Twins 2021

I read he should be starting a rehab stint in the next day or two and they are hoping he’s back shortly after the all star break.

I hear the Yanks want a left-handed hitting outfielder – Kep??

Not sure you’d get much for him….

Before I got to worrying about Kepler Cruz, Simmons, Sano & Colome need to be dealt with.

I don’t mind Kepler and they have him on a good contract. Yankees have no pitching anywhere in there system either. You basically would be giving him away.

Dutchboy wrote:

Before I got to worrying about Kepler Cruz, Simmons, Sano & Colome need to be dealt with.

I don’t mind Kepler and they have him on a good contract. Yankees have no pitching anywhere in there system either. You basically would be giving him away.

I guess it was Cashman that mentioned the interest in a left-handed hitting outfielder. Someone else mentioned Kepler because of his ability to play all 3 OF positions at least serviceably. But if they don’t have a minor league power arm to offer, pass…

I think they’d miss Kepler’s glove more than his bat, especially when Buxton misses his usual 3/4 of the season.

Yankees have 4 outfielders currently hitting sub .200 so you’re going to hear lots of rumors over the next couple weeks. All of a sudden Kepler’s .222 batting average looks Ruthian for NY.

FryDog62 wrote:

Yankees have 4 outfielders currently hitting sub .200 so you’re going to hear lots of rumors over the next couple weeks. All of a sudden Kepler’s .222 batting average looks Ruthian for NY.

Thats true and Gardner is still at about 60 years old playing center field so they would have a interest. However I don’t know what the Yankees could offer that would be worth trading Kepler to them. Do you want to take a bad contract off their hands? Yankees are in a battle of New York now with Cohn and the Mets and they suck in their own division. I don’t see Cashman giving any pitching up. At least nothing better than we had with Shoemaker.

Dutchboy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>FryDog62 wrote:</div>
Yankees have 4 outfielders currently hitting sub .200 so you’re going to hear lots of rumors over the next couple weeks. All of a sudden Kepler’s .222 batting average looks Ruthian for NY.

Thats true and Gardner is still at about 60 years old playing center field so they would have a interest. However I don’t know what the Yankees could offer that would be worth trading Kepler to them. Do you want to take a bad contract off their hands? Yankees are in a battle of New York now with Cohn and the Mets and they suck in their own division. I don’t see Cashman giving any pitching up. At least nothing better than we had with Shoemaker.

True, but if the Yanks had a pitching prospect to trade they would… even if it’s their last one, because they will always buy an expensive FA in the offseason (which the Twins won’t). Our only way of building an above-average pitching staff is to grow our own, or trade for someone else’s seedlings before they become relevant..

FryDog62 wrote:

Our only way of building an above-average pitching staff is to grow our own, or trade for someone else’s seedlings before they become relevant..

*Hypothetically. This team’s best pitcher’s over the last 25 years have been Johan, Liriano, Brad Radke and I don’t even know who would be 4th Kyle Gibson/Jose Berrios?.?.?.You’d think the law of averages would have them hit at least a couple more times over that time frame.

Anybody else hear Manfred’s state of the league or whatever they’re calling it. They are going to get rid of the 7 inning double headers, which I actually liked, and also drop the runner on second extra inning rule, which I’m definitely in favor of.

But the gem of the speech was when he said baseball is being suffocated by analytics!

Only problem is nobody respects Manfred so they will just say he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Wish anyone else but him would’ve said it. It’s so true though.

“But the gem of the speech was when he said baseball is being suffocated by analytics!”

No truer words have ever been spoken. Baseball has become almost unwatchable to the casual fan that gets bored after an inning or two. Even us die hards get antsy with the slow pace, pitching changes, etc. I have to be doing something – exercising, tying lures, etc to endure a half game anymore ~

For my money they can get rid of replay also. Thats gone wayyy overboard. It was intended for only fair / foul balls & homeruns. Now they stop and look in the dugout on nearly every out made.

Twins should have taken the Angels approach and drafted a pitcher in every round of the draft. You would think you would hit on someone with that approach.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Twins should have taken the Angels approach and drafted a pitcher in every round of the draft. You would think you would hit on someone with that approach.

This is the club that would miss on all of them. Just have to look at their history of pitching prospects.

IF… the Twins make a trade between now and 7/31 – in your opinion who are the two most likely players to get sent elsewhere?

