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13/8 = 1.62 162/1.62 = 1 error every 100 games 22/3 = 7.33 162/7.33 = 1 error every 22 games While you wait 22 games for that Wallner error to occur. Max Kepler is hitting .227 while slugging .348 Jake Cave is starting in CF Kyle Garlick hasn't been allowed to hit righthanders for 4 years Gilberto Celestino... during a pennant chase... can't remember how many outs there are despite being one of the rare baserunners that the team produced during an awful offensive stretch... not to mention Celestino somehow has a lower OPS than Kepler, which is hard to do. Wallner is 24.7 years old. Wallner will need to be added to the 40 man in December The law firm of Hamilton, Hamilton and Palacios are on the 26 man roster and none of them are playing during a time when we are desperate for ANYONE to PLAY DECENTLY. Obviously we have 26 man space plus 40 man space. AND... AND... It is important to note that they were just swept by a team featuring 7 rookie hitters out of 14 hitters on the roster. In conclusion... Defense better not be the reason.

Apparently you weren’t at the game today like I was, watching an outfield of Cave/Celestino/Garlick. The Twins had to field that group because injuries have sidelined Buxton, Kepler, Kiriloff, Larnach, and Contreras. All higher options on the depth chart than the players that were actually playing. The infield is missing Polanco, Sano, Lewis and Jeffers. That’s without even mentioning the many pitching injuries that have gutted the starting and relief corps. The team is broken. They are cooked. They are severely injured. I feel it’s disingenuous to claim otherwise.

Friday and Saturday look like the defining moments of the season for me. The two free agent starters the FO selected both came up small when the situation was big. Bundy allowed 4 runs in the first inning. Archer made it through 2 innings before succumbing to injury, after five months of light duty for a starter. I don't question the two pitchers themselves, who I have no doubt worked hard and performed to the best of their abilities and who might have contributed to a championship caliber team in some different role. The Front Office's judgment, however, I do question.

death spiral is about right.

Lee will finish the year at a universal top 30 prospect. He's already a unanimous top 50. As far as Lee's ceiling, that remains open, but right now, I think Lee could have perennial All Star talent. Maybe who the Twins hoped Austin Martin would become.

I really really hope the Twins, from top down, critically examine their entire medical protocol. It's ridiculous, the amount of injury and time missed despite fewer and fewer demands on players. Playing every day used to be the expectation, and if a players level of play warranted it, pretty much standard practice. Whatever they're doing, it ain't working. I'd suggest trying what used to work. Starting in the minors, you play every day, unless you're on the IL. Starting pitchers take every rotation turn with the expectation of going at least 7. More if things are going well. Analytics aren't worth **** if you're not willing to admit they show a need for change.

Almost all the talent is on the injured list.

Maybe, as the son of a coach, he will already know how to bunt and hit to all fields, skills that the Twins seem unable or unwilling to develop in their prospects.

David Festa has thrown 103.2 innings in his first year. Travis Adams is at 100.2. Povich had thrown 78.2 before he was traded which was a 103 inning pace. Pierson Ohl only has 91.2 so I guess he's trailing everyone by a lot. I assume the exclamation point on Petty's innings is just excitement that he's doing what a number of other Twins 2021 pitcher draft picks are doing. And Festa has a 2.43 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and 108/34 K/BB ratio as a 13th round pick. Petty being younger does give him an edge, but turning Petty into 2 years of Gray and still developing a pitcher with those kinds of numbers is a pretty big win for the FO I'd think. Steer would've been a nice fill in for Polanco going down, but Mahle being in the rotation would've been nicer. That injury makes that deal less appealing for sure. Strand will be interesting to follow. He's likely a DH in the majors so he's going to have to maintain those numbers as he moves up to have value. But I'll take Miranda and Lee over those 2. Steer is older than Miranda, and Strand is older than Lee. If the Twins are willing to let Lee advance quickly, if he earns it, I'd much rather have Miranda, Lee, and Mahle over Steer and Strand in an already crowded infield.

