South Dakota Tom

In my head, this got sold by Falvey to ownership as "we better have someone reasonable when we trade Jeffers." It's no great stretch to suggest that there are going to be mid-season moves if this team is struggling, and swapping out Caratini's $7M/yr for Jeffers' $6.5 plus whatever Jeffers brings back sounds like something very Pohladian.

I sense, too, that the Twins believe that suppressing Ryan's 2026 salary (and, thereby, the incremental increase in his 2027 last-trip-through-arbitration salary) increases his trade value. If there's no extension, I don't foresee a settlement, sadly.

I think they just had our names at the door last year. That's my recollection anyway.

This is only a no-win situation if someone (anyone?) keeps trumpeting the notion that the team is on the verge of contention. They are not, barring multiple miracles (turnarounds from several players, an increase in payroll, retention of their best players). Therefore, the only "win-win" situation is to jettison anyone who is not going to be on the team in 2027 that will compete and start to trot out the players who will/could be part of that - so yes, that means that Jenkins, Culpepper, Rodriguez, Gonzales are brought up to scuffle for 2026 and half of 2027; we get further reinforcements by following the same game plan they followed at the deadline - gone are our good players, in are players with upside who are top-100 or pre-arb big leaguers. The only players on our roster who can get us those kinds of players (and are not on the 2027-2028 roster) are Lopez, Ryan, Buxton (maybe - I'd like to sell him on the notion that the team is going to grow and be great and they need him around to guide them), maybe Wallner. I truly don't mind if this teams stinks in 2026 if they follow this blueprint because I see the logic in it. I do mind if they keep Ryan and Lopez and try to patch holes with low-wattage veterans and follow the same path as the past two seasons. There is nothing worse in MLB than mediocrity - even being terrible is better than mediocrity, so long as while you are terrible you are relying on young players with at least a hope of a future.

Agree with Major League Ready - $30M doesn’t make this a good team. It doesn’t put fans in the seats. It doesn’t add TV revenue. With what happened in late July, the only wise “baseball move” is to trade Ryan and Lopez (and Wallner) for a top 100 or pre-arb catcher, 1b, and two starting pitchers and run out a $60M team full of youngsters (and Byron) and let them pretend to be the 1986 Twins. Just a year (and solid experience, which they won’t get by obtaining even one FA) or two away from Keashall, Jenkins, Rodriguez, Culpepper being the new core (plus $ to spend in 2027 to plug any gaps with one-year vets). That’s what $400M just bought.

One can squint really hard and see a strong team for next year (assuming Lopez and Ryan and Jeffers are not traded), IF we get strong performances from a myriad of hitters who have, largely, underperformed in 2025. I'm talking a better average for Wallner, repetition and health for Buxton and Jeffers, continued strength for Keaschall, and elevated performance for Lewis, Martin, and Lee. Pretty certain Larnach is gone. Not counting on Clemens, Gaspar, Julien, Miranda, Kiersey, Outman or Roden (either as cornerstones or part of the solution, but I'd take it if they were). If you can see that group performing, a patchwork quilt of a relief corps, and some combination of Abel, Bradley, Ober, Matthews, Woods Richardson, Festa, Prielipp, Kendry Rojas, turning into a rotation and a bullpen, then I think you hold on to these guys. I don't see that, and have to squint to the point of blindness. And if that is the case, you target 2027 and substitute Lopez and Ryan for ML-ready hitters (2nd catcher, power RH 1B) in pre-arb as well as AA/AAA high starting pitching prospects, keep the payroll frighteningly low and play the kids all next year. In that scenario, I extend Jeffers two years, aggressively promote our top prospects by mid-season (Jenkins, Culpepper, Rodriguez) so that by year's end we field a team of Jeffers/2nd catcher, 1B guy we get in trade, Keaschall, (or Keaschall goes to 1B when Culpepper arrives and Lee goes to 2b), Lewis, Jenkins, Rodriguez, Buxton, Wallner is DH. Rotation is Ober, Abel, Bradley, Matthews, Rojas, bp now has Prielipp, Festa, Woods Richardson as long man, Raya, while keeping Sands and Funderburk, maybe Topa and some names we haven't thought of yet. Is that a great team? Probably not, but by 2027/2028 they are young, cost-controlled, but with experience beyond their years (which, last I checked, when coupled with a veteran pick-up or two, was the formula for our now-approaching-40-year last high water mark). Too many here are calling this sort of thinking "giving up" or abandoning the fan base. I don't see that as the case at all, but rather a strategy of realizing that the current core is not going to make it, and aligning the stars for a couple years down the road, while keeping the financial powder dry to add to that core when the next contention window appears. Short term - yes, it stinks, but it is the most viable long-term strategy. And it evaporates if you cling to the squinting.

