gunnarthor

Positives - Darrisaw and O'Neil look like better than good tackles, Cleveland improved at LG. He misses some blocks but he's good and he's really good on double teams. I like Ingram and think he'll be better with a season under his belt. Since I was mostly worried about the O-line coming into this season, this was a nice surprise. Jefferson + Hockenson + Osborn look like they'll be a solid core of receiving options going forward. (I think Theilen gets restructured). Reager didn't get a lot of looks but I wish they had given him more opportunities. They might have some solid depth without needing to add too much. Negatives - the defense was horrible. The 3-4 scheme didn't work, the umbrella coverage allowed other teams to move at will, we were bad against the run. Kendricks, in particular, looked completely out of place in a 3-4. Hunter covered RBs on obvious passing downs instead of rushing. That's on the coaches. Scheme better. I'd invest all the draft and FA capital into the defense. Looks like the draft has a number of good CB and a few DL that could fall to us at 23 but also some good depth behind that. Get a new defensive coordinator and strongly reconsider the 3-4 scheme. I think Hunter and Wonnom are better in 4-3 scheme as DEs. I think Smith can be an OLB in a 4-3. (admittedly, maybe I'm wrong). The secondary is a huge mess. Not sure what to do but try to upgrade everyone. (I assume Peterson is gone in FA and Smith retires). I don't think the defense can go from 31st to top 10 in a year but if we could get a solid line, make it harder to rush, and generate more pressure without blitzing as much, maybe it could protect a bad secondary? Make them a top 15-20 defense to go with a potential top 10 offense? That could be a fun team to watch.

This is a good thing. Glad to have him back.

You really need to stop with the new FO kool-aid. Wacha was worth 3.3 WAR which would have led this team. And he did it in the AL East. And he was a good pitcher for a while. I trust him a lot more than AAAA guys like Ober and Dobnak. But it also might depend on what you think the Twins should be doing. If you think rebuild, then he doesn't make sense - except maybe as a guy you flip at the trade deadline. If you think the Twins are going to compete for the AL central, well, then you need to start signing better pitchers than what we have b/c we have a bunch of really bad pitchers.

That would suggest three per team. I expect our pipeline to create those. If the Twins go all-in (and it looks like they will) on this 4-5 inning opener concept, they'll be sub-.500 in the easiest division again while making the game nearly unwatchable. Our staff is mostly junk, we had three players who managed to be worth at least 1 WAR - Gray, Ryan, Duran. They need better pitchers and a better philosophy. But Wacha is fine. He's probably our best or second best pitcher.

I like Wacha and, depending on the deal, this could work out. The problem is that he's unlikely to do more than pitch 130 innings. We need arms that can soak up innings or 30+ arms on the staff over the course of the season. But he - like Gray - is a real ML pitcher. It's good to have a few of them to go with everything else we have.

I'm going to post something really stupid, apologies in advance. My kids watched a Scooby Doo movie called "Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!." It was cute and early in the movie they played Ballroom Blitz by the band Sweet. (You've absolutely heard it). So I thought, 'hey, nice soundtrack. Didn't expect that from a Scooby Doo movie.' Then later in the movie they play this clearly new wave song that I couldn't place. Drove me nuts. I was trying to guess the singer, couldn't quite get it. I asked my wife and she said, "yeah, no idea but sure sounds like new wave." Turns out it was original and made for Scooby Doo.

It would really be nice if we had a pitching pipeline about now.

Most of the national reports on these guys are not nearly as glowing. Admittedly, we'll see some upgraded reports when the next round of rankings come out over the next few months but none of these guys made midseason top 100 lists, for example. Secondly, really good players generally make the majors early. While COVID mucked things up a bit, and there are a lot of exceptions, good players have debuted at 23 or younger. If you're 24 and still pitching mostly in AA ball ... eh.

