ashbury

Or, amjgt, start a thread in the forum called http://www.twinsdaily.com/forumdisplay.php/8-Questions-About-MinnCentric , if you feel it needs public airing for some reason. The purpose behind the TD Comment Policy isn't to squelch discussion. It's to foster it, and side topics (like this one) in a thread don't do that.

I was kidding about Morris, obviously he's ancient history that doesn't pertain and the smiley face was there to avoid any serious discussion arising from him. Morris is always the answer when FA pitching comes up, it's pretty much like adding Duensing to any trade for a star. I wanted to make sure what I thought you were saying about the move. If signing him was a bad move, then it's only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I normally don't like digging out people's words, and the TD search for the term "Nolasco" only goes back to February anyway, but I don't find many posters saying it was bad move then, including you. A move is bad only at the time it is made. After that, you have an underperfoming member of the team. They should do something, but questioning the move isn't productive, inviting criticism of the very thing most folks were clamoring for the FO to do. We all had our preferences whom to get, but no one at the time stated that Nolasco would be the worst starter in the league at the All-Star Break.

I have that belief too. I reconcile it by viewing two different results - with a non-baseball man as GM, Gardy had too much say in the acquisition (and disposition!) area, while with a baseball man in the big chair, Gardy (and by extension his staff) isn't sufficiently invested in the roster decisions and then sours on an underperforming player quickly if he's not of the right personality.

Yes, it was sobering when I looked at his ERA after the game and realized that to end up with a sub-3.00 ERA for the season he would now have to pitch shutouts every single game from here on out.

I'm unclear. They haven't (to my knowledge) made a recent "move" regarding Nolasco. Or are you saying option/bullpen would be a terrible move? Jack Morris?

I woke up (West Coast time) to a thread that already had exploded. I read through it, and this is the comment that comes closest to my view. Worley's case is similar to some cases for the Twins in the past, going across the regime of two GMs (related lineage of course), sitting at the intersection between Player Evaluation and Coaching. Coaching involves evaluation of course, independently of the evaluation that has to go on for acquisitions. Cases like JJ Hardy, Carlos Gomez, Delmon Young, seem with retrospect to be where the scouts/evaluators said "this is the guy to get", the GM confers and pulls the trigger, and then somehow the on-field guys some time later say in effect "I don't know what to do with this guy". There's some success, there's some time in the doghouse, and ultimately the player is dispatched. I realize two of the names above were traded for each other; it's the process I'm concerned about. Part of being a GM is Systems Analysis. From an outsider's perspective like mine, there is a disconnect between talent evaluation and coaching. They need to become more on the same page than they are at least showing. I'm going to stick my neck out and guess that the difference is in views on the players' makeup and mental approach. It's not working, apparently, for the GM to tell the manager and his coaches, "here are the guys you have to work with this year, get the most out of them". There needs to be more buy-in, somehow, so that players aren't thrown under the bus when they don't succeed for a time. I don't know the solution, but it's an identifiable problem, and probably a solution exists without blowing up the organization.

I guess I'm in the minority but I expect this to be a moot question at the end of the season, with Ryan's health concern adding to his previous reluctance to commit to taking the job again and resulting in his stepping back to a "consulting" position. I am worried that Rob Antony is already anointed as his successor, and from what I've seen of him in public I view him as a competent senior member of the front office but a bit lacking in the "put me out front" skills required of the GM. Hope I'm wrong - either that they do look outside the organization for someone's assistant GM with the right skillset and no opportunity for immediate advancement, or that Antony has the complete package and I'm not seeing it.

Plouffe!!! / in retrospect, giving up 6 runs in the first 2 innings was not such a good idea after all

He should be in AAA honing this skill.

Trade him. Add Duensing to sweeten the deal, of course.

I wouldn't fire him. But I think it may prove to be a moot question by season's end, as Ryan's health situation may make it wiser to let him move to a consulting/subordinate role anyway. The question then is whether to promote from within, and from what I've seen of Antony I would guess that his strengths play better in a subordinate role as well. Somebody's 45-year-old assistant GM is probably the way to go, and I don't know which of the other teams' candidates to recommend.

A stray reference to Airplane! will do that.

You never know for sure which day is the right one for giving up snorting cocaine, either.

Looks like we picked the wrong day to score 4 runs in the first 4 innings.

There is no such thing as a bad one-year contract. Look at these as a series of one-year contracts.

This game may prove to be responsible for a spate of self-asphyxiation reports, and not even of the erotic variety.

ftfy^2

A tale of woe. Perhaps if the game starts to drag a bit I will elaborate.

Nah, he'll be fine for the rest of the contract. I just jinxed him today.

Not touching that straight line.

Nolasco's latest Twins photo: / because he's gotten, you know, tattooed so many times

ftfy

Fuld with a nice leaping catch. Followed immediately by a Revere-like three-bouncer to the cutoff man.

I know. But we've got to celebrate the little victories when they happen. That, plus I look forward to a day when the Twins pitching is uniformly good enough that it's not a jinx to recognize it as such. Fans of a good team would laugh at me for worrying about such a paltry jinx.