chpettit19

Which is totally fine. Like I said, I wasn't telling you to believe in any of them. Just saying that service time wasn't a useful reason to not call them up. I don't really care about "tearing up AAA," though. I think minor league numbers are significantly overvalued by fans. Both on the good and bad side. Luke Keaschall had a .727 OPS in AAA when he was first called up. Most definitely not tearing up AAA. Gasper has ripped AAA apart for 2 straight years and I don't think there's many people who are fighting for him as a key part of the Twins moving forward. Shoot, Fitzgerald has a 118 wRC+. I really hope they're not waiting to gain Outman's age 33 season. I hope it's more of a "rehab" style thing for him. He hasn't gotten regular playing time with the Dodgers so I hope they're just letting him get his timing back. The odds of them paying out all his arb years is miniscule. He's not good enough. His age 33 season shouldn't be a worry at all. I agree Cardenas is the player I'd be most interested in on that list, but if you're going to plant people on the bench to rot, Vazquez would be the first guy I'd do it with.

When it comes to catchers? Yes. I mean, not every team, but the vast majority. Yes, the Twins need more catching prospects, but most teams do. That's the point. All I was arguing against was your claim that the Twins' problem stems from them not drafting enough catchers or getting enough from international free agency. I simply pointed out that they draft and sign as many catchers as everyone else. They just aren't good at developing them. Which is obviously a problem. The Vazquez deal was awful from the start. They paid him like a 2 way star and he isn't that. It was a terrible decision. I never endorse a position specific approach to minor league talent acquisition, but understand that many fans around here are obsessed with gaining more catchers. Veteran defense only catchers are incredibly easy to find every season. For very cheap. But we're getting off the topic here. Continuing to catch Vazquez this season doesn't make any sense to me unless you're throwing one of the young guys and think he'll help. But they let Adams throw to Jeffers yesterday so that clearly isn't their thought process. It'd be Gasper, Pereda or Cardenas if I were running things.

Sabato and Eeles are 26 years old. Well, almost 26 in Eeles' case. What are we saving them for? Their age 34 season? Rodriguez is hurt, again. His season is likely over. So, he's a moot point. But if you're not interested at all in seeing Sabato, Eeles, McCusker, Outman, Fedko, Prato, Miranda, Holland, Pereda, or Cardenas in the majors now because of service time, you're not interested in them at all. I'm not saying you should be interested in them, but service time isn't a reason for any of those guys. They're all already controlled into their 30s. The stronger argument is actually the opposite when it comes to those guys. It's that their service time doesn't matter. It's that the decision time is now. It's now or never for them. Rule 5 decisions need to be made this offseason. 40-man decisions need to be made. If they've already decided they're going to DFA Fiztgerald that's totally fine, DFA him now and don't waste the 2 months with him on the bench then make a roster decision on one of those other guys without any information. Are you done with Gasper? DFA him now and get McCusker some MLB ABs to see if you want to keep him on the 40-man all offseason. Why waste roster spots and then make roster decisions based on guesses instead of actually using the lost season to gather data and make more educated decisions? If you've made your decisions on Gasper and Fitzgerald cut them loose and get players in here you want to learn about or give experience to. They don't have to be glued to the bench. Quit playing Vazquez. Rotate everyone through and they can all get a ton of experience and you can gain information and make more educated decisions on all of them. I don't believe in the vast majority of the guys I've named in this post. But I believe in the process of making decisions based on less information than you could've gathered even less. And saving service time on guys you control into their 30s already doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Every team does this. The Twins are very much on par with the number of catchers they draft. They're just terrible at developing. But, then again, every team is when it comes to catchers. There's a reason so many catchers stick around on $3 million deals until they're darn near 40 even though they can't hit. Christian Vazquez is going to get a deal next year. Just like Martin Maldonado got one this year.

