Nine of twelve

I take Correa's comments in this regard with a block of salt. A smart player will always, always talk positively about his current situation. That's why any mutual interest between CC and the Twins, whether actual or perceived, will boost the offers both from the Twins and from other teams.

Haven't read the comments yet, but the answer is no, of course not. Moreover, I don't like the title of this thread. At age 25? Really?? Ted, can't you be rational?

Yep. And, probably more important, accurate scouting.

No surprise. And I don't think this will have a major effect on Correa's eventual contract. Turner's contract is more of a benchmark.

I think the team should and will give just about every pitcher an opportunity to impress during ST.

Why do we need to establish a definition of success?

Everyone in the world knows that the Twins will not match the highest offer. So it's not in the best interest of the team to wait a long time to see what the other offers are. About the only leverage the Twins have would be Correa's desire to play here (depending, of course, on whether that is the case and how strong and sincere that desire is). I don't know what the best way is to exploit that but making offers to other FA SSs early in the process might tip the playing field in the team's favor at least a little.

I was in Ft. Myers at the end of October. Even after one month of recovery efforts there was still a mountain of work to do. The beaches have been devastated. It's going to take a long time. The organization is fortunate that their facility survived with so little damage.

A comment that's a bit tangential: I think it's inaccurate to compare Minnesota to St. Louis or Boston. St. Louis has always been a baseball-first sports town. No NBA for 55 years and never a glimmer of interest in another franchise during that time. Two NFL teams have come and gone, and again no glimmer of interest in another franchise. They do support the Blues OK but major league baseball is deeply ingrained in the culture there and has been for close to 150 years. And it's essentially the same in New England with the Red Sox. While the Twins are certainly part of the sports culture in Minnesota it's nowhere close to the same thing as in St. Louis or Boston.

I'm not saying I am in favor of this move. In fact, I'm probably not. But here's my analogy: tendering him is kind of like attempting a steal of third base when your team is one run down with two out in the bottom of the ninth. If you make a questionable move you damn well better succeed. If you don't you'll incur the wrath of even more people than you did by just attempting it. If Pagan turns into a reliable bullpen guy I'll congratulate the front office, the on-field staff, and Pagan himself. But they damn well better succeed.

And could we just have that happen once or twice every year?

If they are selling most of their stock then it's not overpriced.

I'm sad to see Urshela leave but it needed to happen. To me it's obvious that the Twins view Miranda as their 3B for the next few years at least. I think Kirilloff will log a lot of time at 1B. I have been saying for a while now that I think Arraez should be DHing most of the time. So let's use some of that $9M toward a SS and/or some pitching.

Yeah, and I suppose you like Shemp better than Curly too.

I would love to have the 2019 Nelson Cruz on the roster. The 2023 Nelson Cruz? No.

Home whites: satisfactory, a bit of an improvement over the previous home whites. I think using navy for the number on the front to provide contrast with the red script is a good choice. (I still see T u π n s on the script, but it's OK, I'll adjust.) Home blue jersey: I like the white block MINNESOTA on the front better than the red script of the previous navy jerseys. I like the red number on the front. Alternate cream home uniform: I think I like this the best of the five uniforms revealed today. It's a good complement to the other two home options and the all-navy trim helps to give it a retro look that doesn't look dated. Road grays: a definite step up from the previous road grays. I like the understated pinstripes; they add a bit of sharpness without making the uniforms look too busy and it helps to differentiate us from the Guardians' and the Atlantas' road grays. Road blue jersey: It's the same as the home blue jersey, right? That's fine with me. Caps: well, I guess I can grudgingly go along with the new M if the team feels it's something they just have to do. I hope it eventually becomes the less-used alternate to the standby navy cap with the white T and the red C. The all-white TC looks right with the alternate home cream. And I am very happy that the red jerseys, the powder blue uniforms, and the Kasota gold trim are no longer with us. The team never looked like the Twins in red jerseys. It's just not right, sort of like if the Yankees decided to have green jerseys or something like that. I suppose the powder blues could be worn from time to time if there's a 1970's bad fashion theme night or something like that, but only very occasionally at most. One detail that we didn't see today is the socks for players who wear pants above the ankles. It appears that the socks for the alternate home cream uniform are solid navy with no stirrups. I strongly approve. I hope the socks for the other uniforms are the same. No need for stripes or anything else down there.

