IndianaTwin

I don't think it's going to work to start Lopez and Greene each on one days' rest. 🤣

Potentially even "win-win-win" when one considers the possibility of missing a similar number of "now that we've tendered Lewis, we should trade him" articles from November to March.* *See also: "2025-26 Offseason: Larnach, Trevor."

But you do realize that if we trade Lewis now, we'll miss out on the opportunity for eleventy-seven "should the Twins non-tender Royce Lewis" articles on TD between now and November, right? 🤣

😀 I don't know if you meant this facetiously or if people are taking it this way, but this isn't far off from where I am. They've made so much progress attitudinally this year, so don't mess with the positive mojo by trading vets and don't trade pieces that are close enough to help 2027. Make modest moves that tinker with the team if they become available, but don't trade just to make trades. From past years, i think of something like getting Sergio Romo for Lewin Diaz as the level of trade I'm most interested in. I don't remember how highly regarded Diaz was, but I don't remember much weeping and gnashing of teeth when we lost him.

If the thought is to trade Larnach and replace him with a Wallner that is hitting well in St Paul, I'd rather just trade Wallner, even if for a bit less, and not mess up the major league roster mojo.

Bader for Hendry Mendez and Jeremy Villoria. Bader was a free agent, so only two months of value. Bader was way better defensively and was hitting above average, so he had generated 2.7 bWAR for the Twins, whereas Larnach has generated 1.6 this year. Larnach's having an extra year may outweigh that Bader was performing better, but I'm not sure that's a huge difference.

I'll modify to say "disagreeing and debating with people like you who approach it civilly is what brings me back." Thanks.

I’ll take a shot. You may or may not agree, but I think they are things to consider.. 1. As you note, it does depend a ton on what the return is. I guess I’m not as convinced as others on the amount they receive. Which is related to… 2. Is what they will get substantially more than what they would get with a comp pick? As others have noted above, the QO piece may change with a new CBA, but because the QO process is resolved before the Dec. 1 and some free agent contracts will have been signed by then, it’s hard for me to see a new CBA affecting this year’s offseason. 3. Trading him takes away the slight possibility of accepting a QO. I don’t think he will, but if he’s healthy, I’m strong considering offering it. People think it’s a no brainer that he would accept it. I don’t. I think the salient comparable contracts are that Raleigh’s contract buys out his final arb year and then gets him $24.66M for his 31-33 seasons and that Realmuto got $23.875M for his 31-34 seasons back in 2022-25. Will Smith’s AAV is only $14M, but it took guaranteeing 10 years to get it that low. Is Jeffers as good as Realmuto or Raleigh? Probably not, but consider inflation and that Jeffers is a year younger. I could see something like 3/$60M or 4/$72M as his targets. Even if $23M is high on a per-season basis, Raleigh is a good example of why a catcher is going to be really reluctant to pass on a potential long-term deal. AND if Jeffers does take it, cool. It probably is an overpay, but it’s only a one-year deal and puts them in a very good spot. They’d even now have Caratini or Jackson as a trade chip. 4. Trading him lessens the chance of him resigning. Folks rightly note that trading him doesn’t preclude the option of resigning him, but there are very few instances where that actually happens. Rather than saying, “We’re trading you, but we’d like to bring you back” sounds a lot different than, “We do really want to extend you. In fact, we want to so badly that we don’t want you to even taste another team’s clubhouse. 5. I think there’s also psychology involved. Particularly on the heels of last year, trading Jeffers sends a brutal message to the remaining players. I don’t want to do that. Conversely, keeping him sends a message that the FO is committed, particularly if they pair it with modest adds, perhaps a rental starting pitcher for a modest prospect or a reliever for the same. I’m talking a Sergio Romo for Lewin Diaz-level trade. 6. Similarly, in the context of their fan PR, trading Jeffers sends a brutal message to fans. Keeping him and even making some minor trades to add communicates to fans that they are trying. Giving him a QO and seeing him decline sends a positive message that they are trying. Giving him a QO and having him accept it sends a positive message. Yes, folks on TD will be angry that the didn’t get an extension done in those cases, but I’m not sure the general public (the ones on the season-ticket call list) views it quite the same way. 7. Catchers play a role in pitcher development. I like the thought of the young pitchers having two more months of throwing to the veteran catcher. I think keeping Jeffers has a better chance of contributing to pitcher development than trading him does. 8. Keeping him helps their chances for 2026. Does keeping him turn them into World Series contenders? No, but even a first-round loss contributes to ticket sales that will be significant on the heels of the PR debacles of the last several off seasons. Those are nuanced reasons for keeping him. None of them is reason by itself. The composite of them may or may not convince you, but I offer them as additional factors that move the conversation past “trade him or lose him for nothing” as the only consideration.

