Darius

You could delete “at the Winter Meetings,” a silk pose a valid question. People will point to Cruz, but I don’t consider 1 year 14 million with a 12 million team option major. Ervin Santana 5 years ago? Ricky Nolasco? (Keep in mind the full value of those contracts was barely more than one year a Cole’s contract from the Yankees this year). What a depressing franchise to root for.

He may be better than I think. But, it’s still gross roster mismanagement for a legitimate World Series contender to be running a guy like this out there in the ALDS against the Yankees. It kind of throws the legitimate World Series contender thing out the window.

I’m sorry, Phil Mackey.....but, no, you’re the moron.

Hope? Or something to sell? It’s literally their job to attempt to instill hope to keep people coming back and reading articles. Why on earth would they say, “look, this off-season is really going to suck. Nothing to see here for a few months”? Having hope is one thing. But, constantly chiding the numerous Twins’ fans that are tired of always being sold false hope as if they’re stupid for not buying it is another. Are we really only supposed to come around here to father and collectively lie to ourselves? What has this front office shown that is different than the previous? We’re really pointing to a 1 year $6.5M deal to Logan Morrison and a 2 year $16M deal to a spent reliever as the shining example of a sea-change? How is comparing this FO to the previous I regards to free agency so ridiculous that it requires insulting someone’s intelligence (if you think saying “the fastest way to lose is credibility, etc.” is anything more than a passive-aggressive way of doing just that, you’re wrong)? Because they signed Logan freaking Morrison? I don’t know if it’s intentional or delusion, but some of these free agency forums are like a Twilight Zone episode. I just don’t know how people buy into it so much that they outright deny some of these things. I get the writers motivation (need to generate readable columns and excitement). But your average reader/fan? Is it ass kissing? Do they think it makes them “enlightened?” A need to feel included? A coping mechanism to get through year after year of the same? I’m genuinely confused.

I don’t think Madbum would fare very well in an AL stadium with a short porch in LF. Ever since Gleeman attempted to enlightened everyone to the reality of Madbum around the trade deadline, I’ve been anti Madbum. This is all relative, of course. Get him on a 1-2 year deal for #3 money, I’m all in. Paying him $20 million/year for 4/5 years, given how that would totally hamstring this FO going forward.....awful move. If I knew I was a fan of a club that was passionate about investing in a quality on-field product, I’d think it’s a risk worth taking. But, I’m guessing it’ll the the last “big splash” signing for some time with a lot of younger guys needing extensions in the near future (Berrios, Buxton, possibly more). I’d rather it be a player that is a known commodity. Not a prayer of a return to 4 years ago.

I don’t really know how to judge this. On one hand, you expect some rookie struggles. So, it’s a positive sign that there wasn’t a whole lot of that’s. On the other, there wasn’t one rookie who saw a high number of appearances/innings, which could also explain some level of success (lack of familiarity from opposing clubs/hitters). I do know that I don’t trust the guys from last year. Just because Smeltzer and Dobnak looked good in limited appearances, doesn’t mean they are going to be quality pieces going forward. I think that if either of those guys are rotation fixtures throughout 2020, we’re in trouble. With a healthy Cleveland (Kluber, Ramirez, Lindor injuries were massively helpful to the Twins) and the White Sox looking ready to turn the corner, the status quo is going to land us in third place. My point is, I put almost no stock into the accomplishments listed above. I’d rather go out and get good pitchers than cobble together a AAAA staff/bullpen and pray.

