JoeCool

Last year with all the injuries proved why depth is needed. He is a legit hitter as well.

Burnes or bust. It’s a no brainer for the Twins to target an arm like this and even go “all in” with an overpay. The risk is an injury that is long term for a lot of capital. The reward is a chance to compete with anyone’s top starter. The only off limits prospects in my mind are Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis. Some other notable MLB players that could be included are Sonny Gray and/or Max Kepler. If we don’t go after Burnes another large market team like the Yankees will. Burnes is worth the risk and we have enough depth in our system from the minors to majors to trade some key prospects for a true ace.

I think he might be a Carl Willis style middle reliever. He doesn’t have the lights out velocity to his pitches, but a lot of movement and deception. I would be all for us converting him to a relief role. If he starts the season in AAA and gets a track record going I see a chance. I think Bailey Ober, Josh Winder, Simeon Woods-Richardson, Jordan Balazovic, Connor Prielipp, Louis Varland, even Marco Raya have so much more upside as a starter than him. Within that list above I see ace potential. It’s a very deep list of starters with upside and I expect a few of them to be dominant relievers if they don’t make it as a starter. I am all for Dobnak to be Carl Willis 2.0. For those of you that don’t remember Willis was our second most dominant relief option to Rick Aguilera in our last title team in 1991. There is a place for that in a bullpen today as a change of pace to our 95mph + relievers.

Austin Martin should be #10 in my opinion instead of Wallner. I think Austin Martin will make a Royce Lewis kind of jump. If you remember Lewis hit a bad patch in his minors career and adjusted his swing with a less pronounced leg kick to create a better result at the plate. I see Austin Martin having the same kind of bounce back that we saw in the AFL league. I think he will be a top 5 before the end of 2023. I like the investment in position players though. This is a sustainable approach as pitchers are such a roll of the dice when it comes to prospects. I do think the approach the FO is using will pay off in spades over the next 5-8 years with a new window opening around the core. Just hoping we can catch lighting in a bottle with a core that can be like Puckett, Hrbek, Gagne or Hunter, Mauer and Morneau.

Bring him in on a one year deal. Make the contract language contingent on his behavior both on and off the field. Make it contingent on the type of teammate he will be in the clubhouse. He has more to lose if he messes up again. Low risk and high reward. if you subscribe to his YouTube channel I think he is more so an awkward personality and was a bit full of himself. I think we can could sign and even trade him at a high value if he performs. If he is a cancer we cut him and his career will be over. If he performs though he really could do a lot for this team.

I am happy with this signing because the contract is much more reasonable than the extreme overpays that occurred this off-season. This team still has many holes, but a lot of depth to trade to fill the holes. I sense within our current pitching depth we already have one or two front line starters. Between Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Josh Winder, Simeon Woods-Richardson, Louis Varland, and Connor Prielipp I think we can grow with what we have and even move pieces to the bullpen as we did with Duran. We need consistent bats. Plain and simple. Yes we also have talent coming but not quite ready in Austin Martin, Brooks Lee, and Royce Lewis to name a few, but where are the true hitters that do the little things like get on base through a wall or take the ball the other way? We have too much swinging for the fences with Kepler, Polonco, Kiriloff and even Buxton. If we have hitters batting under .250 with an on base percentage hovering around .300. We won’t do well against front line starters. Shifts are gone, but when infields are deep why not drop a bunt as Puckett used to do? Puckett got on base in front of the mashers and then the infielders would have to play closer where Puckett could mash better. This is missing from this team. Here is to hoping we can get more professional hitters with our depth by trading until the help in our system arrives. I think Gallo is more of what we don’t need.

Good choices, I give one sleeper an additional consideration. Austin Martin has lost a lot of buzz but should be included. Like Brooks Lee being the most advanced bat of his draft class Martin also has this reputation within his in class. He really struggled in 2022, but broke out in the Arizona Fall League in a similar way that Royce Lewis did. He also has questions with his defensive home, but also could be a SS, outfielder, or even 2nd, or 3rd baseman. Beyond just his bat, he brings speed and base stealing skills that we just don’t have in our system. Speed is there but very few can swipe a base as he did in 2022.

I say no to the overpaying happening this offseason. These players are getting way too much. I am at the point of going after a stop gap option because the farm system at SS is very strong with Lee and Lewis coming along and even Austin Martin has listed as a potential SS and has progressed in late 2022. I think we should only do smart deals like the Buxton and Correa contracts of last year. These teams will regret such long term deals. Very few work out and sink a franchise at the end of the deals when production drops off. Even Swanson at over $20 million for ten years is a ripoff. Swanson is a $10-$15 million per season type of player and I think our farm system will produce equal or better than him within 1-2 years.

We should not trade Araez. He is a rare hitter and ironically became serviceable at 1st base. Right around leave average for fielding. With today’s power potential at 2nd, SS, and 3rd I don’t see a need for a power hitter at 1st. Especially with Royce Lewis, Brooks Lee, Austin Martin, and Edouard Julien on the way there is plenty of power hitting potential growth in them. I think are starting pitching core that is here or coming also suggest we should not give up such a talent at the plate. Let’s get a free agent starter and keep our best hitter.

The Twins position players look to have such a bright future. I think this core coming up complemented by a few pieces already here has a chance to be very special. I imagine Lee will end up at 3rd, Lewis at SS, Julien at 2nd, Kiriloff at 1st, and I am a big believer of Jeffers at catcher. With an outfield of Austin Martin, Buxton and Larnach. With Arraez and Gordon in utility. It has potential to be a special core as we saw in the early 2000’s. The only thing missing is the ceiling of the pitching. Hopefully Ryan, Ober, Varland, Woods-Richardson, Winder, and a few others in the bullpen emerge like Duran. I think it can all come together for many years starting in 2024. I think we can compete next year as well, but I truly hope we don’t overpay Correa. I also hope we get a new Manager. I think Rocco is bad at game management.

Probably too soon to tell if it was a good or bad deal. I think we should give him more time. We gave Pagan and Duffey too much time. I think Lopez will be ok but sometimes he also hinges in pitch selection. Matt Wisler had similar prior career numbers with Seattle until Wes Johnson changed the usage to feature his slider on a more frequent basis and the results were similar to Lopez before the Twins. I think pitch selection and focus on what was successful in Baltimore will likely help.

I am not a fan of any of them but Celestino. Thielbar is average at best but can’t be trusted in high leverage situations. Urshela is also an easy out against the Verlanders of the world. I would not mind him as a utility guy, but not an every day starter. Nick Gordon deserves mention because he plays with fire. He hustles and has an igniter kind of quality to him. Too many hitters are trying to hit home runs at the expense of the little things needed to win. Gordon does the little things. I also think Bundy deserves to be mentioned. He is not an ace but he is solid enough to win some big games and gives us a chance to win each time he takes the mound.

Pagan should be DFA’ed. We should be looking at long term options.

I think there is a good chance he opts in. I also don’t feel bad if he does. 2 years is a roll of the dice. 10 years sinks a franchise with the current performance

Sadly this needed to happen but also even more so with Pagan. He had some fantastic years for the Twins, but this season we could not count on consistency with him. I hope he gets picked up by someone and turns it around,