Serious baseball fans want to see fundamentally strong teams play exciting baseball. Wins are always appreciated and the goal, naturally. Powerful lineups and power pitching brings in interest, for sure. The Twins had some exciting athletic players, power, and some pitching holes in 2017. When Manfredball provided a ball that a utility infielder could crank out of any stadium, the Twins went bonkers. The entire AL Central went into various forms of rebuilds except the Twins with the results of 2019 and 2020. It was good to win the division. Along the way, the Twins have abandoned fundamental baseball and no I don't think it was part of the plan. Clearly, however, the emphasis on fundamentals was absent. The 2021 and 2022 Twins are about as poor at running the bases as any team. The team eschews all opportunities at bunting when they have a host of players who should be more than competent at that skill, due to their deficiencies at hitting for power or average. Moving runners is not done. The Oakland A's attributed their run of 3 titles to never missing the cutoff man or failing to back up all plays in the field, giving their talented players a chance in every game. The Twins fail at fundamentals at a ridiculous rate. I cannot believe that Rocco accepts this blandly, but there must be some reason that so many simple mistakes are made. The early September sweep at Target Field at the hands of the Cleveland squad portrayed two opposing baseball philosophies. The young rookie roster completely dominated the Twins. How will the Twins match Cleveland as their players gain experience and add from their top shelf farm system? I would suggest that 2022 was the year that the Twins were all in and that this November there would be some serious evaluations taking place in a conference room. The Twins are in a pennant race and drawing less than 20,000 fans in perfect weather. The Pohlad family may see clouds on the horizon. Or maybe, they wait for this to pass. I have no idea what should be done with Rocco or his bosses but I'm desperately hoping to see some fundamental baseball return to the Twins franchise.

Laweryson has been the best SP in the system the last 5-6 weeks. His AA stats are straight up ace material! Anyone have any info on what his repertoire is?

Choosing lesser players will consistently kill your team. I don't know if Wallner is a better player but you have to find out because based on actual performance with the chips down, the players in front shouldn't be in front of anyone. Louie Varland pitched very very well in his debut. He should be making his next start tomorrow night or Wednesday night at the latest. He won't because we have committed to multiple pitchers with ERA's over 4 (by quite some distance) instead.

Now that we know that. You are officially to blame. You had the chance to talk him off the ledge and you failed!!! ?

Outs are bad. A productive out is better than a non-productive out. But both are bad. Teams no longer find it useful to freely give up an out to advance a base runner 1 base (especially from 1st to 2nd) when it doesn't actually increase your chance of scoring. You may not like it, but that's the new reality of the league and it's not going to ever get back to the point where offenses are willing to give up their most valuable asset for anything outside of an actual run scored. It was a recurring dream for 100 years that pitchers didn't throw splitters either. Do you want Duran or Maeda to quit throwing their splitters because nobody threw one for 100 years? We've gotten smarter and adjusted how we play the game because of it. Sacrifice bunts are bad baseball outside of a couple very specific situations. For 100 years it was also every team's dream to have a SS who could field, but not hit. Same with 2nd basemen. No 2B are expected to be legit bats and a SS better be able to hit and field. You can ponder whatever you want, but the provable fact is that bunting is bad strategy. I'm sorry if you don't like that change in the game, but it's one you're going to have to accept. (Now bunting for a hit against the shift is a different story, but with the shift ban next year it's probably a less useful tool)

Agree that Jullien deserves it more but they are probably keeping AA's best hitter for the playoffs at AA since the Saints are not in the running for the playoffs. Jullien will start at AAA next year and will be a phone call away from the MLB team so a few missed AAA chances won't change anything. As for Lee same thing. The Kernals need bats for the playoffs and Lee will be set to start AA next year and if he performs well they might want to make room on the 40 man for him but odds are they don't do that until 2024 but we'll see. If he truly is special he has a shot to make it next year but no reason to rush him anywhere right now IMO.

For what it's worth the Twins pull the ball 39.3% of the time vs 38% league average. Go to center 35.5% vs 37% league average. And go oppo 25.2% vs 25.1% league average. Arraez, Gordon, Miranda, Larnach, Kirilloff, and Celestino all have quite nicely dispersed spray charts. So I guess the Twins are able and willing to develop that particular skill in at least some of their prospects. And nobody bunts anymore. You're going to have to give up on that dream. There are very few situations where bunting makes sense.