I said Fitzgerald is very likely a disaster, but I've been saying since day 1 Lee isn't a starting SS, and likely not an everyday MLBer. Doesn't mean I wouldn't put him out there nearly every day now, too. I would start Lee almost every game, too. DHing him instead of Jeffers 20% of the games when Vazquez catches isn't hurting your chances of figuring out if Lee is an everyday player. His bat is the question. They already know he isn't an everyday fielder at short. He's never had the range or arm for that. I didn't say anything about upside with Fitzgerald, I asked if he can be a backup. Can he save you from going out and trading for and paying the next Kyle Farmer? The Twins keep paying backups 5 to 10 million a year. Finding some backups for league minimum has value, too. Fitzgerald likely isn't even that good, but why not confirm it instead of not even trying? Like I said, Clemens wasn't even supposed to be that good and now you're thinking he may be a starter next year. My point, and I'm quite positive Riverbrian's point, is that we don't actually know. We are all pretty darn sure, but the season is lost and this is the time to confirm these things. Confirm Gasper can't catch. Confirm Fitzgerald can't hit. Confirm all of it. Catching Vazquez half the games and letting those 2 rot on the bench serves no purpose. Don't assume you're (the Twins, not you specifically) so smart that you can't possibly be wrong about these guys. Because you are wrong. All the time. Every team is. So, take advantage of the lost season and confirm things. Play everyone. Even guys without perceived upside. Because even backups at league minimum instead of backups at $5 million is value.

Vazquez has started 2 of 3 games since the deadline. Play Gasper. I have no faith he can be a backup major league catcher, but may as well find out during this lost season. Especially in a game where you're pitching Urena, Funderburk. Topa, Sands, Tonkin, and Ramirez. Those aren't young arms you need Vazquez behind the plate hand holding through the game to help them. Starting Vazquez twice has also lead to Jeffers DHing twice. More ABs being taken away from young guys. It's not huge stuff (just 3 days as the OP states), but if this is the plan for the rest of the season I think it's a pretty awful plan to continue to give Vazquez 50% of the games. Can Fitzgerald be your backup SS next year? Is he worth having around on a league minimum deal or is he a complete disaster and you need to bring someone in? Find out now, not next year. Again, it's been 3 days, so not a huge deal, but don't let him rot on the bench in order to get Jeffers DH days and Vazquez in the lineup. DH Lee and let Fitzgerald get some starts at SS. He's very likely a disaster and has no shot at being a utility infielder, but the odds were against Clemens when he was claimed, too, and now you want to maximize his playing time (for good reason). I can answer your Vazquez question right now. The rest of the season. The Pohlads aren't paying him to go away. Christian Vazquez will be a Twin until his contract runs out. There's nothing I'm more certain of this season. And, unfortunately, he'll probably continue to play 50% of the time.

I think you're being fooled by camera angles here. This camera isn't straight on. That pitch started just off the inside corner and moved across 1/2 of the plate. It had about 20" of drop and 15" of run on it. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?date=8/3/2025&gamePk=776892&chartType=movement&legendType=pitchName&playerType=pitcher&inning=1&count=&pitchHand=R&batSide=L&descFilter=&ptFilter=&resultFilter=&hf=illustrator&sportId=1&liveAb=#776892 You can click on the chart on this page that shows his pitches from that game to enlarge it. That pitch is the bottom right orange dot. It was an awful pitch and he missed his spot by about a foot, but it was most definitely not straight. And, no, Urena isn't a good pitcher. But it isn't because his pitches are straight. It's because 3 of them do roughly the same thing and the 4th doesn't counter them while he has bad control of all 4. Taj has significantly more upside than Urena. His pitches mirror each other much better and have far better chances for success. I hope they can get him straightened out and make that trade look as bad as the Cruz for Ryan deal. Only time will tell. It's an upside swing. I wish they'd have gotten a 2nd piece to mitigate some of the risk, but there's definitely a chance they get a really good player out of him.

