by jiminy

That has always been the argument to me, too -- until I looked at the stats Nick posted above. According to the numbers, May is NOT a better SP than Milone. And not just the third time throught he rotation, when he gives up a .907 OPS, which should give anyone pause, even his biggest fans. He's not even better the FIRST time through the rotation. Does he have more upside? Sure. Given his age its fair to weight his last starts more, which were extraordinary. But more upside does not necessarily mean more production. A near sure thing like Milone is very, very valuable. Especially at his price, which is low. You need to look not just at value but value to salary ratio, and Milone is a big plus there. Given that his trade value is low, too, I hope they don't dump Milone just to make room in the rotation for May. The numbers say that could weaken both the bullpen AND the roation. This reminds me of when the Tigers dumped Fister, because they didn't need him. You can never have too much pitching. The only reason to trade someone is if they bring back someone you need even more. I don't see that happening with Milone. That said, you only have so many roster spots, so I'm not going to second guess them if he's the guy to go. I just wouldn't be in any hurry, that's all.

You mean, until Buxton happens? CF doesn't seem to offer much opportunity for Santana long-term. It's great he can fill in there, but it doesn't counter the argument that his best chance to help is as a utility man, it reinforces it. He may have talent, but right now he can't seem to hit, field, or improve his plate discipline. He's got a long way to go before he deserves a spot on a major league team. His 2014 makes me retain hope, even if it was BABIP driven. But his 2015 means he has to prove he can do it again before he deserves another shot at the show. I wouldn't cut loose a guy with no options to make room for this guy. Not till he turns it around. His 2014 was already an outlier when it was happening. All that's happened since is he's regressed to his minor league history. At this point he's nothing more than a lottery ticket to be more than emergency AAA help. Not trying to be negative -- people do turn things around. Dozier was mocked. Span was mocked. Neither showed much in the minors, or in their statistical history, but the scouts insisted there was something there, and they were right. Santana's got the tools. He has a shot to be the next Eddie Rosario. Of course, Rosario also has a chance to be the next Santana. Not as a fielder, but his plate discipline and K rate aren't much better. If pitchers find a weakness there's not much wiggle room to stay above average. Jeez, I am being a little too negative here! I think I need lunch.

Thanks for the link! I'm not usually into speculating about trades, because they almost never happen as envisioned, but I am completely buying that San Diego is an intriguing match. They stretched their payroll to stock up on veterans and bombed. It's hard to imagine they wouldn't love the chance to shed some of that salary. And an ace pitcher, a catcher, a reliever are exactly what the Twins need. The fact that they are overpaid works in our favor here. The Twins have been sitting on a cash cow for years, stockpiling cash from their subsidized stadium. They are now good enough where it makes sense to spend some money. The playoffs are in reach. Shields, Norris, and Kimbrel or Benoit could be difference makers. And the Twins have more prospects than they have room on the field for. A motivated trading partner, eager to shed salary at the very positions we're welling to spend to improve, might be just the ticket. Their GM is if nothing else a bold trader (that's how they got into this mess). Why not? The post above says they need a shortstop. Maybe Polanco? Or sell high on Escobar? They could use a third baseman, and the Twins are itching to move Plouffe to open a slot for Sano. The Twins have a ton of young outfielders. I'd start with Rosario. On the one hand, he's a proven performer, not just a prospect. On the other hand, his plate discipline and walk rate are low, so we may be seeing his ceiling. I like him, but I'm more intrigued by Kepler and Buxton. If they are excited about Arcia or Vargas, those guys are going to have a hard time finding playing time, especially now that they have park. Clear the logjam. I know that won't do it, and we'll have to part with some people it hurts to lose, too. But you don't have to give as much talent if you're also offering salary relief. Kimbrel and Shields may be worth their salaries, barely, but the odds are they're not. So we're not talking a huge dip into our talent pool unless they pick up some salary. I would hope the Twins would pay all the salary and keep the best prospects. They can afford it. That stadium cost them almost nothing, once you add up that they are paying their small portion of the stadium costs from the naming rights -- meaning they are paying almost nothing at all! (Why did we give them naming rights???) But the deal was, we give you a ton of money, and you give us a good team. So do it. And build it with money, not by mortgaging the future and trading away young talent for old. We've waited long enough. Shell out the money, take their overpriced stars off their hands, and win now!

