ThejacKmp

And this day is the worst every year. And every year it sneaks up on me because i forgot how awful it is. It's awful if you lost because you can't get the taste out of your mouth. It's awful if you won because you wanna keep Uncle Mo going.

That likely has a bit to do with weather. It's cold in MN in April and its warmest from noon to three. Seven to ten could be prohibitively cold.

I think you underestimate vielma. He was over two years younger than the competition at aa last year and put up a 663 ops. He doesn't need to do much more than that at the mlb levels be a pretty nice asset. I'm a big vielma fan and am glad they're not prioritizing Gordon at his expense. Middle infield looks solid between vielma, Gordon and polanco.

Ugh. I thought Twins Daily was a sanctuary city.

And boom goes the dynamite. Sano on pace to double Bonds season record.

If Sano and Polancao can be average, this could be a very nice defensive team.

Castro would've framed that in.

This lineup does not make me miss Jason Tyner DHing and batting 8th.

Castro for MVP! Why isn't he batting cleanup?

Unless you think last season was a total fluke Grossman should be in the lineup just about everyday against lefties. And in the #2 hole. He has the highest OBP in that situation. Grossman is bad at many things but he is a useful player.

True. Park/Vargas leaves the Twins unable to bring Grossman in for Rosario/Kepler in the OF or Mauer at 1B. But I'm not sure it's ridiculous. Note: I'm assuming the 13th pitcher is something for the first week while Vargas gets some AB in the minors and the Twins rotation settles itself (I still think Duffey will go down to start rather than be either a late-inning reliever or a long-relief guy who might not be used -- they just have too much hope for him to do either one). After Opening Day, the Twins get two Royals right handed-starters. Then the Chicago series has two righties and then Quintana, a lefty. So it isn't until Sunday that the Twins face another lefty starter -- they may have made a move with Duffey by that point. It is worth nothing that the Tigers series following will likely see 2/3 left handed starters so it gets very lefty very quickly. I think we should reserve judgement til the end of the White Sox series. Because Opening Day matters in a weird way, the Twins weren't going to sit Kepler/Rosario/Mauer and the front office may have decided they could buy a week of Duffey as a failsafe for a suspect rotation. They might have seen that weren't facing any left-handed starters and thus had time to get Vargas some non-meaningful at-bats as he comes back from injury and didn't have to put Park on the 40 and then move him down when Vargas (their preferred option) was ready. The Opening Day Lineup was always gonna be funky. If Vargas wasn't ready and Park wasn't going to be up when Vargas was back, Duffey makes total sense for the first week.

There is decent baseball science that says put your best players at the top cuz they hit more. Not saying it's definitive but this isn't total idiocy.

Vargas also hits much better as a RHB against LHP. For what it's worth, Park hit right handed pitching better than left handed pitching last year. It's a small sample (183 PA against righties, 62 AB against lefties) but them's the numbers.

Do we have a concept that Vargas isn't going to be back soon? He was getting at bats in the Rochester vs. Twins exhibition game yesterday. If Vargas is going to be back after the first series of the season, then we're framing this wrong. The Twins ultimately chose Vargas over Park - they're carrying 13 pitchers for the first series because they're rigthly worried about a few starters but once Vargas is ready, he'll be back up and likely take the place of Duffey, who will head to AAA to start. At that point, this gnashing of teeth over Park is going to seem pretty overwrought. Choosing Vargas over Park is eminently defensible, especially if you look at Spring Training with a skeptical eye like you should. Park looks good but Vargas is younger, a switch hitter and showed promise in actual regular season games last year. Let's give the FO a break on this for a week or so. And Souhan is generally a moron, we should remember that.

Do we have a concept that Vargas isn't going to be back soon? He was getting at bats in the Rochester vs. Twins exhibition game yesterday. If Vargas is going to be back after the first series of the season, then we're framing this wrong. The Twins ultimately chose Vargas over Park - they're carrying 13 pitchers for the first series because they're rigthly worried about a few starters but once Vargas is ready, he'll be back up and likely take the place of Duffey, who will head to AAA to start. At that point, this gnashing of teeth over Park is going to seem pretty overwrought. Choosing Vargas over Park is eminently defensible, especially if you look at Spring Training with a skeptical eye like you should. Park looks good but Vargas is younger, a switch hitter and showed promise in actual regular season games last year. Let's give the FO a break on this for a week or so. And Souhan is generally a moron, we should remember that.