On the scrap heap of history where they belong, I hope.

I made my first visit to Kauffman stadium in September to take in a couple Twins games. Having heard generally positive reviews of the stadium, I was surprised to find that I was less than impressed. The field itself was good and I came away with a good impression of KC fans and stadium employees. But the stadium itself has lots of bad seats. The upper deck from foul pole to foul pole goes waaaay up and back from the field and the sections are wide. Look at a 3D view of the stadium on Google Maps or similar and you can see what I'm talking about. People in those seats are a long way from the field and because the rows are so long there will be a lot of inconvenience anytime someone in the middle of the row wants to get out. I guess I'm a bit spoiled by Target Field but I certainly understand why it's worthwhile to design and build a new stadium as opposed to spending a boatload of money to try to upgrade a stadium that will never measure up to something new.

The ideal major league roster has 4 outfielders plus a utility player who can play outfield when needed. Two should be able to bat L and at least one of those should be able to play CF. Two should be able to bat R and at least one of those should be able to play CF. Considering our currently rostered players that probably means Larnach, Kepler, Buxton and either Celestino or Garlick with Gordon playing utility and Kirilloff taking over at 1B. My hope is that Celestino continues to mature and that his hitting improves enough to keep Garlick at AAA.

I feel bad for Twins fans but even more so for Sano that his potential was only intermittently realized during his tenure with our favorite team. And I agree that the question asked at the top of the opening post is a bit out of line. Kind of like filling out a customer satisfaction survey that asks, "How disappointed were you in your experience with us today?" So I wanted to include a video of this high point in his career. For me this was the moment when the Twins locked up the AL Central in 2019. And based on pitcher Nick Goody's reaction I think the same was true for him. And Terry Francona too.

I'd rather use him as about the 30th man on the roster - sixth-string outfielder, logging time at St. Paul to try to stay sharp for the occasional call-up during the season.

I have never thought that Mudville was intended to be a real place. I still don't. I think it was just a name (that would never be given to a real town) that was well-chosen by the poet to reflect the mood of the team and its fans after experiencing the anticipation of a come-from-behind victory that turns into the disappointment of a loss.

The script is OK, I guess. Better than the ugly 1960's script. But when I look at it I see T u π n s. I know there's a dot there but it can't overcome the third-rate mathematician in me.

The save as a statistic didn't become official until 1969, following the start of the trend of using a designated closer in the 1960's. I think the trend of moving away from that strategy is going to continue and for that reason the save statistic is going to become less and less useful in telling us which relief pitching performances are the most important. Remember when GWRBI was an official stat in the 1980's? It was based on the same criterion that determined the winning pitcher: it was the RBI that gave the team a lead for the remainder of the game. Turns out it wasn't a very useful stat so its official status was discontinued. I can easily foresee the save going the same way. What would be more revealing is to use a formula of some kind to weigh the game situation into a reliever's performance to produce something akin to WAR or WPA. It could even take into account factors like whether your opponent is a division rival close to your team in the standings or whether it's a game in early April as opposed to an elimination game in the last week of the season

It is understandable why teams designated closers for so many years. The consistency of the same pitchers working the same innings helped pitchers prepare for individual games. But this approach didn't take into account the most important thing, something Tom Kelly is famous for saying: put players in situations where they are most likely to succeed. This means you set up your pitching so that you don't have your fourth-best reliever facing the opposition's best hitters, no matter what inning it is. Use your best reliever in the most important situations.