Major League Ready

They are not winning back fans until they start winning. Let’s define winning. An 85-win team does not inspire fans to come out. A team that inspires belief they have a real shot brings people out. An athletic team that makes great defensive plays and runs the bases provides an extra degree of excitement. The above is not happening in 2026 unless they trade away Most of their top 10 prospects. They would keep Keaschall and Zebby because they need a 3rd playoff starter so the plan demands Zebby grows up quickly. They will also need to spend their absolute limit. I would give that plan a 30-35% chance of winning a playoff series or two but the odds would still be against getting to the WS. The post 2027 implications are probably that it take 4-5 years to build back to a good team. Now imagine a meeting between the FO and ownership where they layout option 1 which by the way requires them to make a minimal profit or break-even. Option 2 is spend 2026 building the kind of exciting team people will come out and watch. They transition from current OFers to some combination of Buxton / Jenkins and a couple of Rodriguez / Roden / GG / Rosario / Fedko. Of course, this group is far more exciting with more upside. They transition Culpepper to SS. 2026 is also used to transition multiple prospects who are now starting to the BP. BTW ownership, under this plan you make a solid profit and exit 2027 (if there is a season) with a great young team with a shot at true contention for 5+ years. Ownership then asks how many successful teams with our level of revenue have been built following strategy #1. Falvey answers “none in the past 20 years. How about option #2. Falvey answers “this blueprint or some form has been used in 90% of all successful teams”. My guess is that this meeting took place in some form. Which path do you take if you are ownership.

How were the decisions to option these three players about money? Who do they have at AAA that has even a 30 day track record that suggests they are ready for MLB? Rodriguez was on a Milb rehab assignment. Maybe Fedko but he had 22 games at AAA when the call-ups were made.

Sal Perez caught 422 over 3 years at the same age as Rutschman.

I am rooting for Larnach to finish the year strong. His August was good with a 138 wRC+. It would sure help if he did the same or better in September. Maybe they could get a back-up catcher or for him or perhaps even a 1B prospect.

I think from the players standpoint, someone as young as Chourio or Jenkins can still get another big deal at the end of 8 years. This guarantees them generational wealth with the first contract regardless of health or performance. From an organizational viewpoint, there is considerable risk with such a young player. It's easier to make an $80M leap than a $150M or 200M leap.

Lewis: 10% chance. They don’t have a replacement. He is relatively cheap and has considerable upside. Jeffers: 25% chance. They are already very thin in catching and the return would not be an impact type prospect. A lot depends on how they view his work with young pitchers. Wallner: 25% chance. He still has four years of control. He is cheap and his career stats are pretty darn good. However, they are very deep in OFers and they would probably be inclined to deal if the return was really good. Larnach is much more likely to be traded. Only two years of control and he is more expensive. Pablo: 60% chance. It all comes down to the return. Will teams question his health. If so, the return will be marginal, and they could hold onto Pablo until the deadline. Ober could get dealt in his place. Pablo is also the better mentor for all of our young pitchers. Ryan 90% chance. Ryan will bring back two really good prospects and one of them should be an impact type player. This kind of trade needs to contribute to the next core.

A Chourio type deal with Jenkins is the type of risk the Twins need to take. It would not be devastating if he turns out to be an average player but locking him down for 8 years sounds good. However, it should be pointed out that if they bring him up after the 1st month of the season they still have for 6 more years so they only gain 1 year. Maybe they go for a nine-year deal

I think what happened at the trade deadline is a pretty clear indication of where Falvey is leading this team. Trading Duran / Jax / Varland and Correa is a clear signal they are going to retool / rebuild the roster in a manner that can't be done over an off-season. My guess is they will spend all of 2026 and part of 2027 transitioning in players for every part of the roster. The OF will transition to 3 of Jenkins / Roden / Rodriguez / Gonzalez / Fedko and Outman with Wallner becoming a primary DH and occasional OFer. Their many pitching prospects will be auditioned with some becoming part of the rotation and others moved to the BP. The INF has less moving parts in 2026 and is pretty dependent of Culpepper making the leap. Lewis will get the entire year to prove he belongs. 1B is hard to predict. Maybe they bring in a France equivalent.

It is all about the odds. 75 seems slightly optimistic but let’s go with that. How do we get a shot at 85-86 wins to have a shot at the playoffs. Spend $50M on Free agents. That would project to 80 wins. Now what? Are we going to trade away prospects in an attempt to get to 85 wins. We might be able to keep Jenkins but it would take some good prospects to bring back a couple of impact bats or RPs. Should we trade away Matthews / Festa / Culpepper / Emma / GG? What are the odds the free agents and trades produce enough to get us to 85 wins? Is making the playoffs with a fringe playoff team goal worthy and worthy of the cost of getting there. What is the cost? Several good prospects traded away and several good prospects not acquired for Ryan/Lopez/Ober. That is a dramatic shift in future resources. We would also most likely be taking on a couple long-term contracts and we know from history the back half of those contracts are generally not productive. Sunk payroll costs are also a likely detriment to post 2027. The net of it is that taking a shot 2026 and 2027 if we have a season significantly reduces our chances for several years post 2027. Even if the odds of success are the same with these two strategies which I doubt, one strategy has the potential for 2 years of success and the other 5-7 years or perhaps more with extensions and the ability to trade from excess.

