Major League Ready

Two years ago Severino hit 35 bombs which might have been the most home runs in all of Milb I seem to recall one of the Saints announcers saying his total across two levels was the most in all Milb.

Wallner was tied with Correa for the highest wRC+ on the team last year and he was 2nd (didn't count Keaschall given SSS) this year before going down from injury. He is probably the biggest offensive difference maker on the team based on weighted runs created.

I would think the most likely place to improve would be the guys underperforming not the guys that are doing as well or better than expected. Our best chance is for Lewis and Correa to get going. Castro and France have some upside as well.

Put Wallner and Keachall back in the line-up and they have a chance to be one of the better teams in the league with the way they are pitching. It also wouldn't hurt if Lewis got back to normal.

No doubt. They need to replace Vasquez but a back-up catcher is pretty cheap in free agency. Bader is probably replaced by Martin. Of course, Martin is not close defensively but I dont expect (hope) Bader continues to be one of the best hitters on the team. Erod is the wild card for me. I love a lot about him. Good defender and his splits are close but so far he looks mediocre this year. He has the potential to be an outstanding replacement for Bader. I am really hoping Erod steps it up. Hopefully Jenkins goes through the minors very quickly. Teach McCusker to play 1B. Mostly kidding. Not sure how 1B is solved.

I agree with you but I will try to make you feel better with an optimistic view..... We don't really need any replacements next year and only one (Jeffers) in 2027. Most everyone is here until 2028. They can fill the voids by hitting on a couple college bats this year. The other possibility would be if our pitching pipelines is good enough to allow us to trade established pitching over the next couple years. As Riverbrian pointed out, that would free up money to fill holes but trading someone like Lopez / Ryan / Ober could bring back an impact piece. Jenkin and/or Rodriguez panning out would create a surplus that would allow us to trade Wallner or Larnach.

Hard to argue that point. It's especially true where catchers are concerned. I would have preferred the Polanco trade to be straight up for Harry Ford. I have no idea if that was possible but it would have been preferrable, IMO. If there is a deal made for one of our pitchers, it sure would be ideal if we got a major league ready or near ready catcher. A really great 1B would be OK as well and probably a lot easier to find. I don't want to see Pablo go. However, the right trade could really help set us up for an extended run. I anxiously await Zebby's arrival. I see him as the key. If he proves capable of replacing Pablo, they could trade Pablo next off-season or at the deadline next year. In the process securing a couple very good prospects to fill the holes/need you identified and open up $21M to spend in free agency or extensions.

I have been a bit down on their position player development. However, I look around the diamond and what do we see? The starting OF is comprised of drafted players. (Buxton/Wallner/Larnach) with Bader thrown in and Martin probably replaces Kiersey when martin gets healthy. 3B - Lewis / 2B Keaschall / C - Jeffers. Lee plays 3 positions and would be the SS had we not signed CC. That leaves 1B. Would AK have been serviceable without the injuries? IDK but when I look at it this way it's hard to say they have been terrible at developing position players. The back-end of the BP (Duran/Jax/Sands were all drafted. Starting pitching has a mix of trades and drafted players. I look at an acquisition like Ryan or Duran a little differently than people who simply say "well, we didn't draft him. No, we didn't but he cost us essentially nothing and he was not an established player. That's very different than acquiring a free agent of trading for an established player. We also have 2 major league ready SPs just waiting for an opening. We also have Prielipp / Soto and Hill with high upside. We are in the best pitching shape I have seen in a very long time.

The chart shows percentage of WAR by category. This spreadsheet is huge and includes the WAR for every player that produced 1.5 WAR (1.2 for RPs) for every 90 win team since the turn of the century. From that data, I built a number of charts in tabs. In this case, I inserted summaries from the individual spreadsheets for each team. Then, calculated the aggregate percentages which is why you don't see the WAR itemized in this chart. In other words, this chart was constructed to help me understand the impact of acquisition methods. It was not constructed to respond here. Also, I was looking for impact players. Therefore, I only identified players that produced 1.5 WAR (1.2 for RPS). Trevor may only produced .9 WAR in 2019 which is why he is not captured in the data. Obviously, what defines impact is debatable but I did this from the point of view that players producing less than 1 WAR are not essential to building a winning team. I was trying to find objective measures to identify how winning teams were built by teams with less than average revenue.

Sure seems likely they replace Vasquez via free agency @ 6-10M. 1B is hard tom predict. I see Keaschall becoming the everyday 2B. If one of Lewis/Lee moves to 1B you would think that would be Lewis, right?