1) Hard to blame Molitor. On some level, he has to feel that he's coaching for his job. If he comes in with another 100 loss season playing the kids, he's an easy guy to axe to placate the fans. It makes sense he'd want to keep players. However, I think people here are decidedly wrong if they think he has veto power on any deals. He had a surprising amount of say in who made the roster (though the 13 man bullpen clearly shows the FO has a lot of sway) but if the FO decides to make a deal, it's going to happen. 2) I actually like the roster. I might have done things a bit different with Byung Ho (though if Vargas is ready for the season, maybe they see something they like more). The Twins didn't find the market they wanted for Dozier and Santana (to a lesser extent) this offseason. When you're maximizing value for guys, you sometimes have to wait. That can bite you in the butt but that's why it's not an easy job. The Twins have some decent pieces for a mini-fire sale. You can add Santiago/Gibson for starters (I can't see any team taking Hughes because of the big numbers on his deal, that would be more in the offseason) and the pen has a number of veteran guys who could fetch something if they have a nice (or Abad) first half - Breslow particularly but also Kintzler, Belisle or one of the younger Pressley/Rogers/Tonkin trio. 3) Agreed they'll cut bait on players quickly. With the exception of Wimmers and maybe Park (how useful are spring training numbers?) there aren't a lot of guys who needed to be on that roster. You could argue for just throwing guys to the wolves but I agree with the FO that it's much better to let those guys develop and force their way to the majors and in the meantime, see if some vets can bring back prospects. It hasn't been popular on TD but I think it's been a good spring.

Yeah, I'm with bighat on this one. I'm much more excited about Rosario. I think Kepler got moved up too quickly and I see his struggles from last year continuing this spring. He's just raw for the level and I think he'll be back and forth between AAA and the majors this year. He's still got an insanely bright future and I think he'll be okay but he's really really raw.

Excited about Breslow. He may wash out but he seems like a guy you could trade for something decent at the deadline if he has a nice year. There's always a market for LH relievers and Breslow has "playoff experience" and "veteran savvy." Might get an okay prospect and make way for a younger guy.

Hayley is long relief so Tonkin seems like a 1 inning guy for now . . .

My hope for the health front is that Sano is only playing at 3B against right handed starters. When the Twins (hopefully) rest Mauer against most lefties, I hope they take advantage of the situation and put Sano at DH/1B and get Escobar some time at SS/3B. It'll make the defense better and help preserve Sano's health. I'm hopeful for a bigger year from Sano. He should have much better protection behind him and batters on in front of him. Hopefully get a few more fastballs over the plate.

I mean, Duffey is still a young guy, he's only 26 to Mejia's almost 24. It's not like they put Vogelsong in the rotation over young guys. Duffey isn't eligible for arbitration for two more years, he wouldn't be picking an old guy with no future. And I'm not sure which young guy should have made it over Danny Santana. Santana is 26 and is younger than Adrianza, JB Schuck and Vargas (albeit by three months), the other guys who could have taken that last spot. There's no young guy Santana is blocking. The Twins don't have anyone young who they want to be the 25th man - we all want Vielma, Garver and Granite to be playing every day and working on their game, not languishing as a backup who starts once every week or two and gets a few late innings every once in awhile. I'd have liked to have seen Wimmers over Haley (I still hold some hope for Tonkin, I never wanna give up early on a guy with his tools) but get wanting to hold onto a guy with Haley's upside. Wimmers will be first one up if anyone gets hurt/sucks. Chargois can use a few months in the minors before forcing his way onto the team. Not too worried about him. Unlikely as it may seem, Belisle, Breslow and Kintzler may be worth something at the deadline. I'm okay with keeping them - I just want a short leash if one of them goes Jepsen's way.

Oh man, Vogelsong. The panicked fretting on TD was amazing. I almost miss it.

I hope this happens but no way Mauer bats 4th even if he hits 18 bombs. Much better choices in Sano, Vargas etc. Mauer in your scenario is the ideal #2 or #3 hitter. Huge OBP, pop. I hope this happens more than almost anything.

Mauer's first pitch strike % (60.1%) is right about league average (59.5%). So taking that first pitch doesn't appear to be hurting him much (and perhaps helping him and his teammates see more of pitchers). Just a thought.

I've been saying the BABIP all off-season. I'm glad it wasn't a figment of my imagination.