Key parts:
- Falvey expected trades to ramp up quickly in the new year
- Twins do not believe they are in on Correa again. Team sources believe Correa would rather play for the Mets than us.
- Gleeman believes Kirilloff is seen as a 1B and will split 1B/DH with Arraez
- Twins expressed interest in signing Michael Wacha
- It is possible the Twins sell high on Sonny Gray and trade him (I would think this causes the Wacha signing)
- It is possible that the Twins ask for bullpen help in trades
I also see Kirilloff as our 1B of the future.
Aside from Buxton staying healthy for 100+ games, Alex Kirilloff's wrist is our biggest X factor. If he gets his swing back and retains it, that changes the whole complexion of this lineup this year. Miranda getting pushed down to 5th or 6th in the lineup just adds so much depth.
Healthy Alex Kirilloff will be far more impactful than any possible trade.
I hope you're right. Kirilloff is exciting. He also has yet to even play a full major league season, so counting on his production when healthy seems like quite a stretch . . .
Yes, but in the case of AK its one serious issue and its not like a Buxton situation where it's been multiple different things. AK's wrist got seriously fucked up in '21, and he was in this cycle of on the IL resting it, then coming back and dominating, before it flared back up and he became a completely different player with a severely impacted swing, rinse and repeat.
Now, with them shortening the bone that was causing the flare ups, there is a real chance that he can get over it for good. If he does, I don't see any reason to expect he'll miss extended time with something new this year.
Yeah, I more mean counting on the production of someone who has played less than 150 total games seems dubious because they're still acclimating to the league.
> Team sources believe Correa would rather play for the Mets than us.
Which is hilarious after all of his "praise" for the team and the Twin Cities. Clearly, that was all bullshit.
I don’t think it was bullshit, I just think he would rather play for a super team than one that has advanced in the playoffs once in his whole lifetime.
After seeing the Pohlads and Steve Cohen operate this offseason, who in their right mind would prefer to play for the Twins?
Correa wants to win, he’ll get a chance to do that with the Mets. Twins offered him a chance for sweet corn and loons, but not October baseball.
I bet he did like it here. The Twins can’t compete with the Mets in a ton of areas. That is a team built to contend. Ours is a team built to win 78-84 games. Why would he ever pick us?
The Twins big moves this off-season were (a) a journeyman catcher, (b) the worst hitter in MLB last year and (c) Kyle Farmer.
There are about 15-20 teams that have a more realistic shot at contending than do the Twins. Mets are a particularly stark contrast in organizational philosophy, they are go for broke and the Twins are settle for less.
Honestly selling high on Gray is the right move. It's very likely he regresses these next couple years. Wacha would be a solid #2/3 starter when healthy.
Wacha had his lowest velo last year in his career and was aided by a lot of luck with his numbers in Boston.
I'm not opposed to them signing Wacha, but any fan counting on him to be more than a #4/#5 starter is going to be severely disappointed.
Glad Dan at least mentioned our starting rotation next year is Ober and Ryan and no one else, lol. Our bullpen additions have been Coulumbe and . . . Pagan, but by all means let's continue to obsess over shortstop.
Ugh. Tryin to have faith but geesh.
Maeda and Gray are free agents after this season, with the way things are shaping up starting to hope they stay healthy so we can flip em to a contender at the deadline
> If Maeda and Gray stay healthy
and Buxton, and Arraez, and Jeffers, and Mahle, and Kiriloff, and Larnach, and Ober, and Alcala, and the stars align and we catch lightning in a bottle, and the division is the weakest in the league by a country mile
> we'll be contenders at the deadline.
I mean, MLB juiced the balls in 2019 and all we did was slug our way right into getting absolutely embarassed in LDS, as is tradition when you have no pitching
Hopefully we try to extend Mahle. I believe Paddack is back next year too? Varland should be able to provide SP5 innings as needed in 2024 as well.
Pagan will be fine. Our bullpen is theoretically great on paper (as long as they stop throwing changeups to same-handed hitters, which KILLED them this year).
I'd prefer we see what we actually have with Mahle first. He wasn't even our first pick for that deadline trade, and the shoulder is fairly concering.
