Riverbrian

The Farm is the long term solution. I'd spend money on scouts and coaches. I'd make the minor leagues palaces of development. As for 2013... We have a big need and money to spend. Lets see what happens. This discussion goes so many ways on this site. We have some who say Joe Mauer is paid too much and people who say that we are too cheap. I don't think we are cheap... Mauer and Morneau are examples of an organization that is willing to spend.

Shark metaphor where the shark is the trunk and the conquistador is the killer or the Shark is the killer and the conquistador is Laporte......or it means absolutely nothing, except that sharks eat a lot of junk and because they go through a tonne of teeth, it's very hard to tell how old they are. Not sure what that has to do with the FLQ. When the hell are those Winter meetings again? I read that... And I also read that Gordie was quoted as saying the song is a metaphor for a smothering relationship. However... It's Gord... He would certainly be a strong possibility for throwing out a red herring or two. So I go back to... I'm not sure... The thing about hip songs is that you can certainly pull your own interpretations from them and make it work. Brilliant Band!!! I got to hang around with them backstage during the Day for Night tour. Dan Aykroyd was back stage just hanging around as well. The band was very nice and personable. Gord was very dark on the other hand. He really didn't want to be there working the room. I just said Hi and told him that this backstage political stuff must be a pain. He nodded and said yes it is. I then left him alone. Back to Baseball... Hey North your South... I think the Twins should try and sign more Canadien players... What'd think about that?

It's a little slow on the Twins front so... My Rankings Neil Young 6. Cortez the Killer 5. Old Man 4. Mr. Soul 3. Comes a Time 2. Unknown Legend 1. Down by the River Tragically Hip 6. Little Bones 5. At the 100th Meridian 4. Three Pistols 3. Courage 2. Inevitability of Death 1. Locked in the Trunk of a car(where the copters won't spot it...brilliant... I still don't understand the conquistador beginning bit. ) Zeppelin 6. Ten Years Gone 5. Bring it on Home 4. When the Levee Breaks 3. The Rain Song 2. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You 1. Since I've Been Loving You

I'd tried them all. She just isn't going to put down the Adele. Persoanlly... Man needs a Maid off Harvest... Absolutely... Stupid Girl? If I have Zuma... I gotta do Cortez. Locked in the Trunk of a Car is my favorite Hip Tune... Absolutely... However She didnt know doesnt dp it for me...if I have Up to Here in my hand. Trickle Down is so Rolling Stonesy... That would be my track. Actually I'd want Inevitability of Death off Day for Night or I'd want "up to here" to turn into Road Apples which is a batter album and I'd break out the three Pistols or Little Bones. Zeppelin... You can't top Since I've been loving you. For everyone else On Twins Daily... Jump in or Just talk about baseball around us... lol...

I can't argue the 2nd sentence. I'm hoping the Twins dive into the pool anyway.

I hate the Tigers and I'm a big Torii Hunter Fan... The only choice I have is to pretend he's someone else this year. Can't cheer for a Tiger.

