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.

Have you looked at Berrios numbers last year? He was awful. Even with Austin Martin's bad season that trade is looking quite good.

I agree with everything you've got here other than Larnach's defense. Larnach and Gallo seem to have very similar defensive profiles. They're massive guys whose size almost masks their athleticism. They're both able to make plays up against the wall that smaller defenders can't get to without climbing it. The defense doesn't look flashy because they appear to be big plodding guys, but their size often make plays look more routine than they'd be for other players because of their height and reach. From what I saw of a healthy Larnach the past 2 seasons give me confidence that with more reps at Target Field, he'll provide Kepler level defense, with a better plate approach. Totally agree with the Celestino analysis and the plan for Lewis on his return.

Why on earth would you mess with success regarding Duran? He was one of the top 3 relievers last year, if not the very best. He's had issues staying healthy as a starter in the minors and it was pretty obvious last season that his velocity ticks up a couple MPH when he's coming out of the pen rather than starting. Trying to make him into a starter again seems like a recipe for the IL and we certainly need him at the bank end of the bullpen. Without him there we'll end up seeing a lot more Pagan than anyone wants.

Forgive me but your claim that certain podcast hosts are unbiased yet assuming anything on social media cannot be true even when it's posted by the guy we're talking about is just silly. Guess what, those podcasters almost certainly took that survey on social media. Not that it matters because it's obviously still a self selected sample of fans who took the survey. It's not scientific, it's a survey. Not a fact in any way. We aren't talking about getting news from social media, we're talking about his specific posts, actions, videos, opinions, etc that show him for who he is. Those matter whether or not you care to pay attention to it. My point is that you are forming your opinion without all the information and actually seem to reject the idea of seeking out all the information. Guess we can all be glad the Twins haven't hired you to do their due diligence.

This would be a VERY narrow, self selected sample size of Dodger fans. Obviously not a fact nor anything that can actually be measured. How can anyone tell you what most Dodger fans want? I would certainly want to search out more information about what most Dodger fans want before forming an opinion. And probably would want to check on what Bauer's activities on social media amount to before deciding how open I was to bringing him in. My guess is the Twins and most teams ARE aware of those activities and will likely choose not to deal with his toxicity, and rightly so.

He should be out of the league as well. What aboutism just uses bad actions to justify more bad actions.

None of those moves individually or all together make near the impact Correa made last year. It also leaves like $20M on the table from last year's payroll. Hell, you could probably do most of that AND sign Correa and not be far from last year's payroll. And remember, the question was "how do they spend the money?" The "internal options" at SS are all question marks at best. I wouldn't consider Farmer a "stable veteran" as much as a utility man who can play SS if needed. You're worried about Correa's metal plate? What about Lewis' ACL that's been torn twice? Does that make you think he's a sure thing to play SS in the MLB? I'd need to see more once he comes back before assuming he's the SS of the future. Lee has spent half a year playing professionally and I doubt if even the Twins have a good idea if he can play SS at a Major League level. Correa plays SS at an elite level and has been consistently elite throughout his major league career. Not only do you know what you're getting with him, unlike the options laid out above, but you're getting at worst a top 5 SS. Likely for the first half of a 10 year contract anyway. Your idea is certainly a possibility, and probably all of it's more likely than Correa returning to the Twins, but does any of that add wins let alone replace Correa's 4 WAR from last season? Not even close. Correa is basically the only way they can add wins without trading away player capital at this point.

Are you talking free agency? Who's left you'd want to spend that money on? Other than free agency, how exactly do they spend the money? I'm fully aware you're not into the idea of bringing Correa back, but where and how do you think this money can be spent in a more impactful way? There's no one left in the free agent market I'd want them to sign and the only other way to bring in impact talent is trades, which is almost certain to amount to spending talent capital (either major league talent or farm talent) rather than just money. How do they spend the money?

They literally replaced the head trainer as one of their first staffing moves this off-season. They also were probably not looking deeply into medical issues that could be an issue down the road 10 years in his 1-3 years contract.

This is possibly the worst analogy I've read on this site. What you're saying is you'd rather have a worse shortstop that makes references to things you're familiar with, which is dumb.