Matthew Trueblood

Minnesota Star-Tribune sports columnist LaVelle E. Neal III delivered a meaty update on the progress of the team's impending sale Thursday morning, including some details that elucidate the timeline for this momentous change. Image courtesy of © Matt Blewett-Imagn Images It was surprising to read a few of the items in Neal's piece, even though other facts he noted were already reported elsewhere. There are, apparently, more bidders than we would have guessed—a "double-digit" number of inquiries, as Neal termed it. Not every inquiring party will ultimately submit a bid in cases like these, but as Neal described the likelihood of a multi-round bidding process, it was hard not to imagine a bit of a bidding war developing. While he didn't name any new potential buyers (beyond the Ishbias, with whom we've all become acquainted by now), Neal's description of the situation makes it sound like the team will have no trouble being sold for a high price. We'd already heard from Dan Hayes that there was a chance that a new owner would be identified by Opening Day, but the way Neal lays things out, that feels almost inevitable. He's quick to caution that any new owner would have to go through the league approval process, and it sounds like Memorial Day or Flag Day will be the targets for an official transfer of ownership. Once we know who the person is, though, historically, ownership changes tend to feel complete—even before they really are. Steadily, throughout this winter, the reasons for optimism about the likely shape and timeline of this process have piled up. Everything depends on whether the owner who ends up winning this bidding will take an active interest and be willing to invest money to rebuild the fan base, if only by putting more talent on the field than they could superficially afford. We can't know that yet, so analysis is folly. Neal's report gives us ample reason to expect a fast-moving process and an encouraging resolution, though. A couple of final notes from Neal were so unsurprising as to be obvious, but they're still valuable. Firstly, he alluded to the fact that Target Field is a major asset (literally and conceptually) in this process. The park is modern, well-maintained, and has a chance to be a 100-year facility, so that's how we'd expect new owners to view it, but it's nice to have affirmation of it. One of our main criteria for judging the acceptability of a new owner, as fans, should be their commitment to ensuring that the team plays at the park for several more decades. Neal also reported that it's likely a former Twins player will be part of an ownership group. That, too, is unsurprising, and he almost sounds like he's speculating, rather than reporting anything rooted in sources' insights. He's probably right, though. Any non-Minnesotan owners (and, while Neal also mentioned that there is local interest, the balance of probability is that the new owners will be from somewhere else) will want a local face as a minority partner. Major business owners from the area who aren't positioned to buy the team themselves but have enough on hand to invest in them are nice, but a person like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter or Nelson Cruz could have a special appeal. Fans would be more likely to warm to new owners with that kind of person at their shoulder than to do the same for some otherwise anonymous wealthy businessperson. Impatience will get us nowhere, but it's increasingly difficult not to get excited about these proceedings. The Twins are likely to change hands quite soon, in the grand scheme of things, and it sounds like that transition will be a fruitful and happy one for Twins fans. View full article

This one has nothing to do with the impending decision by Roki Sasaki, but another flamethrowing young pitcher has created another opportunity to pick up a previously committed Latin American talent—and, once again, the nimble Twins are taking advantage. Raudy Reyes had a major growth spurt and emerged late on the scene as the top non-Sasaki arm in this class, and the team from suburban Cobb County, Georgia pivoted to sign him, despite the major resource reallocation that required. In so doing, they vacated an informal agreement with Dencer Diaz, an infielder from the Dominican Republic, and the Twins' international scouting department (guided by, among others, Kevin Goldstein) was in position to offer a substantial bonus to snare Diaz on the rebound. This is the second late move they've made as this market opens for 2025, supplementing a class previously viewed as interesting but not exceptional. With Diaz and Teilon Serrano added to their haul, the Twins keep building upon a strong reputation in Latin America. View full rumor

You and I will have to agree to disagree on almost all of this, but the first part there is a much-needed catch, and I owe all the readers an apology there! I fumbled the edit. Peter had written "the team", which I went to edit to "the airline," but my brain was working on too many different things at the time and I changed it to "the Twins". A grievous error on my part. Thanks for catching it!

