2019 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

They made a solid and good addition to the bullpen. They did ok there.

They have 1 starter on the team next year. A trade could have helped to have another on staff next season. The rotation next year could be ugly.

So far, Falvey and Levine seem very willing to pick up a lot of guys on short-term deals: 2 years, or 1 year with an option. I still think a lot of this is a holding action until some of the top minor leaguers are ready. So, I would not be surprised if they pick up a couple more starters for next year on short deals - assuming they do not bring back all of the current starters.
 

I think the hope is to play Yankees in the ALDS and hope the Indians/A's somehow upset Houston. Hard to imagine winning a 7 game series against Verlander/Cole/Grienke and that line-up.

Yeah, that's going to be brutal. I never thought there would be a bigger threat to the Twins' postseason success than the Yankees, but that move has changed things (as long as the Astros didn't give up anything significant).

When I made a statement that Gibson and Odorizzi are not "aces", I forgot about Berrios, but I still don't consider him to be at the level of former Twins' starters Viola, Blyleven, Radke, Johan Santana, or Liriano.
 

SI: Trade Deadline Grades:

Minnesota Twins: B
Sam Dyson is a great relief upgrade, and the Twins got him for a steal of a minor-league package; Sergio Romo is a fine ‘pen addition, too. So this certainly wasn’t a bad deadline. But with Cleveland beefing up and closing in on Minnesota’s divisional lead, it might have paid off to do just a little more.

Cleveland Indians: A
Cleveland didn’t do anything on Wednesday after Tuesday’s three-way blockbuster, but it didn’t have to. On Tuesday, the team patched up its outfield (adding Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes) and picked up some young talent (Logan Allen, Victor Nova, Scott Moss) while only giving up Trevor Bauer—a big name, certainly, but Cleveland’s rotation was strong enough that it could afford to deal from there. Essentially, this deal threaded the needle of helping the club win now and later.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/07/31/trade-deadline-grades-astros-yankees

Win Twins!!
 

The twins did good to bolster their bullpen but I"m still disappointed in the moves. We have so many prospects and honestly I don't know where we are going to play them all the next couple years. We should have traded some of those pieces to get a top 2 starter also. I know no one was expecting the twins to be this good this year but here we are, we literally have lightning in a bottle and the twins don't go all in. Tough day to be a twins fan.
 

per Sid:

Rare European star

Recently ESPN ran a big profile of Kepler with the headline, “Twins’ Max Kepler leading baseball’s charge into Europe.” With Major League Baseball starting to feature games in London, the German-born Kepler could have real marketability overseas in the future.

In the article, Jim Small — MLB’s senior vice president for international — said Kepler is an important player to help cultivate more baseball fans in Europe.

“Having heroes like Max Kepler is huge for us,” Small said. “They’re the fertilizer that will help us continue to grow the sport. We’re not where we want to be, but when you consider where we once were in Europe, we’re definitely making progress.”

The Twins made one of the great finds in franchise history when scout Andy Johnson discovered Kepler in Germany as a 14-year-old, and he might prove to be one of baseball’s biggest stars if the game takes off in Europe.

http://www.startribune.com/twins-max-kepler-a-rare-mlb-star-out-of-europe/513467382/

Win Twins!!
 


The twins did good to bolster their bullpen but I"m still disappointed in the moves. We have so many prospects and honestly I don't know where we are going to play them all the next couple years. We should have traded some of those pieces to get a top 2 starter also. I know no one was expecting the twins to be this good this year but here we are, we literally have lightning in a bottle and the twins don't go all in. Tough day to be a twins fan.

We'll never know the full story, but if the Mets wanted Buxton or no deal, that's a hard pass. Even if ownership was willing to pay Grienke (we all know the answer here), he would have had to waive his no-trade clause. The big whiff is on Stroman. The Twins could have easily beat that deal and they needed to be more proactive on making it sooner, rather than dragging their feet. The bigger whiff is not getting Patrick Corbin in the offseason. But, even knowing what they know now about this season, they wouldn't have paid him that much anyway.
 

We'll never know the full story, but if the Mets wanted Buxton or no deal, that's a hard pass. Even if ownership was willing to pay Grienke (we all know the answer here), he would have had to waive his no-trade clause. The big whiff is on Stroman. The Twins could have easily beat that deal and they needed to be more proactive on making it sooner, rather than dragging their feet. The bigger whiff is not getting Patrick Corbin in the offseason. But, even knowing what they know now about this season, they wouldn't have paid him that much anyway.

I agree on not trading Buxton. I like that our outfield is set for the near future. I would have traded any of our prospects though, even the top 2 I don't care if it meant we increased our chances of making it to the world series.
 

We'll never know the full story, but if the Mets wanted Buxton or no deal, that's a hard pass. Even if ownership was willing to pay Grienke (we all know the answer here), he would have had to waive his no-trade clause. The big whiff is on Stroman. The Twins could have easily beat that deal and they needed to be more proactive on making it sooner, rather than dragging their feet. The bigger whiff is not getting Patrick Corbin in the offseason. But, even knowing what they know now about this season, they wouldn't have paid him that much anyway.

Rumor is Toronto asked for a ridiculous amount from the Twins initially, then they fell in love with the Mets offer and didn't even give the Twins a chance to counter. Rumor is also that Arizona was asking a crazy amount for Ray. Even the Yankees said no thanks and they didn't make the move even though their starting staff is a mess. I just don't think there were a lot of options. Greinke and Minor have the Twins on their no trade list. Greinke even had them on his list when they were terrible so that indicates to me he would never want to go to the Twins no matter what.
 

