Riverbrian

I typically side with the players when it comes to the issues that divide them. However... you are right. The players ain’t Saints either and they could reallocate when bargaining terms. If this comes out of the owners pocket they will reallocate the expense. They will cut a minor league team or something of that nature to make up for the additional expense. My main issue when it comes to support of the player is control. The 38th round draft pick isn’t getting a substantial bonus and if he plays well. He can’t take a bigger offer with Lake Elsinore. His only option is too change careers.

That's Fair... but my point was all along that if Falvey, Lavine, Molitor and the others in the room felt that Adrianaza was just replacement level that could be replaced by a waiver wire scouring. They made a mistake. I'm trying to believe that they believe in Adrianaza so I don't end up questioning them in the end.

I think Escobar should get a bulk of playing time at SS and I'm comfortable with that but what happens if Sano gets a 30 game suspension. Now you have Escobar at 3B and Adrianaza at SS. I see the Twins needing Adrianaza fairly significantly.

Move on to who?

Maybe but the 25 man roster spot is extremely valuable in my opinion.

I agree not every team will have starting caliber backups... Actually not every team has starting caliber starters. But... if you fancy yourself a contending team... you better be staffed to the hilt or you'll be trying to win a race through the desert without enough water. When the starters go down... that is when opportunity happens for the backups or farm hands and they gotta have someone who can take advantage of that chance. If the Twins brass doesn't believe that Adrianaza can help the team for 162 games... they shouldn't be paying him 1 million dollars to keep him around. Players who have the talent to take advantage of that opportunity is exactly how Chris Taylor of the Dodgers was created. Logan Forsythe on April 19th, 2017 breaks a toe. Chris Taylor is called up from the minors to replace him. Chris Taylor becomes critical to the Dodgers Season the rest of the way. No Dodger fan is thinking... no worries... we got Chris Taylor when Logan goes down but he was the first phone call. When Forsythe comes back now the Dodgers really have options they trust and they barely miss a beat when they move Taylor over to 3B because Turner is out... to SS when Seager is out and move Taylor out to the OF... A position he hadn't been playing and he is able to sub in for a slumping Joc Pederson. I realize that Chris Taylor may be one in a million but the point is... other players get playing time when Polanco gets suspended. Opportunity is created... If the Twins have the right guys in that situation... Depth is improved because now Paul Molitor has even more options that he trusts. The team has to have someone who can step up and do the job or they are not contenders. If the Twins have to shoe horn a struggling Aaron Hicks into the lineup because they have nobody else... they are not contenders and they failed to provide a decent safety net. No contending team should give a player a million dollars to an Adrianaza type with the mindset that he will play once a week. If you pay him a million dollars to keep him around... you better believe in that guy for the long haul or else go find someone who you do believe in for that million dollars you are spending. Find that guy who could rise up if given the chance. I'm assuming because we are in contention and Adrianaza is still around... That the Twins believe in him. If they don't... we need a new front office. Now I can't wait to find out if they were right. It's judgement time.

Here's the thing... I'm not a starting 9 guy. Too many years of watching players hitting under .210 and yet finding themselves in the starting lineup the next day because the team didn't have anything better. I understand that budgets are necessary but I believe that a professional GM needs to be able to work within the constraints of that budget and prepare for the possibility of failure at any position. If it was easy... anybody can do it but to have one of the 30 jobs... you need to be able to do it. If the Twins don't have an adequate replacement for any player on this roster. When being a team in contention... not a tanking team but a team in contention... then yes... I do believe that they spent too much on starters and not enough on what will be needed replacements at some time.

Do I believe that could happen? I Do Doesn't even have to be the player. I'm not sure where Jeff Gilooly is these days. How bout this one. You are the backup 1st baseman and the starting 1st baseman is hitting .400 with 50 Bombs and your team has just won the ALCS on the strength of his performance. You haven't played a bit but you saw him using steroids. You got photo's... documents... everything you need for a quick conviction. Do you report him with the world series on the line or stay silent? If you report him... how will the fans of that team react to the news? How will your teammates react to the news? how will the front office react to the news? What if the Fans, Team Mates and Front Office knew you were the whistle blower? My opinion... you will be the one crucified.

