Major League Ready

and Kirilloff was horrid in Spring training. So, do we think it's competent management to bring up a struggling prospect to sit on the bench? He also did not have the kind of stats other corner OFers / 1B who skipped AAA put up.

Not being in "rebuild" suggests not trading away established players with multiple (3+) years of control does like Chicago did a few years ago. It does not dictate a strategy solely focused on 2022. Some fans are going to take that crumb of information and turn it into they were lied to when the FO does not follow an all-in strategy.

Normally, I would agree and I don't disagree. History is clear in that small and mid-market teams don’t sign top free agent pitchers. It’s just not financially feasible and those players often prefer other destinations. However, the Twins are in a position where they could afford one top SP. They are in the enviable position of being able to fill all of the other rotation spots with prearb players (plus Maeda for under $10M) for the next several years. Sano and Rodgers come off in 2023. Donaldson is off in 2024 and of course they could trade him next year and bring up Miranda. They would not be able to spend a lot in the BP but those have been really poor investments a high percentage of the time. Plus, there are a number of very good SPs available next year. No doubt it’s difficult to get one of them to sign here but were are well in a position to make it work.

Signing a SS and trading Buxton have a very weak association Buxton is the highest ceiling prospect we have. You could even make a case he is the only prospect with super star potential. I sure don't want to give him up especially when his value is down. The return does not make sense given the upside. He could replace Buxton if they don’t come to terms with him. He does not need a position. He could be a better version of Ben Zobrist. They can afford a SS and a top SP if the trade Donaldson or fail to extend Buxton.

22-19

Do you think they might reconsider now that the Thorpe experiment failed? It's unfortunate Winder is injured or fatigued.

It would be interesting to see the productivity (WAR) for free agent position players after the 1st year of a new contract. As you know, I did this analysis for free agent pitchers and it was not pretty. As a mater of fact it would suggest this is an ill-advised strategy. I say "suggests" because the same size is too small to be conclusive, Lorenzo Cain is a good example. He was great the first year (5.7 WAR) The next year (2019) he produced 1.5 WAR. Then, .2 WAR in 2020, the Covid season and so far this year has produced .9 WAR. I examined all FA pitchers with 5+ year contracts going back several years. Obviously, this is just one position player and I doubt the drop-off after the 1st year is as extreme with position players.

I am not so sure. I could see Iglesias or Galvis. Simmons offense has been bad enough they just might move on. I do love the way Simmons plays the game but we should explore other options.

It really is this straight forward. getting a glimpse at Moran is not so valuable as to ignore the 40 man implications. It's also not hard to find many examples of waiver wire pick-ups that are productive, especially when we have Minaya pitching so well.

Depends on if the organization believes they can fix all that is wrong with our pitching and the rest of the team for that matter in free agency or trades for 2022. Put another way, they could be influenced by their perceived chances of contending in 2022 VS putting a good product on the field in 2022 but under a strategy aimed at 2023. Under that first premise, they go sign 2-3 FA SPs and Jax probably gets squeezed out. He is either SP depth or in the BP. If the organization sees there best chance at returning to contention and sustaining that success being dependent of developing a lot of pitching, they commit to that strategy by giving the plethora of SP prospects they have a shot. This could mean they keep three spots open in 2022. Jax / Ober / Barnes and perhaps Ryan will be the plan come spring training. Winder / Balazovic or Strotman could win a spot in spring training. Jax probably still gets moved the BP or traded as Balazovic / SWR / Duran / Canterino / Enlow make their way to the ML club. So, the plan focused on 2023 would start with 3 of Jax / Ober / Barnes / Ryan but the 5 mentioned above will hopefully be good enough to take the place of the weakest link and the rotation looks quite different at the end of the season. Best case scenario is we end up trading some young pitching or some of these guys end up effective BP arms. The strategy aimed at 2023 likely means trading Donaldson in the off-season if possible and bringing Miranda up in 2022.

