IndianaTwin
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What Josh Bell's Signing Means for the Rest of the Twins Lineup? I think it means (further) trouble for Julien. Injuries leading to IL transactions tend to open things up, but if one assumes a roster of 2 catchers, 6 infielders and 5 outfielders, it's harder and harder to see Julien among the top six infielders, given his positional limitation. In the current mix, I'd see Bell, Keaschall, Lee, Lewis, Clemens and then Fitzgerald because of his ability to play on the left side. That Julien doesn't have options is a strike in favor of making the team so they don't lose him, but it's also strike against him when it comes to keeping him around vs. a Fitzgerald or Gasper, who both do. There's talk of Keaschall to the OF, but it seems the most likely way for that to happen is Culpepper thriving and forcing Lee to 2B. I suppose it's possible Julien runs with the position at 2B, but I'm not optimistic.
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- josh bell
- edouard julien
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Open roster spot with the DFAing of McCusker and then acquisition and trade of Susac.
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- josh bell
- edouard julien
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Per the same MLBTR article, which is good about adding additional detail as it comes available: 9:39am: Bell’s 2026 salary will be $5.5MM, per Bobby Nightengale of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He also receives a $250K signing bonus, and there’s a $1.25MM buyout on the mutual option. So yes, guaranteed, but not all paid this year.
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Per MLBTradeRumors and incorporating the part about $1.25M being in the form of an option: Bell adds $5.75MM to the 2026 payroll, boosting the Twins just north of $100MM in the process, per RosterResource. Dan Hayes of The Athletic has previously reported that the front office has about $20MM to spend this winter. So less than a third of the "very limited offseason budget," which also doesn't take into account the offloading of Larnach or anyone else. I'd also add that this info is being provided by the same person who was previously reporting that Lopez, Ryan and Buxton were likely to be traded so I take his precision with a reasonable amount of salt.
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This was a new condition for me as well. I think the Reynaud's reference was not to Bell, but to someone suggesting reliever Pete Fairbanks. And my Googling tells me that Brandon Woodruff also deals with it, with may be part of why he (unexpectedly to a fair number of people) accepted the Qualifying Offer to stay with the domed Brewers.
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I find it interesting that Falvey gets blasted because "he's not going to make any moves until January or February" and then when he does, he gets blasted for it not being a good enough move. It seems like people just want to rip on Falvey. I see it as a pretty significant floor move. It hopefully gets away from Clemens as the primary 1B. Maybe he's streaky WITHIN a season, but his OPS+ has been 108, 109, 111, 142, 82, 124, 127, 101, 100, 110. The high outlier was juiced-ball 2019. The low outlier was Covid-shortened 2020. I would have liked O'Hearn, but I'm not overly concerned that they didn't get a stud here. If they are going to be successful offensively in 2026, it's going to be because Lewis and Wallner rebounded, Keaschall maintained over a long season and Lee improved to average, etc. It's not going to be because the 1B is O'Hearn vs. Bell. One of the primary reasons I see it as a positive and that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that it's a tangible sign of addition. It may or may not be the addition people were clamoring for, but it's an addition. Hopefully this also communicates to Coulombe and his agent (or dare I even hope for Luke Weaver?) that the Twins are indeed not dumping Lopez/Ryan/Buxton and are going to be higher than the $90M some have been projecting. (EDIT to add: It also just got better in terms of money available for relievers. It's $5.5M for this year plus $250k bonus and $1.25M in a mutual option that gets paid later.)
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Yeah, I think you have to read into to it to get that from Falvey. From the OP: “If two teams are both trying to compete and both have needs, and different ways, how can you swap them? It led to us in our Pablo acquisition a few years ago,” Falvey said. “They wanted Luis Arraez, and we wanted Pablo López, and that was ultimately a fit for us and a fit for them at the same time. It does not always happen like that, but we certainly are looking for that this time of year. We will see if we can execute.” I think he's saying that the ideal trade at this time of year (and I would say at any time) is one that improves both teams. And by definition, pretty much every trade means giving up what the other team wants. If the other team doesn't want what you have to offer, they aren't going to make the trade! The idea that one team "winning" a trade means the other team "lost" that trade is a fallacy.