Yes. But you have the best offense in team history and there's no dominate team in the AL. If you're not going to go for it now, you never will. That was (one of) Terry Ryan's downfalls. If someday will never come, what's the point?

I'm glad they at least fixed the most glaring problem and are giving themselves a chance if Odo or Gibson can shock us.

Disagree. This is just the beginning of the run IMO. If guys like Berrios, Kepler, Buxton, etc expiring contracts then this would be the time to go all in no matter what the price. It was a weird year for trades. There just weren't a lot of realistic options for starting pitching for the Twins. Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox were all pretty quiet. There's a reason for that.

I'm not saying I would be against them making a big trade. I think they did try. Lots of teams did, very few succeeded.
 



We'll never know the full story, but if the Mets wanted Buxton or no deal, that's a hard pass. Even if ownership was willing to pay Grienke (we all know the answer here), he would have had to waive his no-trade clause. The big whiff is on Stroman. The Twins could have easily beat that deal and they needed to be more proactive on making it sooner, rather than dragging their feet. The bigger whiff is not getting Patrick Corbin in the offseason. But, even knowing what they know now about this season, they wouldn't have paid him that much anyway.

+1. Also if they had made an aggressive offer the the Giants a month ago before they got hot, they probably could have gotten MadBaum and Smith/Dyson. This also makes not signing Dallas Keuchel sting. I'd much rather have him on the mound in game 2 of a play-off series than Odo or Gibson.
 

Disagree. This is just the beginning of the run IMO. If guys like Berrios, Kepler, Buxton, etc expiring contracts then this would be the time to go all in no matter what the price. It was a weird year for trades. There just weren't a lot of realistic options for starting pitching for the Twins. Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox were all pretty quiet. There's a reason for that.

I'm not saying I would be against them making a big trade. I think they did try. Lots of teams did, very few succeeded.

Perhaps. But we've heard "we tried and couldn't find the right deal" for 20 years from the Twins. They have never once pulled the trigger on a significant deal at the deadline. Matt Lawton for Rick Reed is about as big as it gets. Meanwhile, clubs no richer than us like Milwaukee manage to do it whenever they're in contention.
 

Rumor is Toronto asked for a ridiculous amount from the Twins initially, then they fell in love with the Mets offer and didn't even give the Twins a chance to counter. Rumor is also that Arizona was asking a crazy amount for Ray. Even the Yankees said no thanks and they didn't make the move even though their starting staff is a mess. I just don't think there were a lot of options. Greinke and Minor have the Twins on their no trade list. Greinke even had them on his list when they were terrible so that indicates to me he would never want to go to the Twins no matter what.

Grienke's a weird dude, so I believe he didn't want to come here, regardless of $$. At least adding someone like Mike Minor would have helped.
 

Raise your hand if you had Max Kepler as the first Twins player this year to reach 30 HR! This is one dangerous lineup.

I know their deadline acquisitions weren't that splashy, but they are really good additions. Saw some interesting stats in The Athletic this morning, they were two of the best relievers in the majors; #7 and #13 ranked relievers in overall Win Percentage Added and they were the two best in that regard that were traded this month.

Let's see which starters step it up in the next 4-6 weeks in crunch time. Berrios looked really really good last night. Wow.
 




Brutal outing from Dyson. Twins likely to blow this game.
 






Is is just me, or doesn't Polanco need to eat dirt and at least knock down that ground ball single that scored the two game-tying runs ? He wouldn't have gotten an out, but could have kept the second run from scoring.
 

I know I was joking. He's very good, I'll just chalk this up to the stress of the trade/travel. I expect big things from him. On the plus side Romo has been dominant.

Plus, he arrived at Marlins Park in the 4th inning,
 



Is is just me, or doesn't Polanco need to eat dirt and at least knock down that ground ball single that scored the two game-tying runs ? He wouldn't have gotten an out, but could have kept the second run from scoring.

Totally. Unacceptable effort.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Perhaps. But we've heard "we tried and couldn't find the right deal" for 20 years from the Twins. They have never once pulled the trigger on a significant deal at the deadline.

It's not as easy as you think. First of all you have to have the prospects that other teams want. Certainly in the past 10-15 years, the farm system has not been very good. Also, the new FO is just in their 3rd year. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt because of all the great things they've done so far. I think they have a plan in place and I'd like to give them a few more years to see it all play out. What happened under Terry Ryan is irrelevant IMO.

Meanwhile, clubs no richer than us like Milwaukee manage to do it whenever they're in contention.

The Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, and Dodgers did very little to improve their teams at the deadline and they're all contenders. The blockbuster trades don't happen every year for every contending team. I think it was just a weird year. I just don't think the Twins had many options. Trading for a #4 or #5 starter does nothing. It was either a big name or no one. We'll see if this trend continues.
 

Grienke's a weird dude, so I believe he didn't want to come here, regardless of $$. At least adding someone like Mike Minor would have helped.

It's been reported that Minor had the Twins on his no trade list too. Of course he doesn't have to veto the trade. Not sure if the Twins contact the Rangers or not.

The Rangers didn't trade anyone so I wonder if they were that interested in trading him.
 

It's been reported that Minor had the Twins on his no trade list too. Of course he doesn't have to veto the trade. Not sure if the Twins contact the Rangers or not.

The Rangers didn't trade anyone so I wonder if they were that interested in trading him.

Minor has been beat up pretty good in his last few starts. I'm not sure he is much of an upgrade over what we have.
 

It's been reported that Minor had the Twins on his no trade list too. Of course he doesn't have to veto the trade. Not sure if the Twins contact the Rangers or not.

The Rangers didn't trade anyone so I wonder if they were that interested in trading him.
The reports i heard that he didn't have the Twins on his no trade list.
 





Top Bottom