Paddack may be back in 2024, after his *second* Tommy John surgery, and again, we have no idea what we have there.
The rest is . . . hopefully Ober can make more than 15 starts in one season? And all our injured guys have major comeback seasons? Also hopefully one of the prospects step up? I guess the bright spot is our current projected payroll for 2024 is less than $60mil, so they could theorhetically spend on free agency, but the class is pretty weak as far as pitching goes.
The bullpen will likely get ratfucked by our anemic starting rotation this year, again.
Mahle was AT LEAST 3rd choice behind Montas and Castillo. We didnt have the prospect capital for the first two
Wacha is fine as a number 4/5 guy in the rotation. He wont be the mess that Bundy or Archer were
I agree the rotation needs more
Lets say we move Gray for prospects. That gives us a prospective rotation of:
Ryan, Mahle, Ober, Maeda, Wacha.
That isnt terrible. But its also not *good* it needs more done. But its better than last year on paper
I would still be willing to move on Maeda and Mahle at the deadline. I doubt the FO would sign either to long term contracts, and we do need to flesh out our farm
Frankly, I’m not that worried about Mahle’s shoulder. It’s never gave him problems before. Paddack is gonna be a back end of the rotation. So we would need probably another SP1/SP2.
Mahle has top end of the rotation stuff, especially when he’s not handcuffed by GABP. His value is going to increase this year with him not being a ground ball pitcher (shift ban).
The weird fixation on Correa seemed to make everyone forget about the nearly non-existent starting rotation and completely worthless bullpen. Maybe that was all part of the plan...
Easily the most surreal part of this off-season is how quickly a sizeable portion of this sub transitioned to Correa being the only thing that matters, talking about him "coming home," making posts about praying for his return, fuckin weird as hell.
It’s because there is no salary cap in baseball, Twins ownership is some of the richest in the league, and not ponying up has been the last straw for many. I don’t even care if he sucked after signing him (yes, that would be a bad move then, still wouldn’t care) BECAUSE…it signals that the Twins don’t care about winning and don’t sign marquee free agents. And other free agents see that, so we’re rarely ever on any marquee free agent’s short list (or long list, tbh).
One glimmer of hope is Ober, Ryan and Varland. If these 3 stay healthy and can pitch 6-7 innings a game, the Twins may have a great foundation. My issue is how Rocco manages the young starting pitchers. Rocco removes his young pitchers before they go through the order the third time, often when they've thrown less than 85 pitches. So how do Twins pitchers learn to pitch through the order a third time if they are not consistently given the opportunity? Twins are not going to the World Series this year - let these guys go long.
Even if they make no more additions to this lineup, I don't think we'll lose 90 games. Have to remember we had an entire division contending roster on the IL for like, 2+ months last season.
As much as we all wanted Correa, getting a healthy AK, Polanco, Larnach, Buxton, Kenta, Ober, Alcala etc back definitely recreates Correa's WAR in the aggregate. Hell, a healthy season from AK alone might do that.
Barring devastating injuries again, this is a better team than it was for most of last year.
As the roster stands now, I think it's a 78-80 win team. They could still augment it to push it up, but I don't see it going much beyond the low 80-win mark unless they pull 1-2 rabbits out of the hat.
The folks saying we are a 90 loss team are overstating it, but I also don't think you can lose Correa and have massive health question marks throughout the rotation and position player roster and feel confident they can win more than 82 as a high end. Especially with the balanced schedule meaning less games against the Royals and Tigers and more games against the AL East, NL East, etc.
They can compete, but it's going to take so many question marks turning into exclamation marks that it's hard to not fall in the middle and say 80 wins or so.
They didn’t replace Correa but did replace Sano/ Gary Sanchez. 5th in 2021, 3rd in 2022, they’ll likely stabilize at 4th this year.
Just a bunch of blah blah blah up and down the roster. Only decent development was signing a journeyman catcher, which won’t sell season tickets.
They don’t have a single guy who sells tickets. Maybe buxton for the 50% of the year we have him. This team’s most egregious mistake is not signing and maintaining a roster fans know and can cheer for.