(Shakes head) I was with ya until the end... lol. yeah, it's pretty awesome looking at Dozier, Floriman and Carroll in the MI next year. There are a couple of guys that I like better than Yunel but he's a decent ballplayer. OK... I really have nothing to worry about here. I'm willing to bet Terry Ryan won't be trading for Yunel. Because... A. He has a limited budget to work with and larger holes to address. B. Terry Ryan has stated many many times "there is a right way to play baseball". C. He knows that Gardenhire would be calling him twice a week to get rid of him if he continues to play and act like he has in the past and when the Twins move him again for that reason. Everyone will know why and he won't be able to get Jim Hoey in return. D. I'm don't know for sure but I believe Terry Ryan understands that the Twins could acquire Tulo, Cano and Hamilton and it would juice up the base but the ball club would still lose with the current pitching staff and the juiced up base would only be temporary. Because winning does build chemistry as Brock said and winning is the only thing that will keep your base juiced up. E. I think most baseball people are aware that Brandon Crawford didn't sink the Giants... Daniel Descalso hit .227 and the Cards were this close and Descalso almost won the thing single handedly. The Dodgers were 53-46 and 2.5 games back in the NL West the day they traded for Hanley followed by the acquisition of League, Victorino, Blanton, Gonzalez, Beckett, and Crawford. Which led them to 33 and 30 the rest of the way and deeper in the hole finishing 8 games back. The Boston Red Sox clubhouse discontented themselves to last place. The Angels spent a ton of money and were golfing in October. The Phillies were 46-57 on July 31st (the Day they Traded Pence to the Giants and Victorino to the Dodgers). They went on to finish 35-24 without Pence while the Giants went 38 and 21 with Pence. The Royals Traded Broxton to the Reds after going 42-60 and improved to .500 ball (30-30) after the trade. The Milwaukee Brewers were 45-54 when they traded Zach Greinke... They went 38-25 after the trade. The Padres didn't do a thing and played 32-24 ball in August and September after playing crapppy in April, May, June and July. The Baltimore Orioles and Oakland A's had holes in their lineup and more than one hole. Baseball people also know that there are similiar stories in 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 all the way to 1869. I'm not going to pretend to know what any of that means... But I do believe... Don't get wrapped up in 1 extra hit a week or convince yourself that you are a shrewd baseball roster putter-togetherer by noticing a .100 point OPS difference in comparison of shortstops and saying Eureka! Especially when countless baseball players swing .100 points OPS from year to year and back again. There is something bigger at play here. It's called baseball... Hits at the right time... Plays at the right time... The Extra Base... Plowing the Catcher... Playing ball the right way and believing you have a chance to win. You can't quantify it... There are no metrics for it but for some reason... The Padres played winning ball for a 2 month stretch and the Cleveland Indians lost for a two month stretch. I'm not a huge fan of our middle infield... I like Carroll but he's too old for this club... Florimon Dozier and Escobar have proven nothing to anyone yet. I get this and I feel the same. How much do you think we should spend on a SS? How much money do you think we have to spend overall? If there is a limit to how much we can spend. What percentage should go toward a SS and what percentage should go toward pitching? If you are allocating money to a SS. Is it worth the risk to sign a guy for 5 million if he is just going to lolligag like he has done before and doesn't the addition of that SS do nothing to improve pitching? We won't know what kind of team the Twins are from Catcher Thru Right Field and into the bench until we have a Pitching Staff that can compete with the other pitching staffs. The current Twins haven't had to play with a season on the line. Playing for something in September will give you a real nice insight into what kind of team you have. We don't have to be better than the rest of the pitching staffs in baseball... We just have to some arms that can keep the team in the game. Once we have that... We can begin to find out if this team has the stuff to get the job done. Until we have decent pitching... Adding a head case SS and expecting to improve the bottom line is crazy... The Guy has talent but it's like water... You need Hydrogen and Oxygen. You can't make water by adding more Hydrogen in absence of Oxygen. Or it's like putting Snack Pack Pudding and Meat loaf in your ear. Yeah you can do it... But it won't help.

A much better pick up than Escobar or Drew... I will give you that... In a different situation... Cabrera would be a great get... But... Any offensive signing will be poured down the toilet if we don't have any pitching. We'd be better off trading for Lindor. Lindor wouldn't take away from a limited budget this year and will contribute to the overall good of the club with an improved pitching staff(hopefully) by the time he arrives. However, I doubt Cleveland would trade Lindor. I apologize to all for stating my thoughts over and over again like a broken record... No doubt I've made my point a hundred times. My fingers are getting hoarse from this viewpoint of mine. I wish I could come up with a fresh perspective for you all to read.

(Shakes head) I was with ya until the end... lol.

