chpettit19

The Twins, in my opinion, need to do my emulating of these teams in that they need to move more of their established players. But not as many of them as those teams. They still have significantly higher payrolls. I've been saying for a quite a while now that one of Lopez, Ryan, or Ober (if he comes back and dominates) should be traded this offseason for offensive help. That'd be the Cleveland/Tampa type move. Trade an established arm (Kluber, Snell, Glasnow) that's getting (or is) more expensive for multiple longer term pieces with higher risk but lots of reward. The Twins need to stop losing so many guys for nothing, but they also have more spending power than those 2 organizations so they shouldn't be run exactly the same. It's a balance.

And they added Marquis Grissom and David Justice in the middle of their run. And Julio Franco. And Tony Fernandez. And Matt Williams. Traded Brian Giles after his first 4 years in the majors when he was a core player. Sorry, didn't know I needed to name every single transaction they made. They turned the roster over significantly. Just like they do now. Trading Sean Casey was a significant decision. He was a 2nd round pick who was supposed to be part of their core that they traded for Dave Burba in the middle of that run to supplement their roster. Richie Sexson played 279 games for those teams in the late 90s. With an above average OPS in his early 20s. Trading him is an example of turning the roster. They turned their roster plenty during those times. The suggestion that they ran their team significantly different than they do now is false. They aren't trading all their guys well before free agency now, either. Jose Ramirez is still there, no? Shane Bieber still throwing baseballs for Cleveland? Steven Kwan still around? Lindor made it until his last year before he was dealt. Kluber got an extension. Santana played there for 8 years his first time around. They keep some guys around longer now just like they shipped some guys out then. They aren't doing things drastically differently. Fine. Take your 9 years of World Series and new park fan spike. Congrats. Still has nothing to do with team stability. It was a great team mixed with a new stadium. The Twins saw a spike in attendance when they opened Target Field, too. Every team does. You are wrong that the turning of the roster is what's driving fans away because you are wrong that a stable roster is what drew fans in the first place. The opening of a new stadium and going to the World Series while being a World Series contender for half a decade plus is what drew the fans, not the stable roster. Because the roster wasn't any more stable. Casual fans don't show up to see specific players. It's why they're called "casual fans." They aren't obsessed with the roster. They don't know when Joe Ryan is starting vs when Chris Paddack is starting. They don't check the lineup before the game to make sure their favorite player is playing. They're casual fans. They just go when their buddies are going. Yes, the Twins need to be much better at developing. Much better.

Those 90s Cleveland teams let Albert Belle walk, traded Kenny Lofton for David Justice and Marquise Grissom (then brought back Lofton, brilliantly), traded Sean Casey, traded Richie Sexson, and let Sandy Alomar Jr walk. That's just the position player side. They weren't a super stable team. They had plenty of roster turn. They also hit on multiple Hall of Fame level prospects at the same time (Manny and Thome) and made multiple World Series runs with an incredible offense and fun team to watch. Fans showed up because they were one of the best offenses of all time and were a sustained winner with realistic World Series expectations every year for over half a decade. I think you're being awfully deceiving by trying to act like they used to be "attendance monsters." That was a 6 year run. That's it. Outside of that 6 year run they were never "attendance monsters." And they were turning the roster back then, too. They just nailed the moves they made during that 6 year run and their fans had legit World Series hopes every year.

Oooohhhhh, Kyle Tucker would be great. Let's get him.

As of today, I would be incredibly surprised if there's more than a Trevor Richards type buy move or any kind of real sell move. I think they truly believe in this team being talented enough to win some playoff games and they won't give up that hope unless things fall apart over the next couple weeks. And even then I doubt they do major selling as they will put huge price tags on everyone and nobody will pay what they ask. I fully expect another very boring trade deadline. As of today. Things can change over the next couple weeks. But right now it sure doesn't feel like they'll make any real moves one way or the other.

Easier to tell people here the Twins aren't going to extend him if he starts producing at 27 (he actually just turned 26) instead of 24. I guess that's a difference.

Kody Clemens had a .440 OPS for the month of June until he popped 2 homers in the Seattle series at the end of the month to jump his OPS that month to .625. He was not good in June. Not at all. I'm not defending France at all. He should go. But Clemens did turn back into a pumpkin. For a month. And kept getting the same amount of plate appearances (2 fewer than in May). He's very much been Jekyll and Hyde. He was great in May. Unplayable in June. And then great to start July. Very few hitters are great all the time, but entire month stretches of being unplayable is unsustainable and a reason this team struggles so much. You can't have your "second most productive hitter" have a .440 OPS for a month. The fact that the Twins options for 1B in June were pumpkin Clemens and pumpkin France is the problem. Should Clemens get ABs over France? Absolutely. Should we be happy that Clemens is our best option? Absolutely not.

