jorgenswest

My wonder also but we have countless threads to debate that. Thanks for joining in the discussion about rebuilding the pen. I get your point about retreads. I do think they need to trade or spend for a better than retread arm.

How close are they to 14 major league pitchers? I think they need three. I also want upside from the bottom three or four in the bullpen. I don’t want them a 34 year old pitcher in the middle innings role. I want a young pitcher that can grow from the middle to the late innings. Jax went from the last man shuttle pitcher to the middle to the late innings. Sands has moved from the last man to the middle innings. If a pitcher like Topa makes the team it is because he can be counted on to put out fires and be a late inning pitcher. I am not as sure about the number 6. They will have Morris, Raya, Rojas, Culpepper, possibly Prielipp, Armstrong, maybe Gallagher, Ohl and Adams that can start in AAA. If someone like SWR is determined to be the 6th starter I would put him in the major league pen to begin. If they need a starter I would open with SWR and then follow with one from the list above. SWR can probably approach 40 in that first outing and then increase from there. Doing it this way also gives one more young pitcher a chance to thrive in the bullpen. Those 6 pitchers may all be relatively close as starters but someone among them is going to shine as a reliever.

To open this is about building a bullpen that gives the Twinsa chance to contend next year. If contending isn’t your interest there are countless discussions about trading major leaguers for prospects. I don’t know the Twins plan for next year. Either way they need to build a bullpen. You can’t build confidence in young starters when the bullpen destroys the games they have started. Do we have any pieces? Did anyone step up? I think Cole Sands has stepped up. His ERA and peripherals are under 4 for the season. He can miss bats. He has been able to strand inherited runners at an acceptable level. I don’t know if he is a top 3 but he is a major league reliever. Since the trade deadline Kody Funderburk has pitched 15 outings and given up 0 earned runs. That is stepping up. He is a ground ball lefty that doesn’t miss enough bats and he also has an option. I wouldn’t DFA him and think he fits that major league role of back end reliever with options. What about the others that remained after the deadline? Justin Topa’s ERA has been good since the deadline at 3.29. His season FIP is good but FIP needs a larger sample that the other ERA estimators due to home runs. xERA is better in a small sample and it hasn’t been good. The one number that stands out is inherited runners. He has allowed 58% of inherited runners to score. He also leads the team in unearned runs allowed. Isn’t that odd? Starters have thrown so many more innings. This isn’t bad luck. He doesn’t get swings and misses. He isn’t an extreme ground ball pitcher. His OPS against with runners in scoring position is .822. He hasn’t had a caught stealing while on the mound this year. He will be 35. I would move on. Ohl and Adams should start in AAA and be part of the shuttle. Either should have an opportunity to compete with Funderburk for that last spot but I think they need more time in the minors. They have the offseason to refine their pitches with an eye on a reliever role. Did any of the waiver claims step up and earn a look for 2026? No. It turns out relievers aren’t that fungible. Effective relievers might have some bad luck of BABiP and have a stretch or even season with an out of norm ERA but their effectiveness hasn’t changed that much. Looking at the peripherals I don’t see any effective relievers here. I wouldn’t put any on the 40 man roster. If the Twins see something in a few they believe they can tweak, offer a minor league contract. They may stay. There is a lot of opportunity here. What about starters? The Twins need Lopez and Ryan. The bullpen needs Lopez and Ryan. They can’t start the season with a rotation full of pitchers that struggle to finish 5 innings. They need those longer starts. I am keeping both but if you are in the other camp TD have a place for you. Please go here for a discussion on that. Behind Ryan and Lopez the Twins have 6 other pitchers that need to be in the majors. They may fail in the majors but they don’t need AAA any longer. Three of them should start the season in the pen. In the past they have used AAA to keep a pitcher stretched out. I wouldn’t do that. If a starter is needed use bullpen games until they are built up. Shuttle in a bulk reliever until that happens. The Twins need to identify three starters and three relievers from Ober, Matthews, Woods Richardson, Bradley, Festa and Abel. Anyone else? I would give Prielipp a chance to win a spot in the bullpen. Raya, Rojas and Morris will likely be on the 40 starting in AAA. What do they need? I would bring in at least three relievers as well several others on minor league contracts. The best route to get those three might be utilizing the depth of their prospect pool in trades. Whether or not they plan to contend they must invest in their bullpen for next year. It is critical to their future that they develop these young starters and those pitchers need a pen behind them they can count on. Mr. Pohlad, You say you are committed to this team. Words mean little. Actions mean everything. Show us your commitment and rebuild this pen. While you are at it bring in a bat to take some pressure off them. Bring this team back to a median payroll. That is commitment. Please fight or step aside.

Have had a chance to watch Enrique Jimenez?

How much excess value does Lopez have beyond his contract? He is owed 43.5 million over two years. I think that is about the cost of a little less than 5 WAR. I am not sure how teams will project based on his injury. He averaged 3 WAR per season from 22-24. I can’t imagine he would be projected for more than that so max 6 over two years. I don’t think an excess of 1 WAR beyond the contract is going to net a significant prospect return. The real value to the owners will be the salary savings. What kind of return should we expect for Lopez?