One of the fascinating and important knock-on effects of the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes is a miniature windfall of international amateur free agents becoming unexpectedly available at the last second, as a new window for signing such players begins Wednesday. This was foreseen. Sasaki's signing bonus with whichever team he selects (it's down to the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, and Toronto Blue Jays) will have to come from a finite, hard-capped pool of money allotted for each team to spend on these players each year, and since teams strike handshake deals with big-money prospects long before the actual opening of the signing period, whoever signs Sasaki will have to throw back a few high-profile members of their class. On Tuesday night, the Twins were the beneficiaries of that situation. Teilon Serrano, a Dominican shortstop-turned-outfielder with impressive tools and a mid-six-figure expected price tag, was set to sign with the Dodgers, but they released him to seek a deal with another team, and Minnesota has swooped in to scoop him up. The frequent metaphor for players like these is an accurate one: they're lottery tickets. Serrano is unlikely even to play in the big leagues, let alone to become a star. Still, just as you'd happily take an extra fourth-round draft pick if it were just floating out there for the taking, it's worth pursuing a player like Serrano if your scouts have done some due diligence on him and like what they've seen—and the disruptive influence of Sasaki has given the Twins just such an opportunity. View full rumor

Carl Pohlad is the most Mr. Potter-coded real person I have ever heard of and I didn't realize nearly how true that was until Peter undertook this series.

I agree. Indicates, for my money, that they're getting serious about this.

The name of the game is landing smart people to build and operate your baseball team—but as soon as you do so, the name of the game becomes keeping them. So, from time to time, you have to rename their games. The Twins promoted Josh Kalk, Alex Hassan, and Sean Johnson to assistant general manager roles Tuesday, in a move that partially backfills the promotion of Jeremy Zoll to GM in November. Zoll replaced the outgoing Thad Levine in that job, but still (of course) answers to president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey. In Johnson (scouting), Kalk (data and analytics) and Hassan (player development), the team not-so-coincidentally inflated the titles of three people who had taken on chief roles within the three major departments that make up most front offices. Giving them this bump affirms the team's satisfaction with the jobs they've each done, and it shields the team a bit from the risk of losing any of them to another organization. All three were already so established and accomplished with the club, though, that it's hard to envision them leaving for anything short of a GM job elsewhere. That's still possible, but surely not imminent, and now, the three are all incrementally more prominent in their places with the team as they look toward 2025. It's not a true restructuring; it's just a good way to give some essential baseball personnel their due. View full rumor

In news that could prove to be huge (but is noteworthy, either way), Sportico reported Monday that the Ishbia brothers purchased a small minority stake in the White Sox in 2021. Naturally, to avoid conflicts of interest, MLB will require them to divest themselves from the Sox before buying the Twins, which they do seem to be strongly interested in doing. It's a procedural hurdle, at worst, because it's not as though they've been active in the operation of the team in the short period during which they've had a financial investment there. Still, this is news. When it was first reported that the two might be interested in buying the Twins, it came in the wake of rumors that they had explored buying the White Sox in full from Jerry Reinsdorf. Apparently, they had (instead) made a small investment and stayed behind the scenes there. The Sox are a messy potential purchase right now, as Reinsdorf angles for a new ballpark to replace Comiskey Park II (for so we shall continue to call it) and the organization fights its way out of a deep competitive chasm. It only makes sense that, if the chance is there, the Ishbias will buy the Twins and disentangle themselves from the Sox. That they are involved and interested enough to have stirred the right embers to alert the folks at Sportico tells us something concrete, even if it's only implied. View full rumor

I do. If we get distracted by false or exaggerated stories, if we dismiss the importance of facts, we make it harder to hold the rich and powerful accountable for their REAL transgressions.

Precisely so. I think this is one of the points where Peter gives us a particularly valuable reprieve from half-truth. It's tempting to sensationalize the one thing into the other, given what he became thereafter, but there's a very real and very important difference between being the person who decides to execute a foreclosure and/or profits from it, and being the person sent to deliver notice of that action. It's just not the same thing, at all.

