alexlegge

I'd argue that at this point, Walker Jenkins is making Jeremy Zoll's job very easy. Jeremy Zoll just isn't doing his job. It's really been a no-brainer for several weeks if not longer. Even if we're exclusively talking about stats against left-handed pitching, Jenkins has an OPS this season of .798, more more than thirty points higher than the league-wide OPS in the International League (.764). By comparison, Trevor Larnach has had only season at any level of professional baseball with a higher OPS against left-handed pitching: 2018, when he split time between Elizabethton and Cedar Rapids at age 21 (same age as Walker Jenkins is currently). Moreover, Jenkins' OPS vs righties this season (1.024) is more than a hundred points higher than any OPS vs righties that Larnach has ever had. And of the two left-handed-hitting corner outfielders currently on the Twins roster, Larnach probably has the better bat. This for a team that just made Gage Jump look like Tarik Skubal. There simply isn't a logical argument in favor of not calling him up. The delay here has already put their playoff hopes in jeopardy, and every day Jenkins puts on a Saints hat makes the mistake more egregiously indefensible.

We probably wouldn't have landed Lackey without last year's deadline. But to say the same thing about any one of those trades individually is inaccurate. Even if we're being generous to Varland or Duran by assuming that they would've kept up the same performance - or better - compared to the first four months of the 2025 season, there's zero chance that the Twins would've leapfrogged more than two other teams in the draft lottery, and vanishingly small chance that they would've leapfrogged more than one. Either way, we're not talking about a direct change in draft order - we're talking about slight changes in the weights of ping pong balls which make the possibility of a draft order change roughly five percent more likely.

The Varland trade cannot be in the same discussion as any other trade. Are there are non-zero chances that Rojas or even Roden could be important role players or valuable trade chips in the near future? Of course. But they both still have an awful lot to prove. Meanwhile, we gave up a guy from the Twin Cities who sure as heck looked like one of the best relievers in the game at the time and was under team control until 2031. The only difference now is that instead of looking like "one of the best relievers in the game," he's rivaling Mason Miller for the best reliever in the game. He would rank third on the 2026 Twins in bWAR or fWAR. Using either metric, he's been more valuable than Gómez and Morris combined, and that holds true even if we're discounting Gómez's negative WAR as a Ray. Varland basically looks like peak Joe Nathan. Not having him - irrespective of all other trades from last year - is literally the difference between us being in contention currently and us being clear odds-on favorites for the third wild-card spot. The move seemed very bad and rushed because it was very bad and rushed. Even if you consider a D to be a failing grade, there are still several gradations of failures possible. The Varland trade is better than the 4 out of 100 I once heard about in a college chemistry course (apparently one student just drew dinosaur cartoons for every answer and didn't write their name). But it's not a 'just below passing' kind of fail either. It's more worthy of a 41% and a "see me after class" note.

Dear Twins Front Office: our guy is ready. He reached base 3 times in five plate appearances last night, including a two-run double. There's ample time to get him on a bus over to Dyersville and even to get a good BP session in before the game. That would be an epically cool way to begin an MLB career. Think of the marketing opportunities. Heck, maybe he starts in RF and Buck starts in CF. Crazier things have happened. Just saying.

I find it kind of funny that the entire fanbase is scared of Emilio Pagan. True, he had some nightmarish outings in 2022 which contributed to the Twins falling out of contention. But the following year, the was a key cog in a solid bullpen for a division-winning Twins team. He was nearly twice as valuable as Griffin Jax that season.

Even if a billion coincidences happen - perhaps involving nerve tonic, gigantism, and a great player on a competitor stumbling into a mysterious vortex - and the Twins somehow win all their remaining games.....even if all that happens AND they open the playoffs with 7 straight victories, I wouldn't give them better than 1 in 10 odds to beat the Dodgers in the World Series.

likely wouldn't have mattered since Seattle has a far better intradivisional record at present. No biggie here, though def something worth keeping an eye on with these late-season series

and for the second straight year, we lose 2 out of 3 in Seattle...with both losses on walk-offs (pretty sure that happened last year too)

It probably tastes better with cookies than with cheese!

