Minnesota Twins Talk

A contact hitter with speed who has played mostly 2b the past 3seasons but has some experience at 3B and SS. Probably is just a 3B and 2b at this point but can hit and plays really good defense with speed. Would he be an option as a regular utility guy.

I said in the 2019 thread that I would start this forum thread... Let's start populating it. How many former Twins are on rosters of other ball clubs? AMERICAN LEAGUE Orioles: Tommy Milone Kohl Stewart Red Sox: Martin Perez Marcus Walden Yankees: Aaron Hicks Zack Granite in 60-player pool Rays Nick Anderson Oliver Drake John Curtiss, Sean Gilmartin, Aaron Slegers (60 player pool) Tigers CJ Cron Niko Goodrum Jonathan Schoop Astros Ryan Pressly Angels Jason Castro A's Liam Hendriks Robbie Grossman Mariners Matt Magill Rangers Kyle Gibson Lance Lynn Danny Santana

An older article but the Twins' translator, Elvis, is nicely featured. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/this-is-a-247-job-mlb-team-translators-serve-a-vital-role-in-modern-game/bat41ck7k2w1qitq7qmltltr

I`d like help from my TD friends. My impression of Kepler as a CF back up, is that his offensive production takes a drop. I have no stats to back that up so if I`m wrong, I`d like to know so I`d be ok w/ this when it occurs or if I`m right, we need to seek a better solution. Kepler, defensively at CF is ok but does his offensive production take a drop or not? & if so, by how much? If some one could be so kind to shed light on this? I`d appreciate it. Thanks

On Wednesday, Cleveland's' Shane Bieber was named the unanimous winner of the 2020 AL Cy Young Award. The Twins Kenta Maeda finished second in voting. He received 18 second place votes and finished just ahead of Hyun-Jin Ryu. The last Twins pitcher to finish that high in the AL Cy Young vote was when Johan Santana won the award in 2006. Others to receive votes: Lance Lynn finished sixth. Liam Hendriks finished 10th.

I did this once about 2-3 years ago, but it was during the offseason and well, it's been a long time ago... Let's get to know each other a little bit... Who are the Twins Daily readers and contributors. Obviously don't tell any more than you want to... here are some questions to consider answering, with my answers: 1.) Where are you from? I'm from Perham, MN, home of the Yellowjackets. Currently live in Warroad, MN, Hockeytown USA... Been here for 21 years, and don't feel like you need to get any more specific than you'd like. 2.) Age Range? (I'm in my 40s, lower half, easily.) 3.) What brought you to Twins Daily? (I was at SethSpeaks.net, and me and the rest of the TD …

Marwin Gonzalez was brought in as an ideal 10th man for the new age ML roster with versatility offensively and defensively. And we can argue about his production and value. Defensively, while no longer a legitimate daily SS option, over the past two seasons, I'm not sure anyone could really complain about his defense. Despite a few gaffs here and there, his glove was solid to excellent at times. Offensively, he was OK in 2019 but slid big time last year except for a couple of moments. I believe in roster depth and versatility. I have for some time. I'm way beyond any .190 BA utility INF, and so is most of MLB. I believe in the best and most balanced roster roster you c…

Per MLB.com - https://www.mlb.com/news/2020-bbwaa-awards-finalists Along with Bieber and Ryu. Bieber will win, but it is nice to see Kenta get some props. Also very interesting the that the Dodgers lost both Maeda and Ryu from the pitching staff and STILL won the World Series! Nelson Cruz was NOT one of the MVP finalists.

