nicholas Anderson

In Bradley's defense, the storm chasers put out a very stout aaaa lineup last night

Why waste bullets in the minors, let him make his tweaks, and take his lumps across town

I am not worried about CF. Between Martin and Keirsey you have two good defensive CFers. Last year Taylor was 1.9 War and 94 OPS+. He was making what, $10,000,000. I don't see that much of a drop off for a min. salaried player.

I think Killebrewlover and JD-twins are both correct. I think for the most part the twins are how they are playing, so will remain a slightly above .500 team. But because of all the extrinsic factors JD-twins points out have the ability to go on a run at some point and string together an 8-2 10 game stretch. so it is all together possible they have an 85 or 86 win year with one good 10 game stretch that bumps them to 89-90. With that being said, like many others, I turned off Tuesdays game after 2 innings and didn't listen to Wednesday's game, because the general ineptness is hard to listen to and i was hoping to bring them some luck. At least I can take credit for Wednesday's win 😉!

Have to put a plug in for the MLB app. Something new this year is you can watch your team's minor league affiliates in the app. Once the Twins seemed to have the game in hand, I went and watched the Saints. Both Winder and Balazavic seemed to be throwing well, especially Balazavic. Which was great to see. Then after the rain stopped the game, was able to watch the last couple outs in Cedar Rapids.

In Miami, the parking is super convenient, and the stadium is easy to get to from the highway. We got a great deal, I think it was Taco Tuesday. For $25 we got awesome seats maybe 10 rows up from the expensive first base dugout seats, two tacos and a 12 oz. beer. The taco's were super delicious, like made to order street tacos. One of the best deals I have ever gotten. I wasn't particularly enamored with the stadium. My main complaint is the air conditioning was so loud it drowned out other noise and by the end of the game my ears were ringing. Like everyone else, even though the K is old it is great, Especially if you are in the lower bowl. All the attendants are super nice and proud of their team/stadium. Except for opening day it should be pretty easy finding a place to sit in the lower are. They have probably the best Kid's area in the outfield. One thing to consider if going for multiple games, is most teams have monthly standing room only tickets, especially early in the season. In 2019, I went to the last 3 or 4 games of the season at the K with the Twins facing the Royals. The standing room only monthly seats for just those games were a better price than walk up tickets, plus I sat in the lower bowl and as a bonus got to see the Twins set the MLB homerun record. It was great that Sunday watching the Twins and Scoreboard watching the Yankees. As you can imagine, the Twins contingent was nearly as strong as the Royals.

Of course if you don't mind breaking the law, the Royals are bad enough there are always plenty of seats in the lower section.

Correa's contract is going to be a long one. No way does an 8 year contract get it done. here is what I would offer if I were the twins: 13 years for $345,000,000. More money than Lindor, but a reasonable AAV of $26.5. With inflation, that should be very manageable the last 2-3 years when he is not that good. To sweeten the pot for Correa, I would give him an opt out after 4. This would give the twins his best years, but allow correa to bet on himself, while he is still relatively young.

This is a bit off topic, but since I am posting 4 days after the last post I think it is fair. Here is a different way of looking at it. Would you want Taylor Rogers back? If your answer is yes, take a closer look at Rogers and Pagan's numbers. They are shockingly similar. Rogers pitched 1.1 more innings, but they both faced 274 batters (all stats per baseball reference). They both struck out 84 batters, but Pagan gave up 7 more walks. To even this out Rogers hit 10 more batters! Pagan gave up 5 more home runs, yet Rogers gave up 3 more earned runs. Rogers had better FIP, Whip, and SO/W ratios. Meanwhile Pagan actually had a lower ERA and ERA+. Pagan's ERA was going in the right direction, while Roger's ERA stats (ERA, ERA+, and FIP) got significantly worse in Milwaukee. Given these numbers, I don't know that I would want either, it is all a matter of dollars and who's roster spot they are taking. What I do know, is that Padres did not "win" the trade. Either the Twins will win or we both lost, depending on what happens with Paddack over the next couple of years.

My sentiments exactly. The emergence of Miranda makes the whole deal possible.

Great to see all players on the list (except Steer) had an OBP at least 100 points above their batting average. Even Steer's was fairly significant. That tells me they all have a great eye at the plate. Hopefully, it will carry over month to month and into the bigs.

I don't know that I have fully bought into this team, but... You know this is a different team than 2021, when they are down by 6 in the 8th inning and I am still listening to the game because I know they have a chance. That didn't happen in 2021.

Mitch Garver .205/.295/.346, 92 OPS+, 3 HR. Gary Sanchez .195/.271/.325, 81 OPS+, 1 HR. Josh Donaldson .224/.345/.378, 118 OPS+, 3HR. Gio Urshela .222/.284/.278, 73 OPS+, 1 HR. IKF .256/.303/.322, 89 OPS+, 0 HR. Carlos Correa .255/.320/.372, OPS+, 2 HR. Rortvedt has not played in the majors yet. Everyone knew Urshela and Sanchez were down grades from Garver and Donaldson. Everyone knew Correa was an upgrade from IKF. It seems to me this has actually played out how most people predicted.

Thinking two steps ahead I hope this makes sense, BUT I am just shocked we didn't get a minor league pitcher in return, we always get a minor league pitcher.

I would add the Twins Kids Club membership. For $30 dollars you get a box of Twins goodies and two tickets for the kids when they are with a parent. The tickets pay for the box and the goodies are what the kids want.

I agree completely with WSNYDES. I would put the main reason for the Twins poor performance in as sloppy play in the field combined with underwhelming pitching.

Great article. I am heading down to Davenport this weekend to see the Kernels. This will be helpful to keep in mind when watching. One of the weird things when you first look at it is the relatively high ages for the players compared to 2019. I have to keep remembering, there was no 2020 and the Kernels are now high A.

Excited for the season to begin. Already have our summer road trip planned. At the end of July early August, plan on seeing the Saints in Omaha, Windsurge in Northwest Arkansas and Twins in Houston!