Han Joelo

Brothers: Please let this thread die and get back to filing your TPS reports, or you're going to have to come in on Saturday. Yours truly, your Boss. (Or your mom, upstairs) seriously though, when evaluating marginal prospects, I guess I'm in the kool-aid camp and say tie goes to character. Not saying Benson is low character, just the wrong kind. Peace.

Love the first hand observations coupled with the graphics. Thanks for reporting. Last night I was reading a resurrected thread here detailing various George Costanza GM's expected haul in a Denard Span trade last summer. Expectations were rather high, and, I think, justifiably so. Span was a great trade chip. Regardless of his stats thus far, I still think the highest praise one can give to Meyer is that he was traded straight up for a starting big league CFer. I hope he hasn't mentally internalized that and put more pressure on himself, but it would be understandable if he had. I was listening to the John Feinstein interview of Stan Kasten on the radio yesterday, and he retold the story of how the Braves acquired Smoltz for Doyle Alexander. He said they had definitely targeted him for a long time, and it was a long process before the Tigers caved and gave him up. I see the lengthy Twins/Nats Spandance as a similar story. I hope.

When you look at how he's yo-yoed the last couple years, along with the hand injury deal, which (I'm probably wrong on this) might have stemmed from him punching the wall in frustration, I feel like this was an ADMIRABLE move by the Twins. He still has a chance, it just wasn't going to happen here. As far as CF depth, yeah, another 40 man decision needs to be made. Good. Time to start churning. Hellfire, just get it over with and bring up Buxton already. Or at least Angel Morales. He's prime to get called up to AA; lets compare his and Benson's numbers at the end of the year.

As Frank Costanza said to George Steinbrenner: "Why the Hell did you trade Jay Buhner?!" Every organization has moves that can come back to haunt them. The Twins have their own set of guys reclaimed from other teams that are performing well. I wish Benson the best. I don't read too much into Ryan's quote about his emotions; if anything I view it opposite. He said they didn't want to take his edge away, just help him not let his emotions overwhelm him. I'm not sure how related this all is, but didn't he break his hand punching the wall in anger at some point? Is this the same "hamate" injury that has dogged him and affected his hitting?

Cryptic comment about Rosario, Seth. I hope he's not in too much trouble. Bad timing with Michael and Meija doing well. Is Meija an under the radar breakout guy? At any rate, the Twins now have several intriguing MI prospects in the low minors.

Too early to get over-excited for Romero to the big leagues sometime this year?

Deduno didn't have to re-sign with the Twins this offseason. Maybe this is a bit of a loyalty thing.

I completely agree MWLFan. Just because I don't comment several times a day (or week) doesn't mean I don't enjoy being a part of this community. The daily rant threads are both interesting from a baseball standpoint as well as a sociological perspective. Currently, Oswaldo Arcia is beating up on a bunch of younger players at High-A...

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Just imagine a 16-4 Miracle team adding Buxton and maybe Berrios. Maybe dominating in the minors would translate to the majors.

Pretty sure the nickname is "Buck"

Holy schnikies!! Hilarious. Site Admins: If this is a regular post, please front page it every time. So much more readable than the daily diatribes about the Twins' mismanagement of the DL or the fifth starter. The writing sounds eerily familiar...Batgirl?

Turning a few dp's as well.

Los Angeles Angels deal with Arte Moreno's decisions - MLB News | FOX Sports on MSN This same article has a bunch on how the Angels are suffering from their owner spending too much money.

Hilarious comment, LaBombo. For me, I'll go Jason Tyner. He was my "ceiling" as a Major leaguer. My floor, of course, was much, much lower. But the only time I've ever seen the Twins live, he almost hit a home run out of Safeco.

Despite the Iglecias 2-run homer, Gibson's game log thru 4 innings looked pretty good. The wheels definitely fell off, unfortunately. Not too worried. I just did a quick scan of Mayo's top 100 recent results, and lots and lots of higher rated prospects are off to rough starts. SSS. I also read thru the Ft. Myers game log. I know you can't read too much into it, but Rosario seemed to figure in a lot of plays that resulted in outs, and Sano contributed as well. What it up with this weather? I didn't really know how bad it was back east until my in-laws ran into blizzard closures in Nebraska enroute from Michigan to Idaho.

