Let May close; and where the heck is Polanco?

[Twinfan & Dad]

It has been well documented that we are going nowhere this year so can we please see if Trevor May is our closer of the future and use him in this role. If not, let's see what he can do in the rotation. He has already showed us that he has the stuff but we need to find out if he has the mental makeup. QUIT WASTING HIS TALENT! It's time to find out what we have with our young pieces so we can address our many holes. Then we bring up Polanco to sit? Come on man! Let's not pull another Alex Meyer. This ineptitude is getting really hard to swallow.

[howeda7]

There are many things that should be done.

Polanco should play every day hitting 1st or second.

 

Sano needs to play 3rd. 

 

Trade Plouffe. Failing that, he plays RF

 

Get Kepler up and play him every day.

 

Get Buxton up the second he's got his confidence back. This OF defense is a crime. 

 

Trade Nolasco

 

Trade Jepsen

 

As part of above. Get a catcher. Any catcher.

 

Oh and tell Terry Ryan to have a nice retirement. 

 

[Rosterman]

What would the Twins record be if we took Jepsen AND Fien out the equation since the beginning of the season.

 

Sadly, clearly, Jepsen isn't getting it done. He's had every opportunity.

 

Shades of Ghost of Ron Davis!

[ScottyB]

At a minimum, relegate Jepsen to mop up guy.  I'd rather give Meyer a legit chance in the bullpen.

 

PS I hear Deunsing may be available mid May - just kidding, I'm not that desperate (yet).

[mikelink45]

I like the thought process.  If we are truly at the bottom and we know the future players let them play.  KC struggled with its wave of talent for a few years but let them play through the learning curve.  We bring up players and put them on the bench because we are so good.  Kepler, Polanco...get time wasted watching others play poor baseball.  What are they learning?  
 

May has been a conundrum.  What are they going to do.  Is he counting the days until Free Agency?  

 

Buxton is hitting, Kepler is hitting lets get going.

[beckmt]

Understand somewhat Polanco, though you can rotate him 5-6 days a week through 3 infield positions.  Plouffe and Dozier need to build trade value as at this point they are only trade chips.  Cannot afford to sell low, so hope they get hot and injuries force other contenders to buy Twins players at a mid point. 

Selling just to sell is selling very low and that is a problem. 

Relief help is further away, but agree May should be closing.  Jepsen needs to be used in lower pressure situations until he can control his offspeed pitches. 

[Twinfan & Dad]

 

Understand somewhat Polanco, though you can rotate him 5-6 days a week through 3 infield positions.  Plouffe and Dozier need to build trade value as at this point they are only trade chips.  Cannot afford to sell low, so hope they get hot and injuries force other contenders to buy Twins players at a mid point. 

Selling just to sell is selling very low and that is a problem. 

Relief help is further away, but agree May should be closing.  Jepsen needs to be used in lower pressure situations until he can control his offspeed pitches.

 

I agree 100% with the thinking of building trade value. I was referring to Nunez at short last night instead of Polanco. Yes I know Nunez is our best hitter. Hell throw him in the outfield he's just as good as some of the other defense we have out there. If we are building up trade value  for Dozier and Plouffe we also need to have a replacement ready for Dozier. Do we want Polanco getting his crash course after the trade and have the same struggles as other young guys recently sent back down to AAA. Let him play!

[wsnydes]

 

It has been well documented that we are going nowhere this year so can we please see if Trevor May is our closer of the future and use him in this role. If not, let's see what he can do in the rotation. He has already showed us that he has the stuff but we need to find out if he has the mental makeup. QUIT WASTING HIS TALENT! It's time to find out what we have with our young pieces so we can address our many holes. Then we bring up Polanco to sit? Come on man! Let's not pull another Alex Meyer. This ineptitude is getting really hard to swallow.

But wasting talent is the one thing this team is doing well at this year!  They're on a prolific pace.

[laloesch]

Let him start!

[Mike Sixel]

I don't think the Twins think they are rebuilding, I don't think the Twins run the team the way some here would expect a bad team to.

[Platoon]

This hurts to say, but we have now cornered ourselves for at least another month. Barring a specific injury on another team, you really can't trade Plouffe, Dozier, Jepsen etc. For a bag of balls, sure. But not enough teams have defined either their path forward or needs. (Yes, some teams actually do that) That said, unless Ryan is willing to show everyone exactly how stubborn he can be, I think Plouffe will finally be traded. Mauer won't be, Sano makes no sense, and the Twins never trade a new FA like Park. Leaving Trevor the odd man out. He will cosmetically shuffle the BP, maybe even bring in Chargois, and likely dump Nolasco. and that could possibly be it. This will be followed by an interview with LaVelle, to wit. The Twins are fine folks, just going through a tough stretch right now!

