2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Keep in mind that our owners were willing to contract and eliminate the twins at one point.

Oh, in no way am I defending any baseball team owners. I think they're all bastards.

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Oh, in no way am I defending any baseball team owners. I think they're all bastards.

Add in the commissioner!

On 10/1/2021 at 1:35 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

There are plenty of ways to win without pulling the crap Tampa pulls on its fanbase. Sure, they're a good team and I like many of their players but they give fans little to no reason to cheer on the franchise as they rake in the millions while crying poor.

And they have just as many championships as the Twins do over the past 25 years.

What I'm saying is that a team that operates like the Tampa Bay Rays does deserves very little community support. I don't want my team to operate in that fashion. I don't want any baseball team to operate in that fashion. Fans deserve better than what Tampa offers them.

One thing people forget about teams in places like Florida is the population is from all over the US and they bring their fan allegiances with them. Add in crappy ballparks and the time of year when people are indoors, it's just not conducive to that boys of summer experience.

On 9/30/2021 at 5:07 PM, ashbury said:

In trying to get down to 40 players to begin the off-season, I start from a similar point as others have stated.  40-man roster management is hard, but becomes at least a little less intractable by partitioning it into playing positions.  The coarsest such partition is simply hitters and pitchers.  A 20-20 split between them isn't how it's done anymore, but for this stage of thinking I'm going to aim for 19-21 rather than radically overweight toward pitching with 18-22 or even 17-23.

According to MLB's 40-man roster for our Twins, there are currently 20 batters either on that roster or else temporarily shielded by being on the 60-day IL.  (That same logic comes to 29 pitchers, so the next part of the decision making process is going to be more difficult).  So now I further partition into 3 groups.

Catching: we have 3 guys on the roster (not counting Astudillo), and I keep all 3.  Gee, this is easier than I thought.

Infield: In this group I include Arraez, Astudillo, and Rooker (1B for lack of a real position) which gives a count of 9.  I let Simmons walk, and DFA Maggi.  Replacing them are Royce Lewis and Jose Miranda who are rule-5 eligible, leaving the total at 9.  Still fairly easy.  I'm missing a true shortstop but that probably has to come from free agency - I don't prematurely cut someone else in anticipation, but when that time comes, there will be candidates remaining - we're not an all-star squad.

Outfield: Counting Kirilloff (whom some might think debatable in the OF) there are 8.  I am happy to mark for disposal Garlick and Refsnyder who are mediocre hitters with no outstanding defensive talent to help make a case.  That leaves only 6, which is a little light, but several of the nominal infielders can fill in, in left.  CF remains the most critical to have coverage for, and Cave seems to remain the best range if Buxton is unavailable and Celestino's bat isn't ready next spring - and Lewis among the infielders might be capable in CF but is right now too much of a question mark - so I am not quite as eager to be rid of Jake.  Anyway, that brings us to 6.

Huh. 3+9+6=18, so I came in with 1 fewer than I expected.  Maybe I protect Maciel in CF, but he had a mediocre year at high-A so I don't think Baddoo Lightning will strike again.  No, I'll hold off on adding him (conceptually) to my 40-man planning until the pitching side of the question is sorted out better.

In summary, Simmons walks, and I explore quick trades involving Maggi, Refsnyder, and Garlick, planning to DFA them if nothing like that pans out (it probably won't in each case) before 40-man rosters are locked in for the off-season.

Next up, the hard part: pitching.

 

/ Those who know me will assume that my thinking is heavily influenced by having played dozens of off-seasons using Out Of The Park.  The above does indeed reflect how I go about it, but no one wants to read me wax eloquent about that aspect.  Suffice to say that I have been burned too many times by allowing my roster to be unbalanced and thus too small in one area of need during the course of a long season.

Yep, itching is going to be the killer. We currently have three guys - Colina, Balazovic and Duran - who were supposed to get a shot in 2021 and now we hope they get a shot sometime in 2022. We have Enlow who MAY need to be protected but is still a good year away from major elague action.

Those are keeps, all.

And then we have names like Smeltzer, Thorpe, Stashak who are all disabled in many ways, and throw in Dobnak who we can eliminate from the 40-man, but still keep, because no one is going to grab his contract, or if they do...some might turn cartwheels. But this will all be repeated in another few days when we digest the many names needed to be pitchers for the Twins.