Hosken Bombo Disco

Get a good look while you can, my gut tells me he won’t be seen at all next year. Nice guy, but gosh there needs to be changes.

enthusiasm departed about the same time. There was a very short period after the trade deadline where the new guys were like, "we are all pulling together, nothing to lose" attitude, but that wasn't going to last.

also, by the way... "guilty". but I am doing better over time

Twins should have bought at the deadline, not sold.

Yup me too. I don't think this poster is playing the "kickem while they're down" game, but it is a game that's played a lot on here. Berrios is struggling too right now. Someone start a thread!

Not for Varland, but maybe Jax! 🙂

I am not following the league so cannot give you any sleeper names from other organizations. However, I can offer you three familiar names I would target for the bullpen for 2026: 1. Simeon Woods Richardson. As you said, starters pitching into the late innings will be important in 2026. Woods Richardson has demonstrated that he cannot do that. My carrot and stick for Sim would be, go back down to the minors for most of the season to show us you can consistently pitch 7 innings, or, stay in the majors with the big club and make yourself into a good relief pitcher. Pitchers often balk at being moved out of the rotation (pun intended), but in most cases pitchers will prefer to stay in the majors. 2. Connor Prielipp. As others have said, injuries have hurt his chances to be a starter. Invite him to spring training with the understanding he will be in the bullpen going forward. And then, tell him to let it rip. Whatever his best two pitches are. Let’s see what happens. He has options if needed. 3. Griffin Jax. Yes, Jax. He has been awful in Tampa Bay and I would not be surprised if he is absolutely miserable there and that it shows. No team wants a guy like that around. I don’t think Tampa Bay would just give him back for nothing, but another trade should be possible. I like his chances to recapture his success here in a familiar place. I’m sure you know that the Pohlads do not micromanage roster decisions. Whatever. We can all be optimistic in our own way that big meaningful changes will happen this offseason.

Yup, it was a key moment for me back when I found that out.

Mostly my feeling about this has been sadness, ever since the Duran trade. Didn’t care about the Paddack trade earlier that week.

It would have been even more specific if he had said the “Missouri Southern field hockey program.”

For me, the idea of “team control” has been turned on its head. How much team control did the Twins just trade away from their bullpen? These were their most effective relief pitchers. Adding up just Duran, Jax, and Varland, I count about 10 seasons’ worth of team control among them, Maybe the Jax-Bradley trade favors the Twins long term, but Jax as a strictly 8th-inning guy had a lot of value to the Twins. I tend to agree with people who say you need to look at the trades as a whole strategy together. And I admire the restraint of fans who can nicely say, “they didn’t get enough in return” and let that stand as their opinion.

I could come up with a dozen Twins Daily posters off the top of my head who I would trust more than the current crew. As for Taj Bradley, in a vacuum, sure I do think he has the inside track to win the #4 or #5 spot next year from among the group of Bradley, Matthews, SWR, Festa, Abel. There I even ranked them for you (you’re welcome). I would absolutely not trade Pablo Ryan or Ober. Bradley is a nice kid. But he’s not a prospect at this point. I would feel out SWR or Festa for bullpen roles. There was talk last year about stretching out Sands as a starter again. Maybe.

My sense is that in other markets, they would absolutely be talking about Rocco nonstop. That happening here? Nope. I mean, the guy is a goldmine of head scratching decisions. But hey, easier to have a guy like Royce Lewis or Aaron Hicks to kick around. How long did we have to listen to the media whistle past the graveyard in this market and not say a thing during the end of the Spielman-Zimmer era?

Yeah the real story is the Pohlads and Falvey. Royce Lewis is far down the list of problems. Although he's not doing himself any favors, on or off the field, especially with the terrible sports media in this market looking to pounce on stuff like this. People talk about Joe Ryan demanding a trade.. I hope Royce Lewis is also demanding a trade.

Also keep in mind, you cannot circumvent this by going to a local sports bar to watch the game. If you do go to bar and ask them to put the Twins game on tv, they are more likely to kick you out than put the game on.

There have been too many times when Rocco went out to to the mound to make a pitching change, and the starting pitcher talked him out of it. Usually it’s the starting pitcher but in this case it was Jax. So does he know when to take out a pitcher, or not? How much conviction does he have in his decisions? This is not something that should be overlooked. There aren’t statistics on this that can be tracked, but I would think a manager gets one of those every five years or once a career. Pretty much every starter on the Twins has told Rocco to go pound sand back to the dugout,

He dogged it when he tapped back to pitcher on the final out of the Miami series late last September, with the season hanging by a thread. Then there was a wild throw and he turned on the burners. Remember?

The discourse can sometimes be summed up as, "I don't know what I'm talking about, therefore none of the rest of you know what you are talking about, either."

Here is a post-2023 highlight reel but probably not what you are looking for: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bVYB-Kqp-eM&pp=ygUGVHdpbnMg Use these words in a search and a couple hype videos will come up: mlb twins bally 2023 season hype video WARNING: depressing to look back on what once was…

And then following it up with nights like tonight. 🙁 I doubt the Twins are still trying to see “what they have” in Julien, but are just letting him take at bats at this point. It’s not lost on me that he is the first left handed batter to take Skubal deep this season!

Fans who see 5 second clips, several of these clips over the course of a night, night after night, over the course of a season, season after season now. Fans who attend games in person, read profiles, hear stray comments on the radio, compare notes with other fans, and might occasionally catch a piece of inside information now and then not to mention the possibility of having some industry experience themselves. Which even if they were insiders, ironically wouldn’t necessarily make them correct.

Until Walker Jenkins buys it! (I know, I was just trying to get a joke going…)

Until Anthony Edwards buys it

I honestly feel like Mauer just got bad advice and wasn’t aware it would be a news story or how it would look. Unless he is still doing this. In that case, never mind.

He strapped on one of the parachutes, slung the backpack of cash on his back, walked out the back of the plane, and the FBI is still looking for him https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper