Heiny

I like Alonso, and I would do any of those three deals as long as an extension for Alonso was part of the deal. My humble opinion.

Taylor: We're playing good baseball???? Huh! Rocco: So impressed with our group???? Huh!

In Grays' defense I believe his history after 5 innings is not good. And it was extremely hot on the field. But to pull him with a perfect game going would have really ticked him off. The missed interference call (and it was obvious), was a key turning point. But the most disgusting was the hitting. 15 strikeouts and and not being able to score at least one with bases loaded and no outs? Yeah, that is horrendous. I don't care what anybody says, someone needs to lose their job to shake this team up.

Players on your roster that may not be on the team - Polanco, Kepler, Larnach, Castro, Miranda. Pitchers - Alcala, Moran, Winder. That's 24.4M on postion players, and 2.4M on pitchers. That's 26.6M off the roster that could be replaced by guys like Martin, Farmer, Gordon, Lee, Funderburk, Floro, Henriquez, Sands, Richardson, among others not on the 40 man. But I agree that there should be money for the spending. At this point it just looks to me that it may be a little too early to tell. I'm not real high on the free agent market for the coming year, but there certainly could be some trades. If the Twins hold with the current budget level this team could be vastly improved.

Seems like a little hyperbole to me. I agree that he is a good utility player and worth the 1.8 M and better than Marwin, but making it sound like the Twins will fall apart without him is ridiculous to me. Being Roccos' band-aid is over-exaggerating. I like Willi but "C'mon Man".

What's a newspaper?????

Brooks LeeWalker JenkinsEmmanuel RodriguezMarco RayaCharlee SotoDavid FestaBrandon WinokurAustin MartinTanner SchobelLuke KeaschallYasser MercedesConnor PrielippJordan BalazovicJose SalasJose RodriguezSimeon Woods RichardsonYunior SeverinoBryan AcunaBrent HeadrickChris Williams

So what is the IF, IF, IF?

I think we need a new "like button" to express confusion.

I like Larnach, Taylor and Walner in the OF and Lewis, Correa(yeah, he's not hitting this year but we are committed to him for another 5 years, no trade clause) and Lee on the IF. Need a 1B. Gotta love Juliens' bat. I don't think his D is as bad as you make it out to be. Give him some time. And I think Lewis could play an outstnding 1B if Mirranda gets it back together. Lewis, Walner, Lee, and Miranda combined will be less costly than Kepler, much less Kepler and Polanco. These are all good young hitters. Why develope them if we're not gonna bring them play.

IF - Lewis, Lee, Julian, Martin OF -Larnach, Lewis, Rodriguez, Martin, Castro and there is potntial for about 30M to spend on free agents. Sorry, my crystal ball is broken, so this is just a personal opinion.

Love to see some uptick from Kepler, and I have to admit that I have a soft spot for him. But, I strongly believe that both Kepler and Polanco will be gone after the season because we have real cheap youth coming in to replace them both. Polanco is injured too often and Keplers slumps and career numbers just don't correlate with the salary.. That money along with the savings from Gallo's contract will be spent in other areas if spent at all.

I have to admit, I was rooting for Gallo in the early part of the season and when he started hitting homers in May I even posted some I told you so comments. But, that only lasted for a short time. I thought he may turn it around as all players go through slumps. But this doesn't feel like a slump. This feels like a "He is what he is" situation. And the team should have recognized this also. He should be gone already and for Pete's sake even a triple A guy should be able to provide more offense than what he is giving. Time to swallow hard and eat the remaining contract. There are multiple ways to get at least a little offense from his roster spot. Try something. This is not working.

That would be an unequivacal "YES". Can you imagine the attendance if the Twins had not signed Joe? In my opinion Joe has been arguably the best value in Twins history. It makes me mad that this conversation even comes yet. Now what they did after signing Mauer for the next several years did not help to improve the roster. I think we all know that you can't win in baseball with just a few contributing players.