The % of WAR by acquisition method is charted below. I have only summarized the most productive teams so only have charts for Cleveland, Tampa, Oakland, and Milwaukee's highest win teams and I threw the Twins in for comparison. As you can see, none of them have come close to averaging 50% of WAR via drafting. Tampa and Cleveland have actually produced the highest percentage of their WAR by acquiring prospects. (TaP below). These teams have averaged close to 70% between drafting and trading for prospects. Tampa is 77%. Cleveland has only produced around 10% between free agents and trading for established players. 8 Oakland Athletics WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA 100% Oakland 2002 103 46.0% 19.1% 25.1% 9.7% 0.0% 100% Oakland 2001 102 57.1% 11.0% 17.6% 14.3% 0.0% 100% Oakland 2019 97 24.6% 0.0% 48.6% 14.0% 12.8% 100% Oakland 2018 97 51.8% 0.0% 29.1% 19.0% 0.0% 100% Oakland 2013 96 23.5% 5.1% 41.7% 9.1% 20.6% 100% Oakland 2003 96 46.2% 21.1% 27.7% 5.0% 0.0% 100% Oakland 2012 94 8.5% 0.0% 40.1% 14.4% 37.0% 100% Oakland 2006 93 22.6% 0.0% 47.2% 8.5% 21.7% Oakland Total 97.25 35.0% 7.0% 34.6% 11.8% 11.5% 7 Cleveland Guardians WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA 100% Cleveland 2017 102 24.3% 19.3% 44.3% 4.3% 7.8% 100% Cleveland 2007 96 30.5% 38.2% 31.3% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2016 94 33.1% 22.7% 44.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2019 93 34.0% 17.8% 44.1% 4.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2005 93 7.5% 21.8% 51.4% 2.5% 16.8% 100% Cleveland 2022 92 34.2% 19.7% 46.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2013 92 14.9% 0.0% 50.1% 10.2% 24.8% Guardians Total 94.57 25.5% 19.9% 44.5% 3.0% 7.1% 6 Tampa Bay Rays WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA 100% Tampa Bay 2021 100 24.5% 5.9% 54.0% 0.0% 15.6% 100% Tampa Bay 2023 99 13.8% 9.8% 66.2% 0.0% 10.2% 100% Tampa Bay 2008 97 45.7% 0.0% 33.2% 4.5% 16.6% 99% Tampa Bay 2019 96 18.6% 0.0% 45.8% 9.0% 26.0% 100% Tampa Bay 2010 96 64.7% 0.0% 22.1% 9.1% 4.1% 100% Tampa Bay 2013 92 50.7% 0 28.6% 8.5% 12.2% Tampa Bay Total 96.67 36.3% 2.6% 41.6% 5.2% 14.1% Average All 96.16 32% 10% 40% 7% 11% 5 Minnesota Twins WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA 100% MN Twins 2019 101 36.3% 24.7% 0.0% 9.1% 30.0% 100% MN Twins 2006 96 39.7% 3.3% 44.3% 12.7% 0.0% 100% MN Twins 2010 94 50% 0% 21% 8% 21% 100% MN Twins 2002 94 59.8% 0.0% 35.0% 5.2% 0.0% 100% MN Twins 2004 92 31.9% 7.6% 55.5% 5.0% 0.0% Twins Total 95.40 43.6% 7.1% 31.1% 8.0% 10.2% Average All 95.85 34% 11% 38% 7% 10% 4 Milwaukee Brewers WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA 100% Mil Brewers 2023 92 27.3% 0.0% 19.8% 52.9% 0.0% 100% Mil Brewers 2021 95 58.1% 0.0% 34.6% 7.3% 0.0% 100% Mil Brewers 2018 96 4.9% 0.0% 29.4% 37.8% 27.9% 100% Mil Brewers 2011 96 31.0% 4.1% 30.0% 12.8% 22.1% Brewers Total 94.75 30.3% 1.0% 28.5% 27.7% 12.5% Average All 95.30 32.3% 4.3% 38.5% 12.4% 14.6%

IDK how I missed Castro. The reason I did not include France is that his salary is so low that his replacement will cost at least $820K so there won't be any savings. They can probably afford to keep everyone. The bigger problem long-term is having so many important players coming off the same year (2028). It would very likely close their window. If they can get an equivalent replacement in Matthews / Festa / Prielipp they could sustain a very good rotation at a lower cost. I see a similar situation with OFers. At least, I am hoping Jenkins, Emma, and others will allow them to trade Larnach or Wallner in the next year and a half.. We would be taking a page out of the Ray's playbook.