Somehow these awards make the Twins seem a lot farther from a championship than I felt before. Partly that's watching the playoffs. Games are being won there by truly dominant pitching performances. Who would provide that for the Twins? Who will next year? Having a winning record is nice. Not having black holes in the lineup or the rotation anymore is really, really nice. Being competetive and in the playoff hunt is great, too. But realistically, do you see this team being competive in the playoffs if they did make it? I can see the offense coming together enough to play with anybody. Especially if Dozier makes some adjustments, Hicks doesn't fade again, and Buxton figures out how to hit a curveball. But who would match up with the other team's ace? Or the other team's number two? You might get to a guy like Keuchel or Price now and then, but not consistently through three rounds. Sometimes you've got to be the one to shut the other team down. I just don't feel like this team is one opponents would fear in they playoffs. The last time I heard that was when we still had Liriano and Santana. I remember a friend who is a Yankee fan (not his fault, he was born there) wanting nothing to do with them in a five game series. But I think the Yanks would LOVE to have faced the Twins this year. Not saying they can't become champions. They just have a ways to go. Their rotation and lineup are mostly set for next year. So how are they going to make the next leap?

That's funny, that's exactly what I was going to suggest -- or at least wonder about, I'm not in the business and wouldn't know. But when I learned to drive, my brother made me pull away from the curve, then pull back and stop the car. I then had to tell him EXACTLY how far my tires were from the curb -- and then get out and look. Over and over. It was brilliant. There is no better way to get a sense of space and distance than to guess, and check. So my uneducated thought was, he should stand in while a pitcher throws whatever he wants. He has to, 1) predict where the ball is going to end up when it leaves his hand, 2) show EXACTLY where it passed the plate after it does so, and 3) have a coach show him where it really went. Over and over. Why not? If the problem is not knowing how far a ball is going to break, or not being able to gauge exactly where it actually ends up, work on that. The more times you say, it went right here, the better your eye will get, right? Oh, and Delmon Young not mastering something has no bearing on how anyone else will do. I give him credit for trying, if he did this, but it surprises me. He never struck me as the learning type or the listening type. This is just going from what I read, but I thought he was notorious for refusing to listen to coaches. Perhaps everything I read was wrong, and he was a student of the game, but the impression I got from the presss was he was pigheaded and refused to adjust. But whatever -- he's just one guy.