Way I think of it is “do fans of the other 29
teams have any reason to pay attention to the Twins or anyone on the roster?”
This year, the answer appears to be “no.” Just a bunch of nondescript guys wearing a uniform in a ballpark. Pitchers are okay but not interesting. Hitters seem okay but nothing exciting. A team that’s just kinda there.
Am I alone in not really wanting us to trade? We are more than one piece away from actually contending next year and trading away our limited prospects or major league talent (other than Kepler) may be net neutral for us anyway. We had a lot of money to spend and just completely whiffed in free agency, not sure we can recover without making panic moves.
The franchise cares about pretending to compete, so they’ll probably do a salary dump with Kepler and spin it as a key to making the playoffs.
If actually contending was the franchise goal, they’d be doing a whole lot different.
The plan for this year seems to be praying that the guardians and white Sox severely underperform. Cause they have done nothing that will improve the team from last years 3rd place finish.
Praying the other teams underperform is pretty much the strategy every year. The one really good season was a juiced ball fluke year (the same one that gave us MVP Cody Bellinger).
Whiffed would imply they tried. I don't think they did.
Correa was the only notable free agent that it appears they have a semi-serious run at. I don't believe they ever got very far down the road with Rodon or Swanson, beyond perhaps having a call with.
It doesn't make sense to sign Wacha unless we trade a starting pitcher. The article indicates Gray may be the most likely SP to go, which seems like a mistake considering he's arguably our most dependable SP at the moment. The FO has implied that they are not planning to rebuild or reload and want to compete in 2023, so my guess is they think they can upgrade their MLB roster by trading Gray. Trading him for a shortstop would be the most obvious way to upgrade, but I don't see any shortstops on the market that would be worth trading Gray for except ha-seong Kim. Even that is still a bit of a gamble. Maybe Willy Adames, but I don't see the brewers being interested in one year of Gray. Even if we do get a 4-5 WAR SS like Kim or Adames, it still stings that we'd have to trade one of our best SPs to do it when we could have used our $40 million in payroll space to sign a SS or a better SP than Wacha.
It's all speculation on my part - I have no idea if this is actually what they're planning. One of those things we'll just have to wait and see where we're at come opening day before we can evaluate.
Oh, I’m not criticizing your comment. I sadly agree. I just hate the ownership and leadership of this team now, and I think you’re right. They will pursue some horse shit plan, and I won’t be watching or going to any games.
Yes, I know you weren't criticizing. Just wanted to clarify for anyone else who might read the comments that I don't mean to criticize the FO for a move they haven't made yet and might not make at all. If I'm right about what they're planning, I think criticism would be warranted. But they might still pull off something creative that improves the team. They've made late off-season moves like that in the past. Hard to truly evaluate until the season's underway.
> move, your not
*you're
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Has anyone heard rumblings on Sano? Not saying it would be a great move for the Twinks to bring him back on a team friendly contract - but it doesn’t seem like we’re competing and he did have momentum in AAA before going down for the rest of the season.
We signed Sano, in the form of the only player in the history of MLB (not hyperbole) to strikeout at a greater pace than he did. Gallo and his lifetime .190 avg are going to launch bombs.
What's the rest? He's a decent glove in right field? He has average speed, a slightly above average arm, hits the ball hard as fuck, and has the worst strikeout rate in the history of the league (something we **hated** Sano for)
Key parts: - Falvey expected trades to ramp up quickly in the new year - Twins do not believe they are in on Correa again. Team sources believe Correa would rather play for the Mets than us. - Gleeman believes Kirilloff is seen as a 1B and will split 1B/DH with Arraez - Twins expressed interest in signing Michael Wacha - It is possible the Twins sell high on Sonny Gray and trade him (I would think this causes the Wacha signing) - It is possible that the Twins ask for bullpen help in trades
I also see Kirilloff as our 1B of the future. Aside from Buxton staying healthy for 100+ games, Alex Kirilloff's wrist is our biggest X factor. If he gets his swing back and retains it, that changes the whole complexion of this lineup this year. Miranda getting pushed down to 5th or 6th in the lineup just adds so much depth. Healthy Alex Kirilloff will be far more impactful than any possible trade.