Has the prospect return lessened this decade? Are teams not holding out for the top flight prospects? In the last decade trades of pitchers like Archer, Sale and Grienke netted really strong returns. Prospects among the top 10 in baseball. Multiple FV 55 or greater players. The elite reliever Chapman returned the best prospect in baseball. Does that happen anymore? Only one player moved this deadline had an FV greater than 50 in DeVries. It took a reliever with 5 years of control. No prospects moved last year at the deadline above 50. Augustin Ramirez might have been the top propspect moved. Garrett Crochet has been fantastic this year. The Red Sox needed to part with Kyle Teel who was ranked 54 with a low risk FV of 50. No other top 100 prospects were in the trade. Kyle Teel has been very good in his first 200 PAs and if you don’t look at BABIP, ISO and a very high ratio of singles it looks like he is going to be a good hitter. He is not near the level of prospect that were available in trades in the last decade. If teams are no longer able to get hauls for their prospects is it still wise to trade players with multiple years of service for the best they can get? I also wonder if teams trading for salary relief give themselves less leverage because the other teams know they need to move some players. The Twins best leverage with Duran was that they didn’t need to trade him. They could have held out for Painter or kept him. It looks like they took the best they were able to get. It wasn’t enough.

Disappointed but not surprised. The Twins didn’t need to wait until today. They only had three open spots today. On August first they had about 10 and filled some of them with waiver wire claims. I don't think bringing them would have better for a player’s development or given us any true insight about their readiness for next year. The sample is too small. It just would have been more entertaining to me. I like seeing a player’s first game in the majors. It is fun when they can offer a glimmer of a hope for the future. This is an entertainment business.

Disappointed but not surprised. The Twins didn’t need to wait until today. They only had three open spots today. On August first they had about 10 and filled some of them with waiver wire claims. I don't think bringing them would have better for a player’s development or given us any true insight about their readiness for next year. The sample is too small. It just would have been more entertaining to me. I like seeing a player’s first game in the majors. It is fun when they can offer a glimmer of a hope for the future. This is an entertainment business.

I have wondered about this and don’t have an answer. The Brewers had to wait a long time to move Burnes while free agency sorted itself out. He was traded in February, by then many of the potential bidders had filled their need in free agency. How does the supply of free agents impact the market in the offseason? I do agree that Burnes was more valuable in the offseason. He came with a potential comp pick that would not have been awarded if he had been traded midseason. That isn’t true for Ryan or Lopez this off season though. The return for Burnes was DL Hall and Joey Ortiz. Ortiz is a very good defender at shortstop that hasn’t hit yet. He has an OPS+ of 72. Hall has pitched 37 innings in relief. At the time it seemed like a mediocre return and two seasons later it still seems that way. It is true that Burnes had just once season left but he also is a better starter than either Ryan or Lopez. I am not convinced that trading Ryan or Lopez now will be a significantly different value given the starters in free agency. I also don’t believe that an extra year of service time will gain that much value. Teams were very conservative moving prospects at the deadline. Only one top flight prospect was moved in De Vries. The rest were FV 50 and below.

I saw Alex Marte play for the Visalia Oaks in the 80s. He stole 82 bases for them in 1984. That team stole a lot of bases. I looked up Jarvis Brown. He was a pinch runner on the 1991 World Series team. Prior to that he had a season where he stole 72 bases in Kenosha, I also recall and looked up Herman Hill. He was a pinch runner/defensive substitution on the 1969/1970 Twins. In 1967 he stole 58 bases for Orlando and another 6 in a Florida Instructional League. The last player I looked up is Pat Kelly. He stole 250 bases in his major league career but had a few cups of coffee with the Twins before the Royals took him in the expansion draft. In 1966 he stole 52 bases for AA Charlotte and another 15 up in the instructional league. This is not an exhaustive list. In looking up Visalia for Alex Marte I saw Jim Weaver stole 60 bases on the 1982 team. The Twins lost Weaver to the Tigers in the rule 5 draft. He had a handful of at bats in the majors. Going by my recall it is 82 bases from Alex Marte. For some reason my recall is better for teams 40-50 years ago than the last 25 in the minors. Someone might come up with someone more recent that surpassed 82.

I recall people saying the same thing about Byron. The argument was that he was ticked off on how they handled his service time. There was no basis in fact but it was irresponsibly repeated so many times that it was taken as fact. No one could ever show a clip of Byron saying he wanted out of here so I believed it was nonsense then. Do we have that clip from Joe? Let’s be responsible in how we characterize what Joe is thinking.

They will need to fill Abel’s spot also.

They have three spots after optioning Abel.

Enjoyed the game. Glad Ryan is on the team.

For this discussion it would be helpful to distinguish between players traded in their last year of their contract and players traded with multiple years left. It is also important to distinguish if it was a trade of minor leaguers or a trade of players without options. Cleveland has been very good at identifying minor leaguers. They had to trade Clevinger. The players were not going to have him back on the team. That leaves Civale for Manzardo. Manzardo has produced 1.0 WAR this year. Arias acquired in the Clevenger trade is at 1.1 WAR. To me the debate is whether they should trade with players multiple years of control or trade when the contract is expiring. I would wait. Cleveland has mostly waited also.

