DJL44

I also have never shopped at Dior. I've heard of it but I wouldn't even know where they have a store. I looked it up and anyone spending $990 for a t-shirt is just doing it to show off how much money they have to waste. By his analogy I would have to believe that spending money on Carlos Correa is just wasteful, conspicuous consumption for a rich team to try to impress rich people.

This is true. Carlos Correa just had the best season by a Twins SS since Roy Smalley in the late 1970s. He was worth every penny of his contract.

David Price was the cost to get Mookie Betts. They're thrilled to have Mookie Betts.

The free agent market for 2B is very weak this offseason. Trade Jorge Polanco and move Arraez back to 2B. They have Nick Gordon as a backup and Edouard Julien should be in AAA. This all seems a little off topic.

Looking at these three, I wouldn't count on Kirilloff to ever play again. Larnach should be the starting LF and Wallner can take Kyle Garlick's spot on the roster. If you could take the best characteristics of Wallner and Kepler you'd have an All-Star.

Don't count out Celestino. He's younger than this trio and has the best glove.

That surgery has me very worried about his future in MLB. If he gets 500 at-bats he should get consideration for Comeback Player of the Year

It's not an opinion contest. If you want the batting title you need hits.

I would still bring in another starting pitcher through free agency. You see Gray, Mahle, Ryan, Maeda, Ober, Paddack, Winder, Varland, SWR and Balazovic I see good, injured, decent, old & injured, injured and inexperienced, injured, injured and inexperienced, rookie, rookie and ineffective. Almost everyone is either past their prime, coming into their prime or coming off an injury. They had nearly the same mix of pitchers this season and still gave 300 innings to Bundy, Archer and Smeltzer. It would be great to add someone like Kyle Gibson, Jameson Taillon or Noah Syndergaard to that group. They can move Maeda and/or Winder to the bullpen if needed to fit everyone on the roster.

Austin Martin has a lot better foot speed than Arraez. I like the Nick Gordon comp. Both highly rated draft picks who can't quite handle SS at the big league level. Maybe Martin can hit the cutoff on a relay. I don't think Celestino has hit his ceiling yet. He makes a lot of rookie mistakes. I doubt we see Martin debut until September 2023. He won't be on the 40 man roster this offseason.

I also like the Twinstripes

I think the looming cable bust might provide an opportunity

Make Cleveland change. They changed their mascot. Sandstone and black.

I would flip-flop it. Share all the media money (TV, radio, streaming) into a national pool. That's money the league creates by putting a franchise in a media market. Don't share any gate money at all. This will incentivize teams to get people into the stadium. I don't care if they do it by winning like the Yankees and Dodgers or with a circus show like the Savannah Bananas.

Any update on his defense?

Yeah, but with Buxton as the patient

I thought it was a core muscle injury for Larnach. Kirilloff has the wrist injury. We need a Twins "Operation" where you match the injured player with the body part.

I want to see Woods-Richardson pitching against Detroit on 10/1. No more starts from Bundy or Archer.

I don't think MLB wants parity. They make a lot more money if the Yankees and Dodgers make the playoffs annually.

Caleb Hamilton is lousy, shouldn't be in the big leagues.

What players you put in the lineup matters a lot more than the batting order.

He's paid what he's worth. If he could play healthy every day he'd be worth $300M. He can't so the Twins get a discount.

No. If another team wants Helman I'm pretty sure they could get him for cash.

It is this belief that they have special sauce and other teams don't. The evidence says they are not special when it comes to finding or developing talent.

Rocco is coming back because Rocco is doing everything Falvey wants him to do. Levine is coming back because he's acquiring the kind of players Falvey wants him to acquire. The roster, especially the pitching staff was not constructed to give the Twins a good chance at winning. The Twins don't want to spend money on long-term contracts for starting pitchers. Part of this is you're usually paying a premium. Part of this is probably ego thinking they can produce this consistent pitching pipeline despite all the evidence to the contrary. That means they spent money on short-term stopgaps like Bundy and Archer thinking they could use them as 4-5 inning pitchers and turn the game over to the bullpen. That's the best "value" for the money. Most team's bullpen can patch over the 5th and 6th innings for a weak starter every few days but few teams have the depth to do that every game. You can't construct your starting rotation with 5 inning pitchers unless you have a deep, kickass bullpen to rely on. This directly conflicts with their philosophy finding relievers which is to never pay for the bullpen when you can grab guys like Megill off waivers or use your failed minor league starters like Jax. Relievers are volatile so the cheapest way to assemble a bullpen is to get a lot of options in the offseason and sort it out as the season progresses. This also make sense from a "value" perspective if you can quickly determine which relievers are going to perform that season and which ones will not. The experience with Emilio Pagan this season proves pretty dramatically that this organization is NOT good at quickly determining which relievers are going to perform unless you give them someone obviously dominant like Duran. Either one of those strategies (5 inning starters, sort out your bullpen) can help a team win on a budget but putting them together is a recipe for disaster. You can't go with a rotation of 5 inning starters unless ALL of your relievers are studs. You won't have a bullpen full of stud relievers if you're using rookies and secondhand waiver wire pickups. You can use low leverage innings to sort out the back end of your bullpen to find the treasure among the flotsam but not if you need to use the bullpen in the 5th inning every game. If you want to construct a bullpen that way you need at least 3 starting pitchers who consistently pitch into the 6th and sometimes the 7th inning to give the high leverage relievers a breather. It is all hubris and ego. "We don't have to pay for pitching talent. We're so smart we can develop our own through our genius pitching development program and our analytics team's ability to find treasure in other team's trash."