Jose Urena has 13.9 inches of arm side run on his 4-seam fastball. Thats amongst the highest in baseball. Whatever you thought you saw yesterday, you saw wrong. He has incredible arm side run on his 4-seamer, sinker, and change. His problem is that he doesn't mirror that with anything. His slider has terrible movement and doesn't counteract the run of his other pitches so hitters only have to worry about pitches breaking 1 direction and it's all the same type of break. Taj, in comparison, has 7.2 inches of arm side run on his fastball. Which is essentially exactly league average. But does have elite carry. What you refer to as "flat." If you can locate a fastball with his kind of carry at the top of the zone you can be incredibly good. Joe Ryan's fastball at the top of the zone is one the most effective pitches in all of baseball because of the carry he gets on it. But missing your location leads to a lot of balls hit hard that go a long way. Thus you get the results we see from Taj Bradley when he's inconsistent with his locations. Flat fastballs aren't a problem if you can locate them correctly. It's about knowing your repertoire and pitching to your individual strengths instead of pitching to a generalized idea of how pitchers are supposed to get hitters out. It's why everyone uses high speed cameras to learn their specific body movements and what their pitches do and how they can be the most effective. The challenge is perfecting it and being able to be consistent with it.

Certainly easy to see what puts Abel on prospect rankings. That arm and stuff is impressive. Also easy to see what gives so many people concerns about him. Even yesterday he had moments where he just completely lost his control and had no idea where the ball is going for multiple hitters in a row. But they were pretty short lived stints of completely lost control so it was a fun game to watch. I'd put him right in with Festa and Zebby in the category of "clearly have MLB starter stuff, but their upside will be determined by what level of consistency they can reach." Oh boy, that Tait kid does not get cheated. It's a controlled violence, but it is violence. Stays back well to take the ball the other way if needed, but still comes out of his shoes in attempting to do so on those swings. It's a pretty swing, but makes my back hurt just watching him.

If you're going to replace the GM (I assume you actually mean Falvey who is the president, not GM. That is Zoll) why would you give him permission to make decisions with long lasting effects on the roster? Why would you give the guy you're about to fire the green light to trade guys with control instead of waiting to replace him and have your new guy do it? "Hey, I think you're bad at your job so I'm going to fire you, but go ahead and completely and totally reshape my franchise and make every big move we have before I take over so my new guy has no real levers to pull once he gets in there" is a weird strategy to me.

That's all fine. But if you're buying this thing before next season and putting your own guys in place you just let a walking dead man sell off multiple valuable pieces for parts you don't know your guys will like. There's no redo if your new guys come in and say "Bradley has 350 innings of entirely underwhelming major league performance in over 60 starts with some of the best pitching development power behind him, we don't think he's a useful piece at all. We wouldn't have traded Jax for just Bradley and don't want that piece." Or Outman (complete disaster of a trade in my view). Tait and Abel is very reasonable value for Duran, but if they aren't pieces the new FO wants you don't get to do that trade over and go to Seattle and get the pieces they were offering instead. There's risk in every decision. Keeping them until new guys are in place absolutely has it's own risk. My point is just that if this was simply about the new owners (again, assuming the rumors are true and a sale is imminent) wanting a rebuild instead of trying to win with the former core, they didn't have to sign off on selling controllable assets with a lame duck front office. It feels more financial to me. Which then points to new ownership being profit driven. I've been on the record as anti-Pohlad for a long time. And still am. I think they've run the business side of the Twins horribly. But I've also been very realistic that we need to be careful what we wish for. Claims that the Pohlads are even close to the worst owners in baseball history are laughable. The more recent generations are getting worse and worse as business people. But there's been far worse team owners. There's far worse owners currently. And there's far more profit driven people who could be buying this thing.

I agree with the general premise here, but still question the sale of controllable assets by the current regime. If new ownership is coming, isn't the assumption that they'll bring in a new FO? They don't have to be Twins super fans to know the state of the team and who's responsible for it. And if you're bringing in your own people, wouldn't you want them to be the ones selling off the high value controllable assets? At least Varland, Stewart, and one of Jax or Duran? You can decide a rebuild is the right move without letting the lame duck FO responsible for needing the rebuild make meaningful trades that result in you now having the great and mighty James Outman for your rebuild. I guess that'd mean I'm leaning more towards the signs pointing towards them being profit motivated and they just want this thing down to a minimal payroll to start.

