nicksaviking

You might be right. And the three starters will be 32 in 2028; I'd probably want nothing to do with them long term then. I still don't want Falvey make that decision this year though since he certainly won't be dealing with the aftermath.

I don't disagree, but new owners would also have to say we are contending RIGHT NOW. Ryan, Lopez and Ober are in their primes right now, they would need to add at least two middle of the order bats ASAP or the offense peak isn't going to line up with the rotation peak. The bullpen is tougher because I don't think you can build that with free agents or trades; it's time and patience to figure out how and which internal guys can make the step up. Specifically, which former starters will step up as relievers. You got Sands, but the next crop of former starters-turned-relievers are still starters and it usually takes at least a season of full time bullpen work before they start paying off. If contending is the goal of the new owners, they are going to have a tough needle to thread.

For sure, there will be no good faith negotiations from the owners; I'm definitely not on their side. But the league isn't going to survive much longer without caps and floors so on this one issue, I'm with them. Even if their base reason for discussing it is to ultimately make them more money.

Right, obviously there has to be a salary floor and one the lower half teams wouldn't typically come close to touching on their own. But certainly the owners aren't going to talk about it as that's an obvious concession they will have to make; they'll need the MLBPA to make that part of their demands. If the owners already acknowledge that as an obvious balance to the cap, they'd lose the leverage that comes with giving it up.

A bit late checking back in on this, but every other pro sports league shows that the non-elite players will see their income grow significantly with salary caps and floors. Top end players likely get less growth in what they can earn until the league figures out a balance, but the floor will rise a ton. I'm sure the MLBPA, which will always look out for the top end players, will TELL all the players that salary caps are bad for everyone, but that's a flat out lie. Just like in the real world, something that's bad for the elite but good for the rest of the population will get soapboxed down as evil.

I'm more than willing to buy. But from a different sales person. These people aren't making another dime of commission off of me!

If a sale doesn't happen quick, I do worry about the Twins top three starters being here. But while cleaning the books may look like a good move to them right now, at some point the Pohlads are going to have to start asking if a buyer truly wants to buy a roster that's basically an expansion team, but without the excitement and fanfare that comes with opening up a new market. New owners will want a nice financial outlook, but they still want people going to the games and watching on TV.

Funny because I was JUST looking at Atlanta's roster before checking in here. Acuna was a great deal, but he's only got three years left. Olson has been great but he's the only one under contract long term who's playing well and he's not young. Atlanta is certainly regretting the Michael Harris deal and probably the Austin Riley deal too. I didn't realize his power up and vanished two years ago; he's starting to look like their Max Kepler but paid twice as much for twice the years. Ozzie Albies is also now a bad player two years running, but his two remaining option years are only 7M. Anyway, overall, I'd guess Atlanta is regretting most of those deals and I bet they try to get out from most of them this winter. As for the Twins, we had the same conversations about Miranda, Lewis and Julien the past three seasons. Even if we the fans won't base a decision of those comps, I'm sure ownership and the front office will. In their minds, NOT doing those deals might have been the only break they've caught since 2023.

If they don't sell this off season, I think they're taking WAAAAY more than 15M off of this years budget. I think the Pohlads are going to want to keep as much money as possible because their real estate businesses are tanking, but also, I think they want clean books to make the team more attractive to new buyers. Additionally, this organization is a mess, they aren't going to attract players who make much of a dent in the payroll anyway. And this group will never spend $10M on two bullpen pieces. More like $2M on two bullpen pieces. And that doesn't bother me too much. The best relievers tend to be in-house and only after a bit of trial and error, free agents too often are flakey and get paid only based on a fluky season or two.

After the trade deadline I didn't want the top prospects anywhere near the MLB clubhouse as reports were that everyone was pissed and wanted out. I didn't want the team's only hopes for the future tainted with all that pessimism. But if the lesser prospects (and Keashell) are now given the wheel and having fun getting to play with little to no adult supervision, yeah, call up the big guns too. As long as Baldelli lets them go out there and play 9 innings of baseball instead of trying to overthink it like a chess match pulling them in any random inning he sees fit. We've seen this for 40 years of Twins baseball. In the years when the kids are running the show, regardless if it's because the franchise is at a low point and no one cares or if it's because the guys in charge are showing trust in them, the young guys tend to have more fun and they all feed off of each other's energy.

I'm surprised Amari Cooper is still available. I wonder if Cooper is waiting out the Terry McLauren situation though. The Commanders have brought over Noah Brown and Michael Gallop, two receivers from Dan Quinn's Cowboy days. Maybe it's just a coincidence as Quinn is a defensive guy, but maybe he's got a thing for his old Dallas pass catchers.

I'm not a KC conspiracy guy, but I'll play along and start one here! The league was trying to set a precedence so they don't have to suspend Rashee Rice as long as he deserves!

