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I sometimes check out the oppo team's sbn board, just to see how their fans are reacting- and maybe, just maybe, for a little chuckle of schadenfreude. True to form. Of course, just like folks we know (and are), they're kvetching about their recent bullpen acquisitions not paying off, and I got another chortle about one fan's musing that Twins fans must also be cursing their bullpen for giving up the lead. (True dat). But one thing that I appreciate so much about this board- once Arraez got that bloop, F-bombs everywhere, and after the Sano blast, some of them started personally sniping at each other, going so far as to cut and paste weeks-old posts to rub stuff in someone's face. I look at this place as one refuge where fans can bitch and moan and celebrate together-without resorting to personal beefs, and keyboard warriors are not something we have to deal with. (That's what twitter's for). My kudos to the admin's, and to the people on this board itself. I gotta say, these past few days-- my country is grieving and tearing itself apart, and Hong Kong where I live, is literally tearing itself apart. It's incredibly scary here right now; yesterday and last night were some of the worst hours of my life. I needed this couple hours of respite for my very soul today. I'm happy for the Twins win. And I'm happy to share it with folks like you. Thanks.

I knew those cheap bastards wouldn't sign Story!!1!

He couldn't play in the United States either.

It makes absolutely no ****ing sense. I hate this deal so much.

I mean, on one hand Luis Arraez is a limited defensively, questionable knee's, and nil power in a position you need it (assuming he primarily plays 1B and DH). You also acquire a #2-3 rotation player, a top 100 prospect, and a lottery ticket while only giving up the aforementioned Arraez. On the other hand Arraez is a fan favorite and LUIS ARRAEZ. I think in the long run this is a great trade for the Twins, but its gonna hurt for a bit.

Tom, these are amazing. Every day. I used to flip over to MLB.com for the game recap every morning but I now come to my own friggin' site to do it and that's all you. You're the best thing to happen to Twins Daily this season and I hope you realize it. With that said, I have to call you out for not getting "Dubble Bubble" right.

My personal opinion, its a wise, wise move.

Baseball is broken. This is a horrible signing for the future of the league - particularly if the Mets, or any other of the dwindling number of franchises that can compete in this “arms race”, wins the Pennant or WS. This portends even greater loss of interest in professional baseball outside of a few major franchises. For the current and future fans of most of the MLB’s teams, there is very little reason to commit the time and money over years and years to a futile dream. Better just wait to jump on the bandwagon for that one season, if it ever comes, when lightning strikes and the team truly competes. As I have said in many of my posts, I am a “super fan” watching over 150 Twins games each year. Not this year. I have really no interest in prioritising my summer days and nights to watch our current team in this current MLB environment. My love of the game only goes so far. Assuming I reup for the MLB package this season, maybe I’ll tune in more often later in the season when our prospects show up. This is how this super fan feels. It’s not just the CC signing. It’s the direction of MLB and the direction of the Twins within that dynamic. Imagine how the less committed fans will feel over time. For many franchises, the Twins most certainly included, baseball fandom will become primarily a bandwagon phenomenon.

The pitcher should have been ejected. You can't just assault somebody because they hurt your pride. Grow up.

Just curious: Is TD abandoning the written word? I love reports from Spring Training, but I hate listening rather than reading.

Why the vitriol? He isn't doing or saying anything that wasn't expected. He was always going to opt-out. That was clear from Day 1. I thought he phrased it very well. It's actually a really good analogy, very true. Also, why would he get any less than Seager got? He's still young for a free agent, so he should get 10 years (like Seager), but certainly would get at least 8 years. And he'll get $30-35 million per year. At the lowest, he's looking at 8 years and $240 million, and at the highest, it could be 10 years and $325 million. All of that is more than 1 year, $35.1 million. Pretty sure none of us would do any different.

What does it matter if Jorge Polanco gets a second cycle or a sixth hit or if Kyle Gibson pitches a complete game? You have them on your fantasy team? When you have a massive lead, it makes all the sense in the world to get some guys work to stay fresh. Under different circumstances, I'm sure Gibson would have pitched another inning, but this bullpen has hardly been used of late. Kyle doesn't need to be stretched out, I'm sure -- Wait, why am I even discussing this!?!?!? The Twins just got a sweep at Toronto in which they outscored the Blue Jays 20-1. The Twins are 23-12. The Twins have the best record in baseball!!! If managerial decisions at the tail end of a blowout victory are the nitpicking points, then we're in a beautiful situation my friend. Might as well let King Midas push whatever buttons he wants from the dugout.

