Twins Limping to the Finish Line

0:00Ry Carajah Remain! And the keys Broken, blown free And welcome to Gleamin of the Geek, presented by Blackstack Brewing. Simon had opened and operated now in a stir new year also. That's the temper of a studed initiation. My name is John Bota, so I'm twins daily with me here in Gleamin of gleamin.com. We are, uh, it's been a couple weeks now since we've broken down really any individual games for this team. Like we normally do during the season. Yes. Um, I think last night we were recording this Friday morning, obviously last night in Anaheim late night game, I stayed up and watched and pretty good example of why we're

1:04not doing that at this stage. First of all, the game's have these sort of meeting much. Yeah. Second of all, what you're really looking for at this point, at least what I'm really looking for at this point is kind of glimpses of specific or individual things that might matter in the future. Sure. You know what I mean? And so last night is a great example. The thing we are going to talk about from last night is Walker Jenkins finally having a break through the game, snapping a long funk and what, you know, what can be taken from that and how encouraging that was. Well, we're probably not going to talk much about other than the sentence that I'm saying right now is how they still lost the game. Yeah. And you know, all that stuff. It was, it's also kind of nice to see like some of the players going for like, uh, milestone season milestones. Like I was, I was, I was a little more invested than I thought there could be an attached Bradley number of strikeouts last night. Yeah. He's one short of 200 now. That's right. Yeah. Which I'm assuming he'll make one more start. So he should clear that. Yeah. I mean, it's, we're going to get into all the individual stuff.

2:05We got bucksed into talk about Jenkins. We got a lot of individual stuff to talk about. But like, you know, on a team level, it's just been the same story now for, man, it's been six, seven, seven weeks basically, which is just, they're the worst team in the American league. And it, it, it's not that I'm not willing to talk about a bad team. If this were happening in April or May or June or even July, I'd be talking about it, but it's been so long now several weeks since they were even like in it. Like since these games really, truly matter. I mean, they've had a, uh, it's now basically zeroed out, but they've had a playoff odds under five percent for over two weeks now. And so, you know, yes, they're limping to the finish line for a third straight season. And they're really just kind of playing out the string at this point. They're not, they're not competitive in a lot of these games. They're losing the good teams. They're losing the bad teams like we saw. It is a shock, I guess, if you were to go back to, you know, October of 2023 and tell

3:08the two of us or anybody listening to this that the next three seasons are basically going to be like over by September and one of them is going to involve a fire sale and the other two are just going to be the worst team in the American League for the final six weeks of the season. I think people would have been shocked by that in 2023 because that seemed like it wasn't even possible in 2024. Well, we were shocked by 2024. Yeah, but I mean, it's gotten worse and worse and worse now. And so I don't, it's not that we shouldn't talk about that and we have talked about it more from a, um, a bigger picture perspective, obviously. And we'll talk about it as the offseason begins of like what do they need to do to not make this a fourth straight year of this crap. But they're every bit as bad as they were after the fire sale last year and that seems almost like mind boggling to me because we sat through that fire sale last year and the two months of horrific, you know, double a caliber baseball that followed where there weren't more than two or three guys on the entire team healthy down the stretch last year in

4:09August and September who were even going to matter who were even being evaluated, you know, for next season. And this is a little different than that because you know, they aforementioned rookies that you called up and all that. But for them to have a comparable or I think even now slightly worse winning percentage since August 1st this year than they had after August 1st last year is just like I don't even know how to make sense of that. Like I've watched it. I've been there for it. But last year was a gutted roster that was intentionally made non-competitive. And then even within that the decisions that they made to sort of fill out that roster after they traded 40% of the players at the deadline, they were calling up guys who were like triple a lifers. They were calling up retreads. They were calling up, you know, I always use a Rasmall Ramirez as the example. Some 35 year old guy just trying to get another three weeks in the majors. And to have that be like a 350 winning percentage which is terrible. And then have this a year later be the same 350 winning percentage when they have been trying.

5:14They added at the deadline. They've called up prospects. They've been trying. They're not trying to intentionally lose these games I would hope. And have it be essentially the same result is obviously extremely frustrating. But it's also just like it makes and I made this point last year and unfortunately I think I was right, which is last year was so bad down the stretch that I said I had a hard time logically like getting to the end of that season, flushing it as baseball terminology likes to say. And then assuming things would get significantly better just just by the clean slate of the following season. And it did for a while but they're going to end up in basically the same spot. And so I find myself also in the same spot which is I have a hard time just assuming that you know the wall is going to drop on the end of this season. They're going to finish with I don't know 74 wins or whatever it ends up being. They're going to play just as bad as last year for the final two months.

6:15And then we're supposed to sit here and go well next year will be better like obviously I mean they're younger they're blah blah blah. How many years in a row we got to say this like you know we said that in 2024 even when it collapsed. It was like well if they can get the guys healthy the next season will be better and it's just they're in a real bad spot right now I think organizationally beyond just what we've seen over the last you know like I said seven weeks six seven weeks. I have to agree with you and half don't on the one hand I agree with you in that certainly what we've seen is other unlike say last year right where like you said everybody's just playing out the string for those last two months you know what the lineup was or what who was coming in in the seventh inning to a relief nobody cared right and they and this what we've seen this time is you know really leaning into what they thought was their best lineup what they thought you know after having four months to sort of sort of sort things out especially defensively and generate a lineup and figure things out we've seen you know Jeffers played nine games in a row and Lewis you know at first base every day and Clemens every day at second base every day and Culpepper and Lee has been playing

7:17for a month and a half until he got a day off like Wednesday right it it's just been in that way they have really they have done what they could do and still ended up 15 and 27 since August right which you know in a weird way is even more discouraging right right no absolutely that's exactly what I'm saying no I agree with you on the other hand I was really frustrated last year with how little they were investing in some of the young challenge that they had and frankly it wasn't totally clear that they even knew if they had any young talent they could call up and now now at least you know I'm out I'm seeing Jake his plan it's fun to see where the biggest play I mean like there I can take a look at some of those guys and I can take a look at you know able hopefully coming back from injuries and some of these other things I think okay well able through that 20 innings this season none of them after April this is what I'm getting at though is like there isn't that much to grab on to do you know what I mean like yeah if Abel's healthy next year well he wasn't healthy this year why are we assuming he's healthy next year same thing with

8:18faster last year it was like well fast to come come back that's true I that's but I agree with you that it there's certainly that's kind of why I'm saying that you want to see glimpses right there were no glimpses to be had last year and I do agree that this is different in that sense it's not always good glimpses obviously it can be bad glimpses too and we've seen some of that right James last two weeks right yesterday right yesterday was a good glimpses right I'm I'm not saying that you know that's what you're gonna get with rookies that's what you're gonna get with the young players but if the end result just puts you in the same spot over and over yeah you can talk yourself into well it's a little younger this time and we can start to build for the future and I don't disagree with that but something is fundamentally wrong with this team the phone something is fundamentally wrong you've changed half the roster the manager the front office boss the owner you've called up a new wave of prospects like I'm not saying they had to win 90 games this year sure but to be the worst team in the American League for the

9:20final six weeks of the season three years in a row with completely different circumstances completely different behavior at the trade deadline and completely completely different roster and leadership at all three levels something is wrong with this organization that is beyond just pointing to an individual player or two or 20 and saying this guy underperformed or there are injuries involved here there is some level of rot in the sort of foundation of this organization and I'm not even necessarily saying just the team I'm saying from a developmental standpoint from injury prevention standpoint organization wise just everything and unfortunately when you're trying to take a big picture of you of something like I just described it's very hard to pinpoint and try to fix those things because these are out of our purview these are not things that we're able to see a player development standpoint I mean we can get a sense of what they value and stuff but the fact is they have not

10:22taken promising young prospects and turn them into quality major league players at anything close to a level that will sustain winning they have not done that with pictures to the extent that even when guys do have something of a breakthrough they get injured anyway so it wipes it all out so all this velocity gain and all that and the defense is terrible they keep shuffling people around the defense is terrible well yeah maybe it'll be better next year maybe not though like I just and there's all kinds of moves now that Shelton is making where it's just like this isn't any different this is just a guy pushing buttons and I get it you know you're you're button pushing whatever it is what it is I mean last night he tried to manage that game like it was game seven of the world series and none of the moves really paid off and in fact several of the moves like pinch hitting and pinch running got them a worse matchup at the end of it because the angels who by the way are terrible and not exactly renowned for their genius just said oh we'll just bring in a lefty

11:22or a righty and we'll just counteract all that so I don't know this is I think partially just having sat through six months of the season and I'm just sick of it and I'm just frustrated by it but I'm gonna guess a lot of people who are listening and watching this on YouTube feel the same way like how many years in a row does this have to happen until there's some change and the the really sad part is they did make a lot of change and it just didn't equal anything although I would argue and we did argue during the off season that you know replacing Rocco Baldelli with his former bench coach who had incredible losing in Pittsburgh replacing Derek Fulvey with his longtime right hand man in Jeremy Zool replacing Joe Poled with his literal brother Tom Poled those are changes in that the names in the faces are different but I guess what I'm getting at is there's something wrong with this organization that kind of surface level changes or just going to a different person who was previously involved I don't think it's gonna fix it and that that's more

12:25frustrating to me or more I guess I would say daunting to me at the end of a season like this than even pointing to like an individual player who's hurt or a guy who's underperformed or even stuff like the bullpen the bullpen can be fixed but the bigger stuff that I'm kind of getting at here that can be fixed but I'm not gonna be fixed without a big effort and maybe multiple years and they're already pretty deep into this thing being bad bad bad yeah I mean if the problem is if if you know what we're talking about is missing if we're talking about a you know season of season longer to prove it feels like we're kind of focusing on why has this team been bad three years or so bad three years in a row in August and September is there's something inherent about what they're doing that lends itself towards a week finish right let's the last two years they haven't been good before that either they've been below average well but no I'm well actually it's not true two years ago they were really good before that no saying this year and last year oh yeah okay fair good you're below 500 at the all star break both years so yes I you're right

13:30you're I mean we're in agreement on that that level of like the collapse that took place the extent of the badness over the six or seven weeks but the reality is these were not good teams this year or last year to begin with two years ago or three years ago I guess you would say in 2024 yeah you're right I mean they were playing it at 90 something when pace but that's now three years ago like sure there's something wrong here that even we're now acting because the collapse is so bad the last two years we have to act like they were better than they were before the collapse too do you know what I mean like there's something in your brain that's like oh well they were headed towards what were they headed towards 82 wins like this is this has just not been a good team for quite a while now other than you know three months in at the beginning of 2024 if I was trying to identify stuff that we see that might be a lended swell towards that one would be sort of like well you tend to go after players that you know have an injury history maybe right or you tend to lean into people that have an injury history that's certainly what certainly part of this collapse due to you know Joe Ryan being completely ineffective in the second half of the season and Byron

14:33Bucks and again getting hurt and not being able to jump the year that way right they didn't go after those guys all the injured guys were developed and acquired like you know at home grown Joe Ryan was acquired when he was at trip play Byron Bucks was drafted you look up and down the line up all the injured guys it's not like they went and signed these injured guys because they got great discounts these are homegrown guys these are guys that they've been working with for seven years and maybe you know not having enough opportunity or backups for something like that that's a big deal to heavily in the first half of the season you know I can also take a look at sort of you know they're pitching philosophies in the minors where they're doing a lot of foreening type stuff or 80 pitches type things like I understand sort of their philosophy but maybe that wears down sort of the pitching staff time by the end of the season yeah I mean that's kind of what I'm getting at when I talk about a big picture organizationally what are the things that they're doing that they cannot produce consistently above average major league position players and they cannot produce pitchers who can stay healthy or you know go through more than 120 innings or whatever

15:33and I don't think those are coincidences I think those are organizational developmental traits I think the thing you said with having all these pitchers throw three innings in the minors has a single one of those guys who's been on what we jokingly referred to as the Travis Adams plan a couple years ago where they're kind of in that hybrid role between starter and reliever they're not going six innings like a starter but they're not going one innings reliever they're going three innings they're going three and two thirds they're going I don't know 60 pitches let's say has a single one of those guys in three years of them leaning into that come up and fill that role in the majors effectively yeah no no so what was the point of it and it hasn't kept them healthy because all the pitchers are hurt I don't know again this is me at the end of a very frustrating six months you know a month from now dostal settle we can maybe look at it a little more rationally but I guess I'm at the point where I don't know that are you know a calm rational look at this is going to spit out much more of a encouraging look I mean there's enough to look at here glimpse wise like

16:36I said down the stretch certainly it's good to see Jenkins have a breakout game it was good before that to see a manual Rodriguez start really hot but she co pepper performance over most of these time now he's out probably for the final two weeks of the season but that is what it is you know I think they're gonna probably I'll give them credit and say they'll win two more games here down the stretch they're going to beat their 72 and a half win over under which was the Vegas betting line which I did pick over on that jump put under on that that the perpetual pessimist of John Bonan but they're certainly not going to equal their 78 win preseason projection from fan graphs or baseball perspectives and it just you know we don't have to get super into this again but it just feels like a wasted season or a wasted opportunity to me and what my worry is that next season because there is young talent now that is in place now and is going to be a bigger part

17:37of the roster next year that they will then look at next season and go well we're young and cheap now so this is going to be a growing year this is going to be a learning year this is going to be a year where we don't need to invest another 50 million in this payroll that we keep cutting because we got all these young guys we don't want to block them and then it's like well okay now you got a third year where you're non-competitive and then we're like where did it is it end when do you push in when are the expectations more and I don't know it's just been a real rough it was for three months or I guess almost four months it was decent they were competitive four four months and they were in first place in the wildcard yeah but again one gave over 500 yeah the wild cards and you know even that blue past them obviously I don't know it's it's a it's a rough spot to be in you know because it's and the reality is several of their best players are not going to be on

18:40the team next year Ryan Jeffers who I think you could make a decent argument is their team MVP this year and certainly if on a per game basis because he missed six weeks in the middle of the season he would absolutely be their team MVP he's probably not going to be on the team next year and you can even take that a little further of like you know Bailey Ober Trevor Larnick you know is Joe Ryan going to be on the team next year Royce Lewis going to be on the team next year Josh Bell is going to lead them in our BIs is probably not going to be on the team next year I'm not saying these guys are world-beating players or that you can't try to move on from them a couple of them I think they're ready to move on from but you are kind of taking a step back in terms of veteran talent and you're counting on all these young guys to fill in the blanks but as we've seen this year it's a coin flip whether a young guy can come up and do it and that's not anything against any individual young player that's just the reality of prospects like no matter how highly touted a prospect is and even no matter how well they were performing at AAA at the time they were

19:41called up no one was more highly touted than Walker Jenkins and no one was crushing AAA in the three or four weeks prior to his promotion to the majors than Walker Jenkins he hit literally four ten with eight home runs in his final 18 triple A games and then you know he's hitting 150 in the majors so it's it's in a rough spot I do think they're obviously going to have to lean into the youth for next season and I'm all for that but what I worry is from an organizational top-down standpoint is that in and of itself going to be used as an excuse not to invest in this team not to build out the depth of this team because you just throw your hands up and you go it's a youth movement yeah probably be some growing pains next year well guess what then it's 2030 by you know before you blink and then you've just wasted a decade basically at this point I should say well I'm not getting the impression that they're best of me like oh we're going to take a step back here and let our youth I think the youth are going to have plenty of a role

20:43I don't think they're necessarily going to be taking me last year we were we were worried about the fact that they had started opening day with a hundred and forty million dollar payroll and it was by the time they got to closing day it was a hundred and ten million dollar payroll because they traded away thirty million dollars worth of payroll at the at the trade-downs this year it was 108 and well that's what I said we were worried at that point like oh they're going to cut it down to eighty like at this point that was a little that this this this time last year that was a legitimate concern I don't I'm not saying I necessarily expect them to go you know one sixty but I would be surprised if they cut the payrolls or if they even even stay steady with the payroll but I don't know we'll see I mean even we don't have to get into this every time but even going back to one thirty huh is a huge cut payrolls rise year over year I sure yes absolutely they need to spend on this team because this team has not been good it is not good currently and counting on the young guys to be good next season all together at the same time let alone the health and all that is tricky and you know that I'm I'm trying to find these glimpses

21:48last night like I said was a good example Jenkins that was a great encouraging game from him he looked fantastic he had a couple hits one to the opposite field one to center field and then the Homer to right field with two outs to tie the game not only a game tying two run Homer but off a hundred and one mile an hour fastball from a closer that is the second fastest pitch any twins hitter has ever hit for a home run in the history of the organization that checks and boxes in terms of he hadn't hit much velocity since coming up he'd swung through a lot of 95 plus my own hour fastballs uncharacteristically as we've talked about a lot about that a couple days go on here in glimpses dot com so before we get into the bucks in injury and surgery which we haven't talked talked about on the free shows because it happens in slash week we'll get more into Jenkins and Rodriguez but first let's talk about our presenting sponsor blackstack uh John mentioned them at the beginning uh they have stuck with us through uh through some bad twin seasons here uh like we always say right support us by supporting the people who also support us and uh John

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24:58and uh you know once you see their cans you're gonna uh recognize them on and you're not gonna you're not gonna choose a bad beer because they're the ones they put out there are fantastic or if you find yourself and self-miniapolis the weekend on uh Saturday or Sunday stop by September fest at uh at an association support an association and uh reward yourself with a support with a blackstack beer so we are sponsored by prize picks and here's how prize picks works especially now that football starting up yes it's kind of like you can build a lineup like a fantasy lineup sort of except you're kind of picking specific stats or accomplishments and so you can say they'll they'll give you like uh you know Justin Jefferson will he have more or less than five and a half catches or something like that there you have a thought on that then you select that and you kind of put it into your lineup and then you can build out a lineup with as few as two things or as many as I don't know five or six things whatever it is and you can win more the more you put in your lineup obviously and it's they also sometimes will give you a free

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27:01explore the site more uh that's prize picks just download the prize picks app today prize picks run your game all right let's talk about Bucston uh yeah this is a little bit of old news since the last free show we've done a couple of patreon podcasts patreon.com slash gleam and for folks very much talking about this and answering questions about and stuff but Bucston was officially shut down um he's going for surgery actually today I'm gonna guess he's probably like literally having surgery right now yeah based on when hospitals tend to do surgeries uh Friday he's having surgery and it is Friday um they will they basically told us at the time earlier this week that they won't have like a more substantial timeline on his return uh until they get in there and take a look and the surgery is performed but shelt Derek Shelton and Byron Bucston and a couple of twins officials I talked to were all expressed let's say optimism that he would be ready for spring training and if