Good point about the biggest position of need at the deadline being shortstop. And it turns out not trading for a shortstop was a brilliant call -- it would have cost us Escobar's spectacular second half, and possibly having him as a starting shortstop next year. I will say, though, that it was clearly a mistake to stick with Danny Santana at shortstop as long as they did. It clearly was not working, and they were very stubborn about doing something about it, even when it suddenly mattered. Switching to Escobar a month or two earlier could have won the wild card. So why didn't they? It clearly wasn't on-field production. One factor was probably the assumption that this was an audition year; they're not going to win anyway, so you may as well see what you got with the rookies. And it turned out to be the right gamble with Rosario, right? I was fine with that. But even I would have bailed much, much earlier on Santana. Let the poor kid work it out in AAA, that's what it's for. Was it his surprising success last year? It shouldn't have been a surprise that didn't last! And Molitor knows how to read modern statistics. I don't think that was it. The worst reason would be because Molitor announced in the preseason that the job was his, and he was sticking with Santana all year. You don't sacrifice the team's success to save face. Better yet, don't make pronouncements like that. If you want to give him a long leash to work out the kinks, fine. But never promise to do anything that hurts the team. If it was embarrassment or pride or credibility that made him stick with Santana longer than he wanted, that's sad. Tragic pride, you could even say, like in Greek dramas. But I have too much respect for Molitor to think that was the main reason. It might have been part of it, but it's not enough. My guess is it was also partly a reward for playing out of position last year in centerfield. He sacrificed without complaint, came through anyway, while learning on the job, and now deserved a fair shot at his real position, where he might be even better. That's honorable, I suppose, to pay someone for their loyalty -- but clearly wrong. It has to be all about the team's success. I'm okay with trading present day struggle for future success, but not with trading present-day struggles for past efforts. His job is to win, damn it. His players know it. You don't lose your team by winning, but by playing favorites. Did it help Danny Santana to play 88 games, at a .524 OPS? I don't see how. But more important, if that's your priority, you've got your priorities wrong. Especially if those 88 games of .524 OPS cost you the playoffs. Which, frankly, it might have. If other teams were demanding a ransom in prospects for a bullpen arm who may or may not have been better than Tonkin, fine, stand pat. If a starting catcher costs you Kepler or Buxton, and you don't like the catcher enough to bite, fine. But they had another shortstop that whole time already on the team. A shortstop with a .721 OPS in 133 games last year. And they sat him for 88 games, in favor of a rookie who happened to have a .405 BABIP the year before. (When I looked up his 2014 BABIP the page that came up was titled, BEWARE OF DANNY SANTANA BABIP REGRESSION. So no, his struggles should not have come as a surprise to a modern-day front office.) I don't know if promoting Berrios would have won them the division or not. I cut them slack on that -- I respect not rushing player development, and their eventual promotion of Duffey turned out to be nothing less than brilliant. If I had to single out one thing, I'd say it was those 88 games of .524 OPS from Danny Santana, when a better player was right there next to him the whole time.

very interesting comparison of the pitching under Allen and Anderson. What those numbers seem to indicate is that the pitching was equal or slightly worse in every category except ERA. The biggest divergence is that last year's pitchers gave up an extra three quarters of a run despite having a significantly LOWER FIP. The most obvious explanation for the difference in ERA is fielding. This fits both the numbers and the eye test. In every category that is independent of fielding, they didnt seem to improve, yet their ERA improved. These numbers point to fielding as the difference. Likewise the eye test would suggest that substituting fielders like Rosario, Hicks, and Buxton for Arcia, Willingham, and co. would help the pitchers' ERA. The numbers bear this out too, with the league's lowest WAR in outfield defense paired with a near league high fly-ball pitching staff. This is not an indictment of Allen at all. His emphasis on changeups seems a legitimate part of the narrative, and there have been a surprising number of rebounds from ugly play by several members of the staff, who in past years might have just bottomed out. But the above comparison seems to single out fielding as the biggest difference.

I don't know if they did the right thing or not. But while service time may have been a factor, it was certainly not the only factor under consideration. Also being weighed were his innings limit, his development, his major league readiness, and the cost of losing a player to fit him on the 40 man roster. Basically, they could had had Berrios for a very small number of innings at best, and the cost would have been significant. There's no guarantee he would have been better than the options they already had, or than Duffey. They said he needed to work on a few things to really make it in the majors. They may have been right. Jerking him between the bullpen and the rotation might have harmed his development and/or health, and since he'd never relieved before, would have been a big gamble during a pennant race. Yet using him as a starter would have meant they only had him for a handful of games. Rookies thrown into a pennant race sometomes do well, sometimes don't -- more often don't. And then when Hughes comes back, who do you sit? And who do you cut from the roster, and lose forever? How do you know you wouldn't be better off with those two guys than Berrios? I'm very open to the idea that he could and should have been promoted a month or two ago. But at this point, the gains would have been so marginal, if any, that it would not be worth the cost. Maybe they waited too long; maybe they thought they were out of it, and now regret it. Hey, I thought they were out of it. Remember, they were sinking like a rock. Now that they weathered the storm, and are still in the hunt, it may turn out they should have gone for it and promoted him six weeks ago. But it's not a sure thing either way. Before the focus turned to Berrios, the nonstop clamor and impatience to promote was focused on Buxton, and how did that turn out? He, too, was destroying the minor leagues. But once in the majors he was totally overmatched at the plate. Before that, it was Arcia who was being idiotically ignored -- until he failed to hit AAA pitching any better than major league pitching. Personally, I'm fine with leaving Berrios in the minors till next year. He's 21. Either Hughes, Nolasco, Santana, Gibson, Pelfrey, Milone, May and Duffey are enough, or they aren't. I can't get that exercised about not promoting a kid who was in AA a few months ago into the heat of a pennant race. If your chances at the playoffs depend on a gamble like that working out, your chances aren't very good anyway.

