LaBombo

Yeah, because reading all 76 comments was a huge priority for me. And why is another post where your further hector people for having an opinion supposed to add some sort of critical context to the first one where you did it?

Yeah, actually it did, Brock, and you're one of people who did so: "I'm not a doctor. In all likelihood, nobody here is a doctor or even involved enough in the medical profession to do anything except speculate wildly over half-truths and diagnoses not seen by anyone outside of the medical staff and the organization We know virtually nothing. In short, there are a hell of a lot of people going off half-cocked about a situation they don't even understand. They don't have the slightest clue how the medical profession works, how the system operates, and whether the Twins are doing anything right or wrong. And in life, I've generally found that it's best to shut up when you don't know something." That's you telling everybody to STFU about the medical staff after a Nick Nelson article basically telling everyone to STFU about the medical staff, because nobody is qualified to have an opinion about it. By that logic, any comments by Ryan regarding the training and medical staff are immaterial. Whatever he said, we're still just uneducated oafs who have no business having an opinion about it. If you believe that, it's fine, I get it but don't agree, but don't say it didn't happen.

One can only hope that those people are following their own advice and, because they aren't politicians, are forfeiting their right to vote.

Watch out. I'm pretty sure I remember being told that having an opinion of the Twins' training and medical staff without being a doctor was akin to practicing medicine without a license. The fact that Ryan himself admitted that one of his first tasks upon resuming GM duties would be to reevaluate the people and process of the training staff did not change the off-limits nature of questioning it, if I recall correctly.

He didn't, and I didn't say he did. Instead, he said this: "Fix the damn rotation to an about average rotation and you've got a contender in the AL central at least." He's had every opportunity to provide a non-plane crash scenario where that happens. Nothing so far. As for the rest, your memory might be a tiny bit off. The Twins had the 5th best rotation ERA in the AL in 2010. They were in fact below average in 2009, but they also scored the 4th most runs in the AL, a feat that seems extremely unlikely to be duplicated or approached this year after finishing 10th in that category in 2012 and trading away Span and Revere. So no valid comp from either of those to 2013. In any case, I think the Tigers of 2013 are looking stronger than any divisional opponent from those two seasons. They replaced their worst everyday player with the 3rd highest 2012 AL outfield WAR. They get VMart back to DH after posting the 3rd-worst DH OPS in the American League last year. They have 4 of the 15 highest 2012 WAR scores on their roster, and if Avila is back to 2011 form, it could easily be 5. They'll have a full season of Sanchez. Fister is healthy and was terrific in the second half last year, as was Scherzer. If there's a reason not to see the Tigers as pretty clear favorites to repeat as division champs, I'm missing it. And if there is, I'm betting it's not that the Twins upgraded their rotation to "average".

How about limiting that to positive marks for just the moves designed to improve the Twins for the future? Cleaner that way, with no need to balance future-building moves against the likes of KC and the Sunshine Band of merry back-o'-the-rotation misfits.

Glad you liked it. I was pretty sure I wasn't the only person who has thought of Nuke Laloosh when watching Deduno. Hope he can learn to harness that wild stuff and put it to good use.

http://i.imgflip.com/gjf8.gif

Sweet.

Now if Delmon would just grow a 'stache and find the right bowler hat. http://i.usatoday.net/communitymanager/_photos/daily-pitch/2012/04/27/delmon-youngx-large.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nurq9KdhbFo/TxhGSg_Tc7I/AAAAAAAADWg/PxvwWpGcx4E/s1600/potaothead.jpg

If he does it will be his first.

There is no context in which your claim that the Twins could contend for the division title with no more than an average rotation is credible. If you felt I was wrong to attempt to evaluate your motivation for making that claim, sorry. Doesn't change the fact that the Twins are much further from relevance than you either realize or are portraying them as. They're clearly not planning on going anywhere this year, at the very least. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that they really have to wait until 2016. If players like Sano are really going to be special, they should be good enough to help in the majors by 2015. If they're not, I don't know if they'll make up a special enough nucleus to build a contender around. Mauer's continued ability to play catcher, all by itself, makes projecting that far ahead pretty hazy, imo.

Hopefully Ryan is still listening to the same scouts that signed off on his idea to trade Garza and Bartlett for this potatohead.

I take it by your sarcasm that you are either unwilling or unable to explain your very optimistic assessment that a league-average rotation would make the Twins contenders in the division.

Fixed for Twins-specific context.

