Minnesota Twins Talk

I've been hearing about this pitch, then read this article from Do-Hyoung Park. Will this pitch be like Johan's change up? An 'unhittable' pitch? One that has batters looking and going 'What the heck?' With quotes from Jeffers and Baldeli such as 'How does he do that?' and 'I've never seen anything like it' ... it's made me very (very) interested to see Duran in action and am glad he made the team. Also, finally getting some reward (hopefully) for losing Esco ... still miss that guy. Was anyone at ST witness to this pitch? What did you think? As good as is being reported?

A dozen years in the Big Leagues. Getting a call to do what he does best season after season after season. He came over to the Twins waaaaaay back in 2007 for Luis Castillo. He caught the Francisco Liriano no-hitter. His father, Sal, played for the Twins and still scouts. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/04/drew-butera-retires.html

Winder officially confirmed, Celestino promoted, Stashak to the IL, Jax sent down

Opening Day As the snow melts and the sun shines through a cloudless sapphire blue sky over downtown Minneapolis, Target Field awakens from its winter hibernation. The old familiar scents of freshly cut grass and sizzling bratwurst and sauerkraut fill the air as the crackling of baseball gloves and wooden bats provide the acoustics echoing throughout the stadium meaning only one thing: Its Opening Day. After two seasons of the COVID pandemic kept a large number of fans from attending home games, a certain saying from the classic film “Field of Dreams” comes to mind, (adjusted slightly to fit in with Twins purposes): “Ray, people will come Ra…

Say what you want about the Twins’ FO, but they certainly aren’t boring.

The Twins have acquired Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan in exchange for Taylor Rogers. Other pieces in the deal as well.

It appears that the Twins will go with 16 pitchers and there is a competition for the last position player between Brent Rooker and Kyle Garlick. With cuts coming from all of the other teams, I have been saying there should be someone who fills the bill better than Garlick or Rooker. IMHO, a good candidate came available today. Jake Marisnick was released by the Rangers. Marisnick is 31, has played on good teams (and with Carlos Correa) and is a good glove at all of the outfield positions. Marisnick is also a good base runner. If the price isn't too steep, I think he'd be an excellent fit for the Twins' needs.

After the Archer signing, I was fairly certain the Twins were done dealing for this off-season, as the Oakland trade talks seemed to have stalled. However, yesterday the As DID wind up trading Manaea, to a somewhat surprising destination - the San Diego Padres. Why is it surprising that the Padres were the team to acquire Manaea (for an affordable price, the 12th and 24th ranked prospects in the Padres system? Because look at the Padres’ starting rotation: Yu Darvish Blake Snell Joe Musgrove Mike Clevinger Chris Paddack Nick Martinez and now Sean Manaea, too. That seems like seven pitchers for five rotation spots. But wait, …

The Twins have announced that Opening Day will be pushed back to April 8th.

For decades the Minnesota baseball franchise has lived up to its nickname, replicating year after year, the low-market, middle of the pack team, with no real championship expectations. That all changed in November of 2016 when Thad Levine was hired as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Twins to bring a winning pedigree and attitude to the club. Over the last five seasons, the Twins have finished: -(2017) 85-77, 2nd AL Central -17 games back of Cleveland -(2018) 78-84, 2nd AL Central -13 games back of Cleveland -(2019) 101-61, AL Central Champions +8 games above Cleveland -(2020) 36-24, AL Central Champions + 1 game above Cleveland …

I keep seeing Maeda's name come up. He is out for the year, but what should we really expect. In 2020 he was near Cy Young for 60 games. Would he have been that for another 100? Since 2016 he is 59 - 41 with a 3.87 ERA - that is really good, but the fact is that only 2020 and his rookie years were below that ERA level. It is brought down by 2020 because that year represented almost 10% of all his starts. I think Maeda is a really good pitcher, but in his absence I think we project him to be more than what we should really expect. Last year before his injury he had a 4.66 era. It was his highest was probably a symptom of his injury. I would expect …

Good for him! Glad to see service time manipulation wasn't used yet again.

My apologies if this has been brought up in other discussions. I know it's been announced that Maeda will start the season on the 60 Day IL. Since then I haven't heard much about his recovery/rehab process. Anybody else have any updates. Just curious.

