Cris E

You don't bring the kids you care about up until they have a place to play regularly. ERod sitting around for a month waiting to take Outman's 20 AB makes no sense. If you bring him up it has to be to get 20 AB a week, where he can get in a groove, not be looking over his shoulder and sweating every out, have confidence that the team wants to see his game over time. Outman is Buxton's caddy and the guy waiting for those ABs is going to sit a lot. ERod and Jenkins and Gonzalez should be playing at least five games a week, so to make a space for those guys you need an injury, a complete washout at the MLB level or a trade. I don't care about the Fedkos of the world, and even Rodan is older and at a point where it's produce or step back, but our 22 year olds need to keep ascending, and to do that they need regular playing time. The front office has to have to balls to make a call on the guys that aren't earning their keep. Martin seems to have stepped up when given his chance last year and this spring. Rodan deserves a shot next. Outman has not passed the test. The best thing to do with him is pass him through waivers, where he'll be claimed or not.

As mentioned above, there are lots of differences that both increased and decreased what the Pohlads could get. - The Padres lost their TV deal in 2024, just a year before the Twins did, for very similar dollars. It was leaked that it cost them approximately $50m that first season, leading directly to more borrowing. The impact on the Twins was likely very similar, except that the Padres payroll was twice ours and they continued to win as we chopped ours down by 20%. - There's so much more money in SoCal. People are used to spending a couple hundred bucks on entertainment out there, as opposed to $100 dinner tab being an event in MN. New owners are certain they can get more of it, or at least keep claiming their share in tickets, concessions, parking and gear. - The Padres were carrying $300m in debt as well as $150m cash callbacks in recent years. Those were just rolled up as line items and accepted whereas no one was willing to do that in a Twins deal. I think a lot comes down to culture, and the cheap folk living in the cold north are not as numerous or free with their money as the Californians. You don't lose a quarter of the schedule to April rain and September chill out there, and we go out in our short, precious summer rather than stay home to watch baseball on TV. There is a reason that the Central divisions do not feature the star power of the coasts, and it's because we don't have the money and density and weather of the coasts. But they still should have been able to sell this team. The player names come and go, just about any contract can be traded or bought out, and you can fire every single person in an org down to the parking lot attendants if you think the losing culture is too much to over come. Which is my long way of saying I think the family really wanted piles of money from the team while staying involved much more than they wanted to sell it completely. There are lots of rich folks around, but the Pohlads like being the bigshots that saved baseball and own a team. No Dayton or Carlson can say that. Alas, I think they are still rich enough to want the bragging rights more than the money from a sale right now.

Trick question: Shelty's a vampire.

They put up nine the other night. You just never know about this offense.

It's 30 degrees. Guys are only good for the first few batters out of the pen and then they get cold. Just keep trooping through the warm hands.

There's a fan watching with alcohol.

Buxton got 7 AB during the WBC. I'm glad they all feel patriotic about that thing, and the games were fun, but it totally messes with preparing for the MLB season. A bunch of players have gotten off to rough starts and Buck is Exhibit #1.

Not at all. Catchers are hard to develop, having to not just hit but master the art of calling a game while somehow staying healthy at a demanding position. But having two good candidates at Cedar Rapids means that in 28 or 29 we should be in high cotton.

Jackson was a backup, insurance, and they knew he couldn't be an every day catcher. That little flareup last summer wasn't real. When they could get Caratini for cheap they pounced and solved next year as well. He is an average hitter, which is above average at catcher, and makes complete sense. He's only in play at 1B because they did not move anyone else over to DH or 1B. That's a completely separate problem, and one they needed to address. They have other options and they are not employing them, so he's a 1B for now. In that regard this is dumb, but having Caratini for 2027 is not dumb at all.

The Twins have had amazing luck in how healthy their catchers have been over the past 3-5 years. We've gone years at a time without a third viable receiver on the 40 man, and it wasn't exposed until last summer when both Jeffers and Vasquez went out at the same time. Boy howdy, that was gawdawful. They now have a decent second guy (who is going to catch at least a third of the games) plus there's a glove in AAA with MLB experience. And on the days Jeffers catches against a leftie, Caratini is just sitting there. So is it worse to let him exist only as a backup catcher, or to compare him to the other guys on the roster and play him if he's a better option? My opinion is that eventually he's going to be the barely average hitter he's always been and someone will take the position away from him, but we're in week 1 and tings haven't shaken out yet. Buxton missed most of spring training and is slowly working his eye into game shape, so the need for RH hitters will relax a bit when he starts carrying his share of the offence.

"I asked." Beautiful.