Nunez is arguably the best shortstop on the roster right now. Not saying that's a good thing, just that they are not likely to jettison him.

Thanks, Parker, I love these analyses -- I always see more after you've pointed stuff out. It is really noticeable in the older clips how he's only using the top half of his body, not his legs. He does seem to use his whole body more. In a previous post on Hicks you pointed out how he didn't plant his front foot, but just rolled over it. That doesn't seem to have completely stopped. His high step does seem to help his timing and to involve his whole body. But another benefit of the step, I thought, was you start to move your whole body forward, plant your foot, and transfer that forward momentum to your bat. I don't see that happening with Hicks. Do you think planting his front foot instead of rolling over it would help? Not knocking where he is now -- hey, I'll take it -- just wondering if you see the upward trend maybe continuing even further.

Great stuff! Thanks for making these points so clearly, as always. Of course their solution yesterday -- hit four home runs a game -- works too, though admittedly it's not as reliable a long term strategy.

Sounds like just what they need! And great tasting, too! Too bad it's available for a limited time only. Too true, unfortunately...

You make a good point: Amazingly, adding Santana, quality arm though he is, does not necessarily improve the team at all! There is no one currently in the rotation who replacing with a pretty good pitcher is an obvious increase in wins. For now, anyway. At some point this season, injury or ineffectiveness will make another quality arm extremaly valuable. But for now, I agree -- inserting Santana could easily make the rotation worse, not better. Amazing.

I'd stay the course. Rebuild. They're not there yet. Even when they were winning they had below overage offense and below average pitching. They just tended to hit them in bunches, concealing the over-all numbers. Now, they are still above .500, but they've given up more runs than they've scored. If a few players caught fire and led another winning streak, I'd consider them real contenders. But Buxton didn't give them that kind of a lift, and now he's injured. Torii did for a while, but now he's fading. Vargas may be the next Big Papi, but he sure isn't yet. Mauer is having his worst year ever. Their two hot shortstops from last year are combining to be among the worst in the league this year. They have a great second basemen, but that's about it. The team's best hitter is hitting .269. The next to are at .259 and .258. (And no, seeing their OPS wouldn't cheer you up. I don't usually look at BA either, but it's what pops up on the first page of the official team site under team leaders. You see that and you go, oh. Yeah.) I think this team is exciting because of its future. Vargas may or may not hit this year, but between him, Arcia, and Sano, there's definite hope at DH. Hicks may or may not hit this year, but between him, Buxton, Rosario, Kepler, there's definite hope for the outfield. Santana may or may not hit this year, but between him, Escobar, and Polanco, there's definite hope at shortstop. Between Plouffe and Sano, there's more than hope at third, there's genunie confidence. At second, even more so! Dozier is playing like an all-star. At first, I consider Mauer to be as good a candidate as any for a real breakout, I really do. He was too good, too long, to give up on. I suspect teh effects of his concussion are just not gone yet. But if Morneau came back, why can't Mauer? And they finally have numbers are starting pitching to ensure they'll never be throwing out AAA pitchers multiple times again in the rotation (as opposed to AAAA pitchers, or better yet genuine prospects, or actual qualified veterans, which they have now in abundance). It's a fun, exciting team. But it's not one to sell out the future for the present on. The best shot in the arm they could get would be to promote somebody and strike gold. So, try out Buxton, try out Meyer, and if they don't work, try out Sano and Jay and Kepler and Arcia and Polanco. If they're not ready, chalk it up to experience. If they bloom, great, enjoy the ride. But don't mortgage the future for a short term rental, unless to supplement some future stars who have blossomed early. And I dont see that yet.

