WhenWillWeBeatNY

I know we are already in spring training and getting closer to the season but this move could be pointing to a potential Larnach or Kepler trade.

I agree. I mean Maeda is a veteran but he’s still only 34. His contract also allows him to make a lot more money depending on how many innings he pitches.

The first four SP’s for the Twins are thankfully an obvious lock this season in Gray, Lopez, Mahle, Ryan. The question remains, who gets the 5th spot? Not only does this affect the rotation but also the bullpen as whoever doesn’t get the last spot will probably be sent to the bullpen. In Ober’s case he could be sent back to AAA. Maeda SP: Maeda’s 2020 season was amazing although it was in a shortened season. 2021 was a step back but he was dealing with injury before Tommy John hit. He’s shown #1 starter material. The issue is how effective he is two years older and recovering from Tommy John. Ober SP: Ober didn’t have too bad of a season last year but it wasn’t anything special. Ober however is still developing and I think would benefit from another season as a starter and on the major league roster. Leaving Ober in the rotation also gives him more experience which the Twins are going to need with 3 starters Gray, Mahle, and Maeda becoming free agents after the season. Maeda in the pen: While Maeda has been a starter majority of his career he has pitched a little out of the pen. Specifically when the Dodgers were in the playoffs they would move him to the pen. In a small sample size he was actually very effective. Maeda coming off Tommy John would also benefit from the lessened workload in the pen. The issue is Maeda contract allows him to make a lot more money if he makes a certain amount of starts so moving him to the bullpen wouldn’t make him very happy. I think if the Twins plan to have him in the pen for the whole year. They should try restructure the contract for his incentives to be reliever wise. This way even though we will end up paying more. Maeda will be happy with the move. Ober in the pen/AAA: Ober out of the rotation means either moving to the pen or going down to AAA. I think the best option here is AAA. Long-term Ober seems to have more value as a starter instead of reliever. Moving Ober to AAA probably gives him more room to grow especially in a less stressful environment although for a guy who’s been on the major league roster for the last two years a move down to AAA is hard. Obviously it also depends on how good the other Twins relievers are looking. And how healthy the pen is overall. Whether it’s Maeda or Ober I would be fine with either taking the last spot of the rotation but it will be interesting on what the Twins decide to do. This is a great problem to have though compared to last season being forced to watch Archer and Bundy being extremely inconsistent and while only pitching 4-5 innings. What route do you think/you see the Twins taking? Ober or Maeda?

I think potentially we could have one of the deepest rotations in the MLB. The issue is to truly get to, and go far in the playoffs we need two guys to step up and be ace or all-star type pitchers that's where my concern lies. Realistically our whole rotation should have ERA's under 4.00. But if we can get 2 guys under 2.50, another under 3.00, and the last two under 3.50. That should be enough to easily lead the Twins to a division title and a deep run in the playoffs.

The future of the Twins or at least how I see it is Correa moves over to 3B. Lee than takes over at SS. Edouard Julien takes 2B. Royce Lewis moves to the OF. Jose Miranda moves back to 1B. This obviously only works if all the prospects pan out which is super unlikely but if they did I love this infield.

Edouard Julien is ranked the 7th best 2nd baseman prospect by MLB.com so I think he should be higher. He hopefully will crack the top 100 prospect list as well.

The Twins finished 78-84, 3rd in the division and 14 games back of Cleveland. This year however I believe enough has changed for the Twins to win the division and get past the Guardians and White Sox. Now I'm way to optimistic of a Twins fan and usually come up disappointed but as always "this year is different." Below is a list of 5 reasons of why this team is a winning one. DIFFERENT TEAM The first and biggest reason is this team is a lot different from last season. We picked up Joey Gallo who I am very skeptical of but also understand the value he can provide if he can be even a glimpse of what he used to be. We added Christian Vasquez who should anchor most of the games behind the plate. Kyle Farmer was the first acquisition of the off-season and initially looked like a sorry answer to losing Carlos Correa. However this move has turned into a trade for a solid utility player. Michael A. Taylor was another trade that didn't require much but is an upgrade to the defense and a right handed bat to platoon against lefties. Finally we acquired Pablo Lopez to sure up a rotation and potentially make it the best Twins rotation in years. DEPTH The next reason is the depth this Twins lineup has. Last year the injury bug never stopped and got worse as the season went on. The addition of Farmer, Gallo, and Taylor provides solid option when players especially Buxton get hurt. With these guys it should ensure we don't have any situations like last season getting stuck with guys like Gilberto Celetino, Sandy Leon, Caleb Hamilton, Jermaine Palacios, Tim Beckham, Mark Contreas, etc. getting playtime despite not performing. ADDITION BY SUBTRACTION Keeping on the topic of bad players. The Twins should get more wins this season based off of addition by subtraction specifically in the pitching department. Guys like Dylan Bundy, Chris Archer, Josh Winder, Emilio Pagan, Cole Sands. All of these guys lost games for the Twins. Guys like Winder and Sands are still on the team but should hopefully stay down in AAA. Pagan will sadly probably make the team but at least have a shorter leash before the Twins let him blow up this bullpen. Anyway, Dylan Buddy while he did win 8 games for us still lost 8 as well and didn't go deep into games costing our bullpen. Chris Archer lost 8 games as well and only won 2. Josh Winder lost 6 although I really like him I just think he needs more time to get healthy and develop. Pagan lost 6 games as well and half of those were the heart wrenching ones against Cleveland. Cole Sands didn't pitch a lot but he still lost 3 games for the Twins. Now I know wins and losses aren't always a good stat to describe pitchers but I think everyone can agree these pitchers hurt the Twins way more than helping them. Thankfully the way the roster is shaping out this year with the starting 5 basically already a lock we don't have to sign this bargain bin starting pitchers. Made coming back from injury whether he starts or pitches from the bullpen will be a big help too. This leads me into the next reason. GETTING HEALTHY The Twins struggled with injuries all year last and it was hard to watch especially after the Twins were projected to win the division. I saw somewhere that Twins players missed a total of 1,410 days due to injury. That was the most in the MLB by about 250 days. Thankfully going into 2023 spring training guys are finally getting healthy. I believe this year will be different for a few reasons. With last year being such a horrible year for injuries it will now be high on the Twins radar. We are already seeing this with the Twins firing the old trainer. Guys like Kenta Maeda, Trevor Larnach, Alex Kirilloff, Ryan Jeffers, Jorge Alcala, and Tyler Mahle who missed a lot of time last year should be able to positively impact this team. Buxton as always is a huge question mark but if he can stay healthy he has true MVP potential. POTENTIAL Now I definitely have some hard Twins bias and way too much optimism but I think this Twins team is criminally underrated. Joey Gallo has the potential to get back to his Ranger days hitting 40 homers a season while hitting 450 foot bombs. Guys like Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff have dealt with injuries early on in their career and we still haven't seen what they can do with a full season. Guys like Jose Miranda and Nick Gordon broke out and showed they belong on this team. The biggest potential however is the starting rotation. Joe Ryan has been a star but I think he still has room to grow. The 6' 7 giant Bailey Ober also looks to improve after his rookie year. Tyler Mahle fought shoulder issues and we haven't even been close to seeing the value we thought we were getting when we traded for him. Sonny Gray has been pretty solid and looks to continue his success hopefully with less injuries. Finally newest Twin Pablo Lopez is still only 27 and some tweaks to his pitch selection and change of scenery could help him be even more successful than he was in Miami. Now a stronger and healthier rotation should help the bullpen as well. The Twins bullpen pitched a total of 654 innings in 2022. That's the fourth most in the MLB. Compare that to the 2022 World Series Champions, the Astros bullpen threw 159 less innings. If Rocco actually manages well and lets the starting rotation got longer we should not have to watch as many bullpen meltdowns in 2023.