Can’t concur here. It is possibly irrational hope. I would think trades from their prospect pool could make them competitive next year and are a better route than free agency. Some good bats move every winter. They are allowed to win those deals. I believe there exists a front office and manager that can make this team competitive next year with the foundation of Lopez and Ryan in the rotation. I also am extremely skeptical that they can acquire impact prospects for Ryan or Lopez. The best they could do in the summer purge was the catcher Tait who is years away and according to Fangraphs a high risk FV 45+. A 45 has the projection of a platoon utility player. MLB has him at 50 or an average regular. I would rather keep the potential of them starting 64 games next year. Those games matter. I will be watching or listening. I also think they have a positive impact on the young roster that has value.

I have seen several comments across threads that the Twins need to run their organization more like the Guardians. It made me wonder how the current Giardian team was built. In particular I wondered how many of the players were acquired in trade where the Cleveland had traded off a player with more than one year of service time. The Cleveland roster is constructed mostly of players drafted or acquired as free agent (international, minor league, rule 5). They have identified and developed those players well. There are a some players acquired in minor trades or trades in which Cleveland sent the prospects. A few where the player was in the last year of his contract. Kluber was on the last year of his contract when they acquired Clase. He was also 34 and headed towards decline. I think two were acquired as part of a deal for a player with multiple years of service time. Gabriel Arias was acquired in the Clevinger deal during the COVID season. Clevinger. You might Clevinger had forced their hand with his actions and was optioned to the alternate training site. Arias had an FV of 40+ at the time. The other is the trade of Aaron Civale for Kyle Manzardo. Ironically this trade was with the Rays who supposedly make trades the other direction to build their roster. I will have to investigate them also. The Guardians have not built their roster with trades of players with multiple years of service time like that of Lopez or Ryan or Duran, Jax and Varland. They built it on drafting and development. They built it on identifying players in other organizations they can acquire in minor deals or for deals of players on expiring contracts.

Was this directed at me? I don’t believe I have ever used the word tanking or implied that players were tanking in any way. I didn’t in that comment. I certainly don’t believe for a second the players are tanking. I also believe what the owners and front office did at the deadline was a disgrace to the game. They traded their top 5 relievers, 4 position players among their top 8 in first half plate appearances and a starter with the second most innings pitched on the team. I get trading players on expiring contracts but they went way beyond that and it impacted their ability to compete this year and the next few. They should not be rewarded in the draft for their decision to trade off 40% of the roster. I also believe that the players on the current roster have fought their tails off. I believe the coaching staff is trying to win every game. Many of these players have worked for years in the minors to get this opportunity. It was awesome to see Fitzgerald’s first hit and home run. The Gasper game was special. Hatch may have jump started a career as a reliever. If my opening sentence implied that the performance of the players is a disgrace it is far from what I intended and I regret that it was taken that way. I would hope my focus in my comment on the blow up of the team trading 10 players would have made it clear that it is the decisions of the front office and owners that I can’t respect.

It is a difference to me. Today’s game is a perfect example. Really enjoying watching Ryan’s work through first five innings, I need a GM who is going to build and not subtract. Any GM can subtract. It is far easier to trade a Duran or Ryan that acquire one.

My mindset isn’t so fixed but following your premise I will take 72 wins over 58. Every game matters to me.

Starting pitchers are critical in the playoffs. There is no one in the organization on a path towards a game 1 playoff starter. Ryan and Lopez are that starter. Trading Ryan and Lopez will continue the cycle of mediocrity. In this trade environment teams are not giving up top prospects. Only one moved at the deadline in De Vries. As we get closer to the 27 labor negotiations I think teams will be even more conservative about giving up prospects. The return will be underwhelming and they already have enough prospects that are struggling to be an average major leaguer much less a top of the rotation pitcher.

Arraez has an OBP of .317 this year. That would be 11th on the Twins. All four position players traded are among the 10 above him so I guess you could say it is 7th.

Should we expect that Abel will follow Bradley in this start?

I hope they don’t sign anyone for first base or any other position that is the under 10 million dollar solution. It only guarantees that next year they will be doing the same. I am guessing that Solano, Santana and France were fine value and as a group outperformed their team friendly contracts. Overall in those 3 seasons the Twins are 17th in wRC+ from 1B or maybe 14th depending on which selections you make in Fangraphs. That isn’t going to get it done even if the analysis says it is a good value. They really need to pay up for a bat that is going to be in the top quartile at his position. They can pay up in the form of trading prospects and/or taking on salary to push them towards the median. If they aren’t willing to pay up then I would go young. Maybe Keaschall is 1B and Culpepper is starting in the infield. Put Jenkins and Rodriguez in the outfield. Play fast. Defend.

I really don’t know enough about the prognosis for the health of his arm and whether relief is the best role. The Twins didn’t give Duran that couple of months. Maybe they should have. I think the concern about the health of his arm was part of it.