Unless they pick up a premier starter, I think their strategy is to pound the crap out of the ball and rely on an above average bullpen. Get ready for a lot of 8-7 games. The starting staff is scary. Maybe they think that if they can get through the fifth having given up five runs or less, they will be in good shape.
2019-2020 Minnesota Twins Off-Season Thread
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Once they get Pineda back, it might be OK. And if Rich Hill can give them anything, that's a bonus. But they have to make it through April and May first.
tmvander
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I sure hope we're planning on limiting teams to less than 5 runs per start. That's a 9 ERA per starter if they throw 5 innings. I'm not a huge baseball stats guy but I think that's sub par.
You bet it's sub par.
The Donaldson signing was great and a great surprise. I also think they got him for a fair price. It doesn't change the holes in their starting rotation. Berrios hasn't proven to be reliable after about mid July. Odo is competent but not dominant. I think Pineda is the most reliable of the three of them but he won't be available until about the second week of May. Last year it took him a while to get going after a layoff. After that...nada. The wild cards are Graderol and what they would have to give up in a trade to get a pitcher who can win 15 games in the regular season and start two games on a playoff series.
The bullpen should be a strength.
Ogee Ogilthorpe
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And yet it is still mid-January...
Pardon me if, like I've been saying the last 2 months, I don't sound the panic alarms until we get to mid-late March and we know what the 26-man roster is going to be.
short ornery norwegian
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Graterol is the interesting situation. By all accounts, they want to limit his innings. So, how do they use him? I could see him paired with another starter - maybe Dobnak or Smeltzer - where each one goes for three innings. Basically split a starter's role between two pitchers. That extends his innings where Graterol could "half-start" 30-some games and get to 100 innings for the year.
Let's remember, Pineda will be back at some point and Rich Hill should be back mid-season. So, they need one plan to get through the first half of the season, and then for the second half, it's Berrios, Odorizzi, Pineda, Hill and Bailey, and if Graterol has innings left, put him in the pen. if they score enough runs, that rotation could be good enough for 90+ wins.
Let's remember, Pineda will be back at some point and Rich Hill should be back mid-season. So, they need one plan to get through the first half of the season, and then for the second half, it's Berrios, Odorizzi, Pineda, Hill and Bailey, and if Graterol has innings left, put him in the pen. if they score enough runs, that rotation could be good enough for 90+ wins.
JimmyJamesMD
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They still need a front line starter. Now that the lineup is set for the next couple of seasons, now is the time to be aggressive with selling prospects for pitching
Bad Gopher
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Now Carlos Beltran!
GophersInIowa
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Altuve lying in real time "don't rip my jersey off, I'm too shy." Wow. Suspend the players too. Take the WS title away.
GophersInIowa
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Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if anything else happens here.
BleedGopher
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per Sid:
• ESPN baseball reporter Buster Olney wrote that the Twins are No. 9 in his power rankings: “The rotation has a lot of uncertainty, but the Twins are going to hit and they should have a high-end bullpen. In the American League Central, that might be enough.”
• Miguel Sano’s new contract will pay him $30 million over three years, but just $7 million in 2020, putting him below Jake Odorizzi ($17.8 million), Nelson Cruz ($12 million), Marwin Gonzalez ($9 million) and Eddie Rosario ($7.5 million) for this season.
• Twins President Dave St. Peter said one of their minor league clubs might play this season with a robotic strike zone aiding umpires: “I would be surprised if we don’t see it in the Florida State League [with the newly named Fort Myers Mighty Muscles]. Our players will get a look at it, our coaches and managers will get a look at it.”
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• ESPN baseball reporter Buster Olney wrote that the Twins are No. 9 in his power rankings: “The rotation has a lot of uncertainty, but the Twins are going to hit and they should have a high-end bullpen. In the American League Central, that might be enough.”
• Miguel Sano’s new contract will pay him $30 million over three years, but just $7 million in 2020, putting him below Jake Odorizzi ($17.8 million), Nelson Cruz ($12 million), Marwin Gonzalez ($9 million) and Eddie Rosario ($7.5 million) for this season.
• Twins President Dave St. Peter said one of their minor league clubs might play this season with a robotic strike zone aiding umpires: “I would be surprised if we don’t see it in the Florida State League [with the newly named Fort Myers Mighty Muscles]. Our players will get a look at it, our coaches and managers will get a look at it.”
P.J. Fleck engineered historic Gophers turnaround
When the history of Gophers football is written, you will not be able pass up the fact that only three years ago, this program was in its worst straits ever when P.J. Fleck took over as coach.
