Brandon

Not to be a party pooper but Rooker does have 119 Ks in 375 ABs. Almost 1 every 3 ABs. Thats not gonna translate well in MLB. I bet this is why he is still in AA at this point, to improve this ratio some.

What about Rooker going to AAA. Seems he is ready for a bigger challange....still has a lot of Ks but otherwise mastered AA.

And Pineda

I was just thinking if one of the top 30 prospects on next years international prospect list is 16 in say June, we could sign him in this years bonus if he will agree to what we have left available. If we have say 1.5 million available we might be able to sign one of next years top 30 with this years money if we trade for 250,000 int bonus pool here, 350,000 int bonus pool there ( in addition to the prospects of course).....and if we do that on all our trades...we have 6 or 7 potential players available in trade. Why not see what we can sign next june with that? And then have next years money for july 2nd too.

That pool of international cash would come as a piece from all trades. 100,000 here, 250,000 there, 350,000 and even 500,000 or more. But if we get a little bit from 5-7 trades we should be able to get 1 - 2 million ans sign a good prospect next June.

Also i may use this as an opportunity to build up my international signing bonus pool for next year if I can or this one too. The prospects are gonna suck as its a buyers market but getting a large pool of cash together we may be able to sign a top international prospect next June or before time runs out on this signing period but before the next international signing period begins next July.

As a gm Im looking at trading Lynn, Odorizzi, Santana, Duke and Rodney on pitching and either trading or extending Dozier and Escobar. Though likely dealing Dozier. You listen on everyone but I want to set my team up for a potential run in 2019. So Gibson and anyone in long term plans is sitting still.

If the Twins gain a game or two by the deadline and Sano is able to come up, maybe we buy a C or bench player and go for it. That would be more fun then giving up on this season. If we fall back to 10 games it wont matter....

Moustakis signed for 1 year at 6.5 million. He wont get close to 15-20 million a year. He may get a 2 year 8-10 million per season. He doesnt get on base enough to justify a bigger paycheck. Power is cheap.

I think the biggest disappointment was Polanco with his failed drug he needlessly missed half a season when we needed all hands on deck to stop the offensive slide. Sano was a close second cause i give injury / problems caused by own doing 50/50 credit. But having Polanco available would have allowed Escobar to DH more giving us a better lineup and a few more first half wins. Buxtons issues started with headaches. I dont know if his slumps started before or after the headaches and with playing while injured. I think he could be up at some point in August.... Sano has to loose weight and fix swing. He will need till late August minimum for weight. And Buxton and Sano are definately big losses and letdowns. Polancos was of his own doing. And when you sabatoge yourself, that is the biggest disappointment. Note i do forgive Polanco and hope this doesnt happen again and he hits over .800+ OPS for the rest of the season. But we need all the offense we can get now. Also moving forward its going to be Buxton/ Sano until they re-establish themselves. but that is from today going forward and not in the first half. I am confidant Polanco will be part of the solution moving forward.

TheJacKmp comment above about 7-3 is probably right but 6-4 with a Cleveland sweep immediately after will likely keep us in contention too. Or a 6-4 at least keeps us afloat but slightly sinking.

Also go to a Dodgers game but the Angels stadium is very generic. The cool thing there is a lot of Angel greats are former Twins.....Blyleven, Hunter, Carew, there are several highlighted in the stadium.

If your still in San Diego i recommend you take TVOR to sunset cliffs at sunset...

I think they are waiting for Belisle to figure out he's done so he can be hired as a coach or something.

So how much more leash does Belisle get? I'm ok with a few more appearances but he appears to be done.

Not sure about last time but i think Blyleven was 19 as a rookie. How old was Liriano?

My first pick is Dozier as he has been hitting better lately in the power department. I'm gonna go with .270/.350/.550 with 15-18 2Bs and 12 -15 HRs and 6 stolen bases to get to 101 for his career with the Twins. I also think Captain Cave...man is doing well and may break out in the second half as a solid CF .270/.330/.450 Polanco and Kepler too. .280/ .320-.330/ .450 (guestimated batting line for both players) I think Morrison will do better if he stays the full season something like .240 average with 12-14 HRs but wont be the breakout player for the second half. I think Rogers will do well out of the pen with 2.5 ERA in 36 innings (I'm reaching here as I feel like most of the rotation pitched to potential). Otherwise i gotta go with Romero with a low 3.00 ERA when he gets recalled soon. Maybe 70 innings of 3.20-3.40 ERA and 75 Ks.

And this year its in the .500s the .718 OPS is a huge improvement. .800 even more and Realmutto is currently in the .900s

Because the offense collapsed this year and C is one of the biggest culprits.

Also i think an extension to lock him up for 4 more seasons should occur if we are going to make this trade as well.

I would think Killerhoff plus several pitchers like Mejia, May and Businetz or a similar group of pitchers. I dont want to give up a great hitter and potential ace for Realmutto. I would rather overpay for Ramos as a FA for 3 years this offseason then overpay for Realmutto with what your offering. Romero and Graterol are off limits

If we sweep the Royals too are we still sellers or do we see how we play with Buxton back up to so Cave can DH when not in the OF for a couple weeks first?