28:05not at the start of spring training then by opening day certainly now of course we don't know if there's going to be a spring training or if there's going to be an opening day or when those will take place I'd be willing to bet money there's going to be a delayed spring training yeah which in particular case a little bit later yeah that's fine yeah um I'm still you know not sure that opening day itself is going to be affected when they had a lockout five years ago yeah that was opening day one as normal um it was one week one week yeah I actually didn't miss any games basically uh and so the idea that he is expected to be ready for the season uh is I think an important distinction and we'll see obviously if they change that diagnosis post surgery today then we can talk about that on Monday show but it's important a because that's just important for the team next year right but then be you know by waiting almost a month to shut him down officially and give

29:07up on this hey maybe you can come back and play it was very clear for the last several weeks that was not going to happen and beyond that what what's to play for at this point the team made it so that it didn't matter and so by waiting even three four weeks something like that to have the surgery my concern at that time before we learn more details about it earlier this week was you know what if this is a torn labrum or something it's a six to eight month recovery and then that extra month that you kind of delayed things could matter now it's not that thankfully it's arthroscopic at least that's what they said we'll see what again we'll make sure they're right yeah right and that carries you know a much shorter recovery time table typically with that said you know it's still hip surgery it is still significant it is still a 30 soon to be 33 year old guy who's had chronic hip and knee problems but at least for now the idea that he'll be ready for some level of spring training to ramp up towards being ready hopefully for opening day it's not a

30:12sigh of relief because you know we got to see what he looks like obviously but from a like just a timeline perspective that's relatively good or at least not the worst case news for him because like I said I mean he's he's really dealt with this since 2021 and there's been a couple seasons where it really affected him led to IEL Stins and then this year he sort of tweaked it for the first time in May and then it was just never right after that and it's a credit to him that he had a great first half was voted in to start the all-star game had 25 homers at the all-star break and he was playing at significant less than a hundred percent for most of that first half but then he tweaked it again in New York and he tried to come back and he tweaked it again and he tried to come back and then they shut him down and then the the the last straw was that play in Sacramento a few weeks ago where he's playing center field and he he had actually had a promising game the day before right and talking

31:13to him he was like maybe this is like a step in the right direction I started to feel like oh well maybe I can gut this out for the final month of the season then a ball gets hit into this bright center field gap he goes over to cut it off as he's done a billion times and he goes to bend down and he can't pick the ball up and it goes to the wall and it scores a run and he's clearly in a lot of discomfort and has to sort of limp off the field in Sacramento and that ended up being the final play of a season and he said when we talked to Merle this week he said basically that was the eye opener that play because it was twofold one it felt terrible but then beyond that and it showed him that he wasn't just going to get better from a few days off or whatever but the thing that he said that I thought was interesting was he said you know my fear is even if I can will myself to play through this for the final six weeks of the season or whatever and even if I can have some good stretches and feel like I'm helping the team that play in Sacramento sort of coming out

32:14of nowhere after he felt pretty good earlier in that game and the previous day I think kind of scared him because he started envisioning let's say I do play the last six weeks and I'm great and we make the playoffs and then it's the seventh inning of a one one playoff game and that same thing happens and I can't pick the ball up and the ball rolls to the wall and a run scores and he basically said I'd never be able to stop blaming myself for that and I think that's an interesting contrast to how he's always been previously which is it's coming from a selfless team first standpoint to say I will run through a wall literally and figuratively for you I will play through anything but when the performance itself and unfortunately we saw that from Bucks don't for the last month or so where he would hit one seven D and he just wasn't anywhere near a level that's a quality player when the performance itself is hurting the team then wanting to play through injury ceases being selfless and ceases being team first and that's a weird thing to kind of deal with right but I

33:14think that moment in Sacramento everything kind of clicked into place for him and he was like all right let's get the I mean it's a pretty clear delineator right I mean you Bucks will always we've seen it over and over and over again and in fact you don't even really recognize how how much he has been playing through pain or trying to get through things until he's playing without pain and you see him play what it's like when he's playing without pain right we've seen that between what 2024 or 23 and 22 and like I said during the first half he had a great first half so you might watch him and you go he must feel pretty good he felt terrible for the whole thing that he just got worse and worse from that and had to kind of stop it's it's tough sometimes that's right and and and why he he clearly recognized this is this is an example of I'm not helping the team I gave you you know I that they say there's a different to playing hurt and playing injured and yeah it's not always clear to the ball player which one they're doing but when you just can't perform something like picking up a ball that's pretty clearly that you're playing injured so yeah and I

34:19think to his point like in whatever seven years I've been covering the team like in the clubhouse talking to players and stuff they will tell you like half the guys in here are playing right of course I mean there's there's levels to it and I'll just mean for the twins I just mean league wide I had a picture one time I was they were pitching through an elbow injury and I was like boy are you sure you want to like do that and he said if you went around this room and you took MRIs of every picture in this clubhouse is elbow right half of them you would say how are they pitching with this and it's not maybe quite as true with position players but by the end of a season six months five months in it's true of a lot of guys and yeah I think that's the the level with Bucston and you know Shelton has talked about this before it is sometimes difficult with Bucston who said an incredible number of injuries but even injured he's still their best center fielder a lot of the even injured he can still be good a lot of the time like I said during the first half he would miss five days and people including us would be like why don't they shut them down and put them on

35:21the IL and then he would hit three homers in four games and you'd be like oh well that's why they don't put them on the IL but at some point it gets to be too much and you can't perform like that but it's hard to predict when that will be looking at him more big picture he's got two years left 2027 and 2028 left on the extension he signed on the eve of the last lockout yeah right like literally at I don't know two o'clock at midnight was the lockout on I guess it would have been November the last day of November it was on the 21 yeah so and he has the full no trade clause he's made it clear he doesn't want to be a trade want to be traded obviously the injuries are difficult he's also like I said he's going to be 33 in December so there's a natural aging element particularly for a player for whom speed and athleticism and center field defense is a huge driver of their value it's remarkable honestly that he's continuing to play at an all-star level and been a good center field they're at 31 32 with chronic knee and hip and all the other

36:25injuries and all that at some point maybe that will end which is I think it's going to be important to evaluate him next spring coming off this surgery and see where he's at because they do have some other potential center field options in Jenkins and Rodriguez I will tell you I think he at the at this moment you know obviously not the version we saw in Sacramento but the version we saw in the first half of the season he's still their best center fielder now maybe that person no longer exists after this and after the surgery and that's what they need to find out and that's really the tricky thing with him I mean first of all 15 million a year is not that much anymore for a baseball player it's not among the 125 highest salaries in Major League Baseball for next especially especially for a center fielder yeah starting player really of any kind I mean think of what 15 million gets you in for agency they're going to pay Victor Caratini like 10 million bucks next year yeah there are you know fourth starters who get 12 15 million dollars so on that level even if he's only a part-time player he's been worth significantly just in the first half alone

37:28he was worth significantly more than 15 million now will that remain true after the surgery who knows but that's the tricky thing with him is that when he is healthy or even healthy enough to play he's still their best all around player and so it makes it tough to sort of quote unquote move on or build not around him but I do think with their outfield situation with Jenkins and Rodriguez and also Keishel at least in a corner spot the idea that you can count on Bucston for even 100 games in center field next year I think should not be part of their thinking I think he should be sort of part of a rotation and I don't mean he's going to be on the bench when he's healthy when Byron Bucston is healthy he should be in the lineup I just mean as you start to plan out an outfield for next year I think what you can't do is say well Bucston's in center what do we do around that it needs to be well Bucston is in center when he's healthy and we need other guys who can play center Rodriguez Jenkins but then also we need more than three starting outfielders

38:32basically and they do have that potentially in Keishel Jenkins Rodriguez in Bucston and then if they still believe and want to give some real opportunity to Ellen Rodin which they have not given yet he could be a fifth guy and if you want to incorporate not only the three outfield spots but kind of use the DH spot to cycle Keishel through because of defensive reasons cycle Bucston through because of health reasons or just give guys days off you could go with those five for four spots and I think that would protect you quite a bit more than sort of trying to build a normal outfield configuration and then inevitably having to turn to your backups when Bucston is out they need it you know like we saw you know back in the day with Michael A Taylor they need a better backup than a typical backup because they know damn well Bucston's not going to be ready for you know 140 games I mean I think we'll talk a lot more about that in the offseason as to what yeah you know what their needs are what they're in you know you could also say listen we just need to get a really good bat in the lineup and DH is where we're going to go do it and then yeah that

39:34may be shortened things up a little bit but to your point we just finished like what's going what goes wrong with this team in August and September well it'd be nice to have some you know some redundancy in the outfield you know and as well as you know how much are you going to be able to count on you're counting on a lot of stuff there you're kind of a Keishel figuring out defense you're counting a Bucston staying healthy you're counting a Rodriguez and Jenkins you know taking a step forward you know a lot of those things are you know way up in the air and I mean in road and taking any step forward so you know it's uh I wouldn't be surprised if they do exactly that I wouldn't also want to be surprised if they go yeah but we got to figure out something to add a DH but maybe they add a bad at first base it's right I mean I think there are some and obviously the twins specifically when you think of kind of getting a great bat and just dropping them into a pre-existing lineup and providing a huge boost Nelson Cruz is the epitome of that that is a dream I joked on last show they need to invest in

