Minnesota Twins Talk

I'm not sure why people are so quick to want to sign Donaldson when the Twins have enough bats already and shouldn't be meeting his demands anyways of a 4 year deal he is seeking. It may look good for 2020, but he is already 34 years old and teams shouldn't be paying players that high of contract when they are 36-38. I would rather not be stuck in a long term deal that the team would regret in a couple of years. Sign Eric Thames or Todd Frazier to 1 year deal and see how the minor league prospects develop i for 2021. Just because the team has the money to spend doesn't mean they need to be foolish with it. They can always be looking for a trade for a SP now or durin…

Posed this question on Twitter, so figured I'd ask it here as well: Who was the best Twins player of the 2010s, in terms of performance? Personally, I go back and forth between Mauer and Dozier. Mauer spent much of the decade as an average 1B, but did have a few more years as elite catcher on the front end. Dozier was heart & soul of mid-decade teams, and his 2016 was the decade's best for any Twin. fWAR totals are very close. Mauer: 24.0 (9 yrs), Dozier: 22.6 (~7 yrs) Thoughts? Anyone else who should be mentioned in the conversation?

No doubt an article is on its way, but Rich Hill and Homer Bailey are signed, per MLB Trade Rumors. Remainder bin shopping, IMO, but sometimes you find usable merchandise there. At least we don't go into Spring Training with 2 established starters and 3 rotation spots manned by rookies while waiting for Pineda to be available. Instead we add two maybes. If in the unlikely event these both really pan out, and our rotation is full when Pineda re-enters the picture, thus shutting out the rookies, that's the proverbial nice problem to have. If they remain intriguing with potential but not performance, then that's a problem less nice.

My 89 year old Aunt Stella passed away last week. She was a HUGE Twins fan as evidence by her urn - yes that is a Twins batting helmet! Aunt Stella used to take the North Star from Brainerd to Target Field a few times a year - even while she was well in her eighties. She did not need analytics to tell her about the game. Comments like "they should pinch hit for this player since he can't hit lefties worth a darn" or "Don't bring in so and so to face this guy as he demolishes curve balls" were some of the comments she would astutely make. Her son gave the family remembrance and closed by saying "now that you are there, "touch-em-all" Mama!' How appropriate...

Can the Twins trade Rosario and sufficiently address a spot in the rotation? I went over to baseball trade values and sorted starters finding a group of starters that is within 10% of Rosario. These are Rosario's comps according to baseball trade values. 11.5 Zach Eflin 11.1 Anthony DeSclafani 11.1 Trevor Williams 10.8 Jordan Yamamoto 10.5 Rosario 10.4 Eric Lauer 10.0 Dylan Bundy 9.6 Brad Peacock Perhaps it would be better to look at the group within about 10% of Kirilloff. 46.8 Kyle Hendricks 44.0 Dylan Cease 43.9 Frankie Montas 43.5 Kirilloff 42.5 Sonny Gray 42.2 Lance McCullers Jr. 38.2 Joey Lucchesi 37.7 Matthew Boyd 37.7 Jon Gray What do you think? Maybe th…

For Christmas - my wife got us a weekend in Ft. Myers during spring training. Having never been there - does anyone have any suggestions of "can't miss" things we should try to make sure we do? Thanks for any ideas!

I was surprised to see that the Twins used 145 different batting lineups in 2019. The most common lineup (used for 7 games)? Kepler Polanco Cruz Rosario Cron Gonzalez Schoop Castro Buxton What changes, if anything, for 2020? Will Arraez supplant Kepler as the leadoff hitter? Will Garver continue to lead off vs LHP? Assuming he isn't traded, does Rosario stick at the clean-up spot?

