bean5302

I'm fine with Palacios or Gordon for a few weeks. Lewis is on pace for a 10-12 month recovery. Could put him back on a baseball field in mid April.

What constitutes deserving a chance in your mind? I'm genuinely curious as Henriquez was not successful at AAA for instance.

Could move Buxton, Mahle or Polanco to the 60 day IL. They're done anyway. Chris Archer, Billy Hamilton, Jake Cave, Sandy Leon, Aaron Sanchez, Derek Rodriguez, Emilio Pagan. Plenty of spots can be opened up easy.

Lineup management has certainly been questionable. Injuries have been frequent as well. The Twins are going to finish the season with 3 guys who qualify...

I would hope they have improved since the Twins gutted their farm and traded away two of their best players to get the new options.

I feel bad for Strotman. He was always on the cusp of making it, but he was never able to take that final step. He was claimed by the Rangers so he may get another shot.

I think Jhoan Duran, Jose Miranda and Royce Lewis are the brightest spots for the farm system in general. Those guys have seriously made an impact, even if Lewis didn't have enough time for things to stabilize, he was incredibly exciting when nobody expected him to contribute so quickly. In the minors specifically, I agree about Wallner. He's made a really fantastic change to his game by learning to be more patient and taking walks. It elevates his game dramatically and showcases the fact his ability to read pitches is far greater than I expected. He's a legitimate top prospect for the Twins at this point. Woods-Richardson... well, I don't know. The reports on his velocity and mechanics being all over the place are flat out bad. Maybe he throws 89 or maybe he throws 92. It seems like he's got some great stuff, but only when his mechanics are in order and he's repeating his delivery like he should. I'd like to see him against MLB batters. It's been great to watch Brooks Lee hit well in the minors, just like advertised, and unlike some other prospects who just didn't seem to be able to make the transition in tact. Emmanuel Rodriguez has really turned some heads and rocketed up the prospect chart as a result, but Julien has also had a really great year. That's been a bright spot as well.

Yeah, that loser Joe Mauer. He only has more MVPs than every single player on the 1987 and 1991 teams combined! Oh wait, I almost forgot about Don Baylor who had 58 plate appearances in 1987. He has an MVP too. If only Mauer had learned how to pitch and catch at the same time, but he was too lazy. Lazy Mauer.

Paddack had surgery in mid May as I recall so expecting him back before mid August is aggressive. It could happen and everybody will probably have a better feel for it by the start of the season, but I don't bank on UCL repair guys returning before 15 months. For example, Maeda seemed to be on the path to return in 13-13.5 months, even with a brace they were hoping would get him back faster.

I just threw up in my mouth a little....

I'm a season ticket holder. It's a fun and entertaining venue, even if the Twins hasn't played well. I go for the game, not for the team so to speak.

The Twins waived all online ticket fees earlier this year, but I'm not sure if that's still in effect. I get promo offers via email pretty frequently (I think I recently shut them off because it was too frequently). There were some $5 ticket deals in the Twins promo emails. I'd suggest signing up for them if you were looking for a great deal.

At a glance, he looks like a younger, better version of Drew Strotman by the numbers. Henriquez generates a lot of whiffs, but as you say, there seems to be something batters are really squaring up. It's also not like Henriquez is super wild. He's only hit two batters since May 22, and those two were in back to back games. I suspect Henriquez is just lacking command of a pitch or two and it gets clobbered from time to time, but it's just a guess. Consistent high strikeouts and whiff rates with pretty solid walk rates. Just a lot of hits. It's not a combo seen much. But, I'm just guessing. Giving up a ton of hits feels like a bigger problem than struggles with walks so I haven't really been that into Henriquez.

Buxton had another career tying year. I'm not sure what people expected of him. Buxton playing DH shouldn't have impacted the team. I've talked about this before, but Buxton cannot be counted on for more than 80 games a season. 100 games is probably Buxton's ceiling so if the Twins were going to lock him up long term, they needed a MLB caliber starting CF on the roster besides Buxton. Therein lies the problem Buxton doesn't cost $15MM. He costs $15MM plus another starting caliber CF because Buxton misses so many games, the 2nd CF is a requirement. Conventionally, Buxton more than made up for his contract, but considering the real cost for a team having Buxton is the 2nd center fielder, it's a little murkier IMHO. All that doesn't matter though. Buxton is here and he's here to stay for many, many more years.

Yeah, I'll bite. Scoreboard.

Nick Gordon is better than Acuna this year, just sayin'

At least it's over now. The season is done and the Twins are all but statistically eliminated. With 15 games to play and the magic number 9, the Twins would basically need to win out and for Cleveland to go worse than 8-7. That is not happening. Even if Cleveland went 8-7 (or worse), the losses must not come against the White Sox who are 3 games up on the Twins as well.

I have a tendency to expect what @gunnarthor is saying, but I do think discounting Ryan's ability to improve is a bit premature. I think Ryan could improve since his secondary offerings were not utilized heavily in the minors. That said, I think there are far more starters like Ryan who back up a promising rookie campaign with a sophomore slump or permanent decline as the scouting reports become more clear on pitcher's capabilities and batters start sitting on weak pitches they know are coming.

and then Gordon went and played like a high schooler the next game making what should have been a double-error fielding + throw on the same play lol

I think I've addressed this myth before, but Canterino was never close to leading college baseball in innings or anything like that. As I recall, he averaged between 5-6 innings per start his whole college career. There were several pitchers well ahead of Canterino in innings in the Big 10.