What happens to a center fielder if he ceases to be an ambi-turner? Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images For as long as he's been a big-leaguer, Byron Buxton has been one of the best center fielders in baseball. Truthfully, he was probably one of the best in baseball long before he was a big-leaguer; his offensive issues and injury trouble just slowed him down. In the only thing anywhere near a full season he's ever played (2017), Buxton was worth 23 Defensive Runs Saved, according to Sports Info Solutions. From 2018-22, though he was only healthy enough to play the field in 269 games, he posted 43 DRS. We throw around the word 'elite' too lightly, these days, but that's truly the echelon on which Buxton's defense belonged for years. Alas, that might be starting to change. After being confined to DH duty in 2023, Buxton was able to return to center in 2024, and he stayed relatively healthy. In 94 games, however, he was only worth 2 DRS—and digging deeper into the numbers reveals some systematic weaknesses. Source: The Fielding Bible Notice the extreme degradation of Buxton's performance on deep balls. Buxton was 38 plays better than an average center fielder on such batted balls from 2015-22, but when he came back last year, he didn't come all the way back. Suddenly, he was below-average when the ball was hit over his head. Now 31 years old, Buxton has clearly lost a step—not in terms of top speed, but in the rapidity with which he can reach it. At times (and not unreasonably), it looked like Buxton was also thinking about self-preservation on balls hit back to the warning track or the wall. On a trio of balls hit deep to the gaps in unfamiliar NL West parks last summer, Buxton tried to make plays with a smoother attack and a bit of deceleration near the wall, and he couldn't come up with the ball. MVlEUVJfWGw0TUFRPT1fQndRSFhGTUZWMUFBV2dCVVV3QUFBbEJRQUZnRFUxY0FBVkZVQ1FVRUExSlRCMUZY.mp4 You'd rather have Buxton not catch that ball (but hit the wall less hard, as he did) than risk the types of injuries (hip, shoulder, head, neck) he's suffered going just a bit faster and making such plays in the past. Still, it's jarring to see him not make plays like these. T1FkclJfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWdOVFZsSUFVMU1BQ0FjSEFBQUFDUWRYQUZoWEJsQUFVd2NEQ0ZBRUExRlJBRmNI.mp4 Again, the difference between what he did here and what he would have done in the past is subtle, but it's crucial—in two ways. Going a bit harder into the barrier is a good way to get banged-up, or worse. However, it's also the best way to catch balls like these, as Buxton spent the first half-decade of his career proving. Without his fearlessness, he's a bit like a falcon with a clipped wing. elo5eTdfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWdCUkIxSUJWVmNBRHdkV1VRQUFCd01GQUFOV0FGUUFBZ0FNQVZCVENBUlhBd05l.mp4 These were all examples drawn from parks where Buxton hasn't played much, though. Going back to the wall in such situations is always a bit of a nervous endeavor, and these few plays might be accounting for most of the difference you see above, in his numbers on deep balls. Unfortunately, there's a related but separate issue about which we also have to talk, looking at things through a different lens and orienting his pursuit of the ball differently. View full article

Two free-agent pitchers who (in different ways) closely match the value of Chris Paddack found new homes Monday evening. The deals should give us clarity about what the imposing Twins righty is worth as they try to clear his salary from the books. Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images Within a couple hours of one another, right-handed hurlers Michael Lorenzen ($7 million, with $5.5 million paid in 2025 and $1.5 million as the buyout on a mutual option for 2026, with the Royals) and Chris Martin ($5.5 million, with the Rangers) signed one-year free-agent deals Monday. Lorenzen will, presumably, be a starter for the Royals, while Martin is a career reliever who took slightly less money than he was offered elsewhere in order to land close to home and pitch for Texas. Those were important moves for the Twins, because it's already Jan. 7, and they still need to clear at least a chunk of the $7.5 million they owe to Chris Paddack for 2025. Paddack is crowded out of the team's starting rotation (which consists, at the moment, of Pablo López, Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, David Festa, and Simeon Woods Richardson, with Zebby Matthews and others waiting in the wings), and while he profiles better as a streamlined-repertoire reliever, the money the Twins owe him on the teams of the extension the two sides struck in early 2023 is more than they can afford to pay to fill a middle-relief role under their ownership-friendly budgetary constraints for the coming season. Thus, trading Paddack is the only sensible thing to do. Ideally, the Twins will spend some money to upgrade first base and their outfield mix, and to find a left-handed reliever to round out their bullpen, but as things stand, they have to move significant money just to hit the number set by the miserly Pohlad family. Waiting out the market a bit has given the Twins time to let demand and supply balance one another, but the Lorenzen and Martin deals have also given them some insight into what marginal value Paddack has on the trade market. That answer is blessedly simple, too, though not exciting: it's zero. Paddack is very close to equal in value to the likes of Lorenzen and Martin. The first run of Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projections for 2025 list Lorenzen at a 111 DRA- (where 100 is average and lower is better); Paddack at 99, but in fewer innings; and Martin at 86, but in several fewer innings than Paddack. He's capable of either starting or relieving, but either way it breaks, one of his easiest comparators just signed—and they signed for almost exactly what he'll make in 2025. Unfortunately, that probably means that the Twins will have to kick in something whenever they trade Paddack. In theory, the implication of these deals would be that he could be traded straight-up for nothing, but that's not really how baseball transactions work. It's more likely, for reasons personal and logistical and on-field, that the Twins will trade Paddack and some amount of money to offset his salary for a player who addresses one of their needs, even if it be in a fairly unsatisfying way. They could always trade him for a couple of far-off prospects and simply attach $1-2 million, but that would leave them stuck: they still wouldn't have spending power, and their list of needs would not get shorter. Instead, we could see them attach $2-3 million and target a player like Sacramento's Hogan Harris or T.J. McFarland (two lefty relievers) or a similarly low-level bat. Paddack doesn't seem to have any marginal value, but these deals suggest that he is tradable. It will just have to take the form of patching a minor hole and achieving minor savings, rather than deriving any major value from the move. View full article

