chpettit19

I'm ready to move on, but the nervous side of me is certainly worried that things get even worse. I think they have a solid core of young guys on the cusp, though, so my hope is that they could be replaced with someone who doesn't have to do a whole bunch early on, but can make some tweaks to overall strategy, and supplement the hopeful "new core" to raise the ceiling. I don't get the feeling the Pohlads are going to make any changes, though. I think they have been assured they'll be here to start next season at a minimum.

Would you put him at the bottom of the 30 current people running MLB teams? I'd fire him (assuming they're not going to make any real noise in the playoffs), but I think he's pretty squarely in the middle of the pack of current MLB GMs/POBOs. It's not hard to look around the league and see a whole lot of other teams I'm much happier not being a fan of. Again, I'd fire him, but I'd certainly be ready for the possibility of far worse results. This team, and being .500, isn't fun. But it's way better than being Oakland, Colorado, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, or Miami. And basically the same as being a fan of Kansas City, Arizona, other Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Washington, New York, other New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Cleveland, Toronto, and Baltimore. That's 7 teams I see as being clearly worse. And 13 I see as being awfully similar (some cuz of recent rings, others cuz they're up and coming, others cuz they're basically the same middle of the road type teams). That leaves 9 I think are clearly better. Is Falvey one of the 30 best people in the world at running a ball club? I don't know. But I know there's currently a number who are worse than him running other teams.

I don't see how that's "shifting the goalposts on results." I'm on the "fire the FO" side of the argument, but FDG isn't wrong that there's a long ways below the Twins, and their FO, and the bottom of the league. I agree that I'd take the risk for getting much worse at the shot of getting much better, but this FO is competent, just not great. Your suggestion that them "winning a WC series on the back of great SP shouldn't negate how uninspiring the product has been for the last 2+ years" is far closer to "shifting the goalposts on results" than FDG pointing out that things could get a lot worse around here with a new FO. I'm not saying them winning the WC series alone should negate anything, but why would we not give them credit for acquiring "great SP" that can win a playoff series against a team I'm quite sure you'd describe as better than the Twins? I haven't particularly enjoyed watching this team for a couple years now, but if they start winning playoff series I'll absolutely give them credit for it, and reassess my stance. Is your demand of them not to win playoff series? Does it not count if they don't win the way you want, but instead win "on the back of great SP?"

I'm not really worried about Correa moving forward. I think he bounces back just fine next year. But he's certainly been awful this year. Buxton I have real fears about ever being an outfielder again, and that's huge. But I won't play the hindsight game with that deal. I had no problem with him getting that deal, and until I'm given hard proof that they should've known his knees were going to completely fall apart I'm not going to hold that against them. But if those deals are both bad for 5 more years it's really, really bad for this organization. $45+ million on the bench for 5 years is not a sustainable plan. But 2 RH bats isn't really having "RH bats covered." We shouldn't be RH bat barren, but they're not totally covered even with those 2 at their peaks. They had 2 horrid trades last year. No doubt about that. I didn't mind the Mahle one at all. I didn't expect Mahle to need TJ surgery or Steer to be nearly this good. CES still has a lot to prove before I'm going to cry over him, but he's got a real chance to be a solid bat. Thought it was a reasonable trade for 1.5 years of Mahle. They traded from an area of perceived depth (RH corner IF bats with questionable gloves) for an area of need (the rotation for more than just the end of last year). You have to give value to get value. Didn't work out. I also didn't mind the Lopez deal, and anybody who claims they had a problem with Cano being traded, or saw this year coming from him, is flat out lying, so I thought Povich was a reasonable price for 2.5 years of Lopez. I didn't expect Lopez to be as good as he was in the first half, but didn't expect him to completely fall apart with the stuff he throws. Didn't work out. Those are 2 huge mistakes that absolutely should be held against the FO. Even if part of it is bad luck with the TJ surgery for Mahle, you can't have 2 misses that are that big in the same year. But, overall, I actually think they do an OK job with their roster building. Doesn't mean I wouldn't fire them for other reasons, but they are pretty neutral on their hits and misses. Not surprising they produce these roughly .500 teams (they were a .500 team last year until they were playing you, me, and Jake Cave in September). The bigger the hit or miss the more emotional the reaction. Have 2 big misses, and then your team face plants the next year? Going to have a lot of emotional reactions out of fans. But they've had good trades. Odo, Maeda, Gray, Ryan, Duran. Those are good trades. But the team overall has struggled so we forget about them and focus on the misses. Human nature. I've been slow on giving up on them because there's a very real chance you fire them and get a much worse FO in their place. They're middle of the ground. There's worse out there. But their inability to adjust in season (why is Gallo still here?!), and the fact that I'm someone who believes in taking the educated risk on higher upside, leads me to want to move on. It's not at all, for me, that they're just piling up blunder after blunder. I don't agree with that. It's that they're average, and I want to take a shot at better than average. I'd much rather miss on a Walker Jenkins upside play than make the "safe" college bat play with lesser upside. I don't think these guys can get this team to a dominant spot. And I want to see if someone else can.