Replacing Zimmer with O'Connell seems to have mattered greatly. Replacing Spielman with Adofo-Mensah seems to have mattered greatly. We've gotten so far away from classic Twins baseball. Where are the piranha's? Love the way the Guardians play/ love Francona and the way he manages. Don't love this Twins team. Don't love Rocco. This Front office totally mis-managed the pitching staff in '22. Firing Rocco, but keeping this front office would be a mistake. Keep them both or fire them both in my opinion.

At this point I will take Wallner's bat - reports have his defense improving, no reports have Keplers ABs improving.

I think the bigger point here is multi-parts. 1.) The Twins have a dozen players on a 26 (now 28) man roster that would normally not be. 2.) The White Sox have had guys missing too, and so have Cleveland, but not this quantity, and not always at the same time. 3.) Maybe even more important, it would be really great to be getting guys like Jeffers, Kirilloff, Larnach and Lewis more development time in the big leagues, and playing in a pennant race. That's important short and long term. 4.) There's just never enough pitching to overcome 5+ starters missing so much time. 5.) This doesn't even account for the amount of time that guys like Buxton, Polanco, Kepler and others played when they maybe should have been on the IL. 6.) As mentioned by someone above, this was a team predicted to finish around .500 with health. I think it's impressive they're still at .500 right now.

Looking ahead to ‘24, could our core starting four infielders be Miranda, Lewis, Lee and Arraez? If so, who plays what position? Let’s assume Lewis is at SS. Could Lee play 2B with Miranda at 3B and Arraez at 1B? Or is Lee at 3B, Arraez at 2B, and Miranda at 1B. Regardless, that’s a strong (and pretty cheap) starting core infield. (Just for kicks, Larnach, Buxton and Kiriloff in the outfield. Jeffers at C. Gordon, Wallner, Isola and maybe Martin as core backups. Not too shabby. Lots of money left over for FA pitching and whatever hole we need to fill, i.e. catcher, etc.).

He's probably #1 Twins prospect, and should start 2023 in Wichita, then move to St Paul in a month if he does well. Put him at 3B, spend the winter teaching Miranda how to field 1B, bring in a stopgap SS to make way for Lewis next year. By 2024 infield is Miranda/Arraez platoon 1B/DH, unknown 2B, Lewis SS, Lee 3B, Gordon utility. Or move Gordon to 2B and sign a utility guy. Cant imagine they will pay Polanco 10M in 2024, trade or buyout next year with him.

When I was much younger, I watched my Brewers draft a young high school shortstop who was with the team the next year. That was the beginning of Robin Yount’s Hall of Fame career. Someday some team will draft a young man who will be the next Yount. Yes, Lee isn’t an 18 year old pick. But why can’t it be the Twins who get this special player? And why can’t he be Brooks Lee?

This is a great point. Attendance numbers are unlikely to get any better next year as well. If anything is going to cause urgency with the Pohlads, it’s losing money.

If the team had performed this way with a relatively healthy roster, then maybe Baldelli would be on the hot seat. That is not the reality. The Twins current problems began in the brief, frenzied beginning of free agency when they did nothing except sign Bundy. Then they spend organizational capital to trade for guys on team friendly deals. Look at every pitcher they have traded for. Starting with Maeda and his ridiculously team friendly deal. You could even go back to Odorizzi. Look at his contract. They won't even sign middle of the road guys on 3-30 deals. I would like at least some retail spending. They were lucky this year that fluky deal for Correa fell into their lap because they were blindsided by the early FA period and by rights should have been left with a 110m payroll, a roster full of holes and people wondering why they didn't spend to their middle of the pack revenue ranking.

The culmination of a pretty decent team being led by an uninspiring dugout and data person. The individual should not be allowed to wear that Twins hoodie next year or be allowed to enter the grounds. Injuries, bad pitching and horrific field leadership have led us to this. Hopefully change will happen just as the leaves will fall before winter. Go Twins! Twins Geezer.... out!