Outside of Prielipp, the answer is no and Prielipp is still unlikely to get there. Of the top three you listed, I don't think any of them will necessarily be better than Ryan, let alone aces. Varland and Canterino will be 25 next year. Usually, aces are fairly well established by that age. SWR will be 23 and might make the opening day rotation. 91 mph fastball pitchers aren't as valuable as they used to be. On the plus side (sorta), our pitching philosophy doesn't really require aces. It just requires competency (which is hard to find). Maybe a few of these guys can turn into 4-5 inning, 90-100 inning/yr type pitchers that we'll all tell our grandkids about.

So here's the problem. First, I think this is far more aggressive than anything our FO will do. Second, the main difference between this year and Brock's plan is the expectation of a full healthy season from Malthe and the addition of Rodon. Even if both happen, this still might not be a playoff team. That's how bad our pitching is. I, unfortunately, agree that quantity and hope something sticks is required for this bullpen. I don't know what else they can do. Essentially, they have to pay their way out of this mess.

"Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have stressed the importance of keeping the Twins’ winning window open as long as possible." It's good that people are starting to understand that this is what they were hired to do. It would be nice if people understood how utterly they failed at this. They had an incredible nucleus of young, ready to win talent. And, outside of Nelson Cruz, didn't do much to help that group get over the top or keep the window open past 2020 (arguably 2019). We don't need another year to know these guys aren't capable. It's time to move on.

If anyone is dumb enough to believe "but it’s the breakthroughs from the likes of Louie Varland, Bailey Ober, David Festa, and many others that should have fans believing that the system works" they are idiots. If our FO believes this, we're doomed. I have no idea how the FO can fix this mess without making some incredibly lopsided trades or outspending everyone. This team is in a really ugly place - kinda old, no solid nucleus coming up. Potentially a strong offense but no pitching at all. It was pretty easy to see the roster at the start of the season and realize they didn't have the pitching to matter. It'll probably be more of that again.

Low cost/internal options until Lewis is ready to go.

I don't want them to sign a shortstop. They have Royce Lewis. They have a ton of bats. They should be able to produce a reasonably good offense again next year. They need pitching. Every penny has to go to pitching.

Absolutely. Having "average" ML players isn't a bad thing, sorry if that's how it came out. In 06, for example, the Twins had Santana and Mauer being all-world but Cuddy also managed a solid 2.7 WAR season out of RF. Miranda can be that type of player. Not a bad thing at all.

Miranda, Lewis, and Wallner are the important ones. Miranda is probably the safest bet to be a solid ML player but he'll be - at best - average. Among first baseman with 400 PA, he was 23rd in fWAR. His bat is comparable to guys like Naylor and Seth Brown now and he could improve a bit more but he's likely a 1.5-2.5 WAR player over a full season, depending on how his defense grades out. I don't think he'll be a 30 HR threat but a consistent "professional hitter" with bad defense. I liked Wallner and thought he should have been brought up earlier. Again, his upside is limited by his defense but at this point, the Twins should just roll with him, trade Kepler, and give him RF from opening day. He's too old to be sent back to AAA. His defense could be bad enough where his offense doesn't matter but he could also hit 30 HR at TF. But it makes sense to give him a chance to show us what he is. Lewis is the best player and the highest ceiling. Looked great in limited action. My hope and guess is the Twins let him start the year as our shortstop and live with him there until they can't. Hope that his bat is real. He's still young and talented enough where we can dream a bit.

Yeah, I still think this team can finish the year as a top 20 team but it's so hard to watch this offense at times. The defense played better than the final score indicated. And, while I like Fleck, he made some stupid decisions. It's good that he's so emotional - I think it's an overall benefit - but it does have real downside. Also, that dropped TD in the endzone that became an interception was a backbreaker.

