Trov

I have a feeling many options are on the table for Twins. Much of it will come down to how other teams value the players the Twins have, versus how the Twins value them. For example, Garver is a catcher that 2019 was one of best hitting in the game, and was decent behind the plate too. Last year he was no where close to same. Catchers generally have higher value in baseball if they can hit, it is always a bonus. Question is if other teams believe he can be 2019 or not. If a team believes he can, do the Twins think so? If Twins think so, will they be willing to trade him? I believe if another team is willing to pay 2019 value for him you snatch that up so quickly. Even if he does return to that, it will not be for long based on his age. Sano as well, how do other teams value him? When he makes contact he hits ball as hard as anyone, but he makes contact only about 50 to 60 percent of the time, and has only at times shown an improvement on that, but never consistent. Does a team think they have the solution, do the Twins think they do? I may catch some heat for this, but I think Twins should see what value other teams have for Buxton. Not saying they should trade him, but see what is out there. He is not that young anymore, and continues to show he could be amazing when on the filed, but that is not that common. I think many teams will still have high value of him, but I fear he will not age well. His whole game is based on speed and once that is gone, he will need to change up his game. He did show flashes of being a top hitter without his speed, but he had shown that in past only to come back swinging to way too many pitches out of the zone. I am still a huge fan of him, but if Lewis or someone else can step in and be not a huge drop off on defense I would look to see what value other teams have of him. I would not dump him for nothing by any means, but if you feel some times value him very high I would look into it. Finally, I would not load up on rookies, but if Lewis is MLB ready I would bring him in, rooker, and Krioloff. Lewis I would figure out where he fits best OF or SS, and make rest of team adjust.

Justin Morneau put it perfect. Those nicknames and teams happen in the moment and not forced. Going into 2019 they did not call them that. It was not until like 60 games in when HR pace was crazy that the name really grew. Just because same team the next year does not mean the same outcome. He brought up the smell em' year. People tried to carry that over the next year, but again it just came out of no where. Players did not want to make it a thing, but fans saw the finger to the nose and point to dugout then the team was known for the smell em' team. Forcing a team into something never works well. Let the name go, and let next years team come up with their own thing.

1. Eddie is out, no way will they tender him. My guess he will be a late signing in spring training by someone. He is basically replacement level player at this point of career and will not improve. He will not be worth his pay and it will be time to give younger guys a look. Only way they keep him is at a very discounted contract. 2. I think both mentioned are out. They will try possible inside organization or bring someone in. You can find plenty of guys out there that can do similar to what they did recently. 3. I doubt they go after any of the FA mentioned, but if they do I think it may be Bauer because he will not be seeking long term deal, unless he changed his stance on the 1 year at a time approach he has talked about in past. With COVID he may change his mind and seek some long term commitment, but if he stays true to his word he will want just a 1 year deal, so Twins will have little to risk long term. 4. Cruz, if the price is right I bring him back. From everything reported he is a great guy to have around. The only caveat is if you are willing to cut him should he not be producing and hits the age cliff. No marching him out there should that happen because we are paying him too much. Not saying it will, but his last month was not good, I think there could be many reason for that, but he hit 2 rockets for doubles in the post-season, only guy to drive in runs. We have possible replacements, but DH is not that easy, many guys have tried to do it and failed compared to when they were in field. Some can do it well though. 5. Pen I am not worried right now. The main question is romo back. I think they will bring him back, but rest will shake out. May is gone I think, unless he wants back on 1 year low money deal. Maybe that is all he can expect this off-season. Overall, the biggest questions will be how future projection of COVID affects teams willingness to spend. Will teams stay away from multi-year deals? How much stock will this year be used in deciding worth? Will off-season look the same as last off-season, meaning same winter meetings and signings? Will players, and their agents, expect this to be just a blip and going back to next year and beyond be back to business as usual? So many questions.

