Trov

I wrote a forum on this topic a ways back when both sides were putting "offers" in media to try to win fans, and when the biggest parts of the offers are about how "OUR" money is being split up, I get upset at both sides. I say "OUR" money because even from TV revenue it is ultimately our money because that comes from ads, which gets passed onto consumers. That being said, I would love parity. Fans in support of the players and no cap, echo their talking points of teams like Rays doing well, as a reason you do not need a cap. There are other teams near bottom of payrolls, Cleveland, Miami, White Sox, and Brewers that are competing for playoffs, Brewers and White Sox are in first place in divisions with Brewers best record in baseball. There are also several teams above the average payroll that are doing terrible, specifically, Mets, top payroll in baseball, Detroit and San Francisco are not competing for playoffs. However, generally the teams on top half are competing for playoffs, and teams on bottom half are not. Would a cap and floor be good for Twins? I think generally a cap and floor will be good for parity, and will really see which teams are best to winning on the edges. Rays, Cleveland, and some other teams have for years won with a below to near bottom payrolls, where teams like Angels and Mets have failed year in and year out with an above average payroll. (Angels just below average right now). If you cap the top market teams they will have to decide who they are paying top dollar too, and push for them and having to use other ways to get them, than just more money than everyone else. One issue will be implementing these, you cannot do it outright comply because teams well over the cap number, Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Philly, Toronto, cannot reduce that much payroll next year, most likely. Also, teams at the other end, Cleveland, Miami, Cards, Athletics, will have to raise payroll so much that they will end of over paying for middle of road guys just to hit the floor. It will need to take a few years to get there. How can they implement revenue sharing? That is easy, instead of the 50% share of all local broadcasts, you do 100% goes into pool. Same with ticket revenues. I do not think MLB can copy NFL, I think they should be closer to NBA type parity. NFL players careers are so short and the players go right into playing from draft, because they only let college guys play and there is no minor league. Generally, the NFL has to churn so many guys out, and injuries eat them up too, that outside of HOF QBs and line men, or kickers, most guys even the best, retire early 30's, most never make a second contract. I do enjoy that each you outside a few teams, most fans can dream of their team competing. However, NFL and MLB are just not alike enough to fully work that way. MLB will always have the minor leagues with rookies that come in an out or fringe guys that need to make a few starts while top guy is injured. Do I think they will miss games? I do think that. I think both sides are too far apart and too entrenched, and until either side is losing money they will not blink. I personally think if both sides really cared about the game, and what would be best they would agree to a system like the NBA has. A full revenue split. The issue is players and owners cannot agree on what is "baseball revenue". They have fought over the stuff surrounding the stadiums that are owned by the team ownership groups should count, and owners say no way. If they can agree on what is revenue though a 50/50 split would make each side want to grow the game together. In addition, it would have a floor, but a soft cap, which is what the tax is really a soft cap. I think max length contracts, or max money contracts with giving prior team the right to have the longest or most money would help keep home grown talent. Lowering years of control from MLB service time to either years after draft or age or combo would help get them paid faster. For example, if a high school kid was drafted they become FA 6 years after drafted, regardless of years in majors. If they are college 3 years. This would stop holding kids down for years to maximize their years of control. In both cases, most players would become free agent around 24. To counter it though, if you gave a qualifying offer to your player, which is based on actual years in majors and a formula of WAR/WPA however you want to figure it out, for a base salary, at a minimum of 3 years, increasing pay each year, with automatic incentive bonus for all players on those contracts then the player becomes "restricted" FA. Just like all other team can match any deal then. After that contract they will be unrestricted to teams. The max length contract for first time FA is 5 years for other teams, and 7 years for returning players, max money not sure. This would make their next contracts generally between ages 27 and 29, where then they can get their second contract with similar max lengths but increase money based on years of playing and output. The above would do a few things, one it would make teams call up players sooner if they were ready to max their time with them. It would give a natural good FA time of 27 to 29 in most cases, or if they wanted to max on first deal 31. Not much different from how most guys do it now, with opt outs and what not. Then they can get a second big deal. For the teams at the top of cap, they can resign any of own players they had for full year prior just pay extra fee on what is over the cap. However, they are limited on trading on how much money they can take on. They could only take like 10% increase, or something like that. The fine details would need tweaking. I think this would help pay guys sooner, and get more contract chances. This would make teams think twice before always outbidding for guys, but other teams will then get chance to keep guys on as they need to at least get to floor.

