Loosey

I've written this before, but the Twins have a ton of options to make big trades, but first they need to know where the replacements are at. Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis, Kiriloff and to a lesser extent Austin Martin could come in and a take over for some variation of Polanco, Arraez and Kepler. But until we know if Lee and Austin can play above AAA, Is Lewis healthy and back to his late May MLB self and is Kiriloff's shaved down wrist bone OK, i really don't think they can do much right now. With all that Arraez is probably the one who is most likely to go today. He is position-less, and could probably be replaced with guys currently on the roster. at about 90% replacement value.

Jared Allen is not the same as Trevor Bauer. Jared Allen was/is extremely well liked in the community and in the locker room. Jared Allen made some dumb mistakes with alcohol and drinking and driving when he was young. He figured it out by the start of his 3rd NFL season and it was never an issue again. When the Vikings took their "chance on him" he was 2 or 3 years removed from any of those issues and had matured a lot by then.

I agree with you partially. I think the Twins have players to trade for front of rotation starters. However, the players to backfill them are question marks for the time being. Arraez, Polanco and Kepler specifically. For them to be moved for a starter someone needs to take their place. Lewis, Lee, Martin, Kiriloff are unknowns today. Maybe in July we will see Brooks Lee looking like a future all-star and have the freedom to trade Polanco for a starter, or maybe Lewis comes back and can be a 3rd baseman/LF and move Miranda to 1st which frees up Arraez. Lots of moving parts that are too unknown for a team that looks like they are going all in to trade away known commodities as of now.

If they stay healthy the Twins will have 2 superstar players in their prime for a fraction of what many expected them to be paid. Buxton on the open market (if healthy) could demand $250M+ and obviously we know someone is willing to pay Correa $350M if it weren't for his physical. Good on them,

Since the medical issue sound like they are concerns for teams in his later years. I wonder if the Twins and Correa would be interested in an 8 year $230M deal. That's $28+M AAV. However, if I'm the Twins I would pay him $35M years 1-3 and then $25M years 4-8. I would give Correa an opt out after year 3. So if he is still performing he will be able to hit Free agency again after his age 30 season and look to make more than the $25M AAV he would be getting those last 5 years, which could be highly possible. It's not what Correa's camp was expecting going into the offseason, but I don't think they were expecting 2 deals to fall through either.

I play men's hockey with a recently retired MLB player. I will ask him how the taxes work. He's pretty open about sharing some of the stuff i had never known about when it comes to MLB and perks, etc.

I have always been a proponent of "NO SALARY CAP" to protect owners because I don't care about the owners money, they are all billionaires and am happy for players to get their piece of the pie. However, this offseason has sort of shown that if you essentially have unlimited funds you can overpay every other billionaire and just completely buck the system. So I am now leaning toward not only a cap but a hard cap of sorts. Even if a Cap of $300MM was set only a handful of teams would reach it, but other teams would likely spend more because the teams that cap out woudln't be able to continue to buy more players. This in effect would probably hurt the super stars like Correa a bit and limit them from reaching those $40M figures were heading towards but would probably end up being good for baseball in the long run.

Yes

The more we hear about this I think 2 things happened. 1) The Twins got played by Correa/Boras. 2) The Twins fans got played by the Twins. 10 years/$285M is a massive contract and in a vacuum looks like the team is finally ready to play with the big boys. But when you expand and take a look at the deals Turner and Boegarts got $285M really wasn't going to get the deal done. If that's what the Twins budgeted for him back in November before the other deals came up out they should have shifted gears the minute they decided not exceed. Correa and Boras were going to milk every last dollar they could out of whichever team was willing to pay it. They let the Twins think $285M close (which is probably was at one point) but they knew it would end up being more. The Twins probably knew that as well and stuck to their guns. If the Twins really are interested in Swanson they should have shifted their energy to him before the Correa contract in order to not let him take all the leverage which he was now as the last star shortstop...

At first I was disappointed the Twins didn't sign here and still am sort of. 10 years was a contract length I thought would have been acceptable at around $30MM per year. I thought 10 years would be a long time and had already wondered what a $30MM shortstop would look like in his mid to late 30's. But 13 years to me is crazy. He will be 41 when this contract ends. My son is 11 years old. To think someone having a baby today will have a teenager by the time this contract expires boggles my mind. In addition to that my 11 year old will be 24 years old at the end of this contract and some kid his age will likely be the best player in the major leagues at that time. If the front office is who balked at 13 years, I get it but they likely won't be here in 13 years so the end of this contract wouldn't be there problem. It likely was ownership who finally said "no". So the Twins have money to spend obviously, will they spend it now? And if so on who?

I don't blame this front office for not paying for 13 years, what I do (or eventually will) blame this for is not seeing that they likely were be played by Boras and sitting out of free agency hoping Correa decided to stay. At some point it had to be clear they likely were being used to get Correa maximum value. Even if they offered him 10 years/$285MM and he didn't say yes, that should have been the sign Boras and Correa were going to be using teams to get him to a figure they wanted. I also assume Bora gave them a figure they wanted and it wasn't met until last night. Now Swanson is going to be overpaid simply by being the last man standing and the Twins will still be paying a shortstop $25M a year assuming that is the pivot. And if it is, it should be Swanson + a pitcher.