I have been asking myself the same question. I think the way it works out is that if someone believes he can repeat 2023 (4.6 fWAR) and offers an impact prospect, he will be traded. If not, I think they are better off to keep him as a mentor to the many young pitchers we already have and those that will be here soon. Pablo / Zebby / Bradley / Festa and SWR has plenty of uncertainty but could be pretty darn good. They would be a middle of the pack team if those guys performs as we believe they can perform. Jenkins and Culpepper come along and spark the team in the 2nd half and they it could be entertaining baseball.

Agree with those who put Larnach at the top of the list. They are not going to let Wallner go with 4 years of control unless someone makes an offer they can't refuse. They will want to get a look at Roden and Outman for the first couple months because they have Jenkins, GG, and Fedko at AAA and Rosario will probably be joining them. Larnach would just be in the way of them auditioning all of the candidates who could upgrade the Twins OF by 2027 or even as early as the middle of 2026. I think Jeffers stays because there is significant value to keeping a familiar catcher for Zebby / SWR / Festa / Morris / Abel and others become the main stays of this staff.

In the words of John McEnroe .... You can't be serious!

Teams trade good pitching, especially in a period when they are not contending. This has been especially true for the most successful teams in the bottom half of revenue. Are you just not aware this has happened often or are you choosing to ignore it? The only small market team (KC) to win the WS in the last 20 years acquired their best player (Cane) and a good SS (Escobar) by trading a pitcher (Greinke) that was better than Ryan.

Doc, l thought you had a lot of good points. Let's discuss the two points you made above. I see the union as being very focused on things that mostly benefit the elite players. The great young players that you discuss in point 3 are eventually going to make a 100 or 200 or 400 MILLION dollars. In the last CBA, the league created a $50M bonus pool for prearb players that is divided up among a handful of players that are the most likely to go on a make huge money. They could have just negotiated a higher minimum or made the distribution much broader. While I have no problem with them getting a bonus, I just don't see this as a problem and 95% of the prearb players get nothing. Once again the league focused on the top 5%. They could have given a $500K bonus to 100 players. Now the floor. If the Twins continue the sell-off and go full rebuild, they will be around $75M in payroll. Do we want veteran SS blocking Culpepper, a veteran FA OFer blocking the myriad of OFers we have that are near ready? Do we want them to replace Ryan and Lopez with free agents that would be far more expensive for the same production. How does a modest revenue team rebuild under such a system? As fans we call for the young guys that can contribute to future success to get a shot. This would definitely stifle rebuilding. There are ways around it like taking on bad contracts but is that what we would want the Twins to do next year. Take on a couple dead weight contracts that take up a roster spot. Another problem is that there are a handful of teams that would be losing money or breaking even at $150M in salary. That would effectively make the value of those teams near zero. It's incredibly unfair and would probably result in several lawsuits against the league.

If you look at Fangraphs. They have him at 1.6 WAR for 21. His OBP is quite a bit lower this year but you also have not considered defense. If you look at Fangraphs defensive rating, he has a negative rating that is detracting from his overall WAR. I look at the .316 OBP with very low slug along with poor defense and base running and the Fangraphs WAR seems about right.

Buyers don't think in terms of the next two years. Let's also not forget attendance has been mediocre and that's the kind of attendance mediocre teams get. The only way to really draw big is to put a true contender on the field and a more exciting brand of baseball would also help. They were going nowhere with what they had so why would any potential owner see the best route for increasing revenue as doing the same thing and expecting a different result. They may or may not succeed but the path they have chosen has a much higher upside than the path they were on. Houston has grown their revenue substantially. How did they start their improved play and growth? They gutted it to the studs. If I recall correctly, their payroll was around $30M. A low payroll is a byproduct of a rebuild. You are assuming it's a byproduct of a desire to lower payroll. It is also possible the FO viewed a rebuild as the best long-term move for the franchise. My guess is it's both. I can see Falvey pitching the Pohlad's that this strategy will improve profitability for a couple years and build a team that will generate excitement and more revenue for several years. Pohlad's say hell yes, sign me up.