They have leaned so heavily into the "team that hits the most home runs wins playoff games" philosophy that they built a team that doesn't make the playoffs. I would much rather watch a team steal bases, pressure the defense, defend well themselves, and advance runners than wait for walks and home runs. If you squint hard enough, you can see the beginnings of a team like that, so (hoping against hope) that is part of the plan.

I feel sorry for the fanbase, the players who aren't jettisoned, and the digestive system of the person who wrote the press release for the owners....

I would love to see him sign a two-year minor league deal with us - his potential, while sidetracked, is still high in my eyes. Assuming, of course, that he's up for another year of rehab and still wants to do this.

Can’t they just leave Canterino on the 40-man long enough (as teams do with rookies they are trying to manipulate service time with) that he doesn’t earn a full year of service and then assign him in May if they then need the 40-man spot? I’m not trying to be facetious or make jokes about his unfortunate injury history. I truly hope he’s someone we see play for the home 9 for years to come. He is seemingly already at a point where he’ll be under team control well into his 30s. Wishing all these guys some good breaks and long careers as they chase their dreams.

I paid attention throughout to see how the relievers were doing. Cody Lawyerson was about an inch from an immaculate inning.

Curious why Peyton Eeles didn't get an invite; guy did nothing but rake and hustle from indy ball to AAA and 2b is a (potential) revolving door.

If you take away the non-zero possibility that a non-roster-invitee makes the team, you have 5 spots for DH/reserve roles and it is safe to say that Castro, Vazquez, and Bader will take up 3 of those and one of Miranda or France with the other at 1b. That leaves, basically, 2b and 5th outfielder. I believe in Brooks Lee and would like to see him line up most every day at 2b. I think the real "contest" here is between Martin, Kiersey, Julian and Gaspar for that last spot. Personally rooting for Mickey - some pop, switch-hitter, can see a fairly regular PH/DH/1b role for him against RH pitching.

It seems to me that they emailed tickets last year. I am just holding on to my receipt right now as verification.

Was chatting with a buddy about this very topic last night. Our limited collective knowledge is clearly tinged with hope, but the sale of the team and the (lack of) current moves seem tied together. From the seller's perspective, maybe they'd like to add a couple of players (LH RP, RH 1B/COF) to appear as though they are committing their final act of stewardship to improve the team. Conversely, from the buyer's perspective, that's the last thing they want. Then, the new owners would have to come in and basically - do nothing. The payroll just increased from $140M to $150M, let's say, and now the new owners might be even more hamstrung than before. Not a great first impression. If something is going to happen, it seems clear that it would occur after new ownership (or with the express consent of pending new ownership, who would take credit for green-lighting the transaction). They want their white horse to ride in on. This seems to dovetail as well with the bargaining strategy - as has been mentioned, poor offers from other teams for the saleable assets, and poor offers from the Twins for available ones. That could turn on its head within the next handful of weeks. The pool of available players grows smaller, the Twins (by not obtaining anyone and refusing all offers for existing players) appear more and more desperate. Then (here's the hopeful part) new owners come in, add a couple of solid players when 31 other teams are either out of money or set at that position, make a reasonable trade from our minor league pool of depth to address any other needs, and wait out the market from there until the season is underway. I'm hoping Paddack starts the season strong and gets traded (I don't think he'll make it through the entire year, physically), but I'm also hoping they keep Vasquez for the season, or at least until the auditions for back-up catcher have a chance to play out.

I believe if the Twins do trade pitching, it might come from attaching one of the minor-league arms to existing contracts to get back a league-ready position player. That means depleting the Soto, Raya, Prielipp, Morris, Culpepper pipeline in some form. I'm thinking of someone like Dalton Rushing of the Dodgers - a package around Duran and one of the above pitchers might be in the ballpark. Packaging a Tanner Schobel or Brandon Winokur with Vazquez for salary relief, sign a RH 1b/corner who is in the $4-6M range on a one-year deal, Paddack for a flyer or reliever, and you haven't emptied the tank but still brought the budget back to that seemingly-written-in-Sharpie $130M figure.