If the payroll is actually $155MM, the Twins are going to likely lose quite a bit this year. I expect the Pohlads are going to seriously reign in the payroll. $120MM, max, but probably more like $100MM next year if I were to guess. That means they have much less they could spend. But is Falvey the one who will be in charge of choosing where to spend it? C - Jeffers 1B - Arraez $8MM (with the bonus for Arb pool and his All Star game) 2B - Polanco $8MM 3B - Urshela $10MM SS - Lewis $0.7MM LF - Larnach $0.7MM CF - Buxton $15MM RF - Kepler $8.5MM DH - Miranda $2MM (bonus pool) UO - Celestino $0.7MM MI - Gordon $1.5MM (bonus pool) BC - ? Bench Bat - Kirilloff $0.7MM SP - Maeda $3 SP - Gray $12MM SP - Mahle $10MM SP - Ryan $2MM (bonus pool) SP - Varland $0.7MM BP - Duran $2MM (bonus pool) BP - Lopez $4MM BP - Thielbar $2MM BP - Alcala $0.7MM BP - Jax $0.7MM BP - Megill $0.7MM BP - Winder $0.7MM BP - Ober $0.7MM Where are the Twins looking to upgrade? It's tough to say. Lots of question marks, and it seems like the roster above will probably be north of $90MM. Maybe the bonus pool is paid out at the end of this year rather than next? I'm just guessing at those values.

When it comes to Martin, the Dozier comp is with the bat felt fair (and it's one I thought about in the back of my mind), but I'm not as sure after looking him up. Dozier developed a fair amount of pop at age 23, though it was in lower level play than Martin, and Dozier was an 8th round pick, not a guy who was scouted so highly or considered so close to MLB ready. Dozier also talked about how he changed his swing. The 800 lb gorilla is also that... Dozier was passable, defensively. Dozier's RF/9 at shortstop was generally around 4.50 in the minors, and not unplayable at the MLB level at SS back in a time when the Twins cared about defense. Martin's RF/9 was more like 3.25, after he cleaned up his defense significantly. He was still the worst SS in the league by a mile. Martin cannot even come close to handling the position by the limited metrics. Dozier also adapted his swing a number of times to squeeze every inch of life out of it he could. Martin's had 1-1/2 to adapt his swing to showcase some of the raw power scouts believed he had and it hasn't worked. Not only is Martin's hit tool looking suspect, but his power never materialized. Dozier a22 2009 (R) - .349/.414/.422 .837 OPS wRC+ 139 a23 2010 (A) - .278/.347/.338 .685 OPS wRC+ 95 a23 2010 (A+) - .274/.352/.354 .706 OPS wRC+ 106 a24 2011 (A+) - .322/.423/.472 .895 OPS wRC+ 151 a24 2011 (AA) - .318/.384/.502 .885 OPS wRC+ 145 a25 2012 (AAA) - .232/.286/.337 .623 OPS wRC+ 70 I have no idea what to think of Balazovic's struggles other than... his stuff just didn't play at AAA. He's had a couple nice starts to end the season. One at the end of regular season and one in the playoffs. The previous regular season start saw him put a bunch of guys on base who just didn't score. Nobody gives up that many home runs with working stuff. It just cannot happen. I haven't seen a prospect tank that hard, ever. But, hopefully, he can put together a much, much better campaign next year or the Twins can move him to the pen. I didn't expect anything from Canterino. He's just always been hurt. No changes there now. Somebody talked about a JT Chargois comp a while back. It does kinda feel that way. I'm not at all excited about Canterino at this point. He needs more proof he can be effective outside the low minors. Canterino may have a sparkly ERA at AA, but he walked 5.8 per 9 innings. That will not age well. Could be instability in the elbow like Duran seemed to be dealing with last year, but one can only hope.

Who are these detractors you speak of? The ones who say Ryan has a #3 caliber rotation arm ceiling? That's me. Ryan is currently a back end starter. That does not preclude him from having great games and I think it's great that he's pitched so awesome. Kevin Slowey had a 4 game run in 2008 that looked like this: 4 G, 29.0 IP, 0.93 ERA, 24 K, 2 BB Kyle Gibson had a 3 game run in 2014 that looked like this: 3 G, 21.0 IP, 0.00 ERA, 16 K, 5 BB Randy Dobnak started had a 3 game run in 2019 that looked like this: 3 G, 16.1 IP, 1.10 ERA, 13 K, 3 BB Dylan Bundy, who has constantly been crapped on by the staff and fans of this site opened the season with: 3 G, 15.1 IP, 0.59 ERA, 12 K, 1 BB I like Joe Ryan. I think he'll stick in the Twins rotation and he's inexpensive. I also remember he got hammered in his two previous starts before these last 2 really great games he's spun.

Having Arraez fade so hard down the stretch again is tough. He looked great to start last year, but faded late in the summer in 2021, too. .296/.365/.381 wRC+ 109 in the first half .292/.348/.371 wRC+ 100 in the second half, .271/.314/.333 wRC+ 80 in Sept/Oct.

Right. Sanchez throws out more base runners than MLB average and dramatically better than Jeffers. Sanchez allows fewer passed balls and wild pitches than MLB average, similar to Jeffers. Sanchez is ranked above average at pitch framing this year a bit behind Jeffers = Sanchez sucks defensively. The stats actually do not support the opinion Sanchez being a poor defensive catcher. The argument Jeffers is a significantly better defensive catcher than Sanchez seems to have no merit from a stats standpoint. Sanchez's bat does seem to have gone ice cold again over the past couple weeks, which is a bummer, but I sometimes wonder if Sanchez uses custom printed Twins Daily staffer images on his toilet paper... Nice to see Ryan pitching deep again. Good things happen when Baldelli lets the starters who are on their game continue to pitch and go into the later innings. I can't help but feel the division title would be in play had Baldelli extended this opportunity to other rotation arms.