Rosterman

Wow, probably the last major TRANSACTION of an EX-TWIN for the 2023 season! Why they want him on the 40-man is beyond even me! https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/dodgers-select-beau-burrows-transfer-jacob-amaya-to-60-day-il.html BEAU BURROWS! Remember him?!

Pagan is the perfect example of arbitration failure. SHould he get a substantial raise after two seasons of sub-par pitching? Why! Bad enough that you can't cut a player's salary, but must offer a modest raise.

Players in the AFL always have a better than average chance of getting a 40-man roster spot, and I would beg to guess that at least half of them see major league service time at some point in their career. A great chance to showcase. It basically extends the post-season of your top prospects to face the highest level of minor leeague competition against others of the same rank (no minor league free agents with nothing left to lose). And usually a member of the coaching staff is from your own organization. Julien is someone to watch, as the Twins develop middle-infielders, but no one a surefire shortstop. Julien could be heir appaeant to Polanco, though. Be interesting to see the further development of Austin Martin. I would love to see him stick to one position in Arizona. Also, be interesting to see if he repeats, to start the season, AA again.

I hoped they would be a .5090 team. Biggest disappointment was that they did do stuff at the trade deadline that didn't really pan out.

I truly believe the reason Wes left. Professional abseball is a whole new game. Spring camp, on-the-road too much. It is basically being a player again, and amazed at the guys who do it, but still have a family in a different state. The Twins did bring in a lot more "college" coaches, for their training base and the minor leagues...as part of the game is dealing with players maturing. And the coaching ahs changed...more coaches on the staff in the minors, and the major league coaching bench has overblown...soon a personal coach for each player, right? Plus, they aren't paid even as well as the minimum wage of a first year player. Yet they are supposed to tell the player, in the majors, what to do to succeed, or keep succeeding.

During the off-season, Rocco could do what Tom Kelly also hated to do...go out and meet fans, be it on question-and-answer talk radio, appearing with TC Bear and a player at some bigger events. An opportunity to really talk abseball philosophy, as well as spread the Twins brand.

Pretty good list. Expect six to be back in 2023, and hopefully for many eyars after. Remembering the Twins rookie pitchers since 2019: Smeltzder, Thorpe, DObnak, Romero, Hildenberger, Eades, Poppen, Stashak, Graterol, Alcala, Colina, and last year Ober, Ryan, Jax, Barnes, Moran, Humm, Barnes left and did well in Asian leagues.

I'm starting to wonder WHY we would need more than one of Kepler, Celestino, Wallner, Garlick, Kirilloff, Larnach. I'm not seeing anything outstanding there. Potential in Kiriloff if you believe his wrist is healed. Celestino could be the new Cave for a couple of seasons, the backup you need for Buxton, Will Wallner get better? Otherwise, nah, bah, humbug!

Hey, they could use Pagan again, as he threw less than 1-0 pitches yesterday. Save all the other arms for tomorrows finale!

Twins competition in signing Correa? They would have to offer him significantly more than $35m for one year with another even higher option. I doubt they will do that, or tie them into anything north of $25m a year for five or mroe years, which will not egt it done. Any other team could/would do that. They lucked out on the Correa contract. Got a bit of p.r. value. But it could've beeen a bigtime miostake if he had been injured for a good portion of this season, which would've meant a pickup by Correa of next season. The pain is the Twins wish they were in a little better position with Lewis ready to step-in-out-of-spring with Lewis.

I guess they want to keep Sanchez in the organization, perhaps? Interesting how the Twins had this whole crop of reusable parts pitchers that couldn't leave (a couple did right at the end) or Sanchez, D. Rodriguez, Cotton, Minaya.) I would rather have seen the elevation os Sisk, a lefty to watch, for the last three games. Give him a taste of the majors.

After a lost season of COVID in the cardboard stands and few people the following hyear, plus a shift to Bally Sports.....I think the issue is more how the new Twins uniforms will look and the branding the club does going forth. Who are the marketable players? The Twins have to start by supporting Minnesota (and Midwest) events. Better presence than they had at the Minnesota State Fair would've been nice. They have to do more than just the pre-season Caravan, as baseball suffered bigtime in this state.

Bases loaded. Again. Pagan was...brilliant! How did we lose Liam Hendriks? Well, no second place, no .500. A sad, sad end to what was looking like a surprising season!

ANDREW VASQUEZ called up by the Giants! https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/giants-place-evan-longoria-on-il-with-thumb-fracture.html

5 days after the end of the World Series.

