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I’m done. This sucks. Every offseason, they dump the player I care most about. Every single offseason. I find another. I buy back in. They do it again. being a Twins fan is not fun anymore. I give up.

It was nice to read this condensed history, but a few things jump out at me. This FO pushed a load of chips in on the pursuit of Shohei Ohtani in the off-season before the 2018 season and didn’t land him. If they’d been successful, the subsequent planning would have been built around him (and his contract) as a centerpiece. They have made a number of fruitless FA pursuits and some in-house candidates failed to qualify for potential big contracts (looking at you Sano.) Eventually, you have to spend money on some star player and to get a CC quality player with this level of financial risk is a huge win from my perspective.

Correa is a huge asset, but my most recent TD comment was to express I wouldn’t want him at 13yr/$350m A lot happened since then. I checked out for awhile and to me the whole Mets things wasn’t worth a comment. But now this contract. I’m psyched. This won’t weigh down the franchise to its detriment. It will pay a star player to be a star player. This is a winner for a MN fan.

I think the big loser is the franchise stuck with ANY player with a 13yr, $350m commitment. At 10yr, $285m I would have felt mixed emotions with at least some buyer’s remorse, but I won’t for one minute feel jealous of SF fans today. I hope the team can redirect some resources to improve their pitching situation.

I was quoted as saying something similar. "When I go to Mills Fleet Farm and I go to the fishing lure clearance bin and I want something, I do some math to determine the price minus the color-coded percentage discount. But I usually decide it still costs more than I want to pay. So if you're a cheap enough guy, you can pass on just about anything. I'm the product here, and not especially good at baseball, so..."

Everything I've read from every commenter has been reasonable and well-founded. Unfortunately, the overwhelming conclusion it leads to means there is no reason for me to stick around any longer. I think I'm done watching baseball this year. Evil won. Oh well. Baseball was fun through most of the summer anyway. Get outdoors and enjoy some beautiful weather. I'll see y'all next year!

This is all about feelings, and feelings aren't right or wrong so no judgement please. The events of the second half of this Twins season have drained me of enthusiasm and interest. Beyond my ambivalent feelings overall toward my Twins, I have a deep and abiding hatred for the Yankees. That never wanes. MLB is no fun to watch when the teams who pay 2-3x the payroll of their competitors are just beating up on the rest of the league. I especially root against Aaron Judge. It is not fair to him and I'll admit that, but he is exactly what I picture when I read accounts of the Nephilim or Goliath. His success brings nothing but pain. I would have already moved on 100% to football season, but Luis Arraez is my favorite current Twin and he still has a chance to play spoiler. In honesty, this will be a near impossible hill to climb. With Judge this close to the triple-crown, the mandate is in and you can see it every day on the field. MLB wants the huge east-coast storyline. For the rest of the season, many of the away crowds will be rooting against Arraez. More importantly, the umps will be skewing the field against him. The strike-zones will be pinched when he bats. Close calls will go against him. Judge is the recipient of every possible advantage right now and it's moved him just ahead in the race. If the numbers keep trending this way, I'll be checking out until spring. But if Luis can resurge and has a real chance to play spoiler, I'll still have one solitary reason to care about these otherwise worthless games. It's Arraez vs. Evil. Here's hoping!

The purpose of the season is to determine which teams belong in the playoffs. That has been accomplished. There can be no question. Our 2022 Twins just don't belong.

I'm an idiot.

This has the workings of a nice rally. I'm somehow still hoping for the best

Just set their new record for the most pitchers used in a single season? I'm beaming with pride. Now I can remember the 2022 Twins fondly as the "record-setting 2022 Twins"

Man. This team. I should've brought some whiskey to the office today.

I'm with her too. You'd whine too if ya knew what's good for ya! ?

I am right there with him. This is no fun.

Good writeup. Feels like there was potential for a much better outcome this year, but it would have required a number of good breaks. It’s gotten pretty bleak lately.

I can’t let this go. I will try hard to be respectful, but I just can’t see this the way you do. Buxton, Polanco, Kepler, Sano, Kiriloff, and Jeffers all made the opening day roster and all were out hurt. It was painfully obvious that a Plan B lineup was on the field. First line of defense this year included opening day roster bench players who are now regulars-Arraez (thank God), Gordon & Celestino (both having risen to perform above expectations). These were supposed to be supplemental talent, not the core group. Then comes the frontline contigency minor league group which was led by Garlick, Miranda, Lewis (out), Larnach (out). It’s been a lot of blows to the depth of the lineup. Most everyone has lost some time and all the lifelines have been used extensively. At this point, the attrition has overwhelmed the team. Again, this isn’t even touching on the pitching. Is it an excuse? You can decide that for yourself. Is it an inescapable truth? Yup. 100%

This article twice characterized Wnder looking good today. I disagree. He was getting hit hard and managed to take advantage of some nice breaks. Glad he got through it, but I don’t think many of us there today felt confident with the frequent hard contact he was allowing.