The key to having a strong 8-man bullpen is to have a 12-man bullpen. Because the team is using a short leash on starters (across baseball), your team needs more than 8 guys to fill in the remaining innings. The only way to accomplish that is to have at least 4 members of your bullpen be guys that have options and can be rotated up and back from St. Paul (even 2 or 3 would be better). How many times last year were we stuck with a guy that was signed to a guaranteed contract where our only option was to release him or play him? I'm not staring at a list of players with options remaining, but that's where we need to look, within our own organization. If we can rotate the Canterino, Funderburk, Varland, Henriquez, Winder, Alcala (as well as potential future starters getting their feet wet in a stretch role) contingent and keep Jax, Duran, Sands, Topa and Stewart utilized in a reasonable manner, you can build a pen. It is when you have no flexibility and a bullpen usage chart (a feature of the daily rundown I really appreciate) that is littered with red and yellow and the only fresh arms are guys you don't want to pitch leverage innings that you are in a corner. It's going to happen regardless at points in the season, but the knowledge that if you have to pitch a guy 3 innings on Tuesday to clean up a game that you can have a fresh arm from across the river for the next night.....that keeps a gutter from becoming a gully.

There is another point on this topic (maybe even a separate thread, but I'm going to piggyback on this instead). In almost all sports at all times, playing 1 versus 16 (NCAA); 1 versus 8 (NBA, NHL) makes perfect sense. In baseball, however, we always give the #3 ranking to the division winner with the lowest win percentage. I'm not going to back this up with a bunch of stats, but it does strike me that this creates an unfair imbalance, and is at the heart of the OP's point: As the #1 seed, you will play the winner of 4 versus 5, which are the two best wild-card teams (and you will often find that the #4 seed and the #1 seed can easily - though not mandatory - come from the same division). On the other side of the bracket, the worst division winner plays against the worst wild-card team, with the winner now playing the 2nd-worst division winner (also 2nd-best, I get that). My point is simply that in my opinion, given the more-balanced schedules, the #4 seed is often better than the #3 seed in the current system. This year, that just means is Baltimore/New York better than Houston? In most years, is the #1 wild card team better than the division winner with the worst record? Not sure there's a fix for this - it wouldn't be fair just to base it on W-L percentage with no accord for division, because some divisions are going to beat up on each other and other divisions will have two strong teams and 3 weak ones, and it wouldn't be fair for them to be ranked higher for playoff seeding. But what about the 1 seed getting to choose which 3-6, 4-5 winner to play? Either to avoid a team in your own division who knows you too well, or to take advantage of the fact that the #6 seed upset the #3? Or because one first-round series went 3 games instead of 2, and they want to play the team who has burned 3 starters. Seems in a weird way that being the #2 seed is an advantage over being #1 under the current system, and no one would say that if #1 got to choose....thoughts?

I admit I don’t know what rehab from this surgery looks like but the Twins should know better than anyone whether he’s doing the work. That, to me, is the tipping point. is he doing everything in his power to be effective or is he hoping to milk one more middling contract out of some unsuspecting club?

So I get using Varland Friday with Ober as he’s 27th man. Does Festa pitch Saturday then and SWR on Sunday? Push Lopez back to Monday against the Royals….we still need a starter for Tuesday before getting back to regular rest (assuming, I guess, that Joe will miss a turn). Votes? Bullpen game seems like a stretch looking at the usage chart above.

Coming from Sioux Falls to see the Saints play tomorrow night- excited to see Zebby is toeing the rubber. Heck, good day to see pitchers throughout the system tomorrow.

The question in the original post about adding players (especially a strong starter) leads me to believe that they won’t spend big for a rental. They might, however, dip more heavily into their prospect capital for an arb-1 arm or something more $-controlled. It is spending the future rather than money but seems more plausible to have them give up a Rodriguez, Keaschall, Morris, Raya, Matthews, Prielipp type package (not all, but that level of player) to add that young 3rd starter with some years left. Not sure that is wise but seems more likely than Snell or Scherzer.

Do we have any idea when Brooks Lee might be ready? If only, this might have been his opening.

Getting a solid ML player for $4M that is coming off a couple of mediocre seasons marred by knee injuries who makes contact as a 4th OF is a good get. He’s RH. Plays all 3 spots. Can play CF everyday if needed (assuming his knees are better). We have 5 solid big leaguers as bench/DH with lots of flexibility in the roster to mix and match and give days off with minimal decline in team production. I do get the arguments about blocking prospects but don’t see any of them as mandatory adds right out of the gate. I think 1-13 this is a great mix of young and old, multi-positional ball players with great upside and an improved baseline. This team stays healthy and they are rock solid on the position player side. Other than “Martin comes up and shoves from day one” I haven’t read a post claiming a better deal than MMargot to fill this hole for that money.

"Jerry and Marge go Large" with Bryan Cranston, Annette Benning, and Rainn Wilson. It's on Amazon, Roku, and Paramount+.