Well, Chi Chi got at least a day in a Yankees uniform. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/yankees-dfa-chi-chi-gonzalez.html

KEEPERS: Duran, Gray, Henriquez, Jax, Maeda, Moran, Ober, Ryan, Varland, Winder, Woods Richardson, Jeffers, Lewis, Miranda, Polanco, Buxton, Celestino, Kirilloff, Gordon, Larnach, Kepler, Wallner. (22 players) FREE AGENTS: Bundy, Archer, Fulmer, Leon, Correa, G. Sanchez, Sano, A. Sanchez, B. Hamilton ARBITRATION ELIGIBLE (I Think): Urshela, Pagan, Paddack, Mahle, Alcala, Stashak, Thielbar, Coulombe, Cave, Lopez, Arraez REPLACEMENT LEVEL: Romero, Megill, Palacios, Garlick, Contreras, C. Hamilton QUESTIONABLE PROSPECTS: Smeltzer, Sands, Enlow, Balazovic So, 8 free agents leaving, 6 guys that could easily be replaced thru by others or resigned to minor league contracts, maybe 2 of questionable prospect gone, and 3-6 that could easily not reach an arbitration decision (Coulombe, Stashak, Cave probably, possibly Urshela, Pagan, And Thielbar in limbo). MINOR LEAGUE CONSIDERATIONS: Helman, Sisk*, Severino*, Canterino*, Julien*, Headrick, Funderburk, Prato, Isola. Javier (free agent), Camargo* (free agent), Probably, at this point, only NEED to keep 3-4 of these fer sure. (*ones I would add)

I wonder what the team would've been like if Sano ws available for the entire season. The weakness was NOT having innings eaters in the rotation. But we got our current batch built up for 2023. Someone has to make outs, so I can live with a weakness in a catcher atr the bat. But they have to be able to stop the running game in return. And the Twins do have guys who should be able to run, sacrifice, make things happen.

KEEPERS: Duran, Gray, Henriquez, Jax, Maeda, Moran, Ober, Ryan, Varland, Winder, Woods Richardson, Jeffers, Lewis, Miranda, Polanco, Buxton, Celestino, Kirilloff, Gordon, Larnach, Kepler, Wallner. FREE AGENTS: Bundy, Archer, Fulmer, Leon, Correa, Sanchez, Sano, B. Hamilton ARBITRATION: Urshela, Pagan, Paddack, Mahle, Alcala, Stashak, Thielbar, Coulombe, Cave, Lopez, Arraez REPLACEMENT LEVEL: Romero, Megill, Palacios, Garlick, Contreras, C. Hamilton QUESTIONABLE PROSPECTS: Smeltzer, Sands, Enlow, Balazovic So, 8 free agents leaving, 6 guys that could easily be replaced thru minor league conracts, maybe 2 of questionable prospect gone, and 3-6 that could easily not reach an arbitration decision (Coulombe, Stashak, Cave probably, Urshela, Pagan, Thielbar in limbo). MINOR LEAGUE CONSIDERATIONS: Helman, Sisk, Severino, Canterino, Julien, Headrick, Funderburk, Prato, Isola. Javier (free agent), Camargo (free agent), Probably, at this point, only NEED to keep 3-4 of these fer sure.

Well, if Megill is injured, the Twins should be able to bring back immediately Henriquez. Get him another few innings. Or, bring in Evan Sisk?

You alwats have to be wary of over performance by young players. Remember when we thought we had a great nucleus with Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Berrios? Sure, there is a fine crop, but we look no fuirther than the outfield. Is Kirilloff the real deal (and better suited for first). Is Larnach a stud? Can Wallner learn, fast, not to strikeout half-the-time? Will Celestino get better with age? We had Ober, Sands, Winder, Buxton, Moran, Henriquez, Jax, Jeffers, Arraez, Gordon, Miranda, Lewis, Kirilloff, Wallner, Larnach step forward as organization pluses. Names like Celestino, Duran, Ryan, Alcala, Coulombe, Woods Richardson, Henriquez all came from outside organizations. That's a pretty solid core going forward. Supplement it with a couple of real free agents, and hope names like Gray, Madea, Mahle, Paddack, Urshela, Lopez, Pagan can be upgraded, or further prove their worth from trade for the prospects we said goodbye. The Twins rotation suffered from arms not able to throw innings (no one reached 150 innings). The Twins left a bunch of guys on base, didn't push their base-running, started to see people run wild on their catchers (and pitchers), and the offense probably lost more games that the bullpen. The Twins fielded more coaches than ever, and their minor league system has more coaches than ever in the minors, and collegiate voices popping up throughtout the system. The 2020 draft class is still a disaster. They traded away alot of players (left-handed arms) from the 2021. There is promise in the Class of 2022, but we have to wait for next season to see most of them. We were at a high as the Twins were the only central team above .500 for msot of the season and in first place, still struggling with draws of only 22,000 average attendance. Well, St. Paul wasn't selling out either...and eventually a good portion (30 bodies) played for AAA Saints before coming to the Twins. 30! Whew! I can very well see the team just treadwater in the off-season, feeling they have enough to be competitive, and not spending money (kudos for giving away money to Carlos Correa, I guess). We want them to get better. To make the first rate signing of a real good free-agent pitcher, but no one really wants to come to Minnesota. Why is that? Well...........

What happened to Megill?

The Brewers are still hanging in there. If they make it, Taylor Rogers would be closing games!

How do you get picked off of second base in a bases loaded situation. Matt Walner, we love you, and you will work hard to become and stay a major league player, but... When our bench is basically Caleb Hamilton, Ryan Jeffers and Billy Hamilton, we are in ntrouble......

Why not put Bundy on waivers. Maybe save a week's salary?