Donaldson is more concerning for me because it is the same injury over and over. With buck, other than concussion thing which is yet to be seen if that will linger, he has had so many different types. Yes, they have been high in number, but with the different types there is no reason to say he will not recover from them. Just wondering when he will get a new one. With Donaldson the question is when it will act up again, and seems to act up anytime and cannot do much to prevent it other than maybe rest. That type of injury concerns me more.

1. Way outside of my knowledge and too early to speculate I would believe. 2. I am all for it. I agree he slumped end of season and maybe that was age catching up, the lack of rest days because of schedule, or lack of protection behind him and he was pressing. He would get so many sliders just off the plate, some being called against him adds to chasing it. He crushed 2 doubles and still looked like he knows what he is doing. I would not break bank on return, but I would like to see him back. 3. That is hard one to answer. They can always upgrade pitching, but is it biggest need? They have many ready to go minor league guys most likely, and will they fill holes? I guess I would lean toward pen overall. 4. I would look into hitting coach, but offense was down across the board this year, not just on Twins team. Some teams it was up, but ball was not as juiced so we expected lower OPS. I am wondering how difficult COVID rules made adjustments for hitters during the season. I mean normal year we would have had 100 more games to play before playoff to make adjustments to how pitchers were going at hitters. 5. For me, it is retool. Let some go, trade who has some value, but keep the core overall that you have signed. Bring in some younger guys see what you got, but not full overhaul. I would point out, Kiraloff was not a Falvene pick, he was drafted the year prior to their hiring. He came up in their system, but they did not draft him.

I believe they were correct for not adding offense. As noted, we do not know what was out there and the price. The front office basically said this is last year with the current group because so many younger guys ready to get shot next year. It is also not clear if the bats available would have been upgrade. Overall this year was just crazy and hard to say any time acted right or wrong throughout it. To say the Twins should have traded for offense for expectation of injuries or that some players were regressing is, in my mind, going too far. Going by position, OF was unlikely to get a clear upgrade and then when your normal guys come back what do you do? If you traded for team control 2021 that adds to logjam of players there as well. 3b, we have JD long term, yes injury was quite possible, but to trade for a better offensive backup that means should be starting would require when JD returned that backup to move postions, but to where? DH or 1b would be most logical, which DH out of question with Cruz, so just 1b. Okay, Sano slumped bad rest of year, but he has always been super streaky. I could be wrong on time but he had a nice streak going on near deadline I thought. Last month terrible. SS, very little likelihood any offensive upgrades available there short term or long term. 2nd Arrize returned just fine overall and he looks to be long term solution for now. Catcher, Jeffers came in and did just fine as well, fact Rocco kept riding the Garve train is not on front office. Yes, you could have found someone better as a backup offense, but how much better and what would it have cost?

You hit it right on the head. Every year when playoffs start it is like a different team shows up. No hits with runners in scoring position, bad pen work, bad base running, errors. I do not know if it is the players, the coaching staff, or what it is that makes this happen. I hate when people claim nerves as some excuse, like only the Twins have same level of nerves, if that is the case and the other teams are not nervous, then maybe it is the player or coaching staff that does not prepare for the game well enough.

I generally agree with the points as well. The least is the decision to pull Maeda, I would have let him try the 6th, and maybe if we had more than a single run lead he would have, but he is your ace, need to treat him like one. The other three make little sense to me. I get Garver crushed lefties last year, but he has not this year. Jeffers has been our best overall catcher this year, we are playing this year, not last year. Then that moves compounds the strange moves after with the ending of astiduilo. You could have left Garver in for a second at bat against the lefty or then pinch hit a lefty if you wanted to, but taking him out for a lefty means you need to hit a lessor right handed bat later on. Overall I defend Rocco, not today.

