1 hour ago, roger said:

Excellent comment, Riverbrian.

My hope is that the Twins know something we don't.  And that is the status of AK's recovery.  No one will know until spring training, but his bat could go a long way to offsetting Arraez' bat.  And he would be a noticeable improvement defensively.  They have lots of others who could have a better 2023, but AK may be the most important when looking for someone to offset the loss of Luis.

Agreed. However, that's a lot to place on the shoulders of someone with 359 career AB's and a career .694 OPS. 

Kirilloff was important with Arraez on the roster. He becomes importanter with Arraez off the roster. 😀

 

 

On 1/21/2023 at 10:48 PM, MTV said:

For this team this looks like the trajectory for the future. I don’t think any of the arms in the Twin’s system are necessarily bad arms, but none of them look the part of a budding Ace. Ryan and Ober are about to be very good #2/#3 type arms, while Varland, SWR, Winder, Balazovic and Festa all look the part of solid 3-5s. I’ll give props to Prielipp, Raya and Canterino as they look like the most likely to turn into Aces of the bunch, but still haven’t necessarily reached that peak yet. With how this team has developed a very strong number of strong bats over the years trading them off for the premium Aces of the league seems like the go-to. I hope they can throw $20-$30m at an Ace soon, hopefully next off-season (I would LOVE for Nola or Urias to sign in MN) but with how payroll checks out that doesn’t seem like a reality yet, therefore trading these pieces looks like the only option. 

Keep an eye on Prielipp as you mentioned. I think he's the Twins' best chance in the system to blossom into an ace!

23 hours ago, roger said:

But I still will ask who the heck is going to get on base?  Who is going to work the pitcher to a 10+ pitch at bat.  Who will give me the joy I had every time Luis came to bat.  I guess the good news is that in 2023 the Twins will play the Marlins a couple games and I will get to watch my favorite Twin in action.

This answer may not be a popular one, but before Gallo was traded to the Yankees just a little over a year ago, he was among the best OBP players in the MLB. On top of that, he actually averages more pitches per AB than Luis Arraez. There's a lot of hope for a ton of positive regression from Gallo, which is why he is one of my favorite moves of the off-season thus far.

I’m done.

This sucks.

Every offseason, they dump the player I care most about. Every single offseason. 
 

I find another. I buy back in. They do it again.

being a Twins fan is not fun anymore. I give up.