Which Kody Clemens are they getting? May? June? 1 week of July? If he keeps hitting he should keep playing. If he stops hitting he should stop playing. Let the play on the field determine things. Unfortunately, the team doesn't have enough talent/production to let competition rule right now. And this regime has never been all that into letting the play on the field dictate much anyways. As others have said, Keaschall should be back soon and take ABs from this Jeckell and Hyde 1B pairing. Kody had a great month of May and an unplayable month of June. Let his play dictate his playing time.

He did find out at the same time as everyone else. It was supposed to be Eugenio Suarez but he didn't do it because of the hit by pitch on the finger earlier so they added Stowers at the last second.

I love it. For what it is. It's not perfect, but it's many of the best baseball players on planet earth playing the game I love. Sure, guys make it who shouldn't every year because of opt outs and every team getting a rep, but such is life. It's good for the game to have a rep from every team to give more people a reason to watch and build a better national fan base. I would've been super disappointed as a kid to not have a Twin in the game. But the game gives us 1 place, once a year where you can see the game's best pitchers face the best hitters. You can see Pedro carve up Larkin, Walker, Sosa, McGwire, and Bagwell. Or Ripken slide over to SS one last time before going yard. Ichiro hit an inside-the-park homer. Torii rob Bonds and then have Bonds pick him up like he's a child. Not every year is great, and there could be some tweaks made to improve it, but I love it. For the same reason I love the WBC, give me anything that involves a large number of the best players on the planet in one place playing the best game in the world.

I only did the first 4 rounds when I was looking at this a couple weeks ago, but before this year there'd been 67 catchers taken in the first 4 rounds of the draft during Falvey's tenure. So, in 8 years, only 67 catchers were taken. With 30 teams in the league, that's essentially 2 catchers per team drafted over an 8-year period. The Twins were putting just as much early draft priority in catchers as the average team as they drafted 2 (Jeffers and Diaw) in that time. Number of catchers drafted in first 4 rounds by year: 2017: 6 2018: 8 2019: 6 2020: 8 2021: 8 2022: 10 2023: 8 2024: 13 There were 7 this year. So, now we're 74 catchers in 9 years. Now we're up to 2.46 per team so the Twins are just below average. Teams simply don't put a lot of early draft investment in catchers. I don't know the numbers for total catchers, so I don't know if the Twins are way behind on total catchers drafted. But the Twins don't seem to be alone in not drafting a lot of high round catchers. It's actually pretty darn universal. Catchers aren't exactly flying off the board early.

I'll believe there's new buyers when it's announced the team is sold. Until then I'll assume any and every report is the best PR work the Pohlads have done in years.

That's fun. In 2024, Seattle was 21st in runs scored, 1st in runs allowed. In 2023, Seattle was 12th in runs scored, 4th in runs allowed. In 2022, Seattle was 18th in runs scored, 7th in runs allowed. In 2021, Seattle was 23rd in runs scored, 14th in runs allowed. 1 above average run scoring team in there. 3 top 10 run preventing team, with 2 being top 5 Tied for the fewest runs allowed in all of baseball last year and won 3 more games than the Twins because they couldn't score runs. All you're doing is showing that OPS+ and ERA+ can't be compared and ERA+ doesn't shift drastically like OPS+ (logical since ERAs don't have as big of variances). And, yeah, they're been hitting better this year because they've put concerted effort into improving their offense because it's been costing them. And their rotation has been hurt so pitching has been worse. Makes sense.

Oh, that's certainly my assumption on what it is. And I certainly understand the logic behind it. My problem with it is that the upside they're waiting on to reappear is so often league average, and while they're waiting on it to reappear they're getting unplayable results. Waiting out Royce Lewis' struggles because you think he's a star and once he's straightened out you're getting a .900 OPS bat? Cool. Give him a long runway. Waiting out a Kody Clemens or Ty France type month long .400-.600 OPS because you think they'll get back to a .675-.700 OPS? Not such a big fan of that. Sure, sometimes Kody Clemens will give you a magical month, turn back into a pumpkin, and then give you another 3 week stretch of random power surge. It's all a risk every time you make a roster cut decision. I'm guessing Dave Dombrowski isn't losing too much sleep over his Clemens decision, though.

? On this date 1 year ago Royce Lewis had a 1.039 OPS. Good for a 185 wRC+. He has absolutely not been bad at the plate for almost 1 and a 1/2 years. 8/20 last year was when it all fell apart for him. So, he's coming up on a year.

