Brock Beauchamp

No technical reason, I just bumped the number to 50 thinking that nobody would ever need 50 likes in a day. I'll change it when I have a few minutes.

The new Twins Daily is certainly a work in progress (as is any living project) but given the number of new features and reshuffled user experience elements, I thought it might help to jot down a few of the biggest differences between the old Twins Daily and the new site. First, we’ll talk about the various sections of the site: some old, some new.Articles: you’re reading one right now. I’m comfortable saying that you’ve found this section and can do so again if need be. Forums: As always, Twins Daily put a lot of emphasis on its excellent user forums. Pop on over here and take a look. A tutorial focused solely on this section of the site is coming at some point. Blogs: This section has been vastly reworked and I’d like to think it’s for the better. As always, every member of Twins Daily has the ability to create a blog in just minutes. Take a peek at the existing user blogs here and stay tuned – a blog tutorial is coming in the next few hours. Schedule: Twins Daily now has a working schedule of Twins games and Twins Daily events. Pop on over here to check box scores, game wraps, and pick up tickets for an upcoming game. Gallery: This section is entirely new, click here to take a look. Now available to all Twins Daily users is the ability to upload images and compile them in personal galleries. You can re-use these gallery images in forum or blog posts (using the My Media icon in the rich text editor). It’s a handy tool to keep your favorite images on hand or to share images with friends on Twins Daily. Roster & Payroll: Jeremy Nygaard has continued his excellent work on the Roster & Payroll section of Twins Daily, now with expanded player pages with additional information. Click hereto find the current contract status of your favorite (or least favorite) Twins player. Organization Chart: Yeah, the old org chart was pretty awesome. This one is more awesome. You can now filter players by position, team, and a host of other options. Want to find the status of all the outfielders in the Twins organization? One click does the legwork for you. Kudos to Jeremy for putting such hard work into this excellent addition to Twins Daily. Those are the sections of Twins Daily. Now it’s time for a few bells and whistles. The header: You’ve probably noticed a few new icons at the top right of the page. Download attachment: td-header.jpg 1. Quick Search: Want to quickly search any section of the site? Use this tool. By default, it only searches your current section of the site. By clicking the text found in the right side of the search window, you can change what section of the site you choose to search. 2. Advanced Search: Quick search not good enough for your needs? Click here to jump to a search page that gives you a robust selection of options to focus your search. 3. Quick Nav: This thing is awesome. Click it to quickly navigate to any part of Twins Daily, including viewing all new content, all unread content, or a host of other options. It’s the bee’s knees. Whatever that means. Along with the redesign, Twins Daily now has a link roll footer to find any section of the site quickly, including the ability to jump to our other MinnCentric sites. This is pretty self-explanatory but here’s a picture because I love pictures. One thing to note is that on the bottom right of your screen, you'll see a light grey box permanently affixed with an up arrow in it. Click that box to jump to the top of your current page. Download attachment: td-footer.jpg Them’s the basics of the new Twins Daily. If you have other tips and tricks that I haven’t mentioned in this article, be sure to post them in the comments section! Click here to view the article

Crikey! You get 50 of them a day...

That is something I would have to enable site-wide. Because the plug-in uses Javascript, I have to add it to the code myself for security reasons.

Great post. I've thought of several of these already. Be sure to hit me up in February and we'll figure out if we can start a TD fantasy league. As for some of your other points, they're either planned for the future or already in the works.

That would involve either a database setting or a cookie. Something I could explore in the future but it'll be awhile until I get to those kinds of fixes.

The odd thing is that the big dollar bill deadlines have already passed unless the Twins plan on keeping Meyer in AAA until late July of 2015... and that doesn't make any sense.

I've actually started adding links to box scores in the schedule tab. I usually have them up by 8am the next morning.

Thanks a lot! It's great to hear people say things like "you're one of the best blogs in the country". As for getting in bed with the Twins, each of our writers has taken a different approach to how they interact with the team. Some have moved closer to the team in an effort to get timely information and inside stories. Others have chosen to remain on the outside precisely for the reasons you mentioned in your post. For one, I think it's a good mix and each of the writers have found their personal comfort spot both in their article topics and how they approach the Twins themselves.

No one wants to do that to themselves, Paul.

Eh, Gardy wants to see what he has in Schafer. I expected him to get a few starts early on.

The footer of the site gives it away if you look closely...

I've been meaning to write a primer on how to use the site but it keeps getting punted down the list (and you'll see why in approximately two weeks). It will happen at some point, I've just been strung in 20 different directions for the past month and haven't gotten to it yet. As for accessing Jeremy's work, scroll down to the footer from any page and you'll see links listed for the Org Chart and R&P under Articles. One of my primary goals with this redesign was to make the entire site accessible with 1-2 clicks from any other page on the site. For the most part that's possible if you know where to look.

The front page is going to display last post instead of first post, which is kinda illogical but how the module automatically serves content. It's on the list of changes coming in the next few weeks. As for "quick glance", everything that was served on the old site's front page is served on the new site's front page, excepting those forum posts that are going to change at some point. The new front page delivers that information in a far more readable fashion with less imagery. If you want a steady stream of new posts from everywhere on the site, use the quick nav on the top right and select Community>View New Content. As for less posters on the forums, our traffic has not changed since the redesign.

Indeed. I think Meyer should be up here given the information I have available to me. I'm hoping the Twins have more information and that is the reason we haven't seen Meyer. If he hasn't been promoted out of sheer stubbornness, well...

Yeah, that's true... But I don't blame the Twins for picking up a CF option if Santana goes down with injury. Things would get really ugly if you had to roll out that crew in center for two or three weeks. Either way, I just don't see any reason why anyone would be excited about or against this move. It's mostly irrelevant.

The benefit of Schafer is that you don't care if he rots on the bench and receives 50 PAs over two months.

I'm guessing that Schafer is a fallback option and won't get much in the way of playing time. He's the kind of guy you stash at the back of the bench and forget about until you need him, if you need him at all.

Rebuilding teams have to make this kind of move all the time. If the team legitimately cared about winning, they wouldn't have traded their centerfielder for a starter three days ago but it was the right move to make. In the past 24 months, Terry Ryan has flipped three centerfielders for starting pitchers and even that wouldn't have caused a problem if not for the simultaneous setbacks of three top 100 centerfield prospects. Had any one of those guys not floundered, gotten suspended, or gotten injured, we'd all be excited to see them trot on to Target Field in August, not worry about scrapheap pickups for two months. And despite Rosario's suspension and Hicks' struggles, the Twins could call them up and give them a shot instead of Shafer... But it's not the right move to make.

Everybody wants to see Hicks, Buxton, or Rosario in CF. Unfortunately, none of them are ready. And that shouldn't give pause to the quality of the farm system; the odds of having three top 100 centerfield prospects suffer three different setbacks are small. But hey, it happens. The only one of the three with long term questions is Hicks.

A player that won't embarrass himself in centerfield. To accomplish this internally, the Twins would have to sacrifice an actual prospect's development and rush him to the Majors and/or they'd have to add people to the 40 man for no good reason. This is the kind of move that the Twins should be making at this point. Patch a hole for two months and reevaluate in the offseason. After the Hicks fiasco, are we really slamming the front office for showing some prudence with their outfield prospects?

They need someone who can play CF in a pinch. Rosario isn't ready, Buxton isn't ready, and Hicks shouldn't be within 500 miles of an MLB roster until he gets his head straight. That doesn't mean those three players are any less of prospects or that somehow their talent is diminished, it just means they aren't ready to play Major League Baseball in August of 2014.

They just need a warm body to occupy the bench for the rest of the season. This move doesn't surprise me at all.