If anyone can mail the Twins this Burger, I won't complain.

Brief attempt at optimistic pessimism: IF the Twins lose this game and fail to make the playoffs, then this game will be a microcosm of the whole year: everyone might've expected them to keel over, but they've instead proved themselves to be a formidable big league club with real entertainment value and a lot of fight in them.

It was a poor baseball play, but excellent ballet footwork as the title of this article alludes to. There's gotta be a trade partner out there who values that. How about a three-way trade between the Twins, Alvin Ailey, and some rebuilding team looking to get creative (lookin' at you, Angels)?

I think there's a very good chance he'll become the highest paid catcher in the game if he hits free agency. Keep in mind that the best catcher and the highest paid catcher are often two different players. Currently, the two highest-paid catchers are JT Realmuto and Sean Murphy. Murhpy signed an extension in 2022. Realmuto re-signed with the Phillies this past year as a free agent. Over the last few seasons, he has been worth slightly more than Jeffers - though not by much. Given Jeffers age, I think it's more likely than not for him to end up with a higher AAV than Realmuto. Given inflation, it's not crazy to think that he'd come close to Realmuto's previous free agent contract with the Phillies - at least in AAV. That contract was 5 years, $115M. Jeffers is the same age as Realmuto was when he signed that. I'd predict Jeffers to land something more like 3y/$60M or 4y/$75M, either of which would make him the highest paid catcher in the league* *(edit) this remains accurate, though based on the numbers I'm suggesting, Jeffers would likely only be the highest paid catcher for one or two seasons. Raleigh signed an extension a couple offseasons ago with a pay structure that kicks his salary up to $20M in 2028 and $25M in 2029. Unfortunately, we just saw why he's worth so much.

Thanks, this is definitely a better breakdown than the cursory one I did! To some extent the different WAR columns in the Fangraphs article aren't very helpful in applying to Jeffers. Inevitably as a catcher, a steep decline will be anticipated and factored into a longer term deal. However, he's probably likely to produce more than 2 WAR next year. If I had to predict, I'd say 2.5, though leaning further toward 3 than 2. I wonder if Ben Clemens included players who accepted qualifying offers in the model (probably not?) and/or if there's another iteration of this which does. I'd also be curious to know the cost per WAR specifically among one-year "prove it" deals which have grown in popularity over the last decade. Ultimately, it all boils down to the fact that the $23M qualifying offer is likely to be very close to what his actual 2027 value relative to free agent salaries is expected to be. Perhaps it's a slight underpay or overpay, but likely not by much in either direction. And yeah, as you stated, the big reason for him to reject it is about the total guaranteed contract, not AAV (which would almost certainly be less than the QO if he signs for >2 years)

The $25M might also be a high estimate given catchers' tendency to have shortened careers and injury accumulation. I imagine that brings down their free agent value a bit. But not a crazy amount. Seeing him land an AAV in the 15-20 range wouldn't shock me, especially if a team signs him for 4+ years. Definitely hard to predict though. I don't recall any big-name catchers hitting the market recently, so Jeffers will actually be a pretty interesting test case assuming he does.

How many free agent catchers of Jeffers caliber have hit the market recently? My calculation here is by the books. It's likely that he'd end up making at or near the most of any catcher in the game assuming he hits free agency. This values increase over time.

Fangraphs has an excellent primer on the dollar value per WAR among free agents. Let's rely on this model since it's basically the only one available. Let's also assume that Jeffers will be worth at least 2 WAR next year (this is a reasonable assumption; from 2023-2026 he has averaged 2.2 WAR, a number likely to increase during the next two months). Assuming that production and utilizing the Fangraphs value model, he'll be worth at least $25.7M next season - that dollar amount would mean zero inflation whatsoever and Jeffers adding exactly 2.0 WAR. Moreover, the beauty of the qualifying offer is that it's only for one year. Basically, $23M is bit lower than what he's likely to get offered as annual value in a longer free agent deal. So it's highly unlikely he'd want to accept it, and a very reasonable, low-risk investment for the Twins even if he does. It certainly shouldn't be the kind of thing that dissuades them from holding onto him at the trade deadline on Monday...but it might.

