Trov

I do not expect the Twins to put him on 40 man. I also would only expect a few teams willing to bring him in on rule 5. They would have to be a team that his no where close to competing and really needs a DH or first base guy. Position players are less likely to be taken in rule 5, and he really is not that great to make sure you keep him.

I see Polanco getting traded, and Kepler staying. Kepler has a long track record of being average, and just had a really good season 2019, and a great second half of last year. He is a good defender and average bat. That has value, but corner outfield guys are all over the place. For us though we do not have a ton of guys ready to go. Larnach, maybe can fill in, or some of our others, but none have shown the same level of defense and offense has been about on par. Wallner can play right, but then we need to fill left. We also still not sure who will fill CF. Polanco when healthy has shown to be a very good bat. He also has a second option on his contract, so if he has a good year the team taking him can bring him back for cheaper contract again. However, for us, we have a ton of depth at infield, unless we non-tender Farmer, we have Lewis at third, CC at short, Julien at 2nd, plenty of options as 1st, with hopefully healthy Mirand backup either 3rd or 1st, Lee ready to come in for any position. That just makes Polanco more expendable for us.

I am sure they will look at some of the relief pitchers, but outside of that not too many treasures in non-tender guys. The one name that kind of jumps out as a possible outside relief guys is Austin Meadows. He was highly touted prospect, he was just injured a ton. I would not want Twins to go for him, but he seems like someone that could have a good year or 2 if healthy. I am sure there are a few hoping we try to nab Badoo, so he will no longer be the one we let go. Despite him being below replacement level player.

He just had surgery on shoulder and expected to miss most if not all of 2024. Hard to pay a guy in his last year of team control to rehab the whole year. That is why he would be a non-tender. It is possible they sign him to a 2 year deal get him back for next year, or get a very low arb price.

The last 2 off-seasons they waited and signed CC both times. They did not go out and overbid for him. There have been reports we had been in the bidding on other FA in past that just went elsewhere, and believe sometimes we were reported to be either top or near top money. After you are making crazy money you can be willing to take a little less for other reasons. Sure, it looks like dumpster diving at times, but going out and snatching up guys quickly does not always work out well either. In terms of the pitchers, I would be all for Rodriquez, but he has risk too, but no way would I want Bauer. He is a headcase in a half. Even without his personal issues that led to Dodgers eating millions to tell him to stay home, the team that drafted him traded him for not much because of his personality. Cleveland traded him when they were in first place and he was doing decent, not cy young level but good. Dodgers signed him to huge deal, 30 mil plus a year and paid him to not pitch. Then no team wanted to sign him last year, so he went to Japan. Maybe he has matured after that, but all reports are he is terrible clubhouse guy and I would not want him around just for that. I believe in baseball having a good clubhouse is important because of how much time you spend together. When you have a guy no teammates want to be around it leads to issues.

I do not see them trading him this offseason, unless a great deal for a young controllable starting pitcher comes along. Someone like Pablo Lopez for example. I do not know of any team willing to part with someone like him for a guy that will be 1 or more years from MLB. As pointed out, not many teams willing to part with a top starter in off-season for prospects. It just tells your fan base we are not trying this year. I would say Oakland would have been in that world, but I do not know of any pitchers that would be worth much. There may be a few other teams that clearly are out of it next year, but do they have someone we want? I see the team keeping him, hope he continues to show his bat will play at MLB level to give them options. The hope is Jenkins will be right there with him as well, and then they could play both, look to trade someone to fill other holes. Part will depend on what we do with CF next year. If Buck can ever play it again, that is one thing, or if Martin shows he can man it then that frees up the ability to move E-Rod, but if Martin cannot play there, and Buck is cooked, then we will be looking for a CF and less willing to part with possible prospect that can play there.

I would not be surprised if they move him to pen. As a pro he only threw 37 innings any given season, but his 3 years in college he threw over 90 each season and another 24 in a summer league. That may have been why he has been injured so much as a pro. If we are concerned of too many innings moving to pen only makes sense. A lot of starters have done that, The Twins are not alone in this. John Smoltz was known for being starter and damn good one for 12 years, then got injured, pitched out of pen for 4 years getting 154 saves over that time, then went back to starter for 5 years, but really just 3 good ones. They could do pen for next year at MLB level while trying to build him up innings to get back to starter after. We moved Varland to pen, but they said he will have chance to start again, he just gave us best chance to win as a pen guy at end of year.

The FO is generally slow to do moves in off-season. So this should be no surprise.

It is not half exactly, it is 48%, then they get 3.3% of all broadcast deals. So not only will we lose out on our own, but if other deals that Bally has gets cut we lose out on that. According to DodgerBlue, teams got around 110 mil in 2022, not sure in 2023. However, if many teams lose some of their current deals, that will affect the Twins too. So yes, we share 48% of braodcast deal so it hits us about 25 mil off the top, but we get 3.3% of what we give up, but also from all other teams. If even a 10% loss across the board, that is about 7 mil off the top from Twins deal, and 11 mil from sharing, for a lost of about 18 mil. Can that be made up from other sources, possibly. If the drop is 20% that is now 36 mil we lose out next year. It is not a small issue because many teams are looking at broadcast money not just Twins.

