FargoFanMan

Yep! As it stands now I’d go Castro Correa Lewis Buxton Wallner Jeffers Larnach Miranda Lee That’s If a mutation of Gardy and Rocco is the manager. With a strictly Rocco lineup it probably changes day to day based on a number of factors.

Like the trade that they got the same guy this article is about? Or trading a 40 YO Nelson Cruz and turning him into a number 2 starter. Or trading a no namer for Odorizzi, and then getting that no namer back from them while Odorizzi had the best season of his career. Or trading for an aging Sergio Romo and getting the last good drops out of him. 2022 had 2 bad trades but it seems to me they are league average if not better.

I like analytics. It’s a good way to measure a lot of different things especially over a long season or career. But how many times are you gonna send Margot up to pinch hit in a clutch spot relying on analytics and odds? Maybe the fact is the guy just doesn’t have it in him. That’s the feel for the game that analytics doesn’t always get right. Correa being in the right place at the right time. Vazquez noticing the ump is calling strikes a bit more inside today and attacking that. A pitcher tipping his pitches. Somebody in the dugout saying the right motivational thing at the right time. Intangibles. The human element of the game. In a world driven by analytics, sales and marketing everything is just a product and everyone is trying to find a way to squeeze one more drop out of everything. It’s the way of the world but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be disgusting at times.

There is never going to be a salary cap. Ever. Unless there’s a massive shakeup by the government which I don’t see happening. MLB and the MLBPA have designed the system for 2 types of people. Owners and veteran players. Follow the money. When the new CBA used more sticks rather than carrots for addressing the so called “rash” of teams “tanking” that led me to believe that the MLBPA was behind that rather than MLB. The best way to create a winning team is with cheaper homegrown players and trades. Players want revenue sharing money to go to the representatives of the players… Veterans. Players eligible for FA. So punish teams for “tanking” by only letting them draft in the top 10 2 years in a row. Pushing the winning strategy closer to FA and further away from homegrown. It’s a lot harder to build up a team picking from the middle than it is picking in the top 3-5(Astros, Orioles). Teams will be more forced to spend money recklessly (Severino) to not be penalized and strapped with guaranteed contracts for 3,4,5,6 years rather than spending a one time sum of $7M on a lottery ticket who could be a star or never make it to AA. So in order to compete the team has to take the chance on the FA rather than develop homegrown. Putting more money in veterans pockets and making it less viable to develop a strong farm. Not based on natural progression but based on sticks rather than carrots. Pushing money to the top rather than development. Just like everything else in corporate America today. Why would the MLB and MLBPA be any different. If you take the 30,000 foot view of the last 2 CBA’s it’s obvious. Oh and also, you’re small market teams that will soon be strapped by multiple year guaranteed contracts for middle of the road players rather than one time bonuses of potential star youngsters will have a harder time building a legitimate contender through development. Why? Because big business reigns and most fans are too short sighted to see what’s actually going on. The same thing that’s happened in every big business in America the last 30 years. People at the top making more money. Bigger owner profits. Bigger veteran salaries. Why? Because of teams “tanking”! Problem, reaction solution. When you control the narrative you control the outcome. So no, there won’t be a salary cap. There’s revenue sharing which acts as the same thing ensuring the owners get their cut and there’s a penalty for the floor and “tanking” ensuring the players get their guaranteed contracts. It’s simple if you just look at it for what it is. It’s a sport and a business. And you’re paying for all of it. Just like every other corporate product.

Oh look. Another big media speculation article. So the Twins, who essentially have no money to spend, are gonna spend $13M for 3 seasons on a 31 yo LF who finally broke out after years of mediocrity? Another article, just like the Correa going to New York article, meant to drum up clicks based on a list made by Jim Bowden at the beginning of the offseason. Patrick Mcavoy is just another POS writer tricking you into regurgitating speculation. Not based on his insight. Just based on somebody else’s pre offseason list. All without knowing anything about the Twins or how they operate. Garbage.

Maybe “enough” is the wrong word. It’s not as though they have 3 #1’s. They do have a core 1, 2,3 though and solid serviceable young relatively high upside 4,5 with some other decent 4,5 types in AAA/AA. A pitching pipeline doesn’t produce aces one after the other. But it allows you to continually replenish from the back end not the top. Every now and again you have a breakthrough and the pipeline produces a 2 or a 3 and in a perfect situation you get a legitimate #1. It’s not as if you have aces overflowing your system. It takes a few years for an ace to develop. Look at Ryan and Ober. They didn’t come out of the box with a #2/3 label.

As per the self imposed budget you don’t have $18M to sign a bat. That’s why you include Vazquez and Paddack. That offsets his Suzuki’s salary. I agree Jax and Duran are too much value to add to the trade. If they are looking for catching and pitching this trade addresses that. I believe you need one more piece though to add value unless the Cubs reject this trade at the door. Either SWR or Mathew’s should be added in and I think you’ll have the Cubs at least pondering this. I think it’s close. It adds another solid bat. You ship out 2 guys that you’re shopping anyways and essentially only costs you a young pitcher. I think this is about the best offer you can get and don’t have to ship out a key bullpen piece.