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From MLBTradeRumors: The Astros kicked off the offseason by downplaying the idea that they would consider dealing away either third baseman Isaac Paredes or first baseman Christian Walker to clear the infield logjam the summer’s Carlos Correa trade created, but more recent reporting has suggested at least some discussions involving Paredes with the Red Sox. Paredes has played a reasonable amount of 1B, though I don't know how well. MLBTR also projects him at $10M in arbitration. If there's willingness to take on that amount in free agency, they could do so in a trade, perhaps especially if it started with Ober going back. I don't know the Houston roster well, but it appears the Twins have more SP depth, at least if one is a believer in the Bradley/Abel/Festa, etc., crew.
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Another reason Casas may not be needed by the Red Sox is because according to the MLB.com depth charts, it appears Boston plans to start Romy Gonzalez at first, second AND third base. 🤣
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I had some of the same thought, though I do like O'Hearn. I don't mind that he bats LH. They face many more right hand pitchers and the Twins already have Buxton, Lewis, Keaschall and Jeffers/Jackson as righties expected to play every day, plus Lee as a switch hitter. Add Martin and they don't really need another RH batter. The only LH batters facing a LHP would be O'Hearn, the RF and the DH. In general, the guys expected to play every day are RH batters. The question marks in terms of playing time are mostly LH batters. @Cory Engelhardt or @Greggory Masterson, I would trust either of you to give us a solid listing of guys who could realistically be acquired in trade. By "realistically," I don't mean the "Hey, the Orioles just signed Alonso. Maybe they would trade Basallo or Rutschman" articles we get from time to time. I mean, Mountcastle/Mayo, Casas if the Red Sox resign Bregman, Vientos had Alonso resigned with the Mets, etc.
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I don't think calling it a big drop in talent if they go from $135M to $110M is that helpful. Take Correa's $22M out of the $135M and it's comparing $113M and $110M, roughly the same. There's correlation between payroll and talent level, but it's not a 1:1 correlation. Outliers make a difference. Said another way, they could add $38M to the roster by trading for Rendon and not help the team a bit.
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In his announcement press conference, he made a big deal about the amount of learning/reflection he did in his time off. The two quotes from the press conference that most stuck out to me were: Falvey's, "The thing I came away with I was most impressed by was when he talked about how he spent the last four months really diving into what could he have done differently, what could he have done better. How could he have done it in a way that would have led to more success?” Shelton's (in response to a question about what he would do differently and after his own comments on the reflection period), "You have to have conversations and then you have to have follow-up conversations, because what is heard and what is said and then how it is retained sometimes loses it's place and because of that you don't always get the best out of the situation and out of the player." It will be interesting to see if these comments and the one in the OP point to a greater willingness to go with the young guys and consider your B statement.
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Technically true, though the three you added averaged less than 300 plate appearances per season and totaled 0.9 bWAR among their six seasons. On average, each started 61 games per season those two years, with none of them starting more than 90 games in either year. The three of them frankly contributed more to the seasons between the two World Series than they did to the championship teams. In signing Pags and Davis and calling up Knoblauch in '91, the team knew they couldn't be successful with Bush, Larkin and Newman as regulars.
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<Snip> Hitters Starters who could reasonably have a better 2026 than 2025: Lopez (by being healthy) Ober SWR (by being healthy) Festa Matthews Bradley Abel Will they all? Of course not. Will some of them? Most likely. Could others have worse years? Sure, but other than Buxton, Ryan, I'm not exactly sure who we'd say had a good (for them) hitting pitching year (Let's deal with the bullpen, but yeah, @amjgt, I'm with ya.)