I track this information annually for 90 win teams. I don't have numbers for Cleveland 2025. Players that produced 1.5 WAR or more for Cleveland in 2024 are listed below by acquisition method. # Acquired by: WAR % of WAR 3 Drafted 9 33.0% 1 International Draft 6.5 23.8% 5 Acquired as Prospect 11.8 43.2% 0 Trade for Proven 0 0.0% 0 Free Agent 0 0.0% TOTALS 27.3 100%

I appreciate where you are coming from but let's examine for a moment if we have a different type of prospects now. In other words, have the learned and adapted. They have Jenkins, Rodriguez, and Fedko that are all much better athletes. GG is a great contact hitter with decent power. Rosario has great power with a reasonable K rate. GG and Rosario are not great defenders but better than what we have. They should be fielding a great OF by the middle of next year. Now the IF. They already have Keaschall. Royce's defense is above average now. I am 50/50 on him bouncing back offensively but he should bounce back to where he is at least not a liability. Culpepper seems to be above average at every aspect of the game. His development is really key. So far, so good. That would move Lee to a utility IFer which would be a great role. Of course, there is still hope he becomes an above average bat. We are already really deep in SP prospects. Plus, they will get 4 good prospects by trading Lopez/Ryan. One top 50 INFer and one top 50 SP prospect would really improve the odds of success. Of course, there will probably be a couple of top 100 type prospects as well. Here is the key. What's the alternative? I would not want to purse strategies that are less likely to succeed regardless of who's in charge. I would not be inclined to believe those same people would get better results following a plan with less likelihood of success.

That is a very good question and just goes to show that these are emotional responses. As you know, it makes them worse over the next two years and it's possible it has zero effect 3-5 years but it can't make them, worse. However, trading players like Ryan and Lopez bring back the kind of players that will have impact 2-10 years from now. Some people are ignoring the many examples over the past couple of decades. The Brewers got their best SP (Peralta) for 1 year of Adam Lind. The Guardians got Kluber, Bauer, and Clevinger as prospects. They got several years of service from them and then traded 1 year of Kluber for Clase and 1 year of Clevinger for Naylor, Quantrill, and Arias. Greinke was traded for Cane and Escobar. Joe Ryan and Jhoan Duran were still prospects when acquired and there are many other examples.

It comes down to if you think this team can truly contend in 2026. They were nowhere near contenders this year before they traded away their highest paid player and 4 very good BP arms. I just can't look at the current situation given how poorly they played and the deadline trades and come to the conclusion that prioritizing the near term is the best course of action. Their best shot at success is transitioning Keashall / Jenkins / Culpepper and some combination of Rodriguez / GG / Rosario / Fedko, Tait, and a couple others that have a shot at being very good MLB players. This will take a year and a half. They can keep Ryan and Pablo during that period and possibly be fringe playoff contenders or they can add the haul they would get for Pablo and Ryan to the previously mentioned list. That strategy has very good potential to be far better team in terms of position players for a 6-8 year period. They will need to replace Pablo and Ryan from the dozen SPs Eric listed. I like the odds of that happening and they are likely to get another top pitching prospect back in trade that should be among the very best of that existing list. Someone is going to say they are just prospects. True. How have all of the best teams in the bottom half of revenue built contenders. They converted enough prospects into MLB players. Players drafted or acquired as unproven players produce 80% of WAR for the vast majority of these teams. Would anyone argue that odds of success increase with an extremely deep prospect pool?

OK. Are wRC+, OBP and slugging also "wildly flawed". A high BA with a modest OBP and very low slug is simply not valuable. He is also a poor base runner (25th percentile for speed). He is a poor defender (5th percentile for range). How is that valuable and why on earth would we utilize FA budget to get it? Convert any one of the current MLB OFers or one of the numerous OF prospects that are near ready. That would be a good winter assignment for our OFers. It would increase their value to have the flexibility of playing OF and 1B.

He might end up being a better defensive version of Willi Castro.

I would give Fedko an opportunity. It would give him a chance to prove he can hit at the major league level that he might not get otherwise given the number of OFers we have that are ready or near ready.

He is going to end up with roughly 1.7 WAR (in total) for the last two years. Probably around .5-.6 this year. How will that help? Outman produced 3.9 WAR his 1st season which is better than Arraez has ever done. Should we believe Outman is going back to 4 WAR? It's possible but I sure would not bet on it.

The Saints are going to be stacked with pitching next year. If the Twins only trade 1 of Ryan/Lopez/Ober and fill out the rotation with Matthews / Bradley and one of Abel/Festa/SWR that would leave Festa or SWR or Abel plus Morris/Rojas/Raya/Prielipp/Ohl and Ohl at AAA. That's 8 guys that deserve to be at AAA, 2 or 3 that deserve to be in the majors. This assumes they don't get a AAA SP in return for whichever SP is traded. Does Culpepper stay at AA? Do they start converting a couple of these guys to RPs or do they have the guys on the bubble pitch a 4 innings per outing.