Eris

@Vanimal46The point I was trying to make is the following. While the expanded wildcard format has allowed teams with 85 or less wins to make the playoffs (Houston had 81 wins in winning the AL West). While a cheap owner may now target 85 wins instead of 90 to save about 5 WAR in payroll (possibly 20 - 40 million on free agent market), these 85 win teams usually do not make it very far in playoffs. The exceptions being the 1987 Twins (85 Wins) and the 2006 Angels (83 Wins). Not all 85 win teams are the same and Cleveland is an exceptionally well run team and have been for many years. Falvey was hired to bring this Cleveland success to Minnesota and did not do well.

Over the last decade the Guardians have won more than 90 games per season 5 times, the most recent being 2024. They have a loosing record 1 season since 2017. They are also fourth in MLB in win percentage over this time. Our Twins in contrast over the past decade have won more 90 games in a season only once (2019). They have had a loosing record for 5 of these seasons.

If your best players are not available (Aaron Judge) or hurt and not performing (Shohei Ohtani) winning in the postseason is more difficult. Last night’s Dodgers loss is more on Roberts for leaving Snell in to long, although the Dodgers BP did not pitch well either.

Nice write-up. Milwaukee has done very well with their international signings. Tampa is also a good example for Moneyball 2.0. They have bunted more times than any team in the league this season. In the playoffs, defense also becomes critical. It would be interesting to have an analysis of the games decided by 1 or 2 plays made or not made. Last night’s Brewers -Dodgers game, Will Smith not utilizing ABS challenges early in the game likely influenced the results.

This description reminds me of Steven Kwan. Career OPS of about 0.740, yet he has put up 18.7 fWAR in 5 years with the Guardians. Kwan was a 5th round draft choice primarily because he had no power. It does seem strange that the Twins did not give Martin a better shot at 2B. He played about 15 games there over the course of the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

MLB is has updated their top 100 prospect list. Tait and Emmanuel Rodriguez are no longer on the list. Houston in 54th. Not sure exactly when they were removed as I can’t see the full list for the mid season update.

I think they were expecting Daniel Jones to stay. But he took less money to play for the Colts. Edited to add. The spin at the time was that Jones was in the QB room and could see McCarthy’s development/progress and decided his best opportunity to start was to move to Indianapolis.

The root cause of the Twins failures is lack of talent. This can be seen from the number of “regulars “ who have “earned “ a spot on next years roster. Lee, Keaschall, Clemens, Buxton , and Ryan (who is expected to depart via free agency). The short comings of Larnach, Wallner, Lewis, Martin, Bell, Caratini and even Buxton were known heading into the season and the strategy was to hope these guys would figure it out or in Buxton’s case remain healthy. For next season it looks like the Twins will have 3 position players with rookie eligibility. (Jenkins, Culpepper, and Rodriguez). I can’t remember the last time this happened. I think based to their performance since being called up, Culpepper and Jenkins will be in the running for Rookie of the Year. That should be exciting.

A nice write up. A return to the “Twins Way” from the Tom Kelly era of the decades past. It is about time. I have never understood the defense doesn’t matter philosophy that has defined the Twins for the past 15 years or more. The Twins are 140 DRS behind the Cubs, which equates to about 14 wins. Most of this years playoff teams are in the top range of the DRS. The Rays are second with 90 DRS and they will win the AL East. Houston and Philadelphia have very negative DRS and are still in the playoff picture https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2026&season1=2026&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&startdate=&enddate=&month=0&sortcol=11&sortdir=default&pagenum=1 Several other thoughts. On Caratini, certainly the Twins should have known of his slow pop time when they signed him. I thought I read on TD that Alex Jackson had the quickest pop time of any catcher in Twins history. A lot of this is on drafting and player development. If a team wants to improve their defense they need to draft athletic players who at least have the potential to be above average defensively at some position.

This topic has come up a lot in recent threads. For position players, Lee, Culpepper, Clemens, Keaschall and Buxton have earned a roster spot for next season. Rodriguez and Jenkins have shown enough potential that they should be on the roster as well. That is it. Everyone else/position is replaceable or needs upgrading.

There are a fair number of MLB pitchers who never return to their pre TOS levels. Examples are Matt Harvey, Phil Hughes, Stephan Strasberg, Chris Archer. I think at this point, Festa will be fortunate if he has an MLB career as a relief pitcher.

I am struggling with this. For Bell’s 92 RBI effort while mostly at DH he has a 105 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR. For Buxton’s 46 RBI season while playing slightly below average CF he has a wRC+ of 128 and 2.6 fWAR. I think one of the reasons why is that there have been quite a number of occasions when Bell goes up with RISP just looking to dink the ball somewhere (like yesterday’s 2 out RBI). Buxton goes up looking to rip the cover off the ball with every swing. This shows up in the stat line as Buxton being the more valuable hitter but it is RBIs that win games. 92 RBI is 16th in MLB. I just find it difficult to comprehend how being a near 100 RBI player is just slightly better than replacement level.

The Twins have had a decade of draft and development futility since Buxton was drafted in 2012. However it looks like there is a high probability that the last 4 first round picks (Lee, Culpepper, Houston, Vahn Lackey) are all going to be contributors. is this luck or have the Twins improved their scouting over the last half decade. The international scouting department also needs improvement.

I am not sure this is correct. MLB rules <=130 at bats, <=45 days on active roster, IL doesn’t count (unlike service time calculations). Culpepper 120 PA (from FanGraphs), BR indicates 109 AB, called up Aug 7, IL on Sept 16. This is 41 days https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/rookie-eligibility

I’m not sure that money is as big of a concern as many articles on TD seem to suggest. Between Bell and Caratini they had 14 million in salary.