40:37a time machine and go back to 2019 and get Nelson Cruz that would be perfect the reality though is there are very few guys that are fit that description as a DH but wouldn't fit it also as a first phase there are some obviously you know Josh Bell to some extent but also looking at Goldsmith I mean Goldsmith's Gold glove winning first place Goldsmith doesn't good hitter anymore Yeah well I know um so I'm today but he's not a DH he's never been a DH first career I thought I was playing DH more times this year than last maybe well he's like 40 he's not even good that's what that's what I'm saying I'm not sure you want a bit first minute why don't whatever I don't think you won't want him in the lineup he's been benched by me I don't anyway okay uh a level sidetrack there by John Bolivian which is a specialty uh but you also look at the free agent crop and there aren't any no I mean there's only been three Nelson Cruz type of guys there aren't that many guys who even fit that description as a DH let alone even as a first basement so they need I agree with you they need to find a bat somewhere and first base

41:41slash DH is the most obvious place to do that because it doesn't supplant anyone that you feel good about um but I might have to come via trade because there aren't that many guys I mean Ryan Jeffers is one of the best position player for agents yeah no you're right losing him right I mean Ryan Jeffers as a DH not as a catcher right would be one of the best fits for their lineup you're right and they're losing him they're not gaining him so it's tricky um even if you go and get a DH who's really productive you're just replacing Jeff right I can't sir right yeah I mean there's a right handed power hitter with that I don't know eight 50 OPS or something like that's like oh you're treading water if you go and get a for a good hitting first baseman right uh let's uh let's talk a little bit about Jenkins and Rodriguez obviously Jenkins has been up for a while struggled and then had the big game last night against the angels Rodriguez was called up specifically because Bucston was shut down uh and they want they felt like

42:45they could finally kind of find room for him in the outfield uh there's been a few interesting things like just sort of first impressions from both these guys obviously Jenkins has played I don't know three weeks Rodriguez has played one week so that is what it is um you know last night with Jenkins three hits game tying homer off 101 mile an hour fastball like I said I was every bit as encouraged by the first hit which was just a single slapped uh between the third base shortstop hole uh a la Joe Maur that's gonna be where his success comes from more often than not which is just line drives slash in the ball the other way good solid contact and that's just that's one of the weird parts of his struggles early on is that was so missing the opposite field approach the line drive approach it was a lot of pop up a lot of grounders the home runs great to see too especially if that velocity do not get me wrong uh any in another sharp hit up the middle but the uglers the the the numbers are still ugly obviously he's at 150 instead of

43:45you know 110 or whatever it was yeah um but you know I wrote a cutting video he almost as many hits yesterday as he's had up to this point yeah first of all he was in a one so this is his second it was his second home run it was the first one after I off an actual pitcher uh right yeah and since the one he hit off Zach McInstree who's a position player at target field a couple weeks ago um he's he was in a one for 33 slump with 15 strikeouts then he has three hits last night to your point he had four total majorly hits combined coming into last night and three of them only were off real pitchers so he kind of matched his real hit total in one game so again that's what I'm talking about the glimpses of a future that can be better last night was a great example of that uh with Jenkins but also as I wrote about ironglimps on on Wednesday you know the headline was like should the twins be worried about Walker Jenkins and the answers you know no now that doesn't mean some of the things we saw him struggle with early on aren't possible red flags or possible weaknesses that

44:48are being exposed but it could also just be a guy having a bad three weeks it could be a guy who's feeling a lot of pressure it could be a guy who's tired at the end of a long season it could be a guy who realizes oh wow they throw harder here they throw better here they throw more strikes here I need to adjust uh we all talk to Jenkins boy what Tuesday Tuesday I guess Tuesday and I thought he was it was really interesting because he was very critical of himself but not really beating himself up I took it more as having like being one to talk about how bad things have been and how disappointed it is and how sort of what a shock to a system it has been he kind of talked about I'm losing at bats that I've won all my life I'm getting in counts and then I'm just not doing anything about it which is kind of you know how we described his struggles uh the plate discipline is there but the hard contact isn't there um but then he also was like well obviously this isn't going to continue like I mean I'm gonna do something about this he said like guys I promise you like I'm

45:50not gonna hit a buckton my whole career whatever uh and he's he's right about that but you know I think looking what I tried to do was like go beneath the hood a little bit and look at not just that he was hitting you know oh 89 or whatever it was through 15 games when I wrote about it which is in a in and of itself is like oh wow it's eye opening but like why is it the case where he's just smoking balls and it's getting snagged by outfielders not really um and so bad luck a couple of the things that I found in there was that at AAA his contact rate on pitches of any kind in the strike zone so when he swings at a strike at AAA he put the ball and played 93% of the time which is like upper upper echelon it's a joe mower-esque type of level and in the majors so far he was at 77% which is actually below average so it went from a top-notch strength to a weakness

46:54well that's a lot of just everything is just he on pitches he wants to swing at even in hitter's counts he's just whiffing on so many more of them that he's not getting the damage out of the neck and then within that the thing that surprised me was that his swing and miss rate on fastballs in the majors was three times more than it was at AAA it was like 11% at AAA and 33% in the majors which means one third of his swings against fastballs he whiffed on well that if you've seen even highlights of Walker Jenkins that's just not who he's ever been and not who he's going to be and so that part to me was discouraging but unless you just believe it was all a mirage everything he's done since high school was a mirage I felt pretty confident in saying that's not the the hitter he's going to end up being now he might not end up with a joe mower-esque contact rate that's asking a lot but the idea that he's going to be a guy who has a big swing and miss rate on fastballs that's just it seems unlikely given everything we've seen all the data

47:57all the scouting reports on stuff and so at least for one night he turns around 101 from Ben Joyce and rips it to right center for a you know to run Homer that was particularly good to see just because it shows the ability to do something that not that many major league hitters can even do the number of guys who can take sort of a inner half 101 with two outs in the ninth ending down two and rip it to right center for a home run like that whether you're 21 or 51 there's just not a lot of guys who can take 101 and send it back out 104 like he did and so that alone is really encouraging because you go it's in there now all he has to do is sort of get comfortable get situated get his mechanics locked back in and sort of just start playing stylistically or approach wise how he appears to be from a from a player profile standpoint so that was good to see and we got nine more games left in the regular season yeah I don't think we're going to have a

49:01complete picture of Walker Jenkins at the end of the season one way or the other his numbers are going to be ugly no matter what well that I mean the for sure right it'll just be whether or not you know did something did something click yesterday you know what it was it you know suddenly you're talking about him being a missing fastballs which seems very uncharacteristic or how hard he's like to me it he felt hesitant at the plate like he was used to being being able to wait out pictures and win the three two battles and now boy that slider they that slider lands in the strike zone and I'm why you know I'm not I'm used to watching that and you know like it everything was like a click too slow in his plate appearances and maybe he kind of caught up to the speed of the game we'll see yeah and it's worth noting he took two games off yeah against lefties so it made it easy to keep him out of lineup but we were told you know he basically spent both days working behind the scenes with the hitting coaches he talked to Josh Bell about just sort of the mental approach to slumps and all that stuff like you know from talking to him

50:04and talking to Shelton and the coaches and stuff like there's no question about like the work he's willing to put in it's not a situation where he's like well I'm a great player I don't need to do that no it's the opposite of that he seems like one of those guys that will just grind himself into a pulp you know trying to figure this out and you know it could just be coincidental that he takes a couple games off works behind the scenes tries to get his mechanics right all that and then has his best game but I think that is narratively at least a convenient good to see thing and then the other part is Shelton had an interesting quote when we were asking about uh Jenkins struggles the first day he was out of lineup against the Yankees which would have been Tuesday I guess uh against Max Fried and Shelton was like I have all the confidence in the world that this it's gonna click for him and he's gonna start to produce he said but we got to realize it may not happen in the last 10 games sure like it's just because these are the last 10 games of this season do not make it any more or or less likely to click for someone than any random 10 games uh and so I think that's important to

51:09look at too like I said no matter how he performs here with these last 10 games he's gonna end up hitting one something probably in his rookie season but you know I wrote about this the other day I can I'll read you guys the list you got I'm assuming most you guys are subscribed to airing gleam and calm but if you're not uh here is a list of twins players throughout twins history who through their first 15 games which is at the point I wrote about Jenkins either had a batting average below 200 or an OPS below 550 so basically within the realm of like you can't get it around how bad they were basically uh I'm gonna list some of these guys can't her back Byron Bocston Corey Koski Greg Gagney Max Kepler Brent Rooker Jimmy Hall butch wineiger Trevor Ploof Ryan Jeffers and I could list you 10 more guys who became you know at least solid regulars there and so it's not what you

52:11want to see but it's also not unheard of especially once you factor in that he's 21 years old which most of those guys were 24 or 25 whatever one that happened so uh you gotta see more glimpses but we've at least seen one glimpse now where there's been one game that you can watch and you can say ah that is why everybody has been talking about Walker Jenkins for the past three years and that is why any talk of the future is centered around Walker Jenkins and that is why by the way it was so surprising when he came up and hit 089 or whatever it was for the first 15 games and you got to have that experience if you stayed up late to watch a game yes yes yes and then watch them below the game against the actual worst team in the league for the past 10 years or whatever uh let's talk about Rodriguez too so Rodriguez comes up a little later um he's gonna have a gay blessed yeah well that's what's the funny part Rodriguez comes up and homers in his first game right yeah and his first three

53:11or four games were excellent good defensively couple of homers couple of you know clutch hits battling at bats not that many strikeouts and you go well how come Jenkins looks like he's never played baseball before and Rodriguez looks like he's a 10 time all star and then you fast forward you know 72 hours yeah and Rodriguez is in a little bit of a funk had a had a rough game last night moved up to fifth and the order struck out what three times or something like that and then guess what Jenkins had a good game this is life with rookies this is life with guys getting their first taste of the majors and you throwing call pepper now in that mix who more than held his own for 30 games and is now injured probably for the rest of the season if you were to line those guys up and say we're gonna call all three of these guys up twins territory is gonna vote who do you think is gonna have a really good start who do you think is gonna have a mediocre start and who do you think is gonna have a horrible start this isn't how it would play out in that voting and that kind of plays into it because Jenkins is the higher ranked prospect and he out produced both those guys