Its kind of interesting that there were 4 former Twins pitchers who were selected to the ASG…

FryDog62 wrote:

IF… the Twins make a trade between now and 7/31 – in your opinion who are the two most likely players to get sent elsewhere?

Cruz
Simmons
Pineda

Donaldson and Cruz are the two I think have the biggest shot of being moved.

blank wrote:

Its kind of interesting that there were 4 former Twins pitchers who were selected to the ASG…

To be fair, Lance Lynn was HORRIBLE for us, and Kyle Gibson will come back to earth the second half.

“Donaldson and Cruz are the two I think have the biggest shot of being moved.”

With the contract and recent injuries, how realistic would it be to move JD? That would be a dream come true at least for me..!

Yankees vs Red Sox game tonight cancelled due to Covid outbreak on the Yankees.

FryDog62 wrote:

“Donaldson and Cruz are the two I think have the biggest shot of being moved.”

With the contract and recent injuries, how realistic would it be to move JD? That would be a dream come true at least for me..!

Atlanta just lost their 3rd baseman. Donaldson was there before he came to the Twins. His contract is a bit of an issue. However after Cruz and Donaldson, I don’t see the Twins trading anyone. Mostly because they’d get a bag of balls back for anyone else they’d be willing to trade.

I personally don’t think Donaldson has been as bad as everyone seems to think. He’s been injured yes, but when playing he’s been pretty good this season. $100 million good? No, but for the Twins (this year especially), pretty good.

My problem with trading Donaldson is i’m afraid they move the fat kid back to third. Kirriloff needs to be the first baseman so what you doing with Sano? DH after Cruz is gone? I don’t trust them guys to do that.

Dutchboy wrote:

My problem with trading Donaldson is i’m afraid they move the fat kid back to third. Kirriloff needs to be the first baseman so what you doing with Sano? DH after Cruz is gone? I don’t trust them guys to do that.

Arreaz would be the everyday starter I would think.

Think I would rather keep Donaldson. If you find somebody willing to take the money you aren’t going to get much of a player in return.

The biggest reason to get rid of Donaldson is to spend that money on arms – which are more important to this team than any other commodity. His contract has them hamstrung (bad pun I know). Twins need more quality pitching plus to resign the slightly better than average arms they already have to extensions (i.e. Berrios).

JD can be replaced, the team is already in a huge hole for pitching and need to rebuild with that as the #1 priority.

Call me the most surprised guy in the room if another team actually pursues him… hope I’m wrong!

Big news this morning. Twins offered Buxton $70 million (unsure of the years) to resign. The deal includes many incentives that could make it worth much more. However if he doesn’t sign, they will try and move him by the trade deadline. This from Ken Rosenthal.

I think the Twins will ask for the moon for him even with his injury history. I think this is actually pretty smart by the Twins. They don’t believe he is worth the money he will make on the open market and the incentive deal they offered him would probably get him close to the 90 million mark is my guess. I’m sure it’s based on games played, at bats, and probably all star appearances, etc.

I like how they are doing this.

FryDog62 wrote:

Twins need more quality pitching plus to resign the slightly better than average arms they already have to extensions (i.e. Berrios).
JD can be replaced, the team is already in a huge hole for pitching and need to rebuild with that as the #1 priority.

Have you seen what top tier pitching goes for these days? The Twins will never do that on a free agent. Even $20M per gets you pretty far down the list! And they need to sign/resign a top 3 that would all be in that price range! I understand their position on Buxton, but if they trade him I envision reliving a mid-90’s level of success the next few years for the Twinks. Terry Ryan is looking better and better by the day! You can’t fire the owners, and they only needed the stadium to compete………….

BigWerm wrote:

Terry Ryan is looking better and better by the day! You can’t fire the owners, and they only needed the stadium to compete………….

Let’s not get carried away here. Terry Ryan might have identified talent a little better than these guys but he purposely went well below the budgets the Pohlads gave him for absolutely no reason.

These guys, while they haven’t hit on a lot of their recent moves are willing to spend every cent they have. The analytics urine me off yes, but at least they are trying their best and using every cent they have.

Wheres TBRO when I need him. I would like to see the number of scouts on the payroll pre Falvey vs what they have in the field now. I certainly hope they haven’t gone exclusively to Central Scouting.