The Blue Jays will test the Bad Boy discussion on the other thread. Rasmus... Cabrera... Reyes... If only they would have kept Escobar... Serious question... How much depth are they piling up. Cabrera... Rasmus... Bautista... They have Bonofacio who can play anywhere but anywhere is covered by Johnson, Reyes and Lawrie. Davis and Gose and Izturis. Buck and Arencebia and D'Arnaud behind the plate. More trades coming and I suspect for pitching. They could be a monkey wrench for the Twins making a deal. Yikes.

One more thing for full disclosure... I have no idea what kind of Twins we have on our current roster... The Beloved Joe Mauer could be the very player I'm describing... I don't know... I could eyeball it with Delmon and I could eyeball it with Valencia... It is my belief that we won't know what kind of Twins team we truly have until the pitching gets closer to league average. When the pitching matches up with opposing pitchers and the games become battles... That when we will find out what we are made of, Teams generally don't make public comments about the players because I assume it makes it hard to unload them and if they can't unload them it makes their attitudes worse. So when you hear a team publicly slap a player... Like Drew and Escobar... It's pretty rare and speaks to a high frustration level. You can also be certain that it wasn't a first time offense.

The discussion doesn't have to be about extreme examples... I'm not advocating a team full of choir boys who spend their days helping old ladies cross busy intersections nor am I dismissing a player who shoots meth into his eyeball and spits on girls scouts. Yunel Escobar could paint kill puppies under his eyes and I wouldn't care. He could paint riverbrian sucks in flashing neon and I wouldn't care. I care about what kind of player he is... Does he compete? From what I understand... He doesn't!!! Yunel Escobar has talent and he has been run off two teams and the SS position is a position of need for a bunch of MLB teams. He doesn't produce enough to be worth it. Here's a blog to check out. http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-blog/2010/07/14/addition-by-subtraction-the-braves-trade-yunel-escoba/ I don't know if this Mark Bradley is an idiot... He might be... I might be... But there are more articles like this from others... I watched Braves games and heard the announcers make comments about his lack of hustle. You can't find as many on Drew but you had an owner calling him out this summer for not being a team player and that freaks me a little. Yes the owner could be an idiot. In a nutshell... No more Delmon Young type players please... We all remember Delmon don't we? And spend the flipping money on pitching.

You just on-the-nosed my biggest fear. Floating in no mans land. The return to competitive baseball could be delayed further by hanging around in no mans land. I don't know if my fear is worth having and I believe we have people working hard to avoid it but its a deep dark fear of mine and I admit it lives in my closet. I try not to feed it. I want it to go away.

So you really think TR, who has won multiple "executive of the year" awards is just sitting around waiting for things to happen and see if guys fall in his lap? Some of the posts here just don't make sense. I understand being impatient for the plan to unfold but people just have to wait a second before they cast judgment. Seth, you are a great blogger but the idea that signing torii should make the Twins fold up their tent and go home is just dumb. The truth is the Twins should have a similar goal whether they are building for next year or 2014 or 15 - add quality, longer term pitching. To think they are going to trade off all their assets for prospects and they will be all better in 2014 is tenuous at best since they have exactly one in house pitching prospect (Hermsonn) at AA or above. They could trade away all available assets, miss on their assessment and end up with nothing. Anybody remember the Stahoviak / Becker years? They need quality, young(er) pitching: this year, next year 2015 and beyond. If they don't solve that, Hicks, Arcia et al will not make a difference. +12

The A's Model of running a franchise... Yeah I can see it... But then again... I can't... The Marlins went out and spent to debut the new stadium... They were hoping the team would contend and excitement would follow and jersey's, ticket sales and the whole nine yards. It all went terribly wrong... Ozzie aligned himself in the Castro admiration society and that was just the beginning. Heath Bell couldn't close a game... Stanton couldn't stay healthy... Hanley was his same old Hanley self... Josh Johnson never really came back to full power. Bonofacio, Morrison... nobody could stay healthy... They tried for a little bit... Acquired Carlos Lee... But do to impatience... They over reacted. There would have been no harm in running that lineup out again in 2013 and seeing if things go better.

