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.

ERod will make the roster next year out of need, even if they feel he is not ready. They will not let him go on waivers, as someone will take him. He will have to earn his playing time. They could look to trade him or one of our many left handed hitting outfielders for something. He has the most value as he is young and still a top prospect, but he is losing value. Jenkins will be CF most likely next year, Buck will be RF. That leaves LF for a whole lot of guys to fight over.

Power is considered one of the top tools teams are looking for, generally because it is the easiest way to generate offense. I agree that teams seem to have gone a little overboard on that though. However, I would disagree that teams do not rate defense up there as well. For example, you see the top draft picks generally go to SS and CF type guys. Then as the draft goes on you see 3rd basemen and other OF guys. Mix in a few 2nd basemen and then finally first basemen. Catchers are a whole world of their own, if they can hit, they go high, if they cannot hit they go lower, and really just get mixed in throughout. However, what it shows is teams are looking for guys that can be considered good defenders, combined with top hitting. Now, will teams maybe pick the better bat out of the SS over the slightly better defender, sure, but that is in part with a plan of moving them off SS to 3rd or 2nd, but then they will be hopefully a better defending at that position. Take Culepper for example, his scouting was that he would be a poor defender at SS and move to 3rd, but his bat was good. Turns out his defense is doing fine, but he will still most likely move to 3rd because Houston will be better defender. To follow your proposed premise, teams would take the best power bat, regardless of position every time, and that just does not bare out. It is always about balancing and weighing the tools. If you have a high power grade, but no contact skills or defense, that will not grade out over someone with medium power, good hit tool and good defense.

I have watched several throws from Lachey that arm is legit and he has been nailing runners with perfect throws.

To answer this question, no I would not be happy if Houston made it up to AAA and hit like Noah Miller. Miller also only has OBP of .319 with an OPS of .727. Also, Miller has 2 stolen bases. So if Houston gets promoted to AAA next year, same age as Miller, and puts up same offense, then no I would not be happy, as that would be a huge regression from his AA stats. Miller has seen a jump in his stats at AAA, than his AA stats. So maybe he is progressing as he gets older.

I want to know what happened between Ray and Twins for Gomez. He was terrible for 9 games with Rays, we got him as a DFA pickup. He has been very good, if he could cut his walks a little more he would be great. Not sure what happened but we will take it for now.

Who do I want them to go get, or who do I think is realistic to get? Top 3 wish they could get(not sure on the cost or if actually will be traded) 1.Skubel 2. Mason Miller 3. Hader. I doubt Twins would want to pony up money or prospects for either, but it would give solid rotation for a short series, and 2 high end pen guys that pitch both sides. That would move Gomez and Morris to the 6th and 7th innings guys. Not even sure if any of them are for sale from their teams as Tigers is pushing up the standings, Padres has 3 years of control for Miller and always looking to add, not sell. Astros are right by Twins in standings so they may not be selling either.

We lead the AL in runs scored, but we need to trade for more offense? I am not saying adding a possible RH hitter could help in a short series if loaded with lefty starters, but if we are looking to add to the team, adding pitching is where we need to spend.

As in all trades the question is at what cost? Should we trade Jenkins, Culpepper, Tait, Quick, Houston, E-Rod, and others for say 3 pen guys and rental starter? My guess is most fans would say no. You can sell your full farm system to hopefully give you small edge this year, but is it worth it? We revisit trades all the time about how good or bad they were. Selling off is always about is the future worth it, or could we have got better. Buying is about did we get enough in return for what we may have given up. Sometimes both sides are happy, sometimes both sides see it as a wash as neither did well, sometimes one team wins. The other question is if you give up a top prospect Culpepper or Houston this year to add a rental starter, will you have a SS next year you can count on? How much better this year will the team be in that trade and will it push you over the top, versus how bad will you be next year or years to come? No one will question if Twins make ton of buying moves, go on to win the ship no matter how bad things get for next few years. Mid and small market teams need to decide is now the time to push all the chips in and gamble, or should we wait for a better spot in next year or two. It is rare a team can sit back and just wait for all their internal prospects to come up and carry a club. Are the Twins happy enough with Lee at 3rd that they will trade Culpepper or Houston, not needing either to take over at 3rd with other at SS? There is so much the GM needs to think about. Twins are doing better this year than expected. Just about any fan would have thought we would be fully in last place looking to trade away Jeffers and Ryan most likely this year, but now we are talking about buying up guys to help push us to playoffs and to win. My personal view, is due to volatile nature of baseball playoffs, a team should look to keep their roster competitive year in and year out and not try to push all in on a single chance. If you can get into the playoffs you can win. Just being the "best" team on paper in the playoffs will not mean even a series win. We have been the favored team in series before and not win a game. Both times we won WS we were not expected to win either the ALCS or WS, but we did it. I am not saying do not make moves that make sense, but do not just buy up guys trading away valuable players or future assets just to win a couple more games possibly.

