StormJH1

Yeah, I think Parker had it right early in the article, but covered the rest of the "debate" because so many Twins-related quotes are whining about it. He should be sliding there, no question about it. Yes, you can get hurt sliding feet first into home (Robin Ventura comes to mind). But there's no way Gomes could have "tripped" Doumit unless he predicted a future where Doumit tries to tiptoe over he plate, instead of sliding to avoid a potential tag. Gomes was reacting to the throw being late and feeling like the plate was exposed. His priorities there were catching the ball and finding a tag, not tripping the runner. Following the Buster Posey injury, I'm sure Mauer probably has instructions to head to a bomb shelter if it looks like there's a possibility of a home plate collision, but I'm pretty sure Twins players do stuff like this from time to time and Gardy never calls them dirty.

Yeah, I'm totally with this post. Has Plouffe even really had a good 2-month stretch as a starter yet where he was encumbered by injuries? Even so, the results haven't been that bad. But he would have virtually no trade value - his best asset in the eyes of other teams is that he's not old enough to be considered a confirmed "bust". Which, coincidentally, is exactly one of the main reasons we should keep him.

It's kind of funny to me that there's been multiple occasions where a veteran was traded at the deadline for guys that it's assumed will basically never be major leaguers, and yet Drew Butera (Castillo trade, 2007), Eduardo Escobar and Pedro Hernandez (Liriano trade, 2012) have all gotten decent run on what happens to be one of the worst teams in baseball over the last three years. I only bring this up because even though the assumption is that we would get virtually nothing for Doumit or Willingham, recent history suggests there could be a role player coming back for them. Which might be better than nothing. Plus, it saves the front office some salary money, and (more importantly) frees up crowded corner outfield spots for young prospects to actually use. The Doumit re-signing was pretty universally popular, but I didn't quite understand it. It's almost like they resigned him because of what it did to help Mauer, but looking at how Chris Hermann played, you have to think they could've landed on a better-than-Butera option to spell Mauer without adding another veteran to the mix.

Eddie Rosario is definitely the most overlooked prospect, relative to his value. While his numbers might be slightly skewed by the fact that he's still in High-A ball and will be 22 in September, a left-handed 2B who hits for power and average?! Middle infield prospects are rare, and even some of the good ones pan out, but while other teams are bringing up Jason Kipnis (pretty good) and Dustin Ackley (struggled, sent down), Rosario is the only guy of his kind in the organization for some time. Sano and Buxton go to show how just a few elite prospects can change the whole perception of the farm system.

The division is terrible with the exception of Detroit, which isn't exactly free of its own problems. Detroit didn't look great early last year either, then ended up in the World Series. Their starting pitching depth, barring injury, gives them a clear advantage. It was mentioned on G & G that while they're only "5 games under .500", they're not all that far from the worst teams in the league (except Houston and Miami), and Gardenhire clubs that aren't clearly in the pennant race after the ASB don't exactly tend to "finish strong".

I'll fully cop to not knowing who the heck Antoan Richardson was until last week, but he would have made more sense than Clete Thomas, let alone Arcia now. Not that I have a problem with Arcia getting at bats in the majors, but they probably should play Clete everyday now in CF (I really don't want to give Arcia the experience of screwing up CF in the majors when it isn't even his real position). Richardson could at least potentially hold down the leadoff spot for some time, Clete ain't doing that!

That comment (originally noted by Seth) about the callup date is a HUGE point to make. After letting Benson walk, I don't see how anyone can be too annoyed that this team wants somebody on the 40-man who can actually back up in CF. If Hicks got injured, or even if he just goes on a 2 for 38 stretch or something (not too unrealistic), you can't Wilkin Ramirez, Escobar or Parmelee trolling around out there.

Gleeman's negative reaction to how they handled this (shared by many on this thread) is a valid complaint. They obviously lost a young "asset" when they could have exposed a number of replacement-level veterans instead. But let's keep this in context. Benson has been very hurt and very terrible for about 2 years. He's not THAT young. He had no trade value at the present time. So the entire potential "harm" to the Twins never comes to fruition unless Benson rehabilitates himself for some time in the minors, finds a spot in the majors, and is something better than Clete Thomas once he arrives. That's a lot of "ifs". Not to mention that this organization actually has quite a bit of top level depth in the minors at corner OF, plus Buxton in center, and that's assuming Hicks doesn't hold onto the job.