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BleedGopher
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STrib: Twins' invitation to Josh Donaldson finally got a response: It's a deal
“Hey, Josh, we want you to sign here!” boomed the accented voice on the video. “Come join the Bomba Squad!”
Josh Donaldson knew the Twins were eager to get him to commit to Minnesota. Their offer to pay him at least $92 million made that abundantly clear. But this was different. This was attention-grabbing. The voice playing on his cellphone belonged to the player whose job he would be taking away.
“Josh, I’ll move to first base for you,” a smiling Miguel Sano said on the video he made shortly after signing a long-term deal of his own. “You’re the only one I’ll go to first base for!”
Only Donaldson knows how much Sano’s cellphone sales pitch swayed his opinion, or whether it eased any fears about walking into an awkward situation with the incumbent Twins third baseman. It’s pretty likely, actually, that his decision had already been made when he saw it. But the video, delivered during an early-morning round of golf by Donaldson’s friend Mardy Fish, a former top-10 tennis professional and lifelong Twins fan, added a lighthearted final act to a monthlong recruitment effort and contract negotiation, the most expensive and potentially franchise-altering such undertaking in Twins history.
“I texted my dad right away — ‘Josh says he’s going to sign with us! I think we’re going to get him!’ ” Fish said from Lake Buena Vista, Fla., where he and Donaldson are competing in the celebrity bracket of the LPGA’s Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. “It was exciting, just to know such great news ahead of time. I would have loved to tweet it, but I couldn’t break his trust.”
The news broke soon enough anyway. By nightfall, word had leaked that Donaldson, one of the 10 best all-around players in the game when healthy, had agreed to sign a four-year contract with the Twins with an option for a fifth season, the most expensive free-agent deal in franchise history.
“I saw him the next day at the pro-am [event]. I pulled the cart over, ran over and basically tackled him — ‘We got our third baseman! We got our third baseman!’ ” Fish, a former Edina resident who estimates he watched 155 Twins games last summer, said with a laugh. “I don’t know if I had anything to do with it in any tiny, tiny way. But I had been hoping for this for a long time.”
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“Hey, Josh, we want you to sign here!” boomed the accented voice on the video. “Come join the Bomba Squad!”
Josh Donaldson knew the Twins were eager to get him to commit to Minnesota. Their offer to pay him at least $92 million made that abundantly clear. But this was different. This was attention-grabbing. The voice playing on his cellphone belonged to the player whose job he would be taking away.
“Josh, I’ll move to first base for you,” a smiling Miguel Sano said on the video he made shortly after signing a long-term deal of his own. “You’re the only one I’ll go to first base for!”
Only Donaldson knows how much Sano’s cellphone sales pitch swayed his opinion, or whether it eased any fears about walking into an awkward situation with the incumbent Twins third baseman. It’s pretty likely, actually, that his decision had already been made when he saw it. But the video, delivered during an early-morning round of golf by Donaldson’s friend Mardy Fish, a former top-10 tennis professional and lifelong Twins fan, added a lighthearted final act to a monthlong recruitment effort and contract negotiation, the most expensive and potentially franchise-altering such undertaking in Twins history.
“I texted my dad right away — ‘Josh says he’s going to sign with us! I think we’re going to get him!’ ” Fish said from Lake Buena Vista, Fla., where he and Donaldson are competing in the celebrity bracket of the LPGA’s Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. “It was exciting, just to know such great news ahead of time. I would have loved to tweet it, but I couldn’t break his trust.”
The news broke soon enough anyway. By nightfall, word had leaked that Donaldson, one of the 10 best all-around players in the game when healthy, had agreed to sign a four-year contract with the Twins with an option for a fifth season, the most expensive free-agent deal in franchise history.
“I saw him the next day at the pro-am [event]. I pulled the cart over, ran over and basically tackled him — ‘We got our third baseman! We got our third baseman!’ ” Fish, a former Edina resident who estimates he watched 155 Twins games last summer, said with a laugh. “I don’t know if I had anything to do with it in any tiny, tiny way. But I had been hoping for this for a long time.”
Twins' invitation to Josh Donaldson finally got a response: It's a deal
A sales pitch video from Miguel Sano and some prodding from tennis pro Mardy Fish helped.
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BleedGopher
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JimmyJamesMD
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There so many different lineups you can go with. But I just dont know how Arraez isnt your everyday lead off man
And Rosario should NOT be hitting clean-up in this line-up. He's one of the 3 worst hitters in this group.
Rocco could pull names out of a hat every night and it almost wouldn't matter. The lineup is that good.
BleedGopher
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RandBall: Are Twins shedding 'cheap' label, becoming attractive in free agency?