This is a breath of fresh air for sure. Picking up Gomez and Nance early in the year have been savvy moves. Yay, they've been surprisingly competent for month! 👏 Imho, it's actually worth appreciating Varland more than having nightmares about him. Dude's a St. Paul native who helped the Twins break their playoff losing streak. Even in a hitter-friendly park in the AL East, he's been cartoonishly dominant all season. His bWAR of 3.3 would rank first on the Twins by a wide margin. His July ERA of 0.90 wasn't even his best monthly ERA.....in fact, it wasn't even his second-best monthly ERA. It was his third best out of four. His worst monthly ERA was 2.40 in June. But even that is misleading; June was actually his most dominant month on a per-batter basis. It also happened to be the month in which he coughed up the only homer he's allowed all season, accounting for the earned run bloat.

Yes, Buxton's absence leaves the Twins weakness vs. left-handed pitching more exposed. No, none of the internal options are going to be of much help in addressing that weakness. But no, it's not particularly devastating. To be clear, it always sucks to lose Buck to an injury. That has been true for a dozen seasons. But it usually sucks more when he's playing hurt and underperforming. He's always been a streaky performer on the field anyway. In some ways, his biggest strengths right now are his most consistent: team leadership and clubhouse presence. This team seems like a tight-knit group really fighting for each other - I have no doubt that the chemistry has contributed to their modest success this year. And despite being on the IL, Buxton still traveled with the team to Seattle. I love that.

It certainly proves that he's serious about spending on A.J. Minter. That's something, which is more than you can say about any player acquisitions by the Twins dating back to at least the 2023-24 offseason.

Signing him would be nice. But you're two steps ahead of the Twins. At this point, I'd be more than happy with them just holding onto him this week and making him the qualifying offer in the offseason.

Agreed. If that ends up happening following a Jeffers trade, I'll still accept it retroactively as a defensible Jeffers offense recoup plan (actually, he'll have to hit a little better than Jeffers, since he has to make up for any additional difference in the offense lost from his inability to play catcher).

One of my take-home points from last night's game: If the Twins are going to trade Ryan Jeffers, they sure as schlitz better have a plan to recoup the offensive value lost in the process. Maybe that plan is as simple as 'Walker Jenkins mid-August call-up and the kid hits the ground running, which we can be extra confident will happen based on something the fanbase doesn't know.' Maybe it's another trade. Or hell, get creative - maybe both moves are part of the same three-way trade. ... Same goes for a trade of any other bat that's been talked about, like Larnach or Lewis.

Very much agreed. Here's a weird comp that highlights why it's probably appropriate to have mixed feelings about this move: Chris Paddack Dean Kremer is capable of eating up innings down the stretch at a serviceable back-end starter level. It wouldn't take too much luck for him to do so at sort of a third playoff starter caliber level. Then again, it wouldn't take too much luck for him to crap the bed in a few starts and get relegated to the bullpen. But with Paredes, Sands, and Banda all shelved, "relegated to the bullpen" wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, especially in exchange for a prospect outside the organizational top-20. Remember Paddack out of the bullpen in 2023? That was a helpful pitcher, even if we all knew what he was. Also, of note: there's a decent amount of red on Kremer's Baseball Savant page, even for 2026 - certainly enough near the bottom to suggest that the blue on top is a little bit fluky.

What makes the Varland trade even sillier and more ironic is that nobody is talking about Varland as a potential 2026 trade deadline candidate, even despite the Jays being a huge disappointment and clear seller. Because who in their right mind would trade an excellent reliever who doesn't hit free agency until 2031? But hey, maybe the Twins will trade Roden and Rojas back to the Jays for 8 weeks of Kevin Gausman.