chpettit19

Because it's the entire point of a union and how a negotiation works. Unless, of course, you don't think the players have anything they want to change about the CBA? The players want things. The owners want things. There's no such thing as "entirely an ownership issue." Again, that's the entire point of having a union and CBA. In order for the players to get things they want they need to give the owners something they want. The question is what the balance is. Oh, and none of the players want to get real jobs instead of being millionaire athletes. The 23 lowest revenue earning clubs overpower the top 7 and get complete media revenue sharing. You claim that's "entirely an ownership issue." Since you don't think the players should even care to have any say in this "ownership issue" they don't get any sort of raise in the floor (teams have to roster 26 players at league minimum, so, technically, there is a floor). Now the Marlins, Pirates, Twins, whoever aren't forced to spend more on their payroll, but the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees don't have as much revenue to spend on their payroll. What do you think that does to the overall player contract situation? Again, the entire point of having a union and CBA is to have a say in this. You don't improve, or even maintain, your current financial situation by saying "not our problem, it's entirely a problem for the people that control the money to figure out how to pay me the same amount even if I don't care to force them to."

Yeah, I don't think they are playing any better than I expected. I guess I can't speak for anyone else, but they've been a super hot and cold offense, their bullpen has been a disaster, and the starting pitching has been mostly good. It's what the majority of us said was going to be the case all offseason. I think what you mean to say is that they're playing better baseball than you expected. Because they are playing exactly how I expected.

Yeah, I should've worded that differently. The point was that they agreed to a contract amount beyond this season. Which took discussion about Ryan's future with the team. And they didn't go beyond the team control.

I knew which Culpepper you meant and my answer remains the same. Cash considerations is the only thing I'd give up to buy anyone for this year. This team is not good enough to sacrifice any player who has even the slimmest of chances of contributing in the future when the team may actually be real contenders. I appreciate the optimism, but this team has been exactly what most of us predicted so far. Aroldis Chapman isn't turning them into an 85-90 win team.

They're on pace for a win total in the mid-70s. Isn't that almost exactly what the majority of people on here said they'd do all offseason? I think it's been essentially exactly what I expected. Mostly good starting pitching. Horrid bullpen. Hot and cold offense. All leading to a team winning somewhere between 72 and 78 games. They are who most of us thought they were.

You want the Twins to trade any piece that may have a shot at being helpful for 6 years in order to get a 38 year old reliever on a team that is still 4 games below .500 despite being on a 4 game winning streak? A team with a negative run differential? A team that's gone 11-20 against teams over .500? It's hard for me to imagine this, but I may legitimately end my fandom of the Twins if they are trading guys like Gonzales and Culpepper for a Chapman rental.

The Twins should be making every effort to move Ryan and Jeffers. It's like nobody remembers why Pablo Lopez isn't currently pitching for the MN Twins and that he's the exact reason you trade Ryan. Oh, and Ryan's 100% success rate of fading in the 2nd half of seasons. Assuming he makes it to the deadline healthy, he will never have more value and the risk of injury to MLB starting pitchers is incredibly high. You can't just assume you'll be able to trade him later. Same thing many of us said about both him and Lopez this offseason. There is risk in holding pitchers. You risk getting nothing for them. The Twins did a partial extension with Ryan this offseason. He has a 2027 contract with them. It's a mutual option for 13 mil with a 100k buyout. The Twins can certainly be incredibly incompetent, but I'd have to imagine the idea of a longer extension was brought up during those talks. If he wanted to be here longer, I'd guess he'd have told them that and tried to work out a deal beyond his team control years. Trade Joe Ryan for 2 top 100 prospects plus. Ryan Jeffers isn't going to sign an extension this close to free agency. Trade him. If you want him back, offer him a deal in the offseason. Only way the Twins or anyone else gets him to sign now is by throwing major dollars at him. His value is going to be lower than it would've been because of the injury (and just coming back to play after a hamate injury doesn't mean he's going to be the same, and every team knows that hamate injuries notoriously diminish power well after the player returns), but he should still be able to bring back a couple of legitimate prospects. I forget who brought Cruz up in the other thread, but a Cruz type return is the kind of deal they should be looking for. Nobody else on the Twins is worth anything anyone around here would be impressed by or happy with. They have 2 trade chips. Move them both. The most important thing a front office, or owner, can do is be realistic about the state of their team. This team isn't good enough. Finish what you started last year and give yourself the best chance to be good enough in the future. Trade Ryan and Jeffers.

