Major League Ready

I have made the same point over the last few weeks. However, this team is quickly starting to look different. I would not make any predictions until the end of the season. It's way to soon to believe with any certainty that Ober and Jax are part of the solution but with what we are witnessing you have to start believing a little. Ryan, Balazovic and Winder are also all on the cusp. Then, how about Minaya and Gant. Same story as Ober and Jax but man they look pretty darn good. We have a few other guys to audition too. Now, if Buxton and Kirilloff can stay healthy with Polanco, Donaldson and Garver, that's a good core offensive group. Pretty good odds Larnach comes around too. Sure, lots unanswered right now but let's wait and see what happens the rest of the way this year before we get too down on 2022.

You simply elect to ignore hard fact. The Twins FA signings are on par with all of the other teams. It's much more telling of how ineffective free agency is on average. Did they rely on free agency or did they hope like every other team to get better than average productivity from free agents. What we should be asking is why so many people here go off the deep about spending when free agency is so ineffective, especially for teams outside the top revenue teams. Would they have been in better shape if drafting was better 5-10 years ago. Of course! This front office did not make those selections. We should also ask why so many people want to trade away prospects if developing talent is so important to below average revenue teams.

The turn around actual began at the end of 2016 season when they traded Chris Sale and Adam Eton. Of course, Sale was a considerably better player than Berrios. They did exactly what so many people here absolutely deplore and insist would be the ruination of the team. They had seven years straight of being well below 500. They did a good job with draft picks and Keuchel has worked out well. He is not exactly the level if elite FA that many here presume is an absolute must for this team to contend. Let's just not pretend the Whitesox did not go through a rebuild. What the Whitesox rebuild illustrates is that trading away "Berrios / Sale / Eaton type" players greatly accelerates the process.

There are many teams sustaining a model that rarely involves signing 4+ year free agents. Those same teams trade for guys with multiple years of control but they are never the type of established front of the rotation guys called for here. There should be several examples from Tampa Bay / Oakland / Milwaukee / Cleveland if your premise is valid. How many can you name?

And not one single team thought the Twins were wrong! It just shows how difficult it is to forecast the development of these players. Johan Santana was a rule 5 and Tatis Jr. was traded for James Shields and Shields was quite bad.

The Royals won the WS without an ace.

Actually, there is no denying it went very poorly but blowing it suggests there were much better options. I have asked twice now for those who are calling out the pitching acquisitions to articulate a plan (in hindsight) that would have put this team in contention. Pitchers that were actually traded and free agents we could have signed. Were we going to get Wainwright away from STL? James Paxton pitched 1 inning Garret Richards’s has a 5.22 REA and a WHIP of 1.65 Drew Smyly has been decent with a 4.5 ERA / 1.45 WHIP / .6 WAR Corey Kluber pitched 50 innings and is now on the 60 day IL Charlie Morton has been good but his geographic preference is well known so that was not going to happen. Mike Minor has an ERA of 5.39 and .3 WAR Jake Odorizzi was a popular choice here. His 4.95 ERA and 0 WAR would not have helped. The guy I wanted (Taijuan Walker) has been good but he got no support here when I floated him as an option. We could have traded for Blake Snell like so many here insisted was a no brainer. We could have given up a bunch of prospects for a replacement level player. The same is true for a lot of the BP options. Rosenthal / Clippard / Romo / Etc There was nothing wrong with the Simmons signing. He has had a bad year or is in decline. We should not sign most free agents if the possibility of decline makes it a bad decision. Sometimes reasonable decisions don't pan out in baseball. There is a credible argument that the choices that were popular here would have left the team in worse shape going forward.

Should we put much weight on him being a first round pick given he was drafted out of High School? I look at his AA and AAA performance and don't see much. My take on what we have seen with the Twins is a mediocre FB and mediocre at best secondary pitches. If he had plus control that might play but his command is suspect too. I have no problem with them giving him a spin but I don't see anything that suggests he needs to be kept for the remainder of the season if they have other options like Moran for that roster spot.

Sure would be nice to see Canterino come back strong and get a look in September.

It's only one week but the new rotation and BP members gave us reason to believe in a much better brand of baseball for the remainder of the season and a much better product next year. Sure would be nice to see similar pitching this week. More help is on the way too. I would not be surprised if Joe Ryan is moved straight to the big club. If not, we should get a look at him and a couple other pitchers soon.

I agree. However, there are also fans who want to see the best product available right NOW. They either don't understand the benefit of giving prospects playing time or they just don't care. We hear from some of those folks here. They spend money to attend games which gives them a voice. The team has to cater to that audience as well. There is also a certain duty to put a our best players on the field to maintain fair competition for playoff spots. We also can't just trash these guys (cut or bench them). Sure they still get paid but it's not the way to treat players if you want any chance of signing free agents in the future.