My biggest question is "Why" for crying out loud, "Why is Gallo still on the team?" As someone else mentioned, any AAA player can give you more production than Gallo has. It's dumbfounding. Secondly, this offense has been horrendous. Someone has to be held accountable. I put the blame here on Rocco and Popkins. If what we are doing is not working, and this is quite obvious, adjustments need to be made. We just HAVE to get the bat on the ball more often.

Classiest Man in sports. No contest. Humble and appreciative of all that surround him. Will always be remembered as a Minnesota Icon for me. Reminds me so much of Harmon Killebrew in humility and Class. Thank you Joe Mauer for being more than just a great baseball player. No hot dogging that you see so much in sports today. He let his play do the showing off for him. Again, thank you Joe Mauer.

I'm not seeing a problem with payroll for next year. If you lose Gallo, Kepler, Polanco after this year, and I believe that will happen and that is my hope, you're looking at about 30M drop. My crystal ball shows and infield of Kirilloff, Julien, Correa, and Lewis/Lee. If it is Lee at 3b then Lewis in LF, hopefully Buxton in Center and Wallner/Larnach in RF. Re-sign Taylor for Buxton insurance. I can see us keeping Castro on the cheap. Vasquez and Jeffers are C's. Now you are short just one position player. Seems fairly reasonable financially considering the two highest paid among this group have no-trade contracts. I would offer Gray the QO with Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Paddack/possibly Keuchel with Winder, Varland, Mahle, Richardson for depth. Still seems financially reasonable. Bullpen? Good grief! Who knows. But with all that being said, back to the point. With our shot at winning the division this year and anything possible in the playoffs, I can't see any reason whatsoever to hold back a few million more dollars to upgrade this years team. In my opinion, it had to be the asking price for our prospects. And with a dwindling minor league system already, "IF that is the case, I would agree with it. But, with the info the fans are privy to, all any of us can do is speculate. Kinda leaves a little bit of an empty feeling. I actually think the future looks pretty bright with what I think were two very good drafts the last two years so the FO gets at least another year for me. But I would move on from Rocco. How bout we give Toby a shot for a few years.

I realize that I am as guilty of this as the next guy, but I'm getting the feeling that the FO can't ever get anything right according to our loyal TD readership. We are a very critical group and no matter what they do I think as a group we will be unhappy. Just about the only thing we all seem to agree on, is that the Gallo signing was bad. Some liked the Lopez/Arraez trade, some hated it. Some thought the Jose Lopez trade was going to be a big help. Some didn't. Hind sight has shown that the Mahle/Paddack/Pagan trades didn't work out but you can't really argue that there was some potential value in those trades. However it would be nice to see something end up as a "great trade" one of these times. I still think that the best thing to do would be to make me the GM. Can we all agree on that?

Sonny should bring pretty good value to a team in buying mode. I wouldn't be upset if we traded him, but we would need an RP and/or RH outfielder for this year and a top prospect or I would say no.

I totally agree the Kepler is the best fielder of this bunch. But Larnach has been average+ in the field. And personally I think Walners bat outplays Keplers D. And I'll take either Larnach or Walners bat over anything Gallo has done. But I understand your position and apprectiate your opinion. I just don't agree that staying the course is the correct play moving forward.

LOL, Now that is some good old fashioned (yet fitting) humor. Thank you CRF.

So, you believe that we are better off with Kepler/Gallo in the outfield while striking out at herculean paces than the upside of Walner/Larnach. While I would play Larnach in RF and Walner in LF. Both have very good to excellent arms. And as far as sustained ability? The historical ability of Kepler and Gallo in the lineup hasn't shown to be division winning caliber in my opinion.

So Kepler is finally having a mini hot streak. Good reason to use his LH bat as bait when there might be some value there. You are correct in that Miranda isn't a crunch, but there is no place for him now or in the forseeable future. Might as well use whatever value he has to improve what we need now. And I wasn't suggesting that we should try to trade all in one package, but I do believe there teams out there that would have interest in some combination.

Didn't ask for a lot. Polanco being the only one that is not an addition by subtraction. Looking for a RP and a platoon RH corner OF bat? Polanco alone should be able to draw some interest there.

WHY do you think that is less than we are already playing? Should help our pitching and we would be playing current hitters that are hitting better than what we are playing now.