Home to a solid minority of frequent tone-deaf posters whom, on a daily basis, endlessly chase their tails debating hypothetical minutia and seem like they would be much happier and less angst (and "snark") ridden if they were instead Tampa Bay Rays fans. Welcome from the silent majority who either avoid your BYTO threads altogether or read them for the flat out sociologic fascination they provide. Not everybody has time to post 25 times a day, as the pot calls the kettle black!

Great read, Seth. Once again, fun to hear about the human (not math) side of baseball.

I was listening on the radio when Sano made the errors. Stuiffie was getting hit hard and then finally had a grounder that should've been an out and Sano bobbled it. Very next hitter and Sano fields cleanly but airmails the throw to first. However, an inning or two later, he made what sounded like a quick reaction/medium hard fielding play, maybe to his right, and then threw a total strike to first to nail the hitter. With that arm, I love the potential at third. Hell, if Miguel Cabrera can do it...

Thanks. It's refreshing to hear from people who get to see these guys live vs. ad nauseous regurgitations of Internet scouts.

Thanks to you and your team, John. I'm an Idaho farm kid who was 12 in 87 and clearly remember the '91 series. In my twenties, I lost interest. Around 2003 I guess, I read a Bill Simmons article that linked to Bat-Girl that linked to Aaron that linked to Seth and you and the gang. I got back into baseball thanks to bloggers. Obviously, the Twins were getting better, I was at a different point in my life (married, kids--up at 5:30 a.m. to read TD and TT) but it was also a cool symbiotic thing--I have a BA in Creative Writing, I enjoy baseball--so its pretty cool to get both things. I have a spring training game streaming on my phone right now as I type this. I don't enjoy the "snark"--a word that seems to be an excuse to be a jerk on the internet. But, to each their own. As someone pointed out, there seems to be a bunch of folks that used to follow a defunct website (BYTO? WTF?) and they want to enjoy the content here but get in constant internet arguments. Well, welcome to them, but maybe open a forum specifically for them or something. Honestly, I read through these threads (rarely commenting) like I am at the scene of a car crash. I've posted at TT a few times. Once, I had a post that was in the top 3 or 5 rec'd of all times--I analogized the Twins with the Fellowship of the Rings. The last one I did was a total clunker--after one comment I wanted to just delete it. Hard not to be sensitive, but until I sequester myself in a cabin and write a novel, throwing up comments and the occasional posts are as close as I'll come to being a professional writer. Thanks to all of you for what you do.

I have a 4 year old and a 1.5 year old (both boys.) My wife and I swore they wouldn't watch TV or play video games. Ever. Needless to say, even the baby knows how to turn on an iPod. All this is to say, the world has changed somewhat. I really wanted to hit a minor league game last year with the boys but was afraid I'd waste the money on tickets and expensive food just so I could spend the time chasing boys up and down the stadium steps. But you know; even that would be worth it--at the ballpark with my boys, beer in a plastic cup, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd when a homerun is hit (that I didn't get to see.) Baseball is a lot of different things to people. I appreciate the diversity and enjoy the banter on this site and others. I hope that for the folks who have delved into the numbers part of baseball Matrixball style, you can respect those of us who might enjoy that part of the game but really just like baseball because...its a game. ps: I did happen to have the game on t.v. when Jimmers mashed his 600th. I wasn't really able to watch much of the game due to family duties, but in a perfect moment in the space-time continuum, I was watching, and even told my son "watch this," and then I went crazy when he actually hit it out. I'm sure my 2-year old son had very little understanding of what had just happened, but he went wild too.

Parmalee is too low for me as well. I'd put him third based on batting. Other than that, no complaints. Personally, I think Morneau has a season that puts him in the MVP debate. But that is just my gut (full of beer) talking.

So who is in? Roenicke or Robertson?

Scary that I'm asking this, but is there any word on how Blackburn looks this spring? Or is he hurt? I'm just surprised he hasn't been heard from at all.