Here's the bottom part of his baseball-reference.com page. I don't know if anyone has done a study to see the level of validity to these measures, but it paints a pretty bleak picture of his changes and I find them fun to look at. Also, close to half of his bWAR (17.8 of 35.8) came in three seasons that were spaced out, so it's not like he had a dominant run. Those years were 2015, 2019 and 2023, by the way -- trade for him and sign a one-year extension! But hey, any time when you can even ask the question, that's a good player.

Thanks. Makes sense throughout. Because I'm optimistic enough about some of the pieces for 2027, Ryan seems like an essential enough piece in the whole that I don't like the thought of opening that hole. With Lopez coming back from injury and the youth of Bradley, I don't want to just add one (or even two) to the Prielipp/Abel/Rojas group in a trade of Ryan -- I'd like to know going in (as much as one ever can know) that I've 30-32 starts covered with Ryan. I tend to view TJ guys similarly and posted something similar to this on Lopez. Someone pointed out that he had "only" the internal brace procedure rather than the full TJS ligament reconstruction, which apparently does shorten the recovery time somewhat. I've not heard anything about recovery and whether he's on track, early or behind. Probably too early to tell. Ditto on extension. I made a comment elsewhere that in my mind, simply adding a year to his contract at a similar salary feels like a no-brainer for both sides. No long-term commitment for the Twins, a second year to prove he's definitely back for Lopez as heads to free agency as a 32 YO, hopefully with a shot at getting another four years or so from someone. I also like that it would take his leaving off the same calendar as Ryan's.

Fair responses all. I don't know that I'd argue they mismanaged him (at least not substantially) in the past, even when they had Vazquez as the other. I would have liked to see them tilt a bit more to Jeffers. Rather than essentially 80/80 between the two catchers, I'd have preferred something more like 90/70 or even 100/60. For example, I would have liked them to use the off day as a boost to tilt the games toward Jeffers. In other words, by playing him every other calendar day rather than than every other game, that would probably gotten them closer to the 90/70. Going into this season, I was actually hoping for something like a 108/54 split, with Jeffers playing two of every three. Also to note, Jeffers hasn't tailed off that much in the second half. His career OPS numbers are .762 and .742 before and after the break, so a modest decline, but I don't know how much difference makes it statistically significant. Last year helped in bringing those numbers together. He hit better in the second half -- .769 to .742. In 2023, he hit MUCH better after the break (.778 to .928). In 2024, the decline was so large I have to wonder if there was injury or something at play, but in two of the three last three years he's actually hit better in the second half. I thought I read that his not wearing down last year was a factor in them planning to move away from the 80/80 to something that seems like it was at least intended to something like 110-120 starts.