I don't understand Vincent but Garcia & maybe Garza seem to have just as much potential as Moran. So, do I want three guys to audition at some point (Moran / Garcia & Garza) or just Moran? I think Burrows was a swing and a miss but it's not as if it were a big sacrifice to give him 9 and 1/3 innings in a lost season. Now they tinker with him at AAA for six weeks and see if they want to keep him for next year.

IDK. Just wondering why they would go back to that well. He just does not look like a ML staring pitcher to me. Then again, I didn't think Jax or Barnes had much of a chance of making it as a starter and they are making that prediction look pretty dumb. Now I am cheering all the harder for these guys to prove I was dead wrong so I guess I will do the same for Thorpe.

I just don't see how Thorpe becomes a SP on this team. There are just too many SP prospects with a considerably higher ceiling that are close to ready. If they want another look, do it in the BP where he has a chance to stick. I guess I have seen enough of the Thorpe experiment. Is there a possibility they are looking to build trade value for the off-season with pitching being in short supply?

I am 100% with you on this one. The young SPs have looked like they can more than hold their own. I would much rather have one really good SP than a couple Pineda / Happ types. Give me Rodon (or similar) plus Maeda and 3 of Ober / Jax / Barnes / Ryan / Winder to start the season and we should do quite well. Balazovic / Duran waiting in the wings with SWR / Enlow and Canterino not far behind. A couple of these guys are going to end up booting our BP nicely. Polanco needs to stay at 2B. SS would be a good free agent investment but I could also see trading Arraez for a SS that is being blocked elsewhere. Miranda could fill that role next year and eventually replace Donaldson. Really hope they can come to terms with Buxton. We might not be a true contender in 2022 with these moves but we will be close and should be in the thick of it in 2023. That's a nice rebound.

I doubted Barnes from the start but how do you dump him when he has been quite effective. Maybe crafty lefties will be more effective now that so many players have built swings to deal with 95+. IDK but I would continue to test him at the MLB level. I should add that perhaps we should be a little more open minded to the rookies and waiver wire pick-ups that helped us go 7-3 against all the 3 division leaders in successive series. Pretty good without having Buxton / Kirilloff and Rodgers.

Actually, once he demonstrated that he was going to bunt whenever they moved the 3B past where a SS plays, teams would quit shift him and he would get a lot more base hits. It absolutely drives me nuts that he has not learned to bunt adequately to where he can bunt hard down the 3B line. That takes a lot less skill than laying one down softly when the 3B is traditionally positioned. Rod Carew would have hit 900 against that shift.

If your goal is too significantly widen the gap in competitive balance, this would be a good way to do it. My concern is just the opposite. If MLB players were scratching out a living, I would agree with you. Given they are the best compensated work force on the planet, I prefer to concentrate on changes that give mid and small market teams a better chance. The Dodgers / Yankees and a few other teams would absolutely dominate under such a system. I also think we may not understand how early free agency would impact the gap between the top paid players and other players. There is only so much money to go around so early free agency likely distributes more to the very top players and probably has the effect of the rest of the players getting less. Also, it could impact competitive balance enough that total revenue goes down and there will be less to distribute to players. There is a reason the NFL / NHL and NBA have rules that protect team control.

Do you have some basis for this strategy? ie. Some form of articles or data regarding the success rates of draft picks? My guess is that if you get outside the top 7-10 picks the success rate, at least in becoming a #1 type SP goes down substantially and when you get past the first 30-40 picks it goes way down. So, I would want to know the success rate of position players drafted in the first 30-40 positions. I think there are a lot of strong opinions formed by baseball fans with very little to support it. For example, I heard a lot of the same rumblings about the Twins not signing the very top international free agents. When, I actually went out an collected the data, the facts suggested a strategy of never spending over roughly $1.5M would yield better results. It would be interesting to construct a list of the top 30 position players (by WAR) and the top 30 Pitchers for the past decade and determine the drafting position.