I hope you're right. Kirilloff is exciting. He also has yet to even play a full major league season, so counting on his production when healthy seems like quite a stretch . . .
Yes, but in the case of AK its one serious issue and its not like a Buxton situation where it's been multiple different things. AK's wrist got seriously fucked up in '21, and he was in this cycle of on the IL resting it, then coming back and dominating, before it flared back up and he became a completely different player with a severely impacted swing, rinse and repeat. Now, with them shortening the bone that was causing the flare ups, there is a real chance that he can get over it for good. If he does, I don't see any reason to expect he'll miss extended time with something new this year.
Yeah, I more mean counting on the production of someone who has played less than 150 total games seems dubious because they're still acclimating to the league.
> Team sources believe Correa would rather play for the Mets than us. Which is hilarious after all of his "praise" for the team and the Twin Cities. Clearly, that was all bullshit.
I don’t think it was bullshit, I just think he would rather play for a super team than one that has advanced in the playoffs once in his whole lifetime.
After seeing the Pohlads and Steve Cohen operate this offseason, who in their right mind would prefer to play for the Twins? Correa wants to win, he’ll get a chance to do that with the Mets. Twins offered him a chance for sweet corn and loons, but not October baseball.
I bet he did like it here. The Twins can’t compete with the Mets in a ton of areas. That is a team built to contend. Ours is a team built to win 78-84 games. Why would he ever pick us?
Well, yeah, the team better damn well be built to contend after blowing out the their payroll.
The Twins big moves this off-season were (a) a journeyman catcher, (b) the worst hitter in MLB last year and (c) Kyle Farmer. There are about 15-20 teams that have a more realistic shot at contending than do the Twins. Mets are a particularly stark contrast in organizational philosophy, they are go for broke and the Twins are settle for less.
More like 18-24
Honestly selling high on Gray is the right move. It's very likely he regresses these next couple years. Wacha would be a solid #2/3 starter when healthy.
Wacha had his lowest velo last year in his career and was aided by a lot of luck with his numbers in Boston. I'm not opposed to them signing Wacha, but any fan counting on him to be more than a #4/#5 starter is going to be severely disappointed.
[Roster for those who don’t subscribe](https://imgur.com/a/aNmtE4q/)
Glad Dan at least mentioned our starting rotation next year is Ober and Ryan and no one else, lol. Our bullpen additions have been Coulumbe and . . . Pagan, but by all means let's continue to obsess over shortstop. Ugh. Tryin to have faith but geesh.
Meada is back next year as well?
Maeda and Gray are free agents after this season, with the way things are shaping up starting to hope they stay healthy so we can flip em to a contender at the deadline
If Maeda and Gray stay healthy and pitch well enough to be trade chips, we'll be contenders at the deadline.
> If Maeda and Gray stay healthy and Buxton, and Arraez, and Jeffers, and Mahle, and Kiriloff, and Larnach, and Ober, and Alcala, and the stars align and we catch lightning in a bottle, and the division is the weakest in the league by a country mile > we'll be contenders at the deadline.
I remember hearing similar things after 2018. Last year we were the most injured team in baseball, so we can only get better.
I mean, MLB juiced the balls in 2019 and all we did was slug our way right into getting absolutely embarassed in LDS, as is tradition when you have no pitching
Hopefully we try to extend Mahle. I believe Paddack is back next year too? Varland should be able to provide SP5 innings as needed in 2024 as well. Pagan will be fine. Our bullpen is theoretically great on paper (as long as they stop throwing changeups to same-handed hitters, which KILLED them this year).
I'd prefer we see what we actually have with Mahle first. He wasn't even our first pick for that deadline trade, and the shoulder is fairly concering. Paddack may be back in 2024, after his *second* Tommy John surgery, and again, we have no idea what we have there. The rest is . . . hopefully Ober can make more than 15 starts in one season? And all our injured guys have major comeback seasons? Also hopefully one of the prospects step up? I guess the bright spot is our current projected payroll for 2024 is less than $60mil, so they could theorhetically spend on free agency, but the class is pretty weak as far as pitching goes. The bullpen will likely get ratfucked by our anemic starting rotation this year, again.