Wow, that really got to me. The fact that these guys make a lot of money doesn't change the fact that (most) of them really like doing what they do, that it's all they ever known, and that it can be taken from you in an instant. You'd have to be sub-human not to feel for him.

Totally agree. However, while he basically has the job out of sheer necessity right now, he should take note of what happened to Chris Parmelee, who is still relatively young, but never started hitting in the majors before he started to get steamrolled by other young players. Buxton is coming. Not this year, maybe not for most or all of next year, but Hicks can't wait until he's 27 to figure things out if he wants a job on this team.

This team is going to lose 90 games, primarily because of the rotation. So long as Hicks can get consistent playing time as an MLB center fielder (which he will, since we basically don't have any other ones on the 40-man), then I'm not overly concerned if he finishes the year hitting .150, .170, or whatever. It's not GOOD that he does that, but we're starting to see hints of his ability to turn on a ball, and it's starting to happen from the left side now as well (his earlier power was RH'ed). It's funny that people make the Hunter comparison, but I don't see too much comparison to Carlos Gomez. They were similar ages when Gomez was rushed into action in 2008. The funny thing is that even though their approaches are completely different (Gomez WAY overaggressive, Hicks too selective), the end results are almost the same. Or at least they might be, except that Hicks' BABIP is .192 (how is that even possible?!?), while Go-Gomez had a .330 BABIP that year. Much like in 2008, it was assumed entering the year that we had a bad team, and we were filling a void left in CF by departing players (Hunter then, Revere/Span now). People lamented that Gomez wasn't sent back down to the minors, yet despite striking out 142 times that year, Gomez's OBP of .296 would destroy Hicks' .246 OBP unless the latter continues to improve. Goes to show how much context matters. People had a very short leash with Carlos Gomez because he wasn't as good as Johan Santana, yet despite Gomez's "careless" approach, he was getting on base far more often than Hicks has, was easily a better defensive center fielder, and probably was a bigger SB threat as well when he did get on.

Yeah, this point gets missed a lot, and frankly, I think us "armchair GM's" are wrong to dismiss its importance. The Twins are a business, and also a part of the local identity. Trading Joe off this team would basically gut the core identity of this team. The immediate fan reaction would be "wait, what did he do wrong?" (Nothing) -> "well, what MLB players did you get back for him" (no impressive ones) -> "okay then, i'm done with this 90-loss team". There would be a mass exodus of fans away from the turnstiles. I sincerely believe this.

I highly doubt it's the worst in the history of baseball, but it has to have some of the lowest upside in any rotation I can ever remember. There have been plenty of bad rotations. Some of those are due to injury. Some of them involve high-risk guys like Jonathan Sanchez, where you could see a 1 in 10 chance that the guy could end up with a boatload of strikeouts and a manageable ERA. I mean, you could argue that Correia and Diamond have been mediocre enough to save this from "worst ever status", but could you even DESIGN a rotation ON PURPOSE where all five starters have K/9 rates of 4.7 or less? Start naming random "pitch to contact" guys from around baseball that come to mind, and I'll bet almost all of them strike out more guys than the Twins pitchers. Looking at all pitchers together, last year's strikeout rate of 5.9 was the worst in the majors, and 29th was Cleveland with 6.8! But unlike last season, there were no injuries that knocked out Baker and Pavano. You didn't have a high upside guy like Liriano to suck for 2 months and then become awesome again, only to be traded. This 2013 staff has gotten pretty much everybody except for Deduno healthy. This is the rotation they PICKED in free agency, and it's arguably worse than if you just plugged in random AAA journeymen from day-to-day and left it to random chance.

Deduno ideally should have broken the year as a 4th or 5th starter, but for his WBC injury, so I don't really get anyone being mad at HIM for getting the call before Gibson. The reality is that we've had a pretty healthy rotation thus far, and that's not going to last. Correia, Pelfrey, Diamond, and Vanimal are not going to throw 200 IP this year. One of them is going to get blown up, or get hurt (three of them have recent arm issues, and the other is Kevin Correia). Point being, there will be a chance for Gibson in the bigs at some point, and he's probably on an innings limit anyway. He's basically alternating good start-poor start right now, so I'm in no hurry to rush him to the Twins and get him torched.

I totally admit I hadn't heard of Thielbar until just now, but having looked up his track record in the minors, it looks excellent. You could argue that he's been a bit old for each level of the minors he's been at, but a lefty with decent control that strikes out 9.0 K/9 (or better) in the minors...what's not to like? Anyone (Seth?) know what his stuff is like? Decent velocity? Does he have a second pitch he can miss bats with?

