ashbury

This Webster guy pitching is skinny.

If he doesn't get some hits pronto, that point may be arriving Real Soon Now.

No Parmelee. An obvious but good move IMO.

I don't recall hearing there was a knock on the 'D' in Dozier.

He went 4-5. How in the world?

I'm going to be out of town for a couple of weeks starting Saturday; maybe I should ask you to be in charge of this page for that time in case he goes nuts at the plate.

But But But... Postseason!

There isn't. But 1) there is the weight of numbers of such players that 2015 looks like a window to aim for - management has to forecast something in order to plan. And 2) the Twins will be very sad if Sano flames out but he won't cost the team any money that makes them have to re-prioritize like a big contract would.

Go for it, my brother. I felt it was fair to look at top 28-year-olds, whether or not they were up for new contracts, as comps for Sanchez. I suppose there is the folklore that players let up once they are comfortable, but I don't really go for that.

I'm not concerned about a Valencia-style of losing faith in Hicks. But you're almost certainly right that the company shills would not be saying something on-air unless they were getting the word from inside - channeling, as you say.

I like to trot out my Mastro anecdote from spring training 2012, when he was quoted as TK advising him "let's keep the 360s to a minimum out there" after a bad route to a fly ball. He contrasted that to getting "reamed out" for such things in Toronto. But. What do you as manager do when the low-key approach has been tried and it's not getting through. And this is what we don't know. Because by its nature, the low-key approach isn't made known. This is one where I don't see how in the world we judge. I side with the manager, up until the moment any other evidence comes along.

Nurse is right that $80M wouldn't do it. But the angle I was taking was whether to go after him at all, once a 5-year contract at significant per-year price was established. As for WH's point about Zito, I was trying to take a less-anecdotal approach and consider an off-season five years earlier than when I was writing, and use that to try to project five years from then. Seven pitchers is SSS of course, but when the argument is that Sanchez is special due to his young age at 28, SSS may be all you get. I guess I'm trying to claim that SSS > anecdote. Since I'm not sure what longitudinal means in this context, I have to take a pass on your last paragraph. It's true that one bad contract like Zito's does not have to kill a team, and revenues/contracts have historically tended to rise, but it makes threading the needle just that much harder; 18 million here and 18 million there and pretty soon you're talking big money. Thanks for the comments.

When putting it that way sounds so ridiculous, it's a pretty good sign you didn't get it straight. Short-term talent is what you use to supplement the MLB-ready youngsters until the rest of the core is ready. I don't know whether the jump from AA to Target Field for Hicks was purely a talent evaluation, or if it was motivated by no better option being there. I'm not advocating signing 15 roster fillers; I'm saying that 2-year contracts make sense now, and when the core group of youngsters arrives then judicious 4-year commitments make much greater sense. To sign the 4-year contracts now means assuming the risk that the later years may prove to be a waste of money, while the reward only applies with much certainty to the rebuilding team. By waiting another offseason or two, you can achieve the same risk while applying the reward to an actual contending team. It's true that the caliber of player you attract with a 2-year offer is lower than those who demand 4 years. That weighs into the calculation. But to me the certainty of a Greinke or Sanchez being the same high-caliber pitcher in 2015 is not nearly great enough.

The recent PG-rated commercials have me thinking those little candy guys could be good too.

He got sent to the PCL in June and wasn't invited back. Gotta sting.

From Seth's daily report on minor league results, the 16-inning May 7 game in Toledo: Joe Benson was 2-6 with a walk and two doubles. Nice.

Coming soon to the Amazon.com best-seller list: "Don't Sweat The Big Stuff" by R. Clyde Gardenhire

Gardenhire establishes who is in charge in the dugout, no different than a manager on his first day on the job, or a manager in the middle of a decade-long run of last-place finishes. "Until the day the GM tells me otherwise, this is MY team." Choosing to give a public tongue-lashing to a rookie has nothing whatsoever to do with his W-L record. The axe-grinding forum is down the hall.

It's a fine art to know how to treat each player. But, this is the majors. If a tongue-lashing over a minor defensive miscue (a false step back) plus a bit of hotdoggery (the flip) puts Hicks in a funk, then the check-box for "good make up" on his scouting sheet was in error. I don't know the young man, but I'm with the opinion stated elsewhere here that the outcome could very well be a nice game for him tonight rather than a black cloud of depression.

