Cris E

My favorite Mow 'Em Down Inning was way back when Bert Blyleven was on the mound. He gave up two HR, a couple walks but got three strikeouts. Yay, I guess?

Tony La Russa looks old. EDIT: I mean a lot of these players are my age and they look paunchy old, but TLR looks deathlike.

We do have Gasper for that vital third catcher duty...

A series? I do not agree with this at all, it's a huge overreach. Bullpens can be managed to shield some guys from being exposed most of the time.

Nick, what's your opinion on Castellano? Your depth chart includes Topa and your first depth piece is Tonkin so there may be a place for him. Do they try to keep him? Should they? This is the bullpen piece, take a swing.

I think @USAFChief is playing semantic games and every roster has guys on it that you'd rather not be tossing important innings. You play the cards in your hand at the moment and go from there, and Castellano looks like someone who can hang around the back of the pen and not embarrass the team when his name is called. Example of how little these guys need to work to own a spot: Cole Sands in 2023. That's a year the Twins were competing and a guy they like, a guy who was effective, but he only appeared once a week and only his last two games were closer than three runs. 3/31-4/14 two appearances 5/13-6/4 five appearances 7/5-7/28 three appearances, 12 BF 8/12-9/4 five appearances (but only 2 batters in the first ten days) There was a DL trip in June and a couple rotations to get a fresh arm up, so he only missed six weeks he could have been pitching. More to the point he had one bad game coming back from injury where he gave up 6 of his 9 ER for the year, but the balance was quite good and he still only got out there once a week. All told he threw 21 innings of 3.74 ERA in 15 appearances, and only two were tight games that occurred after he'd proven his ability. There are ways to shield young pitchers from important innings, even in competitive years, and Castellano could be managed similarly regardless of what he's called.

I think the Twins are still living in the shadow of 2022 where they had a huge number of injuries, didn't provide a sufficient number of backups and didn't have any real players left by August. Some of those late-season outfields would have embaressed St Paul. So finding a guy that was a proven CF to cover for Buxton's inevitable 100 game outage was important. Remember that Rocco described Kiersey's D as greatly improved after a lot of work, meaning that it wasn't always this good. And a year ago he had not had any MLB experience yet so they didn't want to find out his hitting game did not translate while knowing that they needed a half season of CF work from that roster spot. I can see the decision going either way for most teams, but after 2022 the Twins are always going to have a proven MLB baseline on the roster at every position. Doubly so for spots with proven injury risk like Buxton, Correa and pitching in general.

You are correct, he did play elsewhere. (Fangraphs doesn't sort their fielding numbers by year, which was pretty unexpected.) He may well be up in three months, but not until then. And he's still only got 267 PA above A+ ball and they were not outstanding. He's essentially Brooks Lee from a couple years ago and we've already got one looking for a spot.

My whole point is that I agree with your hypothetical but they don't have the players for that and have to make do in the 1.0 WAR bin until the kids step up. The complaints I was addressing were very concrete lists of names and the answer to them is equally concrete.

How did you get that far down your list and miss the broadcast revenue problem? That's #1 with a bullet, given how they held back on the announcement of the sale until there was no longer any chance of hanging on to the old model. Here's what a guy from San Diego wrote about their first year outside the RSN tent. Keep in mind that the old contract was for about $60m per year, which is more than the Twins' $54m deal. Losing half or more of your broadcast revenue is a big deal. And the fact that there are another handful of teams in the same boat means that the pool of shared 48% of revenue is going to be smaller too. It's a fact that the new owners are not going to enjoy the margins that the Pohlads are getting today.

Seriously who? Actual names. See my note above, but they didn't have anyone ready last year. They don't have anyone ready now, If you'd thrown the keys to Julien last year it would have failed. Kirilloff would still have been injured. If you move Jeffers you need to play Camargo and that's a terrible trade. Who? This isn't hypothetical team building, they only have this list of names to work with. Who?

Show me the guy hitting so well he needs to shoulder his way past everyone else to claim ABs. Kirilloff might have been one, but his body failed and he's out of the picture. Did you not see who was playing 1B in St Paul last year? Severino? Williams? Isola? Does anyone else have a better 3B glove that makes you need to move Lewis? If Miranda's hitting starts demanding a spot in the lineup his glove is making the case for 1b, not 3b. Keaschall hasn't fielded in a year and needs to go down to the minors to solidify his hitting. Remember he's only got 267 AB in AA (where he only slugged .439) and nothing higher so far. Julien and Martin are both slow to come into focus, but either could at any time and neither is a great fielder that would belong anywhere but 1B. I get your point, but you need to have these good young guys before you move away from one year veteran filler guys, and we simply haven't had those kids step up yet. Maybe by the end of this year, certainly some for next year, but not yet. Not even close.