[Platoon]

I agree 100% with the thinking of building trade value. I was referring to Nunez at short last night instead of Polanco. Yes I know Nunez is our best hitter. Hell throw him in the outfield he's just as good as some of the other defense we have out there. If we are building up trade value  for Dozier and Plouffe we also need to have a replacement ready for Dozier. Do we want Polanco getting his crash course after the trade and have the same struggles as other young guys recently sent back down to AAA. Let him play!

As I mentioned above, I can see Plouffe traded. The negatives of keeping all of those four are overwhelming. But for those who see Dozier moving on, I think they better settle in for a long wait. He is pretty much the FO perception of the face of the franchise. And the team is not flush with ready to play Middle IF, as usual!

[gocgo]

OK, so put yourselves in another teams shoes.  You know the Twins need to move some players.  Are you going to offer them anything of value for those players?  Not if you're smart.

[mazeville]

 

There are many things that should be done.

Polanco should play every day hitting 1st or second.

 

Sano needs to play 3rd. 

 

Trade Plouffe. Failing that, he plays RF

 

Get Kepler up and play him every day.

 

Get Buxton up the second he's got his confidence back. This OF defense is a crime. 

 

Trade Nolasco

 

Trade Jepsen

 

As part of above. Get a catcher. Any catcher.

 

Oh and tell Terry Ryan to have a nice retirement. 

 

Agree with a lot but not all of this.

 

The OF defense IS a crime. Adam Jones' hit in the 9th would have been caught by an outfielder better than Arcia. You can't tell me that a lot of the current pitching problems, especially with Hughes, aren't due at least in part because of that awful outfield defense.

 

Kepler and Buxton can't get up here soon enough.

 

Definitely trade Plouffe and put Sano at third. That sacrifices some infield defense. But at least it improves outfield defense.

 

And start playing Polanco for God's sakes.

[DaveW]

May should be starting.

[Seth Stohs]

 

I don't think the Twins think they are rebuilding, I don't think the Twins run the team the way some here would expect a bad team to.

 

Wait... you mean the Twins don't read the Twins Daily comments section to run the team?

[USAFChief]

Wait... you mean the Twins don't read the Twins Daily comments section to run the team?

Thank god they don't. They might be on the way to 550 losses over 6 years if they did.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Wait... you mean the Twins don't read the Twins Daily comments section to run the team?

 

I wonder if they read them for entertainment purposes? I wonder if they take some of this personally?

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

No excuse for Polanco not to start today.

 

Nunez is a nice bench player but has shown to be mistake prone when given regular playing time. As long as Escobar is on the DL, Nunez should not be starting ahead of Polanco except in an unusual case.

[DaveW]

 

I wonder if they read them for entertainment purposes? I wonder if they take some of this personally?

Not sure TR has the patience for Twinsdaily to load on his computer, rumor has it he is still on 28.8 dial up AOL internet. However the good news is that because he found a taker for Fien's contract, the Pohlads promised him an upgrade to 56 kbs!

 

As far as surfing Twinsdaily on the phone? I don't think TR is able to do that as well.

 

http://www.kayofm.com/pics/Feeds/Articles/2016224/1621546/OldCellphoneKAYO.jpg

[by jiminy]

 

This hurts to say, but we have now cornered ourselves for at least another month. Barring a specific injury on another team, you really can't trade Plouffe, Dozier, Jepsen etc. For a bag of balls, sure. But not enough teams have defined either their path forward or needs. (Yes, some teams actually do that) That said, unless Ryan is willing to show everyone exactly how stubborn he can be, I think Plouffe will finally be traded. Mauer won't be, Sano makes no sense, and the Twins never trade a new FA like Park. Leaving Trevor the odd man out. He will cosmetically shuffle the BP, maybe even bring in Chargois, and likely dump Nolasco. and that could possibly be it. This will be followed by an interview with LaVelle, to wit. The Twins are fine folks, just going through a tough stretch right now!

 

There are many things that should be done.

Polanco should play every day hitting 1st or second.

 

Sano needs to play 3rd. 

 

Trade Plouffe. Failing that, he plays RF

 

Get Kepler up and play him every day.

 

Get Buxton up the second he's got his confidence back. This OF defense is a crime. 

 

Trade Nolasco

 

Trade Jepsen

 

As part of above. Get a catcher. Any catcher.

 

Oh and tell Terry Ryan to have a nice retirement. 

 

I'm finally coming around: playing Plouffe in right field and Sano at third is win-win. 

 

It would give us a chance to see if Sano can handle 3B before committing to him completely there with no backup plan.

 

It would improve the outfield defense immediately.