The Twins could have signed Eduardo Nunez for 5 Million and not spent 1 million on Adrianaza. The Twins could have traded for Jurickson Profar, Solarte or Chris Owings. Injuries are always possible... anything is always possible and not having a capable backup is a hole that needs to be filled because injuries happen and they happen a lot and nobody can predict them. I'm going to give the front office the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is capable because if he isn't... the front office failed.

If MLB Baseball would let me. I could fix it and fix it good. Real Simple: Take Steroids -- First offense results in a lifetime Ban plus an immediate voiding of the existing contract. Done If the penalties are not severe enough to transcend the benefit of taking the risk... Players will take the risk. For Polanco... The benefits are MILLIONS of dollars and people singing songs about your greatness. The penalty is an 80 game suspension without pay ($300K) and I assume a roster spot waiting for him when the suspension is lifted. He will still earn 300K and he will probably be brought back next year with a contract that pays more than what Doctors and Lawyers earn in a year. In the case of 23 year old John Doe with a .280 batting average with the Birmingham Barons. The Benefit is a place on the 40 man roster 600K in salary and a mid-season call up when the starting shortstop gets hurt. The Risk is only public shame and that will be forgotten about in about a week after he starts his new job selling cars for his hometown Chevy dealership. He doesn't risk anything else because he was going to be selling cars for his hometown Chevy dealership anyway because he isn't getting called up without the juice. He will make more money at the Chevy dealership when he is finally released from his minor league obligations for lack of production. We got a lot of metric minded people on TwinsDaily that can do the math and conclude that the penalty isn't strong enough to be an effective deterrent. We can all easily recognize that Baseball players are handsomely rewarded for super human results. We can all easily recognize that players are released and out of baseball while the social media mobs call them trash if they hit .200. The system forces are going to drive the bus in the direction it's going. We can all easily recognize that the College Basketball Coach gets rewarded with a longer and more lucrative contract when they win. We can all easily recognize that they eventually get fired after enduring damning editorials in the newspaper, embarrassing comments at the booster luncheons and the social media mobs calling them trash for losing. The system forces are going to drive the bus in the direction it's going. We can all easily recognize that the politician is going to take that sizable donation from the oil company spilling crude into Lake Minnetonka and they are going to introduce legislation that opens up Lake Calhoun for crude dumping. We can all easily recognize that the politician isn't going to have enough money to get elected when the oil company gives that sizable donation to his opponent after he refuses it. The system forces are going to drive the bus in the direction it's going. My favorite quote in the whole wide world is: Your systems are perfectly designed... to get you exactly where you are. So that brings us down to Morality. For a Million Dollars... I wonder what crappy thing I'd be capable of doing. I'm sure I could think of something.

Things have gotten strange. To quote John Lennon... "Most Peculiar Mama". Normally people argue WITH insurance. Yet... here we are arguing ABOUT insurance.

If they liked him in a utility 200-ish role but not in a 600-ish PA Role. By my definition... that would be a recipe of bad planning with a heaping cup of lack of foresight and a couple of quarts of not noticing what has historically happened to nearly every single baseball player in history. If there is a player on the 25 man roster... they need to be someone who you trust to play a bunch of games without crippling your team because there is a strong likelihood that it will be necessary. If the Twins had any concerns about Adrianaza... They should have upgraded in the off-season. They didn't... so I'm going to assume he will be fine.

There was a reason that the Twins didn't feel the need to upgrade Adrianaza during the off season. I assume the reason they didn't upgrade was because there was something they liked about him. We should now get a chance to see if they were right and see what they liked. There are no guarantees with any of our players... it could be knucklehead stuff like a steroid suspension or a Bumgarner Motorcycle Accident... or just a simple injury. A team needs to be prepared for any eventuality. We just lost Polanco for 80 games... let's see how prepared our front office was. Adrianaza is the next man up.