"Or should we just starting taking odds on the first "stick a fork in him" article?" It's one thing if a guy with a history of success in the minors gets battered around in his first appearance in the show, and peole want to instantly give up on him. That's not what's happening here. It's the opposite. In Meyer, you have a guy who for his entire career has failed to command his pitches, gotten behind in the count, grooved a fastball, and gotten hammered, even in the minor leagues. And after brief stretch in the bullpen, we all wanted to wish that all away. Look at what Parker said about how minor leaguers were shelling him up to a few weeks ago. Did something REALLY change? Or was the sample size of his brief bullpen career so small we were able to project our fantasies on it? For him to succeed, he is going to need to be able to throw his breaking pitches for strikes, and command his fastball enough to avoid grooving it down the middle. Otherwise he will continue to get behind in the count, and become 95 mph batting practice. That's not my opinion. That's just a description of what happens. In the MINOR leagues, mind you. It would be great if that stopped happening. Tall pitchers often mature later. It could happen. It just hasn't happened yet. Would I stick a fork in him and give up? No! But it doesn't make you some unreasonable curmudgeon to want to see some evidence first before concluding that he's radically changed, and the faults he's struggled with his entire career are magically gone. You can't just wish that stuff away. I'm still very hopeful that with hard work and good coaching his positives will strengthen and his negatives will recede. A consensus of scouts nationwide consider him a top 100 prospect, so knowledgeable people think his chances are good. He just still needs to improve a few things. A few very important things. You say if he fails as a starter, he can "certainly" thrive as a reliever. I don't think he's certain to fail. But it seems premature to say he's certain to succeed, either. The odds may have been above 50-50 when they got him. But based on the lack of progress he's made since then, it's hard to say they're better than 50-50 now. Isn't it? I'm not a good judge of talent, so if you're seeing something special in him, I'd believe you. I'm just looking at his record and not seeing an upward arc. But hopefully that will only make it more satisfying when he turns into a dominant reliever! Yessss! I can't help it! Hope is what baseball is all about. And hey, if it isn't Meyer, it will be someone else. There's finally enough hard throwers in the minors that I feel good about the odds that some of them will come through. We'll take a look at Meyer this year, give him his shot, and if it's not him, take a look at someone else. There will never be a fork you can put in the whole team!!!

Enough with the head first slides! How many injuries will it take before someone tells them, no more! Paul Molitor, I'm talking to you! It's like running with scissors -- stupid! Remember when this happened to Cuddy? Cost him half a season. Those shoes have spikes on them. It's insane. It's a crazy, needless risk. You may as well tell them to go ahead and drive drunk. And don't say it's just hustle. You can go all out on a feet-first slide too. This is not Nick Punto we're talking about. He can slide head first. This is the future of the entire franchise! Seriously, if I were manager, I'd make it clear if you slide head first, you get benched. And fined. And spanked. Whatever it took.