Addison to be suspended three games. Viking fan here, and that seems a bit light to me. Maybe if he didn't have other reckless driving situations, but he obviously has developed a problem.

I'll be a bit of a contrarian amongst the other 'play the young guys' crowd in that I'm actually hesitant to call up legit prospects, like Rodriguez, only for them to marinate in this toxic clubhouse. But this is absolutely the time to give non-prospects like Sabato, Eeles, Schobel, Prato and Winkle their shot along with the younger guys most are ready to pull the plug on like Miranda, Julien, Martin and Larnach. Unlike the touted top prospects, these guys all know this could be their last or only chance. The team has already washed their hands of this season, so even if the odds are long, seeing if even one of these guys can figure it out is worth the effort. If they're already looking towards the future, what on earth are Jonah Bridie, Mickey Gaspar and Ryan Fitzpatrick doing here? Unless you somehow think you can flip them for relievers in the off season, I'm not sure why you keep Clemens and Keirsey on the roster either.

Are there other options currently? The Twins currently have two kinds of players who kinda suck. Younger ones who have visible talent but still suck for various or yet-to-be-explained reasons. And older ones who have already been given up on by plenty of other teams. Here is my chance to point out that on 31-year-old Ryan Fitzgerald's BBR page, his primary listed position is Pinch Runner. What?!?! I'd like to hear why this guy is at all relevant to the only team in the league that has publicly said they are rebuilding.

Jax requesting out was mentioned by several of us on deadline day, but I think it was mostly tongue in cheek after the Baldelli kerfuffle the night before. Also, this is the 'creative' TB Rays. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquiesced to Jax's request to try his hand at starting again next year. Good luck to them with that. I don't think he's half as good of a pitcher without that velocity.

That's probably better, but TBD. Still, get the strikeouts; even with a good defense, groundballs bring chance into play. Get the easy outs.

I don't see how this team starts winning again if they don't start putting a legit offense on the field. That has to be the priority going forward. No more Manny Margot and Christian Vazquez and Andrelton Simmons types. They let you down way too often.

I'd put Rojas and Abel above Tait, and by quite a bit. A ball is just so far away. And while his offensive numbers are fine, they aren't exactly eye-opening and in his second year of A ball he didn't noticeably improve. I'd think if he played any other position, he probably wouldn't crack a top 100 list, and from the sound of it, his position is in doubt.

Sure, but just about every time this team tries to improve the defense, it makes the offense worse.

Typically, players who are both good fielders and good hitters are out of the Twins price range. I'd rather take the plus offense and strikeout pitchers over the plus defense and groundball pitchers.

Have to think at least one contending team also has an offer out to him. I know he took a big step back, but pitchers worse than he were getting traded at the deadline.

Splitters and sub-par infield defenses go together like peanut butter and ketchup. They really need to tinker those groundballs into strikeouts or this isn't going to go well.

OK, I'll list players. Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, Alex Kirilloff, Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien, Jose Miranda, Austin Martin, Ryan Jeffers, Nick Gordon. Even if only two or three of these players would have panned out, it would have been worth it. That's how it's ALWAYS been done, and the Twins wouldn't have been the Twins in the Gardenhire and Molitor eras without letting these guys suck for awhile. It's not about stroking (sic stoking) fragile egos, it's about developing these players and part of that is letting them fail. And at the expense of winning? Winning what? They aren't winning a damn thing, so what would it have hurt to let Matt Wallner learn to hit left handed pitching LAST year? His splits are identical this year, so the numbers show it would have worked. Dear god, Julien made a terrible throw in the 9th inning of an 80 win season! So what, maybe if he wasn't given the cold shoulder by the manager, he'd still be hitting like he did two years ago. Is that pandering? Maybe, so what, this team needs cheap home grown talent, pander if that's what is needed! No doubt Julien is now cooked. Miranda too and maybe every single one of them. But this team did not have the overwhelming amount of prospect misses under the last two managers, who embraced instructing fundamentals and giving the young players the leashes to mess up. Not even close to this many misses. I can't specifically nail down what the issue is, but with how many of these guys tore up AA ball and AAA but can't find consistent success at the MLB level, Occam's Razor says it's due to how they are managed at the MLB level. None of them can be counted on year to year, that's more than a coincidence.

The young left handers are benched and pinch hit for against left handed pitching WAAAAAY more often than they did under the past FO and managers. The young players get pulled late in games for defensive replacements and pulled for pinch runners WAAAAY more often than they used to. They show next to no trust in these guys. I'm sure Gardenhire and Molitor would get frustrated by the learning curve of young players too, but the frustration didn't let it impact their in-game decisions like it does now. These young guys need these opportunities and they need to know the team and the manger trust them to play in those opportunities.