Isn't there like FanGraphs search or something that could figure that out? I'm not good with that stuff, but it seems doable. Now in Year 4, I really don't think of Target Field as a park that makes it THAT hard to hit HR's in. That's probably true to dead center and right-center, and the "rock baggy" in RF probably robs some hits that would be dingers in other parks. But it seems downright hitter-friendly to RH pull hitters, and I've seen enough non-descript LH's (including Escobar and Florimon) go yard at home this year to think that it can't be that hard to homer here, especially when it warms up a little. I think so much of that was brought on by a combination of Mauer's sudden power "drop" (compared to the absurd year in 2009) and just how bad the overall team was in 2011. Nobody was really complaining about the dimensions in 2010 when Thome was hitting bomb after bomb. The Mauer thing might have been part psychological, too, but his road performance since 2010 has made it clear that he wouldn't be a 30 HR hitter in Fenway either. His average might be even higher than it is here, but that just isn't his approach. Plus, Target Field doesn't exactly have an abundance of foul territory, which probably favors guys like Willingham who hits 4 foul balls down the LF line per at bat (and previously played in Oakland, which had the most foul territory, IIRC).

I didn't think he was actually as bad as last year's numbers suggested (and his ability to block balls in the dirt still seemed average at the very least), but there were throwing issues last year too - it wasn't all on the pitchers. I think part of it is that if there is a perception developed from last year that Mauer can't throw people out, then they will be more aggressive on the basepaths and run when they maybe would not have in the past. I don't tend to get too wrapped up in controlling the stolen base game, because it really is a pretty minor part of defensive baseball (unless it's a like a Matthew LeCroy in Washington situation where they are just running at will).

Yeah, I feel like this argument is about 4 years past its prime. Granted, I used to say the same thing over and over again, but I feel like whenever you hear that now, 80% of that is directed at frustration at Mauer for being 6'5" and not hitting 40 bombs every year (get real), and the rest is residual from the Punto era. I feel seeing opposing clubs come in here in 2011 and hit bomb after bomb against us in this park that was supposedly impossible to go yard in (what, with those walls and CF pine trees and all) thoroughly shook up the organization. When they signed Willingham precisely because he WASN'T a prototypical Twins hitter and have more aggressively recruited power bats and athletes, I no longer felt like this was a team obsessed with dink-and-dunk offense anymore. Plouffe is a further example of that - they are HOPING the guy goes out there and hits .245 with decent power. That would great. Of course, his defense might get in the way of that, but I haven't seen enough too terrible out of him to be overly concerned. He's got no place as a league average corner outfielder in this organization, so give him this season to sink or swim at 3rd base, and move on if you have to.

I've never heard this logic applied to any team before, let alone the Twins, but I don't find it particularly useful. What you are paying a player in a given year has much more to do with the player's age and service time than if they are actually productive. For example, the Yankees have an extra $25 million-ish invested in A-Rod ("offense"), but he's not playing this year, so what does that even mean. Likewise, if not for the Mauer and Morneau outliers, the Twins will arguably spend less on offensive players due to the fact that they have a lot of young, promising position players. When the Twins were paying veterans like Baker, Blackburn, Liriano, and Pavano, we had more money in pitching, but the rotation was terrible.

I agree on the game pace thing, but I seriously doubt that it can be mentioned as a reason they would demote him. Vance Worley is another offender in this regard, so there could be some long, miserable summer games when those guys pitch. What worries me about Pelfrey is that that even though he's coming back from TJ surgery, his velocity is basically there already: Mike Pelfrey » PitchFx » Overview | FanGraphs Baseball I was expecting a lot of 89-91 mpg on his fastball, at least early on, but he's actually pretty consistently in the low 90's, and touching 94/95. Compare that to Liriano, who was 96-98 in '08, and basically never got back to that after TF. But that's pretty much always been the case with Pelfrey, and yet he's never been a strikeout pitcher. His two "best" seasons, he had K-rates of 4.9 and 5.0. So I don't know how much more you can expect from him this year, if hitters aren't at all fooled by his stuff. This guy, when healthy, still had season where his ERA was around 4.70 to 5.20, and that was in the NL in a decent pitcher's park.