Apparently you weren’t at the game today like I was, watching an outfield of Cave/Celestino/Garlick. The Twins had to field that group because injuries have sidelined Buxton, Kepler, Kiriloff, Larnach, and Contreras. All higher options on the depth chart than the players that were actually playing. The infield is missing Polanco, Sano, Lewis and Jeffers. That’s without even mentioning the many pitching injuries that have gutted the starting and relief corps. The team is broken. They are cooked. They are severely injured. I feel it’s disingenuous to claim otherwise.

Maeda can hardly be categorized the same as Paddack and Dyson. He was a season and a half post-trade before he lost time to injury. I see him as an example of the times it pays off- pitchers who become available for a reasonable price because of lingering injury concern, but who then contribute beyond their price tag. I'd put Maeda's name alongside Pineda on that list. I'm holding out hope Archer will prove he belongs in that grouping as well, but that would require he reverses some current trends. There certainly aren't many examples of that being a successful strategy.

I totally get the frustration and desire to aim it at a culprit. Not sure I am convinced whether Rocco is to blame. The team sees a totally different manager than he allows the public to see and I can't distinguish which on-field decisions are actually mandates from the FO. The management style is too clinical and impersonal for my tastes, but I wasn't complaining while it was working in April and May. After a hot start, the team has gone 41-51 in their past 92 games. That is a last-place pace in a pretty sizeable sample. I see talent on the offensive side, but it hasn't gelled and the pitching has sunk to match my preseason worries. Maybe they just aren't a very good team. In the standings, they are still positioned to make a run, but I've become convinced that this team just doesn't have it in them.

As a boy, I became a fan of baseball because I loved the postseason games of '87 and '91. At present, I love regular season baseball more than any other sport, but the playoff version of baseball is unrecognizeable. It is not played like the same game and to my eye, the officiating starts to look like the NBA where the star players get the benefit of every call. I've lost interest in the MLB postseason. I hope that changes someday. I've gotten to the point where I avoid Twins playoff games in recent years to keep myself from getting upset or depressed. I have my fun in the regular season. That is all MLB allows.

Excellent article. I didn’t want him, but Bundy has been a pleasant surprise. However, IMO Pagan is the absolute worst kind of pitcher you can have around. Someone whose “stuff” looks so good that he keeps getting innings despite the fact that he fails at a pitcher’s actual job-getting outs. Sad truth is, he was less effective at getting outs than Duffey or Smith, but those guys were cut for ineffectiveness. The even-worse pitcher stays around to keep sinking the team because he looks better failing. “Stuff” can be deceiving.

This might be the best argument for him to not opt out. The only reason to not exercise the opt-out is if CC believes playing in MN at $35 mil (with a short-term contract) is better than whatever else he will be offered. If he truly loves playing here and his goal is to stay, he has to weigh his current contract against what he thinks the Twins will offer him this winter as a free agent. In that case, he might realistically expect the Twins would offer him something like 4 yr/$100m. If I were him in that scenario, I'd probably stick with the 2yr/$70 I already have. But only if I was convinced that I exclusively wish to stay a Twin. If he's fine with leaving MN, he instead has to weight his current contract against what the field will offer and someone will be willing to go higher in salary and years. This is still the most likely reality for any player who chooses Boras as an agent. I expect his is where he's truly headed until he proves otherwise.

I’m going to the game tonight for the first time since the Pre-Covid days of yore. I’ll have a talk with the boys and try to get ‘em on track. It’s gotten a bit ugly out there.

For any of those inclined to dump on Archer, I submit this stat. Short starts? Yes, but he’s held opposing hitters to an OPS of just .680 That’s better than league average and better than Mahle, Ryan, Bundy, Smeltzer, Ober or Winder. Sonny Gray is the only Twins starter who has a better opponent OPS (.654) Heck, our 100+ mph, short burst super reliever Duran is holding opposing hitters to an OPS of .619 If our most dominant reliever holds opponents to a .619 OPS, I am not inclined to be disappointed or critical of a starter who holds them to .680 He’s trended down recently. Here’s hoping it is a blip. Might be one of our better hopes for a dominant playoff pitcher (starter or bp)