To all concerned, We are living in uncertain times as a society right now, that's a given. And with all that is taking place right now, perhaps anyone reaching out with any sort of thought or plea regarding a sports franchise would seem superfluous in such times. Yet, I write. I write because life must go on, and indeed, it does carry on regardless. And such things as sports is an ingrained and relatively important part of our society and culture. Who I am individually is not really pertinent save to say I am a sports fan and an avid Twins fan through ups and downs for nearly 50yrs of my life. I am a Midwesterner born and raised and fit probably, financially speaking,…

Law's list is on The Athletic and paywalled, so I won't repost too much out of respect for that arrangement, but a few snippets of note. Cruz is #20 on his top 40. The writeup says things we probably all know: "The two best seasons of his career by rate stats [came] in 2019 and 2020, when he was at an age when most hitters have retired...His average exit velocity did slip last year...he carries the risk of injuries and of sudden decline, but on a one-year deal he’s probably a good bet for a 3-win season." Odorizzi is #23: "In his first two years in Minnesota, 2018 and 2019, he threw 323 1/3 innings of above-average ball, averaging barely over five innings a start... W…

http://twinsdaily.com/blog/1235/entry-13737-milldaddys-2021-offseason-blueprint/ Thoughts?

It’s hokey, but I don’t think the fact that Donaldson gifted everyone on the team their own robes, and they have turned it into a “thing” after homers should be underestimated. Every year it seems like teams come up with some sort of stupid thing like Aaron Judge interviewing players in the dugout, or players having secret signs when they get hits, etc. I don’t know how to quantify it, but I honestly think those little team-building things are significant, and I love to see it for the Twins. I hope they really, really care about getting to wear the robe. Bring on the bombas this weekend and next week. Who cares if this is a weird year - there is still going to be a c…

Here is the link to their Top 50 Free Agent List with player write ups, community estimated contracts and Fangraphs estimated contracts. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2021-top-50-free-agents/ Looking through the list the names that jumped out to me as good targets based on their projected contracts, need for the Twins, and upside/projected production are as follows: 12: Michael Brantley 2 years/24M Good Cruz replacement if he signs a 2 year deal elsewhere. 14: Kevin Gausman 2 years/28M or 3 years/36M Good breakout year in 2020 and always had potential. Good value signing imo that may be undervalued by the short season. Could backload the contract if payroll is tight. 16…

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2045846

Lewis Thorpe is out of options. The Twins either need to keep him on the MLB team as their 5th starter or as a reliever out of the bullpen or expose him to waivers when sending him down. Given his prospect pedigree I'm almost certain some rebuilding team will grab him and throw him out there to see if they can get something out of him if he gets exposed to the waiver wire so the question is as follows: If Thorpe doesn't impress at ST for a 5th starters job or even a BP role do you expose him to waivers or keep him and hope he you can fix his issues during the year? Let me know your thoughts!

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/10/twins-rumors-nelson-cruz-two-year-deal.html

Been reading about all the losses (alleged or not) that MLB has (and maybe will again) taken with the pandemic, and wondered how the tax dollar stream to pay off Target Field has been affected, if at all. Even though it is county-wide, the ghost town of downtown Mpls can't bode well for "money spent". I wonder how many tax $$$ have been lost to internet vs "in person" shopping, for virtually anything and everything. Then I wondered, what's the situation in other MLB cities with new or newish stadiums that are still being paid for? So, kind of an open question....

This is interesting and sort of concerning. Article snippet comes from the incomparable Jayson Stark of The Athletic (Which is must read site regardless of sport): • Finally, this was a year in which the Twins had the best September record in their league (16-8) — and still got swept. If you don’t count teams that lost in the one-game wild-card game format, they’re only the fourth team in the 21st century to have the best record in their league from Sept. 1 on and still get swept in their first-round series. See if you notice a theme here. 2020 TWINS (16-8) — Swept by Astros (WCS) 2016 RED SOX (19-10) — Swept by Indians (ALDS) 2010 TWINS (18-12) — Swept by Yankees (ALDS…