Fan is short for fanatic. As irrational as it seems, I tend to maintain hope until the team is mathematically eliminated. But the more realistic side of me quoted you for a reason. Sadly, I know you are right. The Twins just don't have the horses to compete.

Good luck Kernels and Mighty Mussels in the playoffs!

The Twins have played 139 games and have gotten gotten 95 starts from Ryan, Gray, Bundy and Archer. If you add the 5 from Paddack and 7 from Ober before they got injured that is 107, meaning they had to cover 32 games, Smelzter covered 12 of them and Mahle 3, So we are really talking about 17 games and that is too much to over come? To me that say more about this front office than anything else or the lack of people that cover the Twins actually looking at the data. But that is just me getting sick of excuses.

The injured roster isn't going to win any games because they cannot make it on to the field. The team has performed admirably at times. I think I predicted 79-85 wins just before the season began. When a team fails to plan thoroughly in the offseason there are consequences. My main concern in the last 3-4 years with the Twins (including when they win) is the number of mental errors. The number of mistakes due to a lack of fundamentals is actually pretty glaring: throwing to the wrong base; not backing up every play; missing the cutoff or failing to have a cutoff; not reading wild pitches to advance; failing to advance a runner; getting doubled off on clear line drive outs; failing to score from second base with two outs on a single to the outfield; and more. Physical errors will happen as will the occasional mental mishap, but the shear number of fundamental problems are something that can and should be reduced through an emphasis on playing basic baseball.

As this roster was being constructed starting last November, half the names on the list given were known injury risks (or in the case of Maeda were already shelved for at least the first part of the season). The Front Office is getting no sympathy from me, not even patience, if they are moaning "oh, the injury bug!" Some injuries to unexpected players are an inevitable part of baseball, but this roster was constructed to court injury.

I'm just asking for a clarification. If they are drafted by the Terry Ryan regime... Are they Terry Ryan's players? Kirilloff for example was drafted by the Terry Ryan regime but spent the majority of his development time under Falvey. Who gets Kirilloff credit?

It's exciting, but also a little frustrating, to see the Twins turn Ober and Varland types into major league pitchers after being late round picks. Just need them to hit on some of these higher round picks and get some #1 pitchers out of things! Laweryson looks like he could at least snag a pen role in the bigs at some point, and even that would be a very nice development for him. I hope he continues to develop and we see him in Minneapolis next year sometime!

I think the Twins are fairly high on him or they wouldn't have sent him to the AFL last year. I was a little surprised to see him move back into the rotation after being used as a reliever at the AFL and in high A, but you can't really argue with the results. I would have expected him to dominate in high-A at 23, especially after the experience in the AFL, but he hasn't slowed down at all in AA. Maybe he'll just be AAA depth next season, but sometimes guys rise above their projections, and with his earlier experience in the bullpen, he's certainly a guy who could get flipped back there if he starts to struggle in AAA/MLB. But it's hard to say that he doens't have a shot to start in MLB after what he's been doing. Great way to close the season for Laweryson. (there's something a little extra fun about late-round picks rising up, isn't there?)

Ah, yes, we are so much smarter now. And everything we did then is out of date, and who would ever think about "old school" baseball? Would I want pitchers to stop throwing pitches that clearly are blowing their arms out? Let me see............YES! Would I rather have pitchers throwing 240, 260, or, just maybe, 300 innings a year, vs. 140, 160, or, just maybe, 200 innings? Let me see.......YES! And I would rather have guys moving runners along, meaning into scoring position, if the situation calls for it. And, yes, the situation doesn't always call for it. But waiting for hits, or home runs, has gotten us where? Scoring 3 runs or less 45 plus percent of the time. That is a statistical fact. Maybe a little small ball would be appropriate now and then, new reality or not. And defense in your infield..........wow, what a concept. Might just be that it is worth at least a little bit. Teams still look for it. Please don't take all of this as an insult. ,or a pure assessment that you, or anyone who thinks alike, is totally wrong. It is just an assessment that "old school" is not totally wrong either. A mixture of both just might be the mix we need to get more out of the roster we have.

