ThejacKmp

Almost preferable. If things go well you get his prime and you aren't going to have to make a free agent choice when he's 29 and on the edge of declining.

I'm not taking the savings to Vegas on this one, just saying that there's a statistical basis for hoping that Mauer might trend up in 2017. The offseason is a time for optimism!

This is more of a mini-bounce but Mauer's BABIP from 2004 to 2014 was .348. In 2015 it was .309 and in 2016 it was .301. This hasn't been accompanied by a spike in GB rate and he actually had a career-best LD rate last year so he doesn’t seem to be hitting balls that are more easily turned into outs. He just seems to have been a bit unlucky over the past two years (of course along with an erosion of his hitting tool). There are some reasons this might drop (I can think of The Shift – though he’s faced that for more than the last two years so there isn't an easy causal relationship) but he's never been a guy who depended on his speed for infield hits so age shouldn’t erode his BABIP. If Mauer gets a bit more luck with the BABIP and returns to closer to normal (say .345) or even has a bit of extra luck (say .370), he could have a nice bounce-back season at age 34 (an .800 OPS?).

1) Plouffe should only be signed to arbitration if the Twins are pretty sure they can move him before the season. I've heard too much talk of "Plouffe will rebuild his value" - I think that ship sailed about three years ago. Time to get Sano at 3B and let him sink or swim. And use spring training to give Kepler and Mauer some reps at 3B. His spot can be taken by Park so that we have all the first basemen. 2) Don't understand why we would want Alex Avila or any veteran placeholder catcher. I'm very comfortable with a Centeno/JRM platoon with Garver getting 1/2 to 3/4 of a year seasoning in AAA. Avila adds nothing besides veteran moxie and I'm sick of veteran moxie. How much better is Avila than the random catching depth that will be floating around at midseason. 3.) I'm fine with keeping Santiago since the Twins can use pitching depth and it's not like they'd be able go out and spend that money in a better way. Santiago is basically a one-year deal for a 4th starter ceiling and 6th starter floor. That's about what that costs. 4.) Same thing with Kintzler. $2.5 million is a small gamble with funds the Twins won't use otherwise. If he has a good half year, he'll get something at the deadline. If not, he can be cut six weeks in. 5.) I see no way the Twins have Drew in a Dozier-less world. Drew is going to want to start and the Twins have Polanco and Escobar. I'd rather carry a 12th pitcher and have Santana be the backup middle infielder. The Twins have Vielma in AA/AAA this year if Escobar craps the bed and Gordon making the jump to AA and potentially ready for a September cup-of-coffee. That's enough middle infield depth and you still have the Beresford types if something happens early in the season. 6.) This isn't mentioned but Phil Hughes will likely play a role as he is supposed to be ready for spring training. I'd rather see him in the pen at this point (expensive but he was a great setup man earlier in his career) but he also provides some back-of-the-rotation starting pitching depth as well. 7.) No opinion on Grossman. He's an okay 4th OF. He should compete with ABW and Palka for that job. I think he should get it because I want those two playing every day and working on cutting down K's. If an OF goes down, bring ABW or Palka up to start.

Big Cubs fan as my family has had season tickets since the 70s, super excited. That said, kind of sick of people saying that this Game 7 was better than 1991. Not true. The only one that comes close is 2001 and even that pales in comparison. The 8th inning of 1991 - oh man, so many crapping your pants moments.

It was fine to use him in the 7th for the 3rd out. He should not have come back for the 8th.

Yeah, I felt weird making things gendered as I wrote them but it's so awkward to always have "he or she" and "him or her" throughout. And the vast majority of abuse is female on male so I went with it but still didn't feel good. Excellent and needed aside.

Couldn't disagree more. We always need to listen to the victim and take it into consideration. If the DA just pursues a case without the consent of the victim and without talking to them, he or she hurts that victim all over again. Whether it’s losing a home because the family loses an income, having to get a second job and not see their kids or dealing with shunning in the community from people who downplay the incident and play the blame game, these consequences are real. We should take the victim’s preferences into consideration (obviously some concept of the egregiousness and violence of the crime plays a role but most cases fall into a gray zone). That’s really why we need something between “Your partner is going to jail” and “Your partners is coming home to probably abuse you again.” Something that involves access to resources to prevent further recurrences or help to gain independence without going under. Vanimal quoted this article, a must-read when thinking about this issue.