He has been back and forth on prospect to fringe guy his whole career. He will be an interesting case actually. The fact he hits right handed will be a bonus for him. He is still young, just turned 24, has shown power potential for years. His defense is limited. I see him and Gonzalez as fighting for that right handed OF/DH spot as both similar ages and limited defense. Both have been up and down as prospects. The big issue with Rosario is his K-Rate is high. He is over 30% this year in minors and around that for his career. That generally does not translate well in majors. Gonzalez is under 20%. If it is between them, then the question will be do you want the more power with more swing and miss, or the guy that has less power but will put ball in play more. Rosario has been better in AAA so far this year so will be interesting to see if both make 40 man or just one. Rosario could get taken in rule 5, but unless you are sold on him being a good hitter against lefties at majors there is not a huge need for him on our roster either.

That is because it much easier to put a pitcher at back end of pen for a year, but a hitter cannot ride the bench all year they need to play. You can put a pitcher in low leverage spots all year if you feel they are not ready for more.

Jenkins will be CF and Buck will move to RF. Buck is losing a step time for him to do what all great defending CF do and move to RF at end of career. I could see this lineup for most part from start of the year, but expect changes not too long into the season if Houston starts off season well. I would see Clemons move to utility roll and Lee over to 2nd Culpepper to 3rd and Houston into SS. Overall, with how guys have done this year with our pitching coming back, hopefully, I have some hope for next year.

I know it has only been 3 games for Lackey at High A, but they are a crazy 3 games in terms of numbers. He has an OBP of .750 OPS of 1.972. 7 Walks with no K's is just nuts, plus he has 2 HR and 2 Stolen bases. Of course this is not going to continue, but it shows what the kid could be capable of. His start to Low was not great, but people need to remember he did not play baseball for several weeks, most likely given like a week to ramp up and go out there. It is not like before when the draft was in June and some players were still playing college ball and transitioned right into pro.

For Jenkins there has been a lot written on here on reasons why Jenkins may not have got the call this year. I personally think at this point, he will not get the call up as he is not on 40 man roster and we near September. There are many reasons not too at this point, and many reasons too. The reasons against are the unknown of what the work stoppage will look like. With him not on 40 man roster he could play minor league ball next year until MLB started, assuming the stoppage goes into the season. Additionally, there are incentives of calling up a guy from camp to get awards and get draft comp, assuming that stays in CBA. There may be changes to how long a team controls a player before FA in new CBA and losing time due to stoppage will be something to consider. The reasons for are he is just ready and could help on both sides down the stretch and push them into the playoffs, and getting that playoff push and possible playoff experience is always valuable. I wish there was not external reasons for holding him down and just give him the shot he has earned.

Larnach has always done this. He will show signs of being a strong hitter for stretches, then is just not good for long stretches. When good, he shows the what if he can just carry this all season, then the slump comes in. He should be a non-tender in the off-season as we have too many guys that need to play for much cheaper. He may not even make it the rest of this season if E-Rod and or Jenkins comes up and hit strong.

I have not had a chance to really see him play. However, I doubt he will be on SS for more than a season at best. Barring injuries or trade of Houston he will be expected to take over SS and move Culpepper to 3rd or 2nd and Lee the other. Sure it will be nice to see if he can field SS because that could open a possible trade of either him or Houston should they decide there is a strong need, but I think having to capable defending SS is not a bad thing.