There are some important ways in which we've underrated the Twins' young utility man. It will only matter, though, if he has the courage to take a developmental leap of faith. Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images In 257 plate appearances during his rookie campaign of 2024, Austin Martin batted .253/.318/.352. He was a versatile stopgap for a team that encountered numerous injury issues, but he didn't exactly seize the chances he got. The stat line he posted could have been acceptable, had he been a solid defensive center fielder or left-side infield man, but in reality, he barely acquitted himself with the glove even in left field, and he was good (rather than great) at second base. Underpowered, he ended up with a glove-first player's offensive profile and a defensive role that demanded more of a bat-first talent. I did have a bunch of fun with the statistical quirk of Martin coming around to score practically every time he reached base, back in early August, but by season's end, he was within a hair's breadth of average in terms of actual baserunning value. He wasn't a very good player, really—not in his first trip around the circuit. He managed just one home run, and 20 total extra-base hits. He pulled the ball some, and he hit some line drives, but he didn't truly elevate much, and he didn't the ball very hard. Let's get happy for a minute, though, before drilling more into his biggest weakness. The good news is, Martin made better swing decisions than almost anyone in baseball in his rookie year. According to Statcast, his swing rate was nearly 70% in the strike zone and just 18.4% outside it. That's remarkably good plate discipline; it means he's neither giving pitchers free strikes nor helping them out when they can't find the plate. Looking at the specific places where he swung, you can see how he generated so many batted balls at line-drive launch angles, too. He knew what he was looking for, and was excellent at seizing upon it when it came. Martin was also quite good at making contact within the strike zone. He wanted that ball up and over the middle or inner third of the plate, and he missed a bit more often if you hit your spots low and away, but he was no easy punchout. Combine these traits, and Martin was quite good in terms of strikeout and walk rate, especially for a guy just getting his feet beneath him. He fanned in just 18.3% of his trips to the plate, in a league striking out almost 23% of the time, and he walked in 7.8% of those plate appearances—despite pitchers filling up the zone to the tune of a 52.9% share of all pitches, against a league average of 48.7%. If hitting were all about knowing when to swing and finding the ball with the bat when you do, Martin would have been an All-Star. That's now what hitting is all about, these days. View full article