At the intersection of both notions, though, is the Twins’ recent signing of Josh Donaldson for $21 million a year for the next four years plus a guaranteed $8 million more in a buyout. The $92 million overall commitment dwarfs the four year, $55 million deal given to Ervin Santana in 2015 as the largest contract for an outside free agent in Twins history. (Joe Mauer got exactly twice as much over exactly twice as much time, but that was an extension).
My initial thought was that the Donaldson signing might quiet the Cheap Pohlad crowd a bit, but I think we’re at least one starting pitcher away from dimming that bulb. And to be fair: The Twins payroll, while projected at a team-record $137 million, would only match the 2019 MLB average at that amount. Even after a busy offseason with Donaldson as a centerpiece, the Twins are financially prudent.
But maybe we are ready to shift the other part of the narrative: that free agents don’t want to come here. Last year’s notables included Nelson Cruz, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Schoop and Martin Perez – a group that helped produce 101 wins and paved the way, Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey might argue, for Rich Hill, Alex Avila, Tyler Clippard and Homer Bailey to join Donaldson as outside free agents signing with the Twins already this offseason.
“We heard a lot through this offseason, watching the team play last year how much fun the guys were having, how loose it was, the environment. Players like that. We knew that we were an attractive destination,” Falvey told reporters recently. “Certainly there are things that players factor in in their decision — geography, finances, whatever. You know those are going to play a role at the end of the day, but I felt like we were going to be an attractive destination for people.”
As far as the financial piece, it surely helps that none of the deals outside of Donaldson’s were for more than two years or even a quarter of his guaranteed money. But it sounds as though the Twins’ spending reputation wasn’t a hindrance.
“It’s a narrative that’s out there because it’s just what’s happened. It’s fact. It transpired,” Falvey told Miller. “I think current players, my experience with this and maybe you guys need to ask current players more, is that current players, they look at the team. Do they want to be a part of that? And if the financial part of that lines up, great, they’ll move forward. I don’t think we ever ran into a perception issue when we talked to other players or other agents about it.”
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At the intersection of both notions, though, is the Twins’ recent signing of Josh Donaldson for $21 million a year for the next four years plus a guaranteed $8 million more in a buyout. The $92 million overall commitment dwarfs the four year, $55 million deal given to Ervin Santana in 2015 as the largest contract for an outside free agent in Twins history. (Joe Mauer got exactly twice as much over exactly twice as much time, but that was an extension).
My initial thought was that the Donaldson signing might quiet the Cheap Pohlad crowd a bit, but I think we’re at least one starting pitcher away from dimming that bulb. And to be fair: The Twins payroll, while projected at a team-record $137 million, would only match the 2019 MLB average at that amount. Even after a busy offseason with Donaldson as a centerpiece, the Twins are financially prudent.
But maybe we are ready to shift the other part of the narrative: that free agents don’t want to come here. Last year’s notables included Nelson Cruz, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Schoop and Martin Perez – a group that helped produce 101 wins and paved the way, Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey might argue, for Rich Hill, Alex Avila, Tyler Clippard and Homer Bailey to join Donaldson as outside free agents signing with the Twins already this offseason.
“We heard a lot through this offseason, watching the team play last year how much fun the guys were having, how loose it was, the environment. Players like that. We knew that we were an attractive destination,” Falvey told reporters recently. “Certainly there are things that players factor in in their decision — geography, finances, whatever. You know those are going to play a role at the end of the day, but I felt like we were going to be an attractive destination for people.”
As far as the financial piece, it surely helps that none of the deals outside of Donaldson’s were for more than two years or even a quarter of his guaranteed money. But it sounds as though the Twins’ spending reputation wasn’t a hindrance.
“It’s a narrative that’s out there because it’s just what’s happened. It’s fact. It transpired,” Falvey told Miller. “I think current players, my experience with this and maybe you guys need to ask current players more, is that current players, they look at the team. Do they want to be a part of that? And if the financial part of that lines up, great, they’ll move forward. I don’t think we ever ran into a perception issue when we talked to other players or other agents about it.”
Are Twins shedding 'cheap' label, becoming attractive in free agency?
When it comes to perceptions about the Twins and how they operate in free agency, there are two narratives that sometimes compete with each other and sometime seem intertwined. First, there is the idea that the Twins won't spend big. Second, there is the idea that big-time free agents don't want...
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BleedGopher
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Sid: Healthier Max Kepler prepares for another big season for Twins
One of the Twins’ best front-office decisions was signing Max Kepler to a five-year, $35 million contract in February of 2019 that locked up the German-born outfielder’s services through 2024.
Kepler lived up to his contract and then some last season, posting career highs in batting average (. 252), on-base percentage (. 336), slugging percentage (.519), hits (132), home runs (36), RBI (90) and runs scored (98).
