gmarais66

Well, when you don't want to trade prospects for top starting pitching and you aren't willing to pay the top free agent starting pitchers, this is what you get... Garbage. Only the names have changed in the Twins' front office. The bargain-bin mentality on starting pitching is alive and well at Target Field. They almost had me believing for a minute that things had changed, but this signing proves that we are in for more of the same old painful strategy that brought us memorable names like Jason Marquis, Mike Pelfrey, Ricky Nolasco and Kevin Corriea.

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.

According to Berardino, the Twins signed some minor league players, with invites to major league camp. They include infielders Tommy Field and Leonardo Reginatto from last year; rhp Drew Rucinski, catchers Eddy Rodgriguez and Dan Rohlfing, and infielder Benji Gonzalez.

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

Yesterday on 1500's The Ride with Reusse, Joe Schmidt of KSTP said he'd heard through sources that Allen and Brunansky were already axed. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

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.

In MLB transactions, I saw the Twins signed free agent pitcher Blair Lasko. I did some digging and apparently he's an undrafted college pitcher from Buffalo University. Nothing too unusual about that, except this year for Buffalo, he had a ghastly 8.84 ERA and walked 21 batters in 19 innings. In his college career he only pitched 23 innings and posted an career 8.75 ERA. Looks like the Twins' scouting team has found another gem, who is sure to be a big piece of the team's future.

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.

Anyone know what happened to him? I keep watching the DSL Twins box scores and he hasn't played since the beginning of July.

Everyone should want Sano to start hitting the ball all over the field, instead of trying to swing as hard as he can to pull everything. They were just talking in Tuesday's game about how Sano needs to figure out that he should hit like Miguel Cabrera, using the whole field. Sano is strong enough to hit home runs to right field, as well. It's the same thing that Dozier finally figured out this season. Using the whole field is a good thing.

Albers has no business pitching in the major leagues... This team seems to have no idea what it's doing with pitchers. There is obviously no plan of any kind in place about how they want to proceed or develop pitchers. It's like chickens running around with their heads cut off.

Classic Tommy Milone. Why don't they just cut him loose?

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.

Although countless Twins' fans would like to see Ryan canned, it's just not going to happen. We can all say we want it to happen or it should happen, but the Pohlads are not going to fire him. They will chalk it up to bad breaks and stand firmly behind him, as the whole pattern continues in 2017. Even if Ryan somehow decided to quit, as it was mentioned earlier, Anthony would be hired as the new GM. Why? Because that's what the Twins do. They only hire from within. Many of the people on this forum probably weren't even born the last time the Twins hired a GM or manager from outside the organization. It's frustrating and demoralizing, but it's reality. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. That's the Twins' management in a nutshell.

I think it's telling that a publication with such a high standing in the sports world recognizes the ineptitude that is the Twins' front office. It also affirms the belief of so many Twins' fans that something is fatally flawed in the way the team goes about the business of constructing its roster. Will it change anything? Highly unlikely. It will be business as usual for the foreseeable future. As long as the team is making money, I don't think the Pohlads are motivated to do anything to change the front office. So we are stuck watching mistake after mistake play out in one miserable season after another. It's sad and it's frustrating, but there's nothing we can do about it.

I don't know why there are so many negative comments on this move. We are through just one-fourth of the season and the Twins starters have been lucky to throw five innings (see the UGLY 2 2/3 innings Nolasco threw last night). At this pace, they are going to be burning through relievers at a breathtaking pace. They need every arm they can get. Chances are good, nearly every reliever in Rochester is going to be called into service at some point. Ryan is just restocking the shelves for the inevitable need for arms down the road.

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