Everyone gets bored. Most people don't react by smoking crack. But some do. That doesn't mean that boredom isn't a reason some people get into smoking crack. I just feel sad if you think people can't be rehabilitated. And scared - I feel like a lot of the problems we have in the world are because people think that other people are broken and thus not as human (not saying that's you, just that it's the same mindset). And I think a lot of abusers don't see women as property - I think they're scared of women having independence, cheating on them, not needing them etc. I don't think it's dismissive-based, I think it's fear-based. That said, you have an excellent point about our punishment system being geared towards useless punishment and not towards rehabilitation, though I think you're being wildly optimistic that juvenile programs are markedly different. I think the only real difference is that we erase a juvenile record at 18 so their blemishes don't carry over to the work force. We have a lot of problems in this country but perhaps the biggest is changing our concept of prison. Go Twins! Go Mauer (I feel very confident we won't hear any Kirby Puckett-esque stories about Mauer down the line.)

Disagree. I think it is vitally important to understand that mentality. It's not trying to understand this mentality and the reasons behind it that led the NFL and MLB to their stupid harsh punitive suspension policy. If they cared to take the time to understand the people involved, they wouldn't suspend people at all. It hurts the victims as much or more than the victimizers and doesn't attempt to address the real issues at play in the relationship. We (and pro sports) need to try to understand the victim's reasons for not pressing charges if we're going to be able to provide real help. I also think I might have worded things poorly. I don't think DV is black-and-white - my whole point is that the gray area with DV makes the NFL/MLB reaction simplistic and counterproductive. The DUI is stupid but applying that logic to DV is just asinine.

Um, this opinion is pretty limited. I'm nervous anytime anyone proposes a one-size-fits-all cause to anything. Men hit women for all kinds of issues - one time anger blowups, stress from work, depression, alcohol/drug addiction, inadequacy issues, etc. And to say that they can't be rehabilitated is crazy. I've known people who have rehabilitated anger issues through hard work and counseling - it's a similar process to drug/alcohol addiction, which we all know can be licked. For a rather dumb example, I knew kids who were heartless bullies growing up who later became the nicest people you've ever met,to the point that when you tell others who didn't know them when they were young that they were bullies, they don't believe you. People can change, it's the only thing that makes getting up in the morning worth doing.

I think you misunderstood what I mean by black and white. Or perhaps you didn’t read it – I suspect the latter is true since you’re indicating that I was talking about right and wrong in reference to abuser and victim. That’s nowhere near what I was saying. Let me try again. ---- DUIs are pretty straightforward crimes. A person drives with too much alcohol and is busted by the cops. There are field sobriety tests and physical evidence (blood or a breathalyzer number). Society has a clear and reasoned set of punishments – you drank and drove so you lose your license; you owe a fine and have to take a drunk driving education course; your insurance rates go up. There’s no need to convince the passenger in the car or the passenger in another car nearby to testify against the perpetrator. The crime itself is pretty straightforward, as are the punishments. Domestic violence (DV) is a whole different story. There is evidence but the officer in charge of prosecuting didn’t gather that evidence and has to navigate often conflicting stories (see Solo, Hope) to try to guess the truth. The officer also needs to convince the victim to testify in court, often against his or her own self-interest. Families face financial hardships that often include eviction if the perpetrator of DV goes to jail. This isn’t to mention that they have to look a loved one in the eye months after the incident and send them to jail. That’s a much harder thing to do and it becomes even harder since unlike with DUIs, the punishments for DV don’t really provide much of a solution or rational punishment. Time in jail is unlikely to correct abusive behavior and punishes the victims of DV right alongside their victimizers. For that reason, the NFL/MLB/NBA etc. tendency to punish crimes with big splashy suspensions is even more misguided for DV than it is for DUIs. It’s just another version of ignoring the basic issues behind it. ----- Hopefully that clarified this a bit more. A few more things that struck me from your response: 1) Ummm, it’s not the players union stopping punishment, it’s the league only caring when it became a big deal in the papers that delayed punishment. In fact, the players unions basically rolled over in the PA and Ray Rice cases because of PR issues as well. If the union is against things, it’s because owners are taking player paychecks and the basic function of a union is to protect member ages. I can’t see any player’s union being opposed to real solutions like treatment and counseling/support. 2) Really disagree about the restraining orders. The point isn’t how easy it is to get a restraining order, it’s how easy is it to enforce that restraining order. Real heartless victimizers aren’t often deterred by a piece of paper. And that also ignores people who have children and need a partner to help with childcare, bills and other household duties. A restraining order doesn’t solve that problem. 3) I’m not sure where you got that police dispatchers #1 most common call is domestic violence. I found nothing stating that. Source? 4) Similarly, not sure where you’re getting that the most common court cases are domestic abuse or that shows that indicate domestic abuse is rarely prosecuted are wrong. The stats I saw said 8 out of 10 never result in charges being filed, let alone successfully pursued. 5) Not disagreeing with you about the “it takes two to tango” aspect to some domestic abuse but (like you) I feel the need to strongly assert that verbal arguing and physical violence are two very different things. We should never diminish the horridness of slamming someone’s head of the wall by saying, “well but she was always fighting with him about things and was the one who started the argument.” Screaming and yelling isn’t health and productive but it also isn’t anything near physical violence. With that caveat noted, that cyclical thing is a real thing and is another reason that the blanket suspension/release is a terrible real-world solution. Intervention is needed, not blind mandated punishment. Thoughts?