This is exactly where Brock Stewart came from, so don't get too proud to recycle. On the other hand, this is also where we met Josh Staumont, Caleb Boushley, Dylan Floro, Thomas Hatch, Joey Wentz, Genesis Cabrera...

WTH, Cruz is hating his life right now.

Gray could pull away with the team RBI lead here.

So tired of Clemens.

Most Daddy's Boy type players don't get drafted in the first round. He was a legit first rounder when chosen.

So is it strikeouts or HR or average? You don't care if he's above average since anyone who isn't Raleigh or Judge or Killebrew is hot garbage? He had a year with some injuries and was still an average hitter. The rest of his career has been well above average. If you want to reject the stats and say he's not your kind of hitter then say that, but the league is full of these guys today and you are out of step.

The active gaslighting shows some serious contempt for Twins fans. "We're going for it. Watch the results. We have money for the right guy." The payroll speaks more loudly, it enunciates, it is clear. If you give good effort MIN fans are pretty laid back. But the lying, that's no good. Sell the team.

They might be the same height. (Ruth never had to get taped for ABS.)

Now I'm having all sorts of fun trying to imagine what you put up for that moment. "Roy Smith never hit eighth, he was a pitcher."

During the game it was pointed out that Gray might have kept running to third to draw a throw and get Larnach home safely. The piggybacking was a fine piece of strategy that went off the rails during execution. It happens, I'm not beating up the manager over that. Abel could have been on a shorter leash though. I am over the Clemens fascination though. He's not that good a fielder that we should be suffering his batting on such a regular basis. He offers nothing that can't be stashed in St Paul or Witchita.

I don't understand COL fans. They have been outright bad and management has been without a clue for a long time, and yet people buy tickets and come to games. Good for them, I'm happy they enjoy baseball, but I don't understand it. MN, OTOH, I totally get. We were on a long upwards trajectory that culminated in winning a playoff series for the first time ages, we had some kids on the way that were promising, we'd finally spent on some free agents that seemed to put us over the top, and in under two years we were flat on our butts with ownership lying to us. The losing was familiar, but the lying about Winning, Results and Spending were a new form of gaslighting that really showed a contempt for fans. All obscenities to the Pohlads. I'm going to Saints games this summer.

He's always been a great player to watch, not just because anything could happen on any pitch, but because of the simple joy he plays with, He gets excited, he laughs, he is enjoying this as much as any fan might. The sole upside to his injury history might be that he has missed the game and consequently he never takes it for granted. So easy to root for and enjoy on a daily basis.

Lots of inconsistency on the way to sweeping observations. Outman is plenty athletic in the outfield, he just hasn't hit since 2023. And he's not the old guard, he's been around exactly as long as Roden. Martin is the underperforming guy in his third season, if that's what's bothering you. Martin's ratio of two months of good baseball to 2.5 years of meh is the exact mirror of Wallner, (And don't talk about Martin's glovework. He's only OK in LF and terrible elsewhere.) Not nearly that bad. What problems are so profound that it'll take FOUR YEARS to resolve? Be specific, because some of these problems were left in place intentionally so as to not block the solutions maturing in St Paul right now. Which slow footed OF is not being replaced by Jenkins or ERod? How long a contract should have been signed to block the missing RH corner bat in Gonzalez? The 1B of the future had an OPS .884 wRC+ 149 (281 PA) on July 28, 2024 when he got hit in the head by a 95 MPH pitch and has not recovered. There's a ton of very interesting arms close to ready or debuting right now. There are two solid catching prospects in Cedar Rapids, and that's as close to four years as you can get, but Jeffers was a 2018 draftee that we'll get 600 quality catching games out of, which is excellent. And there were plenty of productive trades that weren't emotionally wracking like last years deadline: Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, Duran and many pitching prospects. And the drafts brought us most of the guys on the field: Jeffers, Keaschall, Lewis, Lee, Larnach, Wallner, Buxton, Ober. Go through the league and find another team that has that many of its draftees playing. There are problems with this team. The gamble to sign Larnach was made with a downside of being stuck with a decent LH half of a LF platoon. They have not made good plans at 1B or 3B and there were some other lesser gaps, but it doesn't take 3-4 years to fix those. The replacement SS are half a year away, you can make a 1B as soon as you decide it's a priority, and they could assemble a 3b plan simply by shifting Winokur or trading for someone. There's a bunch here to work with, but the biggest obstacle to returning to contention is ownership.

But Gleeman said Royce has seven HR in 13 career starts in the 8 hole. Could the people be stupid and wrong? Could the stats be tiny and misleading? My head hurts...