Here are the numbers for changes in 2026. They project around $125M with arbitration increases. Vasquez 10,000,000 Paddack 7,500,000 Bader 6,250,000 Correa 5,833,000 Columbe 3,000,000 Dobnak 3,000,000 Total 35,583,000

Have you considered that they have 34.68M coming off the books next year. They could keep Lopez/Ryan and Ober but spending would have to go up to keep all of the players that will be ARB-2 and Arb-3 in 2026-27, especially if Lewis/Wallner and Larnach perform well. Jeffers comes of in 2027 but Duran and Jax are free agents along with Lopez/Ryan and Ober in 2028. Trading Lopez would make it feasible to keep them all. Matthews will replace Paddock. If Festa or Prielipp are also mid-rotation or better, they will be able to move one of Lopez/Ryan or Ober. Moving Lopez along with the 2026 free agents coming of would give them $55M to spend if they just maintain current spending levels. Obviously, they can't add 2+ year contracts next year if they want to cover 2027 arbitration increases. The only players coming off in 2027 are Jeffers, Tonkin, and Topa.

They are praying Paddock can string together some good starts so they can trade him and move Matthews into the rotation. If not, I would hope they move Paddack to a BP role and get Matthews up in June. I agree any trade of Ryan / Lopez or Ober is at least a year from now unless someone blows them away with an offer.

Here is the harsh reality. The Twins have far less revenue as compared to many clubs and therefore have far less to spend. Getting bargains is paramount to success. They can sign the occasional Correa / Donaldson or Lopez but the only way to combat revenue disparity is to produce more for less. In other words, find bargains. If you look back over the past 20 years, teams in the bottom half of revenue that added meaningful production via free agency did so with primarily with players that outperformed their contracts. Take a look. Pick a handful of successful teams in the bottom half of revenue. Then, go to FanGraphs and sort by WAR. Find the players acquired as free agents and then look at production/dollar spent across all the free agents on their roster. If you look at the most successful teams in terms of number of 90+ win teams in the past couple decades (Cleveland/Oakland/Tampa Bay/Milwaukee) You wont find a lot of free agent spending but you will find a lot of under $10M AAV players that contributed to their success.

They could easily swap McCusker for Keirsey. I don't see Bride or Clemens as all that relevant to bringing up McCusker. It would be a trade-off between a pinch runner / late inning defensive replacement in Keirsey for the possibility of an additional bat. Short-term, Keirsey is probably the better fit but I like the idea of seeing if McCusker can hit ML pitching. They could always go back to Keirsey or more likely Martin if McCusker does not work-out. The best case scenario would be E. Rodriguez gets going.

Let's apply a little common sense. The Padres are a contender. We want to get rid of Vasquez because he has no place on a contender. We are desperate to get rid of him because he is a black hole in the line-up but the Padres want him, why? Does that make any sense?

He has 48 days of MLB service according to FanGraphs. If he was promoted on June 1 that would be 168 days service as of the end of the 2025 MLB season.

You have a point. It's easy to make blanket statements. What would be more interesting IMO is a conversation about who specifically people would have replaced. Correa and Buxton were not really possible to move and there was discussion about Correa and a lot of people said they would disown the franchise if he were moved assuming it was even possible. Lewis? I got the impression most people thought he was a cornerstone. Walner? That makes no sense. Jeffers has been very good. It looked like they were trying to move Vasquez but let's be real. Who would want him without the twins eating most of the salary. Larnach? He was one of the bright spots the 2nd half last year. Perhaps a slight upgrade was possible but does it make sense to trade or sign a top OFer when you have Larnach/Wallner and Rodriguez and Jenkins on the horizon? That leaves 1B and 2B. They had Castro for 2B and Looks like we have a really good replacement (Keaschall) ready to go. Which leaves 1B. Yep, they could have traded for a top 1B. They did not have the budget to sign one so it would have had to be a trade. Should they have given up Matthews / Festa or Keaschall / Jenkins for an upgrade at 1B? I was in favor of moving Paddack and Castro if possible and investing that money in a bat. Would that have made any difference with Wallner / Lewis out and Correa's wRC+ at 58?

There was not even much talk of going out for starting pitching this year given the depth. Last year my recollection is the biggest push here last year was Jordan Montgomery. Point being that going out and getting someone as you say is not only no guarantee it can be a disaster.

So what. Berrios had an ERA of 8 his first year and there are countless SPs that struggled at first in the majors.

I doubt anyone would be satisfied with relying on Julien and/or Miranda. Now, had he said Correa will get going and we are really missing Wallner and Lewis. That would satisfy some of the critics but others will still expect the offense to be humming with arguably their 2 best hitters out and another in a slump to start the season. Perhaps he should had said he believes there is good reason to believe Correa will be better and we should be a lot better when Lewis, Wallner, and Keaschall are back.

You have the luxury of immunity from consequence. If a GM keeps replacing players with players that perform horribly like Keirsey, they find themselves unemployed.

I am all for giving prospects a shot but let's keep in mind many posters said the same thing about Keirsey. His OPS is 138 and wRC+ is -74. Vasquez looks great in comparison.