You've got it backwards. These guys are not leading away from good young players and towards more filler, They're only there until our own good young kids show up, which is what's been pointed out is already happening in the rotation. The goal is always to be developing your own guys to fill holes long-term, but while you're waiting for them, signing a series of mediocre veterans is not a bad plan. What an actual bad plan looks like is signing someone mediocre or old to a long-term deal. Settling for three or four years of a Rhys Hoskins, Gio Urshela or even Ty France slams the door shut in the face of the eventual emergence of Miranda or Julien or Larnach or Keaschall or Gasper or Eeles or whoever. Gallo was around until there were better options. Margot is gone. Farmer was pushed out by the youngster Lee. This is what it should look like. (And since no one is perfect, there's always room for some improvement. In our case it is mostly around when to cut bait on a failed spin of the wheel.)

Amen Rodcarew . I'm not sure who is supposed to be harshing on Randy, but I think it's more a strawman than a real problem. He's got value in St Paul as a solid source of innings, a good clubhouse presence and a pillar of the community. He's got value to the Twins as an insurance policy. But he was signed to a deal that over-pays him for more years than his current output would warrant so he's going to be harder to trade. The best situation for everyone is him accepting his role, accepting that there are better players passing him by and getting shots ahead of him, and him continuing to pitch to his potential and being a positive force whereever he's playing. He could complain, he could give up, he could get injured and be completely worthless, but he's not and no one is saying that at all. He's just making more as insurance than most guys in the role. The idea that anyone is playing high school favorites or there's some conspiracy to prevent this 91 mph heater from dominating MLB is preposterous. He's a guy caught in a bit of a Faustian bargain, where he's getting his money but it's coming at the cost of easy mobility between organizations and a low bar to changing hands. But honestly if you had a chance to offer a 19 year old Dobnak a couple decent MLB years followed by injury and $10m as a AAA starter into his 30s he'd grab it again and not look back.

If we hang on to him as a Rule V and he excels then he's pitching well for us in MLB and that's awesome. If he does not excel then his value will be lower than it is today and it might be easier to move him through whatever channels are required. If there are some guys like Tonkin that don't have options then we may lose them, but the injury bug has bitten enough folks that we can delay that choice via the IL.

I think how the radar guns measured speed changed somewhere around the early 90s. Here's a great story from baseball America on the subject. "A 90 mph pitch on a Speedgun could register at 92 on a JUGS gun and 93-94 mph on a Stalker." It's still not 97, but they weren't blowing out shoulders and elbows every other year either. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/the-measure-of-a-fastball-has-changed-over-the-years/

Agree, except it's more likely he gets to be The Guy in St Paul until Stewart blows up on May 5. Then he can be the 7th inning guy until Jax and Duran get tired/hurt in mid-summer. But the experience working late and without a net will prep him for the big innings when the top two guys inevitably falter.

I don't think anyone knows anything and there's been a LOT of speculation around this process so far. I believe: - The team was put on the market once the TV revenue picture was clarified and it became certain that the spice would not flow as it had in the past. Between that and the spike in payrolls in recent years the family was not ready to lean into this expensive and less profitable world. - They announced it as "exploring a sale" simply because that's what you say in case you don't find a market for your product. The goal is selling, not dumping, and they'll pull back if the price isn't high enough. (But I think they will eventually find someone at a lower price once the new TV money stabilizes and it's clear how much poorer the franchise is.) - The Ishibas probably were fine with the team and stadium and even the TV deal and would have settled on a price in good time. What likely broke that deal had far more to do with the chance to own the White Sox. It's got more future real estate value and potential broadcast money than the Twins, and it's silly to pretend that $200m is some insurmountable barrier. - I think the big money vs little money brawl coming with the next CBA deal might get solved by using expansion cash to buy out some of the lost future revenues that would be shared in a new formula. That is, if they find a new formula that makes teams like LAD and NYY share more that could also be the basis for distributing expansion fees (eg percent of total MLB value rather than 30 equal shares.) It won't really offset it, but if they were going to lose the fight anyway (especially since all the new owners are going to be a on the wrong end of new media deals rather than signing huge old-school cable deals.) EDIT: I put this here because any new owner is going to have to know where they'll stand in that fight before they write a check. It's incredibly important to anyone who wants to win. - Because they don't have another pre-approved buyer on the line there's little chance this team gets sold before the end of this season.

In addition I'd be much more aggressive about sending struggling guys down to St Paul to work on stuff rather than having them continue to play badly or just sit around and stew. I'd also like to see more use of where Vasquez saw his offseason coach at Driveline for a tuneup in June, or at least going back to tape to see what was working rather than believing so strongly in whatever you've committed to that's stopped working.