The issue for me is a bit different - I really resent the simplistic ways media and the Commissioners Offices handle these things. It's not being handled as a real issue, it's being treated like a PR problem. A nice parallel example is DUIs. DUIs are bad and deserve punishment but if you're an accountant or work in a coffee shop, your employer doesn't suspend you because you got a DUI. They let the courts run their process and set punishments. Pro sports have taken to suspending or releasing guys with DUIs because they worry about driving off fans or giving newspaper columnists something to rail against. The concern has nothing (or little) to do with being upset about the idiocy of drunk driving or wanting to help a player out - they are focused on money and PR. If they really cared, they'd have programs set up to help players with DUIs get support to make better choices in the future. This focus on the PR is an even bigger problem when it comes to domestic abuse because the issue is a lot harder to figure out. We have a logical set of punishments for DUIs but don't for domestic abuse because it's not as black-and-white of a crime. If we send abusers to jail, their families often suffer right alongside them. Mom might have to enter a workforce she is not trained for and children suffer without a parent around. And even if Dad gets out of jail a changed man (doubtful since prison is about punishment, not rehabilitation), he's going to have a hard time finding a job with a blemish on his record. That's a big reason why charges are so rarely pursued - everyone involved has an incentive to keep the abuser out of jail because jail solves nothing and can often create larger or different problems. The system society has set up actively promotes women to stay with abusers because they can't afford not to. What's so frustrating is that pro sports has a chance (for once) to be on the forefront of highlighting solutions to a societal problem but regularly chooses not to. Their money-driven response is to suspend and release players, the equivalent of sending them to jail. It's good PR to suspend guys and seem like you're taking the issue seriously but in reality, it's about the same as ignoring the incidents. Pro sports does nothing to try to solve the actual problem. Baseball could help develop ways of providing real counseling, substance abuse training and relationship dynamics support to tackle the core issues of domestic abuse. They have the resources to provide free anger management and family counseling but instead just suspend a guy and garnish his wages. A logical plan could even help develop a nice treatment pattern to be applied to society as a whole allowing sports to contribute something to society. But no, it's about money. MLB suspends Chapman and then fans either forget about it and cheer for his fastball or never forgive him and make him a social piranha. Neither one does anything to help Chapman and his family or to change the distressing narrative and patterns of domestic abuse. It's really very sad.

Yeah, the Twins had no chance. I'm not sure that Maddon would have gone to MN no matter the amount they threw at him. The Cubs job was such a great job and it was Maddon's for the taking. Hard to compete.

Disagree with your disagreement :-) The Cubs (wisely) eschewed a lot of pitching development knowing that they had the resources and draw to go sign the Lesters and Lackeys when their position players started to develop. The Twins aren't a draw for guys like Lackey and they don't have the financials to sign guys like Lester. We can try to emulate the Arrieta/Hendricks aspects (though really, what teams aren't trying to do that? It's easier said than done.) Perhaps Ervin Santana fits that Ryan Dempster-type who can be flipped for some solid pitching prospects. But again, easier said than done and there's a fair amount of luck involved in it. The better comparison would be the Indians, who developed much of their pitching in house. Hopefully the new GM can get better results from the Twins many intriguing pitching prospects and add in a few of outside lottery ticket types that may pan out.

This offseason I hope the Twins take a wait-and-see approach at catcher, in spite of the temptation to do something drastic. I'm comfortable running JRM and Centeno out there in a platoon to start the season and giving Garver at least a half season in AAA for a bit more seasoning. JRM and Centeno have a nice lefty-righty thing so the Twins can hopefully get some offense from the position. They also get a chance to see if JRM is the guy who hit well with the Yankees or the guy that was awful for the Twins in 2016. They can also see if Centeno is a guy who is going to throw up a .700 OPS like last year (and thus a nice backup catcher since he hits lefty) or if that was a fluke. If Garver doesn't have setbacks he'll be ready mid-season and provide a nice boost behind the plate.

Cray to dfa Gibson and crazy to think that the way to think about this is, "will this player be on the next great twins team". For the latter, we should be looking at if guys have value; if wimmers has a good year would he have trade value? You don't give players away because they don't fit your timeline. For the former, same thing, you don't give away players. Gibson has low value now but is a year removed from a nice season. It's not like the twins have tons of starting pitchers ho need time in the majors. Gibson needs another season to see if he can bounce back before you think about releasing him. If that happens he becomes a trade chip if your pitchers develop and a part of the rotation if they don't.

