TwinsDr2021

That is what I am saying trading Rogers may help in 3 or 4 years or never, I would say the Astros have won the trade so far.

I totally think giving the Astros a established major league pitcher for a crap shoot of a minor league pitcher is a wonderful idea. I am the for the Twins going down the George Bush 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.'"

The Griffen Jax that has given up 22 hits and 6 BB's and has an ERA of 8.66, and just went 5 innings and gave up 6 runs to the Royals? Ober looks like me maybe OK, but legit? I don't think anything he as done in the majors or minors screams legit.

Rogers pitched 9 innings in 11 games this month, Berrios pitched 25.1 in 4 games, Berrios is the pitcher of the month IMO

Why do they Twins have to trade Donaldson to sign Berrios, did the front office and fans just recently find out that Berrios was due to be a free agent after 2022? If the front office signed Donaldson knowing they couldn't sign Berrios and their plan was to get cheap starting pitchers from the minors and off the scrap heap, they should be fired this second. The only reason to trade Donaldson is because some team is desperate for offensive and has a really highly thought of pitching prospect that is close to the majors they are will to trade to try and win this year, anything else is just stupid, the twins already have a bunch of prospects that will need to be added to the 40 and have some on there that aren't probably going to help next year (Rooker for example). Trade the guys that are free agents at the end of the year for young minor leagues that don't need to be added to the 40 soon and keep the guys under contract.

Everything you mentioned was known the day Donaldson signed, Buxton always hurt, Berrios not being a dominant starter and Donaldson's age. This goes more to show the FO is clueless.

How is going into next year any different than going into this year? The outfield should be better next year with Kepler, Buxton, Kirilloff, Larnach, as of now not much depth in case of injuries, the infield should be close to this year, Healthy Donaldson, Polanco, Sano can't be worse can he? sign another vet to play SS or Simmons, you have Arraez and Gordon to back up. Need a plan for injuries which this FO never really seems to have. Catcher you have Garver and Jeffers, maybe sign a vet to back up, and have Garver, Arraez DH. Pitching you have Berrios, Maeda, and hope and fingers crossed, plus needed depth (same as this year, Pineda getting hurt is no surprise) and Basically Rogers, Duffey and Alcala, and ???? As for getting rid of Donaldson to dump salary, that just proves this FO is inept. Everybody knew Berrios and Buxton were coming do and if they signed Donaldson knowing it would stop them from signing either Berrios or Buxton, then what the heck were they thinking? I have said it in other posts, they need to rebuild this staff on the fly and take advantage of the hitters they have now, and fill holes with players that don't strike out 30-40% of the time. The have a couple of pitchers that need to get up and give a chance to see where they might fit in next year and they have prospects to trade to try to pick up young controllable pitchers.

It is encouraging that each of his three minor league 3 years his average innings per start has gone up, it is bit discouraging that it is still below 5.5. To me if he can't average 6 innings in triple A, his near future should be a relief pitcher. You can't expect that 80% of starts to not make it out of the 5th or 6th and expect your bullpen to be more than mediocre at best. (I don't mean a 1 or 2 inning relief pitcher, more along the lines of somebody starting the 1st two innings, and then letting him go 3-7.)

Can we send Rocco, maybe he could pick up some tips on how to manage better?

I am confused, when the front office signed Donaldson they knew it was him or Berrios and they decided to sign Donaldson anyway, but since 2021 went south they are going to reverse course and take mid tier prospects for the money the dumped into Donaldson and sign Berrios? If that is the case they need to be fired right now. Second that team you listed would be IMO would be absolutely terrible, you are talking about relying on Laranch (2nd year player), Buxton, Kirilloff(2nd year player), Refsnyder (who will be 31 and has had one good week in his whole career), two minor leagues with little to no experience in the Outfield, not even sure who you think will be back ups for injuries, which will happen. An Infield with all playing out of position (We thought defense is/was bad this year), and one of them has 48 major league at bats, the other has 2 games in AAA. Sano is what he is, but could even be more exposed with the lack of experience with the rest of this lineup, Hoping Garver continues to hit, then turning over the catcher position to two second year players and hoping Jeffers continues to grow and the other we know can't hit. Following Berrios and Maeda, you are turning over the whole pitching staff to basically rookies and/or guys that have proven they are not consistent major league pitchers, which again not sure who you plan of pitching when those guys get demoted or hurt. Two more things, why would Berrios and Buxton sign before free agency with this plan, and second good luck attracting fans with this team. IMO they need to trade the obvious guys (Simmons, Pineda, Happ, Colome, and Robles) for whatever they get, then they need to take assets like Lewis, Duran, Cavacto, Rooker, Celestino, Sands, Ober and/or others and try to get some young controllable starters or a older pitchers under a decent contract, promote some young guys to see if they can pitch in relief next year. Then in the offseason figure out a better backup plan for the fielders and what they need for pitching.