Next season will be crazy. He was the voice for the Twins my whole life. I am sure the team wants a younger more analytical type guy. Dick tried his best to embrace the push to the new ways of looking at the game, but he still would go back to his long roots. In terms of Provis he may be just fine making the transition, but one I hope they do not do what some teams do and use on team for both TV and radio and just have the radio use the audio of the TV game. That is the worst, because nothing like listening on radio and hear the announcer say you can see there blah blah blah, no I cannot see because it is on the radio. When doing radio you need to tell the listener what is happening and the play by play guy has a huge roll. On TV the play by play guy has much less roll because we can see what is going on, but giving more context as to what we are seeing is important.

Severino does need to be added too, and think that will happen without much hesitation by FO.

As always, if the deal is a good deal I would say go for any of the three, but none are guys I am high on. Sale is far removed from his peak prime years and has not been healthy. Yes, if he can be, and that is big if, he could maybe bounce back to form, but I am not giving up much of anything on that. Ray really has only had 1 great season, his cy young season in his FA year. I am not convinced he will be more than a guy that has stuff but is up and down. Freeland is nothing special. His home road splits are actually he struck out more at home and walk less per 9 than on the road, so little hope he will be better getting away from CO. Maybe we could teach him a thing or two, but nothing about him says he should be in our top 5 rotation if we do trade for him, other than the contract. Outside of his age 25 season, he has never had a season with below 4.00 FIP.

There will always be people calling for their heads if we do not win a WS. They will point out every failed first round pick and every trade that did not work out, but they will forget every late round pick or trade that did work out well. I mean people were upset we lost Badoo, wanting him to play over Kepler, but he has been much worse than Kepler. It took a few years, and we knew it would, but the organization clearly is starting to develop the pitching pipeline we all were looking for. Will any be the super aces hall of fame guys, doubtful, they are very rare, but if you can continue to turn out guys that can pitch 3 to 6 solid years either as a starter or pen guy and can trade them at peak value like Cleveland does, If you look at Cleveland, they have built their rotation over the years on guys that were not drafted in the first round. Most were 4th or later round pitchers. A few were traded for, but they were generally 4th or later picks too, so not super highly touted. Outside of Bauer who was 3rd overall by AZ and traded to Cleveland most were later picks. Kluber was 4th round by Padres traded for Jake Westbrook. Clevinger was drafted 4th round by Angels traded for a pen guy. Plesac, drafted 12 round, nothing amazing over career but was an okay 5th starter. McKenzie, has high upside and was taken in supplemental round 42nd overall, and 18th pitcher taken. Civale 3rd round pick by Cleveland Bieber 4th round pick.Bibee 5ht round pick. Williams was a first round pick. The point is, Cleveland built a pipeline where they could take guys from other organizations, draft later round guys and they could become valued starters. Twins are clearly starting to do the same. Yes, they have misses over the years too, everyone does. I agree, lets stop bashing the FO and see they have a clue of what they are doing.

After the first week Sabato is having a nice little bounce back. Rosario is hitting HR, but striking out at very high rate. If Sabato can close out the AFL with a strong showing he may earn himself a spot on 40 man roster. It is very SSS but he is having a good run. He will be an interesting call on the 40 man. I think a team would take him in rule 5 like Oakland or KC type, not for sure them, but a team that is not competing and could use a possible power hitter. The Twins will need to decide if he is worth the spot for now. Nothing in last couple of years shows he is ready or will be MLB player, but he has power potential and teams always looking for that.

I think it was a bit of hyperbole, but for most part that is accurate in how most people address moves. Some fans feel if you are not favored to win the WS you should sell anyone with value, or you need to buy to get there. Well, Atlanta was by far the favored team, see how that turned out for them. In AL the two highest season winners lost early on. In baseball, the "best" team does not always win the post season, it is a crazy game. I think you also missed the camp of spend like crazy on FA every year like the Padres, because it worked so well for them. I personally find the FO approach very level headed. They balance future with present. They are willing to part with guys that will take longer to develop if they can supplement roster now, or they will part ways with prospects if they have others to fill in for them. Sure, sometimes you get things wrong, but overall I feel like the FO has done a decent job of keeping the farm system chugging out talent while having a team that can win. Will they be favored to win the WS, no, but that never means they will win. The two the Twins have won they were never favored in any round. AZ has a chance to win and they were not favored in any round either.

Add Carmago to 40 man, try to sign Enlow. Celisteno I would try to resign but not add him to 40, if they do they will most likely just DFA him later. He has not developed as a hitter they were hoping.