Disagree on it being boring and predictable - I just think that so much of what is going on is impossible for the lay person to understand. It takes a coach to see what is going on. Take just one part of the two sports: defense. In baseball, there's a basic defensive formation that teams rarely move from. Even when they do, it's pretty simple - they're shifting or they're bringing the infield in. You can explain baseball defense to a 9 year old in 20 minutes pretty readily. And when you're watching, it's easy for an announcer to look at the game and tell us "Okay, The Twins are playing corner infielders in and the middle infield is at double play depth". The average fan has a clear concept of what that means and why they're doing it. A football defensive formation has insane subtleties - where the strong safety lines up changes everything about a play. And that's just one player - add in the middle linebacker and we've got a whole new set of variables. The issue is that the defense shifts things so many times and the action moves quickly enough that we rarely get to even begin to understand what is going on. I'm a pretty decent football fan and my knowledge is basically the difference between the 4-3 and the 3-4, what a double A gap blitz is (but not really any of the variations), press coverage and what the Tampa 2 generally tries to do. None of that allows me to meaningfully discuss the Vikings defense other than to say, "Man, that defense is good. It has good players. It has good schemes. It is good." Cris Collinsworth does a great job on Sunday night football of shedding a bit of light on this - he can't do it every play but when he gets a chance out of a break he can really show you what the teams did. And there's a guy on VJ (can't remember) who breaks down plays with GIFs (this week it was Joseph's effect on running plays) that is pretty good. So good content can be done but it takes someone with a lot of time and knowledge to do so. That's pretty different from baseball. If you give me an hour and a topic, I can put together something pretty meaningful with some decent stats to try to explain something. And people who comment on my hypothetical baseball article can pretty easily find stats or related cases to drive a discussion that reaches 7 pages. Yeah we might get chippy but a lot of it will be very stats and case study drive. Most of the comments on even the good content on VJ is like "Awesome!" or "Great job, super informative!" Because what else can you say? The two sports are just different - it's hard to see the community on TD being transferred to VJ.

And I think the long-term plan at SS has to include Vielma and Gordon. Gordon is still a 2018 kind of guy but Vielma's glove is ready to play at a big league level; if he can hit .240 it might be the best option. The Twins have more options than Escobar or Polanco.

Love Twins Daily. My view of Vikings Journal has been that it lacks good content and rarely has enough of it. That isn't helped that the comments sections are rarely entertaining to read - no one making an argument or starting a discussion. Maybe it's due to the basic difference between baseball and football? Baseball's stats make it easier for an everyday fan to make an argument and playing everyday keeps stories going. Football is significantly harder to understand and there's only 16-20 games a year.

That's not the dream scenario. Mauer still has value (not $23 million value but you're paying that anyways). His OBP is still pretty close to elite and has value on a young Twins team that hits a lot of home runs and strikes out a lot. The dream scenario is that the Twins work Vargas/Mauer/Park in a true platoon at 1B/DH. As Vargas is a switch-hitter, the Twins can play two righties against lefties and two lefties against righties and have a nice bench bat for late in games. There's no one coming up who Mauer would be blocking (unless you want Palka at 1B I guess) and you'd be using Mauer at his best. He'd still play 120 games and likely be fresher.

At least this team was watchable for most of the year. Some of the teams from 2011-2014 were borderline unwatchable. There was always something worth checking in for and actually, a lot of the young hitters had relatively positive seasons. Buxton struggled but ended strong. Kepler had his amazing week and held his own. Rosario fell back to earth but rebounded enough that you can see a future for him with the club. Kennys Vargas is in much better prospect shape than I expected. Sano didn't have the insane year we hoped for but that was a nice sophomore slump year. Yeah these guys have to take a step next year but that's the way it is with young guys. People had too high of expectations for this year and will likely have too low of expectations for next year. Last year's Twins were a smoke and mirrors playoff contender but this year's Twins are better than a 103 loss team. I'm excited for next year. So excited that last night I was trying to find a way to bet $20 in Vegas on the Twins as 2017 World Series champs. I figured the odds had to be spectacular :-)

There are two #29s. This may be a 51 person list?

I love that guys in the 50-41 range are legitimately exciting. Bodes well.

I really hope that Berrios isn't Scott Erickson. Yeah 1991 was sweet and Erickson had a 15 year career but it was pretty disappointing when all was said and done. P.S. Looking at 1991 Cy Young Race. The Twins had the #2, #4 and #7 pitchers in the Cy Young voting that year. That is awesome but it's also weird that the Angels had the #3, #5 and #6 pitchers - it went Clemens, Twin, Angel, Twin, Angel, Angel, Twin. Strangest still, Kevin Tapani got a first place vote and I don't think anyone would argue he was more than the 3rd best pitcher on that team.