I agree with you, but if you read other threads there are many thinking he will solve one of the open starter spots next year.

Are we still thinking that Ober is a viable starting option next year? He will be 26 in 11 days, and currently averages 4 innings a start, I am not sure I see the Twins saying he could step that up anytime soon, doesn't seem like this FO philosophy. On a side note if you are going to put a starting pitcher out there hoping the best case scenario is he throws 5 innings. Why not do just do a bullpen game? Start Colome for two innings bring in Ober for 3-7, and you have your best relief pitchers for the 8th and 9th or showmaker if you are getting blown out. I understand you probably get the same results as last night, but Rocco loves to burn though relief pitchers in the later innings, maybe if had in theory you best pitcher(starter) pitching the 5th, 6th and 7th he would not have burn though them all

Barren? The 2016 top prospects were Buxton (two time top 20 MVP), Berrios (two time all star), Kepler, Gordon, Jay and Polanco (top 15 MVP and all star). You also didn't mention Graterol, Ynoa, Javer, Wade, Diaz (who they flipped), Thorpe, Rortvedt, Arraez, Baddoo, Balazovic, Do those not guys not count? On top that they were give Sano (who was rookie of year two years prior and an all-start their first year) and Rosario who has twice finished in the top 20 in MVP voting. I get it if you look at the 2017 prospects and ignore the players that just came up or recently came up to think they were give a Barren Farm system (I will say many on here thought Romero was going to be a number 1 or 2 starter, Gonzo would fill in the back of the rotation, Mejia might be a 3 but probably a number 4 starter, and at worst Jay was going to be a shut down reliever), but to see the whole picture don't you have to look at they upside of the young guys and controllable years they were given?

The Question I have is are the Twins in a better situation than when the this Front Office took over? IMO- the major league roster is better, but the minors is worse (comparing the top 20 now to when they took over) I would say no if the talk is about rebuilding and/or starting over, My thoughts are they need to get very creative this deadline trade away some guys and trade for other guys (meaning younger controllable guys for prospects). Being a Hulu guy, I have very little interest in a rebuilding team the next few years, and probably the wrong time for Ballys to talk about charging additional money to watch a rebuilding team.

So quite well is - nothing for two years (sure Alcala pitched last year but didn't even end up with 1 hold), a relief pitcher with a 4.40 era with three holds, 3 blown saves and an injury replacement CF that can't hit in year 3. And some maybes that may help 4, 5, 6 years after the trade? I remember when fans begging to do something in 2017, 2018 and 2019 to help they team get further in the playoffs and others saying the reason the Twins couldn't trade some of the following, Lewis, Gordon, Gonslaves, Romero, Javier, Kirilloff, Jorge, Jay, Stewart, Blankenhorn Graterol, Enlow, Rooker, Thorpe, Larnach, Baddoo, Wade, and others was because these were the guys that were going to keep the window open for when Berrios and Buxton contracts were ending. And yet years later, we have two guys that look pretty darn good (Kirilloff and Larnach), but also look closer to Rosario and Kepler than Acuna and Vlad Jr. They turned Graterol into Maeda (who had great 11 games in 2020), Thorpe and Alcala are relief pitchers and Gordon looks like a utility player and a bunch of maybes. There are 3 of those guys out of baseball (Jorge,Jay, Romero), multiple that have been cut, one lost in Rule 5, another traded for a guy that was cut, some still in high A, and a couple with major injuries (Lewis and Enlow). If I did my math correct there are more guys that were in the minors with the Twins in 17 and 18, playing on others teams that on the twins, I could be wrong because I only spent a minutes looking that up. My point isn't to trade or not to trade, it is this FO has not been good with the assets it has and had, and if you look back at comments on this site, this was suppose to be the golden age of Twins baseball. All those guys I listed above were going to be the savior and bring us into an era of the twins competing every year because the minors would continue to reload the major league team. Lastly, I have no faith in the pitchers in the minors that other are excited about, because this FO philosophy for starting pitchers is crap, none of those guys are really learning to pitch or prepare for the majors, they have low pitch counts and most don't even average 5 innings per start, how are they going to be expected to jump to the majors and pitch 6 or 7 innings when they can't and don't in the minors, I take that back how are they going to finish 5 innings against major league hitters when they can't even do that in the minors.