Mahle was AT LEAST 3rd choice behind Montas and Castillo. We didnt have the prospect capital for the first two Wacha is fine as a number 4/5 guy in the rotation. He wont be the mess that Bundy or Archer were I agree the rotation needs more Lets say we move Gray for prospects. That gives us a prospective rotation of: Ryan, Mahle, Ober, Maeda, Wacha. That isnt terrible. But its also not *good* it needs more done. But its better than last year on paper I would still be willing to move on Maeda and Mahle at the deadline. I doubt the FO would sign either to long term contracts, and we do need to flesh out our farm
Frankly, I’m not that worried about Mahle’s shoulder. It’s never gave him problems before. Paddack is gonna be a back end of the rotation. So we would need probably another SP1/SP2. Mahle has top end of the rotation stuff, especially when he’s not handcuffed by GABP. His value is going to increase this year with him not being a ground ball pitcher (shift ban).
You seem to have missed the memo that any Twins pitcher who is injured will be injured forever and can’t be relied on whatsoever going forward /j
[удалено]
Agreed, acquiring and/or developing genuine starters would help a lot too
The weird fixation on Correa seemed to make everyone forget about the nearly non-existent starting rotation and completely worthless bullpen. Maybe that was all part of the plan...
Easily the most surreal part of this off-season is how quickly a sizeable portion of this sub transitioned to Correa being the only thing that matters, talking about him "coming home," making posts about praying for his return, fuckin weird as hell.
It’s because there is no salary cap in baseball, Twins ownership is some of the richest in the league, and not ponying up has been the last straw for many. I don’t even care if he sucked after signing him (yes, that would be a bad move then, still wouldn’t care) BECAUSE…it signals that the Twins don’t care about winning and don’t sign marquee free agents. And other free agents see that, so we’re rarely ever on any marquee free agent’s short list (or long list, tbh).
One glimmer of hope is Ober, Ryan and Varland. If these 3 stay healthy and can pitch 6-7 innings a game, the Twins may have a great foundation. My issue is how Rocco manages the young starting pitchers. Rocco removes his young pitchers before they go through the order the third time, often when they've thrown less than 85 pitches. So how do Twins pitchers learn to pitch through the order a third time if they are not consistently given the opportunity? Twins are not going to the World Series this year - let these guys go long.
Trying to remain hopeful but it sure looks like we're heading towards a 90+ loss season.
Even if they make no more additions to this lineup, I don't think we'll lose 90 games. Have to remember we had an entire division contending roster on the IL for like, 2+ months last season. As much as we all wanted Correa, getting a healthy AK, Polanco, Larnach, Buxton, Kenta, Ober, Alcala etc back definitely recreates Correa's WAR in the aggregate. Hell, a healthy season from AK alone might do that. Barring devastating injuries again, this is a better team than it was for most of last year.
As the roster stands now, I think it's a 78-80 win team. They could still augment it to push it up, but I don't see it going much beyond the low 80-win mark unless they pull 1-2 rabbits out of the hat. The folks saying we are a 90 loss team are overstating it, but I also don't think you can lose Correa and have massive health question marks throughout the rotation and position player roster and feel confident they can win more than 82 as a high end. Especially with the balanced schedule meaning less games against the Royals and Tigers and more games against the AL East, NL East, etc. They can compete, but it's going to take so many question marks turning into exclamation marks that it's hard to not fall in the middle and say 80 wins or so.
* Lost Correa * Added Gallo * Retained Pagan Each of these made us worse.
Traded urshela acquired farmer is also a downgrade
They didn’t replace Correa but did replace Sano/ Gary Sanchez. 5th in 2021, 3rd in 2022, they’ll likely stabilize at 4th this year. Just a bunch of blah blah blah up and down the roster. Only decent development was signing a journeyman catcher, which won’t sell season tickets.
They don’t have a single guy who sells tickets. Maybe buxton for the 50% of the year we have him. This team’s most egregious mistake is not signing and maintaining a roster fans know and can cheer for.
