gmarais66

The good news is that he's equally bad against both righties and lefties. He gets shelled by everyone.

Maybe the Twins' braintrust has some obscure sabermetric stats that tell them this guy could be a No. 1 starter.

I love the fact that Tommy Milone replaced him on the Mets' roster. What does that tell you?

He makes Pat Dean look like Cy Young.

There is absolutely nothing in this guy's history that even hints he could be an effective major league pitcher. He has been awful.

It sure doesn't look like this off-season. Even though leadership has changed, nothing has changed in the way the Twins conduct their off-season business. The team loses 103 games and all they have done is sign a catcher who is good at pitch framing. Oh, yes... I nearly forgot, they have also signed a bus load of re-treads, just like Ryan used to do (Vogelsong, Shuck, etc.). And just like Ryan, they had a window to get maximum value out of a player, who will never be worth more, and they fail to work out a trade. Nothing has been done to address the pitching staff, which was pathetic, and they haven't done anything to improve their dismal defense. They haven't taken any chances... Haven't tried anything creative... It's just more of the same.

The Angels traded Haley to the Twins for cash, not for Diaz. Diaz is expected to be traded later.

Anthopoulos probably thought he had no chance to compete with an established baseball genius like Anthony , so he figured why go through the whole interview process, only to see Anthony get the job.

There's a lot of finger pointing here, which is expected, because there are so many problems within the Twins' organization. If you break it down though, the two biggest problems with this team in the last six years have been pitching and defense. This year's team has not been horrible offensively, but no team can be expected to have to score seven or eight runs a game to have a chance to win. It's safe to say that with even a middle-of-the-road starting rotation, this team would have won many more games than it has. It never seemed to me that Ryan put much of an emphasis on starting pitching, which was very frustrating and confusing. Granted, one year he did try to acquire talented prospects in May and Meyer, which has been a disaster to this point. Beyond that he signed one re-tread starter after another or relied on soft-throwing sub-marginal starters from the Twins' system. The result was complete collapse. Even casual Twins' fans had little hope the starting rotation could be effective from one year to the next, so how did a major league general manager honestly believe he was assembling a competitive starting rotation? Absolutely mind boggling... On the defensive side, it seems like an organizational failure. Players are somehow going through the entire system, not learning defensive basics. I'm not sure how or why this change occurred, but it is absolutely unacceptable for major league players to look that pathetic in the field. There is no excuse for it other than large-scale organizational ineptitude. I'm hopeful that whatever personnel replaces Ryan can turn this ship around. At first glance it seems almost insurmountable, but I if they can address pitching and defense in a bold fashion, I think it can turn around quite quickly.

Any deal that gets Nolasco out of town is a good deal....

Per MLB Trade Rumors, the Marlins are now looking for another starter after trading Rea back to the Padres. Maybe they'll be desperate enough, as the clock winds down, to take Nolasco...

Duffey is certainly stinking it up tonight. His fastball must look like a beach ball to the Red Sox hitters.

The fatal flaws with your argument are that you are equating the amount of money a team spends with their on-field success, which we all know is a myth; and that you are suggesting you know how much the Pohlads are willing to spend, which you don't. I think the Twins' GM job would be attractive for many qualified candidates, because of the young talent pool and the possibility for short-term and long-term success.

I'm guessing it will be nothing short of agonizing.

Let's hope Sparky Mastroianni is starting tonight. The Twins could really use his grit in the lineup.