Sounded like they were looking for around 30M AAV on a longer deal. Probably too rich for Pohlad blood.

This whole situation is a double edged sword, catch 22. Tom needs to generate revenue via ticket sales and the fans feelings about ownership and the team is at an all time low. He needs to give season ticket holders something to believe in and selling a rebuild for the next two or three or four years isn't going to work. No matter the odds he needs to try to keep things afloat financially. The other side of this is as things stand we are rolling out less talent on this team than last years team. We don't even have one dominant bullpen arm. This whole thing also rests on all young bats improving which is unlikely. Yes you can catch lightening in a bottle in baseball every now and then, but the odds of everything working out are incredibly low even with the Twins being in the worst division in baseball. Just as many fans were ready to slough off the Falvey baggage the one thing that would have fixed a lot of this would have been the Pohlad's selling the team. That would have generated some excitement that things would change and the pretext to start an actual rebuild, but here we are in impossible land. I get both sides of the argument but this team is headed down a tough road no matter which direction they take. Trade assets and give up on this season and lose even more fans and ticket holders? Or Sell hope and go against the odds and try and win on a low budget with significant holes at multiple positions? We'll see how this shakes out, but it looks like my favorite team is in really big trouble no matter what.

Reading some other sites it seems to be coming out that Falvey might have been frustrated the last few years as well. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I think it might have been necessary for both parties to part ways.

I'd think given the state of things right now trading Ryan or others would be a really bad PR move given the things Tom has said to this point. Give the guy credit as he said he wasn't going to be afraid to make tough decisions and he did just that with Falvey. While I still think ownership is the larger problem I am not sure Falvey has done enough to keep his job. I like Falvey, but what star players have we drafted under his watch? The team hasn't gotten much of anything out of their international signings. They made some decent trades acquiring Sonny Gray, Pablo and Ryan, but they made just as many blunders. His biggest moves kind of ended up to be his biggest failures with Donaldson and Correa. They did fairly well on moves around the edges, finding bargain guys that had a good year or two, but that doesn't get you where you need to go. After finally winning a playoff game and then needing to reduce payroll right away did him no favors the last few years and with what little TV revenue they had cut down that hurt too. While not completely his fault top prospects who didn't transition well were many from Kirilloff, to Lewis injuries and ineffective play doomed this teams ability to remain competitive with effective younger, cheaper players With that track record in mind it seems like moving on is needed and a fresh perspective required. Maybe it's all just a bunch of bad luck, but results matter and they just weren't there IMO. In the end I think Tom Pohlad made the right decision. The fans need some level of hope and to be less focused on the failures of the past with a fresh start at the top. I doubt much will change, but at least there is some sense of hope for the moment.

Definitely bad timing but I think it was time for Derek to go. There is just no energy or optimism about this club right now. I don't know that the new guy(s) will be any better, but at least this erases a lot of narrative's about the Falvey era. The new guys are going to get the benefit of the doubt on their decisions while there is too much baggage to slough off with Falvey. While there has been plenty of disappointment with this club Falvey did modernize a lot of things in the Minors and Major's., They hired good people that got poached by other teams. I feel like pitching development has been more of a strength than it ever was in the past. He was terrific at saying nothing to the press using lots of words with no substance. Still if the Twins are headed toward another rebuild and it looks like they are, as a front office you usually only get one of those. He had his so it is time for some new blood to lead the next wave.

I think those are good points. The only quibble I would have is Festa. I don't know how the Twins feel about him, but it seemed to be a pretty epic struggle to get him through 5 innings and then with the shoulder issue I'd think a move to the pen could be in the works from the start as he has the velocity to be a late inning arm. Still your point stands. They need rotation depth and Matthews, Bradley, Abel are still on the starter track. I don't think they want to start the season with any of those arms in the pen. Prielipp, Morris, Raya, Klein are all fairly new to AAA and or haven't performed all that well there. Pretty sure they start the season in AAA until they force their way up. So adding one more right handed reliever via free agency with your group of five makes 6 arms. Adding Festa would make 7 and that still leaves Adams in the mix. As mentioned above they might find some camp invite that steps up but would have to find 40 man room for that and they would have to be significantly better than Adams otherwise why not just stick with Adams, I agree with you that there is a strong chance he makes the opening day roster as things stand right now.

Yeah I think you are right. The Twins seem to be looking for more power arms. Guys that can throw 96 or better out of the pen. Ohl can't do that. Adams is close. The guy they received in trade should be able to throw hard as well. The Twins most effective relievers were guys that threw hard. Duran, Jax, Varland. They have arms beyond Ohl and Adams that can do that. Still I think Ohl's changeup is enough to make things work. With more refinement he could become something and it appears others teams agreed since Colorado was first in line and still made a trade. Ohl's end of the year performance really intrigued me and I thought they might want to give him more time to see how things played out, but given the glut of young arms they have I guess they felt they had as good or better options behind him and they needed 40 man room.