AlGoreRythm

I guess my point is that results drive ticket sales, and ticket sales aren't likely a main driver of the franchise financially anyway. Investing in the team this year will affect next year's ticket sales, but even if they somehow sold an extra $20M in tickets for this year, I seriously doubt it would affect this year's payroll in any way. I think the biggest driver of ticket sales this year was likely resigning Correa, which signaled to the fans that they're pushing to compete. It would be interesting to see sales info broken down by month or week during the off-season and see what moves correlate with increased ticket sales.

Not sure if this was tongue in cheek, but I seriously doubt ticket sales have any affect on this year's payroll. If payroll is downstream of ticket sales they're doing it wrong, but I doubt this is the case.

I think that metaphor makes more sense when imagining trying to move Duran back to the rotation. The bullpen would just lose the game in the last 3 innings without Duran anchoring the pen

If I remember correctly, Duran gained quite a bit on his avg velocity after moving to the pen. This tells me his lights out stuff becomes slightly less lights out the more innings he's expected to pitch. That mixed with injury history indicates you'd maybe get more innings, but they'd be of lower quality and in lower leverage situations. And maybe he just gets hurt or wears out and you don't get all the extra innings. The risk of injury and potential extra innings wouldn't be worth it IMO. 65-80 high leverage innings with arguably the best stuff in the league in the highest leverage spots is preferable to 120-150 innings as a starter. When he comes in, you can be almost certain the game is over if he's closing it out, or make the opponents' best batters look over-matched when he's there to hold for 2 high leverage innings. It's a joy to watch. As a starter, he's almost certain not to throw many if any complete games, and we saw what even a couple bad bullpen arms can do to a teams chance of winning (Pagan, or even Colome from early '21). If Duran starts, who do we rely on to close it out once he's pulled? Like it or not, he's almost certain to stay in the pen, but I for one, think it's the best choice and the most fun to watch.

I think many comments on this story are mixing hindsight comparisons with what the 2019 team looked like going into the season. I believe the author is comparing the 2019 team before the season with the 2023 team as it currently stands. It's not really fair to compare this current team that have played 0 games to the results of the 2019 squad. This story is about comparing the potential of the '19 squad before the season with the current roster.

Gallo is a Gold Glove caliber corner outfielder. It would be foolish of them to DH him and not take advantage of the half of his game that isn't all or nothing.

Can you really RE-establish you only have one really decent season? Kepler hasn't ever really established himself as a decent bat, and the shift restrictions with likely give him half a dozen more singles, maybe a dozen more at most. Kepler's problem is popping out and grounding out to second. Shift restrictions aren't going to make much of a difference for him.

Thanks for the write up Hunter, I agree with all of the above. Luis was a lot of fun to watch, but I'm expecting his knees to degrade at a relatively quick rate. I'm one who believes his value peaked last year and I give the FO credit for cashing in. Freeing up 1st for AK and Gallo helps the log jam in the OF and IF.

If the question is who would I rather trade for Parada, it's Kepler, no contest. If the question is what would it take to get him, I'm not convinced just one of those five does it. Not claiming to be super familiar with the Mets system. Do any of the 5 make them a better team this year?

I'm a lifelong Twins fan myself. Ever since I saw Milton's no hitter at the dome for my 12th bday party. But we've gotta be real about the farm system and what's a strength and what isn't. Wish-casting and hoping is great, but if we're trying to honestly analyze the team, it's not useful.

Who? They have a bunch of guys that were drafted at SS, sure. Maybe one of them will even play some SS in the MLB some day, but a surplus of high-end SS prospects? Not in the least. Only Lewis has actually shown ability to defend the position adequately at an MLB level, and that was before he injured his ACL again. The twins maybe have someone in the system that could defend SS in the majors (Noah Miller?), but there's certainly not a surplus and not of high end prospects.

We had past seasons, but the Twins weren't willing to pay for his future ones. So far, they were right. You pay for future performance, not the past.

It's pretty obvious they know A LOT more about his knees than the fan base. If they don't, they shouldn't be paying a medical staff.

We traded a bad expensive pitcher if we're actually looking at his stats and contract. Had we signed Berrios we wouldn't have Correa. Would we have been better last year with Berrios or Correa? What about going forward? I argue trading Berrios for something rather than letting him walk because they weren't going to give him $100M was the obvious and correct move. We also did see SWR at the end of last season and he looks to be a mid rotation starter, assuming he continues to progress.

You do realize Arraez has already missed time in multiple season for his knees at 25, whereas Correa had never missed time for his ankle in 7 seasons... Obviously comparing apples and oranges here.