54:15at triple A and he was so hot leading up to his call up he couldn't have performed better and yet he was the one who you know fell right away Rodriguez comes up having missed most of the season with an injury with all the concerns about the strikeout rate and the passivity and all that stuff and he has the best you know first three games you'll ever see and then call pepper who is perceived as having probably the least all around upside of those three and whose triple A production was by far the worst or the least impressive of those three well he had 30 games where he just very clearly looked like a major league and so I'm not saying that's good or bad long term but it's that's the kind of coin flip situation you're getting into with rookies here it's also just funny to me that Rodriguez Homer there's only been 14 players in the history of the twins to Homer in their first major league game Rodriguez did it call pepper did it and Jenkins was like seven feet away from doing it on his very first ball in play he hit it like 380 basically to the same spot Rodriguez said

55:18yeah yeah but Rodriguez was a line drive and his was more of a towering fly ball that would have been a very fun thing like 20 years from now to be like all three of those guys hit Homer's in their first game but unfortunately couldn't we need a little more wind pushing out to left center on Jenkins's debut but I also just think the the story with Rodriguez is an important one from like a kind of prospect watching development path or timeline the thing we talk about a lot of like freezer burn with players there are a lot of people who have been paying attention to prospects who have known the name manual Rodriguez for literally seven years he was a very highly touted international prospect signed at 16 out of the Dominican Republic I think he got two or three million dollars he immediately performed at every level to the point that he started popping up on top 100 lists as a teenager and it was like okay now we're waiting for this guy to make the majors and he had endless injuries thumb surgery knee surgery everything you could possibly get

56:23a very boxed in ask in a way and it's like well you know he spent three months on the aisle this year with a thumb surgery and it was like did they need to trade this guy he's out of options next year this guy can even be part of the plans now he's up and he certainly looks like somebody you want to be part of the plans and here's the kicker he's 23 years old right yeah he's young like it's not a case where oh he's finally up he's 27 we're gonna give him a shot he's 23 he's here right on time basically and so I think that's something that we need to remember too like I said with the kind of coin flip of how prospect will perform but even the path to get to the majors it's not linear especially when you toss in injuries and stuff like that but for him to sign at 16 be a top prospect basically every year post a 400 on base percentage pretty much at every level and then debut promising in the majors at 23 yeah there's some freezer burn but hopefully that freezer burn thaws out pretty quickly here once people actually get a look at him physically and what he's capable

57:27of and then you go kind of like I said about Walker Jenkins last night you look at a manual Rodriguez and the power and the speed and everything else he can do and you can go ah that's why you've been talking about it for some people were so excited for him yeah that's yeah he's younger than Culpepper right right Culpepper's young too it's not like he's right yeah they're both 23 but yeah I mean I think that's that's worth looking at and then the scouting report with Rodriguez is just so much different than the one with Jenkins right Jenkins is so mower asked in the sense that it's very calm it's very structured it's a high contact rate it's opposite field driven I'm saying if it goes well according to plan that's what we'll see the power isn't a little bit of question but he smoothed everything he's just a natural athlete you look at any six four he looks like he was constructing in a lab to be a baseball player you look at a manual Rodriguez dynamite dynamite as they call him he's five foot nothing he's a hundred nothing but everything is top of the scale in terms of what he does the speed the athleticism the power the patience unfortunately

58:31bottom of the scale strike out right swing and miss and then obviously injuries too but they're completely different players but I also think there's a real decent chance that these are two guys you can build around not just in the outfield not just in the lineup but you know a playoff caliber team can be built around these guys and culpepper too I'm not trying to dismiss that either but again we got to see these glimpses we got to see these moments where you go all right I'm going to bank that in my head so that when he goes one for 20 with 10 strikeouts I don't get caught up in the negative too much I also just think with Rodriguez and this true culpepper too and honestly I was real impressed I didn't talk to Jenkins that much prior to earlier this week I was real impressed with Jenkins he's much more like business like but for a 21 year old like he's very smart he was very kind of self-aware self-critical had a lot of interesting stuff and he's a pretty good quote in what is a difficult interview to give you know that that is a scrum of reporters ask

59:32asking you why you suck and when you and yourself are asking you yourself why you suck I'll go a little further I'll show you guys how the sauces gets made a little bit so he was out of the line up on Tuesday and he was at his lot or he was walking through the clubhouse and so one of the beat reporters went up and said actually he was at his locker kind of getting ready and one of the beat reporters approached him and said hey Walker he got a few minutes to talk and if he would have said yes then yeah like you described seven reporters would have you know formed a half circle around them put their microphones out and interviewed them and he knows it's going to be about his struggles obviously right and he said oh can't do it right now I got to be out for you know whatever bad in practice whatever it is well that's common okay he said I'll get you when I come back well we hear that from a lot of players obviously yes most of the time that just means maybe tomorrow he then didn't have to whatever he was thinking he had to do got pushed back and as soon as he heard that news he went and found that same beat reporter tapped him on the shoulder and said hey if you

1:00:34guys still want to do over at my locker I can do it now that is a level of maturity that is like not commonly seen and then once he did that gave great quotes was critical seemed to really be pretty open and honest about it and so I appreciate that and so from a personality standpoint I don't think he's going to be one of these guys who's like you know people are making memes and gifts out of them all the time from a reaction standpoint but I think he's a very interesting especially at 21 kind of business like approach and then I compare that to like Cole Pepper who's just got the big smile always in a good mood you know we met his family a couple years ago it's easy to see how he got that way like there's a very Gregorious chatty fun family and then you see Rodriguez who is at a disadvantage from showing his personal because he doesn't speak much English right even with that that shines through like sure you can see him on the field I mean he's nuts like he's he's he's a wild man like he's got such energy yeah and he's got a good personality and I think the mix of

1:01:38those three as kind of your next core building blocks could be kind of a fun mix on anorexia field along with Keishel too before we get to some other stuff let's talk about our last couple of sponsors one of them is him's and if you are watching on YouTube you see why they're advertising on the show both of us could use that's right I mean you can you can see them about a lot of stuff all the stuff that you you know maybe you care about but maybe you don't want to admit that you care about it as much and it's a hassle to kind of go see a doctor about and stuff whether that product that stuff is is ED or hair loss or weight loss or some of those other things him makes all of that easy it just that it offers and in particular regarding hair loss the offer a convenient access to a whole range of prescription hair loss treatments with ingredients that work including you know choose or oral medication or serums or sprays whatever it is and this is prescription strength ingredients like finista ride and minoxidil that can help prevent

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1:03:48we see them as ways that they get past the obstacle of trying to get past when you are working through something and they asked us a question today which is if you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing what would that be it can be funny or vulnerable I don't have anything funny I don't even think that vulnerable but I do wish I was better at sort of your flaws not not doing not doing too much which I'm sure Aaron would appreciate as well if I if I cut back on sort of what I took on on a given day and I think that comes from sort of a place of being a little obsessive compulsive on some stuff just kind of wanting to be involved and kind of getting carried away how about you Aaron now you OCD you're stealing my bit there John well yeah I'd like to be better at two things stand out one growing hair that'd be there you go two perhaps being a little more forgiving

1:04:49to let's say guess or perhaps my co-host when they say something that I think is wrong or misleading or something perhaps letting them at least finish the thought before I say it's BS something like that that's what I would like to work and I do feel like that's something that you know therapy or talking to someone could probably probably help with a little bit and better help is a pretty good way to get past that if you think you are ready to look for therapy they make it very easy easy would go online lots of different therapists you can choose from easy to switch therapists easy ways to interact with therapists whether it is online or telephone or however you want to deal with it scheduling is a breeze and I guess that you can also switch them off so you know better is a feeling defined by you and for better help it's a better help therapist who really gets you it's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries it's progress and it's getting better at you know not being a not yelling at your co-host well I didn't say that I got to have a little fun on the show you know you can our listeners can

1:05:52sign up for better help and get 10% off all you have to do is go to betterhelp.com slash gleam and that's BETTRHELPBETTERHELP.COM slash gleam and before we move on from the discussion about e-rad and and the the base there I want to revisit something you kind of talked about earlier which I I kind of agree with I'm kind of on the fence on it which is sort of the whole wasted season thing that we talked about earlier you know we spent one of the things that went wrong with the twins this year I think we talked about on last Friday's show because you wrote about it and I think we talked about it and I've watched you on the on the free show was sort of you know we expected to go thumbs up or thumbs down on the post-type prospects right and how many of them ended up being thumbs down and you know and they did it just didn't work you know there is sort of a when you you know conduct experiments and you're trying to find a solution you know when those experiments don't work you're like well I've made progress I know it's not this you find like how we phrase

1:06:58this when we were talking about it is you're going to find out information right that you can use for planning purposes for the future but unfortunately we often think of it as well we'll find out who's good right but you also may find out most of these guys aren't good and you have to kind of move on from that that's right now that doesn't feel like progress because you don't have the answer right but you know what's not the answer anymore and to some extent that's what solace I'm going to be taking from the season I don't have to worry anymore about the post-type prospects I'm going to worry about the new prospects the guys that are and what they can do now I'm not sure we don't have an answer on them yet right like that's the frustrating third about the 2027 seasons like you said half of these guys can fall flat on their face well and it's you know we saw last year was the same thing because like Julian and Miranda just washed out obviously it's like exactly it's like going through your fridge and you say I don't have anything you do not you do not want to do that let's you go through your fridge and you're looking and all the labels are expired right and you start throwing stuff out and you go well at least I cleaned out the fridge right

