Cris E

During the post-game they had a great montage of Ryan reactions from the game. The guy is a piece of work, lots of fun to watch out there. I'd pay him and Jeffers and see what they can do in 2027. There are a bunch of good parts here, a likeable bunch that are only a few pieces away. Hope they step up over the winter.

Expecting both Culpepper and Houston to make the big jump to MLB without issues less than a year from now (especially in the context of this week's moves) seems awfully optimistic. Both have significant work to do at their current levels, and then Houston should see AAA and we still have to get Luke's head back on his shoulders and hope that Wallner and Lewis can regain their lost luster. 1B allows a hitter with just about any glove to get a spot in the order. Lee needs to keep improving his batting a lot to earn a 1B spot, especially if they find some other good hitter who can handle the big mitt. And I really expect that one of the AAA guys is going to be forced to 1B during 2026. The big league team has been piecing it together over there for a long time, and while the France and Clemens types are a lot cheaper than real 1B, they just don't perform like a prime Wallner minus the terrible RF defense (to name just one example.)

Morris gets a save! Who's next?

Caratini was a fine pickup, certainly one of the top couple catchers out there that weren't due starter money. His ops has been over ,700 for the past three years and this season he's been quite unlucky with a BABIP around .220. Jackson is a defensive catcher who managed a very uncharacteristic 112 OPS+ last year, squarely topping his previous best of 85 OPS+ in 7 AB when he was 24. No one expected that to be repeated, and they were right, he's back to being a non-hitter.

I don't care what glove he carries around until he can hit .200 again. 1B is where to hide a guy who can only hit, or at least can hit enough and field really well. Royce is neither of those guys right now (and we don't have nearly the alternatives at 3B that we do at 1B: there's no Hendry Mendez or Gabby Gonzalez that can be shifted easily. )

And immediately you'll have a World Series Champion in five years.

The thing about 1981 is that the Twins you are probably thinking of didn't play much at all. The only WS guys were Hrbek, Launder and Gaetti and they only played 24, 14 and 9 games that year. There were a bunch of other pieces that looked OK (Roy Smalley, Gary Ward, John Castino) but nothing to work with. You're probably thinking of 1982 where Laudner and Hrbek and Brunansky and Gaetti and Viola were all full time players. I think half the reason some of these guys weren't called up in 1981 was to put on a little bit better show in the new park for the first season. But it was a dumb reason since so few people went to games at the Metrodome. (Fun fact: first game in the new park was 4-9-81 and the attendance was 42658. The second game was 4-10-81 and the attendance was 4552. I tried counting games over 20k but had to lower my sights a bit: they had 12 games over 10k. including opening night, fan appreciation, and the Yankees and Brewers) Sorry, that was wrong: 1982 was first Metrodome year, still 52k on opening night and 5213 for game 2. They did sell a lot more seats to see plastic baseball.

Most teams have trouble moving kids from AA/AAA to long-term success in the majors. The individual players that do it are exceptions and lauded because it happens so inconsistently. In fact fans of other teams are almost certainly wondering why their team can't crank out rookies like the Twins keep producing: Keaschall, Lewis, Julien and Miranda were all the envy of baseball for a year or three. The Orioles have had the best minor league lineup for years but have had huge difficulty getting those guys to produce regularly at the major league level. Gunnar Henderson is a ROY hitting .211 and looking lost this year. Colby Mayo was a very highly rated prospect who has not hit in MLB. ROY runner-up Colton Cowser has only had one good year in four and his OPS+ is down to 46 right now. Jackson Holliday looked good through two years but broke his hamate in spring training and only returned to the majors this week. The Twins have managed to get good first seasons out of some guys where other teams have difficulty launching new hitters, but sophomore slumps are a very real problem everywhere. We have Julien, Lewis, Keaschall, and Roman Anthony in BOS has seen a 47 point drop in OPS+ this year, and BAL sophomore Jeremiah Jackson's OPS+ is down 25 points from last year. The Padres CF Jackson Merrill was a ROY runner up in 2024, but since his big debut his OPS+ have gone 127, 113 and 68 this year. James Outman has never matched his rookie year with the Dodgers. Finally, recall that Wallner was sent down to regain his hitting stroke at the start of 2024 as well and he came back to have a fine season. Meanwhile Austin Martin took years in both AAA and MLB to emerge as the player people seem to trust today. Rooker played in MIN, San Diego and Kansas City before blooming in Oakland at age 28. There's no single path.

Grey and Kreidler are a utility platoon, which is not a thing. Pick one as your Bondo guy to fill in the ugly holes and use the other spot to make longer-term improvements like letting Gonzalez be Clemens' platoon partner for a while and see what he's got. Heck, at this point I'd keep them both at 3B and send down Lewis. Either way, if Gabby sucks you can make another move in a month, like when Royce rediscovers himself and demands the MLB per diem again.

Old age may cause a player to become a bad hitter or fielder, but it does not change the fact that they then became a bad hitter or fielder. That's quite a thought, everyone is bad eventually. You sound like a lot of fun.

Outman should have his birthday more often.

It won't start a trend any more than submariners or knuckleballs or Jamie Moyer did. It works because almost no one does it so no one is prepared when they see it. Good for him for finding a way to make his game play, and I hope he hones his craft and sustains this for a long time. One of the fun aspects of baseball is seeing the different ways to play this game.

It's not wrong. Many of us still remember that Carlos Silva game years later.

Drafting is hard. There are some years where almost no one emerges as a star from the whole thing. In 2003 eight of the first rounders never played an MLB game.

The Royce they drafted was awesome and not second guessed. Of course that was before a series of major injuries that may have robbed him of some of his skills. You may as well be talking about two separate players at this point.

They'd also probably want to have Culpepper ready to move up. He's not exactly kicking the door down and they've got a utility player platoon up now to cover for him in the short term.

I think this winter Lewis went out of the system and had someone new help him with his swing. But he's got to be honest with himself and respect the numbers since he came back from that last IL trip. He's just not right, either because he's still hurt or he has lost some physical capacity or he's just lost his swing. He's got himself psyched out right now and he's got to clear his mind and take a fresh look. It's time to go back and figure out what he can do and how to build a major league swing with those pieces. It all needs a look, from where he stands and holds his hands down to leg strength, reaction times and basic physical metrics. Right now he's so lost I'd go so far as to check his vision.

Enough with the "Miranda isn't any good" trope. It is utterly wrong. His career was derailed by a pitch to the head. This is clear as day. Some day San Diego may end up with an excellent hitter as a result of the chance they're taking by carrying him for a year or two. Best of luck to them.

Re-sign or resign (ourselves to not signing him?)

So 58% grounders and a .421 BABIP? My first question was "Yuck, who is playing infield in CR?" Well that would be Marek Houston, Danny de Andrade and Brandon Winokur, a group of SS prospects that should be pretty decent with the glove (or at least not represent any kind of Jullien/Miranda Hide A Bat games.) I haven't seen any games from down there but I imagine things should not be like this. What's the opinion of someone who has watched this team? How are they playing? Hill just had a big gap between his last two starts (4/28 and 5/10), what was the reason for that? But things looked better when he came back, so let's hope he took a reset and figured something out.

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.