He was able to post those stats despite lingering shoulder and chest injuries throughout most of September that really limited him in the postseason, when he went 0-for-10 in three games against the Yankees in the American League Division Series.
Kepler explained how he rehabilitated the injury in the offseason.
“I saw a physical therapist, multiple, and just tried to get the healthiest in the quickest way possible,” he said last week while in town for TwinsFest at Target Field. “I had to strengthen it, and then just find my mobility back, flexibility, and just did a lot of rehab and physical training.”
Would he call himself 100% now? “I would say so,” Kepler said.
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One of the Twins’ best front-office decisions was signing Max Kepler to a five-year, $35 million contract in February of 2019 that locked up the German-born outfielder’s services through 2024.
Kepler lived up to his contract and then some last season, posting career highs in batting average (. 252), on-base percentage (. 336), slugging percentage (.519), hits (132), home runs (36), RBI (90) and runs scored (98).
He was able to post those stats despite lingering shoulder and chest injuries throughout most of September that really limited him in the postseason, when he went 0-for-10 in three games against the Yankees in the American League Division Series.
Kepler explained how he rehabilitated the injury in the offseason.
“I saw a physical therapist, multiple, and just tried to get the healthiest in the quickest way possible,” he said last week while in town for TwinsFest at Target Field. “I had to strengthen it, and then just find my mobility back, flexibility, and just did a lot of rehab and physical training.”
Would he call himself 100% now? “I would say so,” Kepler said.
Healthier Max Kepler prepares for another big season for Twins
The Twins outfielder set career batting marks last season, and believes 2020 team will be even better.
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JimmyJamesMD
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I want to trade for a legit good starter. I have no idea if any are out there or available, but now is the time for the twins to go for it.
I hear that their strategy might be to wait until the trade deadline. Thats a stupid approach. You could be 10 games out at that point
I hear that their strategy might be to wait until the trade deadline. Thats a stupid approach. You could be 10 games out at that point
GophersInIowa
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At the same time it will probably cost them more in prospects now than at the deadline. If this team is 10 games out at the deadline there are probably a lot of issues.
No team is eager to trade a starter right now and wave a white flag before the season begins. I think you could get the Marlins to part with Alcantarra or the Pirates to part with Archer, but that's not really what we need. I would do the Marlins trade though.
Pineda will be back in early May and it sounds like Hill in early June. My guess is they will wait and see how they both look and then proceed.
forever a gopher
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IF the position players can stay mostly healthy, this team has a chance to win 105-110 games. But the question is, will that matter if they get smacked by the Yankees again the postseason due to a lack of playoff-caliber pitching?
I really hope Buxton can stay healthy. The Twins desperately need some speed in the lineup.
I really hope Buxton can stay healthy. The Twins desperately need some speed in the lineup.
BleedGopher
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SId: Twins end Josh Donaldson's long wait for a big payday
It’s hard to understand how a star such as Josh Donaldson, who recently signed a four-year, $92 million contract with the Twins, can bounce around baseball for nine seasons before getting his first long-term contract.
Donaldson has simply been one of the best players in baseball since 2013, but only once has he had a contract of longer than one season, and that was a two-year deal with Toronto in 2016-17.
Donaldson was a first-round pick of the Cubs in 2007 but was dealt a year later to Oakland as part of a package for pitchers Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin. Donaldson made his MLB debut in 2010 and established himself a star in 2013-14, when he hit 53 homers over two seasons with 191 RBI and a .277 batting average with the Athletics.
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It’s hard to understand how a star such as Josh Donaldson, who recently signed a four-year, $92 million contract with the Twins, can bounce around baseball for nine seasons before getting his first long-term contract.
Donaldson has simply been one of the best players in baseball since 2013, but only once has he had a contract of longer than one season, and that was a two-year deal with Toronto in 2016-17.
Donaldson was a first-round pick of the Cubs in 2007 but was dealt a year later to Oakland as part of a package for pitchers Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin. Donaldson made his MLB debut in 2010 and established himself a star in 2013-14, when he hit 53 homers over two seasons with 191 RBI and a .277 batting average with the Athletics.
Twins end Josh Donaldson's long wait for a big payday
He has never had a contract of longer than two seasons before now.
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Supposedly the Twins are the 3rd team in a trade sending Mookie Betts to the Dodgers. The only thing that makes sense is David Price, but woof that would push the payroll to $170 million. Jim may go into cardiac arrest.
BleedGopher
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TruthSeeker
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Maeda is a solid pitcher with a good contract.
GoodasGold
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I understand Odorizzi will be throwing faster next season. Was he coasting last season?
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