KirbyDome89

It's been pointed out multiple times in this thread that they're playing at a 75 win pace. How low was your expected win total that you feel the need to scold others for not rejoicing over "how much better than expected," this team is playing? "Hey be happy with what you've got," given how the last few seasons have gone, and how the current season appears to be going, seems weird, but ok...

"The Twins didn't put him in a position to succeed, either. Minnesota faced an unusually heavy dose of left-handed starting pitching during the first month of the season, and the club continued running Wallner into the lineup regularly despite his long-standing platoon concerns. His production against right-handed pitching was already underwhelming with a .580 OPS, but things cratered further against lefties, where he posted just a .496 OPS." This is such a terrible argument. A gap of 80ish points of OPS LH vs. RH is normal, the issue is that neither number was remotely close to acceptable. That's not the Twins failing to put Wallner in a position to succeed, they gave him every opportunity (probably too many) to show any sign of life. FWIW he had 2x more PAs against RHP....

C'mon.... Vazquez slashed .189/.271/.274 last year. He was one of the worst hitters in baseball during his Twins career, and he completely crashed out last season. If Jackson provides that type of "value," he should be off the roster as well.

Take the W. Matthews needed an outing like today but yeah probably premature. That Miami lineup was garbage. Rojas needs to stop bleeding baserunners.

de-Falveynization? In 2024 Wallner didn't make it to the end of April before being sent down to AAA. Did we just collectively forget that? Zoll was Falvey's chosen right hand man. Shelton was Falvey's choice for manager. This team, this roster, it doesn't just "bear Falvey's fingerprints." It's HIS. Zoll could've moved on from Wallner at any point in February or March, especially with Larnach around, but now he's being credited as "proactive," for finally exercising an option that was overdue. Ok...

We're talking about 200ish games of him being a pretty poor contributor at this point. Sure, he's missed time, but how large does the sample size need to be before we can start making determinations? If Lewis can't handle a demotion without further falling apart or blaming the organization then there probably isn't much left to salvage.

I mean they've already shown plenty of loyalty, support, and commitment. We're coming up on 2 years since Royce was even decent at the plate, but he's been a fixture (when healthy) despite the lack of production. Sure, don't kick him in the ass on the way to AAA but is anybody really asking for that? At a certain point this org has to be direct with Lewis (maybe they are, Idk) about where he stands, and Lewis needs to accept that his current level of play doesn't belong on a MLB roster.

Nobody has pitchers with proven MLB track records on retainer in AAA. I do agree with the bolded though. People have been crowing about "depth," for a while now, and many of those guys ended up being fringe at best.

As a pretty damn healthy rotation/pen too. Depth is way overblown around here.

I'll start by saying I don't view the swap as an all time bad move, but I didn't like it, and I still don't. I'll also say Polanco wasn't expensive, the guy made $10M in 2024. This allegedly cash strapped organization just found $14M to throw at Victor Caratini and Josh Bell. Idk why the savings in the Polanco deal are being attributed only to the Santana signing. A few weeks after agreeing with Santana the Twins also made a swap for Margot and paid him nearly the same amount. Teams absolutely do sign guys for past performance. That's what FA is. You are by definition paying for previous performance with the hope it continues/improves. Polanco certainly missed a big chunk of 2023 and a decent amount of 2022 due to injury but he was absolutely effective. His average OPS between '21 and '23 was nearly .800. That's pretty damn productive for a 2B. The Twins (for better or worse) were banking on DeSclafani as their 5th starter. Losing him immediately meant Varland stayed in the rotation. Topa was a complete non-factor in '24 and despite an ok '25 he's cannon fodder so far this year. Probably a push as far as any value goes. Yeah, they're still holding onto Gonzalez I guess so we'll see.

That pipeline though...

Buckle up it's only May 6th

This is embarrassingly bad even for this pen.... Start the waiver wire carousel at this point.

Matt Wallner feasts on scrap heap RHPs

Washington is 4-13 at home. Wild.