I agree with @jishfish. Correa is still playing elite defense at short according to my eyes, and he can/will move to 3B when he's no longer the best defender they have at SS. To me the question is if, as this article seems to suggest, he's actually breaking down, or if this is just a down year and he bounces back. I'm of the belief he bounces back. Lots of good numbers and charts shared here that show almost all these bigtime SS signings the last couple years had a terrible first year, then bounced back. There's something to these guys being human. Correa had a very abnormal offseason, and then, I'd guess, came in looking to have his best season ever to give the finger to the Mets and Giants and some fans. If I'm wrong, and this is actually a physical decline at the age of 28 the Twins are definitely in trouble. But if I'm right, and he bounces back, he's not "clogging that spot." Borderline HOFers aren't "clogging spots." Nolan Arenado isn't "clogging" 3B in St Louis and forcing them to move their elite young 3B (Jordan Walker). That's not a problem. That's a blessing. And if Correa loses his mobility in 2 or 3 years you move him to 3B where his arm allows him to still be an elite fielder until the end of his 6 guaranteed years, I'd bet. Maybe you believe this is the start of his decline. If it is then I agree this is a terrible situation for the Twins. I just don't think it is.

Lots of talk of "highest payrolls" or "TR didn't get this big of payrolls" like the Twins are a top spending team now. Yes, the overall total of the payrolls are higher, but they're still in the 15-20 range in terms of league rankings on spending. I'm not saying this as an excuse, or to suggest it's crazy to think they should be fired. My "fire/don't fire" decision making question was how quickly/effectively they made in season adjustments to "the plan," and they've completely failed at that in my opinion (Gallo alone is enough to say they've failed at it). I'm just bringing this up because them spending 150+ mil is a team record, but the rest of the league is setting team records, too. Their overall spending power hasn't dramatically changed in the context of the league overall.

I mean Royce Lewis has played 26 games this year. Lee just got to AAA (admittedly he could've been promoted earlier). And neither is anywhere near a sure fire major league shortstop. I'm all for young, controllable, top end talent, but Carlos Correa is on a borderline HOF career path. Correa and Gallo are not comparable signings.

Gallo's roster spot should 100% be available for any competent major leaguer to take. And they're going to really want one of those RH corner OFers if they make the playoffs.

What's weird is speaking in certainty like you did. You didn't say "it's all going to come down to how they play against Cleveland, what will they do?" You said "once they play go head to head with Cleveland its all over. Twins can't beat the Guardians when it matters, and like last September, that will be our undoing." And last September they had half their roster on the IL, I hope that isn't the case this year.

Illegal substance to add to the ball for pitchers?! Although I've heard there's no crying in baseball because there's no crying in baseball.

I'm choosing to not think about such a possibility. Can only handle so much before I cry. And I hear there's no crying in baseball.

But Correa is the one asking for specific data. He knows what numbers he wants. Popkins doesn't make up the numbers. Correa has built a routine and the numbers he wants over years playing with an even more analytically driven team than the Twins. He tells the coaches what numbers he wants, they don't tell him what numbers he should look at. Almost the entire team is performing to recent career norms. They're simply not very good career norms. Gallo, Farmer, Solano, Kepler (is Popkins now a genius since Kepler is performing great recently?), Castro, Larnach, MAT all within normal range of recent numbers. Jeffers having career year. Julien, Kirilloff, Wallner, Lewis all performing very well as rookies. Correa, Buxton, and Vazquez only 3 guys really having bad years. Just happen to be the 2 most important players are in that group. 3 out of 15 guys sure doesn't scream "coaching is killing this team!" to me. Was apparently washed with the Giants and Mets orgs this year, too, I guess. And the Yankees for multiple years prior. Dang, crazy that the Padres are struggling so much with such a brilliant hitting coach. Turned back the clock on Sanchez while also turning Kim into a star. But destroyed Machado and Bogaerts. We've veered off path a little for the thread topic, though. I don't think Correa breaks out this year, but I don't think coaching has doomed him, nor do I think he's declined overall for his career. I expect him back much closer to a 130 OPS+ next year. With the same coaches or not. But reasonable minds can disagree.

