Brock Beauchamp

It will be a PDF. You should be able to read it on pretty much any full color device.

Really? Mauer - 8 years, $23 million per Fielder - 8 years, $24 million per Other factors - Fielder hits for more power and is never hurt. And he's one of the few hitters who can approach Mauer's OBP. Mauer's a 1/2 time catcher now, and has a well-documented injury history. I think I'd rather have Fielder's contract. Within a few years, there's a damned good chance the Fielder contract is viewed as one of the worst in baseball. He may never be hurt now but do you really expect that to continue as Fielder gains more weight and ages into his 30s? Guys with Fielder's build don't age gracefully and the Tigers signed him through his age 36 season. The guy can barely play a position at age 28. What's he going to be like at age 32? Age 35?

Want to sell me your Christian Ponder fan blog?

I agree with this, but it has to do with life, not the campaign. Romney has been a leader and a success throughout his life, whereas Obama has virtually never been involved in business his entire life. Also, Romney has been able to show that he can work across the aisle as a Republican Governor in the Heavy Democrat leaning state of Massachusetts. I'll will admit that Romney was not my preferred choice for the Republican nomination (more like my 4th or 5th), but he has my support over Obama. I find it difficult to blame Obama for not "reaching across the aisle". The Republican-controlled Congress has gone out of its way to make everything exceedingly difficult. The Tea Party has been a blight on the entirety of American politics and their refusal to budge on anything has been the cause of this gridlock, not Obama. They've shot down some pretty reasonable bills just because they were supported by Obama & Co. That's not how this game is supposed to work. Obama and the Democrats are not without blame but the vast majority of the blame for recent gridlock has to be placed on the more radical elements of the GOP, which infuriatingly seem to grow more radical and powerful by the day. I don't understand what the hell is going on with this country anymore. We continue to elect bat****-crazy people to office (Pelosi and Reid need inclusion here as well) and then become disgusted when nothing is accomplished. It's absurd.

Barely. Deduno and De Vries weren't awful and together, they would have only made $1m in 2012 over the course of an entire season. They're not acceptable options for a ML franchise that wants to compete but at least they're not $15m albatrosses.

John and I had a conversation about this awhile ago and I think it has real merit. Twins' hitters seem to drop off the radar for a few years, often around high A or maybe even AA. Parmelee, Plouffe, and to an extent, Hicks. Then, as they approach the higher minors (AA, AAA), they seem to burst back on the scene with a vengeance. It makes me wonder what the Twins are doing in the low minors that "stalls" hitter development. Are they reworking players' swings and writing off a season or two while that player adjusts? I'm not against whatever they're doing because they've been churning out pretty good hitters for awhile now (unfortunately, the exact opposite can be said of the pitching) but I find the trend interesting to mull over.

I felt the same way but IIRC, some of his late season success came against some pretty miserable offensive teams. Either way, I'm not completely down on the kid yet. He's still young and can turn it around. It seems as if a large part of his problem is that he's pitching scared instead of attacking the hitters. His stuff isn't great but it's not this bad, either.

What is curious to me is what motivated BA to drop him from 19th to 45th AFTER his solid season at Beloit. Could be that there was a big influx of talent that pushed him down the list. I don't know. If someone has the pre-2011 Baseball America Handbook that has his write-up, please let me know the reasoning. Didn't he have absolutely atrocious splits against lefties that year? That'd be my guess for the drop in the rankings.

What, in all your evident wisdom thus far, would you suggest they do make decisions upon? What the candidates have actually done instead of what they say they've done. In the case of both candidates (particularly Romney), their actions tell a very different story than what they say. I'm not trying to pick on Romney (well, maybe I am) but he's a poster child for speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He's for contraceptive choice then he's against it then he's for it again in the debate. He's for an assault weapons ban then he's against it now he's waffling on it again in the debate. He's trying to sit on both sides of many issues and that instills zero faith about his leadership skills. I don't dislike Mitt, I think he's probably a good guy but with a Republican-controlled Congress railroading him, I worry that he would sign some pretty ridiculous legislation that would set us back socially 30 or 40 years. In a vacuum, I think he's a pretty moderate guy but in a reality where the Tea Party is running roughshod over Congress (a trend we need to stop immediately), I worry that he'll do some pretty stupid things if elected to office. He hasn't shown the kind of backbone needed to stand up to the increasingly radical (and influential) elements of the GOP. Of course, Obama is guilty of speaking out of both sides of his mouth as well, he just doesn't do it as blatantly or as often as Romney (can anyone remember a candidate as duplicitous as Romney? I can't.).

[video=youtube;MfFsFUwC4lQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfFsFUwC4lQ

I dub thee "turnip face". Get used to it.

You must really hate sports because if that's how you feel, your outrage must consume every moment of your existence. Albert Pujols was taken in the 13th round. 19 teams passed on CC Sabathia before he was drafted. 10 teams passed on McCutchen. Joey Votto wasn't taken until the second round so nearly every team passed on him at least once.

