Calm down. The Twins are the only team actually trying to win in their division. They also have lots of trade capital to acquire rental players if needed.
The Twins have Ober for the next 4 seasons, ages 28-31. That's pretty much ideal for a pitcher. Next season is his first arbitration year. That will be a good time to discuss a 3 year deal with an expensive team option for 2028.
It's weird that until Pablo Lopez the ONLY starting pitcher to get a long-term deal from this front office was Randy Dobnak.
Dobnak's best value for the Twins would be to offset a trade for a team paying the luxury tax. Dobnak's contract is off the books for luxury tax purposes so a team like the Mets could save millions if they trade a player with a similar salary back to the Twins.
Bryce Harper was impressed.
Bryce Harper praises Bailey Ober: 'Good luck to everyone in the Central' - Sports Illustrated Minnesota Twins News, Analysis and More
They usually do that when the players are in town for an event. The older players typically aren't interested in traveling with the team.
I really like the idea of switching the color analyst in the booth this often. Each player only has so many anecdotes to tell before they run out of stories.
Eddie Guardado would be a fun special guest. Ron Gardenhire isn't that busy. Torii Hunter has done well on TV. We'll get AJ Pierzynski for the nationally broadcast games.
Canterino hasn't proven anything yet. His walk rate in Double-A was terrible. He needs to show he is ready in the minor leagues before he earns a promotion. I wouldn't be surprised if he begins the season in Double-A again considering how full the rotation is in St. Paul.
Moving him to the rotation for the playoffs doesn't make any sense. The regular season is when you get the most payoff moving an arm to the rotation because you can triple the number of innings you get from the pitcher. In the playoffs the trend is for starting pitchers to throw fewer innings than they did during the season and lean heavily on the bullpen. It's better to use him 3 innings in a best of 5 series to close out 3 wins than it is to get 4 innings from him in a single start and have him unavailable otherwise.