1:08:03and then you look and you go well now there's nothing left to eat so you're right that you need to find out that information I mean you can't have just stuck with Eddie Julian and Miranda and you know some you know Walner or Royce Lewis or whatever finding that that information is valuable but like thinning the herd only helps if there's more herd you know what I mean like getting rid of the products that are past their expiration point or are not going to be eaten is great right as long as you can refill the fridge and there's more in there and I think that's the scary part to me is like it seems like a year after year at least for the past three or four years I would say yeah there's a lot more of the information we found out especially on the hitting side a lot more of the information we found out is negative it's okay we can move on from this guy which is key information right yes but if you keep doing that and you're not locking in that many guys on the positive side you still have to go grocery shopping yeah you can have you still you still got an empty fridge and a garbage can full of expired quote yeah look at now you're leading into horrible

1:09:07analogies game welcome John it took you 20 years buddy welcome to the dark side yeah I mean I agree with all that and if you look like let's looking at the hitters specifically I mean the pitching is tricky like Taj Bradley obviously took a step forward but then there's other guys like able who we just don't know because he looked good for a few starts but he didn't pitch after April you 'd like to think he took a step forward same thing with like Rojas it's you're talking about 20 innings of a guy like there's some reason for optimism but also the injury component and the durability component there but on the hitting side well and even of the pitching said he loves it guy guys that we don't really have an answer yet like kind of kind of pre-lipp I think we've got a would trend towards a positive answer sure happy Matthews I still don't know what the answer is for the third year in a row so yeah yeah I think that's right and I mean there's like Andrew Morris right two months ago looked like wow this guy can be a bullpen piece and now it's like I don't really know we'll see yeah go must he's not that young but but looking at the hitters I agree with what you're saying like I would say Keesho just as a hitter really solidified his

1:10:12standing as a somebody you can build a lineup around now unfortunately with him because the defense is not only so been so bad but also it's not clear where he can fit long-term not only from his skill set but also because you have Jenkins because you have Rodriguez it's not easy to just say always the left field or the right field there but I think just purely offensively he had a bad April and then it's hit 300 with a 400 on base percentage and a really low strikeout rate a high walk rate 10 homers like he's an ideal lead off guy for the last five months basically it's almost more encouraging than he struggled in April yes I mean I seem to have figured things out after that yeah to me other than just having a good April also and his overall numbers would be better I don't think you could design a more encouraging season just offensively for Luke Keesho now you'd also be hard pressed to the design of more discouraging season for him defensively but I'm certainly willing to look at Keesho and say all right he should be in the lineup somewhere he can be at the top of the lineup and that does help I mean a guy with a 370 on base percentage at the top of the lineup

1:11:15with speed and play discipline is a really key component to be able to add to kind of start to build things out from there I guess I'm willing to say maybe Brooks Lee took a big enough step forward that you can at least for the next year or two while he's still cheap and under team control I do think he looked significantly better at third base than he did at shortstop to the point that I think he's probably an average or above average third baseman he's gonna end up pop in 25 homers now the overall numbers it's still a lower batting average it's still a sub 300 on base percentage he's more of like an average ish overall hitter in terms of OPS but it's a big step forward and certainly enough from a 25 year old to say all right he can be the starting base third baseman next year maybe the year after that and we'll see from there on top of the decent performance like you said it's important to recognize he's still only 25 yeah and also like what was encouraging about their performance is it's the performance we kind of thought we were going to get like based on his minor league track record like last year we came into the year going

1:12:16like why is this guy hitting right hand but not hitting left like from the left side of the play is something like this has seemed like more of what we expected Brooks Lee to be you know in 2024 when he was first yeah except it's not though because he's hitting 250 with 12 that I mean we did expect that we didn't expect we didn't expect we did expect a higher average at less power that's true yeah I mean he's not anywhere near what we thought he would be but yeah from a switch hitting standpoint he's been bad from the right side uh I get I would put call pepper in that group it's only 30 games so that you know the level of uh a suredness in that step forward is much lower but he certainly held his own at the very least uh he had some rough moments defensively but I think overall showed that he can certainly play shortstop at a decent level in the majors offensively the strikeout rate was below average he showed some power he certainly certainly showed a quick bat and the ability to fight through at bats and line the ball over the field I think he has a 107 op s plus which for a rookie shortstop is excellent uh but then

1:13:21beyond those three you know Keishel for sure Brooks Lee sort of call pepper yes but only for like you know five weeks or whatever it ended up being Walnors washed out just like Julian and Miranda last year Royce Lewis has certainly gone in a bad direction even looking only at what he's done since returning from triple A he's been a below average and and it's trended down or two his last month has been brutal uh it's like 24 strikeouts to four walks and you know 189 average or something ridiculous it's been it's been a real bad for the he has he has finished as poorly as as you would not want to see like it's yeah plus moving to moving to first base right makes a higher bar for his offense he's also now 27 so he's clearly not stepped forward Austin Martin on a you know no one is expecting him to be a star but he has really gone down down down since a good

1:14:21April and it's not even clear to me that he can be kind of a 300 at bat guy right given his limitations offensively and the fact that he can really just play corner outfield defensively Alan Rodin didn't like the world on fire I think he was okay but also they just didn't give him any opportunities and now he's gonna be 27 next year if they send him back to triple A next year that will be his fourth season at triple A as a 27 year old and at some point that suggests to me they don't really necessarily believe in him that much and we'll see what kind of people they sign to play first base D.H. and how much they block his path but I think that's what I would like to see to have seen more of and that's why I lean more towards the lost season beyond just the the losses themselves is like yeah Keisha sort of Brooks Lee co-pepper promising and maybe we'll see something these last week and a half from Rodriguez and Jenkins I'm very high on both of them long-term but I would have been high on both of them long-term even if they didn't reach the majors this season but everyone else similar to last year where it's like you had a lot more washouts

1:15:27than step forwards with some really key guys I mean Walner and Lewis were supposed to be you know the three four hitters or the four five hitters here for years to come and now it's questionable whether either of them will warrant still being a part of the team after this off season so and then like I said you're losing Jeffers you're losing Josh Bell you're losing Larnick probably if they cut him loose those are three of your what four or five best hitters for the season and I don't think that should be ignored either because then that place is even more pressure on some of these post-type guys or even some of the even younger guys to to kind of step forward so yeah I agree with all that but yeah it's it's I wish there was more and you can even do that like we said on the pitching standpoint too and a lot of that is due to injuries yeah but you know you've had maybe two or three guys step up in a meaningful way there maybe one or two maybe two or three on the hitting side but you have had double that number either wash out completely or at

1:16:29least not take any sort of step forward so that you still have the same type of questions about them heading into 2027 as you did heading not only into 2026 but in a lot of cases heading into 2025 also yeah I mean with it from the pitching standpoint I feel like we've had as many people retreat as we've had step forward it's nice to see some of the younger players kind of step into roles some have success some not but we've also had some of the veterans take a clear step back to the point where I'm not really sure that we can count on them or even being on the roster in the future so I mean leaving simian with Richardson for the beginning of the year was something I didn't anticipate being a huge step back and then you know that's it's about Bailey Ober and we got questions now about Joe Ryan and we got pop pop alopas coming back from an injury like you know as much as encouraging as been to see you know Taj Bradley you know blossom and kind of pre-lip stay healthy and be effective and is that me Matthews get a touch more consistent maybe or have a little bit more of a some runway you certainly had some guys go in the other direction too

1:17:30so also on the rookie front so obviously copepa Rodriguez Jenkins pre-lip Rojas those guys have been kind of the focus most of the season copepa I think we mentioned but he's he gets hit in the neck basically right by a 95 mile an hour fastball and it looked in the moment I was like did this guy just break like his clavicle or something right he couldn't breathe right he's back in the line up two days later he plays like six innings and he tweaks his hamstring trying to beat out a double play ball and goes on the IL he can technically come back for the final two games against Texas next week my guess is we've seen the last of him for this season just hamstring strain being what it is but like I said I mean I it's unfortunate that he's gonna end the season on the IL after spending a lot of the triple a season on the IL and probably costing himself another

1:18:3060 games of major league experience with those two IL stints because every rep for a rookie is vitally important not just for getting comfortable but from our perspective like evaluating what you have in this guy but I think they've certainly seen enough from him to be encouraged for 2027 and beyond of the type of player they have and he pretty much kind of came as advertised I would say based on like the numbers in the minors the scouting report which is swings at too many pitches outside the strike zone we saw that and has a lot of rough edges defensively and we certainly saw that but the bat speed is there the power potential is there the athleticism and the speed is definitely there and the arm strength we saw a capability to make standout plays defensively if you can attach to that a higher level of kind of day-to-day play-to-play consistency and all of that matched the scouting report on him even come on out of college and certainly double a triple a

1:19:32these are the sorts of things where it's like the tools are there the standout bat speed the regular speed the athleticism the arm but it's like can he kind of lock into the strike zone enough which he didn't really do but I would say he put up more of a fight to kind of stay alive in that bat which I think was encouraging with like fall balls and stuff I mean he had some great at bats the one against Duran obviously stands out right he had a few handful of real clutch moments that were good uh so encouraged by that I think you can certainly at the very least say he can be your opening day shortstop next year now that's not committing to him for five years or even for the end of next year being the shortstop particularly given the questions you have with this consistency defensively but then also Merrick Houston's probably going to begin next season at triple a and Merrick Houston has been a better than expected hitter in the minors and every bit is slick fielding as people touted him as as a shortstop and so when Merrick if Merrick Houston gets to the majors next year he's going to be the shortstop and so the window for Colt Pepper to sort

