gunnarthor

I would assume a few things. 1) Buxton will get a lot of starts at DH, probably never play CF three days in a row. 2) Kepler is going to be moved.

Probably low but he's only had 700 minor league at bats. COVID probably ****ed up his development a lot. Give him more time.

Jay got hurt, too. I mean, pitchers are so fragile anyway but I am positive that if he didn't get hurt, he would have been a solid ML arm. I think we'll regret the Petty trade. Loved the Lee and Gordon picks at the time. Sabato and Cavaco I was a bit unsure about but ... Also, the Twins used 1st round picks on Matt Wallner, Brent Rooker and Noah Miller. I liked the Miller pick. Wallner and Rooker were confusing as they were massive bats without obvious defensive positions. But Wallner might play a lot this year.

Vikings are interviewing Sean Desai for DC position. I'd be ok with this hire. Young. Carroll likes him. Seattle was better than they should have been. https://www.dailynorseman.com/2023/1/22/23566317/minnesota-vikings-request-permission-speak-seattle-seahawks-assistant-sean-desai

Really like watching Burrow. Might be my favorite QB right now.

I'm ok with the trade, I like the throw in players - both seem like solid lottery tickets - and I've never been that high on Arraez. I think we did a nice job of trading him at his peak value. But the FO also has to be right on this one. Not another Dyson or Mahle injury thing. Lopez better make 45+ starts the next two years. And he better be good.

I will say that I remember Roger arguing on Twinkietown years ago that Arraez was a top prospect while most of us had him off the top 30 because he was so small. Roger kept saying, "look at what he's doing." I'm glad you were right. I'm ok with the trade but can feel your hurt.

I actually remember being quite high on him in the 2017 draft and mentioning him as a possibility of a guy we could pick for below slot and grab others later. I would love to grab him and give him a chance in a corner. And I think Seth made a lot of good arguments on why Adell could still be a good fit.

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.

More crazy chess news. Former world chess champion Antatoly Karpov is hospitalized after a pretty nasty fall. Karpov is a national hero in Russia. He became world champion after Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title in the 70s and held the title for about a decade, until Gerry Kasparov became champion. Those two were the unquestioned best two players of the 80s and most of the 90s. In Putin's Russia, Karpov is a member of the duma (I think that's what it's called) and has a huge stake in oil, making him extremely rich. While a staunch supporter of Putin (and the USSR), he had recently, mildly criticized the Ukrainian War. Then he slipped. Or fell. Or was attacked. Or nothing happened and he's fine. https://www.businessinsider.com/anatoly-karpov-russia-criticized-ukraine-war-serious-head-injuries-reports-2022-11

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.

Also, the "speaks for itself" is a reference to a rapid game Hans played against Magnus a few months ago in the crypto cup. It was best of four games but Hans won the second game spectacularly. Then, when he was interview, he just said "the chess speaks for itself" and walked away. At the time, there were no cheating allegations so people were like, "Dude!" And it was talked about for the next few days as such a silly thing to say. Also, Hans got crushed in that tournament, I believe he came in last and Magnus won the other three games agaist him, if my memory is correct. As GM Finegold has said, the super GMs didn't mind having Hans in tournaments when they won. So Hans has used that phrase - "speaks for itself" - a few times now in interviews.

It's not frivolous. It's not the type of law I practice but it's a real law firm (as opposed to all the kracken law suits we've seen in the last year). Defamation against Magnus has legs, less so against Hikaru but at the same time Hikaru really doesn't want to get deposed. Hans is also arguing more than "they called me a cheater", he's arguing that Magnus has attempted to keep him from making a living through chess by trying to blackball him from events. That's a serious charge but also a serious problem that Hans had to deal with, in real life. If events are like, "well, we can have Hans but then no Magnus ..." Hans isn't going to get the opportunities someone of his skill should get. Some of the defendants, especially Hikaru, will probably file motions to dismiss but MTD require the court to take as true all allegations. It won't be easy to get out of this although some charges against Hikaru and Rensch might be dropped. The legal things I've read have said there might be some jurisdiction issues but, assuming those aren't fatal (and a MTD isn't successful), I suspect that in about 9-12 months, we'll get a settlement of some sort. It won't be disclosed. Hans probably gets some money and his chess.com access reinstated while the defendants will make no admission of wrong doing or liability.

It got better. Neimann now suing Magnus, Hikaru, and chess.com. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-lawsuit/ He hired a pretty good lawyer, too.

"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.