What.... EDIT: Do you mean Games Where They Only Scored One Run? Because almost no one wins those on any team at any point in the past hundred years. Also, "1 run games" is understood to be "games decided by one run".

Oh, and then the Astros spent $100m more than MN. That step shouldn't get glossed over. They went on to win because not merely because they had a lot of draft picks, but because they added free agents, they re-signed stars, they spent a lot of money. The notion that a team with those resources put their wallet away for four or five or six years and then spent means that they didn't try for a v e r y l o n g time. The Twins have fallen short of 60 wins once in the entire time they've been in MN (2016) and the Astros did it for three years running, and didn't win a ton on either end of that streak. If the Pohlads did this you wouldn't be pleased at the plan, you'd be furious, and that doesn't consider the fact that Houston has a lot more money than MN.

Butcher boy meant hitting down on the ball to get grounders (specifically to fake a bunt and then hit.) Back in Stengel's day the infields were terrible and bad hops were easily available to anyone who could hit a hard three hopper and run fast. He was also known for decrying pop ups with a frustrated "There's no bad hops up there."

I'd rather we saw mediocre vets than kids promoted way before they were ready or bad AAAA players. If you don't have any prospects with a good future then you need to hire some players, but those tank teams in Houston ten years ago were terrible and it took a while to get some young kids into place to start digging out. That 2013 team had only three guys making more than $1m (2.9m, 1.1m and 1.1m) and they lost 111 games, but at least there were some future stars out there. The 55 win teams that preceded it were only different in their utter lack of talent and the cadaver of Carlos Lee still drawing a check. the Sacramento team this year would have been happy to suck if it weren't for the threat of the players' assn suing them for not trying, but they're going to be far better to watch because they signed a couple decent guys. It's far better than the back end of the rotation they sent out last year.

Just gotta say that Houston is not an example of doing things the right way. They dropped their payroll down to $30m in order to lose and amass draft picks. But Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, significantly larger than #5 and much larger than any other with only one team, and they are always near the top of league revenues, fourth last year and seventh the year before. For someone with those resources to be in the bottom few payrolls in the game is exactly the competitiveness problem that needs solving. What I would do about this is a poverty tax, where the gap between your payroll and the expected range gets taxed, and I'd include a multiplier based on your revenues to hit rich teams extra hard for not spending. The Twins are middle range in revenue and pretty close in payroll, about 52%. But last year the Red Sox made over $550m and only spent about $220m, about 40%. The Rays and As only spend about a third of their small revenues and that too is a problem. Tax those teams. I'd also add a multiplier to the luxury tax based on revenue rank so that teams spending way above their revenue (like San Diego the past few years) don't pay the same luxury taxes as teams with huge resources. Maybe teams with rev more than a standard deviation away from the mean get a 15% multiplier and two deviations get 25% (and same for those falling one or two deviations below the mean, but a discount.) I'd apply this to the current formulas that hit repeat offenders to amplify the effect even further. But we'd also need to change how the massive piles of luxury tax money gets allocated. You'd need some way of helping the low rev teams but not rewarding the ones just along for the handouts. Perhaps only sharing it out to those who have hit a minimum mark over the past three years (to allow rebuilding) and perhaps funding MLB.COM to improve the non-RSN broadcast product that many teams are coming to rely on for revenue.

Back in 1994 it was a big step to add the luxury tax and they did increase the types of shared revenue and what we got was 30 years of peace among the owners. It really was a beautiful period of relative calm and equality in baseball's long history. The new revenue sharing model is going to take some serious owner compromise to keep this thing running or we'll be back to the 1977-1993 period where only some teams had a realistic chance of assembling a championship roster. Remember the standard step of trading your top players once they reached free agency? Did you notice that once the money was spread a bit more evenly you saw franchise players signing huge hometown deals because every team could afford at least one of them? I think the next deal is going to have to focus on managing the remaining large money teams that still have lucrative cable networks. It's not clear how things are going to shake out for the rest, but those guys are going to have to share the money in ways they aren't going to like. Maybe set a level (200% median revenues?) where they just get luxury taxed harder than the regular rates. That way if the ailing Padres owner wants to take a run at a title before he dies his luxury rate is lower than the Dodgers, which could encourage other teams to spend above their ranking. Similarly, perhaps cap or reduce the revenue sharing monies sent to any team not at a calculated floor (50% of median payroll?) so that every team can afford it but you really are spending nothing for roster construction reasons rather than simple profit. But all this will take a serious cage match between the owners. As mentioned above, the current system isn't too bad and the main topic to be dealt with, the 80000 lb elephant in the luxury suite, is reporting and sharing revenue accurately. it's going to be very hard to solve and I don;t think the players have a lot of say in things this time.