1:20:32of play shortstop for the twins could be relatively compressed and certainly the window for him to kind of prove that he should be the shortstop long term may already not really exist like he's going to really have to show improvement but I do think it's important to just be like he can be the opening a shortstop next year and if that's been discipline games or 80 games whatever it is I haven't been disappointed in his defense no I agree with you that let's make him opening day shortstop let's count on that going forward that doesn't mean we have to count on him doing that but you know if something happens in Merrick Houston doesn't work out I do feel like right Colt Pepper could handle that yeah maybe not at an all star level golden glove kind of level at there but at a level that is acceptable enough to play shortstop regularly in the majors yeah I I grew with that I mean I think he certainly has the physical tools that let's say like Brooks Lee just did not have in terms of range and athleticism and arm strength there are just plays

1:21:34that Brooks Lee could never make on his best day that Kaelin Colt Pepper is capable of making now the flip side to that is the plays Colt Pepper has not made have tended to be like kind of unforced error type of place where it's like he just whiffs on a ball or he just you know clanks off his glove and so those are going to stick in people's mind more so than if he just came a foot short from fielding the ball which you will often see from a shortstop who lacks range he can get to it and he can make the throws but the sure handedness the consistency I think is in question but yeah I think if you look at like his metrics or just the eye test at least for my perception there's more kind of ooh that was a rough play than you would like to see but even within that the overall defense I think has been just fine which is good because if he's going to be on above average bat and he's either going to be an average shortstop or good at second or third that is a building

1:22:35block player that you can you know bat fifth or sixth in a lineup for years to come speaking of shortstop well and also so yeah he will by virtue of being shut down here for the final two weeks he is currently stuck on 109 at bats and the cutoff for rookie status rookie of the year eligibility coming into a season is 130 at bat so even if he comes back for the last two games sure which I think is probably unlikely he's going to finish slightly short of that rookie slash prospect label cutoff of 130 at bats now does that mean a damn thing in terms of his future no he's still the same player it has no effect on anything doesn't matter service time anything but what it does do is when guys like me in December or January start putting together their annual twins prospect list or baseball America or fan graphs or whoever start updating their top 100 prospect lists or

1:23:35those same places ESPN whatever starts putting out their overall organizational farm system rankings the twins will be significantly better looking and higher ranked just because of those 20 at bats that he's missing because he will not have graduated out of prospect status so when you read my top 40 prospect list he's going to be like second or third on that and that's going to make it seem he will also still be on there he's also be on there as well as you will right exactly right that's and as will Kendri Rojas right yeah so does that make them any more or less actually promising for the future no it's just a label it's just eligibility for a list basically but it will assure twins fans that there's a little bit brighter future because instead of ranking 11th on ESPN's farm system rankings without a couple of those guys they will rank you know eighth or whatever it is so I think that's just a little and also he'll be rookie the year eligible next year

1:24:37which it will be fun if all three of those guys are on the opening day roster right to be sort of maybe fighting for rookie the year and if one of them does win rookie the year you will get a draft pick for that which we may speaking of rookies and short stops I did want to touch on Ben Ross a little bit yeah a nice play last night we talked about this on the last show and you were right that they are giving him a look at shortstop in a way that they were unwilling to do initially when they called them up because Copepur was healthy in part but also when Copepur wasn't in the lineup at that point they were going with Ryan Cridler as the shortstop because they felt he was the veteran he was more reliable he was better defensively and they were still competing sort of for a playoff spot well now that's out the window and the same thought process that leads to you calling up a manual Rodriguez leads to you not only calling up Ben Ross to take a longer look at him but giving him some starts at shortstop because they have no illusions of Ben Ross you know supplanting Copepur or holding off Merrick Houston or whatever as a starting shortstop but what they need to find out

1:25:41about him is can he be the backup shortstop can he be Cridler can he be a younger perhaps better hitting version probably worse fielding but maybe comparable version of Cridler and from the triple-right-handed version of Cody Clemens we thought Cody Clemens was going to be yeah okay play everywhere and I mean that would be a very great outcome I'm talking more like last guy on the bench but but sure yeah and I think that is worth finding out as we talk about these glimpses even just a handful of good plays from Ben Ross at shortstop or in centerfield or at second base or wherever they end up playing him can at least give you a glimpse of that he can fill that role now I don't know that they want to move on from Cridler necessarily right Cridler's legit defensively and I think they really like him as a clubhouse guy but he's just been so bad offensively for like three months and that unfortunately tracks with the poor offensive track record that he had and it makes his kind of not just in the majors but in minors he was

1:26:41particularly a good offensive leader with the exception of which we say it happens with the backup occasionally he can blast the ball which he did yes what Wednesday was that yeah and it makes what he did in like May and June you start to go well was that kind of a sign of a guy coming into his own and maybe now establishing himself as a decent hater or was it just a good month and a half for a guy who can't hit and that's where I think Ross comes into play I don't think Ross is as good defensively as Cridler but I do think he is good defensively and crucially much like Cridler he can play everywhere he can not only play shortstop but he played he's played extensively at second and third he's played center field especially this year at AAA he can play all both corner outfield spots obviously he can play first if you want him to and he's a right handed bat which I think given the likely makeup especially of their outfielders next year he could just platoon in left field or right field with Rodriguez or Jenkins he clipped platoon at second base with Clemens

1:27:42something like that there's an opportunity as I've been calling out for four years for a right-handed bench bat and he does have some pop I mean he hit 15-20 homers at AAA he did very well particularly against left-handed pitching he's kind of a marginal prospect he was on my top 42 years ago but wasn't on it coming into this year he would have been in like the 41 to 50 range but this is the type of player where you go can we see enough here that he can be the last guy on the bench that he can be the super utility that he can cover you defensively at five or six spots he can plug into the lineup when needed because of injuries and not just be a complete black hole at the bottom of the lineup and then can you within that which is my hope for this role can we find twice a week the ability to plug him in against left-handed pitching and actually have him be a productive asset in that role and with a guy like him this might be his chance to prove that you know the

1:28:44difference between hitting 150 and 350 sure over these next 10 games or whatever could be the difference between spending the rest of your career at AAA and having two or three years in the majors at least so I mean he also has the advantage of having options left right yes they can send him down to say they can stash him in St Paul next year for a while in case you know keep criedler around at maybe on the I think if if there is a decision to be made in spring training we'll both clearly think cryler would have the inside track on said decision just based on sort of you know the contract status and so on but having him around in in AAA and maybe he earns yet another call up and maybe he you know the ice three years younger than cryler he's not necessarily much cheaper because neither have any service time but yeah it might be if he can hit well enough he could even be you know the like you said sort of the the left-handed side of or the right-handed side of a platoon the short side of a platoon at some of the some of the infield positions so yeah I guess my view of them would be kind of as you described like I would

1:29:48like to have both in the organization I think from a depth standpoint that's needed I think you can very easily because cryler isn't even arbitration eligible like you said he's minimum salary too you can begin the season with criedler in the same role that he had this season which is the backup everywhere and then if he continues to not hit well early on next season then you hopefully still have Ben Ross stashed at AAA hopefully he's hitting like he did this year at AAA and you can go all right now we're gonna give Ben Ross a look but I will say I don't know that those guys are necessarily both guaranteed to make it through the offseason on the 40 man roster yeah I personally would keep them on the 40 man roster in part because I think they're both useful and in part because they're cheap and Ross can be optioned and all that but in part because there's plenty of dead weight on this 40 man roster I don't think they're gonna be in a crunch 40 man roster wise I mean we saw the same thing last year around this time a team that's this bad is almost by definition not gonna have like an overflowing 40 man roster where you have to cut

1:30:49players that have some upside but I guess it wouldn't shock me if they were just like yeah we don't think criedler can hit enough he's dropped or yeah we called up Ben Ross to take a look but you know three months ago nobody would have thought he should have been on the 40 man roster now we're gonna drop him it wouldn't shock me if one or both of them were in that spot I personally would just keep both because I think they can both be useful major league depth pieces and then the last thing Rojas is back pitching after missing some time with an injury I think he pitched once so far for triple A my understanding is that they're probably gonna call him up at some point here for a at least an outing or two that's not like been set in stone or anything but I think that's another example of like you've seen like 25 innings from him so far and there's been a lot of glimpses to like yeah it hasn't been necessary like oh we can count on him for X roll next year and so it's another one of those things kind of like Ben Ross you know is another five innings

1:31:49of Kendri Rojas gonna alter your opinion of him that much no but you'd like to at least kind of finish with a good taste in everyone's mouth head into the offseason with him feeling good pitching well being healthy so that you can at least say all right well either he stashed back at triple A next year as rotation depth or he's maybe just the lefty setup man or something like that so that's another rookie that potentially could have you know some pretty big upside with that group let's see there was one other thing I wanted to say well and they also have enough guys to in the starting rotation they could probably use maybe kind of pre-lib doesn't need to pitch quite as much as although Rojas the uh yeah they haven't I mean they haven't really backed off on him at all and they've talked a lot and Joe Ryan they Joe Ryan they keep going back out with and with the over the guy they keep pushing back with pre-lib especially yes I think that uh foreshadows the upcoming decision with Bailey Ober unfortunately with arbitration but we can talk

