IndianaTwin

As I understand it, paying Philly a bit more would essentially be buying the ability to option him, rather than needing to keep him on the 26-man roster the whole season.

Not as new injury, but as buying a couple more weeks of rehab. If he's borderline ready, it's an okay move if it allows time for a fuller review of Castellano, for example.

What is the current assumption on Stewart? I've been reading a good likelihood of a brief IL stint. If so, that adds another opening for the bullpen.

As others have noted, it's hard to get a read on this outside the clubhouse, but these comments seem on target. As RCB notes, different people need different types of leadership. Significant in what MG says is that Buxton and Correa don't seem to have fought for the "Team Leader" title. Rather, their leadership styles seem to complement each other and they accept that in each other. In a group of 25-40 people, that's important. On MG's hitter/pitcher question, one gets the sense that Lopez is the cerebral leader of that group, bringing another dimension.

At SABR this past summer, the Twins brain trust was part of one of the panel discussions. What I was struck by was how they described their minor league development of pitchers. They said that for the first year/partial year, they largely try to keep guys in the same rhythm that they were used to and then they develop an individualized plan for each pitcher. On the surface, it looks like it’s worked very much according to plan for Raya. If you look at his game log from last year, he pitched every Friday night from April 5 to September 20. His pitch count very much shows a progression. In his first 12 games, he threw an average of 51 pitches, but even within that, you see a gradual increase. In his last 12 games, he threw an average of 71. That he gave up two earned runs in his last 20 innings and five in his last 34.1 suggests that something was working correctly.

Isn't the sense that Stewart is likely to start the season on the IL?

Coffee is free in the break room,* *though I don't drink coffee. What the break room really needs is Diet Dew on tap.

I’m not ignoring the 7 of 17 of his starts. I acknowledged I was cherry picking. I said, “Here’s his good starts and they were very good. He also had bad starts.” I also acknowledged that he likely won’t make it through the whole season healthy. Beyond that, you picked and chose season stats that aren’t very good (i.e., noting that he hasn’t had both ERA and FIP under 3.95 in the same year; for what it’s worth, Ryan has only done that once and Ober has only done it in his 11-start season — that’s a tough standard), so I highlighted career stats that are quite good (1.190 WHIP, when the league average was 1.27 last year; 4.69 K/BB, when the league average was 2.76 last year). I could have added that his career FIP is a reasonable 3.99, when the league average last year was 4.08. I’m just saying that when a guy shows that level of success on his good days, has had indicators of success elsewhere and is in year 2 of coming back from TJS, he’s going to get opportunities. And in the Twins context, I think it’s a good move to give him a shot. LA Vikes tossed out 23-25 starts, with 120-140 innings at 4-4.3 ERA as a successful season for him. Like Vikes, I’m an optimist, and I’d be pleased with that level of performance in the role he’s being asked to serve. For 2025, I think Paddack has a better likelihood of giving those stats than Raya/Lewis/Morris/Dobnak/Ynoa, etc., for example. Those are the guys that Paddack will take starts from, not Festa and Matthews. Said another way, if Festa and Matthews are Nos. 6 and 7 on the depth chart, it’s almost a certainty that at least one of them will make a start by the end of April and the other by mid-May or so, very likely earlier in both cases. I’d rather not go into a season where I’m assuming that Raya or Lewis will need to make a start by mid-May.

Because... A) He has a career WHIP of 1.190 B) He has a SO/BB of 4.69. C) And... I get it. He had another seven starts, a couple of which were so-so/weak and several of which were atrocious. In total, nearly a third of his earned runs came in two of his 17 starts and more than half came in four. As the OP notes, the issue is consistency, but when a guy throws that many solid to very good games (including some of the team's best starts of the year), it's worth going back to him to see if the percentage of good starts can increase in the second year back from TJS. Will Paddack make the full 32 starts? Very doubtful, based on history. Frankly, I'm guessing the Twins don't think he will either. But realistically, if Festa's career high in innings is 124 and he's only spent a bit more than a half season at AAA, he's not going to make 32 starts either. However, with injuries, Festa is probably going to get 20 or more starts in the majors no matter what. The question is whether those 20 come in April-August or if they start a few weeks into the season. Paddack is one more arrow in the quiver. His 20 or starts aren't going to come at the expense of the No. 6 guy, Festa. They are going to come at the expense of the Nos. 9 or 10 guys, who they hopefully won't need to go to as quickly.

If you are going to discount Freeman because of the presence of Betts, wouldn't you similarly have to discount Correa because of the presence of Altuve? At least in bWAR, Altuve "led" the team.

As the saying goes, “You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.”

A question I’ve been wondering, and this seems as good of a place as any to ask it. Have the Twins themselves actually talked about Julien in the 1B mix? He seems to get a lot of traction there on TD for only having played 5 MLB and 23 MiLB games at the position. (I’m not arguing for or against, just wondering if I’ve missed something.)

One encouraging sign was to see an article that listed current injuries that could lead to 60-day IL stints and to see the Twins as one of seven teams with none listed.

This isn’t a statement that’s pro- or anti-Falvey, but one of a new owner’s first jobs is likely going to be to determine who will be leading the front office. If the new ownership comes on board at any point during the season, I would expect they would let the season play out, including using that time to evaluate their comfort level with Falvey, et. al. With that in mind, I don’t think many new owners would be inclined to hand out extensions until the future front office leadership is settled. (At least I hope a new owner doesn’t jump in so quickly as to get ahead of what the FO views as priorities. That sounds a little Cohenian.)

Who?

They got Hader too?!?!?! Or did you mean Doulombe and Trance? 😀

I’m with those who say we need to wait to see how one move affects another. That said, I have a hard time getting too wound up by rumors reported by the reporter who just told us they have around $5 million available when they’ve since spent about double that.

Apologies if this is a repeat from someone else's comments -- I scanned pretty quickly. Michael A Taylor (career 80 OPS+) was coming off a 90 OPS+ season as a 31-year-old when he came with an excellent defensive reputation. Harrison Bader (career 91 OPS+) is coming off an 86 OPS+ as a 30-year-old as he comes with an excellent defensive reputation. If there's reason to believe that Bader will do what Taylor did, it's a great fit for the roster.

Apologies for quoting myself, but assuming that Bader signed for more than $2 million, I rest my case in reference to the first paragraph.

And returned to throw five outings (counting playoffs) with no runs allowed. Not overly concerned with carryover.

I think we've seen multiple times over the years that media speculation on how much money is available isn't overly precise. "Some financial leeway, perhaps $5 million" seems above average in its imprecision. I think Coulombe is a good signing at $3M, and I'm not too concerned about that hampering other moves. If the right additional person comes along and the cost is perceived as a value at $4M, they will find a way.

Sorry -- smart aleck comment on my part referring to there being 15 teams in the league. Given that, I think they'll finish better than 16th. But yes, I think they can be very good. Last year I was optimistic because they had numbers, but they had key injuries and some guys didn't come through. This year I think they have better quality in their numbers, so hopefully that's paired with better health and continued development from people.

I'll predict they finish above No. 16 in the league.

Opening Day does come into play, however, in that the count for the 60 days doesn't begin until Opening Day. So while the Twins could put someone on the 60-day IL on February 20 or whatever, that player wouldn't be eligible to come off the IL until 60 days after March 27, so something like late May 26.

Not really -- there are only seven infielders on the 40-man. One will likely play a lot of OF and a couple others are likely to play a lot of IL. There are "infielders" listed among the outfielders, but one of them isn't actually very good in the infield, Last year, they had 11 different guys start games in the infield. I think they are more likely to add an infielder, particularly if he plays 1B, than to DFA one.