I'm slotting him in at #2 Opening day for the time being... I'll buy a Gibson jersey in full support.

I think 349 posts from Rosterman are not enough. Damn fine post. Refreshing perspective. First... "fielding a $100 million team and coming in last place" is exactly what the Marlins did. Their opening day payroll last season was in excess of $100 million. Second, if Terry Ryan ends up trading Willingham, Span and Morneau this offseason (not exactly a completely unthinkable possibility), won't he be doing essentially exactly what the Marlins have done? I can only imagine, however, that if he gets no more in return than what the Marlins were able to get from Toronto, he'll be skewered in Twinsville. Now imagine that he had done this just one season after Target Field opened up. It's bad enough to do it after three years in a new ballpark, but the gaudy paint in Miami has barely dried on their stadium. Jim, I seriously cringe at the implications of the actions of Loria in South Florida. There may be decent reasoning for it but to toss aside a ball club to this degree after 3 months(it started in July). When you think about the public funding. The Vikings were lucky to get the stadium bill passed prior. It could have monkey wrenched the process for us. I'm sure attendence wasn't what it was supposed to be... It never seems to be in Florida. The Stadium was a built with a tacit promise at the least. 3 months is way too quick to start over. 2013 could have been different... Stranger things have happened. As for the Twins comparison... Mauer and Morneau are still here... Some of us have been advocates for a fire sale. The Twins appear to be resistent to do that. Some fans(most) would break the daggers out if a fire sale ever happened but some of us would understand that the Twins are trying to do what makes the most sense. The Marlins just made a terrible P.R. move because of seriously bad timing and it will effect any effort to build a loyal base in the future. It will be good for some players to get a chance at a career because like Rosterman says... Some teams are just going to be that place for Garrett Jones to go and get a chance. Baseball will survive as a league but baseball in South Florida just wobbled big time.

Ain't she sweet... I just can't understand how "Down by the River" doesn't do the trick for her.

I think 349 posts from Rosterman are not enough. Damn fine post. Refreshing perspective.

5 hits over 100 at bats is a pretty big difference. It sounds like less when you phrase it that way, but with an extra .050 of batting average Drew Butera would have hit .248 in 2012, making him a decent every day catcher. Or with 5 hits less... Drew would have hit .148... It goes both ways.

Hey... I'm no different than anybody else. If given the choice I'll take the 5 extra hits... Who wouldn't? Where we differ is pretty simple. I'm pretty consistent in my belief that attitude question marks are a bad idea and 5 extra hits will not be enough if this guy truly has a bad attitude. No matter what TR does this off season... It's safe to assume that the Twins will not be confused with the Rangers on opening day. It doesn't mean that the Twins can't win. But the task gets harder if you bring in guys who get moody... Frustrated easy and don't battle thru things and I think the Twins will have to battle thru some things. I love stats... I'm going over them all the time.... But baseball teams can't be built by stats alone. There is a human element and Escobar has been run off of two teams. I don't know why... But he has despite... providing that extra hit a week. I don't believe that players are individuals who effect no one like they are some computer animated thing. I believe the team is a team and each individual effects the rest. That's why baseball is a team game despite having more individual match ups than any major team sport. As for the value of those 5 hits. Lets use Escobar for an example... .290 in 2011 and .253 in 2012... Without getting into advanced metrics... What happened? BAPIP? Was it luck? Did he face tougher pitching... It's the same player and similiar amount of data. Was it a routine dip? Or the start of a downtrend. Was it the fact that the Blue Jays were playing .500 ball in 2011 and 8 games below .500 in 2012? I don't have the answer but the fact that almost every individual player in baseball will swing those 5 hits from year to year tells me don't wring your hands over it. One last thing. This is my opinion but I'm consistent... The Twins could bring in Tulo and you'd be pouring it straight down the toilet because the pitching is that bad. If you have 5 million to spend on a SS... You'd be better off applying that 5 million to a pitcher to address the main problem directly. Tulo isn't going to overcome an ERA in the 5's... I realize that any new pitching acquisitions could go belly up and suck but at least you are trying to fix what is preventing the team from competing. And to tie a nice bow on it... If the new pitching acquired does not get the job done and the pitching still sucks in 2013... You better have a SS and a team full of players that is still willing to fight and still believes it can win regardless. Escobar has been run off two teams... Drew off of one... Neither of them are Tulo and neither can overcome our current pitching.