@chpettit19, this comment may actually be better for another post, since it's not really Jeffers-specific, but it sorta is, so I'll put it here. I've been smackdab with you on a lot of your posts, but you've had several where you've named a preference for trading both Jeffers and Ryan under the premise that 2027 doesn't seem promising. I'm curious on your thought process on that. (And to show my bias, I lean toward keeping Jeffers for reasons that are mostly beyond this post, but am really interested in keeping Ryan, believing that 2027 actually does shape up well.) I start from the premise of saying the Twins were 26-28 through the first third. They will be either 28-26 or 27-27 for the second third after Tuesday's game. I'd love to see them go on a run, but if they only match those, they will be essentially an 81-win team. I'm not sure your definition of "competitive," but in one of the strands, people (I don't remember if it was you) were using something like 90 wins. Is that a fair number for this exercise? So as I think about whether the Twins can be nine games better next year, it seems pretty feasible. ROTATION: Lopez is an add, so a rotation would start with Lopez/Ryan/Bradley. Particularly when you consider that Bradley starts the year with a strong season under his belt, adding Lopez makes that trio a much better front half of the rotation than they've had this year. Then, when you consider some level of success from Matthews, Prielipp, the snippet from Abel, maybe even Rojas if they decide to/need to keep him as a starter, and that all of these guys are younger than average and would be a year more experienced, it feels like the back end of the rotation should also be stronger than it has been this year. This doesn't take into account that Lopez's injury has made Ober the de facto No. 3 starter this year, whereas a Lopez return slides Ober to No. 4 at best. BULLPEN: In the bullpen, much has been written about how bad/inexperienced they were at the beginning of the year. In a bunch of articles, I've applauded their approach of churning through bodies this year as a major part of their building a bullpen. I've had a hope that they will essentially identify one body per month that they can pencil in as an expected contributor for next year. So far, I've got Gomez, Morris, I would say Banda and Rojas if they go the pen route with him. Funderburk hasn't been up all year, Sands just came back and the first couple outings from Nance have looked promising. There's two more months left. If they can get another two to "count on status" and enter the offseason with as many as six solid relievers, that's a far cry from entering the season with what we did this year. HITTERS: I'm not going to go through the offense position by position, but it seems the net is that it would be better next year, even with just the internal folks. Buxton is the only real stud and returns. I keep thinking that Clemens is going to turn into a pumpkin, but the dadgum guy keeps performing. The current Lee at 3B seems substantially better than the Lee that started the year at SS. The current Lewis at 1b seems substantially better than the Lewis who started the year at 3B. It feels like I could make similar statements about others. And then it seems likely (or at least very feasible) that somewhere between Jenkins, Culpepper and others there will be some level of addition from rookies. The sum of the parts next year seems better than what the sum of the parts has been this year. And that's using a current offense that's somehow the AL leader in runs scored, so it's not starting from a bad spot. A note on losses. At this point, I see Bell as the only known loss among contributors on the offensive side of the ball. I'm putting an asterisk on Jeffers. I think it's at least 80 percent that he's gone, but my personal preference is to hang on to Jeffers through the deadline and offer him a QO. I don't think he would take it, because I think he'll easily get at least 3/$60M or 4/$72M. But if he does take it, I don't feel bad about what might be a slight overpay of $23M on a one-year deal, and they'd enter the offseason in a great spot. Trade Caratini or Jackson if Jeffers surprisingly takes the QO. As I said, I think it's most likely Jeffers is gone, so for the sake of this conversation, let's assume that. But I think Bell is easily replaceable internally, so losing Jeffers would leave catcher as the only known setback among the positions. I think that even with no moves, there would be an improvement over this year's 81 wins. Enough to get to 90? I'm not sure, but perhaps. You've said, "as currently constructed," so let's leave it there. But it seems like that's a roster that doesn't have huge holes to fill. Even with six or so knowns in the bullpen, I'd love to see additions there. I don't have a specific position in mind, but I'd love to see them add a bat that they could count on being the level of this year's Larnach. Tom Pohlad has again made comments about spending and wanting to be competitive. I commented in another post yesterday that while much of TD is going to discount (or ignore or disparage) anything he says, I take him at least somewhat at his word. He's been smart enough to say the right things in terms of PR regarding recognizing the frustration of fans, yadda, yadda. I think he's smart enough to know that making the kind of statements he's made recently and then not following through would be an even bigger PR disaster than he inherited. So again, I've really liked your posts, but I've been curious on where you see things differently.