The last couple games gave me a little more hope for next year. I did not see ML pitchers in Jax and even more so in Barnes. Ober looks to have more ceiling. However, they have all shown very good command. Minaya has looked very good too. These guys along with Joe Ryan and a couple others will make the rest of the season very interesting to watch. Establishing these guys plus a couple free agents and 2022 looks much better. Contention better ... I doubt it. I agree the more effective plan is to continue to establish the numerous pitching prospects we have over the course of 2022. Martin / Miranda also likely start to play a role in 2022. Add to that a healthy Buxton and Kirilloff and it should make for an entertaining product in 2022.

We do need to consider that neither one of those HRs is a HR in a lot of ML parks. He is showing very good command and leaves very few pitches over the plate. Let's also keep in mind most starting pitchers get better after they get some major league experience. Remember Berrios when he first came up. Ober and Jax have looked great in comparison. Will either one of the be as good as Berrios. Doubtful for sure but Ober could be a very solid SP for the next several years. That's encouraging in a season that has been very discouraging.

No doubt any ONE of these players could get traded. IDK but it's possible some people are interpreting this as they should ALL be traded. It's reasonable that a scenario would present itself leading to one of them being traded.

You have a point for sure. I was going to qualify this statement and chose to not get into it. It would be most accurate to say teams with below average revenue ALMOST NEVER sign the very top free agents SPs. Colorado signed Mike Hampton and Arizona signed Zack Grienke. If we are going to accurately portraying the odds of this happening again we need to include the fact that Arizona had just signed a billion dollar TV contract. We should also point out neither acquisition led to success. Perhaps more to the point is that I said “could be replaced”. Signing the highest profile FA is also not the only way to replace him in free agency. Making a Carlos Rodon or Charlie Morton signing when the Rays got him is even more impactful than signing the big money FAs. You are correct in that the Twins have not signed a $150M free agent SP. However, if we are going to portray the situation accurately, we should say that it is an extreme rarity for any below average revenue team to sign these free agents. It’s not the product of the Twins being cheap. It’s a matter of roster management. Investing too high of a percentage of payroll in any single player is not effective which is why you don’t see any below average revenue teams investing in the highest priced FAs.

Seems like an extreme reaction to losing one player (Berrios) who was under team control next year. We need to resign Buxton. There are a half dozen prospects in the system that could become as good as Berrios. It's also possible Berrios could be replaced by a free agent. There might be one (Martin) that could become as impactful as Buxton and that's a big if. The guy I could see being traded is Arreaz. He is one of my favorite players but Miranda is an ideal replacement. He would get time at 3B/2B/1B/DH. We would be positioned to move Donaldson if Miranda continues to mash at he MLB level.

There are 15 teams with a 25+ year period since their last WS win. I would add that the all things being equal we each team would win the WS every 30 years. Unfortunately, all things are not equal and the teams with the highest revenue win more frequently. It's just astounding that so many people have a hard time understanding that organizations with more revenue win a bidding war with far greater frequency. How is this not blatantly obvious? I guess all of the people complaining here that this a Twins specific problem live in $800K homes and drive $100K cars on an average income. One last note ... The Dodgers had gone 32 years before winning the WS last year.

It would really suck to find out two years from now that we had a FO that developed pitching and we fired them before we had a chance to fully evaluate their work. They have 10 starting pitchers with a legit chance to be here by the end of 2022. There is going to be a lot of demand here that they sign multiple free agents SPs. I just don't see them doing that with all of these guys ready to make their debut over the next year plus.

It suggests they won't pay market if Berrios was willing to sign for market. So, unless you have a source with direct knowledge of his ask who confided in you, this is purely speculation / assumption with no basis in fact.

Good points although I don't know that the September roster size has to be an issue. They could manage innings accordingly. Pineda Maeda get get 3-4 innings then prospects gets some innings. In a normal year this would might be frowned upon because of playoff implications for our opponents. However, it would probably be viewed differently this year with the concern for protecting pitchers from too many IP. Plus, better to get a good look at a few than a glimpse at many. In the case a few is probably 6 or 7 pitching prospects.

I agree completely on Ober not so sure I buy into the 40 man crunch. We have guys that can be cut. Nothing about Barnes suggests he is a MLB pitcher to me. However, if you want to get another look at him, Smeltzer and Thorpe have had plenty of opportunity. IDK what they saw in Burrows and they could let Cave go too. To give up the opportunity to see some of the higher ceiling guys at the MLB level this season for the sake of the above mention players does not make sense if the guys like Winder / Canterino / Ryan / Sands are ready. Now, if they want to take a longer term approach, I could see the argument of giving Jax and Gant a look so that they can be moved off if it's determined they are expendable but I would add Ryan and drop Smeltzer and not look back.

I have heard a half-dozen interviews with various baseball execs and reporters as well as Rocco this morning who say Buxton definitely wants to be a Twins. He has said as much himself. You just might be right but it's pure assumption and we all know what happens when we assume.

I think the timeline depends on their willingness to go with prospects as opposed to filling spots with free agents. I agree they are not contending next year but they could put a team on the field next year that would project to be close.

I had the same reaction but he has not quite lived up to expectations in his first season of professional baseball so if you squint, it makes some sense, maybe, sort of, kinda. Yep.