LaBombo

Fake a seizure. Always works for me.

If you get plunked by Jered Weaver, will Pedro offer you his protection? http://thumbnails.hulu.com/6/289/4428_512x288_manicured__hJuBS7hps0iqgat3RatUGg.jpg

Dozier's defense has been strong, his overall improvement has been a pleasant surprise, and he's the most valuable infielder on the roster. That being said, he still can't hit right handed pitching. He's Kirby Puckett against lefties, but Steve Lombardozzi Sr. against right-handers. Nothing against him, but he's just not the kind of player yet who makes the franchise so strong at second base that you forget about improving the position. Hope he can still be that player, even though he'll already be 27 next season.

The Twins did, since it was reported that they were one of only 4 seriously interested teams in the running as recently as 3 weeks ago. Several posters on the first few pages expressed interest based on the scouting reports, most of which look pretty positive, before the discussion eventually devolved into money. It even appears you like him as a player, though not as a signing, since you summarized his perceived ceiling as 'above average regular'.

Which is why I didn't, any more than you meant to compare him to Nishi in your first post on the thread. Someone felt that Guerrero is this huge risk because Cuban ball 'isn't the majors', making it impossibly difficult to judge his value. That seemed like a weak argument not to consider Guerrero. And it appears you agree with me, since you refer to Puig as "highly touted". How can he possibly be highly touted unless there is strong scouting value in how players perform in Cuban baseball? He'll make about 5 million a year, is probably signed through his age 31 season, and as you say, is potentially an above average middle infielder. How on earth is that anything less than a worthwhile asset for the Twins?

Yup... about $5 million a year for about 6 years. It's borderline Pujolesque. Almost as much over the life of the deal as the Twins would've payed Blackburn and Nishi not to play for the Twins, had Nishi not generously given back the money.

I'm pretty sure that if you go back and re-read the thread, someone probably argued that it would be nice to add a very good middle infield prospect to an organization that's been dreadful at developing them for quite a while. Yes, Guerrero's a prospect. Hence the term. There are no guarantees. Well, there's at least one guarantee. However Guerrero develops as a player, he won't be doing it as a Twin.

The same Dodgers scouting department that wanted Puig liked his fellow Cuban Guerrero, and the Dodgers gave him a similar deal. But I guess that if you had some sort of actual point about why Puig isn't relevant when someone claims that there's some sort of huge risk in using Cuban ball as a gauge of prospects, I guess you would have made it instead of going with the sarcasm.

You do realize that Florimon is batting .224/.280/.334, right? He's just there because the Twins need someone to stand there with a glove on until they can find a good shortstop. Given the MLB success rate of Twins position players who've posted nice numbers at AA New Britain, I have no idea why the Twins would avoid signing a free agent shortstop because of anything Danny Santana has done. Whether the Twins might land a shortstop prospect. in a draft that's still almost a year away, even if it's the highly-prized NC State kid who had to be restrained from attacking an ump, shouldn't have anything to do with how they address the next 5-7 years at that position. And yes, Cuban ball isn't the majors. Maybe that's why MLB pitchers have caught up to Puig so easily, sending his OPS plummeting all the way down to .964.

Passing on Guerrero because the Twins have Florimon and Santana would be like passing on Tanaka because the Twins have Liam Hendricks and Trevor May. It wouldn't make any sense. And a shortstop drafted in 2014 probably wouldn't reach the majors until a 6 year Guerrero deal would be nearly over. A year or two of overlap would be a tears-of-joy inducing change of pace from the 20 years of wandering in the wilderness the franchise has experienced at that position since the departure of Gagne.

You're right, we don't know. But if your only two possible reasons are that either a team that's cut payroll by more than 32 million didn't offer 32 million (or more) to Guerrero or that the state of Minnesota and its baseball organization are universally despised by prospective free agents, I know which way I'm leaning.

Puig having taken the same route to the majors from Cuba may have given them a little bit of an edge over the handful of other teams that throw that kind of money at international guys.

Ryan had a chance to say something rational about the course the franchise is taking to rebuild, but instead he chose to sell hope with the "meaningful games" mantra. Which is fine, marketing is a big part of the business, and he can't very well say 'we'll be bad'. But in the absence of a vocal commitment to rebuilding as a priority over scratching out a few extra meaningless wins, we have to judge Ryan's rebuilding roadmap on his actions alone. And except for the Span and Revere trades, which were smart, it appears that Ryan's idea of rebuilding mostly consists so far of waiting for prospects to mature. That's a big part of the future, but it's hard to see that getting it done without acquiring talent elsewhere as well.

Interesting that you interpreted a picture meant to represent the simple concept of a 'do-over' being what the Twins would need to make the season successful as a "spurious" and "cynic-laden" attack on Gardenhire and Anderson. But since you brought it up... I'm not even going to address the need to replace Anderson, given the three consecutive seasons of failure to help even one young starter out of more than a dozen options achieve sustainable success. It's not all his fault, but failure to hold him accountable will just cause the organization to slide further toward operating more as an entertainment-oriented enterprise rather than a competitive one. As for replacing Gardenhire, well, you couldn't possibly be more wrong about the need for a better argument than change for the sake of change. In fact, there doesn't really need to be much of an argument at all. The Twins are on pace to rack up a third consecutive 90+ loss season. 92 losses on the pythag calculator, but the calculator doesn't know that 17 of the Twins' 21 remaining games are against teams with winning records. Even if they steal a couple of extra wins to finish 74-88, they will have played like a 90-loss team for pretty much the entire season. As I've pointed out before, the only non-expansion manager in the past 30 years to stay employed after 3 90-loss seasons is Tom Kelly, who owns more World Series rings than Gardenhire does playoff series wins. So it's not really up to me to justify firing Gardy. It's actually up to you to defend Gardenhire as a historically great manager whose previous accomplishments merit his retention despite a string of failures that has gotten all but one manager in the past 30 years fired. Or you can argue that the dropoff in talent has been so historically awful that Gardenhire gets a pass for the last three years. At which point I would hope you would include a compelling case that everyone above Gardy up to and including St. Peter should be purged in a complete house-cleaning befitting such a historical debacle. For what it's worth, I agree with your assessment about Molitor, and he would be my choice to replace Gardenhire. Whoever it is, barring a crazy win streak the Twins will either have a new manager next season, or an epically fortunate one.

What will it take to make this year a successful year?

I vote smores.

Was going to 'like' this to repay some of your likes, but that would send the wrong message...

Great story. Is the lesbian option sort of like director commentary, but...different? Not sure why, other than that time when I was 4 and fell 15 feet off the top of a slide and landed on my head, but your story reminded me of recruiter scene in Stripes... http://www.morethings.com/fan/bill_murray/stripes/bill_murray-stripes1981-1140.jpg Ramis: "No, but we are 'willing to learn'." Murray: "Yeah. Would they send us someplace special for that?"

Random Gardy outburst, audible over the din of 700 bored fans: "Get your @ss over there, Scottie!"

Hernandez looking like a 3rd starter if we can just get him about 15 or so starts against the Astros...

Buyer beware, there's no way to unsee this once you've seen it: And no, Chief, it's not home video of my vacation.

Steve not doing it for you, or the fact that it's just the side view? Hey, it was either that or the dope who got a free vasectomy during the Running of the Bulls. http://nomadiknation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Bulls-2-.jpg

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/01/23/gal_meltdownslyons.jpg Consolation prize: Steve 'Psycho' Lyons dropping trou, apparently during the moonwalk phase of Apollo 17, based on the image quality.

Me too, but only once a year to see how the parole hearing went...

Mastro wardrobe malfunction! No peaking, ChiTown! Or Chief!