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If the Twins were to trade a top-10 or top-5 prospect, I'd much rather it be for relief pitching/1B where there are known holes and a low ceiling on the current roster. At least in the case of Lewis, there's a high ceiling already in place. Count me among those who are optimistic that a fresh start and coming off having played in 64 of their last 66 games at better than 25/25 HR/SB pace points to Lewis being ready to be a major contributor.
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I don't think they did. They essentially traded McCusker for Caraballo and an open roster spot on the 40-man.
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- daniel susac
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I'd be fine with redrafting David McCarty himself if it guarantees a World Series title in 2026. (Though I'd rather not redraft him in hopes that it wins a title.)
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- byron buxton
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1. Depends on whether you put more emphasis on last year's experience vs. LHP (.832 OPS in 109 PAs) or his career (.642 in 346 PAs). One would like to think that a person progresses in their career, so the more recent data carries more weight, so how does a .750ish work going forward? 2. The sample size is getting smaller, but his career OPS against LHP starters is .791 (in 273 PAs), but his OPS in the 73 PAs against relievers is bad enough that it brings his overall OPS down to .642. That distinction makes some sense in that his PAs against LHP starters were probably disproportionately in the time with the Padres, when he was hitting LHP better in general. It may also speak to teams bringing in a specific type of LHP to face him in relief in the past and maybe he's addressed that weakness. At any rate, it seems like there was enough progress against LHP last year to at least dig deeper. Also, given the relative youth of the rest of the infield, I prioritize 1B defense even more than I typically would, which it seems he also brings.
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I get the idea of trading Jeffers so that he doesn't walk for nothing, but if the team is looking to add relievers and a power bat, it seems counterproductive to trade one of their existing power bats. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/twins-rumors-relievers-power-bat-first-base-free-agency-trade.html I also view catchers differently than other positions. With the number of young pitchers who will likely be part of the staff, there's also a value in continuity that comes with a returning catcher as opposed to bringing in two new receivers for them to work with. So no, don't trade Jeffers other than the whole "yeah, we'll listen to offers in case we get blown away" concept.* *But don't expect to get blown away. He's good, but he's not that good.
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Great in concept, but... The issue is you've then only got six guys to cover the other starts, which are guaranteed to have a bunch of back-to-days. And, if you don't get a full nine innings out of the piggy back pairs, one or more of those six guys has to pick up a few innings on those days as well. When they've done this in the minors, they've used the piggyback guys on a four day rotation. Your plan has them pitching four innings and then going on five (or even six) days.
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I reached 10 years of service time on TD last February, so I’m going to invoke my 10-and-5 rights, particularly if it’s a trade to White Sox Daily.
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Over the past five years, an average of 12 pitchers have started games each season. A handful of those were used as Openers, but there wasn't a year in which less than eight starters were used with some regularity at some point in the season. The average number of guys to serve as true starters was around 10. With that in mind, I don't mind heading to spring training with full rotations for both the Twins and the Saints. However, given the reality of the rest of the roster, I'd consider turning one into a bat as seems to be the inclination of folks on the related string that's going right now.
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- zebby matthews
- david festa
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TD: The Twins are going to trade Ryan, Lopez and Buxton. The Athletic: The Twins are not going to trade Ryan, Lopez and Buxton. TD: Okay, let's try an article on how the Twins are going to trade Garver...
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Right -- but they don't have to make 26-man decisions at this point. So I'd gladly add a Coulombe to the 40-man at the cost of using an option to send Kreidler or McCusker back to St. Paul now. And if they magically make it through spring training without injuries and have to make a 26-man decision then, optioning Ohl isn't an issue. You're right on Jackson likely cutting Pereda from consideration for the Opening Day mix, but I have to assume they see enough in Jackson to view him as a step up from Pereda if both are healthy. And if one (or Jeffers) is hurt, the IL resolves the question.
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I think "cutting" from the roster is a relative term when McCusker, Kreidler, etc., are on it.