I'm not in a rush. Another poster exclaimed they should get him up now and I guessed he'd be up Friday. A third poster said his stats weren't good enough during his rehab to deserve that and I said small sample size stats shouldn't determine his callup. That's been the extent of my input on Luke Keaschall. They'll use the full 20 days of his rehab and small sample size stats shouldn't be a determining factor. That's all I've said about him. But, if you want to get into it, his first stint in AAA was a small sample size (58 PAs) so I don't care about his line there. His MLB time, as you point out, was a week. And his rehab will be a small sample size (60ish PAs again). So, none of his statistical lines will mean a single thing to me this year. What does matter is how he looks. And he didn't look even a little overwhelmed in the majors. So, there's no reason not to call him up Friday. The reason you don't call guys up is because they'll be overwhelmed by clearly superior talent. He wasn't. If he starts to become overwhelmed you can send him back down later. Nothing says you can't, and if he's so mentally fragile that that experience will ruin his career, he's doomed anyways. He wasn't overwhelmed and could clearly hold his own to some extent. So, there's no reason not to call him up when it comes to him alone. The reasons, as I said in the other post that you deleted out, are external to him. It's wanting to get a deeper look at Julien at 2B before you make a final DFA decision on him. It's wanting to get a deeper look at Clemens. It's an AB distribution question. Luke Keaschall showed he can hold his own. He'll fail (very likely) at some point in the majors and have to make adjustments. No reason not to speed that process up and let those failures come now instead of later so he can get started on those adjustments. There are plenty of very good players in the majors with fewer AAA PAs than Luke Keaschall. So, no, they don't need to be in a rush, but they also don't need to delay him. It's just a question of who they want to give ABs to and where.

Agree on the rehab/service time thing. This isn't a service time manipulation thing. His OPS during his rehab is now about 40 points shy of what it was when he got called up the first time. He only had an OPS of .727 when he was called up originally. It's now .686 on rehab after the game last night (assuming my math is correct).

He shouldn't get an automatic recall, but his stats shouldn't be the determining factor. There's never a time when the stat line from 60ish PAs should be the determining factor. Too small of a sample size. To prove that point, he went from a .238/.353/.238/.591 slash on his rehab to a (assuming my quick math is right) .267/.375/.311/.686 slash with 2 hits and a walk last night. Added essentially 100 points to his OPS in 1 night with a triple and a single. His stats absolutely should not be the determining factor. He didn't "prove himself" the first time. He was hitting .261/.379/.348/.727 when he got called up the first time. He wasn't called up because he was lighting AAA on fire, he was called up because they were throwing darts. Shoot, throw another extra base hit on his line and he's hitting essentially exactly what he was when he "proved himself" last time. He shouldn't just blindly be put on the major league team and left there if he's getting sliced and diced. But his stats in a small sample shouldn't be the determining factor. They're far too volatile in that small of a sample.

I don't think his stats during his rehab will be the deciding factor. It'll be about who they want playing at the major league level. The reason they wouldn't call him up would be if they want to get a longer look at Julien at 2B, for example. Rehabs are way too small of a sample size to have stats matter.

I'm guessing you'll see him in 6 days. He has 5 days left on his rehab time and I'm guessing they're going to give him the entire 20 day run. He played 2nd today. Guessing he'll play 2nd tomorrow. Have Monday off. Then play 2nd Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and join the Twins in Minneapolis for the Royals series starting next Friday.

That throw is actually a great sign of his defensive chops. Shows his internal clock and awareness of the runner's speed. You can see him get up and gather quickly, ready to throw hard if needed, but read where the runner is at and throw only as hard as he needs to to still get the runner out by a step and a half.

We'll see.

Never argued he lived up to the contract. But I expect OPS+ numbers in the 130 range the next couple years in Houston. We'll see.