Shoot. The one double-header I got down to Reno to see, and Shipley wasn't pitching. I had meant to get down there once more, with him in mind, but I'm heading out of town for a couple of weeks and it ain't gonna happen. TD is going to have to suffer without my in-person scouting report.

Back in December when the Sanchez signing was current, I did a bit of casual research and wrote it up. I didn't blog it at the time but have done so now: Would you have gone 5 years and $80M for Anibal Sanchez? - Blogs - Minnesota Twins News & Rumors Forum . I didn't purposely cherry-pick but maybe there's a flaw; still, the guys that turned up make me think twice.

This is a repeat of a forum post I made in December 2012. I'm blogging it now mostly for my own convenience; I took the time to look up several pitchers and I don't want to have to search again when I try to remember what I learned. The question was, if you were GM would you have matched the 5/$80M deal for Detroit's Anibal Sanchez? The context now is, when if ever would you sign a pitcher to a long term deal, given that there is room in the budget until the rookies start to earn big dough ... My snap reaction was yes I would sign Sanchez. Then I tried to think about how Terry Ryan sees it, in terms of risk. Sign him to 5 years, then the last year of the contract you'll be paying him (say) $15M or $16M in 2017. This is right in the heart of the new window of competitiveness, right? Will that $16M be part of the winning formula? Or will it be a boat-anchor preventing you from making a deal to push this juggernaut team to a second straight title? Well, roll the clock back 5 years to 2007. Not that all of these pitchers were available to sign at the time, but let's focus on who was completing his 28-year-old season, just as Sanchez is now. Limit it to guys who clearly were established starters. These 28-year-olds were: Carlos Silva Johan Santana Gil Meche John Lackey Jeremy Guthrie Mark Buehrle Erik Bedard Isn't this kind of a Murderer's Row of pitchers who teams actually *did* make an investment in? And with the exception of Buehrle, aren't they the ones that, 5 years later, fans of their current teams wail and gnash their teeth over? Now put yourself in Ryan's shoes. Are you really going to pull the trigger on Sanchez for 5 years? As I said above, I would. And this quick little bit of research reaffirms my reminder to myself, that when Terry Ryan and I disagree about something, take another good hard look.

This is a repeat of a forum post I made in December 2012. I'm blogging it now mostly for my own convenience; I took the time to look up several pitchers and I don't want to have to search again when I try to remember what I learned. The question was, if you were GM would you have matched the 5/$80M deal for Detroit's Anibal Sanchez? The context now is, when if ever would you sign a pitcher to a long term deal, given that there is room in the budget until the rookies start to earn big dough ... My snap reaction was yes I would sign Sanchez. Then I tried to think about how Terry Ryan sees it, in terms of risk. Sign him to 5 years, then the last year of the contract you'll be paying him (say) $15M or $16M in 2017. This is right in the heart of the new window of competitiveness, right? Will that $16M be part of the winning formula? Or will it be a boat-anchor preventing you from making a deal to push this juggernaut team to a second straight title? Well, roll the clock back 5 years to 2007. Not that all of these pitchers were available to sign at the time, but let's focus on who was completing his 28-year-old season, just as Sanchez is now. Limit it to guys who clearly were established starters. These 28-year-olds were: Carlos Silva Johan Santana Gil Meche John Lackey Jeremy Guthrie Mark Buehrle Erik Bedard Isn't this kind of a Murderer's Row of pitchers who teams actually *did* make an investment in? And with the exception of Buehrle, aren't they the ones that, 5 years later, fans of their current teams wail and gnash their teeth over? Now put yourself in Ryan's shoes. Are you really going to pull the trigger on Sanchez for 5 years? As I said above, I would. And this quick little bit of research reaffirms my reminder to myself, that when Terry Ryan and I disagree about something, take another good hard look.

Rebuilding is exactly when it makes sense to acquire short-term talent. You can't leave the fans with nothing to come to the ballpark for; revenue will dry up and it's very difficult to get it back even with good teams sometimes. Here's a good article that in part covers what happened in Cleveland: Felix Hernandez, Superstars, and Frictional Costs | FanGraphs Baseball

I sit ashamed, here the next morning, to see that I completely missed that.