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The Twins certainly have options this winter now that the core has been here long enough to make some tough calls. Which is the best route to take? Re-Load: This is certainly a route to take, and given how weird this whole season was, maybe this is the best route. It's hard to blow it all up after a 60 game season with 2 abbreviated spring trainings and no minor league ball. This option keeps the status quo with 1 or 2 changes. In all of these plans, my assumption is that Gonzalez, Adrianza, and Rosario have played their last games with the Twins. So for this particular plan, they bring back Cruz to be DH, Kirilloff fills in for Rosario, and they find either an intern…

The Twins announced the 2020 Diamond Awards in the below press release. Notice the change in terms of when the event will be. Presumably there will not be any in-person Diamond Awards event as FSN will telecast a remote version in December. TWINS ANNOUNCE 2020 DIAMOND AWARDS RECIPIENTS WINNERS SELECTED BY TWIN CITIES BASEBALL WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 16th Annual Diamond Awards to be Televised on Fox Sports North December 9 Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN — The Minnesota Twins today announced the recipients of the Diamond Awards, their annual awards for the 2020 season based on voting conducted by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Baseball Writers …

Doogie Wolfson tweeted that the Twins are going to be scouting 22-year-old RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, "one of the premier young pitchers in NPB."

Snow is flying...wind is blowing and all the leaves from North Dakota are settling in Minnesota for the winter What better time than to update the Twins BluePrint Tool for 2021 I've averaged the 3 MLBTR Arbitration Projections for each player and will add the Free Agent Projections when they become available Make a Copy of the whole sheet if you like or just Duplicate the Tab that says Duplicate this Sheet and make your changes for everyone to see Enter a name (Lastname, First) for each position on the roster sheet and it will fill in known contract info for the player Want to see what the payroll would be with Lindor as a Twin...put his name in at SS and watch th…

Quick overview of the moves I made: Traded Sano for prospects (2023/2024 arrival) Signed Kike Hernandez Signed Jake Odorizzi Signed Mike Minor Picked up Romo's option Kept Rosario I feel like this approach keeps veterans on the mound and in the clubhouse, retains a latin presence, and doesn't rely too heavily on the young guns while landing on a reasonable budget for the season. Link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZI53Ca0gpI2h9541So7J_HIi8CHNCP6W_jPuV5NKEnY/edit?usp=sharing

What could have been if Billy Heywood managed for more than one season??? https://www.foxsports.com/north/story/little-big-league-oral-history-minnesota-twins-timothy-busfield-ken-griffey-jr-randy-johnson-metrodome-101420

This is general to baseball, but also will have an effect on some of the Twins’ free agents-to-be. What’s up with 2021? Does anyone really know? Free Agents (as usual) are going to want as much guaranteed money as possible, but teams might be reluctant to have high payrolls in 2021. With unknowns come…. Market inefficiencies. So what are some alternative contract strategies? Tactic #1 – Back loaded contracts. Instead of 3/30 being 10/10/10, why not 4/13/13. This pushes the bulk of the contract out to when the finances of baseball will likely have stabilized more. Additionally, this is beneficial to the player (not counting time value of money) because I’d say it’s…

One of the Twins best all-time relievers. Godspeed Ron.

1-6 combined. The White Sox managed to win a game. Not sure what that says for sure, maybe nothing, but the implications aren't good. As an aside, Oakland's win was their first postseason series win since...2006.

There haven't been many yet, but I'll start this today... The Twins just announced that Zack Littell (hamstring) has been placed on the 10-Day IL... Jorge Alcala recalled.

David Ortiz was released by the Twins in December of 2002. The Twins has just been knocked out of the ALCS by the Angels and their Rally Monkey two months earlier. While the Twins did manage to win a game against the Yankees in 2003, they Then proceeded to lose the final three of that series, and then: 3 in 2004 (NY) 3 in 2006 (Oak) 3 in 2010 (NY) 1 in 2017 (NY) 3 in 2019 (NY) 2 in 2020 (Houston) The Red Sox have gone on to win four titles, in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018. (Granted, Big Papi only played in the first three.)