Cris E

Caratini had to leave the game against CLE on July 22 after fouling a ball off his knee. Since that night he's 8-45 (14 K/4BB) with a .489 OPS. He hadn't been setting the world on fire before that, but he was at least near his season average with a .642 OPS in the 14 games leading up to it. So he should probably have been sent to the IL at some point, certainly after the deadline, to partially solve the three catcher conundrum. EDIT: It's worth pointing out that even with Caratini hobbled Alex Jackson only caught one inning since July 22 while playing two games at 1B and pinch running twice for Josh Bell at DH. Hard to tell what is going on in there sometimes.

You can't focus on everything, and having someone just hold down a position reliably and hit seventh like a professional is as valuable as having someone show up and give you 28 decent starts in the #4 spot. He's not in the #3 spot, but you don't ever have to worry. It simplifies team building and management immensely. It may turn out that Lee gets bumped from 3B when Culpepper gets pushed out (either from SS by Houston or some later guy taking 2B) but Brooks will be Clemens by then, fielding OK at a lot of spots and giving a decent at bat whenever asked. He's a low key pro and should find a role on this team for a lot of years to come.

I expect that part of the contingency planning that has Rojas building back up to a starter role would also include having someone to make some starts in St Paul if everyone else gets called up. For all the starting pitching they had to sort out last spring they are precariously close to bullpen games from here on out. If Ryan doesn't come back promptly, if Preilipp wears down, if Ober makes one false step on his high wire act, if they need to come up with an extra couple weeks of starts in October, there are plenty of ways they could run out and start missing Mike Paredes or John Klein. Even if Marquez never sees Target Field he could be important to the Saints over the next month of their season.

In another thread today I said that Martin and Keaschall are essentially the same guy: failed middle infielder who had to move to the OF, didn't have a lot of power but offered some OBP and SB in a lineup that needed it. I'd amend that to say that Martin is not as good a hitter against RH pitching and Keaschall is a worse fielder anywhere on the diamond. At one point Martin was a terrible OF too, and over time he has improved so there remains hope for Luke. And Martin has shown periods where he didn't show this huge split, so some hope may remain for him too. That said, they do kind of fill the same niche, and as soon as Larnach's platoon leaves the lineup (probably over the winter) then Martin's place will go with it and Luke will have LF mostly to himself to become a lead glove (lead as in Pb, not as in leadership) leadoff speedster.

If Tait reaches the majors in 2028 it'll be because he's not catching any more. He and Tinney are kind of in a race to see who gets handed a 1B glove first to get the power to Mpls.

Donaldson is a tool. I started writing about him and just stopped. It's better for my spirit to just leave him aside. I think the Saints suck up a fair amount of the baseball oxygen in the Twin Cities. Few MLB cities share space with a high quality minor league team, and I'm not sure there's enough baseball fanaticism in this market to cover 7000 cheap fun seats that showcase top prospects while still filling Target Field. You can see a lot of the top talent from good seats for a third of the cost of the Twins. (Or less. I saw Jenkins hit 2 HR and Kulpepper's last game in St Paul last week for a $10 walk-around ticket on a Thursday $2 beer night.) It'll take a good team in Minneapolis to overcome that, and honestly it hasn't happened lately.

Lots of guys are indifferent fielders who hit really well. Find a spot where they hurt you less, maybe 1B or DH or a corner OF, and let them hit. You give away a gift HR off the glove sometimes, but you also get a him hitting one into the corn as well. He's a good table setter, should probably lead off once Larnach is replaced with the next gen, and give him LF to make short throws and let the better OF guys handle that hard corner at Target Field and make the big boy throws. Honestly once ERod and Jenkins are up there's a very solid case to be made for gently sliding Buxton to RF, and at that point LF becomes the only option for him. If it was good enough for Ted Williams and Greg Luzinski it should be good enough for Luke Keaschall.

I think after the rookie ward 45 day thing hits this weekend Jenkins will be up. I think ERod comes in Sept. But I think both decisions are based on how they look, how they are trending, and their over-all timelines at least as much as how the last 2 weeks of data look. Jenkins matters at least as much as a competent CF glove (allowing Kreidler to return to utility) as he might as a hitter. I agree that late season AAA pitching gets thin, what with injuries, promotion of talent out and youth in. So a hot week where a guy still only has a .483 SLG in the International League (behind a lot of non-sluggers and AAA guys) says "I may still be the guy who played 21 games in July and slugged .425." (July was two weeks ago.)

1: RF, because Larnach is OK in LF (compared to Luke) and would be just as bad as Luke in RF. 2: Keaschall and Martin are the same person, except Keaschall is more than a platoon guy and thus replaces Martin. Also, I want Mendez to play 1B a lot between now and his debut. I see room for him over there before stealing much from Buxton Jenkins and the collective LF squad (Larnach, Keaschall, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, etc.) 3: Don't care, except that 3B range works differently from 2B range so it may come down to who fields where better. Lee is the coach's kid who can do everything and he may be more flexible than Culpepper. Let it play out once Houston seizes the SS job.