Agreed we shouldn't derail the thread. I'll just say I really hope you aren't right.

Their inaction either means they feel comfortable in their job security (would be my bet) or the Pohlads put a governor on them because they're either making or breaking with the team they built. I would move on from the whole regime even though I like what they've done with modernizing the org, and I think they draft pretty well overall. I just don't think they have the needed ability to adjust quickly enough to succeed. They make a plan for the year and hardly change from it at all. And when they try to it turns out like last deadline (I didn't mind the trades at the time, but boy have they turned out bad). Since I do think they draft well I'd like to see Sean Johnson remain as it's my understanding that he basically runs the draft. But Falvine needs to go, in my opinion. I don't think they will, though.

Don't let your general love of coaching get in the way of the facts. Carlos Correa isn't some rookie. He's not new to obsessing over data. He's fully capable of adjusting before August if it's the info from his coach that's causing problems. My point was Correa is a bad example of your point. Is Jeffers ignoring Popkins or why is he having a career year?

He had the same coaches last year and put up his second best season ever. He's been an information junky for years. Carlos is not a good example of the point you're trying to prove.

If they're going full rebuild that means Lewis, Kirilloff, Julien, Lee, Wallner, Ryan, Lopez, Ober, Jax, and Duran couldn't form a new core. That'd be quite the disaster.

April- .633 OPS May- .884 June- 1.012 July- .614 August- .776 September- 1.001 July was certainly bad, but August was solidly above average. That doesn't look like decline to me. Especially when you consider his overall OPS+ was the 2nd best of his career.

If this is him being "ravaged by the effects of physical aging" this org is in a terrible spot. Having your 2 franchise cornerstones both shy of 30 breaking down physically is a nightmare. If they think that's the situation they need to see if they can sneak their way out of some of the Correa deal by moving him. You can't have a broken down Correa and Buxton on your team. Simply can't do it. I'm not convinced this is Correa breaking down, and expect him to be back closer to normal next year, but if he's breaking down already this org is about to have nearly $50 million going to 2 bench players real soon.

Zach Neto has an argument as well. Depending on how you view their respective upsides. He's got 1.6 bWAR and a 99 OPS+ in 66 MLB games while playing a more than reasonable SS. Only question is how much more there is in his bat. Lee is doing just about everything we could've hoped for, though! And if Jenkins can be this year's Holiday I'm going to be quite thrilled.

A ball this year, and end at AA next year and we're really onto something! I'd be awfully happy if he follows the Jackson Holliday path in his first year and a half as a pro.

I have no idea if they can beat Cleveland "when it matters" this year, but that's a weird narrative in general. They certainly couldn't beat them last year, but they were 11-8 against them in 2021. Including going 6-4 against them in the second half. They're 3-4 against them this year in 7 incredibly close games. Completely collapsing against them last year has nothing to do with how they'll play them down the stretch this year.

I'm with @LA VIkes Fan. I'm all for moving on from Gallo, but Mancini isn't the answer. His defense is significantly worse. He can't play OF. He has an 11th percentile sprint speed this year. For reference, Vazquez is 9th percentile. Could you imagine Vazquez trying to track down a fly ball? He belongs nowhere near an OF. Trey is an absolute class act, and seems like a wonderful dude. But he can't cut it in major league baseball anymore. No thanks on bringing him in.

Molitor managed Buxton for 4 years. How long was it going to take for him to turn him into Puckett? Buxton was pulling the ball 45% of the time by the time Molitor left. If Molitor didn't have him doing all those things after 4 seasons I'm not sure why we'd think he'd do it over the next 4. Was Molitor going to go Mr Miyagi on him and magically heal his knees, or stop him from getting hurt in the first place?

Weird thing is that he is missing bats. His K rate sky rocketed in July. Since his shutout (so the stretch where he's been brutal) he has 52 Ks in 32.1 innings. For comparison he had 36 Ks in 32 April innings. 40 in 33 innings in May. 29 in 31.2 innings in June. He's missing bats and getting Ks at his best rate of the season. But when they hit it they crush it now.