I like the move. Castro is probably looking for more money/years. I don’t know what the two players’ fly ball numbers are, but I’m not ruling out that Castro’s power was related to ball. It’s possible that Avila is a rough equivalent offensively with an “unjuiced” ball (assuming they league actually switches back and it wasn’t just a playoff thing). There is a lot of worry about losing Cron for some reason around here. He’s just not a player that’s good enough to be concerned about. I’d, personally, rather have Garver over there to keep his bat in the lineup, if possible. Worst case scenario is Marwin getting significant time over there until someone like Rooker or Kirillof can make it up, which could very well be in 2020. If they go get a 3B like Donaldson, Sano could get plenty of time over there. There will be guys like Cron sitting around late in the free agency period, maybe even Spring Training. IMO, Cron’s defense over there was pretty overrated. He was decent, but it’s still first base. There isn’t a position on the diamond where defensive ability matters less. If I’m the Twins FO, first base is on the bottom of my priority list for the next couple of months.

Love it. Very good deal, and really solidifies the back end of the rotation. Still plenty of money laying around to target an decent pitcher like Ryu, Bumgarner, Keuchel and a bat for the infield. I don’t even mind that he can’t pitch right away. We saw how effective he could last year under a somewhat limited load.

No, because $5 million to an MLB franchise would be like me complaining about having to spend 5 cents more for a gallon of milk at the grocery store, and expecting the bum rattling a cup on a street corner to care. Why should the state forego tax dollars for infrastructure, etc. for the Pohald’s to line their pockets even more? The state’s taxpayers already did the heavy lifting in funding a new ballpark. Remember that? When they were going to contract....then pickup and leave? The loyalty from them to their fans can be quantified with a negative.

It always stuns me how some people find a way to attempt rationalization of the Pohlads. It’s absurd. Saying you’re fine with it is one thing. Cherry picking 3 or 4 contracts And 2 years out of 40 years as evidence they spend is patently ridiculous. Also, those were contracts they had to sign to avoid a PR nightmare (can you imagine letting Joe Mauer walk in his prime while planning on moving into a new ballpark and you’re supposedly trying to contend? It’s common sense). We’re supposed to take solace in the fact they’ve cracked the top 10 in spending two times in franchise history? The Ford analogy is also ridiculous. Automotive companies are literally required to forego profits by law to meet certain standards of safety and efficiency (aka, quality). They tried to skimp and cheap out on the product to maximize profits. People stepped in and said, “you’re a fraud, you have a fiduciary responsibility to make safe, reliable, and efficient cars.” Its arguing against the attempted point without even realizing it. Why do you think various sports have implemented salary floors? Name me another line of business where you dictate your profit margin. Where you can say, “I’m only investing 50% of revenues, the rest is going in my pocket, like it or not. You still have to buy the product because I monopolize the market.” (Which is verbatim what they have said, basically). Name me another line of business where the owners of all the companies can get together at a publicized meeting at a swanky hotel and collude. There is zero market reaction because of profit sharing, monopolistic localized markets, etc. There is nothing worse than a self-righteous Pohlad Pocket Protector trying to tell me how they know better (because what do I know about corporations, profits, finance, etc....I’m only a silly CPA with a masters degree). It’s a form of virtue signaling (“I’m so much more financially sophisticated, you just don’t get how it works”.....you know what? neither do you, clearly). These people can darn near print money. Defending them for not investing an extra $20-$30 million is insane. You do realize that the Pohlad’s have unrealized gains of over $1 billion in their purchase of the Twins? That’s on top of their annual net. Where is “foregoing profits” to sign a couple of free agents coming from (besides a rear end)? They could literally sign every free agent on the market this year and still be well into the black. $20-$30 million per year is the difference between rounding to a ten thousandth instead of a thousandth. Just stop it.