Fine, you can take Macphail and Kelly and label them as smart baseball guys because of their rings. But Terry Ryan and Gardy did nothing demonstrably more successful than the current regime has. "Should have gone all the way in '02?" Based on what? You liked the team? Twins should've gone all the way in 2019 then! Reality is that '02 team won 1 series before getting destroyed 4 games to 1 by the Angels. I just think Ryan and Gardy get a lot of love for not actually accomplishing anything. They won 1 playoff series. You're mad Falvine hasn't won in 6 years while praising Ryan for 1 series win in 18 seasons. The Twins were awful from 94 to 2001 when he took over. Just trying to provide a little perspective. If Falvey should be fired for his first 6 seasons I can't imagine how upset you were (or would have been, I don't know how old you are so don't know your level of investment in the 90s) when Ryan's teams didn't crack .500 until his 8th season. They then won 1 series the next season before following it with 2 more playoff game wins total in his next 11 seasons. Terry Ryan oversaw 6 total playoff game wins. 6. Don't get why his "success" is something we should be aiming for. I mean if you're going to rag on them for Maeda being on the IL at least acknowledge him being the runner up for the Cy Young in 1 of his seasons after they traded for him. They also traded for Sonny Gray and his 3.09 ERA this year. Also traded for Joe Ryan. Also brought in, and developed, Jhoan Duran. Seems to be a success for them there. Developed Miranda. Ober/Winder/Jax developed. Louie Varland. Drafted and developed Jeffers. Arraez seems to have developed alright. Lewis sure looked nice when he was healthy. Seem to have gotten Gordon figured out and developed. Kirilloff and Larnach seem to have developed nicely when they're healthy. They certainly need to upgrade whatever processes they have for health/strength and conditioning/whatever keeps dudes off the IL. Totally failing there. I agree they aren't a very scrappy team, and those scrappy teams are more fun to watch. But those scrappy teams also got crushed in the playoffs. Agree they need to spend on some front line pitching. Although, they did spend some prospect capital for Gray and Mahle. But would like to see a big FA signing for the rotation.

Just gotta keep him healthy. WAY TOO MANY great prospects in Twins history have looked great until something happens..... So far looking like a great pick!

In this hypothetical I think I go Lee-Lewis-Arraez-Miranda from left to right. Definitely Lee and Lewis on the left side, though. They have significantly better arms than the other 2 so they're the ones I want making the longer throws. It's fun to dream on what this team can be if those 4 hit their peaks. And you add in that OF trio at their peaks and the offense looks really nice, and cheap! There are some real things to hope on for the future of the Twins. Let's hope they are able to make smart moves to supplement the young guys while getting the young guys to perform to the best of their potentials!

They called up Palacios and sent Beckham to retirement. As a pick to save slot money there isn’t an investment in the future with him so he can have haphazard development. They probably wanted to help Wichita intact and hope for a deep playoff run and thus not pull from them

I think Lee is an extremely exciting prospect. I can’t wait for him to join the Twins offense. If he has nearly the same impact as the Twins hitter of the year last year, Jose Miranda, it will boost the Twins as their offense clearly needs upgrading.

If the President of Baseball Ops, General Manager, Asst GM's, Minor league Director, Analytics staff, major and minor league coaches and all of the players are set up to run a certain way while Rocco is managing a different way. That discrepancy would take care of itself because the front office will replace the person who isn't executing the game plan. Rocco isn't managing a video game by himself. He has part of a team. The analytics staff hired by the front office is producing information... If the manager hired by the front office ignores the information produced. The front office must replace the manager or fire the analytics department because they are obviously not necessary with a manager that is allowed to just ignore them anyway. Yet, we have people on Twinsdaily who like to tell Rocco to put the spreadsheets down while calling for his head. If the front office brings in high speed cameras and monitors and the pitching coaches ignore the cameras and monitors. The coaches will be gone. If the coaches are allowed to ignore the technology... you might as well sell the cameras and monitors and go back to being a caveman. All you have to do is think about it for a couple of seconds and the obviousness should hit you right between the eyes. It seems that many haven't thought about that for a second or two because many still insist that Rocco is the reason for the short starts and is guilty of the crime of looking at a spreadsheet produced specifically for his information.