I agree with all the points, except for one. That Buxton should be healthy. Once that ball hit him in the head, although appeared to be glancing blow, I assumed he would be out for postseason again. Until he is on the field and makes it through a full game, I will assume he will not be there. The pitching is much better than it has been in most recent post-seasons, and after the first round depth will be very important. You cannot just go with 3 starters like in years past. Also, bullpen depth will be tested because no off days until WS means no back to back games multi innings get an off day to rest like in past. Teams that overuse pen and rely on just a couple guys will be tested later on. I still do not want to see the Yankees no matter where. There is just something about them in post-season, that Twins play terrible. Maybe with better pitching this year, that can strike guys out, will make a difference. Not playing at Yankee stadium will be huge too. It will be interesting to see the neutral site games because both, for ALDS and ALCS are known for being pitcher parks. WS site not sure since it is first year, would have to look up how it played out most of the year.

I would not say the Twins stole it. Each team played 60 games, we finished ahead of them at the end of it. Just because we had our losing slump in middle of season and they had theirs at end does not change the outcome. Remember when sky was falling and we had a long losing streak middle of season? Well Sox just decided to have long losing streak at end of season. In terms of matchup, on paper it looks like a great matchup, but pitching to me seems pretty fair matchup for short 3 games. You never know what may happen, I mean we got swept in 3 games by KC, on the road at least. I think being home will make the difference, but Houston is playoff tested for most part and their hitters can get hot. Our offense has not clicked together all year. This would be perfect time to change that.

I wish Cleveland would have won yesterday, that would have allowed for a win by them and we would have won division too. Either way, we have home field locked down, now just who will we play. It would be nice to win the division and be the 2 seed, because then we will be home team most of the way through playoffs if keep moving on. Yes, at neutral site, but still an advantage.

Crazy last 2 games. If we win 1 game, we have home field for first round. If we win 1 and Chicago loses 1 game we win the division. If we lose both games, and Chicago wins 1 and Cleveland wins 1 we win division. If we lose 1 but Chicago wins both and Cleveland loses 1 we lose division. If we lose both but Cleveland wins both we lose division and Cleveland wins it. If we lose both, Chicago wins both and Cleveland wins both we are 7th seed and Cleveland wins division. My head kind of hurts thinking about it. At least we in, lets win at least 1 and let chips fall where they may.

I hope Buck is okay, the ball seemed to glance off the helmet than hit flush. I think they took him out for caution. Donaldson is more concerning and hopefully it was just a cramp he felt come on and they pulled him to rest it up. Both will be needed in post season.

Pitching depth will be huge in this postseason, in my opinion. There are no off days in the best of 5 series, so only way Ace goes 2 times is on short rest. In championship round also no off days and none between the 2 rounds either. So if you go 5 in first round and pitch Ace on short rest, you will still only get them 1 time in second round either on short rest or normal rest but then going to a starter who may not have pitched for two weeks. If you feel you have the depth and a good matchup you may want to go fifth starter for game 5 of second round, then you will get Ace game 1 and a second game if needed in third round. With the no built in off days pens depth will be tested too. I think the Twins actually fair well in this situation with a deep pen overall and deeper starting rotation too, not top heavy but their 4th and 5th starters are better than most I think.

This was an interesting read. You look at the overall numbers this year and feel he regressed to what skeptics thought of him because of BABIP was not sustainable. I have argued he is the exception as it pertains to BABIP because he is so good at getting bat to ball and is not trying to hit HR. He has some power, but he is more line drive guy. I think early on he was dealing with injury and having to make adjustment as teams were defending differently and pitching him different. I think he is good enough that he started to adjust to how he was pitched and defended. Nice to read about the improved defense as well.

Last night showed why having experienced arms in the pen are needed. The less experienced guys had some issues. Wisler, who admits he does not know what the slider will do most of the time, kind of scary when the guy throwing it has no real plan, but been effective. His last hitter he set up perfect and made great pitch to be rewarded with a too weak of contact to get an out. That was just bad luck. Then the vet came in bases loaded and got the job done quickly. Acala, did not have it going last night. I hope it was just a blip because he had been doing well and thought he could be someone to go to in post-season but he was all over the place last night. Got through it, but my guess if score would have been closer he would have got the hook too, before end of inning. Glad we won, but personally, I am a fan of miggy and as long as he is not killing Twins, I hope he can have a few good years left in him.

