Unwinder

I have basically stopped worrying about Archer, I feel less apprehensive about him than I would have felt about another year of Pineda.

Pitching through elbow trouble I believe, Dorktown is doing a really entertaining Youtube documentary series on Stieb's career right now that I've been following. Highly recommended.

I think the problem this offseason falls almost entirely on the Front Office's total failure to anticipate that the period before the lockout would be a frantic Black Friday stampede on the free agent market rather than everyone biding their time to see how the CBA turned out. Every move after the lockout makes sense as an attempt to salvage something with what was still left on the board without spending too much prospect capital.

Gritting my teeth and hoping this is a depth/insurance move and more is coming. If the Twins don't make any more moves, and this is what we've got for 2022, I don't really expect the Twins to seriously contend, but I do expect Twins baseball to be exciting and fun to watch. On the other hand, I do have a lot of irrational faith in the young arms coming up. After Ober and Ryan's great debuts, I have pretty unrealistic expectations for the next few up.

MLB doesn't allow incentives based on performance metrics, that's why Buck's contract includes plate appearances and MVP voting as incentives rather than WAR or something like that.

This is exactly why I'm really hoping to see the Twins pull a rabbit out of a hat and find some sneaky trade that no one is expecting.

I've seen Brad Pitt suffer enough, don't need a sequel.

Honestly, I want to see the A's get a good haul. Whatever fans they have left deserve that.

I don't know, Falvine staked their reputation on building a pitching pipeline. That's a big chunk of their livelihood going out the door.

I think I read in another thread that they don't card you or anything if you buy them online, so as far as I know, sure.

I really want to tale a step back here and appreciate how good these moves are for growing the game in Minnesota. The Twins extended a homegrown superstar and have now signed another superstar THE DAY AFTER ANNOUNCING $5 STUDENT TICKETS FOR ALL WEEKDAY GAMES.

I'm going to take a wild guess and predict a Kepler-to-Miami trade package. Too much competition for the A's pitchers. Can get a better deal where no one is looking.

Incredible timing

I've just been searching by "Yankees Correa" and scrolling. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth. https://twitter.com/search?q=correa yankees&src=typed_query&f=live

Guys, Yankees twitter is very fun to read right now. Would recommend.

Nice move but we still need to trade for another starting pitcher. I'm thinking Ohtani.

Obviously they're waiting to see Royce play exactly one game in spring training before pulling the trigger on a shortstop.

I'll do my part to set the bar extra low with the quality of my posts to make posting less intimidating for you.

Is there a way to make a one-time contribution? If so, I'll do it.

Gotta believe that choosing a photo with Astudillo in it is the ultimate troll

I'm not too excited about Sanchez, but robo-umps are on the way, so who knows how long his pitch framing issues are going to matter?

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend this isn't a more likely explanation.

OK, having slept on this, I feel like there has to be some kind of gameplan here. Falvey has made some decisions that didn't go well, but he's not the Joker. He's not a gibbering madman who wants to lose his job. It's so weird, the moves made here seem to point at completely different strategies. The Garver/Kiner-Falefa trade was the sort of tepid, underwhelming move that we expect from the front office, which seemed to indicate that the Twins were content to tread water for the season. The Gray trade was a bold statement of contention (but also a killer bargain). This seems like a move to dump salary and rebuild. Possibility 1: The Twins are clearing payroll to make a big signing, which is going to HAVE to be Story, since the FA pitching market has dried up. Unless... they're going to try to trade for a pitcher who's already on a fat contract??? What's going on with all the Garver and Kiner-Falefa stuff though? Did the Yankees refuse to take Donaldson's contract without an OK shortstop thrown in? Did the Twins make a "safe" move to cover shortstop, and then swerve to drop Kiner-Falefa with Donaldson when talks with Story started to look promising? If indeed this is the case, then WOW, it had better work out! Falvey hasn't struck me as a big risk-taker, so I've got to believe he wouldn't take this route unless it was almost a sure thing. Possibility 2: The Twins are just trying to dump salary. They signed Sonny Gray because the deal was too good to pass up, and they don't want to LOOK like they're tanking. This STILL makes the Garver trade look utterly deranged. I really don't think this is the case? And if you're dumping salary for a rebuild, WHY WOULD YOU LET GO OF RORTVEDT AND CREATE A NEW HOLE AT CATCHER???? Possibility 3: The Twins were trying to contend up through the Gray trade but SOMETHING they had in the plans went catastrophically wrong and they decided immediately in the course of 24 hours to pivot to dumping salary and making room for a rebuild. Perhaps negotiations broke down on another SP trade? This still doesn't account for dropping Rortvedt. Yesterday, a friend was talking about a particular chess-playing computer, and said that great chess players find it hard to play against because it makes shocking moves a flesh-and-blood player would be too timid to make -- for example, sacrificing a queen and a bishop for nothing but a positional advantage. I really hope that's what we're seeing here,

Remember that bonkers J.D. Davis rumor from the other day? The runway is clear.

The Twins' direction here is not confusing at all: they're trying to put together a rotation that's comparable to, and no better than, the ones they had in 2019 and 2020. If it gets better than that, it's because prospects pan out.