I'm sorry, but I am SO tired of people claiming that any of us who believe the Twins should make SOME attempt to put a more competitive product on the field are saying they should spend like NY, LA and Boston! The bottom line is that there are multiple ways to add legitimate talent to your roster and, yes, all of those ways entail taking some risk. FAs can bust. But so can first round draft picks and guys you trade for. If the FO is so damn smart, they should be as good at evaluating mid and upper level FAs as they are young players. They shouldn't have to consistently take flyers on dregs and reclamation projects that their magic numbers tell them have the best chance of not sucking. NOBODY expects them to spend like the largest markets, but that doesn't mean it's unreasonable to expect more effort than they're making this year. They're not only looking like they'll be pocketing the entire Joe Mauer contract savings, but millions MORE than that! That is indefensible. Plain and simple.

What was your favorite Anibal Sanchez moment?

Dodged a bullet, though not for lack of trying. Lewis or Lee will be putting up fairly comparable numbers in a few years.

13 years? Lmao baseball is ridiculous. They’ll need to install a hand rail going down the first base line for the last year of his contract

Was at the Miracle game and Jordan Balzovic pitched the best game I have seen for the Miracle. He was simply outstanding for the first 5 innings plus. While he gave up 5 hits, two were infield squibs that barely made it past the pitchers mound and one was a dying duck flare hit the opposite way by a hitter who was just blindly swinging. He only walked one batter and struck out 7. Up until the 6th inning, if they did not strike out, it was one collection of weak hit balls after another. His fastball was very, very impressive. I try to describe a pitchers fastball with a little system I develped that gives the range of speeds. In the first two innings he was 94-94-94-95-96 (meaning the bulk of his fastballs were 94, some 95, touch 96). Note: I think the Hammonds Field radar gun is a bit fast. Third and 4th inning 93-94-94-94-95. Fifth you could tell he was tiring a bit: 93-93-94-94-94 He literally had his first 3 ball at bat in this inning. And in the 6th he was 92-93-93-93-94 He pitched in all of the speed ranges with the mid-90 fastball. With his fastball at 93-96, he also throws a slider in the 87-90 mph range. Then a curve in 82-84 and looks like a change upat 78-80. He threw all of these pitches for strikes and hit almost all of his marks. What was really impressive to me was at least 3 of the 7 strikeouts were looking and almost all of the looking strikeouts were 94-96 mph fastballs he just burned by the batter who looked on helplessly. I was also impressed with how he won every battle. There were a couple of batters that fouled off 2-strike pitch after pitch. The batters were just hanging on as Jordan powered fastball after fastball into the zone and they could not handle it. Finally, he threw a curve and struck them out. While I would like to see his 6 inning endurance hold better, he is 20 years old and at 6-4, only 175 lbs. As he matures he should be able to maintain his fastball velocity later into the game. A couple of more outings like this and I think they need to move him up to AA. I am telling you, this guy is a top 10 prospect and probably the #2 pitching prospect in our system behind Graterol. I have seen Thorpe, Stewart, and several others at Ft Myers, and Balazovic was much more impressive than any of them. Other notes: Lewin Diaz absolutely crushed a home run over the Truly Nolen 2018 FSL Championship banner in center field. The guy is really flashy (he has huge earings in both ears and lots of chain) and holds his hands really low. If he had a more conventional hitting approach he might be a much more solid prospect. Im just not certain you can hold your hands just above your waist and hit higher level pitching. Ryan Jeffers is a good hitter that has some potential to move up the ranks, but he is never going to be a major league catcher. The team should use him there in the minors so he can serve as a backup catcher, but he doesn't have the movement skills. Royce Lewis might be slumping a bit, but he is going to be a solid player. The ball jumps off his bat and he is a really solid leader. He keeps his teammates loose.

Strongly disagree that Celestino is the one on the bubble and Larnach will have to "power his way from St Paul to Minneapolis." Celestino has no role on this team with Taylor here. Larnach is on the roster as of now with Celestino finally getting his much needed time in AAA to work on his game.

I'm not a fan of this FO, but I love this trade, selling high on Arraez for good pitching.

LOVE the "Top Prospect Summary". GREAT addition to the report.

Given how this front office has plucked guys like Odorizzi, Morrison, Reed, and now Lynn this offseason for peanuts, I’d be enraged if I was a fan of one of the other 5-7 fringe contender teams in baseball. It feels really good to be on this end of things for once.

His plate discipline is currently best on the team at age 22. He's 22 so his power is still developing. I don't care what the defensive metrics say. I've watched almost every game... I can't recall any moment where he could be perceived as a defensive liability at any of the positions he has played. I'm buying stock.

Both of these games felt like more than routine mid season games. Fun. It's what being a fan should be.

A helpful reminder...In situations like this, there are no winners or losers, just conclusions. Celebrating or defaming either party is not productive and only looks poor for yourself. With that said, I look forward to hopefully seeing a full season's worth of contributions from Sano.