Yeah, I'm not going to concern myself over 40 vs 45 and which source ranked them as which. Neither Ryan nor Strotman were viewed as anything special. There is absolutely variance between systems, and they're not all created equal, but once you get outside the top 20ish and then 100ish you're getting into incredibly deep and wide pools of prospects. Fangraphs had Ryan as a multi-inning reliever for the start of the 2022 season. Strotman was down to a 40FV. The point is that the Twins aren't getting any of the Yankees (or any team's) top guys for Jeffers. They're going to get people like Ryan and Strotman. Guys who aren't taking top 5 spots in our system when they get here. 40 and 45 FV grades for minor leaguers are not that big of distinctions. And they vary by source. If people here are expecting to recognize the names that come back, they're going to be disappointed. Cunnigham and Hampton may drop and others may go up. The job of the FO is to find the best pile of middle-ground guys that they can. Then build one up to be more than 40 or 45 graded guys in the future.

Me too. Get 2 well thought of arms and do your best to turn them into MLBers.

Cruz is probably a pretty good comp in terms of value. I wouldn't consider Ryan and Strotman "highly rated" starting pitchers, though. They were ranked in the 10-20 range in terms of system rankings. That's probably what the Twins, and fans, should be expecting for Jeffers. 2 guys in the 10-20 range of the Yankees system. Kyle Carr, Brock Selvidge, Cade Smith, Jace Avina, Rory Fox, Chase Hampton, Brendan Beck. These are probably the names Twins fans should start looking at in the Yankee system if they're expecting a Jeffers to Yankees deal. Ryan being about a 10th ranked system guy when that trade went down is a good reminder to people that it doesn't have to all end up doom and gloom just because they didn't get a guy on the lists we all look at.

Yes, 23 mil for a catcher is a bad 1-year deal. What's the goal with that? You wouldn't be able to trade him on that deal, and you can't improve your team when you're paying Jeffers and Caratini 30 mil combined. Spending that much on catchers would be awful resource management. There are so many better ways to spend 30 mil on any payroll the Twins could reasonably be expected to have next year. And, no, you don't have to get at least the value of the comp pick because other teams wouldn't believe you're actually going to QO a catcher for 23 million. And catchers are not guys who get 50+ mil deals so the comp pick would be an early 3rd anyways. The Twins are not getting any name anyone is going to be impressed with on the surface. He simply isn't worth that much in trade as an injured rental.

I would be absolutely floored if the Twins got a top 100 prospect back for a Jeffers rental. Especially a Jeffers coming off injury rental. Especially an injury known to destroy a player's power well past the time they return. I'd guess you're looking at more like a prospect in the 8-10 range of most systems.

The Dodgers currently have Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and some guy named Ohtani in their organization. They're running Emmet Sheehan, Eric Lauer, and Justin Wrobleski out in their rotation currently. There's never been a team in the history of organized sports that had too much talent. There is no such thing as a log jam. There's no such thing as somebody being blocked. There's no such thing as having "too many position X" players in your organization. There's never a dilemma. You can have up to 13 pitchers on your major league roster. Until somebody has the 14 best arms in baseball all on their team and all healthy at the same time, there's no dilemma. Too much talent has never been a dilemma, problem, or anything else for anybody. Ever. And the names we're throwing around aren't exactly Glasnow, Sasaki, Snell, Yamamoto, and Ohtani.

Interesting. Super small sample sizes, but not unreasonable. Although, I believe he played with Team USA in 2025, not the Cape league.

Why?

My sister lives in Milwaukee so I get to a couple of their games a year. Usually a pretty fun team. But I have too many Brewer fan friends so I have to root against them in the name of competitive friendship law.

