nicksaviking

I think the lack of options is going to be an issue trading him too. You're going to have to find an absolute dog of a team that is willing to commit a roster spot to him in 2027 whether he's playing well or not. So maybe the Angels, A's and Rockies? Maybe the Giants if they go into rebuild mode? Otherwise, I'm sure most other teams would happily give him a shot, but I doubt they'd give up any players they'd care at all about losing. I know the injuries complicated this situation, but the Twins absolutely bungled this. The Twins waived the white flag on the 2025 season before it even started. They said they were competing this year but dropped payroll by 30M which means they never were serious about it. He could have been put on the opening day roster of either of those squads. And if they weren't going to entertain that idea, he should have been traded before this season even started. How did this club not see this coming?

No, but they probably are for being stubborn enough to give James Outman an opening day roster spot instead.

Coming back to this, I'm sure it's accurate but it's so dumb and KOC better not be making decisions based on this. McCarthy was the FIFTH QB taken in that draft. Anyone who follows football knew that even a good Pro-QB mind couldn't guarantee success, particularly for a non-elite prospect. I bet if I dug through this board long enough I'd find plenty of us posters who said that we weren't confident in McCarthy but we agreed the Vikings had to take the shot. It didn't work out. So what?!?! We knew what we were signing up for, try again and hope things play out better next time. But charade aside, I only ever wanted this experiment to be two years, so if they are moving on, props to KOC and the Vikings for cutting their losses now instead of playing the sunk cost game like the Panthers are with Bryce Young. I don't like the subterfuge because I don't think there's any reason they need to 'save face' but I do like the decisiveness.

Yeah, that's a good one, but it's actually a solid take. And that goes for any team that rosters a bunch of young players who might otherwise get worn down from playing a longer season than they have before. So, the vet laden big market clubs may lose an advantage if there are fewer games. Combine that with possible/likely onset of caps and floors AND that a change in the system means all teams have to start over tinkering to figure out new methodologies, and 2027 could be a year where a non-major market finally has a chance to break through and win it all.

I just went in to adjust my prices for the season tickets I want to sell this year. Wow, so many bad games nobody will want to go to. Atlanta, Carolina, Indianapolis, Washington.

I'm definitely not panicked. But that's because my expectations for this team are lacking. Funny to say after I just boldly predicted a 10-7 season, but it looks like a hallow 10-7 to me.

I'm going to be optimistic pessimistic and say this defense is going to drag Kyler Murray Carson Wentz and the underperforming Vikings offense to a surprising 10-7 record that the casual fans will celebrate, only for the team to get trounced by 30 in the first round at which point all of these causal fans will finally say, 'Oh crap, I just realized our QB situation is worse than ever before and now we can't even draft one! Why did I listen to the sugar coated nonsense Paul Allen and Mark Rosen were spreading all year!" I know the Vikings didn't get the last place schedule, but good lord, it's like the schedule makers already decided they didn't want the Vikings in the top half of the draft.

Ha, yeah to me the timing of this announcement makes it crystal clear what happened. News over the weekend was that Murray didn't do well but McCarthy looked...OK. So KOC had to quash any more of that talk because like every non-casual fan already knew that it was long ago pre-ordained that Murray was the starter and McCarthy was auditioning for QB 2 at best and another team at worst.

Yeah, frustrating. Kyler could be the worst starting QB in the league and he still won't be as bad as McCarthy was last year when the Vikings were 9-8.

Caratini, Bell then if needed Larnach. Why has Caratini gotten three of the last five starts at 1B anyway? Getting Jenkins up and involved in exciting late season games seems infinitely more important than getting ABs to three guys who probably shouldn't be here next year. I'd add Clemens to the list but I'm afraid of those pitchforks.

Which is why I didn't like the trade and would have preferred Gausman/Ray/May/Peralta. But if he keeps pitching well, it won't be a bad problem to have. And if he doesn't, his arbitration figure might make for an easy decision.

Not to mention a pitcher not giving it his all because he hates his team isn't exactly going to compel another team to trade for him. Or pay him his next contract, presuming that's important to said pitcher.

Royce seems to go in the tank when the team as a whole goes in the tank, and he lights up the box score when the team is playing well. One could argue if there is a correlation, but history suggests that if he goes in the tank again, that means the team has already folded up shop for the year and it won't matter.

