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Do you really think that teams are going to go thru everything involved with buying, owning, operating and leasing during fall/winter apartment complexes in four small/smaller towns to solve this problem? Ain't gonna happen. What I expect will happen is that the Twins will talk to their partners in each market and tell them the Twins will pay for it, but they should set up some type of housing arrangements that meet the rules set forth by the league. In Cedar Rapids, for example, they have most players staying with families. At least they did pre-COVID. In other towns they may need to do something else. Although I am aware how much government is getting into private business, I had never heard of anything regarding 30 day or longer stays. Again this is something that would be set by local/state government, but I can assure you it didn't apply when I was operating our hotels, granted that was from 1970 thru about 2010. Can assure you we had many people staying with us for a lot longer than 30 days and no one at our company ever even thought of this concern, if it was one.

A bit surprised they added six. I know others are higher than I on Vallimont, he was a surprise to me Not really any surprises on the released quartet, yet each player cut did provide some value to the Twins. Will they open a spot so they can make a pick at the Rule 5? If so, who goes? It will then be interesting to see who the next three, four or five cuts are to open spots for those free agent pitchers and shortstop. Looking at the 40-man, making another five cuts isn’t clear, at least to me.

One hurdle for buying anything is that team affiliations often change. For that and other reasons, don’t see MLB teams investing in real estate in the small towns so many of these teams are located. Thus, I see an entire smorgasboard of methods of addressing this concern. Curious what you are referring to about longer than 30 day stays. Spent over 45 years owning and operating hotels in many midwest and plains States. Give me a customer who would stay 30 days or more and I was happy, real happy. May even offer him/her a weekly or monthly rate.

One problem with the assumption from the start...not all teams that lose 100 games or more are tanking. Some are just flat out bad teams. There may be reasons for this, such as a team that is in a rebuild and willing to lose a lot by playing lots of young guys with the hope/intent that they will be better/good a year or two down the road. As for fixing it, or even deciding if it needs fixing, is way beyond my pay grade.

Thanks for bringing us this great news, Lucas. Long overdue. Expect there will be no set format for how this is achieved as minor league cities vary greatly. Hopefully, most of the arrangements will include some ability to cook meals, which I didn't see mentioned.

Very interesting, Seth. Thanks for bringing this to us. Wasn't aware that his wife remains an active officer in the AF. Assume they met while at the academy. Was also not aware that he has two brothers who are in the process of becoming AF pilots. We all owe this family much more than a thank you. This award also reminds me of the morning so long ago when I was a kid and Feller came out to our Wisconsin farm to shoot some geese. Got a chance to go out with him, although after probably 65 years the memory is mostly gone. As for baseball, most of us are forgetting that as of now Griffin is one of the five likely starters come opening day. Until such time as the FO does something, the most experienced starters we have are Dobnak, Ober, Jax, Barnes and Ryan, at least until Maeda returns sometime next summer. Should be interesting to see what the FO does to strengthen this staff, but personally believe that several of these kids will be on the mound come the first week of the season, whenever that may be. Will Jax be one of them? We don't know, but I expect he has a lot more to offer after getting his feet wet last summer.

No, hell no. The biggest point I took from this piece is the danger of trading away young, proven stars seeing what the A's got when they traded Donaldson. Sounds like a great reason to 'not trade Buxton.' As for third base...start Miranda at St. Paul on opening day, then bring him up when Donaldson goes on the IR in late April or May. When Donaldson returns, alternate him between third and DH until July when he gets traded. Meanwhile, Miranda starts at third about three-quarters of the time until Donaldson is gone.

The bigger question may be the terms of said insurance. It may not take effect until player X has been injured for X games, say 30. In most cases, Buxton gets hurt for a month or two, comes back, then is out fo another couple weeks or month. If insurance is designed for the big, long- term injury it may not help much with most of his missed time.

What a fantastic interview, Seth. Really enjoy getting the opportunity to know these guys a bit, thanks. Interesting story about his time at Purdue and after. Certainly hasn't been nothing but success for this young man, but he seems to have handled it so very well. Was shocked to learn that there is a real chance he will be back on the mound as early as June. Wonderful the improvements they are making with today's TJ surgery. Best of luck to Tyler.

Just finished watching another great interview, Seth, thanks. Sounds like he has been improving a lot each year, and growing, since leaving high school. Went back to look at this past summer's draft while listening. See that they took tall lefties with the second, third and fifth picks. Wouldn't it be fantastic if one of them turned out to be that guy everyone is looking for? Who knows, maybe it will be Cade. The one thing I did notice and it could have been the camera angle, but his hands looked really big. Having never thrown a pitch in my life I don't have a clue, but would that help with his grip? Thanks again, Seth, love these.

Sounds like this kid could be a good one, Seth. But then he was a third round pick and it would be nice to have him make it, big! One correction to your post, Lincoln is an hour southwest of Omaha on I-80, not I-90. Curious how he enjoyed his summer in Savannah, one of the nicest cities I have ever visited?