I'd hate the "we have too many young, lefty outfielders" reasoning completely. Baltimore has a ton of lefty outfielders (Mullins, Cowser, Kjerstad, Bradfield Jr, Beavers) and a big-time, switch-hitting catcher plus a top 10-15 global prospect who's a lefty hitting catcher. Their 2nd pick was a switch-hitting catcher. So, they didn't seem to care about adding another lefty catcher/outfielder plus another catcher to their mix (oh, and they took another lefty outfielder at #37). I don't care about positional fit in a system at all. Get the best talent. You never know what your team is going to look like in the future. Should never be a consideration, in my opinion. Get the best talent you can and figure it out from there. But I understand some people prefer to try to chase better system fits. And I don't expect Larnach to be around much longer, honestly. I don't think they'll pay his arb increases. I don't know why they didn't draft him, and we never will. There are a billion very good reasons for them to not draft him. They very simply could've thought Houston was the better overall player. That's a good enough reason. My understanding (and that could be totally wrong) was that he didn't catch anymore because he couldn't throw well enough after the broken scapula. Again, could be totally wrong, but that's what I thought it was. I don't think he'll be a good outfielder defensively so if there's no chance he catches it'd change my opinion on things, but my understanding was that he only stopped catching because of the injury and that him going back behind the plate was going to be mostly about a team's willingness to wait on him defensively even if the bat was ready.

Kody Clemens is a great example of the ping ponging you mention. Claiming he was their 2nd best hitter over the last 30 days is missing that he was one of their worst for most of the month of June. He had a .625 OPS in June with a .145 BA. He was awful the vast majority of that month. He hit 2 HRs in the Seattle series to help spike his OPS back up, but it'd been in the 400s for the 3 weeks before that. He had turned back into a pumpkin. Hardcore. But he was still getting significant playing time. Only 5 fewer PAs in June as his monster month of May. He's actually an example of them sticking with someone through struggles and believing they'll be good again and the last 3 weeks (since the start of that Seattle series) he's had an OPS of .924. Carried by 5 HRs. Or an example of them just not having a very talented team and not having anyone else to put out there. But after his 3 week stretch of .466 OPS to start June he didn't deserve any PAs. Ty France had a .784 OPS in those same 3 weeks. I generally agree with the stance that the Twins stick with guys they believe will perform for far too long during the season (typically the full season if they brought them in during the offseason), but Kody Clemens isn't the example you think he is. He should've been cut during June. But now he should be playing every day. Baseball is a weird sport. And this is a team seriously lacking in established talent.

If he's a 3 to 4 year minor league guy, we don't want him taking over for CC. College players who take 3 to 4 years to graduate from the minors are not guys you want as your everyday SS in the majors. If he's going to surpass Culpepper as the likely next everyday SS for the Minnesota Twins he's going to need to be here in 2027. Like Lee was here in 2024 after being drafted in 2022 and Culpepper is on pace to be here in 2026 (if not a cup of coffee in 2025) after being drafted in 2024.

I like, don't love, the Houston pick. I probably would've gone Irish if there's any chance he's a catcher (I think his arm and the ABS system coming means he can catch if you're willing to wait 2 years even with the bat being ready in 1), but am happy with the Houston pick. No real problem with it, as this team very much needs more defense and athleticism. Love the Quick pick. Dial in his release point to improve his command and tunneling and you may have a font-line starting pitcher. Seems like a sturdy floor as a flame throwing reliever if he can't ever lock in the command. Appreciate the upside play on some of the best raw power in the class with Young, but just am not a big fan of 40 hit tool guys. No real problem with the pick at that point of the draft as it's mile high potential if he can figure out the contact and how to pick up spin, but he's just not my type of prospect. I prefer contact guys who you teach how to lift the ball more over guys you have to teach how to hit the ball. But huge upside if he can put it together. Ellwanger is a lot like Quick in that there's high octane stuff there already and you have to dial in the command. He feels like more of a reliever to me, and I may even have a relatively short leash on him trying to figure it out as a starter, but it's certainly a live arm. Even if he turns out to be a reliever, he could be a quick mover with that stuff and be the next shutdown arm out of the pen. Solid first day. I don't get overly excited or hateful on draft picks. It's all a crap shoot in every draft. I can see the logic in every pick and a route to success for all of them. That's all I can ask for.

