Brock Beauchamp

I don't see why this is an issue. Someone wants to do something nice for another Twins fan and people are complaining about it. Really, Internet? Come on... Just let the guy do something nice for another person. He was even decent enough to leave his name out of it and did it anonymously.

A fair analysis. I'm not defending the Twins' drafts in saying they were good. I'd even concede that they weren't even mediocre. My only problem stems from the word "horrific". "Horrific" drafts don't return viable major leaguers to the roster. The Twins have done that over the past 6-8 years, even if those players aren't superstars. Teams like the Astros and Cubs spent large portions of those years picking in the top 15 of baseball (and often the top 10) yet they haven't shown any ability to produce decent players from the draft. The Twins spent most years picking in the bottom 15 (and several times, the bottom 10) and are still producing viable major leaguers. That's why I take issue with the word "horrific". If you're winning your division every other year and rarely placing lower than third (in the AL, which bumps your draft position down one or two more notches most years), it's not surprising that they haven't lit the world on fire in the draft. Could they have done better? Absolutely, especially in the pitching market, which has churned out virtually no pitchers with any kind of longevity. But to call their drafts horrific is an overstatement of the situation. They've done a decent job with position players and a really bad job with starters. All in all, once you consider their draft position, they've underperformed in the draft but I wouldn't call it horrific. That's my only point, really.

Electronic. If it was a paper book, it would cost at least $40.

I'm not against picking up bats to help the infield but the last thing this team should be doing is signing more outfielders. The team already has too many on the roster with two more soon to be banging on the door.

I thought the 2-3 format was a mistake when I first read about it and nothing has changed that opinion. 2-2-1 is awkward but it's really the only format that makes sense in a five game series.

Seriously?

There will be no DRM of any kind on the Handbook. Print away.

+1. Yep. People who complain incessantly about "horrific" drafts haven't looked at many drafts. The Twins were mediocre, maybe even a smidge of the "bad" side of things. They drafted several prep players that are just starting to join the team in Plouffe, Parmelee, and Revere. They had Garza (ugh), Perkins, and Duensing earlier. Nothing to rave about but far from horrific. The Cubs and Astros, now those were some horrific drafts.

I think that most people forgot how bad also was Terry Ryan as a GM in his first part of his first stint with the Twins. Ryan was a GM for the Twins from 1994-2006 and in 2012. During that 14 year stint the Twins Won the division 4 times finished second 1 time finished third 1 time finished fourth 4 times finished last 4 times and from those 14 seasons, the Twins have had winning records only 6. And he was fine with the contraction... and he undid what McPhail did. So tell me, as a whole is that "good" or "bad"? I guess Thyrlos forgets how bad the Twins were in 1993 with not much in the farm system. Contrasr that with how ell the Twins were doing when Ryan left. He doesn't want to let logic get in the way of making a point. Obviously, we should treat Ryan's early years where he inherited a bad team (71 wins in 1993) with the same weight we treat his later years where the Twins were perennial contenders. Otherwise, it's much harder to make a case that Ryan is a bad GM.

Where are all the people complaining about how the medical staff is the problem and that nothing will be done about it?

There is a $3 discount for pre-ordering.

I can't wait to design the hell out of this thing. For you forum junkies who don't read the front page, here is the link to order the 2013 Handbook. It's gonna be awesome. https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?i=1154914&c=cart&cl=76672

Oh my. That's awful.

I was pulling for Butera to make the last out. So close.

Below average starting, below average offense, middling defense and bullpen? Yeah, 75 wins sounds about right. I'm not sure where that insight really brings us, however. That the Twins really need a lot of help to be good again.

And yet, with the exception of a healthy Baker, I'm not sure how much closer to contention the team could have been with 162 starts by this quintet. You can't roll back the calendar with Pavano, Liriano and Marquis weren't that much different for their new teams, and there was always the option to let Blackburn start 32 times but why would you. If the goal is getting back to .500 then I suppose the focus can be solely on the starting staff. But if contending (or better) is the aim, you can't really ignore the offense, which was overall not even quite average: 700 runs scored in a league that averages 716 (going into tonight's final game), and OPS+ at 99 so that you can't really blame timely hitting despite comments like that from Gardy. Too many black holes and hustling table-setters in the lineup, to really excel. The Twins probably would have been a bad team if their rotation stayed healthy but they wouldn't have been awful. If the pitching staff is even just below average instead of abysmal, the team probably finishes with a win count in the low to mid 70s.

