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After consecutive seasons of anticipation and ultimate disappointment, Twins fans find themselves in a position of uncertainty. What direction does S.S. Falvine appear to be heading? What changes await in this direction? Will the vessel come upon a World Series title in its journey? Or will it forever circulate the triangle of mediocrity?
These questions haunted Twins fans throughout the land in the early winter. Uncertainty surrounding the return of star shortstop Carlos Correa raised late
Listen to the Mar. 5 Minnesota Foul Play-by-play podcast here. We start talking Twins at 11:40.
Spring Twinkies Look Mostly Good, a Little Damaged, Pagan Ugly, but Never Expired
The Good
Joey Gallo was 3-for-3 on Sunday (with a long ball). He’s hitting line-drives.
Max Kepler has also been hitting line-drives, and depth piece Elliot Soto has been on fire.
Correa looks like Correa (he had a nice line-drive to ri
When the Minnesota Twins signed Korean slugger Byung-Ho Park, fans believed he was the next "big thing" and that he was the player they needed to compete. But what happened to Byung-Ho Park?
Park was a huge superstar in the Korean Baseball Organization with the Nexen Heroes. In five seasons with the Heroes, Park led the KBO in home runs five times, RBIs four times, slugging percentage twice, a 2X MVP of the KBO, and was a five-time Gold Glove winner. In the KBO, Park had two consecutive se
In looking at the 2023 schedule a bit closer, the Twins schedule in April may be the most important month of the year. Not only, as it is every year, will it be important to get off to a good start, the schedule has some tough matchups, and, what should be, very winnable series as well.
Here is a breakdown of the first month of the season:
3 @ Kansas City Royals
3 @ Miami Marlins
3 vs Houston Astros
3 vs Chicago White Sox
4 @ New York Yankees
3 @ Boston Red S
The Gophers are back playing baseball in Minnesota today. The first pitch is at 6 PM on B1G+, and for those of you looking to take in a baseball game in person, they will be at Zigi's house, US Bank stadium.
The mid-week tilt will be against UW Milwaukee, who comes to town with a 4-2 record. The Panthers are paced offensively by Luke Seidel, who is 6-6 on stolen bases in as many games. He also boasts a .824 OPS as he holds down left field and the leadoff spot for UW Milwaukee.
Kyle Farmer is a starting quality MLB SS will fill a bench role for the Twins this year. While he is valuable in that role, his biggest value might have just come in - as a trade chip to the Dodgers to replace Gavin Lux at SS after Lux tore his ACL yesterday. The Dodgers other option is 34-year-old Miguel Rojas who they acquired from the Marlins before spring training. You have to think the Dodgers are looking for a starting caliber SS that's locked into a reserve role on another team, particul
This is one person's view concerning the possible upcoming free agency of Shohei Ohtani.
There have been many predictions that Ohtani may be the first $500M player. The reaction of most people is that a price tag like that eliminates the Twins. But, does it?
If Ohtani becomes a free agent, I think the Twins should make a quick offer of 8 years at a total of $480M (an AVV of $60M). WTF? you say? Why not? You get a genuine "ace" and a top tier outfielder wrapped up in a single perso
I spent the last three days over at Lee County Sport Complex wandering, watching, taking in my fill. While I don’t have many specifics to add, I thought I’d just do one big photo and video dump. I tried to get variety and as many different players that I could. These were all taken on my phone, and yeah, I’m not a photographer or videographer, which will become obvious. And I don’t apologize for it one iota. I tried to label what I could and what I remembered. 🙂
Field adjacent to the stadiu
As you have likely seen at this point, the Twins signed Infielder Donovan Solano to a 1 year, $2 million dollar deal. When you first look at this deal, you may have thought that Solano is a similar role to Kyle Farmer and seems to be redundant. While there may be some overlap, I think there are a few reasons where both guys still get a good amount of at bats this year, especially against lefties.
So let's compare Solano to a few other guys that I saw many people mention as targets for the
There haven't been any exhibition games played yet, but all teams are in Spring Training and there aren't a bunch of free agents left to be signed. The Twins hope to bounce back from consecutive injury-scarred disappointing seasons and make the postseason. Here is my prediction for the 26-man roster that will play Opening Day in Kansas City on March 30th:
Starting pitchers (5): Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Tyler Mahle, Kenta Maeda. All five acquired by trade from other organizations.
The storied University of Minnesota baseball program is the only sports topic nearer and dearer to my heart than Twins baseball. I’m a Gopher baseball alum from 2015-2018 and had the honor of playing for John Anderson, Rob Fornasiere, Todd Oakes, Pat Casey, and Ty McDevitt.
