mnfireman

I'm starting the season with Ober and Maeda in the BP and a lot of rookies/pre-arb players on the roster. They may move into rotation as they build up arm strength and Varland and Winder may need to move to the 'pen. Kirilloff and Lewis are on the IL to start the season. The bench should be fluid with Miranda, Arraez and Gordon able to play several positions and also be used as the DH along with Wallner. Yeah, tied up a lot of $$ @ C and SS, but those are important positions, and, to me anyway, warrant the expense. The Twins system needs to step up and fill spots starting this year and I tried to reflect this in my roster exercise. Decisions will need to be made when Lewis is ready, and if Kirilloff is ready. The arms are young, but SWR, Moran, and perhaps Coulombe, Megill and Paddack will be healthy enough at various points of the season to step in. And I may decide to go over budget and keep Pagan, keeping Sands in AAA until needed.

C: Willson Contreras ($15.00M) 1B: Luis Arraez ($4.50M) 2B: Jorge Polanco ($7.50M) 3B: Gio Urshela ($9.00M) SS: Carlos Correa ($35.00M) LF: Trevor Larnach ($0.70M) CF: Byron Buxton ($15.00M) RF: Max Kepler ($8.50M) DH: Jose Miranda ($0.70M) 4th OF: Gilberto Celestino ($0.70M) Utility: Nick Gordon ($0.70M) Utility: Matt Wallner ($0.70M) Backup C: Ryan Jeffers ($0.70M) SP1: Sonny Gray ($12.00M) SP2: Tyler Mahle ($8.00M) SP3: Josh Winder ($0.70M) SP4: Joe Ryan ($0.70M) SP5: Louie Varland ($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: Kenda Maeda ($3.00M) RP: Cole Sands ($0.70M) RP: Bailey Ober ($0.70M) Payroll is 5.29% under budget

He can't officially until after the WS. Nobody is a FA until after the WS>

Turner having a bad night......

Competing against Judge, Turner, Bogaerts, Swanson, Arrenado (if he opts out), deGrom, Verlander and Rodon for FA $$ may find him looking for suitor in March again... Lots of high-end merchandise out there this year.

You might want to go look at the rest of the roster for those two teams and see why the team made the play-offs, again.....

So if they upgrade the OF and 1B/DH to all-star types, who of Kirlloff, Larnach, Kepler, Arraez, Miranda and maybe even Polanco and Urshela do you trade? All have showed that they have big upside, but have ???'s attached to them.

So you want to win next year but you also want to start Polanco at SS and Arraez at 2B? Sorry, can't do both. It weakens the defense up the middle, especially with no shifts next year. They also both wore down this year as the season progressed and I don't see that changing next year. I don't know the teams plans for SS next year, but Polanco should not be it. Maybe we'll get surprised by an off-seaon trade....

And that is why we run hard out of the box boys and girls....

Judge may hold up the SS FA market as most teams can't afford Judge and a top SS, or the SS market could settle early and Judge may drag into February. Who knows ?‍♂️. Turner or Correa could settle SS for 5 years or more and would make one of Arraez, Urshela, Polanco or Miranda available in a trade for starting pitching. Andrus for $15M, no thank you. I would rather Polanco or Urshela play SS before him. Swanson is an elite defender, but I suspect his offense will fall back to its previous level. Bogaerts is going to wind up being an expensive 3B or 2B, or maybe even corner OF, very soon. The Twins need a SS for 2months in 2023, until Lewis returns from the IL, so I don't see this being a top priority, but Correa was a pretty nice fit this year and I think he would look good out there next year (or 5).

If a team is relying on their farm system to supply the talent, then you sign 1 big name free agent in the off-season, which for the most part the team has done. You develop talent in the minors, then when they get ready to hit FA and become too expensive, you trade them for prospects to reload the farm system. Then it becomes lather, rinse, repeat. But the developed talent has gotten hurt or under-performed, making it necessary to sign reclamation projects to fill in the gaps. The FO is betting on these low $$, injury prone players to last long enough for the youngsters to go through their growing pains and then, hopefully, establish themselves. But then the on field talent implodes through injury and/or slumps and then the team is using the 5th and 6th players on the depth chart. In a perfect world, Kirilloff, Larnach, Buxton, Ober, Lewis, Alcala and maybe even Balazovic would have already established themselves as solid everyday players, maybe even All-Stars, by now and Kepler, Polanco, Maeda and Sano would remain above average contributors. They have tried adding pieces through trades to push the team forward; Gray, Mahle, Lopez, Maeda and Pagan are recent examples, but they also wind up injured or ineffective. The FO has been doing what you are saying they need to do, but through bad luck or, maybe, bad decisions, the moves have not worked out.