Willi stepped up and showed he could be the type of player Falvey and Rocco love to have on the team. They always want 1 or more super utility guy that can start all over the field and can move during the game to where ever you need them to. It helps with bench moves in the game as you will always have a competent defender to fill in somewhere that is not a complete waste at the plate.

I did not watch him pitch in AAA at all. It is interesting the amount of walks he gave up but so few hits. He started off very terrible then after a stint in IL he came back better, but still not amazing. I am wondering if the robo ump was hurting him with some boarderline pitches that did not go his way, but could at MLB level, or was he just way out of the zone? If he does keep walking guys at high rates though he will not be starting too much because he will get pulled after 3 to 4 innings all the time.

His decision to try to pitch through his groin issue was a problem. I really hope he works on a sinker or 2-seam fastball that he can throw low in the zone. Part of the issue with Joe is he needs to throw his fastball up to be effective, because it does not drop as much as normal fastball if he gets it up most guys pop it up and not drive it, as long as at top of zone. However, if he throws it more waist to thigh high it gets crushed. Also, if the pitch starts low, normally it is an offspeed pitch, so guys were able to ID pitch based on location. If he can work on the fastball or something with speed down in zone just to keep hitters honest will go a long way.

I believe they just need to figure out who is the best overall defender to throw out there between Martin, or bringing back Taylor or bring in Kiermaier. If they think Martin can defend even close to the other two I would look to roll with him, but Kiermaier is still elite defender and would look to bring him in if possible. Then if Buck is healthy, something I doubt will ever happen, you can move one of them to corner spot and they would cover so much ground you could almost go with a 2 man OF, not really, but seriously they would be the best duo around.

The only one I would be that big on for a trade would be Soto, except for the cost of trading for him, also knowing we would not resign him. I do not know the contract he is looking for but reports he turned down crazy money with Nationals before they dealt him. He is young and will demand possibly the biggest contract in history, we will not give that up. If you could get him for 1 season for a couple of mid-level prospects I would be all in on it, but my guess if Padres move him it will be to a team willing to give up more than that as they would expect to get an extension.

I would not say it is crazy, except for you would be paying him more than Lopez next year, and what you are paying Lopez the remaining 3 years of his deal, and Maeda is no where near worth Lopez. However, if you want him back the QO should get it done as I would expect he would accept it. If you are concerned he would sign somewhere else and willing a little overpay do it.

The Twins being a free agent for broadcasting they could do a wide range of things. Part of the issue though is still what is going on with Bally. When the Twins tried to depart from Fox Sports, the prior cable broadcasting partner, to start their own. They were undermined by Fox Sports by making Comcast or then Turner now Spectrum cable carriers to pay more for Fox programing, not just Fox Sports, if they picked up Victory Sports. The Bally may be going under could allow MLB to fully sever from someone like that, but if Bally stays around and tries to force hands it could be an issue. There is a reason teams went with cable broadcasting over just local, most likely they were getting paid more. However, if Bally, or another cable partner cannot match what a local can do, the money is in local. Someone raised how much national broadcasting would get pushed if a local network tried to pick them up? Most likely it would be someone like Hubbard and on Channel 45 like they show some saints on. With the newer, well within like last 10 plus years, digital channels any local could pick it up, I know Kare has an all weather channel local, so really we would not have to worry about the local broadcast going against the national things. I am interested to see what all happens, but just hope I will get to keep watching.

I think the hope for the Twins will be replacing him through the young guys in the minors. There are chances a vet could fill the role, but we have plenty of options if they cannot. We could also look to bring him back.

Stealing bases can always be helpful, and in years past it fell off after Moneyball because the numbers said it was not normally worth the risk. Really, it depends to me on the situation if it is worth the risk. If you are facing a tough pitcher that getting any hits is rare, then stealing bases will be helpful, of course the situation needs to warrant it. For example, if you are down 2 runs late in game, the risk may not be worth it, but in a tie game and a non-HR hitter up, getting that extra base will be helpful. There was times with Gallo up and it was pointed out, why risk stealing because he will either walk, get out or hit an extra base hit. The odds of him hitting a single was never worth the risk of an out. Also, base stealing is more than just being fast. Yes, being fast helps, but it is about quickness and getting to top speed, and picking your spots. One of the best base stealers of all time, and I say this not because of total numbers but his overall rate compared to his speed, is Paul Molitor. He was never a speed guy, but stole over 500 bases in his career at a 79% rate. His last 2 seasons he stole 20 bases and he was over 40. Rickey Henderson, the all time leader in stolen bases had about 80% rate. So if you go by pure rate Molitor was about as good, the main difference, was Molitor picked his spots where Rickey would run all the time. Point is, you do not need to be the fastest in the game to steal. Molitor would get great jumps, figure when to run in the best counts. It was a skill that has gone away, but hopefully is coming back. Teach the guys to figure out when best to steal and trust they can do it. Teach them how to steal as well.