I'm simply not going to judge him. It's easy to sit back and say the rules are the rules but there is way too much money involved. Just making a 40 man roster is going from below poverty level to $600,000. Earning a starting job after 3 years will take them from $600,000 to 6 Million. Being a superstar will take them from 6 million to 60 million. I'm not going to judge Polanco... I'm not going to judge the college basketball coaches either and I'm not going to judge the politicians taking money from special interest and I'm not going to judge the simple folks who deal with comparable situations at a much smaller scale like the guy who fudges on his taxes just trying to keep the lights on at home. We are all swimming in this type of ****. I don't like any of it but I won't judge.

Middle Ground gets lost on the internet from time to time. I don't feel that choosing Hughes is like licking dirt and choosing Mejia is a Filet Mignon.

Personally... I'm still not sure if I like Morrison over Vargas but... Molly will play Morrison while he has already shown that Vargas getting playing time isn't a always a primary necessity... so the decision is easy to make. I agree with everyone who hopes that Vargas lands with someone who will give him 500 plus AB's. That's the only way I'm going to find out what we had.

In sentiment I agree with you because a comment like that is pretty benign. I'm sure players talk to other players. An off the cuff comment is not buying Machado a car. However... once he mentions the conversation to reporters who go public with information. The MLB office has no choice because you can bet the contracts have verbiage that expressly state that tampering is not allowed by anyone in the organization... including players. The size of the document needed to cover all shades of tampering would be quite large so they probably have to draw a hard line. I'm pretty sure that Judge will just get a reminder of MLB Rules. Using Machado as an example... without tampering rules in place. There would be nothing stopping all 29 teams from laying the ground work right now (actually yesterday). Teams could start negotiation with a player under contract right now. It would become a free for all.

I'm going to trust the front office that they got someone worth a 25 man roster spot in Kinley. I've only seen one ST inning from him and it was OK. But... I continue to wonder today what I was wondering when they first plucked him in the Rule 5: Why is a contending team going to roll the dice on a rule 5? A contending team should be trying to absolutely improve each 25 man roster spot. If Kinley makes the roster and Molitor has to hide him like he did with Haley. There will be no justification for the selection.

I keep my expectations simple. I want the SP's to keep us in the game and give the offense a chance to outscore the other team. I'm personally not comfortable with any declaration that Hughes will hit the mound and it's a guaranteed loss when he does. If it is a guaranteed loss. The Front Office will make the appropriate move.

I know it does... It clearly worries you... I hope you get some sleep soon. http://a360-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sleeprev/2014/11/narcolepsynightmare-466x278.jpg

I'm crazy but I still feel it's possible that Hughes won't be as good as we want him to be. Nor... As Bad as we think he will be.

This is spot on. I declare myself dead center in the middle but in order for me to stay there... I have to divorce myself from politics and be content to sit on the sidelines and watch it and this is what I've been doing for many years now. I think both the extreme left and extreme right are crazy but that is where the passion is and they become the spokespersons because they are constantly speaking. From the middle it is easy to see that the extreme positions are necessary for balance because the middle just isn't going to be passionate enough. The system is set up for everyone to choose a side. The very second you take sides on any issue... it's a quick slide into the appropriate blue or red box. All in All... I know that politics/public opinion is manipulation and I have to work hard to avoid being manipulated.

Everything Everything will be alright, alright. - Jimmy Eat World

It may not be a matter of Trump Voters being ashamed. It may be a matter of Trump opponents getting motivated enough to actually go to the ballot box and stuffing something in there this time.

I'm not ready to thrust Rooker into a contending team yet. At least not to the point where you are tossing Mauer overboard in order to count on Rooker. I believe that all it will take for Joe to come back is for neither side to try take advantage of each other on a one year deal.