Every team had injuries. The Twins designed a pitching system that would ensure they needed 30 pitchers to pitch a full season. Six of those pitchers managed to top 70 innings. To blame this on injuries is nonsense. Bailey Ober on the DL didn't wreck our season, the plan of needing two dozen pitchers to create a pitching staff ruined our season. Re: age. First 30 isn't really the cutoff. Players are (usually) what they are by 25 and start declining by 30. There are tons of exceptions but it's probably a really bad plan to expect 29 year old Polanco to better than 28 year old Polanco. Second, the Twins are in a really ugly weird spot where they need to start relying on a bunch of young guys who aren't really that young anymore but haven't really shown much at the ML level yet - Lewis, Kiriloff, Larnich, Wallner, Jeffers, Miranda. That's not a completely useless core but a lot has to go right to be just solid. They amassed 3 WAR in 1100 PA as a group. To be fair, I think the Twins could have a top 10 offense if things broke right and still finish under .500 (similar to this year). But the pitching is the far, far bigger problem. Lastly, I've been pretty consistent with my concerns about this FO's inability to make solid plans and their reliance on unrealistic expectations and hope v. facing reality. And I've been pretty consistent with pointing out that they failed to do the obvious when they were hired - supplement the core they inherited and extend the window of opportunity they had. The Twins are a bad team. Some of that was hidden because we play in the AL central.

Honestly, I don't know how they can without becoming a new FO. The twice through the batting order thing is tiresome and stupid but the potential danger is that none of the pitching prospects they've had are showing anything. And is that because we are just in a bad development spot (it happens) or is it because the philosophy of twice through the order permeates throughout the organization so minor league pitchers aren't taught third and fourth pitches like they should be? I have no idea but I'm very worried. The Twins had three players this year and three players last year get even 500 plate appearances. That's a stupidly low number but also shows either a problem of philosophy - we have to rest guys more often - or a problem of training. But it means that lesser players get more at-bats then they should. Good teams should give the majority of bats to good hitters. The Twins were more like a pee-wee team, making sure everyone got at-bats. And at the end of the day, there isn't a lot of hope left. Even in 2014, a pretty bad year, Twins fans could see how this young group of superstars in the minors were coming along and they'd be here and we'd be better. Now, we have no real pitching in the minors (and perhaps that's not an accident but a by-product of a really bad philosophy) but even the best hitters aren't going to be difference makers. (Although I loved the Lee pick)

At the end of the day, the Twins have underachieved the last few years and they aren't fun to watch. Maybe it's not his fault but he certainly isn't part of the solution. Move on, try something new.

Twins staff pitching bWAR by year. 2012 0.7 (29th by fWAR) 2013 7.8 (21st by fWAR) 2014 10.1 (14th by fWAR) 2015 16.3 (11th by fWAR) 2016 3.9 (23rd by fWAR) (Ryan fired) 2017 9.0 (24th by fWAR) 2018 9.2 (22nd by fWAR) 2019 16.8 (4th by fWAR) 2020 5.7 (3rd by fWAR) (COVID year, not a normal number)* 2021 -0.1 (25th by fWAR) 2022 9.4 (20th by fWAR) The way baseball has changed slightly and the fact that we play in a pitcher friendly park has really hidden how utterly bad our pitching has become. Essentially, with the exception of 2019, the Twins have struggled to reach the standards of the 2014 pitching staff despite having huge payroll advantages. And the Ryan v. Falvine is a strawman. Ryan ain't coming back. We can get a new FO that is better than the current one. The current one is very bad. * No. They get zero credit for 60 games against no name competition in a year where the SSS made Maeta seem like a viable Cy Young candidate.

No, they just took over a team with a competent nucleus that was ready to go the playoffs. Something we don't have now.

I think what is particularly damning of the current FO is that, after six years, is that the Twins are in worse position then when they took over. I don't think anyone can credibly say that the 2023 Twins team is likely to be a playoff team and the farm system is worse now as well. Utter failure by the FO. But it seems like we'll need a few more seasons to clean house. In the meantime, the Twins blame you for ****** attendance.

It's time to move on. I don't think he has huge trade value but someone might take him so long as we don't expect a great haul back. I'd happily move him for a lottery ticket and let Wallner play RF next year. If we keep him, I'd agree with lukeduke that he should be a 4th OF from here on out.

I love Ohtani but if Judge doesn't win it, it'll be a travesty. He's having a historic season.