If all we get is MadBum in terms of rotation help, I’ll be bummed (pun intended). The guys isn’t what he used to be. He’s borderline washed. He pitches in the NL. For all the Kyle Gibson haters, his ERA away from his pitcher friendly home ballpark since 2017 is over 4.20. Kyle Gibson has been blasted around here for a career ERA of around 4.5 while pitching in the AL. Be prepared for outrage around here. Many seem to think our pitching coach will magically unlock something in this guy. Why do we think that? Aside from a month or two of Martin Perez pitching out of his mind, what has our pitching staff really accomplished? The Odorizzi “turnaround” isn’t as cut and dried as some would like it to be (he’s throwing harder but pitching fewer innings...chicken/egg). Our bullpen imploded. Berrios underperformed, IMO. We got absolutely shelled by any team with a competent offense. On top of that, Bumgarner is aging and has a ton of mileage in his arm. On top of that, he doesn’t throw particularly hard from the left side. Target Field has a shirt porch in right. Not sure that’s a combination that’ll work out very well. Would I hate the signing? No. But, I couldn’t disagree more with those who think this would be a huge difference maker. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Gibson get healthy and have a better year than Bumgarner next year.

Just once, I’d like to see this franchise identify the guy the want and go after him aggressively. Pay the money it takes, instead of low-balling. Quit screwing around and getting cute. They need to quit waiting for things to “play out,” and pinching pennies. If you’re not willing to spend any money, why should your fans? If not after a 100-win season with overall payroll numbers that Yankees and Red Sox invest into their urinal cakes....then when? It’s not over yet, but I’m getting less confident with every player that comes off the board.

Did I really read above that someone wants to take the best defensive CF of all time and put him at 1B? There truly must be nothing to talk about right now.

I know it won’t happen, but Rendon could be the piece that gets this team over the hump. Kepler, RF Polanco, SS Rendon, 3B Cruz, DH Garver, C Sano, 1B Rosario, LF Arraez, 2B Buxton, CF Marwin, Cave, etc off the bench. The defense, especially with Buxton healthy, would be solid. The lineup is easily the best in the MLB. Rendon brings another layer of “been there,” along with Cruz and Marwin. There should be plenty of payroll left to address the pitching staff (id bring back Pineda and a guy like Ryu to slot into the 3-4 holes). That’s a legitimate World Series contender (not a pretender like last year). Now, back to reality. I wonder how cheaply we’ll get Ivan Nova and Jedd Gyorko.

Minnesota and Minnesota sports is engrained into my DNA. It wasn’t really ever a choice. I was a young child when the Twins won their pair of World Series titles. It’s one of the few memories I hang onto from that young age. There is nothing on the planet that is more nostalgic than the “We’ll see you tomorrow night,” call. Merely hearing the names Kirby Puckett, Dan Gladden, Greg Gagne, Gary Gaetti, Jack Morris, Shane Mack, Kevin Tapani, etc. brings me back to childhood. Images, smells, emotions. Being regaled with stories of Carew, Killebrew, etc by the elders of the family. There was no better time/place to be alive, let alone a sports fan, than the late 80s early 90s in rural Minnesota in my mind. It genuinely makes me emotional recalling those times and the people in my life then who have long-since passed on. In a good way, as opposed to a sad one. People like to get on me about my criticism of ownership and high level management of this franchise over the years. But, I take the gross mismanagement and overall cheapness/lack of passion by those in charge personally. My emotional investment is huge. I feel, in a way, that they are depriving myself of reliving that time, and numerous others (especially young kids) of having something so special and uniting between family members, especially having my own children now. It goes far beyond being just a game. I was nearly back there in the 00s. But, now there’s just something (hope) missing. Knowing, from day 1 of the season...even in seasons like last years....that there is no legitimate/reasonable chance of getting back to that promised land is demoralizing.