 

And it could actually increase Plouffe's trade value. He has nothing left to prove at 3B -- if someone wants him as a third baseman, a month in the OF won't reduce his value. It could even increase it, by demonstrating positional versatility.

 

What do we have to lose? Unless the Twins have given up on Sano ever playing 3B, they should give him a shot right now and see how he does.  I just don't see the downside. 

 

Sure, Plouffe may be a bit better fielder right now. But who cares? We're not playing for this season. And in any case, the improvement in outfield defense would at least cancel out any damage to the infield defense.

 

The only reason not to is if Plouffe remains in their long-term plans at third beyond next year, and they think Sano is destined for DH.  But then what happens to Park and Mauer? 

 

I think I see a ray of logic now. If their long term plan was to keep Plouffe at third and Sano at DH, the unexpected luck with signing Park threw a wrench into things.  But until they knew what they had with Park, they wanted to keep their options open. 

 

It could be the Sano to the outfield plan was just intended long enough to audition Park. If so, fair enough. Now that Park looks like a keeper, though, I'm with Howeda: It's time to move Sano to third and Plouffe to the OF, until Plouffe is traded, or Sano proves he can't handle the infield.

[DaveW]

Plouffe would be an absolute disaster in RF. He possibly would be even worse than Sano.

 

 

[Riverbrian]

 

I wonder if they read them for entertainment purposes? I wonder if they take some of this personally?

 

I'll bet a large amount of money... for me that would be about 50 bucks. 

 

I'll bet that a large percentage of Twins personnel... players, front office actually do read TD comments just to see what is being said about them. It makes them a little uncomfortable but they read it in the same way that we put our tongues on canker sores. It doesn't help the situation and it stings a little but we put our tongue on it anyway. 

 

So... For the Twins in the Front Office and the players who are reading this... and you are. 

 

Ignore all these posters... and just listen to me.  

[Seth Stohs]

 

I wonder if they read them for entertainment purposes? I wonder if they take some of this personally?

 

I would say more of the former, but I would say that certainly the latter too. 

[jokin]

 

What would the Twins record be if we took Jepsen AND Fien out the equation since the beginning of the season.

 

Sadly, clearly, Jepsen isn't getting it done. He's had every opportunity.

 

Shades of Ghost of Ron Davis!

 

It was sadly and clear last season that Jepsen got a little hot and a lot lucky. To be relying on him as the key set-up man, let alone Plan B closer, was whistling past the graveyard.

[KGB]

 

No excuse for Polanco not to start today.

Nunez is a nice bench player but has shown to be mistake prone when given regular playing time. As long as Escobar is on the DL, Nunez should not be starting ahead of Polanco except in an unusual case.

For a team hitting .236, it understandable that you want to keep Nunez's .370 average in the lineup.  As long as he hitting the way he is, I would call that an unusual case and you have to keep him in the lineup.

 

Last night 5 out of the 6 hits were by players in positions Polanco can play. 

[Riverbrian]

I was happy with the Jepsen trade and I'm still glad he's on the team. 

 

BUT... not in the closer role

 

I understand that Molitor is trying to let him work through his problems and Molitor probably believes that Jepsen is the best combination of arm and experience to close. 

 

But... I have to believe that an overwhelming majority of managers would be thinking about and acting on the next option by now. 

 

The next option has to be May... I'd put him in that role starting immediately.

 

As for Polanco... I personally believe that no one should sit as much as he has. Especially when the players you are playing instead are LOSING GAME AFTER GAME!!! 

[alarp33]

 

I was happy with the Jepsen trade and I'm still glad he's on the team. 

 

BUT... not in the closer role

 

I understand that Molitor is trying to let him work through his problems and Molitor probably believes that Jepsen is the best combination of arm and experience to close. 

 

But... I have to believe that an overwhelming majority of managers would be thinking about and acting on the next option by now. 

 

The next option has to be May... I'd put him in that role starting immediately.

 

 

 

 

Maybe Molitor secretly promoted May to the Closer role 2 weeks ago and we just haven't seen it yet since there hasn't been a save opportunity.... 

 

Seriously though, May, Jepsen, I find it really hard to care either way much either way... Obviously May is the best relief pitcher, but I'd still rather see him get a chance in the rotation during this dumpster fire of a season

[OldTimeTwinkie]

Are you sure you want to let Terry Ryan trade anybody on this team unless the purpose is to clear spaces and not bring back assets. His track record is very questionable.

[HitInAPinch]

 

OK, so put yourselves in another teams shoes.  You know the Twins need to move some players.  Are you going to offer them anything of value for those players?  Not if you're smart.

I'm trying to be in the "anti-not smart" group.  But some days, it's really hard.