Now that the main free agents are gone, what should the Twins do? I mean we have all bitched and complained but after awhile we have to get away from that and figure out and hope for some solutions. My thoughts are along the lines of cheap value buys where one or a couple of them bounce back or turn out. The Twins should be able to get these guys real inexpensive and they would only be a stop gap because the Twins will need to develop someone to lead them to the world series. My thoughts are this SP Walker, has pitched in the American league, has been hurt, sign to a one or two year deal. SP Wood, has had a good season or two, has been injured quite frequently as of…

Let's face it. Target may be a wonderful "venue" on a perfect late spring or summer day. But what does it do for an actual home field advantage? Absolutely nothing. What does it get the Twins to start the 2020 season? A 7 game west coast road trip after spending the spring in FL. Maybe Twins should join the Cactus League.

4 years, 80 million.

The Star-Tribune has named Twins DH Nelson Cruz its 2019 Sportsperson of the Year. http://www.startribune.com/sportsperson-of-the-year-man-of-la-bomba/566458482/ The article is by LaVelle Neal. It's an in-depth story on "The Man of LaBomba."

https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/dobnaks-give-back-to-st-jude-children-hospital As you recall, Randy Dobnak got married on the final weekend of Twins games. He's gone on his honeymoon. All that good stuff. Remember that when lots of fans learned of the wedding registry. Instead of gifts, Randy and his wife Aerial asked fans to donate money to St. Jude's. And they earned over $4000. And next month, the couple will head to Memphis to visit St. Jude's and bring them the money. Pretty great story!

TD has this real cool concept that some of us keep forgetting about called “the topic” (and I’m probably just as guilty). The best of TD is all of us having our own opinions and the worst of TD is getting to hear the same opinions over and over no matter what the OP topic was. Ok, we get it, your... fill in the blank (mad, frustrated, pissed, fine with it, fine with everything, done with the off season, completely worn out by 30, 40 50 years of the same stuff, pleased we didn’t make that mistake, Pohlads pocket protector this, in Wes we trust that) Whatever drum you’re beating, we get it. The average fan and the outright fanatics as well, we all get it. So here’s wha…

The latest Locked On Twins episode breaks down the latest signings of Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dallas Keuchel. The Twins were left in the cold. Can they still win the off-season? LISTEN HERE: http://traffic.megaphone.fm/LKN9948836571.mp3

So you want Ryu? Is there a financial point where you say it's just silly and won't be unhappy if the Twins don't sign him? This guy's agent is Scott Boras, after all. He has specialized this offseason in silly contracts. (from https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/12/cardinals-reportedly-interested-in-hyun-jin-ryu.html ) I would go as high as four years and $100M. Would you? Or even five years at $110M or $120M?

Twins Daily: TD is awesome but speculating/discussing the off Season moves (few) of the Minnesota Twins MLB is carbon negative. Other than Monticello, Prairie Island and wind and solar farms, our posts come from CO2 energy producing sources? So in the interest of saving Planet Earth, I call on you to SUSPEND Twins Daily website till approximately May 9th, 2020 which will be the Minnesota Twins 40th game of the 2020 season at which point we can resume discussion of our beloved Twins and their chances of a Post Season berth in the Playoffs? Gaia

I didn’t see a thread on Taijuan Walker, so I wanted to put his name out there as a possible target for the Twins this offseason. Here is a bit of background on the guy: Drafted in 2010 out of high school, Walker spent several years in the Mariners system, first as one of their top prospects, and then getting about 350IP in their rotation from 2013-16. He was then traded to Arizona, along with Ketel Marte, for Jean Segura and Mitch Haniger. He has been a Diamondback from 2017-2019, but only pitched one full season in 2017 for them, before needing TJ surgery in April 2018. He made $5mm in 2019 despite not pitching for the DBacks at all, and then was non-tendered earli…

Per request.....new thread! this seems like a really odd post to start with, which makes sense for a thread about the Twins and Internet... abel 3:11 will the twins move rodney? Dan Szymborski 3:11 I suspect they do 3:12 I really really need Rodney to play for awhile. After Ichiro's retirement, I'm down to three players older than me: Bartolo Colon, Fernando Rodney, and Joaquin Benoit https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dan-szymborski-fangraphs-chat-7-23-18/

We need a starter for sure and could use a 3rd baseman to move Sano over to 1st. What would we have to give up to get Robbie Ray and Edwardo Escobar to Minnesota. Love Eskie and Ray being a left hander would fit in well. What would we have to give up? Something like Larnach, Thorpe and Gordon get it done or is that light?