What's the over/under on how many games into the season the Twins will be when Dick or Bert wonder why failing young pitchers like the one getting blown out for the Twins aren't taught the knuckleball as a last resort before giving up on them?

Even the Twins know that getting teammates to score more runs is not a repeatable pitcher skill. Now if you want guys who can consistently improve the opposition's offense, you've come to the right franchise.

If you squint a bit, you can actually see the confidence radiating out of Pavano's face and into the confidence-needing eyeball of the teammate in the background...

Self-administered homer test: Where would Scott Diamond slot into the Tigers rotation? If you think that the guy many people figure to be our best pitcher in 2013 (unless Worley is healthy all year) would manage to make even the 5th spot in the Tigers' rotation, you are officially a homer. If not, you're admitting that the Tigers rotation is going to be a hell of a lot better than ours, whether we improve to average or not. The Tigers were 3rd in the AL in ERA last year without full seasons from Sanchez or Fister. Their 5th starter, Smyly, had an ERA under 4, and it was the sustainable kind, not the Diamond kind. So we're not going to be competitive with their pitching. How about offense? They scored only 25 more runs than the Twins last year, so it's a virtual dead heat in 2013, right? Yeah, well, no. The Tigers replaced one of the worst outfielders in baseball with one of the best. They got almost nothing from their DH spot last year, and are getting VMart back to fill that void. Avila has a good chance to return to All Star form. Do you think the Tigers' offense will be better, or worse? The Twins traded away their third-best hitter and his most capable replacement. The manager is hoping that a kid with fewer than 500 AB's above A ball will win the CF job out of spring training. They finished 5th lowest in AL runs scored despite career years from Willingham and Doumit, who will be 34 and 32 respectively when the season starts. So our offense is going to be better than the Tigers' how exactly? The Tigers improved an above-AL-average offense and have one of the top rotations in all of baseball. The Twins have weakened one of the worst offenses in the AL and Terry Ryan's "pretty darn good" pitcher chase netted us Kevin Correia, who lost his spot in the Pirates rotation. If you think a league-average rotation will make the Twins competitive with the Tigers, you're either a huge homer or you're seeing things completely differently. Which is it?

I think that single bizarre sentence defines the incoherence of the homerific clan on this board better than any other slice of crazy I've read.

It does not, as far as I can tell. But the takeaway from the article that's infinitely more meaningful than its timetable for undefined contention is this nugget: "Manager Ron Gardenhire recently told GM Terry Ryan he wants the 23-year-old [Hicks] to have a legitimate chance to win the job out of spring training." The board consensus that this idea ranks somewhere between sub-optimal and blithering idiocy aside, the real danger presented by the report is in what is missing from it. There is absolutely no mention after that sentence that Terry Ryan hit Ron Gardenhire's mouth with a baseball bat until words meant to influence front office player personnel decisions stopped pouring forth from it. So we're left with only the hope that Ryan is merely being diplomatic by not openly physically or verbally assaulting his manager's dopey ideas. It's better than nothing, I guess.

If you've made it this far, you've given up the right to be shocked or offended by this thread. It already has an equation of Jamey Carroll to Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto, a daydream of a Nick Blackburn multi-year extension, and a payroll-free comparison of Terry Ryan to Billy Beane. Edit: Oops, that's probably nipping. Self-administered corrective action as pictured: http://www.fidopaw.com/images/products/detail_47_TP363_600X600.JPG

While I'm still wary of Saunders, I agree that we have almost nothing but question marks of varying degrees as rotation options right now. If the Saunders deal had a team or even mutual option like you suggested for '15, it would be ok with me as long as there would be zero chance that we'd miss out on a better FA starter in 2014 because of what they paid Saunders. Given the Twins' resolve not to bring in high-end free agent pitchers on multi-year deals, I'd say the odds of that happening are sadly quite small. And the age thing is only partly tongue in cheek, since starters tend to steadily lose ability after 30. Another reason to hate the Correia deal.

I agree that Saunders is more likely to pitch 200 or even 175 innings than Worley. I just think too many people aren't recognizing that he has a higher ceiling than the guys he's typically being lumped in with. And Saunders will be 32 in June, making it his age 32 season ;~ )

Two different Justins last season: Against righties he was basically his old self, batting.290/.371/.531. Against lefties, he was a dreadful .232/.271/.298. That's not just a platoon split, that's two entirely different hitters. Even though Doumit hits much better left-handed that right, the Twins might want him (or Mauer) to spell Morneau more often against lefties if he can't get it going against them after a couple of months.