Twins: Denard Span CF Ben Revere RF Joe Mauer DH Chris Parmelee 1B Trevor Plouffe 3B Matt Carson LF Eduardo Escobar 2B Drew Butera C Pedro Florimon SS (Scott Diamond P) Blue Jays: Rajai Davis LF Adeiny Hechavarria 2B Brett Lawrie 3B Adam Lind DH Yan Gomes 1B J.P. Arencibia C Omar Vizquel SS Moises Sierra RF Anthony Gose CF (Brandon Morrow P)

I doubt the Twins will go after Appel. I imagine every team soured on him a bit when he declined the Pirates' offer and returned to college ball. Couple that with the fact that he's almost certainly gone after six years makes me believe the Twins will probably look elsewhere for pitching talent in the draft (plus, it's absurdly early to predict these sorts of things).

Nick Blackburn is not on the 40 man roster. He'll get a shot at the rotation next spring but he's not going to be added back to the 40 man just because he's there and has a pulse. Teams don't go through the process of taking a guy off the 40 man with the expectation that he'll be coming back to the MLB roster any time soon. And after Pavano basically phoned in the second half of the season and gave the impression that he didn't care about coming back and pitching, I really doubt the front office is in any kind of hurry to bring him back. Ditto for Capps. You don't give a reliever $6.5m when he's been injured for most of the season and was pretty mediocre the season before that.

54 starts out of the expected rotation. OUCH.

Whoops. I got so wrapped up in working on a TD project that I completely forgot about the game.

Seth, I admire your writing and I appreciate everything you contribute to Twins baseball talk, but I totally don't get this perspective. We've had enough of this route to failure over the last decade, and a pathetic three-and-out against the Yankees puts a far worse taste in my mouth than a stinky season with the promise of a stronger draft. It bothers me that people say "anything can happen in the playoffs" --which is proveably false. Carl Pavano cannot magically become Curt Schilling in the postseason. Danny Valencia cannot become Miguel Cabrera. Ron Gardenhire cannot become Tony LaRussa. You get out of the playoffs what you bring into it. The Twins brought nothing into the postseason over the last decade, and got exactly that out of it. The trophy is never a guarantee, but, c'mon, there's a reason why the Yankees considered drawing the Twins a first-round bye. And they were right. It's a sound philosophy because baseball, more than any other sport, has the "best team on paper" losing to an "inferior team". The 2006 Cards were not the best team in baseball on paper, yet they won the World Series. You can't get to the World Series without making the playoffs. After that, anything can happen. I'm all for the Twins pushing harder to make trades to push them over the top in years they are competitive but the idea of "building a World Series team in March" is a ridiculously impossible challenge. You do your best to field a competitive team, then you supplement that team mid-season in years where you think you have a real shot to win it all (2006 and 2010 come to mind). The Twins have been very good at building a competitor. They have not been good at pushing hard to build a WS team mid-season. But before you build that "WS team", you need to be competitive. Walk before you run. The Twins are awful right now. Their first step should be a return to legitimacy, not burning it all down and hoping that 500 things come together perfectly in 2016 and they become a world-beater because chances are that most of those 500 things required to build a world-beater just won't happen on the timeline you hoped to see. All you have to do is look through the recent histories of really bad MLB franchises to see how "building to win it all" often leads to "more losing seasons as prospects sputter and fail".

The Twins have the option of paying some of his salary for next year if he is traded. I agree that Morneau at $14 million is not super valuable but if you make it known that he is available at $5-7 million then I bet we can get something of value. If they're willing to do that (and I've long suggested they should), I think Morneau's value jumps significantly. It's just unfortunate that his production has taken another nose-dive at the end of this season. That hurts.

The White Sox had a decent season but in the end, they still missed the playoffs. Now they're looking at either losing their second best pitcher or drastically overpaying him for one more season, their roster continues to age, and they have an abysmal farm system. Their future is more bleak than the Twins, their payroll is hamstrung more than Minnesota, and they didn't even make the playoffs because of it. So, no, I don't think the Twins should be more like the White Sox.

Morneau's value will be higher in June if he continues to hit. He's simply owed too much money at this point.