chpettit19

Zero chance? You would've DFA'd Martin last year/this year and Roden is putting up essentially the same bWAR with significantly worse offensive numbers at the same age. I didn't guarantee he's DFA'd nor have I given up on him, but suggesting there's "zero chance" he's DFA'd is just as crazy as you think giving up on him would be. It's absolutely a possibility if he has a repeat performance and there's a new front office here who didn't bring him here.

He has a 119 OPS+. .812 OPS. There isn't a front office in baseball that would DFA him.

If it's a new FO I could see Outman and Roden being possible DFA/non-tenders, but I don't see any way possible this FO would even consider that. You're essentially suggesting the Twins traded Brock Stewart and Louie Varland for Kendry Rojas at that point. They aren't cutting those guys 2 months after trading for them. Larnach is definitely on the non-tender/trade block. I don't see any chance Keirsey makes it through the winter on the 40-man. Unless they actually give McCusker a chance in the majors over the next 2 months or shift him to 1B, I'd be shocked if he makes it through. Mendez will be interesting to track. I expect Pereda to make it through the offseason on the roster. Martin likely playing for his Twins career the rest of the season. May only have to show signs of life, but can't have a bunch more games like last night. Buxton, Rodriguez, Wallner, Outman, Roden locked in if this FO still in charge. The rest probably fighting for their 40-man lives.

I'd be shocked if he was. Why trade for him at all? They weren't saving money. He's league minimum. They have to believe in him to some extent and can't just non-tender him without giving him some run. I think he has the 4th OF spot in 2026 locked up already. I think he could hit .000 for the rest of the AAA season this year and be the 4th OF next year. Assuming this FO is still in charge. If they're all fired it changes everything.

I'd be very surprised to see any of these 8 shifted to the pen before 2027. Travis Adams, Pierson Ohl, Corey Lewis, Andrew Morris, Darren Bowen. Those are the types of guys I expect to see getting shifted to 1 inning roles next year to see if they can build some back end relievers out of them.

Luckily for the Twins, the Red Sox fixed Jorge Alcala (or so I've been told repeatedly around here) and he is now available to be brought back. Step 1 of the pen rebuild is just waiting for them to claim! 2026 is back in play, folks! Stop the tear down! We're back!

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.