Monday Morning Minnesota: The Chaos Begins Edition

The Past Week on Twinkie Town:

• Zach Koenig is back with Round 3 to determine the Greatest Minnesota Twins.
• John Foley explores whether we should believe the Ryan Jeffers breakout is real.
• Who’s on first? Ben Beecken takes a look at the Twins’ options for 2024.
• Imagine playoff baseball in 60-degree weather. Zach sure is in his proposal for a new baseball schedule.
• Brandon Brooks is back at it again with the Rival Roundup: plenty of news, some good, some bad, and some just plain embarrassing.

Elsewhere in Twins Territory:

• Eric Longenhagen at Fangraphs takes a look at the current state of each AL team’s 40-man rosters, including a bold prediction for a potential top-100 Twins prospect.
• Ted Schwerzler at Twins Daily evaluates the Top 10 Non-Tender Candidates for the Twins.
• Emmanuel Rodriguez and Austin Martin were added to the 40-man roster last week to protect them from the Rule 5 draft. Meanwhile, Nick Gordon and Kyle Farmer were tendered contracts, while Ronny Henriquez (who came over in the Mitch Garver trade) and Jovani Moran were non-tendered.
• As expected, Sonny Gray rejected the Twins’ qualifying offer. If he ends up signing with a team for more than $50 million, the Twins will receive a late first-round pick in next year’s draft. In case you missed it, Ben had some thoughts on what the Twins could offer Gray once the QO was rejected.
• Ben and I cover the past few weeks in Twins Territory and try to predict a few free agent pitchers we could see the Twins pursue this offseason.

In the World of Baseball:

• The first domino has fallen, as Aaron Nola has re-signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for seven years on a $172 million deal. The 30-year-old had a bit of an off-year this season, with a 4.46 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP. However, he has recorded 200+ strikeouts every season since 2018 (not counting the shortened 2020 season) and provides the Phillies with a nice 1-2 punch alongside Zack Wheeler as they attempt to get back to the World Series with their loaded roster.
• Atlanta decided to sell off their injured young starters, trading away both Mike Soroka and Kyle Wright last week for relatively uninteresting players. Somewhat related, there are now rumors that they will be actively pursuing Sonny Gray.
• In maybe one of the more surprising moves of the weekend, the Brewers elected to non-tender (top 10 pitcher when healthy) Brandon Woodruff. Woodruff underwent shoulder surgery and is expected to miss most of next season. Couple that with a project $11+ million salary in arbitration and the Brewers decided not to tender a contract.
• To no one’s surprise, Gerrit Cole won the AL Cy Young Award, Blake Snell won the NL Cy Young Award, Shohei Ohtani won the AL MVP Award, Ronald Acuña won the NL MVP Award, Gunnar Henderson won the AL ROY Award, and Corbin Carroll won the NL ROY Award. Twins of note: Gray finished 2nd in Cy Young voting, while Pablo López finished 7th; Gray finished 18th in MVP voting, and Edouard Julien finished 7th as well in ROY voting. In addition, Rocco Baldelli finished 4th in the AL Manager of the Year race.
• Finally, the evil overlords prevailed as MLB owners approved for John Fisher to move the Oakland Athletics to the desert in Las Vegas - James Fillmore provides plenty of details on everything surrounding this frustrating situation. If you want even more content, Melissa Lockard at The Athletic provided a story about the A’s fan groups that plan to boycott 2024 Opening Day (paywall). I look forward to #CancelSZN.