This would be a good time for the Pohlads to be in the know with the owners so they have a feel for what is coming. Obviously, nobody knows what the future holds, but the inner circle owners have a better idea than the outer circle ones. And that lets their team make some tiny tweaks to strategy. I'm of the belief that the Twins should extend as many of the young guys they think are real players now and take service time completely off the table. And get their contracts grandfathered in if the MLBPA gets their way and team control is shortened in return for stricter cap situations and you have them all locked up on cost controlled deals that better allows you to manage the rest of the cap details. A grievance from the MLBPA is also a consideration if you keep a 23-year-old, first round pick in the minors all year despite clearly being ready and your SS being a nobody like Gray and Kreidler. How much of a consideration? I don't know. But there's a million.

I don't know that I can agree with that. It depends on the situation your team is in. Where they are on the winning/competitive cycle and where they are in the financial world. Service time considerations are absolutely things teams need to consider. The best run teams are the ones that know the CBA inside and out and can take maximum advantage of it. I do feel that the Twins are at a spot where the most important consideration with Kaelen Culpepper should be his readiness. Holding onto Gray or whichever waiver wire level player people like least shouldn't be a consideration with him. "Depth" isn't needed this year. It's a lost season (realistically was before it started). There are a million other considerations I won't go through here, but they are things that definitely should be considered at certain times depending on the state of the organization. But, right now, what I want them focusing on is what's best for having Kaelen ready to be a real contributor moving forward beyond this lost season.

I have not watched much baseball at all this year. Life has been a little crazy. So, I have no opinion on what his readiness is. I'm a big proponent of numbers in the minors not at all being the end all be all. We can probably all name 10 guys off the top of our heads immediately who put up huge minor league numbers and had no shot in the majors. This is what the coaches/FO staff are paid for. The guys with the AAA (or AA) need to be able to give the FO guys feedback on the readiness of prospects. The FO guys then need to be able to get their eyes on them and decide if they agree or not. And then decisions need to be made. I will most definitely not make an argument that the Twins have been good at this recently. But it's what teams need to be good at. And every team has AAA guys fans call for and teams don't call up. They have to be better than us at knowing who to call up and when. If there's a clear and obvious hole in his game that MLB pitchers are going to exploit and they think he can close up in AAA, let him close it there. But they need to have a line that all players can cross that say "this guy is ready for the next challenge." And being good at placing the line and knowing when guys cross it is one of the most important things any baseball organization does.

Well, Super 2 wouldn't lose a year of control, just cause him to be paid more earlier. It doesn't lose a year of control, it adds a year of arbitration. So, he'd get 4 years of arbitration instead of 3 with only 2 years at minimum instead of 3. Super 2 is only a financial concern. There's a lot of things that need to be a factor. Another one is his readiness whenever baseball resumes again after any potential lockout. I assume they play most, if not all, of 2027. Agree that the hope has to be that both sides are smart enough to not tank their viewership with lots of missed games. And their opening offers being much closer than I expected, and presented earlier than usual, gives me hope. But, the Twins should also be looking to compete as early as possible. Part of that is going to be Kaelen, and other youngsters, being able to provide real production. Getting him some run this year helps with that. How much run is needed? I don't know. But him having gone through the initial adjustment to the adjustments phase would be very good for the Twins. I'm not making a case for any specific timeline for him beyond "when he's ready." The Twins already control him through his prime. He'll be 30 when he hits free agency. Would it be nice to have him til he's 31? For sure. If you think he's going to be good and want him til he's 33, extend him now and take the whole service time consideration off the table. There are a million things that need to be considered, but I hope the #1 consideration is his readiness.