1:32:51about that as we get close to the offseason but yeah with Rojas he's not cleared to pitch more than like two innings so it would be like a bullpen piggyback you know type of thing but we'll see the the last thing I want to say was that it's weird to now think as we watch these last week and a half and you know we've talked about focusing on glimpses of the positive with young players and stuff this is also going to be the final twins game for quite a few key guys potentially uh you know I think Jeffers almost certainly yeah we just talked about Ober maybe yeah similar to that Larnick maybe these are guys who have I think so all been in the organization for like a decade a piece basically uh Royce Lewis maybe who was the number one pick fall v's first year in 2017 so that's been a decade I think probably Taylor Rogers who's back for a second stint and has spent over a decade on the organization this is probably the end of the line for him with the twins or overall I think it could possible this is Joe Ryan's final start uh in a twins uniform if

1:33:52they ended up trading him at that point there's some other guys too but that's a pretty big group you start to talk Jeffers Ober Larnick Lewis Rogers Ryan and let's set aside Ryan because that's much more of a you know 50-50 but like Jeffers Ober Larnick Lewis Rogers that's like a big part of the last five to ten years of twinsdom and those guys are all homegrown those guys were drafted and developed those guys have you know Rogers made an all-star team they've all certainly developed in the quality regulars um if this is it for most some or most or all of them things are going to look a lot different and I I always try to kind of remember that uh as the season winds down especially as you maybe start to see some of these veteran guys get pushed back or get their playing time cut back in preparation for that sort of thing I mean that ties it back to sort of the beginning like to begin the episode where we're talking about you know wasted season or one way or the other one

1:34:53way the other things evolve right you are going to have some people be leaving the organizations on you have to you have to start filling some of that stuff and you have to have some successes in backfilling some of those spots that are there and you know we I think we've touched it out on enough of the young players that we're seeing some promise from but that to your other earlier point I'm not sure where that leaves us for the 2027 season right so which is my which is my fear just to end it is like that's natural if you are turning over the roster really for the second year in a row last year because of the trade deadline this year because you're just gonna lose some guys like we just talked about and you're turning it over to Culpepper and Jenkins and Rodriguez and Rojas and you know Conor Prelepp and fill in the blank that's a good thing you need to be injecting youth and upside and talent into this team I mean Lord knows they need it but it also provides a very easy from a narrative standpoint for the front office and ownership

1:35:55to just be like well come on guys these guys are young and cheap but they're not now it's not the time to invest yeah wait till 2028 2029 2030 wait till everyone's dead and then your grandkids can watch a good twins team like I get it but here's the thing with baseball that's a little different in other sports tanking doesn't get you anything in baseball really yeah and there's no reason when you look at a team that's young like this for next season and I double check John's numbers from the last patreon they're at yeah roughly a hundred million without larnac without over without Jeffers for next year that right around a hundred million not in guaranteed salary they're like 60 and guaranteed salary but like you're assuming you're bringing back Joe Ryan you bring your creations all this other stuff yeah ties proudly up easy the easy decisions right yeah and so you might say well they're at a hundred million and they got all these young guys who are making the minimum and that's who you're relying on well it just makes sense to

1:36:58kind of roll with that what I would say and what I plan to ask Polette or Zola or whoever at the end of the season is in what way would adding another 50 million dollars in players at first base let's say especially you're losing Jeffers the bullpam let's say or making a trade for a catcher let's say in what way would that hinder the sort of other half of that which is we need to give space and runway and time for these young guys to develop I get if it was like the choice is either not spending anything or signing two veteran corner outfielders right well it's like well yeah obviously I don't want to block Jenkins I don't want to block Keishel I don't want to block Rodriguez but that is not the choice and to me if they and I'm not saying they've done this I'm just kind of preparing for it you know if they come out of this and say well yeah it's only a hundred million we'll spend you know another 15 20 million but realistically we're looking to 20 28 and beyond because we need all these young guys to come up what I would say that is how does acquiring a good veteran first

1:38:04basement alter the path for the young guys in any way and if anything doesn't that take some of the pressure off them to carry a lineup and if things go well don't you want them playing in a playoff chase environment as opposed to another season's just about you guys right and especially with the bullpen I mean they can easily add two or three veteran relievers to this bullpen and spend some money you could easily add a first basement or a D.H. as we've talked about you could easily add try to trade for a catcher who's better than Victor Caratini which is not a real high bar there is absolutely significant additions you could make to the lineup to the bullpen honestly even to the rotation depending on some of the trade elements that come into play this obviously there is significant money that you could spend that does not in any way kind of halt or alter or block the path of this young talent and to me if they come out the other end of this thing and try to position that as an either or scenario in other words we can't spend a bunch of money and bring in a bunch of

1:39:09veterans because we have all these young guys if anything I mean anybody who falls down FL knows this if you have a starting quarterback on a rookie wage scale contract that is the time to go spend on your defense right to go spend on wide receivers to go spend on your offensive line because you are lucky enough that a key element of your team is young and cheap and I would make the same case with baseball it's not a salary cap but they've capped themselves obviously right don't act as if having all this youth that's young and cheap and controlled should stop you from taking advantage of that by actually spending the money on everything else they have so again this is way ahead of time we'll deal with free agency and trades and all that stuff but I am as usual preparing myself for a spin at the end of the season and that is as I watch this unfold that is I think maybe where I fear this is going to be headed which is hey everyone didn't you get excited about all these young guys we don't want to stop that flow by bringing in a bunch of expensive expensive veterans

1:40:10do we so we'll see I'll give him credit if they don't take that approach but all right um thank you to all of our sponsors one of the things we should mention there's no tanking and no good doing tanking baseball the twins credit they are really working and at improving their draft lottery pick for the 2020 season right they have managed to move like I don't know to really put themselves into a position to move like into the top seven here if they could uh you just continue to lose a few more games here between uh yeah we're passing the lions and pests or the tigers and the tigers and the tigers we just watch football last night uh what are the tigers and the mariners and the reds and the nationals like they can they're right there on the edge of advantage to pull that off so yes that would be I think their fourth top 10 pick in the last six years or something like that I mean they just picked obviously third with Von Lackie they picked fifth with Walker Jenkins these guys this does matter yeah and yeah I mean I always feel this way with like football where a team will win its last game right and drop from like second to eighth

1:41:16in the right order and it's like okay it's not something that you want to tank for a full season or sort of go into a season tanking but if you've reached the point of the season that the twins have where it's you've been done you've been cooked for quite a while now you might as well pick fifth instead of nine. Give a decent chance chance to catch on the Metz I never thought I'd say that yeah I'm looking at the uh I'm looking at old tankathon.com which is really useful website part of it is that the giants who are seven games worse than the twins right are ineligible to pick higher than 10th because they've been in the lottery uh multiple times in the recent years yeah right now the twins are tied for the sixth worst record among eligible teams uh I think they would be in the seventh spot based on some tiebreakers right now but they're also let's see there are only two wins I guess better than fifth which is the Metz right there four wins better than fourth which is the Royal so it's gonna have trouble

1:42:18kid they're gonna have trouble catching the Royal the big concern is that they fall back from you know six they're seven to like 10th yeah I'm looking at the Mariners or the Tigers or the Reds or the Nationals end up uh you know losing just as many games realistically looking at this and removing San Francisco from the equation the worst they would pick would be 11th in this group they can't drop lower than 11th um because they're four games worse than like Baltimore St. Louis Pittsburgh etc uh but yeah I mean the difference between picking picking fifth or sixth or even seventh and picking 10th or 11th is pretty significant San Francisco is almost surely gonna pick precisely 10th yeah because that's where you drop if you're not eligible for the lineup but yeah that's there you go there's something there's a glimpse for the future that you could watch so it's tricky you're rooting for Walker Jenkins to hit home runs you're rooting for uh you know all these young guys to be good right but I guess then you're also rooting for the veterans to be

1:43:20really really really bad especially that list of departing guys you need like Josh Bell and Ober and Jeffers to just have the worst two weeks of their life to counteract what are gonna be these extraordinary glimpses of future upside from the young guys but uh yeah they Josh Josh Bell came through in a couple high leverage at best yeah he's already on the plan he's got the plan popping up and yeah all that so all right uh we will be back first thing bright and early Monday on the patreon side patreon.com slash gleamon we will talk about the uh the whole angel series and hopefully have a few more good moments uh from young players to talk about uh preview my trip to San Francisco to watch the twins uh uh or preview it you mean you just gonna say what breweries are gonna go exactly right that's right here's the pre-game plan gag we'll see you there uh and thank you to all our sponsors for making this show free for you guys to listen to uh and especially thank you to blackstack uh they will be doing the uh the September uh festivities this weekend. The number

1:44:21festive and initiation yep. As an initiation you guys should go check out go check out their tap room or just next time you're in a liquor store just uh keep an eye out for blackstack and once you see it you will recognize the cans because they are very distinct and uh take john's word uh that it is legitimately good beer. You should know when you're not going to get you're gonna what you will never be disappointed to find a local 75-year fridge i guarantee it so thank you very much to blackstack and thank you very much for listening everybody we hope you enjoyed it we'd love to see you on next week and during the else's patreon.com slash gleamon otherwise we'll talk to you next time. At the Ram Drive-in to Fall Sales Event make it powerful with our strongest Ram 1500 ever make it move with the Ram Heavy Duty with an available Cummins diesel and make it go the distance with a 10 year or 100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty. Hurry and now for great deals during the Ram Drive-in

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