I think Rocco said the top three for first round already. In terms of pitcher late inning, you need to go with the best matchups at that time. If lefties up, Rodgers should get over Theibar, unless coaches feel Theibar is throwing better than Rodgers. For catcher, I go Jeffers overall. Yes, Garver hit a HR but he still does not seem right and Jeffers has seemed to be better on both sides, could be wrong but that is what I feel. Can we steal first, sure we can, but will not be easy. Reds are in the thick of things for playoff spot, and Cubs have their spot pretty much locked up. Not saying Cubs will not try to win, but you can bet they will rest people if needed and make sure they are ready for post-season. Still, you see those games still go in favor of the other team. At least with our two wins and Yankees losses, hope they lose again today, It is more likely we get home field, as long as we can win a couple against Reds.

Is this the beginning of Kepler getting on a hot streak? I sure hope so. When he is on he can carry a team.

Every year we talk about how this is not the same team that has lost so many times in the past, but yet we go out and play the same script against the Yankees, we lose and look terrible doing it. I will never feel like we can beat them, until we do. I will never look forward to facing them in the playoffs until we show we are not scared of them. I will say, I will have some hope if we are at home, because neither team has done well on road and crushed at home. However, the team that struggled a few weeks ago is not who we will be facing, we will be facing the team that has gone on a tear and looks to be the team everyone picked to get to WS.

Big last 4 games. We need to win 3 in my opinion to have a chance in our first round. We will keep home field, and very few teams have done well on the road this year. Got our Ace going tonight lets lock down the win.

I so would have loved to see Kepler face him just to see if Kepler could hit 3 more HR, or only when it was in Cleveland.

I loved looking at the K rates of all those guys overall. For years the Twins did not have good K rates overall and the pen is where you really need good K rates and low whips. You come in with runners on you need to get some Ks sometimes, or at least not give up runners on base. This year there is much less mid inning changes, and from what I recall Twins have been one of lowest generally of this, but other day they did a few to get big outs with runners on. I have commented on Rodgers in the other articles, he is the best lefty we have, and should still be used in high leverage situations where lefties will be up, but he should not be, nor do I feel anyone these days, should be plug and play "closer" Play out the situations. If 8th, like the other night, has lefties coming, bring in Rodgers, then bring in Romo or whoever for the 9th. Why bring in a righty, unless you want Caleb, to face lefties to then bring in Rodgers to face righties, unless there is some revers splits in there.

For postseason Garver gets the bench and Jeffers gets the bulk of the games. You need the best hottest hands in the post season, not the well he did it in the past so he is our guy. For next season, you need to take serious look at what you have in Garver. So many catchers fall off so quickly on offense, and not that Garver had long history of success. He started to have drop off at end of season last year, many attribute to grind of being catcher, but maybe it was league adjusting to him. They know he will not swing at fringe strike and hates swinging at off-speed. If he misses those middle fastballs when they come he will not have good outcomes. Jeffers should be in the picture in post-season and next year for sure.

Yes, the adjustment period may take time, so they may start in minor leagues and spring training for a few years to get the MLB players more used to what to expect. I could see some catchers setting up on one side, expecting the pitch to be on the other, even more so when runner on second, to try and get hitter thinking it will be on one side of plate then when the miss comes they will not swing and get a called strike. It will take time, but eventually, players will adjust and accept it.

Agreed they are, but until it is locked down they are still fighting. They took game 1 of the 4. Just because they are near lock does not mean they will not fight to beat the Yankees hoping to back their way in. My point was they will not be resting or setting up rotation like others may if they are locked in a spot.