I'd guess the service time issue they're looking at now, if any, is Super 2. Waiting another 2 or 3 weeks likely gets him beyond any Super 2 window and they can save a little dough down the line. Really, their only concern should be whether or not they think he's ready for his first crack at the majors. As soon as they think he's ready, there isn't anyone blocking him. A team in the position the Twins are in should be looking to get a guy like Kaelen up to start his MLB adjustments and get him ready for future years. My concern is that Tom's "we're going to compete" declaration "forces" them to make "depth" related decisions around the 40-man in the name of not having to rely on Culpepper not struggling while they try to chase a playoff birth. The realistic view of this team is that they aren't good enough and need to start preparing for 2027 and beyond. Culpepper getting his feet wet, maybe having to go down, and getting used to making MLB adjustments is what's best for 2027 and beyond. Get him up the second you believe he's ready to start that challenge.

Who says it took Joe Mauer 3 years to be good at first? Joe Mauer was a passable 1B the second he stepped over there. Not to mention that if your best argument is naming a guy who played the 1 non-pitcher position that is essentially entirely unrelated to the other 7, that's not very impressive. You have any examples of guys who came up as SS (like the subject of this article, Royce Lewis) who were significantly worse defenders at another IF spot than they were at SS?

No worries. And A+ for grammar!

You are the 3rd person to respond with "confidence matters, too" to me on this. And I'll give you the same answer I gave the other 2...that's all the more reason to not call him up until he's made real adjustments. Major League pitchers don't care about Royce's confidence. They will continue to throw him away while he tries to yank everything and out of the zone while he continues to chase everything. And he'll fail. Again. What does that do to his confidence? I'd say it raises the chances his confidence is completely blown and then his career with the Twins is over. I am not fine with "well he hasn't adjusted at all, but he's confident so let's just put him back up there even though we know his flaws are still there and the 90% chance is that he fails again and we can then DFA him." If your intention is not to have him truly fix his flaws, then let him mash AAA for another week or 2 and trade him for whatever you can get.

Royce Lewis has been a professional baseball player since he was 18 years old. He's now 27. If he hasn't picked up where the 1B goes for backing up fielders or cuts or anything like that by now, he's never going to figure it out. He's been on a professional baseball field thousands of times. If he doesn't pay enough attention, especially as a SS, to know where everybody goes on the field, that's on him and is a major flaw in a wanna be leader. You don't think Correa can tell you where every player on the field is supposed to be on every play? He's never played 1B, but I'll bet my life's savings he knows exactly where the 1B should be on every play. Every team moves guys around every year and they don't all suck at defense. The Twins suck at defense because they have a bunch of guys who don't have the skills to play MLB level defense. Tatis Jr moved from SS to CF/RF as a 22-year-old with no minor league experience and won the gold glove in his next season. Jackson Merrill had never played a game of CF before he showed up in spring training as a 20-year-old and debuted at that position on opening day. And played it well. Luis Gonzalez never played an inning of baseball in the grass until he was a rookie in the majors and they moved him to LF from 1B/3B. Mookie Betts moved to the OF when he was about to debut because the Red Sox had an MVP at 2B. Xander Bogaerts had never played an inning of professional baseball at 2B until he got to San Diego as a 31-year-old and they moved him there. Marcus Semien has 2 gold gloves despite playing 2B, SS, 3B, and LF in the minors. Paul Molitor played SS, 2B, 3B, CF, RF, LF, and 1B in the majors. Wait, that's every non-catching or pitching position there is, right? And he turned out alright. Manny Machado won a gold glove his first full season. At 3B. A position he played 18 innings of in the minors before he debuted in the majors at it. The joke is pretending that asking professional baseball players to play other positions has a significant impact on anything. Ozzie Smith could've slid to 2B or 3B and still been a wizard with the glove. Julien's inability to field 2B is because he lacks the feet and hands to field that, or any, position. Not because it wasn't the only position he played in the minors. Bryce Harper grew up a catcher, switched to RF in the pros, and then to 1B after an injury. He's been a solid fielder in both right and first. Bo Bichette is bad at SS, 3B, and 2B. Because he's a bad fielder, not because they moved him from SS to another position. ARod was a good fielder at both SS and 3B. He didn't fall apart because he didn't know the intricacies of 3B when he went to the Yankees. Jorge Polanco has played all over and that wasn't why he wasn't/isn't a great fielder. It's because he doesn't have all the skills needed to be a great fielder.