Yeah, I'd happily accept Pablo reclaiming his spot atop the rotation. The Zebby/Rojas situation is one of the most frustrating things right now. Zebby absolutely has to be in the pen, and I think he'll be great there. Rojas is BARELY on pace to match his innings total from last year. I don't in any way want to take the fun out of 2026 for anyone, but the rotation is on tilt and the young hitters who will need to fill out the middle of the lineup need reps, and I also think they need to experience an exciting but ultimately fruitless end to the season to be ready for next year. And some of those young hitters are still sitting in St. Paul. I'm not going to be happy if they continue to make decisions this year that are going to negatively impact next year when next year looks like they could be legit.

They shouldn't trade him. This team is soooooo under budget right now and have very few holes to fill despite what their record says. Use the current player equity to go trade for another top of the rotation arm, like they did with Lopez, Gray, Maeda and Odorizzi. The 2027 rotation of Ryan, New ****Good**** starter, Bradley, Lopez, plus one upside Prielipp/Rojas/Abel would make the rotation as formidable as it's been in a long time. The team would have both depth in AAA and in the pen to ease off Ryan for the stretch run if needed.

Hope it's not a Trevor Rogers prove 'em wrong game. I presume the Twins just as easily could have acquired Rogers, but for some reason valued Kremer's extra year of control.

LOL, half an I Told You So post!

Monday seems like the right day to be annoying with an 'I told ya so' post:

I like all of your takes. With the first one in particular, I think people have blinders on. I do think Drake Maye is really good, but his season was pretty flukey, and I doubt it's repeatable because of the offense he is in. He threw for almost 4400 yards, but it was due to an unbelievably high completion percentage on deep balls. He put up those yards and threw for 31 TDs on less than 500 pass attempts, which makes sense because Mike Vrabel doesn't want to throw the ball. I will say, that if Maye is legit that good on deep balls and can hold a 72% completion percentage on 9 Yards per Attempt and 9.5 Air Yards per Attempt for his career, he's going to be better than Manning, Brady and Brees and Vrabel is going to waste his talent. As for Williams, he did improve last year, but only because they got him to cut his sacks down by 2/3rds. How is nobody noticing that he went from a pretty poor 62% completion percentage in his rookie year to what should be very concerning 58% last year? His reads are still slow too and it shows as he went from a 3.03 second average throw time in his rookie year to 3.25 seconds last year. I'm guessing like KOC, Ben Johnson has some longer developing plays, but any 'improvement' Williams showed had to be almost entirely due to the improved offensive line. And the Packers are the least talented team in the division. They've been playing above their skill level for a few years though. I think once they all acknowledge that they no longer have a generational QB leading them, the house of cards will collapse and they'll be bottom dwellers for a decent spell*. *Sigh, probably just wishful thinking

Walker JenkinsVahn LackeyKaelen CulpepperMarek HoustonEmmanuel RodriguezHendry MendezRiley QuickGabriel GonzalezKhadim DiawBrandon WinokurYovanny DuranCJ CulpepperEthan WachsmannBrett RenfrowRicardo OlivarCarson TinneyEduardo TaitCharlee SotoYasser MercedesJames Ellwanger

I wouldn't have made the deal. But if I was the Angels, I also wouldn't have done the deal for a Culpepper package. I'm excited to see both Jenkins and Culpepper, but I don't think we look at prospects realistically. The odds that any MLB top 20 prospect is better than Zach Neto is way less than 50%. So while I'd have said no as a Twins fan, I understand the ask. It's why players like Neto with three years of control rarely get traded.

Ha. That typo seems like it should be more common in these threads than I recall!

I truly forget how great he was until September of 2024. It was legit MVP production for most of 2024. I’d been thinking it was the fantastic start in 2023 then the inconsistency. Last week I was on board with trading him in a package, now I’m thinking I want to see if second half 2026 can be repeated or improved in 2027. Maybe he’s just guy who plays well when there’s a winning atmosphere and falls asleep when it’s a losing atmosphere? That’s kind of damning, but I expect wining next year.

I’m fully expecting to see round two of Wentz at some point due to those questions. In any case, at the end of the season it should be clear to everyone that this team needs to once again take a swing at finding a new franchise QB.

Agreed. I was just trying to suggest this offense seems to still be at least somewhat functional with even the bare minimum at QB.