I’d go another direction. The obvious is getting a high-end defensive 3B and moving Sano. My personal favorite 1B of the future is Garver. There’s no saying what his numbers would’ve looked like, but I think it was gross mismanagement to have one of the best offensive players in the MLB getting part-time ABs. Taking Arraez, who will almost certainly regress, and planting him at 1B full time drives what value he has into the ground, IMO. We see guys with significant run production, OPS, home run, etc numbers that get tossed on the scrap heap at 1B/DH every year. What kind value does a guy who hits around .300 (assuming there’s some regression/adjustment by the league) with no power or speed have at 1B? Pete Alonso hit 55 HRs, 120 RBI with a .360 OBP (probably about where Arraez will sit) and he barely cracked the MLB top 50 in WAR. Same with Matt Olson who had huge power numbers, a .350 OBP and the Gold Glove at 1B. Santana has a .400 OBP, big power numbers and is even lower on the list than the previous 2. Arraez won’t be anywhere near the neighborhood of guys like that. That’s not even considering guys line Rizzo, Freeman, Gurriel, Bell, Goldschmidt, Hoskins, Voit, Renata Nunez, Christian Walker, etc. If he’s a full-time 1B, he’d be near bottom of the barrel at the position. He needs to be somewhere his bat plays (middle infield) or he just won’t make it. Realistically, he’s not sustaining a .350 batting avg, IMO.

The market on pitchers being driven up is worst case scenario for those still holding out hope that the Twins may actually loosen the purse strings this offseason. I get the feeling we’re all going to be pretty frustrated with our sitting place when the music stops. I’m bracing myself. Think about this: The White Sox just signed Grandal recently after a 72 win season. It’s bigger than any free agent contract ever awarded by the Twins, and would be among the richest contracts in Twins’ franchises history. If we’re still saying that come training camp...just shut the whole thing down.

Bad take. 2nd half of 2017 through his illness he was very good. Extremely underrated by a number of fans during that span. 2014 through 2015 his ERA was just slightly north of 4. At worst, he’s a serviceable back-end guy when healthy. At best, you’re getting a very good starter with pretty darn good stuff. For 3 years 30 mil, he could be a bargain. The problem never really lied with Gibson as a Twin, but in the expectations of most fans for a 3rd-5th starter. Do a quick review of the 4th-5th starters around the MLB and tell me Gibby wasn’t better than every single one of them when healthy.

There is a prevailing sentiment, as we’re seeing, that Sano at 3B is some sort of problem. Sano at 3B, in my estimation, is pretty far down the list of issues on this squad. Clearly, pitching is where resources need to be invested. Both in the rotation and bullpen. If we’re going to criticize defense, why aren’t more people talking about Polanco at short, and moving him? How about Jake Cabe flailing around in the OF as the 4th guy? What about Cron dropping routine balls that get to him in the air in playoff games? I get Sano isn’t the greatest 3B, but acting like moving him off of 3B is going to solve problems and propel this team to the next level is asinine. IMO, it comes down to a number of people having a some sort of negative bias related to Sano (going back to off-field things, stupid striv articles about his weight, etc). If you can upgrade him at 3B and move him to 1B, fine. But bringing in some marginal player like Brock Holt just to move Sano off of 3B is such a bad take that it’s borderline offensive.

I get the sentiment that the rule isn’t ideal. But, what other solutions are there? You can’t have these 4 hour long games in Boston and New York anymore. It’s absurd. Nobody short of a retired empty nester or someone doing it for a living has time to watch a 3-4 hour baseball game on TV on any given Monday night, let alone spend a hundred plus to show up at the game in person. To put it frankly, the vast majority of the people into that kind of baseball are dying off. If they don’t fix it now, the sport will be in trouble. They know it. Same reason why they “fixed” the ball. Like it or not, young prospective fans, even a significant proportion of current fans, just aren’t excited by small ball and 1-0 pitchers duels. I don’t like it, but I understand it.

Yep. I freaking love Gleeman. My favorite baseball analyst. Seemingly one of the few, if not only, guy out there willing to speak plainly and honestly about the Twins and Twins news. Not afraid to call BS when he sees it. I think what got people is the Twitter handle/name (“Hot Stove Cubs”). Dollars to donuts if it was some guy with a picture of a cat with some random handle, it’s a non-topic. Someone jumped the gun. Breaking news, Twins are going to sign Joe DiMaggio.

