Minnesota Twins Talk

Feel free to use this if you like 2020 Twins Blueprint Tool Duplicate the tab "Duplicate this sheet" and make your own Blueprint or Make a Copy of the whole sheet to use as you'd like Enter names of players and it should pull up there current contract info through 2023 If you want to enter your own prediction on future contracts enter the values in Millions (14,000,000) for each year and it will total properly Current contract info from COTS Arb Eligible players 2020 salary from MLBTR Pre-Arb Twins have 8% raise over league minimum or what they were paid last year Waiting on MLBTR Free agent predictions to fill in Free Agent $$$

With 3 homers today and the Yankees only having 1, the Twins are HOME RUN CHAMPS! Wouldn't have thought it was possible the other day when the Yankees hit 7! Final Score Yankees: 306 Twins: 307 and CHAMPIONS!

TWINS ANNOUNCE 2019 DIAMOND AWARDS RECIPIENTS WINNERS SELECTED BY TWIN CITIES BASEBALL WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 15th Annual Diamond Awards Event Set For January 23, 2020 Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN — The Minnesota Twins today announced the recipients of the Diamond Awards, their annual awards for the 2019 season based on voting conducted by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. In addition, the Twins and the BBWAA announced plans for the 15th annual Diamond Awards, which will be held Thursday, January 23, 2020 at The Depot Minneapolis and will benefit research, education and care in brain, nerve and muscle disord…

Tony Leo has been in the Twins for 23 years. The last two years, he has been the team's Head Trainer. Following the season, he was relieved of his duties, according to the Star Tribune.

Twins bench coach Derek Shelton was rumors to be a finalist for at least two managerial jobs last offseason (Twins, Orioles, maybe Rangers). His name has already been brought up a few times this year, so I thought I'd set up a forum thread on rumors we hear about him this offseason: Pittsburgh Pirates: New York Mets:

Um, yeah. I get it, incredible 100 win season, but the team was just totally outclassed and outplayed over 3 games. It would have been nice if he could have at least acknowledged the fanbase's justified frustration. Of course he should be proud of the regular season, but this is the immediate reaction after a very lopsided series loss? Between the piss poor bullpen management, a playoff series in which we weren't competitive, and this chill interview, I'm over Rocco. I apologize in advance for an overdramatic hot take post, but this interview kinda pissed me off. Come on!

For some reason, the "Solace" thread has been taken down but after the Braves gave up 10 runs at home to the Cards in the first inning and the Dodgers gave up the Salami to the Nats in the 10th inning, those 2 teams arguably feel worse than the Twins especially being the favorites. Plus, playing in the snow would be no fun. So congrats on a real nice season and looking forward to 2020.

Per ESPN’s Buster Olney, Falvey would be a great fit for the Red Sox, but instead is nearing a deal with the Twins to extend him beyond his assumed 2020 deal. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27806842/source-twins-nearing-deal-keep-derek-falvey-front-office

Kiriloff, Rooker, Larnach, Raley, and perhaps even Rolls Royce Lewis could all potentially debut next season for the Twins or another team. Cave and Wade deserve to be in the conversation as well. We pretty much know what we have in Buck, Rosie, and Kep who set a high bar. Some of the above starters, back ups, and prospects will almost certainly be traded, waived, or non tendered. Additionally, Jaylin Davis was already traded. I wonder where he'd slot in? A useful thought in considering potential return on trade capital. I'd love to see how we rank these guys based purely on hitting ability at the MLB level. I'd rank them today: 1) Larnach 2) Cave 3) AK …

After a tough playoff series I find myself gravitating towards lighter subjects. Admittedly I'm a uniform nut and have enjoyed what the Twins have been doing in recent years. Kasota Gold is awesome! One area for improvement has to be the Stance socks. Look around the league and you see how well teams have done to incorporate alternate logos or the city into their socks. The New York skyline for the Mets is a great example. The Twins/Stance have so many opportunities to capitalize on Minnesota's features. I'd love to see a design with the Mississippi River or lakes. How about using Minnie and Paul? What ideas do you have?