One thing we need to keep in mind is that the Twins are likely planning on adding several free agents over the winter. Will need spots for those. The problem this poses, and someone can correct me if this has changed, is that players added to the roster now must be kept on the roster until...is it spring training? That means if they release some of the guys you talk about and take it back up to 40, where are they going to find spots for those free agents? That's the reason I doubt you will see them adding as many as you mention. But loved your overall discussion. The next 24 hours or so should be very interesting. Will be shocked if we don't see at least a couple guys DFA that will be surprises. Guys like Thorpe, Stashak, Smeltzer, Cave, Astudillo will all be surprised to many of us, but will be equally surprised if at least one or two of this group isn't sent packing.

If the Twins trade Buxton they better get a haul back including at least one player ready to step in and play in 2022, not just several Hi-A guys with tons of potential. It will also signal that they are in full rebuild. In that case there is no need to sign any top starting pitchers, rather ink one or two older guys to one year contracts. Finally, if Buxton goes he needs to be accompanied by at least three others...Garver, Donaldson and Sano. Again, they should get a few more guys back who are ready to move up to Target Field.

Thanks, Seth. I have been expecting them to add five, with them being your top five. Perhaps a bigger question is will they select someone this year? With their record, they will be picking during the early stages of the draft and just might have someone sitting there they really like. So that would mean they need to get down to no more than 34, which will require 4 more cuts. Don't know if they would lose Vallimont or some of the others. Unlikely, but one never knows.

Sorry about the six years, Sconnie. Guess I saw it a lot over the past couple days and went with it. Also sorry that you took my post as containing 'vitriol' in regards to the FO. Wasn't my intent. My intent was merely to wonder whether it is time that we start asking the question if these guys are the saviors we thought? To me, that isn't bad mouthing them. Rather thinking it is time to start wondering, what if?

First, we don't know the status of negotiations with Buxton. For all we know, they may be 99% done and waiting on X, Y and Z to sign on the dotted line. But, I am getting concerned with the direction of the Twins. Unfortunately, that is easier to do after not seeing them play last summer because of the bloody tv situation. When Falvey and Lavine were hired we all, well most of us, jumped on the bandwagon and cheered. After all, it was new blood who would use all the new techniques available to take the Twins to the promised land. Here we are what, six years later and there hasn't been a single playoff win prior to this past season which was a disaster. Our top pitcher is gone and we are on the verge of seeing the most exciting player to play for the Twins since Puckett leave as well. The minor league system has been restocked. I am as big a fan of the kids coming up as anyone. Without our knowing, has this front office really been in the middle of a rebuild? But for every Bailey Ober there are several Joe Benson's which has been confirmed by many of those top draft picks several years ago. So we don't know if they got the right players, players who will return the Twins to the playoffs in 2022 or more likely 2023. If they do, that's a fantastic job. But what if they don't? What if these young pups that came in six years ago aren't as sharp as we all thought? Could this front office be presiding over a failure that takes the Twins down? I sure hope not, but it may be time to start asking that question. More important, Jim Pohlad better have this discussion with the family when they all sit down for Thanksgiving next week.

Would be another fantastic article, Nick, if the subject/situation wasn’t so damned depressing.

If we are only getting one year, the cost had better be closer to the Odorizzi deal than Larnach +. Otherwise, pass.

Fantastic, Seth. And best luck to Josh in 2022, expect to see him on the hill at Target Field.

Did he graduate in three years? Or is that still in his future?

Yes, interested in what/how his experience at VMI prepared him for his future in baseball and beyond?

This will be the first interview I will be able to watch live, Seth. My biggest question is related to learning more about his injury and why he was shut down. Was it more of their being careful and not pushing him seeing he hadn't pitched at all in 2019? Or was there a real injury? If so, how is it healing? Watched this kid in most of his starts (MiLB tv) while in Wichita, hands down was the best pitcher in the organization, IMO. Looking forward to it, Seth.

Great article, Nick. Have been thinking and talking about this for much of last season. Glad to see it was eventually mentioned that if a pitcher goes 3-4 innings, he doesn't need to have four full days of rest. So two pairs of pitchers piggybacked could have each pair pitching every fourth game, covering one half of the games played. So four of the thirteen man staff should get you 6-7 innings in half your games. Considering that so many of our young guys were limited this year due to not pitching in 2020, this may make a ton of sense. I maintain that rather than taxing the bullpen, this would actually result in less work by the bullpen. With days off, could probably get thru a season with two traditional starters, the four who piggyback into two of four games, and a fifth starter who would double as long relief when frequently missing starts. That leaves another six relievers to finish games, with most games needing only 2-3 innings of work. When you do have someone blow up and the pen has more work, ship the 13th guy back to St. Paul and bring up the next reliever, much as they have been doing for the past couple years.

When talking about innings, shouldn’t you include his Olympic innings? Don’t know what that total was, but I suspect it was more than a few if you include the innings he must have pitched in both actual games and other game/scrimmages leading up to Tokyo. You show 92-2/3, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were another 15-25 on top that. So he may have been close to 120 this year.

Prior to the injury, Nick, I believe the Twins messed with Dobbers head out of spring training. He was starting, then he wasn't. He was long relief, until they sent him down to St. Paul to build his innings back. Since he first appeared, Dobnak has been a starter. I hope that the Twins now realize this, get his finger 100% and let him battle next spring for a spot in the rotation. If he doesn't win it, then send him to St. Paul as depth for when he is needed.