I think all my statements are questionable and I don't know if there is punctuation for that. Also... What is this punctuation that you speak of?

There are a lot of people on this site who like to build these fancy statistical models. There is nothing wrong with that... More Power to ya... I do the same things in my spare time for my own amusement but you gotta realize that once you get past Ryan Braun, Mike Trout, Stanton, Pujols, Cabrera and the uber special ball players, you end up with slight degrees of seperation in talent with the rest of the bunch that over the course of 162 games is so tiny that it hardly matters. Any player can produce and have a week in the sun and any player can go cold for a stretch. The Difference between the .280 hitter and the .230 hitter is 5 hits over 100 at bats. If you consider this fact... Ladies and Gentlemen... Character ends up being the true difference that matters. Yunel Escobar doesn't hit a large amount of home runs... He doesn't drive in gobs of runners and he doesn't steal a ton of bases... and he has worn out his welcome with two major league teams. Are you all trying to convince me or others that those extra 5 hits every 30 games is going to turn us into an offensive force... This guy with the bad attitude is going to solve our SS problem. I have no problem with attitude... We could use some guys who get under the skin of his teammates because they stare them in the eye and say let's play some ball. Is that Escobar? or is he the attitude guy who goes through the motions and doesn't want to work on things if he doesn't feel like it. He's been run out of two clubhouses and I don't know why but I assume it's not because he's pushing his teammates to be the best that they can be.

Oh come on. Now you're just being ridiculous. Posting logical arguments on a message board. What's wrong with you!? This is his wife, he handed the iPad to me and asked me to answer the question what's wrong with him. He spends too much time on this website. He doesn't eat any vegetables unless I personally put it on a plate next to some meat. He doesn't drink enough water. He watches television and listens to music too loud. He likes Led Zeppelin, Tragically Hip and Neil Young and he makes me try to feel it. He snores and he only covers his mouth when he sneezes occasionally. He doesn't know how to fix his car or mine, He puts off little projects like replacing a door handle for 6 months. He mows the lawn in a square instead of lines and he waits until the grass is tall enough to hide the cat. He doesn't hang up the towel after he showers and he doesn't care if he uses my towel or our sons. He leaves the refrigerator open while he takes a swig of orange juice straight out of the bottle. He forgets to say thank you and forgets major dates like Birthdays, our Anniversary and Christmas. When he does shop for gifts he gets weird things like globes and welcome mats that say strange things. I got to get going because I actually have things to do in the morning. Hope everyone has a great day.

I mentioned this in another thread. I don't think money is the issue at all here. Chief is right. The Twins could have taken on these salaries and salary dumped Morneau to the Jays or Mariners for a low level prospect and the salary range would be very reasonable. The point I want to make is.... How does anyone know that the Twins were not on the phone trying to swing the deal and simply didn't have the players that interested the Marlins. Maybe the Marlins liked the Jays offer better... How does anyone know. My god... We have people attacking our front office because two other teams made a trade. If you sit and think about that... You can see the craziness. Can't we. Everyone realizes that 29 other teams exist and are working as well. Talk about some sort of Twinscentric Bubble. The Twins have no pitching to offer back. Maybe the Marlins said... Terry... That's a nice package but we simply don't want 8 outfielders... We are going to do this deal with the Jays instead. With That said.. What a perfect package of players for the Twins... Reyes and Bonofocio could have stabilized MI and put our speed level to Top of the league by miles. Johnson and Buerhle would have provided much needed pitching. Not to mention the big jolt of energy for the franchise.