Alright everyone - This series has me super depressed. Seeing that we more than likely aren't going to come back and win the series, I've already moved on to 2020. I am anxious to see what the roster might look like next year. Here is what I am hoping the opening day roster looks like next year. I'm trying to be somewhat realistic based on the types of acquisitions the Twins make; however, I realize my roster would be pretty expensive and may not be the most accurate. C) Garver, Austin Romine (free agent signing that shouldn't cost too much) 1B) Jose Abreu on a 3 year deal? (non-tender Cron) 2B) Arraez 3B) Sano, Gonzalez SS) Polanco, Adrianza LF) Rosario (althoug…

Alright, yesterday we asked for your 2019 MLB predictions (and if you haven't yet filled out yours, click here)... Today, ,let's make our Minnesota Twins predictions. Here are the categories with my votes. Be sure to place your votes below. Twins MVP: Max Kepler Twins Pitcher of the Year: Jose Berrios Most Improved Twin: Byron Buxton Twins Top Rookie: Ryne Harper (followed by Stephen Gonsalves) Twins HR Leader: Max Kepler Twins RBI Leader: Eddie Rosario Twins Batting Average Leader: Jorge Polanco Twins On-Base Percentage Leader: Nelson Cruz Twins ERA title: Jose Berrios Twins Wins Leader: Kyle Gibson Twins Saves Leader: Blake Parker Twins in the All-Star Game: J…

In the age of analytics, it seems that the prevailing viewpoint is that the playoffs are a crapshoot. The only way to win a championship is to build a team that is capable of making the playoffs year in and year out, and hope that you get lucky. The Twins management seems to hold this viewpoint. Falvey and Levine are always talking about building a "sustainable winner." Baldelli has characterized this Yankees series as basically a random, unlucky roll of the dice. Here's a Baldelli quote on the series: "It's baseball, so that can happen. We've had other parts of our season where we played three games and didn't put very many runs on the board. You wish it doesn't happe…

The UnGame Thread Gloom, Despair, Agony on Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkzE23pyME4 So the Twins stunk up the joint… make that two joints. At least they didn’t do it on national TV. Mostly because MLB doesn’t do national TV anymore. In this case maybe MLB did us a favor. Anyway, I was supposed to do the Game Thread intro for Game 4, the Game whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned. So I was all primed to do a rousing, fire-up-the-fans intro, but, like the Twins, that’s not going anywhere. So instead of being fired up, Twins fans are lined up at West Virginia pharmacies (they hand out drugs like candy on Halloween) looking for anti-depressants. But is our glass hal…

HAHAHAHAHAA this is the most savage tweet I've ever seen. I feel so much better now. Seriously.

I’ve been a Twins fan for over 50 years, and I believe I have hit a new low. Given the postseason/Yankee futility and being so outclassed and embarrassed on a national stage, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt worse. How does this rank with other humiliations in a series of games? Here’s a short list (I’m keeping this in a human perspective and not including devastating injuries and illnesses to players) of crushing team debacles on the field: Losing the last two games of the season to the Red Sox in 1967 (mitigated somewhat by being part of the greatest pennant race in history and that Carl Yastrzemski was superhuman that year). The late season collapse in 1984 (mitigate…

Does a season like this help or hurt the Twins fan appeal? I am convinced that it actually hurts our base of support and the Twins would do well to heed this warning. If the Twins do not make a splash in getting an ace in the years ahead to put an end to this playoff ineptness I really do believe that they will be in danger of losing fans. I am convinced that this playoff record is worse than if we had not even made the playoffs. I get the sense that the front office would do well to be squirming in their seats right about now. But what is worrisome is that they may not be. They need to be. What do you guys think?

With Buxton out why did they swap everyone around in a sense? Rosario played left field basically all year and Kepler played right most of the time. You would think you would be playing guys where they were comfortable all season. I know it doesn't matter much when the bats seem to have gone ice cold anyways. Just bugged me and felt like I needed a mini rant to feel better.