If he’s just a bench bat against LHP, with some occasional run at first base, sure. But, I think we can/should do better than Cron as a primary option (it’s the will that worries me). Watching him drop balls against the Yankees in the playoffs is forever etched in my mind. If I remember right, one would’ve gotten us out of inning and multiple runs were scored after. Not blaming the series loss on Cron, but he had some huge miscues that certainly contributed. Not to mention his thumb caused him to be a black hole in the lineup.

For me, the way I was raised, it’s just strange to me that people wouldn’t want to hire the most qualified candidates. Gender, race, religion, whatever, should be thrown out the window. I’m a business owner, and can tell you that if I get an accountant coming to me out of college, I’m taking the most talented. Honestly, I don’t know anyone personally in my line of work that would do it differently. All that said, I think it’s antithetical to that call for more of X or Y in anything. If we’re working to get rid of prejudice/bias....that’s just another form. I’d love for these things to happen organically. The best person should get the job. If that’s 100% women, men, people of a certain color, so be it. We don’t need proportionate ratios across the board. In order for us as a society to clear these hurdles related to prejudice, people that like to think they aren’t prejudiced also need to stop analyzing things in terms of the number of women, minorities, white men, etc in any given arena. Creating inefficiencies for the sake of filling quotas (IMO, perpetuating prejudice), doesn’t help anyone. Especially in today’s society with gender fluidity and identity politics, if it doesn’t work as one, what’s to stop someone from trying it as another. Look, I get there are good intentions behind a lot these things. I’m by no means chastising anyone. Everyone deserves a fair shake regardless. That’s the important thing. That’s where we need to be as a society.

Yes they should add to the bullpen. They have some nice pieces, and they looked good as a unit at times. But, they blew way too many winnable game.(Yankees at home, Brewers game, and a few others come to mind right off the top of the head). I know bullpens are shoddy around the league, but one or two more services me pieces and the Twins could’ve easily had home field advantage in the playoffs and things look much differently as they sit today. It happens every year back to old regime. They are hamstrung I’m spending and are forced to throw things at the wall and hope they stick (Blake Parker, really?). Games are flushed down the toilet “seeing what we got.” It was a two game difference between the Yankees and the Twins for home field.

Give me back Escobar and Presley and you can keep all of those prospects. Eduardo Escobar posted a 4.2 WAR in 2019. For reference, that tied Tatis Jr (who was phenomenal in him games played). Juan Soto posted a 4.7. Freddie Freeman and JT Realmuto 4.4s. Nelson Cruz a 4.3. He posted a higher WAR than Max Kepler and Mitch Garver. Higher than Jose Altuve, Austin Meadows, and JD Martinez. Crude measurement, I know, but that’s what I’m using for the sake of time. We all know about Pressley. He’s been, arguably, the best reliever in the MLB since he arrived in Houston until his injury issues late in the season. These guys are among the best in Major League Baseball at their positions (both positions we need). I don’t know how, with a straight face, you can list the likes of Devon Smeltzer, Luke Raley, a couple of hard throwers who will be a fraction of Presley if we’re lucky, and Celestino, who was awful save for a few months and is years away from the majors on a team with a loaded outfield, and say “See, these guys are killing it.” There are some things people seem to forget. This front office had a pretty good offseason last year....the year before that was an epic disaster. Also, many of the significant contributors on the team were holdovers from the previous regime. They brought in Cruz who was a resounding success....but he fell into their lap (nobody really wanted him that badly due to his age). Aside from that they’ve brought in guys like Morrison, Lynn, Zach Duke, CJ Cron, Jonathan Schoop, etc. Hardly a murderer’s row. Don’t get me wrong, I have faith in them. But way too many people in the media and fandom are anointing Falvine the Kings of Baseball. In reality l, that isn’t really based on a whole lot. They won the worst division in baseball and got utterly dismantled by the team that lost to the team that lost to the Nationals in the World Series. I still need to see some things play out. I don’t think they’ll be giving a long runway in terms of spending (not as much as people think), and a lot of players are due for regression. There is a good chance everyone will be writing articles expressing the opposite sentiment this time next year.