Just noticed my DirecTV has the Red Sox/Twins game on NESN. I checked in the game in time to see Buck and C4 go yard. Both teams going with mostly starters. Winder on the mound for the Twins. Kirilloff in left, so I guess he’s good to go for the regular season.

Not terribly surprising. The question remains: is this meant to supplement, or substitute for, a SP trade acquisition?

First batter against Red Sox. They are both running full speed to a ball that either could catch (and one did). Several minutes for Gordon to get up and make it into the cart off the field. Maybe both Garlick and Rooker have a place now.

With Buxton in center and Kepler in right, the Twins are set at two of the three outfield positions, Behind them, however, there is a notable gap, both offensively and defensively. Among the guys that manned the outfield last year are Nick Gordon, Kyle Garlick, Brent Rooker, Alex Kirilloff, Jake Cave and Trevor Larnach. Gordon is an infielder who was pressed into emergency service in the outfield. His defensive marks are so-so and offensively he was not great in about 200 plate appearances. Garlick logged about 100 plate appearances and did well against left handed pitching, his defense was satisfactory but uninspiring, and he even played center field a couple of ga…

Key Additions • RHP Sonny Gray • RHP Dylan Bundy • RHP Chris Archer • RHP Joe Smith • SS Carlos Correa Key Departures • C Mitch Garver • SS Andrelton Simmons • RHP Michael Pineda • RHP Alex Colome • 3B Josh Donaldson • C Ben Rortvedt Resignings • CF Byron Buxton • LHP Taylor Rogers

It’s April. Opening Day is less than a week away. I know Spring Training was short BUT there must be a SIRE. I would choose Jake Foria (if he fits the criteria).

Broadcast currently has Mike Ratcliffe in the booth and he just mentioned that they thought they had an agreement in place to sign Juan Soto when he first came to the US. ? He was talking about leading up to the signing period and didn't elaborate on why it didn't happen.

Fangraphs recently ranked the Twins as the second best CF group in baseball. Buxton is the obvious reason for that. Here’s the full fangraphs ranking: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-positional-power-rankings-center-field/

The Opener is on the horizon! The Twins and all teams need to cut their roster down to 28 players. At the fringe of all rosters are players on minor league contracts. Most have big league experience, but aren’t on the 40-man roster. Many of these players will be added to active rosters before Opening Day, necessitating someone being dropped from the 40-man roster. The Twins are no exception. Pitchers Deven Smeltzer and Danny Coulombe and an outfielder (Cave or Garlick) could be added, but someone would have to be dropped from the 40-man roster and exposed to be claimed by any team. In the Twins case, who would be let go? It is a dangerous proposition. One has to…

Less than two weeks until Opening Day and some things are taking shape while other things remain undetermined. Some things won't really be determined in Ft. Myers, such as the split in playing time between Sanchez and Jeffers. Some things are taking shape. Here are some of my observations: 1) Byron Buxton has batted lead off. Would the Twins consider having a guy who homered once every 13 plate appearances on top of the order? Luis Arraez is more of the classical lead off guy, but he's hit down in the order when both he and Buxton have been in the lineup. 2) Positions played--Kirilloff has played left, right and first base, Gordon has played second and short, So…

China doll? https://www.rotoballer.com/player-news/alex-kirilloff-injured-saturday/1008606

I'm happy for Sano dropping 25 lbs. I'm not happy watching his swings. Jeepers creepers. Time to move on. And before anybody jumps on me, I know its ST, but I don't think the season beginning is going to get Sano going. Let's open up a spot on the roster.

Is he the least experienced opening day starter (5 career starts) in Twins history?

What I mean is that Francisco Liriano stepped into a Twins uniform and pitched.... well. Very, very well. The dominance of the 2000s Twins was largely fueled by their ability to regularly call up a young pitcher and have that pitcher actually contribute to winning baseball games in their rookie season. Liriano was a beast. Scott Baker pitched to a 133 ERA+ his rookie season. Kevin Slowey was just slightly below average. Carlos Silva had a 112 ERA+ the year he came to Minnesota. Whereas a hallmark of the 2010s Twins was utter and complete failure from their rookie pitchers. Trevor May had stats that resembled a dumpster fire. And somehow Jose Berríos managed to b…

Well, I guess this is about all that’s left …