I don't know if I'd say this "great" news... Or bad news. It's just news. I still feel incredibly itchy and uncomfortable with the whole situation.

I umpired Brooks' games from Youth Ball, into Babe Ruth and through high school. When he went to college, I got behind the plate during Fall Ball. Brooks has an incredible eye and command of the strike zone. In high school he just overpowered the opposing pitcher. In college he became a very disciplined hitter. Can't wait to see what he does next. Twins are now my favorite team...right behind my Giants. In my opinion, you drafted a really good player and a great person.

Why would we assume he merely lost weight. What if he replaced fat with muscle? Couldn't he be leaner and meaner?

I always wonder why teams try to change a hitter's approach when what he has been doing has been working. In this case, it reminds me of Buxton, and all of the attempts the Twins staff made to change his approach at the plate. Finally, he just chucked all the advice except Oliva's--see ball, hit ball--and regained his confidence. I suspect there are many success stories of players who changed their approach and were more successful, but sometimes I wonder if they outnumber those cases where attempted adjustments mess up players. This kid is an on base machine (career .391), like Arraez, and like Arraez, will likely never hit with power. I don't think that is a horrible thing. We need contact hitters as well as the Joey Gallo's of the world. I would vote for letting the kid play his style at St. Paul and see what happens. I think it will be a good result.

Well, cut it out. Leave those guys alone.

Obviously this is very much negative... and from Falvey's quote it doesn't look great. But we don't know the full story. Could be wrong place, wrong time. Could have been trying to help a friend. Could have been anything.

Stunned. Absolutely shocked they're spending this much money. I'm all for it.

I don’t even blame them for not landing Correa… well, not entirely. But it’s one more thing that doesn’t look good for them. I’m tired of trading for injured pitchers. I’m tired of the lack of pitching development. I’m tired of them disliking long contracts more than they like good players. I’m tired of them not getting “their guy” and instead pivoting, pivoting, and pivoting again. I simply don’t see many reasons to keep them around anymore. They’re not exceptional at anything and have significant flaws.

I'm here for the " this front office is bad at their jobs" takes. Despite, you know, actually being good...

If basically the only real downside to a trade is "We had to give up an old player who was unlikely to be on the team next year and he's a really good dude"...then it's a pretty good trade. Look, I love Nelson Cruz as much as anyone, but we got two AAA pitchers that are considered to be good prospects from an organization that has a deep minor league system and a great reputation for developing pitching. The hate levels are low. The like levels are high.

Can the Twins throw Sam Dyson in to sweeten the pot?

I hate to break it to the Twinsdaily faithful. We just acquired a major league talent for the next 4 years for 3 million a year plus incentives. A contract like that isn't going to be cheap to acquire and a contract like that will not hamstring future payroll so we can increase the quality of future adds. It is Maeda plus because the contract allows for a plus. I'll let all those inclined slap some arbitrary number on him... Is he a #2 or #3 or #4. Doesn't matter... He is above average and we got him for 4 years on a contract that allows us to improve other spots on the roster. And... almost just as important... We just cut our starting pitching shopping list for next year by 20%. On paper... we only need to find 2 next year.

Your Dozier hatred continues to amuse me. Jay Bruce: 31 years old, 5806 PA, 20.3 fWAR, 18.9 rWAR past 3 year WAR total: 4.2 rWAR Brian Dozier: 31 years old, 3770 PA, 20.8 fWAR, 22.9 rWAR past 3 year WAR total: 13.4 rWAR Come on, those numbers aren't even close.

The situation kinds of reminds of a joke that I have heard many tell over my lifetime. I'm sure most of you have heard it... it goes like this: A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, "Jump in, I can save you." The stranded fellow shouted back, "No, it's OK, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me." So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. "The fellow in the motorboat shouted, "Jump in, I can save you." To this the stranded man said, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith." So the motorboat went on. Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, "Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety." To this the stranded man again replied, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith." So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, "I had faith in you but you didn't save me, you let me drown. I don't understand why!" To this God replied, "I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter. Substitute "Rowboat", "Motorboat" and "Helicopter" with: "Young Productive Core", "Weak AL Central", "Competitive Luxury Tax", "Rebuilding teams all over the landscape", "Manageable Budget Space", "Future Expiring Contracts" and " An Early Injury to Santana" And it is easy to see that the Baseball Gods want Darvish in Minnesota!!!

They should sign Garcia, and then trade him right before opening day. This will signal to the team that they are throwing in the towel on the season, at which point the players will get angry and prove them wrong. There might also be a life-size cardboard likeness of Falvey involved.

How about a steal, a bunt, or a hit and run to create some runs and excitement instead of waiting for the 5 run homer every night. I also do not think the team is sound fundamentally. These guys have been playing baseball for over 20 years. No excuse for such lack of base running skills and fielding mistakes. Watch the good teams.