There was some turnover with our pitching coach during my time. If you want a feel for why this program is important, check out some of TO’s story, “Hearts, Guts, Balls.” He was one of the best human beings I have come
The Twins will need all of their starting pitching depth, and then some more than likely. Even the healthiest teams use 6-7 starters over the course of a full season. Factoring in recent injury woes for Twins pitchers and one thinks the Twins will use 6-7 starters easily this year. But lets assume the Twins keep a 5 man rotation. With the Twins most likely using 6-7, there will still be 4-5 "Primary starters". and 2-3 that will either be short term starters, sporadic starters, or spot starte
The Angels signed Matt Moore to a 1 year, 7.55m deal for 2023. No options in the deal. Would you pay him that? I would not given our other options.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/02/angels-nearing-deal-with-matt-moore.html
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To celebrate the return of baseball, FOCO is releasing a Spring Training Bobblehead Collection that features commemorative team bobbleheads, mascots, and some of the game’s best players from the Grapefruit and Cactus Spring training leagues.
The commemorative play
Although the Twins are really hurting for viable future catching yet it seems like Ricardo Olivar is totally off the Twins radar. In '22, Olivar was named the MVP of the FCL, FCL post season All-Star catcher and FCL player of the month in July. Although he's listed at catcher, where he played the most of his games, he still played a lot of games at CF and some at 2B and cOFs. He's also good defensively w/ above average arm.
Season
Team
Deciding the "Mount Rushmore" of any sports franchise can be hard to do. Most franchises have many great players who are deserving. Here are the four who make up my Minnesota Twins Mount Rushmore.
Harmon Killebrew
Killebrew played for the Twins from 1954-1974. He was a 13-time All-Star, won the American League MVP award in 1969, and finished his career with 573 home runs. He currently sits at 12th in all-time home runs. With the Twins, Killebrew hit .256/.376/.509 with 559 home runs,
The end is in sight. While I'll have one eye on Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeye team's amazingness the next six weeks (hopefully), it's great to see Spring Training starting this week. Much speculation has been made about the roster, so I'll add my read on how I see things shaking out. Here goes:
Offensively, I see the Opening Day roster as:
Group A: C - Jeffers, Vazquez
Group B: 2B/SS/3B - Polanco, Correa, Miranda, Farmer, Gordon
Group C: 1B/LF/RF/DH - Kirilloff, Ga
I would bet most of you had a similar thought to me when you saw the Twins signed Joey Gallo to a 1 year, $11 million deal for 2023... That thought being "Max Kepler must be getting traded." While that hasn't materialized, a few other moves have that have led to the Twins holding onto Kepler as their starting Right Fielder, as of now.
Max Kepler is still a productive player, and projects to have a solid enough year this year as well. ZiPs projects Kepler to have a slash line of .231/.320/.
The Nelson Cruz for Joe Ryan trade should benefit the Twins for many years to come. This trade will give the Twins a quality pitcher for years, while only having to give up a 40-year-old Cruz whose career is on the decline. In return, the Twins acquired a player whose career is just getting started and will help the Twins compete for years to come.
Twins fans were sad to see fan-favorite, Nelson Cruz, get traded to Tampa Bay at the 2021 trade deadline. Cruz was a part of the 2019 Bomba Squa
What can we expect the Twins first base situation to look like this year? Right now the Minnesota Twins have two first basemen on the depth chart. Those two players are Alex Kirilloff and Jose Miranda. On opening day we can expect to see Kirilloff at first but with his health always being a concern, the Twins should be looking into alternative options for this upcoming season. I believe that there will be some in-house choices and a free-agency option for the Twins.
In-house options
In late December, as the cold wind howled and the Twins 2023 schedule seemed like a breath of warm air, hope sprung eternal. I made an excel spreadsheet, calculated mileage, ordered books written by crazy people who had attended all 162 games of a season, or visited all 30 stadiums in a year, and I began to count the costs of a dream trip to be in person for all 81 Twins road games in 2023.
February now is upon us, and most of reality has entered the picture again. The airline situation has
Much of this off-season has been frustrating for Twins fans. Once again, the Twins failed to pick up a bona fide ace to front the rotation. They did however pull off a major coup by re-signing Carlos Correa for a contract valued will below what many predicted he would get going into the off-season. They also solidified the depth in the rotation by trading fan-favorite Luis Arraez for Pablo Lopez. As we approach Spring Training, where do the Twins stand?
Let us take a look at predicting the
The Minnesota Twins in 2022 saw a lot of inconsistency in the pitching staff. First, pitching coach, Wes Johnson, left half-way through the season, then injuries started to expose the depth of the system. Now in 2023, the Twins have Mahle and Maeda back in the rotation, they added Pablo Lopez to the staff, and people like Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober have much more experience. The bullpen also looks promising with the return of Alcalà and the breakout of Duran and Jax last season. If this staff can
Jose Rodriguez was the Twins Daily short-season minor-league hitter of the year. He is at the Dominican facilities for spring training now but will likely join Extended Spring Training in Fort Myers.
I really hold back what I would like to say about then payroll arguments here. The fact that people don't accept the amount taken in dictates the amount going out requires one of two things. Extreme financial ignorance or fanatical bias that prevents the acceptance of something some basic. I did not change the argument. It's the same idiocy over and over. Do you really want to be on the side that suggests revenues does not determine spending capacity?