I like getting an athlete and stud defender with what appears to be real contact skills. It also would've been really hard for me to pass up Irish if I thought he could be up as a catcher within 2 years. I didn't think there'd be any chance he'd be there. I'm not aware of the story about him making inappropriate statements so I'm not sure what to think about that. That could certainly change my mind on things. But without any knowledge of it, so just looking at it from a baseball perspective, that's a tough one for me. I'm happy with this pick. We need more 2 way players. So many more. Hard to complain about getting one of the best fielders in the draft who also looks to have some of the best hand eye coordination and contact skills.

Keith Law notes he has 8 inches of difference on his release point for his slider. Likely why he doesn't get as good of results as you'd expect from his stuff. He's tipping his pitches. If the Twins can get that straightened out and get him to a consistent release point it could be huge for him. Love going after an arm with such high octane stuff and seeing if they can corral it. Huge upside if they can.

The Pirates may trade Paul Skenes, but it won't be until after the 2027 season. His value is too high so there's no deal possible that is mutually beneficial for both organizations until after that point. It's pointless to talk about until then. Paul Skenes is a Pirate for at least 2 more seasons. And there's no reason they can't build their team to a successful one in that time.

Not sure why Chicago would do the Duran for Teel deal. 6 years of Teel is far more valuable to a rebuilding team than 2.5 years of a closer. Unless they think they can spin Duran into more than Teel. In which case I'd prefer the Twins spin him into more than Teel. I'm not a huge Larnach, Lee, or Raya guy, but all 3 for Matthews is WAY too much. The Twins already have Kaelen Culpepper. Don't need to trade 3 guys for the faster, worse hitting version. I'm good trading all 3 of those guys, but that isn't the return I'd want. Do like the idea of moving a bunch of the expiring deals and getting the team faster, just don't think your 2 big deals are the right deals.

If this is who he is moving forward, then that contract is a massive weight around the payroll's neck. If he plays like he did last year before he got hurt, I disagree and I don't think it kills the team. The Twins need players like healthy 2024 Correa. The Twins can afford a contract like his. They can't afford a miss on a contract like his. The longer he goes without anyone saying he's playing through injury this year the more and more concerning it gets that this is who he is now, and that's a major concern. I disagree that it has to equal blowing it all up, though. If you can get somebody to eat most of that deal, I'd do that if I they think this is who he is. But even if they can't, I don't think you have to blow it up. I think you trade anyone who's not part of the future this deadline and give every AB to somebody who may be so they can gain experience and you can learn something about them. Then you trade one of Lopez, Ryan, or Ober (if he comes back and dominates the last 2 months) this offseason for immediate position player help. I think there's moves to be made to better balance the roster for 2026 and 2027. This team has pitching. June got ugly for a while, but I think the overall pitching talent on this team is good enough to compete. I think you can move a little of it to better balance things and give it a go for 2026 before blowing it up.

Oh, for sure. Every prospect has questions until about midway through year 3 and then I'm pretty comfortable calling them established. It's all a guessing game and playing the odds. I just like his odds better than most other prospect's odds. I don't do "blocked." No such thing as "blocked." Mookie Betts wasn't "blocked" by Dustin Pedroia and Xander Bogaerts. Jackson Merrill wasn't "blocked" by Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts (man, that got "blocks" a lot of studs), Ha-Seong Kim, Jake Cronenworth, and Fernando Tatis Jr. Who in turn wasn't blocking the Padres from bringing in Bogaerts. Jordan Walker wasn't "blocked" by Nolan Arenado. Carlos Correa wasn't "blocked" from signing with the Mets by Francisco Lindor. Alex Rodriguez wasn't "blocked" by Jeter when he joined the Yanks. Samuel Basallo isn't "blocked" by Adley Rustchman. Dalton Rushing isn't "blocked" by Will Smith. Harry Ford isn't "blocked" by Cal Raleigh. Guys move positions. As much as it makes heads explode around here, it's how things work. Nobody is ever blocked. But I understand that names get mentioned because some fans believe that players get blocked. Agreed. The Twins reluctance to move players in a shifting of the roster is what's holding things back. It's a challenge, and not a simple maneuver to pull off, but one that can be done. There are moves to be made and ways to better balance the roster. Maybe it isn't reluctance, maybe it's a lack of ability to make the moves happen. I don't know. Either way, they aren't doing it and their roster has become too one sided. But the Orioles and Mariners show it isn't as easy as we sometimes make it seem on here. The Twins aren't the only team struggling with this. I don't want to make it sound like I think it's a simple task. But it being challenging doesn't change the results at the end of the day. They've had long enough to establish their team and the results are all that matter now. Challenging or not. Put out better results or they need to get somebody else in there who can.