Walker would be the only guy I’d be interested in. He seems like a change of scenery type prospect. He’s showed high contact in the minors. The type of guy that makes an adjustment and becomes a star. Teach him 1B and you’re set there for 5 years. Most likely won’t cost you Jenkins, Emma or Keaschall. If it does you just don’t make the deal. The others…no thanks. Especially Curtis Mead? Nope.

Pretty sure Hank Conger has almost nothing to do with the Twins drafting and development of catchers in the minor leagues.

No, I don’t get the sense of either. While we are at it no to Pablo as well. After 20 years of trying to establish a legitimate rotation we’re now gonna trade them away? For what? What would we get that would make this team better?

You want to add gimmicks into the “thinking man’s game.” Typical. I suggest a few things to grow the game to younger people. 1.) focus on families and kids attending games. This means more affordable options as far as tickets, food and parking. In 2024 the average family of 4 spent $204 for one game. That includes average tickets, 2 beers, 2 sodas and 4 hotdogs. In 2004 it was $115. Inflation is a thing yes. But a 78% increase over 20 years? It’s simply unaffordable for a family to attend numerous games a year. Answer: Cater to fans. Not making money. I keep hearing about how they’re losing young fans yet they’re making more money. 2.) Allow the fans to actually watch the game. If MLB would have been more focused on fixing the viewing options and getting out ahead of the dying cable industry rather than trying to sign the RSN’s that made them the most money they could have been sitting better now. Instead they kicked the van down the road till the company literally went bankrupt. Fans were unable to even watch the team that literally played down the road. What are NFL fans able to do that MLB teams aren’t? Watch the local team every game in the most simple way possible. On the local TV station. If they would have embraced streaming services when they were young and not huge billion dollar conglomerates maybe this whole streaming thing wouldn’t have been such a monumental task. 3.) put good baseball in front of more eyes. Not by implementing salary caps or minimum and maximums. Not by “punishing” teams for “tanking” but by rewarding teams for improving. Maybe give an extra draft pick for a team that improved their minor league ranking. Maybe reward a team that made a postseason for the first time in a few years with a bigger cut of the shared revenue. Instead teams are undercut for rebuilding by losing draft position right when they need it. Are they tanking? Probably not. Are we to believe that “tanking” is so rampant that we need to punish teams? Other than Pittsburgh and Oakland who is “tanking”? I believe carrots work better than sticks when it comes to this. 4.) exciting game play. Try to gear the game away from strikeouts and home runs. More stolen bases, more hit and runs, more doubles, more triples. Not with stupid changes but subtle calculated ones.

He would be exactly that. A 4th OF option. He’s not blocking any prospect in CF as we don’t have one unless you believe Jenkins will stick in CF and even then He’s a late season call up at best. Kiersey won’t be crazy good but he can add a tremendous amount of value by just being a solid backup CF. Stellar D and competitive AB’s twice a week. That’s the premise of this article. It’s an important role though when you have Buxton and his injury history.

I get that, but where was he supposed to play? Was he gonna figure it out in AAA over 2 years? Come on man. San Diego and KC whiffed as well. It’s baseball. Happens all the time. The Twins missed. Everyone misses. You miss opportunities. I miss opportunities. For every Brent Rooker there’s a thousand guys that don’t do a damn thing with more talent than he has. Can we be real here?

Yes! The stats and analytics say that over the course of 162 games X will be better. One thing this team struggles with is just putting the ball in play with runners on. Putting pressure on the defense. It happened numerous times to the Twins this year hence the article. Toughness and grit aren’t measured in stats. As much as analytics are part of the game just being able to fist one up the middle to score a guy from second and that guy on second reading it’s over the infield and getting a good jump are as important as all the stats. Being able to get a ground ball DP by properly placing a pitch rather than striking a guy out. It’s more work to go 5-8 pitches deep in an AB to get a K than it is to go 1-5 pitches deep to set up and induce a DP. I like stats over 162 games. I like results in small sample sizes better most of the time.

At the time you still had 3 years of Kepler. You had Kiriloff who was a hot commodity at the time. You had Larnach and Wallner. You had Lewis a couple months away with no defensive home yet. You had Nick Gordon while now we know at the time he was still a former #1 pick. You had Celestino who was still viewed to have promise. You had all these guys for 1 OF spot/DH plus Arraez who was used a bit in LF/DH as well. He had no place to play. Better as trade bait.

For every Rooker that bounces around and finds himself on a team where he gets a chance and makes the most of it there’s a hundred guys every season who bounce around and end up retiring to go work at John Doe high school as a physical education teacher and coaching baseball. It’s baseball. It happens. And that’s the mystique of it. Just like pocket aces, just like rolling doubles. Sometimes it’s just chance and it’s fun for a hot minute and then everything comes back to reality.