Over the last couple of years there has been a few minor leaguers that fans have wanted to "get a shot" and the Twins would keep passing them up, until they gave them a shot, if you want to call it that. The question I pose is did they really give them a shot, or did they just give them a roster spot to prove they did not deserve it and could then justify to a fan base they can move on, or did they really know the player was just a AAA player all along? In 2024 DaShawn Keirsay Jr., a 4th round pick out of college, a few years prior was doing very well in AAA and fans wanted to see him at MLB level. He was not really considered a top prospect at the time. The Twins did call him up in September, where he got 3 starts out of his 6 games, put up not good numbers. However we do not really count September call ups as a shot. In 2025 he got his call up pre-September. He actually broke camp with the Twins. However, he was mostly used late inning defense or pinch runner, not even getting a chance to bat in 17 of his first 30 games that year, and 40 games of the team, meaning 10 games he never played at all. Of the games he did get to use a bat, only 8 he got more than one at-bat, and a few were only 2. He started only 6 of those games. Not much of a shot. Sure he did not perform well in the few games he did get to hit. He then got to start and play all of a few games where he only had 1 hit games. Then he went back completely bench roll. Then he got just a few starts over the rest of his 40 games played about with again many being no at bats. In 2025 another outfielder Carson McCusker was getting pushed by fans. A non-drafted guy, that was known for being very tall and having power. Fans want to see if his power would translate to MLB level. He was called up in May, had 5 games he played in, 2 starts but in only 1 game did he get to stand in the box more than 1 time, that was only 2 plate appearances. They did not go well with strike outs in all but 2 and he did get 1 single. Then he went back to AAA for a single game in August where he got a single hit in 3 chances. Then in September he got called up when the team was trying to lose, and finally got some starts, 7, but still was only give 2 chances to hit in most of those. The numbers on the season not good. This year, after a big 2025 in AAA, Kyler Fedko was an older player hoping to get a shot with the Twins. Fedko started in AAA and kept hitting just like he did last year, and fans kept wanting him to come up. Again, like the others he was never a top prospect type guy. He finally, got his shot recently with a call up in June. He was given 3 starts out of his 14 games, and mostly would get 1 chance to hit, if any. He got 19 PA in 14 games played. He has no hits, striking out just under half his plate appearances. He did walk 2 times and got a sac fly. Those are three players recently that were not top prospects, that put up strong numbers in AAA, but when called up hardly got to play, and when they did they failed. Did they fail because they just are not good enough, or did the Twins set them up to fail? Most teams will say they do not call up true prospects to ride the bench, and would rather they play every day down in minors than be the 4th OF type guy. There is always talk about not getting regular playing time makes it hard to hit when you do get a chance. It takes special guys that can just pick up a bat and hit cold off the bench all the time. So did the Twins do this to them because they wanted them to fail, or just expected they would fail? Personally, I think they did it expecting they would fail, because the lack of prospect thoughts on them. This type of player needs to hit the ground running. yeah, the team will see the BP, and see how an at-bat goes, but unless the no touted prospect comes out crushing, they never get benefit of the doubt. They have that extra hard hill to climb. When Jenkins gets his call, he will get starts, and he will be given several games to fail before they write him off at any point, and he will get multiple chances. Sadly for the three mentioned above they may never get another chance in majors. McCusker is in Japan, Keirsey is with Atlanta AAA team doing much worse than he did in St. Paul. Fedko is back in St. Paul, and could get another call, as he is doing okay down there, but he will likely get passed by others again. Is it that they just were not good enough, or did the Twins never really give them a real chance?

They could trade him, but I would not trade him for nothing. He is at very low value point. Will he ever regain it, maybe not, but it would only make sense to trade him for something of value and not just well he is not going to get back to his star status so lets dump him.