Thanks for a good read! I agree about Dozier not batting leadoff. The team's leading HR hitter should not be batting in the spot in the order with the fewest RBI opportunities. I don't agree with commenter who worried whether his performance would sustain in a different spot in the batting order. It's too big a sacrifice to make for a hypothetical worry. My personal opinion is while comfort with a particular spot in the order may offer some emotional security it's way overblown--hitting is hitting. Aaron Gleement tweeted recently that 45 of Dozier's 60 career home runs have been solo. That's just a waste. To quote another AG tweet: Re: Byron Buxton's initial expectations. Here are the only 21-year-old CF since 1980 to be above-average hitters: Trout Andruw Griffey Bonds This to me suggests he should not bat lead-off. A guy straight from AA would impress just by hitting .250 with a .300 OBP. I would be extremely pleased to see that production in his first go round, not disappointed. I find it highly unlikely he would get on base enough not to be a drag on the batting order leading off. I'd bat him 9th. Then you get all the benefits of his speed on the bases at the top of the order if he does get on base, with no damage if he doesn't. Let him learn. If he turns out to be Trout, move him up. But expectations of him being Trout are just unrealistic. We have a gem here, but he's not a superstar -- YET. Finally I personally hope they don't trade Plouffe just yet (at least not just to dump him, of course anyone is tradeable if you get back more than you give up). There's no certainty that Sano will stick at third, or that he can get on base in the majors. You have just one weakness in your swing -- one -- major league pitchers will find it and relentlessly exploit it. I've seen all-stars suffer for years trying to overcome a single weakness -- like Darryl Strawberry's vulnerability to an outside curve ball. Look at what happened with Arcia and Vargas. They came up and lit the world on fire -- and then they got shut down. Until they learn to compensate, there's no guarantee they'll ever be back. Suppose that happens to Sano. If you've already traded Plouffe, who plays third? Nunez? Escobar? I guess you can limp through that way for a while. But as long as we're fantasizing about contending, let's keep open the possibility of Plouffe returning to last year's form, when he outhit Pablo Sandoval. He's a good fielder now, too. I prefer to give him a long leash at third, and if he earns the job, plunk Sano in the DH spot next year. If they both play at all star levels, that's not a bad situation. If you don't want to DH Sano because of Hunter, that's a mistake. Hunter is not part of the future; I would not give up Plouffe in order to sign Hunter for another year. Plouffe is more valuable, a better fielder, AND costs less. If someone needs to go, give up the 40-year old. He may or may not have another year or two in him, but he'll be gone soon either way. If he wants to be a mentor, make him a coach. That's my two cents. welcome aboard, and come again soon!

Howard Sinker in the strib pointed today to some numbers that are more relevant than the ones I quoted above. I had said the Twins good ERA masks the fact that their OPS against was 24th in the league. But this article was about starting pitching, and that number includes some pretty poor relief work. Here's the relevant numbers for just the starters: rank in AL of Twins starting pitchers, in ERA: 4th rank in AL of Twins starting pitchers in OBP, SLG, and OPS against: 12th that's right -- they were near the bottom of the league even while they were doing well, and even if you take out the relievers. I'm shocked, frankly. I, too, thought starting pitching was the one legitimate area where the Twins had made genuine progress. I still have a hard time giving up that idea. Guess we'll wait and see. If they can't score runs, it might not matter. But I'm still hopeful that if they get some reinforcements in the batting order, and the pitching can sustain itself, they could stay competitive. This makes me wonder, however. Where they ever playing well enough to be competitive, even during their record-setting May? Or were hits just grouping in in a flukey way, on both sides of the ball? The numbers seem to say they were never producing enough to sustain any real success. The doubters seem to have a more solid case than the dreamers. At least in the short term. This doesn't fill me with despair though -- I didn't have my hopes up that high for this year, I've just been enjoying it -- and this story isn't over, by any means. I'll be watching with genuine fascination. Suppose they can hang in there long enough to stay close, and by the end of the year Buxton, Sano, Arcia, Berrios, and Meyer are all making contributions -- hell, might as well throw in Jay in the bullpen if we're fantasizing -- well, you never know. Stranger things have happened.

"xFIP is not a good measurement for ground ball pitchers like Gibson and Pelfrey.... ground balls are associated with a much lower OPS than fly balls and line drives." I think it's fair to say that xFIP is a better predictor of future success than current ERA. And it's fair to suggest that OPS is a better measure than how the Twins are pitching than their ERA. And neither of those numbers supports the glowing conclusion of this post. Yes, their ERA has been awesome. But runs are the product of WHEN the other team gets hits, not how many hits they get. You can get hit a lot without giving up many runs for a while, but eventually the runs will catch up. And by OPS, the Twins are not that good. Minnesota is currently 24th in OPS against. To be fair, though, you were talking about the starters, not the whole team. They are certainly a hell of a lot better than last year -- and much deeper. I don't mean to sound negative -- just defending the people above who say you can't read too much into a short period of good ERA if FIP and OPS don't support it. But I really don't think there will be a major collapse like the last few years. There are enough legitimate major league starters around that if one or two falter they won't go off the cliff. If they can just get a little more offensive production to match, they'll be competitive all year.