Except for last year, when he caught 88. And in 2024, when he caught 86. And 2023, when he caught 82, And 2021, when he caught 84. And most of those were load management years, when they made the choice to time share evenly. This year, when not limited by a hitting injury, he's caught three games out of four (37 of 48 team games before the hamate injury, 8 of 13 since). If he continues that pace and doesn't get hurt, he'll catch around 85 games despite a long IL stint. If not for dealing with a non-catching injury, he'd be on target for about 120 games. In today's game, that's a true starting catcher, particularly when you add a handful of DH games on top of that. I do agree that they can resign him even if they do trade him, but it seems like that doesn't happen very often. A Google search gave me an article from last year's deadline that only came up with Jack Flaherty (2024), Aroldis Chapman (2016), Yimi Garcia (2024), Jay Bruce (2017), Kelly Johnson (2015) and Jason Hammel (2014). It didn't claim to be a complete list, but there aren't others that jump out at me. It seems there's a far greater likelihood a player resigns if the team didn't trade him.

Um, Boston is only 1.5 games ahead of the final wild-card and there are five teams within 3.5 games of them. Would I rather be where Boston is than where any of the teams following them is sure. Sure. Has Boston wrapped up a playoff spot? Not even close. Teams make up 3.5 games in a week all the time, let alone with more than a third of the season left.

I get that the current tenor on TD will lead mostly to comments ranging from “I’ll believe it when I see it” to “He’s just another *#¥^}^+ Pohlad,” but thanks for posting this. I think there has been a big gap on TD by no one reporting these comments. Call me naive, but I think they do bring a different narrative than past FO comments. He has said the right things from a PR perspective in terms of wanting to win back fans. I think he is smart enough to know that making these kinds of comments and then not following through would be an even worse PR disaster than he inherited. Will it be a $160 million payroll going forward? I wouldn’t count on it, but I do think there will be some level of increase.

To clarify, we should give someone a modest prospect in order to get a rental right-handed bat? While a lot of folks on TD suggest we trade Jeffers for a modest prospect? it seems like it would be easier to just keep Jeffers.

I wasn’t making any statement on whether I thought this was the best way to spend it (though it might appear that way with my attempt to parrot the OP with my “Imagine how…” sentence). And I wasn’t saying they shouldn’t have done more. Rather, I was trying to rebut the notion that the FO did nothing with the money saved on Correa.

I'm sorry. I thought you were referencing the desire of some to send Outman down after 21 plate appearances -- I clearly misread your post. (And no, I wouldn't send Jenkins down after 21 at bats either. 😀)

Savings on Correa: $21.5M Free agent signings: Bell: $7M Caratini: $10M Rogers: $2M I guess I'm not following the logic that says they didn't redeploy the savings from the Correa trade. True, they didn't explicitly link the Correa savings when announcing any of these signings (they never do), but that's $19M in free agent spending that seems unlikely to have happened if they still had Correa's full salary on the books. That also doesn't count signing Larnach for $4.475M when he was strongly considered to be a non-tender candidate. Add that and they more than redeployed the Correa savings. Imagine how different this year's club would look without those four available. EDIT to add: I note that elsewhere you have a post pleading for an extension on Bradley. Depending on terms, I would potentially support that. Having moved $21.5M of Correa's salary for future years makes that a much more viable option.

In a recent interview, Shelton said that a current goal is to "give Roden extended run." I think that's a good move. But on your question, they already burned an option this year in his not making the Opening Day roster.

Yes, please.

As a hint toward that, here is his game log before getting hurt: At that point in the season, it was worth it to consider not playing the rookie-status game if he was pounding the door in. At this point, I don't see them ignoring that factor.

(Bold highlight mine.) You've also identified another variable -- where does Jenkins play? Injuries change things, I recognize -- Keaschall wouldn't have played CF recently had Buxton not been hurt. But if Buxton is healthy and able to play defense, he will be in CF. I'll buy the approach that says Buxton will eventually move to a corner spot, but I don't see that happening midyear. So for now, Jenkins could play CF on days Buxton is off and corner spots on many other days. However, Jenkins hasn't played an inning in the corner since May 2. I suspect we'll get a clue on the likelihood of him coming up when he starts to get some time in corner OF spots in St. Paul.

And on the slight chance he does come up, it likely won't happen before August 14. Unless altered by the CBA, if he starts 2027 on the active roster and wins the Rookie of the Year award, the Twins get an extra draft pick. Bringing him up before August 14 costs him rookie status for 2027.

Are you sure your brother didn't buy the Twins without your knowing it? Or are you really Joe and hiding your identity?