I'm surprised about so many of the aspects of this contract. First, that the Twins were able to convince him to accept big MVP bonuses and not plate appearance bonuses, ensuring that performance, not health, will escalate the contract. Second, no opt out or anything, full no-trade clause (good for Buck!). Remember, Buxton *should* be a free agent *right now* but the front office hosed him very intentionally. Byron appears to be a very forgiving man and we should all be thankful for it. This is a very team-friendly contract.

My girlfriend will be happy to know that despite the fact I didn't get her anything for Christmas I actually made several unsuccessful Ebay bids for really nice gifts she would have loved!

Why should this be considered a "brain cramp" by Cave? Should guys be expected to stand up there in a blowout and just leave the bat on their shoulder? Especially for a guy like Cave, who's a young player fighting for more playing time, these guys should be up there battling in every at-bat. It's ridiculous that he feels the need to apologize, and it's even more ridiculous that the pitcher still felt the need to drill Kepler. I also hope the Twins don't let this stupid crap escalate any further; make them pay on the scoreboard. Intentional beanballs are for childish losers.

It's very strange to me that all these Sano takes are coming out now, when the dude has an OPS north of 1.000. When he was signed, you really thought he'd be better than this? Only five guy and a 1.000+ OPS last year. It's a small sample so far and he's striking out a lot, as you mentioned, but it seems to be a really strange time to start questioning his potential. I think everybody has some weird Sota Pop glasses on that are clouding their vision and making them think every hitter in baseball has a .900 OPS this year or something.

Our most glaring weakness is the fans' inability to accept that this team is going to sweep the Dodgers in 4 games and win their 3rd World Series title in October. Aside from that, probably the bullpen.

Here is the pertinent quote from Olney's writeup (behind ESPN paywall) In other words, there is zero evidence that the Twins are looking at either player. There is only speculation that they could maybe even potentially be in, because they maybe could possibly afford to be in. I just don't think it is happening. Disliking it when national writers bring people's hopes up based on speculative guesses, and this seems one of these cases...

I absolutely do not want them to deal Kirilloff and Romero for 2 years of Realmuto, let alone Royce Lewis. The Nationals are in the hunt for a World Series and have every reason to make a move like this but won’t do it. We are not in a position this year and most likely not next year to contend for a WS. High end pitchers like Romero are exactly the type we have struggled to develop for the past decade and now we want to trade him away when he’s on the precipice of being a key part of big league rotation? No thanks. Especially not for 2 years of a player. Also I really like Realmuto and he’s having a fantastic 1st half but he also has nearly 1500 at bats prior to this year that says he is a .750 OPS guy. Mitch Garner has .717 OPS in his rookie year and had a .900 OPS season to his credit in the minors. I’d much rather have Kirilloff at 1st, Romero as our number 2 starter and Garver as our starting Cather in 2020 than a soon to be free agent in Realmuto.

While we're giving thanks, I'd like to offer mine to the site owners. None of us would be here if not for your vision and hard work. And lots of us like being here...so Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you.

Sign Jason McLeod as the President of Baseball Operations and Derek Falvey as the GM. It would be a promotion for both. McLeod has the experience you'd want for the POBO and Falvey is a young and upcoming Assistant GM that could step into the larger role of GM.

First, I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a whining thread. This team was terrible last year, and is competitive this year.... A month ago, I was all in for dealing for a legit starter and two RPs. While I don't think this is an elite team, it is a good to very good team. Unfortunately, they have really struggled and are much closer to .500 than they were. I still like the offense, as inconsistent as it can be. But, man, losing your second, third, and fourth best OFers for the year is tough to overcome. I think this is where I and many here depart. No team should be expected to overcome that, and yet many here are angry that they don't have replacements. I think that's unrealistic. This is part one of why my thoughts have changed. Part two is the starting pitching. Ryan has not been the same since COVID. Ober, who I figured for about 100 innings is out. Maeda is not here in relief yet, and may not be. And, if the Castillo package is the price, well, this team is too far from great to pay that price, even if they could. Miranda is untouchable for me, barring some insane offer. Archer can't go five, which I thought he would by now. Winder is out for the year? That leaves Gray and Ryan and three question marks. I just don't see it. So, I guess I'd pay small prices for a RP or two. But I just don't see the logic in making a big trade for a player with less than two plus years of control at this point. I'm not a seller, but I'm not an aggressive buyer anymore. That said, I think this year is a big improvement on last year, and am not at all disappointed with the progress they've made. Edit.... Apparently I'm wrong on Kepler being out the rest of the year. That makes me less likely to sell. I feel AK is out, no matter what the twins are doing at this point. And Larnach? September?