This could all change in a week, obviously (case in point: Aaron Hicks' performance), but after watching Arcia (22 yrs old on May 9th) play just a few games, can anyone with say any confidence that he wouldn't put up better numbers than Parmelee (25 yrs old), given a full season in the bigs? And if that IS the case, then why not just leave him up all year? Arcia might force Gardy's hand on that one, or pitchers may find a hole in his swing and he could struggle. In the latter case, you haven't waived the ability to send him back down the minors and try something else. I just feel like this kid looks and acts like he can play at this level, as juxtaposed with Hicks, who looks absolutely terrified he has to swing the bat. If the alternative is Parmelee, who has never been as good of a prospect as Arcia is right now, why not let him run with the MLB playing time? We have a logjam of outfielders coming, and they can't all play CF. Arcia is older and further developed than those guys, so why not keep him up and find out?

I just have zero interest in this. It's like the people who get worked up over Jamey Carroll not playing. Omar Vizquel got some run with Toronto as a 45-year-old last year, but he's also one of the best defensive infielders of all time. People throw out the "what could it hurt?" argument, but if "one extra guy" stops the Twins from potentially "discovering" a young player they didn't expect to be ready (like Span in '08...or maayyyyybe Arcia in '13), then yes, it can do a lot of harm!

Weather sucks everywhere right now. Games in Detroit and Chicago were cancelled yesterday while the Twins played TWO games. (Coincidentally, from parts of the same system that cost us the game on Monday). Three weeks from now, nobody will care about this, or barely even remember that it happened.

Totally in agreement with Mason on this one, though he's certainly not offering anything new or unique with that viewpoint. Minnesotans are predisposed to complain about what they have, versus what they could have had. First of all, any one older than 10 years old on this forum should probably have a memory of the minor miracle it took to get a (largely) government-funded park built in any form. That thing was approved in 2006. If it goes a few year later into the start of all the economic problems, who knows. Yes, the Vikings got their stadium too, but that was several years after '08. I've been to Safeco. I feel like a lot of the inspiration in terms of concourse structure and atmosphere are borrowed from Safeco (although many of the new parks have similar elements, and all of them are copying Camden, to a degree). The game I went to was in early May 2010. That Seattle team was terrible, and the attendance for that game was horrible. It was raining that day (big shock, I know), so the roof was closed before the game. What people don't understand about that, though, is that the roof only covers the top and field. If you were in many of the exterior areas of the park, you still get both wet and cold. In fact, we told one of the ushers we were from Minnesota, and she was jealous that Target has heat lamps. It was 42 degrees that day, and I think we were colder that game than we were at either of the 32 degree games I went to in Minnesota this year, mostly since we weren't prepared. Safeco is a park that mostly "gets it right" in terms of it feeling somewhat "outdoor" when the roof is open. But I don't think a retractable roof stadium of that type was EVER feasible given the $500 million-ish budget, and (more importantly) the size of land they had to work with. Target Field is a great park, and there is no way in hell I would trade a few weeks of threatened rain/snow outs in April for a gloomy, dumpy experience during the remainder of the mostly gorgeous summers we have here. The doubters said everything from "it's too small an area to put a ballpark" to "the whole thing will smell like a trash compactor", and none of it was true. We've also found out that we have a world-class grounds crew (and heated field) that can be get the field in perfect condition hours after a gigantic snow storm. I don't want Metrodome 1.5 - I love our new park.

All of that may be true, and we've seen at least SOME evidence that Hicks can swing a confident bat in the minors. But "taking a lot walks" is not, in and of itself, a useful or reliable skill. That Aaron Hicks has been walked 9 times in 60 plate appearances is better than if he were just flailing away up there. But it's also an extremely small sample size, and it results from the fact that this guy is terrified to swing the bat. Occasionally, pitchers will have control issues and walk guys they don't want to walk. You see pitchers get walked in the NL once in awhile. But by and large, if they aren't afraid of you as a hitter, MLB pitchers will get after you. Simply put, there is no way you can dress up Hicks' performance thus far as anything as a complete disaster. He has 9 walks, but only 3 hits. If he were swinging enough to have more hits, he would have even more than the 21 strikeouts he has (which is a pace of about 205 per season, for a LEADOFF hitter). His batter's eye does look pretty good. But the walks don't excite me at all because being selective at the plate and working deep into counts is only useful if you have a good contact rate also. The "gestalt" of his "selective" approach is still a .259 OPS. Still early, but just saying...