Absolutely not. A-Rod is a sinking ship and the Twins should avoid him no matter how much the Yankees pay to be rid of the guy.

Did it ever occur to you that the rest of us get tired of hearing the same line over and over? We get it. You don't like the front office and management. Now move on or bring something new to the discussion.

It should also be noted that JR/BS were smart enough to cut ties with Silva and let someone else pay him ridiculous money. It's one thing to pick up a guy that helps the team but is up-and-down overall. That's a good thing. It's another thing entirely to overpay that guy to keep him. That's a bad thing. JR did the first. JR/BS wisely avoided the second.

I'm fine with not planting new trees but for crying out loud, they have to do something about that black abomination they have beyond the centerfield wall. It's awful and looks like it was installed in ten minutes by nine year olds.

Since when is Doumit speedy enough to run in circles before failing to catch a ball?

I'm also not against the idea... If the team could land him, which I doubt. As a platoon player on the cheap, he should have plenty of offers that would allow him to go to a contender.

My version: Drew Butera. What the ****. Seriously. WHY?!?!?!?!

On the other hand, being a lame duck boss makes it hard to instill confidence in the lower ranks. Removing the interim tag could be viewed as symbolic as well. As I've said all along, JR deserves more than 11 months to get this franchise back on track. If he fails to have a clear path forward a year from now, then it's time to think about moving in another direction. So far, he's done a pretty good job with the franchise. The last draft went off like gangbusters, most of the free agent acquisitions were either good or decent, and now he has his first full offseason to really lay out a plan. I agree with you on this - but can't it also be said that Gardy is a lame duck boss? Not really... He simply hasn't been extended. He has a full season left on his contract and he was allowed to keep his buddy as pitching coach. He obviously still has some sway in the organization and it appears that JR is going to try to get him some pitching so he can succeed in 2013. If it's July 1st, the Twins are 15 games back, and a fire sale is starting to commence, then he's a lame duck boss for the rest of the season.

On the other hand, being a lame duck boss makes it hard to instill confidence in the lower ranks. Removing the interim tag could be viewed as symbolic as well. As I've said all along, JR deserves more than 11 months to get this franchise back on track. If he fails to have a clear path forward a year from now, then it's time to think about moving in another direction. So far, he's done a pretty good job with the franchise. The last draft went off like gangbusters, most of the free agent acquisitions were either good or decent, and now he has his first full offseason to really lay out a plan.

Honestly, that was the biggest issue with BYTO and why we're taking a very different approach with TD. In any forum community (and god knows, I've been a mod/admin in plenty of them), there are differing levels of knowledge and experienced posters are going to get frustrated with the less experienced ones. Here at TD, we've worked pretty hard (and I'd like to think we've been successful) to bridge that gap and not allow long-time users to trample the inexperienced posters. But that frustration is going to be there in any community and once in awhile, posters are going to vent. It's just part of the cycle and outside of imposing Draconian rules on the forum, there's no getting around that. To counter it, we've imposed somewhat strict rules on calling posters names, implying they are stupid, and bitching that certain threads are a waste of everyone's time. I think we've provided a pretty friendly arena for new posters to learn about baseball. It doesn't mean they won't take their lumps while getting up to speed but they won't be insulted repeatedly in the process of doing so and possibly be chased off before they become part of the community. Looking around the baseball world, I think we've done just that with TD. Some of the old BYTOers don't like the more "friendly" nature of TD but that's just how it goes when you jump into a new community with new rules. On the other hand, BYTO was dying because of its no-holds-barred approach to posting. No one could penetrate that community because of how vicious it could be to new users. I think we've reached a fine middle ground with TD. It's not cork-on-the-fork stupid like RubeChat (I mean, honestly... just reading that site for more than a few minutes feels like I'm exposing myself to brain cancer) but it's not "grab the pitchforks and skewer this guy for even mentioning RBI" like BYTO. It's a fine line to walk and we're still learning as we go. But given how the community has started to coalesce in under a year, I think we're off to a fine start.

The Handbook is the only reason I'm looking forward to the Series. In the Division Series, I was cheering for Cincinnati, Oakland, Baltimore, and Washington. It was a pretty awful baseball week for me.

Yeah, it's frustrating. Those of us who have spent the past ten years on Twins forums know the procedure... As Pseudo mentioned, some of the new posters may be a bit trigger-happy. But that's okay, they'll soon figure it out. TD is a new place and we're just getting our feet under us. On the other hand, this "dead zone" only lasts for two months, not five. Once we get near the winter meetings, we'll start seeing real action from front offices and that will generate a lot of quality conversation. Right now, there just isn't much going on. And remember, the Offseason Handbook releases in less than a week (if you pre-order). If that doesn't generate quality conversation, nothing will. There's A LOT of content in that thing.

I just realized that the forum trolls may not have noticed that we added a sample of the handbook for download. It features 8 pages of the handbook so you can preview some of the content before plunking down your hard-earned cash. Check it out! http://www.twinsdaily.com/docs/td-2013-handbook-sample.pdf