Eris

The Twins currently roster is along way from being a playoff competitive team—especially on defense. On the current roster only Keaschall and Larnach (who many expect not to be on team next year) have hit well enough to justify carrying them on the team despite their poor defense. There should be an expectation that everyone else is average or better defensively. Currently, Lee, Culpepper, Jenkins and maybe Clemens likely meet that. Buxton is now a below average CF and needs a new position. Everyone else the Twins need to consider moving on from.

Highest MLB ranking Sano (2 or 3) Kirilloff (top 20) Lewis (top 30) Buxton (#1 for 2 or 3 years). My point being that the Twins had a number of good/great prospects but injuries and inability to hit MLB pitching stands between being a prospect and being an elite player.

Realistically, the Twins have only Ryan Jeffers (and Culpepper maybe) who are above average both offensively and defensively. They have one of the worst defensives in all of MLB. This is not a championship team. What it takes to be a championship team. They need 3 or 4 players who can contribute better than 4 WAR a season. On the current roster only a healthy Buxton could play at that level. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I believe that the trades were made to maintain fan interest/attendance rather than with an expectation that this team would be competitive in the postseason. While much has been made on TD about last year’s trade deadline, they did not address the fundamental weaknesses of the team which were/are about 5 or 6 players whose best position was DH.

Larnach, even with the bad August, is somewhere between the 67th to 75th ranked player by offensive contribution (WRC+ or OWAR). There are 390 roster spots for hitters (13 x30). Someone who can hit well above average will have a roster spot somewhere—in Larnach’s as a DH. Maybe Larnach is hurt. He has had a history of groin muscle injuries.

Bill James Pythagorean Expectation is that a team will have one win for every 10 runs. The Twins have scored 615 runs and have 64 wins which is 9.6 runs per win. Keaschall has accumulated -13 DRS over 46 games in the OF. ( data is from FanGraphs). Replacing Keaschall with Pete Crow-Armstrong, who is the best outfielder in baseball currently, would have saved 18 runs over these games which will give about 1.89 wins (18/9.6). So instead of being 4 games out of the wildcard the Twins would be 2 games behind. Realistically, Jenkins or Rodriguez would not contribute at the level of Pete Crow-Armstrong and the actual win expectation difference is less than 2 games. There are other reasons why Jenkins and Rodriguez should be called up, but the expectation they are the difference between the Twins making the playoffs or not should not be one of them.

I really appreciate these updates and the effort put into this. One item that would be helpful is if the previous rankings reflected the highest ranking of the prospect. For example, in Spring 2025, Rodriguez was the TD #2 prospect and being currently ranked 6th represents a fairly significant drop. Similarly, after acquired in the 2025 trade deadline Tait was the TD 4th ranked prospect ( this is from memory I couldn’t find the actual ranking).

The challenge with one dimensional hitters is that there are people (and now perhaps computers) who work long hours trying to figure out how to get hitters out. Once they find a weakness it is up to hitter to compensate. Daniel Murphy likely had an oversized impact on the Twins hitting philosophy. What is overlooked is that like Brian Dozier, Daniel Murphy’s success was short-lived. I look on in disbelief every time Buxton or Lewis take an outside pitch and ground it to the third baseman.

“The Twins called up their top prospect on August 7“ Nitpicking an otherwise fine article. Culpepper was the TD third ranked prospect behind Jenkins and Lackey. Does Culpepper have the defensive tools to remain at SS and be above average defensively.

If I am remembering correctly from the scouting reports Lewis was never thought likely to stick at SS. From that perspective the Twins did Lewis and themselves a huge disservice by playing him at SS in the minors as compared with better identifying his best position and giving him experience at that position in the minors. (A similar situation occurred with both Lee and Martin).

CS comparisons in A ball. Tait was 32/98 with Philadelphia. Diaw was 3/26.

I do find that my mlb.com dollars don’t go as far as they did several years ago because of Apple TV night, Peacock night, Netflix night, maybe Amazon Prime night in the future. I am seriously debating if I should just get a good internet radio and listen to the games.

Nice article. Thank you for sharing.

Longevity and consistency matter. Hrbek had 10 straight years where his WAR was never below 2.5.

The biggest Twins issue is not money but drafting and developing players. Hence the Twins have ended up with a roster full of DH types who lack speed and athleticism and can’t play defense. Injuries are part of the game. The Twins have three players whose careers were cut short by concussions (Mauer, Morneau and Koskie). I think the Carlos Correa resigning was very questionable in part because two other clubs (Mets and Giants) rescinded their contracts to Correa after evaluating is leg/ankle.

The Twins biggest threat is themselves. Since August 1, on games they have won their BA with RISP is 0.375. On games they have lost their BA with RISP was 0.154.