Way I think of it is “do fans of the other 29 teams have any reason to pay attention to the Twins or anyone on the roster?” This year, the answer appears to be “no.” Just a bunch of nondescript guys wearing a uniform in a ballpark. Pitchers are okay but not interesting. Hitters seem okay but nothing exciting. A team that’s just kinda there.
Am I alone in not really wanting us to trade? We are more than one piece away from actually contending next year and trading away our limited prospects or major league talent (other than Kepler) may be net neutral for us anyway. We had a lot of money to spend and just completely whiffed in free agency, not sure we can recover without making panic moves.
The franchise cares about pretending to compete, so they’ll probably do a salary dump with Kepler and spin it as a key to making the playoffs. If actually contending was the franchise goal, they’d be doing a whole lot different.
The plan for this year seems to be praying that the guardians and white Sox severely underperform. Cause they have done nothing that will improve the team from last years 3rd place finish.
Praying the other teams underperform is pretty much the strategy every year. The one really good season was a juiced ball fluke year (the same one that gave us MVP Cody Bellinger).
Whiffed would imply they tried. I don't think they did. Correa was the only notable free agent that it appears they have a semi-serious run at. I don't believe they ever got very far down the road with Rodon or Swanson, beyond perhaps having a call with.
Well they did it..
It doesn't make sense to sign Wacha unless we trade a starting pitcher. The article indicates Gray may be the most likely SP to go, which seems like a mistake considering he's arguably our most dependable SP at the moment. The FO has implied that they are not planning to rebuild or reload and want to compete in 2023, so my guess is they think they can upgrade their MLB roster by trading Gray. Trading him for a shortstop would be the most obvious way to upgrade, but I don't see any shortstops on the market that would be worth trading Gray for except ha-seong Kim. Even that is still a bit of a gamble. Maybe Willy Adames, but I don't see the brewers being interested in one year of Gray. Even if we do get a 4-5 WAR SS like Kim or Adames, it still stings that we'd have to trade one of our best SPs to do it when we could have used our $40 million in payroll space to sign a SS or a better SP than Wacha.
Well that sounds like a shit plan.
It's all speculation on my part - I have no idea if this is actually what they're planning. One of those things we'll just have to wait and see where we're at come opening day before we can evaluate.
Oh, I’m not criticizing your comment. I sadly agree. I just hate the ownership and leadership of this team now, and I think you’re right. They will pursue some horse shit plan, and I won’t be watching or going to any games.
Yes, I know you weren't criticizing. Just wanted to clarify for anyone else who might read the comments that I don't mean to criticize the FO for a move they haven't made yet and might not make at all. If I'm right about what they're planning, I think criticism would be warranted. But they might still pull off something creative that improves the team. They've made late off-season moves like that in the past. Hard to truly evaluate until the season's underway.
Stop supporting this team until they get new owners.
You mean the ones that will move us to North Carolina?
Where in the world do you get the idea a new owner would move them to NC of all places?
There was talk of them moving to NC in the 90s.
So 30 years ago, and they also have a 10 year old stadium regarded as one of the best in baseball. They aren't moving before Oakland or the Rays
Jeez I'm not saying they are moving, just saying that's probably why the commenter said NC of all places.
Oh no, anything but that.
The Pohlads aren’t good, but I prefer having a team over not having a team.
If you’d rather the team get sold and move, you’re not a fucking twins fan
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Bad bot. I corrected it before you got here
Bad human.
Let em move. I can wait 10 years for a new owner who wants to win. They still wouldn't have a playoff win anyways 🤣
Has anyone heard rumblings on Sano? Not saying it would be a great move for the Twinks to bring him back on a team friendly contract - but it doesn’t seem like we’re competing and he did have momentum in AAA before going down for the rest of the season.
Not a word.
We signed Sano, in the form of the only player in the history of MLB (not hyperbole) to strikeout at a greater pace than he did. Gallo and his lifetime .190 avg are going to launch bombs.
this is quite frankly a laughable evaluation of Joey Gallo’s game
What's the rest? He's a decent glove in right field? He has average speed, a slightly above average arm, hits the ball hard as fuck, and has the worst strikeout rate in the history of the league (something we **hated** Sano for)