As someone who was calling for Larnach to be DFA last year, I am very happy with what he has done. That being said, he is replaceable with our current roster. He is a platoon bat, with limited defense. He does not provide major speed, power, or defense. He is good against RH, but nearly unplayable against lefties. For what he might get in arbitration do they want to pay him to just be a guy hitting against RH pitchers that cannot do much more? Doubtful being they have others that can fill that roll. If we did not have two guys read to step in to basically fill his roll then he would be worth talking about bringing back, but he will demand too much money. Ober is not a guy you can count on to be a full regular rotation guy, but he can be at the back end of the rotation fill in from time to time and be possible long relief guy. Also, we know injuries will pile up. The article lists a lot of names, but as pointed out, many have had injuries and we know they will need to have more guys step up. No team makes a full year with 5 starters, most need like 9.

The international guys neither were in the top 50 list in 2024, which is why neither are on a top 20, but Fargoza is number 27 on MLB rankings of the Twins top 30. That is higher than the guy they signed for nearly 2 mil. The international 2024 guys still very young and still has long way to go, but if they were HS drafted kids doing this we would be super happy and thinking Fargoza was a stud. It is always so hard to predict these 16/17 year old kids on what they will grow into and develop in pro ball. Good luck to them.

This is the key to all mid to small market teams. The large market teams can swing and miss on a bad deal, but the rest cannot miss too much. Reflect back to the summer we signed CC, there was several SS on the FA market. There was much discussion on which the Twins should target, and after the signing did they get the right one. That is always the issues in mid-market teams like the Twins. They can make a big signing from time to time, but is it the right signing will be the question. Many fans point to the Padres for their spending recently, but many of their signing have been bad. Some have been good. They have been willing to spend a ton in hopes of winning, with not overall great results, if playoff success is what you want and not just making playoffs. They have hit on a few and missed on a few. I will agree, spending wisely is important, because look at Mets they have just spent spent spent and they have not had good years on just spending. The Dodgers continue to crush spending on the better players, and they have had much less misses.

The main question for the Twins are what are they looking for? Jenkins will bring stronger defense and can play CF, if Buck is out rest of year or still for several weeks, there may be benefit to having him come up. Do they want to give E-Rod a taste playing a corner OF spot, he can play CF some too, but Jenkins is the CF of the future. With E-Rod on 40 man and out of options next year, it makes some sense to call him up first. Also, with lockout looming next year, makes some sense to keep Jenkins off the 40 man if you want. Does Jenkins give them the better shot to make playoffs, and do you not care about the 40 man situation? If so, then Jenkins will get nod, but if not, then E-Rod will.

Lackey defense seems very legit, he throws ropes to second right on target. The best is when you get known for throwing guys out they just stop trying. I remember pudge had that rep that no one would run on him, and that was back when teams tried to steal more. I am not worried about the bat as it is small sample size, and he seems to be going with a patient approach right now, most likely getting a feel for the league and pro ball. Next year will be a big teller on what he bat will be.

Way to small of sample size to give much weight to a batting average at this point for Tinney. He will be more of a boom or bust kind of hitter though it sounds like. For Gallagher, the question is has he made good adjustments, or just having a good short stretch?

Is he due for regression, most likely. Has he been lucky with balls being caught that may not always get caught, most likely. Does this mean he will start getting blown up over and over, no. Sure he gave up a solo HR yesterday, that is the time you want him to give up the HR, when lead is 3. Sometimes closers are just good enough, that is good enough. I point to Fernando Rodney, overall not a relief pitcher, outside of 1 great season, but pitched for 17 seasons had 327 saves, but a career ERA of 3.80, WHIP, 1.37, FIP 3.77 WPA of 4.4 for a career, many seasons being negative. He was the type of person that if you had 3 run lead, he would give up 2, but if you had a 1 run lead he would let 2 guys on but get the save. I do not care if a guy gives up 2 runs and gets a save or gets a 3 up 3 down and gets the save, the end result is the same, you get a win.