About Ryan's seemingly contradictory comments that he doesn't like it when people criticise the team without seeing them play, but then he drafts people without seeing them play: My reading of this is that he just doesn't want his brief scouting of a player to overrule his scouts, who have watched the player much, much more than he has. So by doing this he's still expressing confidence in the process of watching people play -- he's just respecting that his scouts have put in a lot more eye-witness hours than he has -- a position that is both consistent, and one I really respect.

Baseball Prospectus projects them to have the worst record in the league, thanks to the worst pitching in the league. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/ This seems a little beyond something Molitor can fix. To make the playoffs, several pitchers will have to seriously outperform expectations. I don't think it's impossible -- If Hughes stays superb, there are some pitchers on the roster with upside. But it would take a bunch of them making major, major leaps compared to last year. Nolasco could do that, if the reason for his bad season was injuries. Not sure who else is going to jump much. The only scenario would be Meyer and May suddenly improving a couple levels. But pitchers don't tend to make huge leaps in control all of a sudden. Or master a new pitch all of a sudden. But could it happen? Hughes, Nolasco, Santana, Meyer, and May, all below 4.0 ERA? Sure. But it would be a very, very, very pleasant surprise.

I don't get the worry. Name one CONTENDING team that would be excited about the prospect of having to depend on May or Meyer to hold down a spot in the rotation, with the playoffs riding on it. Sure, one or both of them may reach that level. But neither yet has shown consistent command of multiple pitches. I for one am thrilled they won't be rushed to the majors until they're ready. And that the major league rotation won't be held hostage to mere promise with no reliable backup plan, the way the center field spot was. Worst case, they are all so unbelievable good that the Twins are forced to trade someone, or have some really good pitchers in the bullpen. I just don't get how that is a problem.

I would just add that if their revenue doubles, and they double their payroll, their profit STILL doubles. And they're not even doing that! I was never a big fan of just accepting as an axiom that payroll = half of revenue. To me that just means, give us a subsidy, and we'll pocket half of it, and MAYBE we'll consider spending some of the rest on the team. But our cut is 50% minimum. And everyone usually confines their kvetching to the unspent part of the "available" 50%. But why? I would like to think that if we subsidize a private business, that money should at least go into the team, not straight into the bank. Seriously. I would have much rather seen a bond initiative to just go out and sign free agents, and give them to the Twins. If you really wanted a new stadium, make the subsidy contingent on the Twins building a new stadium with their own money. You'd get more for your money that way. I hate no-strings-attached giveaways. You sign the check, you call the shots. (Otherwise it's like giving banks billions of dollars so they'll lend money to people, but never actually requiring them to do so! Oh...) But think of how much more fun a direct subsidy would have been. You could require a new vote each year, to keep the pressure on the Twins to spend their own money too, or we walk. You could vote for shadow GMs to decide how to spend the money: nominate your favorite blogger! Or if you wanted to let Twins management decide who to sign--they after all know more about building a team than we do--we could say, the state will match every dollar you spend on payroll over $100 million. I'd vote for that! At least, I'd choose that over just giving them a stadium, and hoping they spend some of the new revenue on players, and then watching them make record profits instead. By the way, I love the use of the verb "pocketed" -- one of may favorites when talking about moneybags types.

"Only a band aid with very little stick-um on it. What's the plan Terry? Where are you going with this team?" nice metaphor. You could also say, spray-on hair to conceal a bald spot (or try to) and of course there's the proverbial, "lipstick on a pig."