This is the whole thing. The Twins draft for hitters the way some teams draft for fastballs. For example their second rounder this year is a giant Texas catcher who hits like a lumberjack, but no one has said much about his glovework. As first rounders Lewis and Lee may have been a SS long-term, but Royce's injuries derailed that and Lee always had 3B or LF legs, so eventually they had to be moved. You draft a glove like Houston and you're drafting a SS that you hope hits enough to stick. You draft a glove like Sabato or Ganzalez or Kirriloff or Wallner or Larnach and you are hoping he keeps hitting enough to make you keep him on the roster. The Twins' high choice of Houston was noteworthy because of how out of character it was. But the larger hypothesis that the article tried to address is wrong. The flexibility is not the problem because it was never the goal. Sure Kreidler and Grey were picked up as utility guys, but no one else was. Those other guys were all acquired to play specific positions, positions that many of them really couldn't handle better than poorly. The theory has always been that you play guys at the hardest position they can handle to leave room for other, better hitters that can't play defense as well. Leave LF open for a Ted Williams or Greg Luzinski, Jeter can play SS well enough, Bobby Bonilla is so bad at 3B they have stationed an EMT in the first base box seats so it's time to move him, etc. This is just a stubborn, slow walk through that process that was delayed a long time before Shelton began moving guys down the spectrum. The bad D numbers cited have improved a lot month over month, and it's due to not wasting more innings or SS Lee or 2b Keaschall. So the flexibility thing is false when measured in terms of roster construction, but in terms of filling injury holes it is a real challenge, and one that every team has to face when they don't have enough depth at some positions. For example they have had trouble covering CF for Byron this year because they did not acquire the usual high quality (Harris/Bader) caddy for him, and inhouse subs (Clemens, Keaschall, Martin, etc) were not up to the task whenever Kreidler was at SS. But they did have a ready sub when Jeffers wrecked his hand. So in conclusion, what? I guess we go with Bart Simpson: Libya is a land of contrasts. Thank You.

Caratini got smoked on the knee a couple weeks ago and may not be at 100% right now. But his history at the plate is far stronger than Jackson's, and he's not a bad catcher. Given a choice between the two, I'd take the guy with a real proven record of hitting as my #1 for next year over a guy who found some Wonka ticket and rode the Golden Chariot of Enchanted BABIP to a league average OPS that's .200 over his career numbers.

So why the 27th man for games in IA? It doesn't seem like that big a hardship?

If he keeps this up he could be at 2.000 by the end of the month!!11!one!!

Distinction without difference: they are clearly managing the playing time with this in mind.

They have at least one better option at 2B (Klemens) so I wonder if Lewis' appearances there have more to do with managing the clubhouse than 100% baseball reasons. If Klemons is hurting, if Royce wants to pretend he can still play middle infield, if Jackson needs to start against a specific pitcher, whatever, then throwing a couple Lewis at 2B makes a bunch of other things fit. It's a long season and Shelton has way more to worry about than setting a lineup and sitting back.

Hmm. If they wait three days one can still be eligible for Rookie awards next year, plus he's hitting well and feels ready to go. OTOH the other has hit 0-3 with 2K in the past three months at AAA. Hey here's an idea: wait 72 hours before running this so that Walter can come up with a clean slate next year, plus let Emma see some decent pitching, and maybe figure out where Buxton's recovery is at.

Calling up kids to sit on the bench is not fruitful. Roden and Martin don't play a lot, and Buxton is going to cut into that when he returns. Rodan has been given the rope to prove he's not the guy, and Martin is a platoon guy and late inning defensive replacement (16 times since July 1.) So as we start making moves you'll see Rodan gone and Martin continue to start against lefties. The delay for Jenkins is to keep him eligible for rookie status next year, and Buxton is on whatever schedule it takes to get him on the field. Essentially you're complaining about the Jenkins choice and the team is not agreeing with you. EDIT: It's worth pointing out that the team is doing what everyone is carping about: play some folks and make some choices. They played Wallner and sent him down, then Fedko and decided he's not the guy, now Rodan and will soon decide he's not the guy. Move around Lewis and Lee and Keaschall and decide they are still Guys.

Between Ryan's butt, Preilipp's innings totals and Matthew's blister they may just be trying to patch together some contingency playoff innings. I mean they always dreamed of Rojas with maybe a year or two of pen work to learn the ropes and then becoming an awesome starter eventually, but they may need to speed him up if the MLB bats heat up and the rotation gets thin.

@MapleGroveTwinsFanThen why wasn't he up until after they traded away 40% of their starting rotation?

Max Clark is on a roster without a lot of better options. There have been so many injuries and disappointments that they had to go out and get Outman's proven 2026 record of offensive futility in mid-season because they had so few better choices. Right now they have three 40 man OF on the 60 day IL, another on the 10 day IL, and when Javier Baez finally came back from missing three months at the end of July they had to keep him in the infield because they are short there too. Detroit does not have a problem with too many choices.

ERod is ready in a macro sense (good numbers over time at the AAA level) but not in a micro sense (knock the rust off after three months) so he's got to get it going in St Paul before anything else. He also needs some 2026 MLB time, but it'll have to be as a Sept callup simply because there are bigger fish to fry in the next three weeks (Buxton, Jenkins) and the downside to not seeing him this year is forcing him onto the 2027 opening day roster (or trading him blindly before then.) He was mishandled, so bad on the Twins, but he also owns some of this (diving into first?!?) and needs to learn how to take care of himself the way other injury-prone players have in the past (eg Byron B.) That can happen at any level, but the only way to prove it is playing a ton. He'll get more reps in St Paul.

Agree. Jenkins has to play at least half time, and he isn't the hitter that Kaelen "1-9 .111" Culpepper was when he came up so you're going to see him stumble at the plate, a lot. There's not even an assurance that he'll be better than Buxton in the field, and with Byron on the verge of returning it makes even less sense.

I love seeing these Orioles players all with the same slight head shake and quiet "Where the hell was this two weeks ago?"

Yes, this, plus he got kind of beaten up with two HBP and a hard foul ball off the shin. Oh, and let's be serious: MIsieroski was not a bad game to miss on your third day at the new job. EDIT: Sorry, responding out of order. This was noted above.

It looks like when Zebby got pulled mid-day they were kind of piecing it together.