Maybe they can add a bigger selection of craft brews at domestic beer prices

Do the Twins need the extra 40 man spot for prospects to shield from the rule 5 draft? if so then Rooker won't get called up as he doesn't need to be on the 40 man for a while. I would like to see him called up though. I just think roster management will come into play. I think we are now in line for the 7th or 8th pick in the draft next year. we may as well keep the veteran fill-ins for a while longer to ensure we can at least succeed in the race to the bottom. Also i want to see the front office sign Escobar to an extention if he is interested. I think this FO is too preoccupied with cashflow and needs to have some stability in players. with no money on the books if that becomes their MO then players will not want to stay around without some stability.

Contingencies: The Twins entered this season with several contingencies in place. Escobar was able to fill in any of the IF positions but 1B and DH. Grossman could fill in at RF, LF and DH and either Rosario or Kepler could go to CF, and Morrison or Sano could fill in at 1B and Garver could start at C and we had Wilson to be the third C. what happened? More problems sprung up then we had contingencies available to plug them. Sano got hurt and Polanco was suspended half a season. so Escobar is at 3B and Adrianza is at SS (Adrianza has actually perfomed well as the starter) so those contingencies worked out. Buxton had headaches was injured on rehab games and missed more time then rushed back before taking more time off and is now a mess. Grossman has underperformed and LaMarre performed for a minute getting him more playing time. We didnt have a contingency in case Grossman didn't hit. Castro was injured and declared out for the year so our contingency Garver was given a few weeks to see what he could do with Wilson being the back up C. Garver showed he wasnt ready for the bulk of the playing time so we went to Wilson to be the starter. (In a vacuum this isnt the end of the world but with the other issues going on we needed more offense and this is one area we could improve quickly easily and probably cheaply too) Mauer had concussion issues again and went on the DL. Grossman was spening more time in the OF so he couldnt DH, Morrison played 1B and Sano has been injured and a wreck and back at A ball. so we really didnt have anyone who could produce be able to play 1B. also Vargas was not hitting in AAA. DH Morrison wasn't hitting Grossman wasnt either but he was needed in the OF and did improve for a minute showing hope as did Morrison before regressing again. Sano was Sano and Vargas was wiffing in AAA and Lastly Dozier has slumped enough to hurt his value to the team but not enough to replace in the lineup especially with all of the other things going on. Though I wonder if sitting him on the bench for a few days and bringing up Gordon to start for a few days and go back down, would have lit a fire. so we needed another OF contingency which has turned to Cave and he is producing enough. We needed another DH and did nothing to fix the situation We needed a starting C and did nothing to fix the situation Mauer has come back and so has Polanco. Though Mauer isn't hitting yet except 2 games against the Cubs. So the real problems not addressed in season are the DH and starting C for the remainder of the season. There are a few options available to fix these at minimal cost. Could we have signed Hanley Ramirez and there was another hitter released who could hit at DH whom I already forgot, and sent to AAA for a few weeks to ramp back up and maybe play him? Having a .700 OPS catcher and an .800 OPS DH would have helped the lineup immensely instead of throwing out a lineup of .500 to .680 OPS hitters in 5 or 6 spots in the lineup. Especially in a season where we lost so many 1 run games. The Twins did sign Rupp to a AAA contract but that hasn't worked out either. what was the cost to acquire a starting C? there are several on the market so it is a buyers market with Swihart, Chirinos, Ramos, and Reamulto available. Yes Realmutto would cost a lot. but if the Twins wanted to keep the push for this year on they could have traded for a C which would cost a prospect but probably not one we had to have. As far as the pitching goes, I don't really have any complaints. Yes Lynn stumbled out the gate and we still have Belisle on the team. I hope after a few more appearances we will know if he is done with a few bad appearances and they cut bait or he turns it around and produces. Either one is fine by me though I do want to see the young guys come up soon. The staff as a whole is average which is leaps and bounds better then where they were when Falvine came on board or even last year for that matter. We did go from a top 5 offense to a bottom 5 offense and Falvine hasn't done much to stop the bleeding during this time, but at the same time there was so much bleeding there I doubt that even if these moves were made it would have made enough of a difference. Unless the front office making moves to bolster the team directly with buying trade upped morale enough for others to pick up and go. I do think they should go after Ramirez and a C. I don't know that there is much else they could realistically do without being a big buyer. and they may have felt the same. They may be thinking we can do these two moves but will likely keep us closer to .500 and not allow us to tank if need be. I don't know their logic but watching this season unfold has felt defeating. I don't like the concept of tanking (mostly because we need to FO to be honest with us about this up front as they may be tanking while we are rooting for the wins. Also the selling last year sends a message to the fans as well about wanting to win) and i hope the owners do something about that at the next collective bargaining agreement.