Thank you to all the great people who spent time here this season! At times you all were more exciting than the Twinks with the endless comments. I hope you will all be back next year because if I have to suffer, you do too! (Just kidding, that's just the playoffs). Stay funny, feed the Squirrel, and lets toast to well, the Astros? Seeyabye

I've updated my top 300 list of Twins all time through the 2019 regular season. Hopefully there will be some postseason heroics/accolades to add to the resume of the 2019 Twins, but for now this is where I have them sitting. Let me know what you think. Who's overated, who's underated? https://wgom.org/2019/10/03/minnesota-twins-top-300-twins-of-all-time-one-mans-opinion-through-2019-season/

The plan going forward is to post data reports every Sunday so everyone can see the machinery working. I think transparency, the sharing of the information, helps everyone feel a part of it, understand it and I believe it can help everyone see that there is at least an attempt of a method in play. I realize it isn't Sunday yet but I thought I would post some participation stats on the first game thread of the operation so everyone can see why the participation poll is in place. Keep in mind that we don't have enough data to draw any conclusions and we won't for awhile but we will keep tracking and are hopeful, that over time, certain truisms, patterns will reveal t…

Sean Bergman > Joe Mays

It's going to be a long four days before Game 1 so I was thinking about the 2020 payroll situation. Specifically, how much money we will have to spend on the barren pitching rotation. I'm assuming Perez's option isn't picked up, non-tender for Dyson and initially I'm assuming Cron is non-tendered (although I could see him getting offered arbitration). I'm assuming all others are tendered and Cruz's option is picked up. I'm rounding the Pre-Arb guys down to 500k for easy math and I'm making WILD guesses on arbitration numbers. Seriously. I might be way off, I didn't want to dig into all that research. Please correct me if you have better speculation than my wild guesse…

Personally, I'd prefer to face the... I hate to say it... Yankees... Yes, I know they're unbeatable. But they're not. They're basically the Twins. They have mashers, a **** rotation, and a great bullpen. Sign me up. I'd much rather face them than the Astros, who are... basically perfect. Let another team potentially beat the Astros in a five game set and let the Twins face off against those extremely flawed bastards in New York. May the first team to 15 homers in a single series win.

I looked for a thread on this after seeing a twitter post showing the team boarding their flight to New York. I believe I saw Graterol, but does anyone have a hunch on whether Arraez, Kepler, and Gonzalez are ready? Any insiders know who is going to be on the mound game one?

http://www.startribune.com/best-of-the-bombas-raking-the-twins-top-10-home-runs-of-2019/561907511/ I very much enjoyed this recap of the Top 10 Bombas of the regular season. I'm a bit surprised Adrianza's solo shot off Verlander didn't make the cut, but I'm not sure which homer I'd take off the list. What a ride it's been.

http://www.startribune.com/the-latin-influence-twins-clubhouse-can-be-a-rollicking-place-and-that-s-just-the-way-the-team-wants-it/561926622/ I really liked this one. Talks about how Rocco has allowed a different vibe in the clubhouse ("Baldelli started spring training with a relaxed, rest-and-recovery atmosphere, but stressed that his players should always be professional — but be themselves") and how the many Twins from Latin America have flourished in this better environment.

I see some games are listed as “FS1 or MLBN”. Does anyone know what this means? Will the game broadcast on both channels or what? I get FS1 but not MLBN.

How many games will the Twins win this season? Please vote in the poll and feel free to post your analysis below. I am predicting 86 wins, based on Buxton having his best season yet, Sano contributing, more overall power (Cruz and Cron) and a somewhat better pitching staff than last year.

Arraez finished his regular season hitting .334 in 366 Plate Appearances. He turned 22 in April. The entire list of players since 1961 who hit for as high an average over as many plate appearances in their age 22 season (defined by Baseball-reference as still being 22 on June 30): Alex Rodriguez 1996 Vada Pinson 1961 That's it. Continuing the list back to 1901 (formation of AL) -- fun to look at. [And I had forgotten Williams was only in his age 22 season in 1941 when he hit .406. Al Kaline 1955 Stan Musial 1943 Pete Reiser 1941 Ted Williams 1941 Ted Williams 1940 Charlie Keller 1939 Joe DiMaggio 1937 Roy Weatherly 1936 Jimmie Foxx 1930 Mel Ott 1930 Jimmie …