Cards manager talks analytics after the game, Phillies manager talking bloops, defense and feel for the game..... I'll take the latter for the win ?

Watching the Cards bullpen do their best imitation of the Twins bullpen...

Former Twins (still qualifies as non-Twins) Kyle Gibson and Jose Berrios were 44th and 45th amongst 45 qualified pitchers in ERA. Former Twin Taylor Rogers led MLB with 10 blown saves (Pagan was tied for 3rd with 7, Lopez tied for 8th with 6). Former Twin Jose Berrios tied for 2nd in HR/9, tied for 43rd amongst qualified pitchers in WAR. Former Twin Martin Perez walked the 3rd most batters in MLB. Former Twin Jonathan Schoop was 128th of 130 qualified batters in AVG, 127th in SLG, 130th in OBP and 130th in wRC+. Former Twin Nelson Cruz was 129th of 130 qualified batters in WAR. Our hometown 9 may not have performed to expectations, but some of the former players (non-Twins now) also had horrendous seasons. Note: The Twins had 0 pitchers qualify for the ERA title, and only 3 batters qualify for the batting title (won by Arraez!!) and of those, 2 were top 15 in GIDP, 3 if you include Miranda.

Looks like they are gonna let Arraez rest his way to a batting title....

Can't have too much depth, as the injuries of the last few seasons have shown, so I say sign him. He is not a superstar, but seems fundamentally sound and comes up with the big hit or big defensive play often enough.

Arraez is best suited to a utility player type role; he can play 1B, 2B, 3B or DH 4 days a week, 5 max. I don't think he's a everyday type player, he appears to be breaking down a bit late in the season.

Correct. The same guys on here complaining about three true outcomes are complaining about a kid who puts the ball in play ?‍♂️?‍♂️. Yes, the GIDP will and has killed rallies, but a ball in play at least has a chance....

Twins swing at pitch out of zone, pop out or swing and miss. Angels swing at ball out of zone, 2 run single (Ohtani last night, Rengifo today).

Considering his slash line before the game was .273/.359/.605 = OPS .965 with 36 HRs, I'd say he never really went away...

Just watched the replay on GameDay, very, very bad play by Celestino. Yes, he's young, but he's pretty much played everyday this year. He doesn't seem to get it.

Gordon's emergence as a "Super-sub" type player may make Buxton's absences more tolerable - if Larnach, Kirilloff and Kepler manage to come back healthy and productive next season and Wallner is able to continue his progression - and the absences aren't too long or too often.

I don't think the teams "100 game plan" worked at all for either Buxton or the team. I understand the reasoning for wanting him on the field, but did team or player benefit from it? That being said, I don't know how bad the knee injury was initially, but I think a 10 or 15 day IL trip could have been warranted at the time (he only played 3 games over the next 10 days). I also think the injury could have been avoided had he hustled out of the batters box and made second standing up instead of sliding awkwardly. Playing with the ailing knee eventually led to the PRP injection and the hip injury, so he literally played almost his whole season on one leg. Buxton is also on record as saying he has hard time staying involved in the game when DHing. Putting up 4.0 WAR and the team being 48-42 in games he played in is a testament to his ability, but how much better could this team have been if he didn't flail at bad pitches or had to put a lesser player in CF due to him literally having only one leg to stand on. Hopefully the surgery goes as planned (a scope and clean up, not full-on reconstruction) and he his able to start his off-season program around Thanksgiving and is ready to go in spring training.

Celestino takes charge this time and makes the play...

CF's ball on the blooper, Celestino having a rough week. Ryan did not have good stuff tonight, it is cold & rainy, and he is at a career high in innings pitched. Maybe send him out for the 5th (it was Trout, Ohtani and Ward), but otherwise I am good with the call Cave's clunker: errors happen. He should have had it. It was raining, but he did hustle on the play (as he did on the triple in the bottom of the 4th), and I am sure he made no excuses for dropping it.