wavedog

There is no one I enjoyed batting more than Luis Arraez and I will certainly miss watching him play for the Twins but I like this trade. We are selling high and I do worry about Arraez durability which his knees, in addition although his defense was good at first he was playing out of position. I was kind of wondering if we would move Polanco and shift Arraez to 2nd. In any case, I like all 3 players we received in the deal. We get a starting pitcher for at least 2 years and you can never have enough pitching and while very young - like the prospects we got with some speed and plate discipline - not close to Luis Arraez plate discipline for sure but better than we are used to seeing from others here. Interested to see how many games Kiriloff will be able to start at 1B and who might share the position with him - Miranda with Farmer playing 3B when Miranda plays 1B?

How about 6 years and $200M lol!

Good Topic - you wrote what I have been thinking! The analytics they are looking at likely show bunting, stealing bases and baserunning are not the smart percentage play and certainly if don't practice and try to perfect them and play players with speed then that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Watching last year I do not remember seeing many hit and runs either which is one reason why we were at the top of grounding into Double Plays. I believe from my point of view their hitting philosophy is try to maximize hitting the ball the hardest each plate appearance and that will pay more dividends than doing a lot of little things (bunting, stealing, hit and run). It was very frustrating last year watching us give up outs on the bases while the opposition was doing the opposite to us on the bases. I have not seen any moves that would change that philosophy this offseason so expect more of the same next year - I hope I am wrong.

Who needs Correa when you have Joey Gallo? lol! Offseason is not done yet of course but my excitement level for this season is about as low as it was in the late 90's. Hard to envision being competitive and if everything does fall right the highest bar would be winning the weak Central and getting swept in the first round. I have a dream scenario for the 2nd half of the 2023 season that would get me re-energized in the Twins Lewis is at SS, Martin in OF, Miranda rotating at 3B/DH, Arraez rotating at 1B/DH, Kirilloff at 1B/OF, Buxton is healthy, Vazquez/Jeffers healthy. Gallo has had a great first half and we trade him to the Mets for a pitching prospect. We either have extended from the group Maeda/Gray/Mahle (hoping at least 2 out of the 3 stay healthy) the ones we like to keep using the funds we have not spent this offseason and traded who we don't want to sign for young starting pitching prospects. We teach and emphasize sound fundamental baseball play. They had Game #7 review of the 1991 World Series this week on the MLB network and I re-watched it. It was refreshing to watch all the little plays the Twins executed so well in that game.

I guess we know the Twins weren't even the 2nd choice now. Wonder if they reached out to the Twins or not. Looks like he will be playing 3B now as well with Lindor at short

Does not check any of the boxes for what we need. With the exception of Vazquez what a nightmare of an offseason so far and they are paying $11M for this. The one positive in signing Gallo is the shift ban but that may not matter if he strikeouts half the time. Honestly I would have rather kept Urshela 10 times over and for less money

Well, when we signed Correa last year I told myself I would enjoy watching his one season with the Twins and then be prepared for him to move on to greener pastures. Still this news is disappointing as I thought we had a chance to sign him. I did enjoy watching his one season with us solid defense and hitting - great teammate - but now we move on. I can't see these big contracts playing out well in the long run but as everyone has said the rich teams can afford to take the hit. I kind of view his deal as a 7 yr $50M per year deal as I see him with about 7 solid full seasons out of the 13. How many 35+ year old shortstops are out there? And once you get the big guaranteed money does that take some of the edge off? Your 35 year old self can change from your 28 year old self.

Short answer, I hope so - he does have the skill of hitting left-handers but falls short on hitting right-handers and playing defense. Plus there are the age and injury concerns that have been brought up. Ideally I would like to find a Right-Hand (real requirement is an OF that can hit Left-handers) good-fielding OF that can play CF-RF. That way they can start in RF spelling Kepler and also back up CF when Buxton is out to provide a Right-hand option. I really wanted that this past off-season but we did not acquire an asset like that and kept Garlick. If we keep Garlick it should be on a minors deal and he should be removed from the 40-man roster.

I had them at 79 wins so they ended pretty close to that. Of course they had to tank the last 2 months to get there. Kind of the reverse of last year when the first 2 months were bad. I guess that means in 2023 they will stink in June/July. I had the White Sox winning the division at 96 wins so that was a big miss - I had Cleveland finishing even with the Twins.

Interesting that despite the expanded playoffs - all the games are meaningless today. All playoff spots and order are clinched - odds of that have to be pretty low.

Nice to see some offense - it has been a while - thank you Davis Martin

In the dept of meaningless items - I don't see how Pasquantino's at bat in the 8th inning was scored a hit rather than an error by Miranda - this team has a lot of fundamental things to work on this offseason. This season other teams just are running like crazy on them and we are unable or have no interest in stealing a base or even executing a hit and run. With larger bases next season I am very afraid how much more other teams will take advantage of this team in the running game. If they come back next year playing like this I may take a pass on watching them.

KC is throwing the back end of their pitching at the Twins and so far we have 2 hits and 1 run

Dislike the Sox much more for whatever reason - big city/money bias? Maybe they tend to get over-hyped? I didn't enjoy watching Cleveland beat us like a drum but I appreciated the way they play the game - I'd like to see more of that style here.

Bit of embarrassing end to the game - not that it mattered. If the idea was to get Lopez some work to build his confidence that did not work well. I don't fully understand all the pitching moves Rocco makes or does not make - was thinking maybe to take Henriquez out in the 6th rather than face the top of the order. Sometimes we take a pitcher out to soon and sometimes too late but maybe doesn't really matter if the pitching is not very good. Let's start preparing for 2023.