Minnesota relies on a two-catcher alternating system to survive the season, but now they need to replace one half of their tandem. They have to do it cheaply, too, but there's good news. Image courtesy of © Kirby Lee-Imagn Images Though it's theoretically possible for the Twins to trade either Ryan Jeffers or Christian Vázquez this winter, it seems much more likely that they'll ship out Vázquez. He's set to cost them about twice as much as Jeffers in 2025, and while he's a far superior defender to Jeffers, it's the younger, strapping Jeffers who can deliver major offensive firepower when he gets hot. The Twins might slightly prefer a great defender to a good hitter, but they have to prioritize their budget, and they have Jeffers under team control through 2026, unlike Vázquez. Let's imagine the roster after a Vázquez trade, then. Over the last two seasons, the Twins have balanced their catching workload between their two backstops as evenly as any team in baseball history over a similar span. Though they won't have Vázquez back to carry his half of the load in 2025, they'll want someone they can trust to work roughly in parity with Jeffers. With the free-agent pickings slim and their financial constraints telling, though, finding the right player to fill that void could be tricky. Enter James McCann. No, he's not sexy. McCann, who will turn 35 in June, has become a professional backup catcher, playing between 60 and 70 games in each of the last three seasons. He's not an above-average hitter or an above-average defender. However, he'd be a huge step up offensively from Vázquez, who has put up DRC+ figures of 67 and 72 in his two seasons with the Twins, according to Baseball Prospectus. McCann has posted 89, 91, and 99 marks since the start of 2022. He doesn't have great plate discipline, but he's still capable of hitting the ball quite hard, and runs slightly above-average barrel rates. Defensively, he's a subpar framer, but he throws well. McCann is at his best when pulling the ball in the air, which is part of why his numbers have been fairly hideous for the last two seasons. He has all-fields punch, because he's exceptionally strong, but he couldn't find the range to hit the ball out to right field with any consistency at Camden Yards. Meanwhile, the high, distant wall in left field stole a bunch of home runs from him, though it turned most of them into doubles, rather than outs. In the image above, I've overlaid his hits onto Target Field's dimensions, to show how much he would benefit from joining Minnesota. It's not a perfect form of analysis, but it gets us closer to seeing his real value. Here's an example of the types of balls that Walltimore kept in the park over the last two years, but which would easily leave the yard in Minneapolis. b25vb0tfWGw0TUFRPT1fQUZkWEFnQlJCUU1BV2dZRVh3QUFDRkFDQUZsWFV3TUFDZ01HVmdRRlVBb0VVZ0ZY.mp4 Of the 372 hitters with at least 400 plate appearances over the last two seasons, only two had larger gaps between their expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) and their actual results (wOBA) than did McCann. Those numbers can tell their own kinds of lies, and at his age, there's every chance that McCann's skill set will crumble all at once. On balance, though, he's a solid bet, and the market for catchers has already petered out a bit. Guys like Danny Jansen and Gary Sánchez ($8.5 million apiece on one-year deals) are off the board. So are the slightly better options—the guys who earned two-year deals, like Carson Kelly, Kyle Higashioka, and Travis d'Arnaud. There are still teams who want and need catching help, but McCann slots in at a lower tier than any of the players named above, and he's unlikely to be in high demand. The Twins could probably snare him for $4 million or less on a one-year deal, and at that price, he would give them similar production to that of Vázquez, plus the flexibility to improve other aspects of the roster. McCann is the right target to replace Vázquez, but before the Twins can even consider being the team who snaps him up, they have to find a taker for Vázquez. Frustrating though salary dump trades always are, this one needs to be a priority for the team as the new year begins, to pave the way for an overall improvement. View full article

The extent to which the Twins are able to go out and find new talent beyond the borders of their organization will play a role in determining how well the team bounces back in 2025. The success or failure of young players still getting their feet under them in the big leagues for the team will play a much greater one. Image courtesy of © Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images Most conversations about the Twins' starting rotation for 2025 center on the big three veterans at the front end of that group. Undeniably, Pablo López, Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan are solid, playoff-caliber hurlers, but the key to the team having a great overall rotation might very well be sophomore fourth starter David Festa. He made 14 appearances in the big leagues in 2024 and had a less-than-stellar 4.90 ERA, but his strikeout (27.8%) and walk (8.3%) rates marked him as better than that. His FIP was 3.76, and despite an approach centered on high fastballs, he didn't give up a disqualifying number of home runs. His season offers a lot of promise for the immediate future, even if he's unlikely to work six innings per start anytime soon. We ought to talk more about Festa, though. He gets overshadowed by his more established and experienced rotation mates, but his upside might be as high as any of theirs. So far, he's much less well-rounded than they are, but there's time yet for that to change. He might need another pitch in his arsenal. He might need to learn to sequence and locate in more varied ways. Most plausibly, perhaps, he needs to gradually develop the stamina and command to keep attacking hitters with his best stuff deeper into games, including (gasp) the third time through the batting order. Getting his development right and identifying the places where he needs to make big strides to reach his potential stands near the top of the Twins' list of vital tasks entering 2025. Let's see how much of that work we can do, ourselves. View full article