I don't know for sure but I have to believe part of the reason he has been fast tracked is that he is already 23 and he has handled each level he has been at to this point well, granted in a very SSS. I think if you want a player at that age to have much of any prospect status moving him faster than slower is the way to go. I thought it was an interesting pick when the Twins made it. A true lottery ticket that saved draft money. In college while older he was an On base machine with good slugging to go with it. If it translates it will be interesting to see where he fits. So far AAA has been hard on him but with only 10 at bats hard to say where he is truly at. It is a steep learning curve for him but I like the way the Twins are using him and it looks like he has a good enough of an approach to make it IMO. Next year we will know much more but I hope the Twins hit the lotto on this one.

No reason to know how to do either of those now. They just changed the rules to make it easier for pull-happy hitters.

Sure, there's a difference in the HS vs College guy situation. But the argument around here tends to be people trying to connect minor league inning numbers to the major league team pulling guys early and saying they're developing nothing but 5 inning pitchers and will never let guys go deep. I don't particularly like the 5 inning start situation for the Twins, or baseball in general, but there's way more variables to the minor league numbers than people around here tend to use. For example, Varland was top 15 in all of affiliated minor league baseball in innings pitched before he got his call up. The lack of depth in starts in the minors shouldn't automatically be connected to the major league team pulling guys early. Minor leaguers have never thrown competitive innings for this long of a season. It's more than building up in game arm strength and being able to go 7 innings a start, it's about being able to make starts from April through October. You can go around and look at the Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer types minor league inning totals, and they weren't down there throwing 200 innings a season either. It's a false connection people try to make. Even though I understand the tendency to do it based on the current major league pitcher usage.

Rocco is to blame in the sense that he seems to agree with this pitching philosophy. But I don't know why we'd think firing him would lead to someone who doesn't agree with that philosophy taking over. So I don't think the short answer is yes in the sense that replacing him fixes the problem. The short answer is actually probably no. The FO is to blame.

It is wonderful that we have finally achieved optimality across the entire MLB universe!

Great to see a young pitcher moving up the ranks - can we continue his development? He went 7 innings - is that allowed?

This article twice characterized Wnder looking good today. I disagree. He was getting hit hard and managed to take advantage of some nice breaks. Glad he got through it, but I don’t think many of us there today felt confident with the frequent hard contact he was allowing.

I am intrigued at the scenario presented whereby the Twins could be tied for first by next Monday. I also can't think of any way that is remotely possible. I don't see how Twins can sweep the Royals, as bad as they are, Twins are equally as bad. Angels are awful so how could they win a series against the Guards? Detroit is also awful so taking 2 of 3 from Chisox seems unrealistic. And of course Twins winning 4 of 5 from Cleveland is a pipe dream right now, unless something seismic happens to the Twins lineup and pitching. But--it did demonstrate the math that says it isn't over until Yogi says its over. Twins won one game last week. Thats hardly a 'playoff push'. Rather its a demo of a team that has run out of fuel. Wish it weren't so.

I think this is an interesting exercise, but it ignores all the cause and effect. If Maeda wasn't injured, Paddack wouldn't have been acquired. If Paddack wasn't injured, Mahle wouldn't have been acquired, etc. If Sano and Kirilloff weren't injured, where would Arraez be playing? Lewis wasn't about to supplant Correa so where would he be playing? I guess he'd be taking Nick Gordon's role, but then where would Nick Gordon be since Gordon can't be optioned?

Interesting note - if everyone had stayed healthy, Gordon would have been cut (replaced by Lewis) before he got a chance to play almost every day and show what he can do. Also, Miranda - there probably wouldn't have been room for him, he would stayed with the Saints and he may have been dealt at the trade deadline for pitching, again before we knew he could or couldn't handle MLB pitching. Right now, those are 2 of our best 4 hitters.