I don’t agree with the Varland comparison but I do agree with the fact that the front office, management and THE PLAYER needs to do what’s optimal to make the best team on the field. If he wants to start and the management doesn’t agree then there’s 2 choices. Either the player changes his views or the FO trades him to someone who allows that if that’s what he really wants. The second option is extremely selfish and that’s not a guy any player or management wants on their team.

We all want excellence. I’d love for him to be Soto. He’s not shown that type of elite generational talent yet. This year will be a big year in AA showing a bit more of what he is. You focused on the OPS+ of my scenario instead of the batting line. All I’m saying is if we get a player like Mauer or even a Paul O’Neill, Maglio Ordonez, Paul Molitor, Todd Helton, Matt Holliday type of player isn’t that a good outcome? Do we wish that he becomes Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Barry Bonds or Hank Aaron? Yes. Is that realistic? Absolutely Not. I’ll choose to live in reality and enjoy hopefully watching a really good potential HOF players career rather than be angry and cynical that that same guy isn’t one of the greatest players ever. Let’s all hopefully enjoy it this time is what I’m saying.

Joe Mauer was just okay? Who would you have wanted him to be? As a catcher that is. Because in WAR he’s 9th among catchers and his JAWS has him 7th. If he didn’t move from catcher which means he doesn’t sustain a career altering concussion and catches a few more years maybe he jumps into top 5 all time. That’s a pretty damn good outcome if you ask anybody anywhere outside of Minnesota.

Well, the dodgers keep getting richer. They’re playing the early 2000’s Yankees card. With all this deferred money though what do the dodgers look like in 5-10 years? Can they continue to run a $250M payroll while paying all these guys deferred money out of the business side of the franchise? Not sure if the Yankees payed much in deference for their big early 2000’s contracts but this was the first year they made the WS since 2009. The books out but buying a team has never been sustainable as opposed to developing. Time will tell.

Really it comes down to what makes the team better. If he can ramp up in spring to a starters role he probably slots in behind Lopez, Ryan and Ober. That pushes SWR to the fifth spot and Festa to St. Paul. This move puts the full BP role to Duran as the guy. This makes your SP staff stronger… maybe. We don’t know if Jax is a shoe in to succeed. All the while bringing down the strength significantly of your BP. Is this a risk they’re willing to take? Replacing a shut down BP guy for what we’ll call a 4th starter? Just seems too risky for me. Especially when this BP struggled to go 3 deep much of last season. Maybe a full season of Topa helps. Maybe they keep Paddack and move him to the BP. Just seems too risky for this team. This scenario doesn’t even acknowledge the what if he struggles conundrum. I say no. But I’m not the guy pushing the buttons.

I would agree. I also agree with most that as far as Martin is concerned he probably lost 2 years of development in 2020 and 22. 2020 the year he was drafted and the other thing that happened and then 2022 with the Twins tinkering with his approach to get more power out of him. It was admitted that he became frustrated and went back to a more contact approach. He was never a big power guy in college. He had one year in college where he put up good power. Other than that the guy was never that kind of player. A lost 2020 with the pandemic year. A lost 2022 trying to do something he was unaccustomed to and then a nearly lost 2023 with elbow troubles really hampered his development. Who knows what would have happened had the Twins just left well enough alone in 2022. Especially for a 5’10” 185lb super utility guy with exceptional bat to ball skills and a good eye at the plate. What kind of power were they looking to unlock? 10-15 HR power?

Absolutely! Everyone waited for the power from Joe but that was never going to be his game. Now that we can look back on his career we can see that he was never going to be a consistent 25-30 HR guy with his approach. I see more power with how Jenkins approaches AB’s and how the Twins approach development of that. But if he doesn’t and we get a career of 15 years at .306/.388/.409 with an average 124 OPS+ per season then maybe we should be thankful for that this time around. That would be a pretty good outcome for a 5th overall pick when we should have been 13th.

I’ve been on that same thinking. The smooth LH swing. The incredible eye and BB/K ratio. The solid defense profile showing a complete player. Holding his own for his age and continually getting better when moved up. Hopefully a full season of AA and a mid July call up to AAA sets him up for a late season call up or at the very least a 2026 opening day starting OFer spot. This guy oozes Mauer with more power.

I’m thankful for all these guys’ skills! I’m hopeful that: 1) We get to see a full season of Wallner power. That means he doesn’t go into any deep deep slumps that allows him to play 125+ games for the big club in RF. 2) That we get another 100+ games of Buxton with no big injuries. Despite the injuries and the slumps this guy can go on absolute tears and bring GG caliber defense in CF! 3) I’m hopeful that the rumors of the Terry Ryan sounding move to try him as a SP are not true and he gets to put up another shutdown season out of the bullpen. I want him to be lights out and make the all star team and show he’s a top 5 reliever in the AL! 4) I hope Joe Ryan can make it a full season after putting everything together for a top 3 CY Young season! This guy works on his craft and if he can make 30 starts and replicate last season plus I believe he makes an all star game appearance and starts game 1 of a divisional series matchup.