ESPN+ just put up a too early 2020 starting rotation rankings. Twins are 19th. Cleveland is 5th and the White Sox are 17th.....

I haven't been a big fan of Keuchel, however, after looking at the Twins situation they really can't go the first 40 games with 2 guys. Yeah Keuchel is not that sexy frontline starter, and yeah he isn't the guy who is going to match up with Cole and the Yankees in the ALCS or anything like that. However, he is the guy who has proven can toss 200 innings up without an issue and really that is what the Twins need desperately right now. They need a dude that can slot into the 3rd or 4th spot in the rotation who can eat innings during the season. He has proven that he can throw a lot of innings, yeah he is not a fireballer who will rack up a ton of K's. But, he will go o…

Looking at the free agent list on MLB Trade Rumors: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020-mlb-free-agent-tracker/sort_column-name__sort_direction-1 I noticed some familiar names so I thought I would start a new game called “Wait, (fill in the blank) is still available!?!” Here is how we play. Name a free agent that has some recognition in Twins Territory using the given phrase. The next person to comment has to share a memory of the player or a comment about their potential usefulness as a Twins FreeAgent signing. (Sarcasm, tongue in cheek, and ridiculousness welcomed) After 1-2 more comments, someone may start the next round. This thread is meant to be light and humorou…

What best describes the Twins organizational intent for 2020? Glory! All in for a World Series run.Optimization. Win the most games possible while maintaining a bottom line return on investment. Keeping Up Appearances. Generate the greatest possible profit while remaining competitive enough to avoid alienating the fan base.Rebuilding. Regress while stripping away veteran salaries and developing young players at the MLB level.Other - please specifyWhat should the Twins intent be? Under what circumstances should teams go all-in? Has going all-in become more of a trade deadline strategy than an off-season strategy?

Last year Twins starters rarely got past the 6th inning. Should they start using a multi inning opener more often. Bullpen used 3 innings most games, why not have an opener pitch the first 2-3 innings, then put in the "starter" for 5-6 innings.

The Twins' interest in Josh Donaldson suggests the front office is open to moving Miguel Sano to first base full time. But what happens if they don't land Donaldson? Is Sano destined to move across the diamond either way? More on that topic here:

Each received one year $6.1M contracts. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-hot-stove-rebuilding-tigers-sign-c-j-cron-and-jonathan-schoop-to-one-year-contracts-per-reports/

There was a lot of talk surrounding Josh Donaldson and how much his market has picked up of late. It doesn't sound like he'll be available for much longer, and while Ken Rosenthal reported the Twins are making a serious run at the slugger, some of the verbiage he used on MLB Network in particular suggest he's skeptical. Here's a quick run through of some of the recent discussion and a few of my reactions:

Buster Olney tweeted that the Twins have Tyler Clippard to a one year deal

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ Let's say the Rockies want to regroup. Let's say they have to choose between Story and Arenado. Let's also say the Rockies value premium pitching prospects, and catching prospects that can play multiple positions, with power. Blackmon gets traded elsewhere in this scenerio. According to this site, trading Graterol, Balazovic, Larnach and Jeffers would be an overpay to receive Arenado and Gray. Maybe that overpay allows Colorado to pay $5-10 million of Arenado's salary/year, which essentially pays for Gray's contract. I know this is highly unlikely to happen. I know Arenado has an opt-out after 2 years. Would you…

Aaron Gleeman and I conducted a 90+ minute interview with Dustin Morse, the Twins' Senior Director of Communications and published it on our Patreon (meaning it costs $1) podcast. You can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-39-interview-32423350 We actually talked to him for almost three hours - this is just the part we recorded - so if you have any questions or discussions, I'll be happy to answer them. Thanks, John