He was having the best season of his career last year before he got hurt. This idea that "he's been declining for a while now" isn't based on reality. It's absolutely not true. No sense in arguing about it, though. We'll see.

I have no problem moving any player anywhere on the field. They've all played baseball their entire lives, they can play other positions. But this is exactly why every time people complain about anyone involved in sports not being honest or open or whatever I say "what do they have to gain?" Royce is human and gave his human, open, honest feelings on the situation. I fully agree he should've been able to slide over without it being such a circus, but I also think he should be allowed to not want to. I can do plenty of other tasks at my job but it doesn't mean I want to. I don't know if Royce will ever learn, or even wants to learn, how to manage the media like CC does. Royce is incredibly open and honest. And there's no upside to it. There's never upside to it. Same reason Falvey gives nothing but empty corporate speak constantly. Better to annoy fans with corporate speak than be the prima dona.

Royce spent all offseason working at 2B. It's been widely reported. Royce didn't want to switch positions in the middle of a playoff push to a spot he'd never played before because he didn't want to screw things up. Even at the time he said he didn't mind playing 2B in general, he just didn't want to do it in the heat of a playoff push. The Twins didn't move Correa to third because they didn't have anyone who was better at short. Their best defensive alignments were all with him at short. I think fans are going to be very upset when Correa gets back to being Correa next year in Houston. We'll see.

Oh, nothing but respect here either. I'm here for the disagreements. If we all saw things the exact same way it'd be a pretty boring site! Part of my struggles with yesterday (well, last week since not all the trades were yesterday) is that it's hard to see a true plan. So, it sounds like our struggles are the same. The bullpen rebuild is where I'd guess I disagree most with the front office. My stance is they're not trying to rebuild but instead reshape/retool/whatever. They're trying to win now and later. But in order to do that they now need to build an entirely new bullpen. I think they think they can do that significantly quicker than I think they can. I think their plan is exactly how you described it and I think it's going to be a tough watch next year. Or, maybe, they take their 3-4 inning "not starter, not reliever" strategy from the minors this year and try that in the majors next year with Abel, Bradley, SWR, Festa, Matthews, Raya, etc.? I don't know. But either way, I think it's going to be rough. My view on next year is that it's going to be a mess. I think they're going to try to compete and I think that's a mistake. I hope they trade Ryan, Lopez, and Ober this offseason and go full rebuild. Trade Larnach (should've traded him yesterday). Right now it's very hard to see what path they're taking. My hope is that the offseason clears things up some, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm going to watch, too, but I won't be setting aside time for them. I'll be watching to see who gets called up the rest of this year. That's the best way, I think, for us to guess what their plans are for next year. If they start calling up young guys that's probably a bigger sign a true rebuild is coming. If it's only the 25- to 29-year-old types getting ABs through the end of the season it's probably confirmation that they're going to try to go for it next year. Will be very interesting to see who they give ABs to. Lewis, Lee, Buxton, Larnach, Jeffers, Wallner, Clemens, Keaschall all going to get a bunch I'd assume. Will be interesting.

Oh, I'm all for calling them up this year. Especially Culpepper and Gonzalez. Just not until September. I'd bring Miranda and Julien back today. Tell them they're starting every day for the month of August. Lefties, righties, doesn't matter. They're playing every single day. Their careers are on the line. Not just with the Twins, but in general. If they want anything other than a trip to Japan or some minor league deal next year they need to show something in August. I'd give them that chance. Wouldn't have high expectations, but they're on the 40-man so I'd give them their last gasp. Come Monday, September 1st when the White Sox roll into town I'd have Culpepper and Gonzalez at Target Field ready to go. Probably Jenkins depending on how he looks in August. If you're not going to look at Miranda or Julien again just DFA them now. Why even carry them? Are you going to bring them back for next year and see if they figure it out then? If you don't trust them now it's time to just give up. Let them go somewhere else and try to start over or bring them up and see if they can figure it out on the fly.