I also voted IDK. How can we even guess with answering the questions you pose. However, I would add the team we are watching today is much better than the team that started the season. Will Ober / Jax / Barnes / Minaya and Gant continue to play to this level? That’s not a sub 500 team at this moment. Add Buxton / Kirilloff and cut Cave. Where are we now? What about Ryan? Will he be here soon and what will we learn about him in the remainder of the year. Add one good FA starting pitcher plus a SS this could be a pretty darn good team. Sano getting his act together would sure help.

The bitching about any acquisition that isn't an ace or Mike Traut is getting very tedious. Until we can fill the roster with 26 superstars. good players, especially cheap controllable pitching has great value. How much difference have Ober / Jax / Minaya and Gant made in just the past 2 weeks? The concept that #1 and #2 SPs are really important to dominance is not exactly a novel concept but neither is the need for good cost controlled players to fill out a roster.

I definitely agree we should expect a team above 500 next year. No doubt we should expect a better rotation but more importantly we need to see validation of prospect identification and development. Same for the BP. I also agree that it’s pointless to sign mediocre starters. That would be very short-sighted given the number of SPs we have ready to be auditioned. Where we disagree is that I would not try to fix everything in one off-season unless Ober / Jax and Ryan are really impressive for the remainder of the season. At that point I would go after one of the high profile free agent SPs. The reality is that in the past 20 years two elite free agent SPs have been signed by teams with roughly equivalent revenue to the Twins. Therefore, an expectation they sign two is just not realistic. The question we should be asking is not …. How do we contend for a WS next year? We should be asking what is the best strategy to return to contention. The best strategy for returning to contention is not consistent (at the moment) with a strategy focused on building a WS contender next year. They need to almost completely rebuild the SP and BP. They need to dedicate rotation spots to the numerous prospects that will be ready next year. In other words, the fastest way to build a sustainable winner is to take the time necessary to develop our own pitching. Having said this, I would much prefer pursuing one high end SP as opposed to filling the rotation with a couple Michael Pineda types even though that might net a few more win next year.

Taken alone that statement is pretty dumb. In the context of my post it's basically hyperbole and the rest of my post makes that pretty clear. Removing the rest of my post from this quote is a deliberately misrepresentative and you are better than that. I have consistently stated the same basic message message as you have above which is let's see at the end of 2022 if this team is improved and more importantly positioned for sustained success. I have never even hinted they should have several years to get back on track and the remainder of the post you failed to include makes this quite clear. Not cool!

Your are absolutely right that the offense is not championship caliber this year. However, if we are to interpret exactly what was meant by Falvey's statement we would have needed to ask a couple follow-up questions. For example, does this mean it's realistic you can put a contending team on the field every year? Does this mean you will overcome injuries and will never have FAs that just don't work out? Does this mean that you will find pitching in years even when 90% of the available pitching fails? They promised to manage toward a GOAL of sustainability. It's just not remotely reasonable to expect any mid market team to put a true contender on the field EVERY year. They have put systems in place and made personnel decisions consistent with the stated goal if we can accept goals are not reached 100% of the time in professional sports. For fans to get so bent about a bad year to the degree some have here is IMO naive. Literally two-thirds of the teams in baseball are out or long-shots for the post season and it's early August. Are all of those organizations incompetent? Lots of things have gone wrong this year but let's not say "but you promised" by posting this type if PR statement as if they were solemn promises to contend every year. We actually might be witnessing a turn around with some sustainability right now. The farm system just got a jolt with some players with the potential to be impactful for several years. Let's get bent out of shape if the team is bad for the next 4 or 5 years as some are predicting here. I am going to first judge if the team get better over the course of the last couple months. Then, next year, I will expect multiple pitchers to assimilate to the ML level. If so, they will be building sustainable success. If not, I will be calling for their dismissal as well.

He gives us something to watch the rest of the way and he is easy to root for. Continued improvement on his secondary pitches would be a big help.