I know we resigned Garlick but I can almost guarantee he will play in AAA. I think he will be like Cave last year where he just plays until he is needed when there is injuries. I’d rather give the last OF spot to Celestino or Wallner.

Boras usually has a 5% commission for his players. That means he’s taking home at least $58 million for this offseason. That’s more than any of his clients will get.

I forgot to mention or also just trade Kepler and let Matt Wallner take over. I think we can sell pretty high on “no shift Kepler” and maybe restock the farm a little.

I don’t think we need Mancini. He doesn’t bring a whole lot to our team and we don’t want to take up roster spots for guys that still need to develop (Kiriloff, Larnach, Wallner etc.)

Well with Correa gone and a lot of other FA’s off the board here is my blueprint. 1. Sign Jose Iglesias 1-year $7 million, I love Kyle Farmer but only as utility. Iglesias is an actual everyday SS who has some decent numbers plus could be another leader in the clubhouse. 2. Sign Nathan Eovaldi 2-year $32 million. We need another SP who has the potential to be a #1 or #2 starter and Eovaldi can be that guy. Yes he has injury issues but we still have young pitchers that can fill in. 3. Move Maeda to the bullpen. Yes I know he was amazing as a starter but he is still recovering from injury. We could move him back to the rotation in the middle of the year but at least for the beginning of the season I think he starts in the bullpen. 4. Finally we have a ton of money left over so I just went for the bullpen. Sign Andrew Chafin. An established veteran lefty should be able to help our young guys keep making progress. For a team whose bullpen screwed them a lot last year I don’t know why there hasn’t been more focus on it. Sidenote: Another route I think the Twins could go is signing Andrew Benintendi to a 3-year 60 million dollar contract and trading Kepler, Polanco, Larnach for pitching. C: Christian Vazquez ($10.00M) 1B: Alex Kirilloff ($0.70M) 2B: Jorge Polanco ($7.50M) 3B: Jose Miranda ($0.70M) SS: Jose Iglesias ($7.00M) LF: Trevor Larnach ($0.70M) CF: Byron Buxton ($15.00M) RF: Max Kepler ($8.50M) DH: Luis Arraez ($4.50M) 4th OF: Gilberto Celestino ($0.70M) Utility: Nick Gordon ($0.70M) Utility: Kyle Farmer ($6.00M) Backup C: Ryan Jeffers ($0.70M) SP1: Sonny Gray ($12.00M) SP2: Tyler Mahle ($8.00M) SP3: Joe Ryan ($0.70M) SP4: Nathan Eovaldi ($16.00M) SP5: Bailey Ober ($0.70M) RP: Jhoan Duran ($0.70M) RP: Jorge Lopez ($3.00M) RP: Griffin Jax ($0.70M) RP: Jorge Alcala ($1.00M) RP: Caleb Thielbar ($2.00M) RP: Kenta Maeda ($9.00M) RP: Andrew Chafin ($10.00M) RP: Emilio Pagan ($3.00M) Payroll is 7.50% under budget

Farmer is a play for depth. Iglesias is an actual everyday SS.

Sign Jose Iglesias. Probably would be able to give him a one year deal and he’s 32 but his stats aren’t horrible. Might be able to add a little bit more leadership in the clubhouse as well.

Drop your Minnesota Twins hot takes down below ⬇️ Mine is that Bailey Ober will be the Twins best pitcher in 2023 and will have a sub 3 ERA