Thread: Sal's take on Son of Sal

Originally Posted by USAFChief

The "25th man" on a team carrying 12 (or 13!) pitchers needs to do more than give the manager a warm fuzzy.

Make no mistake...having Drew Butera soak up a roster spot costs the Twins in multiple ways. It doesn't "give playing time" to anybody, and keeps a useful player off the roster...leading to, for example, Pedro Florimon hitting for himself as the tying run in the ninth inning.

Agreed... I think the third catcher idea is goofy no matter how hard I try to sugar coat Butera.

If I could take one thing out of Gardenhire's mind. Put that one thing in a locked box that can survive a nuclear explosion and than hand that thing in the locked box over to the captain of a freighter with instructions to drop that box exactly in the middle of the pacific ocean.

It would be his goofy idea of needing a third catcher so catcher's one and two can DH.

The Twins do indeed lack decent pinch hitting options and have all year long and the year before that.

On the otherside... I only make my pro-Butera statements under the context created by Gardenhire. Butera on the roster allows Ben Revere to play. Under Gardenhire that does help this team. Under another manager it probably wouldn't be necessary.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know how many times this year we've been forced to change catchers mid-game because of injury? Of the top of my mind, I'm having trouble thinking of one.

God, this thread makes me miss BYTO. It could have been gold. Gold, Jerry.

Oh well.

Originally Posted by USAFChief

The "25th man" on a team carrying 12 (or 13!) pitchers needs to do more than give the manager a warm fuzzy.

Make no mistake...having Drew Butera soak up a roster spot costs the Twins in multiple ways. It doesn't "give playing time" to anybody, and keeps a useful player off the roster...leading to, for example, Pedro Florimon hitting for himself as the tying run in the ninth inning.

Ding Ding Ding!!

Originally Posted by sbknudson

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know how many times this year we've been forced to change catchers mid-game because of injury? Of the top of my mind, I'm having trouble thinking of one.

think the last time it happenned was 5 yrs ago in CHI when Mike Redmond got hurt in-game with Mauer DHing. This one incident in July 07 is the reason that Drew Butera has a job this year.

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

Who cares what the fan base thinks!? Sal is right. Drew is one of the better defensive catchers in the game. And yeah, clearly offense isnt part of his game, but it's ok for Sal to put that nicely. Sal should be very proud!

and drew boy has how many passed balls the last 2 games? 4-5 he isint that good of a defender....he takes away from our bench just so waddling ronnie can have his buddys kid hangin out and collecting...12 pitchers and 3 catchers?why

So Sal acts like a dad and declines the invitation to crap on his son in the press. How utterly scandalous!

Butera's presence on the roster is one of several topics about which there is far too much hand-wringing over in these parts. He's played in about a quarter of the team's games and had 99 PA's.

If your only source of info about the 2012 Twins was this forum, you'd think it was all because of Butera, Mauer, Nishioka and Gray that we're in last place.

Originally Posted by one_eyed_jack

So Sal acts like a dad and declines the invitation to crap on his son in the press. How utterly scandalous!

Butera's presence on the roster is one of several topics about which there is far too much hand-wringing over in these parts. He's played in about a quarter of the team's games and had 99 PA's.

If your only source of info about the 2012 Twins was this forum, you'd think it was all because of Butera, Mauer, Nishioka and Gray that we're in last place.

No. But they do all have something in common- something which has contributed to the last-place embarrassments of the past two seasons- they are just 4 of many seemingly endless examples of pedestrian-bad-to-execrably-horrible management decisions concerning proper evaluation (and $valuation$) of talent level and proper usage of personnel.

Fun fact of the day: When added together, Sal and Drew have a combined career OPS+ of 102.

Originally Posted by one_eyed_jack

Butera's presence on the roster is one of several topics about which there is far too much hand-wringing over in these parts. He's played in about a quarter of the team's games and had 99 PA's.

So what you're saying is...the Twins have played the majority of the season with a 24 man roster, 12 or 13 of which are pitchers.

But somehow that hasn't hurt the Twins.