Hoping someone can answer this (or confirm what I am saying). Jim Pohlad is not THE owner of the Twins, the Pohlad family owns the Twins and I assume Joe is a part of that ownership group. Jim just happened to be ownership's face of the franchise and core decision maker? Now Joe Pohlad is the face of the ownership group and decision maker? So I assume if Joe wants to increase payroll budget (hypothetically to say $175M) he doesn't need to get "permission" from uncle Jim to do that? I assume Minnesota Twins LLC are part of the overall Pohlad portfolio of companies and there is some sort of budget for this particular company, but from a running the Twins perspective Joe now has final say on financial decisions. Is that correct?

I feel like this small sleeve patch would have been a an amazing hat logo, if they made the flags white and lettering navy blue.

I don't know. I like them. I think the M hat would be better without the star, but overall I have no problems.

Whatever happens the Twins should give him a deadline to do a deal. Every team knows what Correa is and a reasonable idea of what it will take to get him. The one thing the Twins cannot do is wait around until late December while Correa makes his decision and pits teams against each other. I know fans won't like it but I think the team should give him a December 1 deadline, if he doesn't sign go put in the work to get Swanson, Turner or Boegarts. Waiting around will hurt the team, especially if he they wait and he signs with the Cubs on Christmas and all other options are gone and the team is then stuck holding $90M in unused payroll which will then be used to overpay for lesser guys (assuming most big names have signed) exacerbating the loss of Correa.

Based on what I have read the Twins want to know if they are signing Correa or not soon so they aren't playing catch up in a diluted talent pool later in the year. So hopefully by Thanksgiving weekend we have a Correa answer because everything they do hinges on that one way or the other. That being said they do need to get one of the top 4 SS's in my opinion.

Time value of money in this case is a benefit to Correa and detriment to the Twins. All things considered equal if the Twins and another team offered the same years and money, but Twins front loaded, the Twins would win that bidding war due to the fact "a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow". But in a sense if the Twins have money to burn in the first few years where they don't need to spend that on other contracts it helps the Twins in that way to have more on hand available later. It's a good way to manage cash flow, but lose out from an investment standpoint. It all depends on circumstances.

It would be great to re-sign Correa. But I don't want the Twins to "Win" the offseason. They don't need the best players at each position to be successful. Personally, I think Dansby Swanson would be a nice fit here. I don't think we've seen his peak yet and is already very good. Sign him to a 6-7 year deal probably around $150M. He will be 29 to start 2023, and a 7 year contract brings him through his age 35 season. At some point he could be moved to another position of it needs to happen in his mid 30's. I'd love to see homegrown talent at SS, but Lewis can't stay healthy, Martin is a question mark and Lee hasn't seen a full pro season yet. And there is no guarantee any or all of them stay Shortstops. Signing Swanson and creating a SS log jam would be a good situation.

I was wondering this same thing recently. I'm also wondering if this season doesn't work out well maybe they let one of them go. Falvey was the guy they brought in to essentially change the culture, thought process and develop a pitching pipeline in the organization and it worked early on. They are now using analytics and changed the structure of the org. Lavine seems to be the business/baseball guy. I would like to see how things worked out if Lavine was the THE guy at some point to see if he goes in and doesn't try to outsmart himself while still using the tools they have now.

It's not 1992 anymore. Medical advancement's have come a long way since. There are NFL running backs who come back from multiple ACL tears and still play very well and have long successful careers. I think a shortstop in baseball can do it as well. Kiriloff is different, he had a surgery that basically cut out a section of bone in his arm. Maybe there have been people who have come back from that but I am not familiar with them or anyone who has had the surgery. The concern with Lewis is he has basically played a part of 1 season in the last 4 years. He has the skills and I personally don't think multiple ACL surgeries will be his downfall. He will either be a Major League shortstop or a major league outfielder. How great he becomes will not be decided by his injury. Again back to Kiriloff, his surgery could impact his career. It might effect his hitting and if Kiriloff can't hit he isn't anything special. His career is completely dependent on his ability to hit. A run of the mill ACL surgery isn't going to effect Lewis ability to hit a baseball the same way a bone reduction surgery will effect Kiriloff.

Or, use the money they had for Correa and use it to sign a shortstop. I know they knew Correa was going to opt out, but there was a chance, a small one, that he stayed. If Correa got injured significantly he likely wouldn’t have opted out and the Twins would have been on the hook for the rest of his deal. So just use that cash and sign a top tier SS.

Yeah, I was short-sighted on my comment. Arraez hitting along with satisfactory defense at 2nd base is likely All-Star level for years to come.

I'm not high on moving him to the outfield. I would like an outfielder, even a 4th outfielder to have more power. I would be interested in what type of player he could be as a 2nd baseman. Polanco has been breaking down and may be time to move from him in the near future. They lose some power but if he figures out the OBP and Average piece of hitting in the next 9 months it would be nice to have a right side of the infield (assuming Arraez sticks as primary 1st baseman) hitting .300+ with a .350-.375 OBP with lots of Extra base hits.

Before the Yankees series I would say he likely gets another year due to a lot the injuries that happened. However, the urgency the team had for the 7 most important games of the year is disheartening. Rocco doesn't have the intensity needed in this type of scenario to get a team to fight for their playoff lives. All that being said, who do they find to replace him and how much of this is on the front office?