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I dont think the Twins had a plan otherwise this article would not be written. Last year in AAA, Gonsalves had a 2.96 ERA and struck out 95 in 100 innings. HIs career minor league K/9 is 9.5. AS a minor leaguer he missed a lot of bats or had some other special magic (I missed Gonsalves every time in Ft Myers so I have never watched him pitch). I understand that major league hitters are different than minor league hitters but that is what minor league development is for. The Twins moved him slowly and carefully through the minors. I get that it is a huge step and takes time to adjust to pitching in the majors. But these arguments posited by this article is different than simple adjustment. It is pitch make up and other mechanical issues that should have been address 3 years ago.

Good information. But, then, it makes the real question pop out all the more. What have the Twins been doing with Gonsalves all of these years for him to arrive at the major league level with all of these weaknesses? It isn't as if Gonsalves is a 20 year old guy rushed to the major leagues. In fact, the Twins have been very patient with him as the following career path demonstrates: 2013 Gulf Coast (Rookie)/Elizabethton(Rookie) 2014 Elizabethton(Rookie)/Cedar Rapids (A) 2015 Cedar Rapids (A)/Ft Myers (A+) 2016 Ft Myers (A+)/Chattanooga (AA) 2017 Chattanooga (AA)/Rochester (AAA) 2018 Chattanooga(AA)/Rochester(AAA)/Minnesota Gonsalves was statistically succesful at every level. His career ERA is below 2.50 at every level up to AA, and it is 3.44 in AAA when you include his 2017 AAA exposure that wasn't his best. Yet, despite this success at every level, Gonsalves repeated the level he was to start every season of his minor league career, with the exception of 2017 where his unsuccessful stint at AAA made the Twins start him back in AA again. Gonsalves is 24 years old, and even though I am an advocate of agressive prospect promotion, I agree that there are some players like him that require a more measured approach. But, I will ask the question again: What has the Twins organization been doing with him since 2013 for him to be so in need of further work? If the Twins followed my approach and moved him through the minors more agressively and he reached the majors with some of these issues it might be understandable. Maybe he will, as the author suggests, reach his potential 2-3 years from now bouncing back and forth between MN and AAA. And for some guys that works. But that seems to be the default plan for the Twins which is another reason why we are in the position we are in.

Excellent title for a book.

1. Other teams have other ways of acquiring talent. Teams are also in different modes. I guess in retrospect, the Twins do too but their ownership has never spent money. 2. Kris Bryant spent 1.5 years in the minors. The other huge difference is that the Cubs were a 97 win team the Bryant's rookie season. 3. I am not claiming this is a "great" strategy just the only real way of rebuilding a team with the Twins limitations to a competitive level. A "better" strategy would be to allocate $200 million to signing free agents, use the prospects in our system to acquire high end veteran players from other teams wanting to dump their salaries, and put together an all-star team. Think that is going to happen?????

The Twins will not be competitive unless you call winning 85 games "competitive". The only chance they have, and the only chance they have basically had in the past 20 years, is that we are in the weakest division in major league baseball. The Twins teams of the early 2000's (2002-2010) were good 90+ win teams that made the playoffs but it was mostly because they were in the a non0-competitive division. Their 6-21 playoff record demonstrates they simply were not truly competitive. This team isn't anywhere close to the team of that era.

Duh....the problem for Minnesota is that they really have no other recourse to building a team. While Minneapolis/St Paul isn't necessarily a "small" market, it is a 4 major franchise market/state with the least commitment to sports. One example I use to show how Minnesota lacks a commitment to sports is to look at the D-1 (non-hockey) sports programs in the state. Minnesota has exactly ONE D-1 football and exactly ONE D-1 basketball programs int he state. Iowa has 2 D-1 football programs. Indiana has 4. Mississippi 3. They have even more D-1 basketball programs while we still have the one....... This isn't just limited to amateur sports. Local revenues, particularly broadcasting revenues, for the MN professional sports have always lagged markets of similar size and even smaller. So, this limits our ownership and their desire to spend money to build teams. The Twins organization is cheap, cheap, cheap to the core. I have a friend who's father in law worked for the Twins in a very high capacity. His peers around the league made fun of him because the Twins made their employees, even at his level, share hotel rooms when on the road and they have to fly coach (I live in Ft Myers and one time I was on a Sun Country coach flight and was 2 rows behind Terry Ryan and Bill Smith. The Twins ownership is cheap, cheap, cheap.) The Minnesota Twins are very unlikely to ever: 1. Sign a top level free agent ; 2. Trade for a highly compensated veteran player or ; 3. Even trade a high level prospect for a veteran player. Any truly competitive team the Twins will field in the modern free agency era is going to be built on a core of internally developed prospects or young players developed by the team acquired by trades or other sources. WHen the Twins do these elements right, they could well have success as the 87 and 91 World Champions and the 2002-2010 era that had 6 playoff appearances in nine years (albeit, brief playoff appearances). But, this course is a hard road to follow and if all of the elements do not fall in line, the team will not be competitive and that is why success has been fleeting for this organization. Putzing around with lower end free agents will only brign mediocrity and just delay the development you need to do to make a competitive team in MInnesota. If I run the team, Royce Lewis is my starting shortstop from Day 1 ofthe 2019 season. Alex Kiriloff is my starting RF. Romero and Gonsalves are in the rotation. Nick Gordon is my starting 2B. Brent Rooker will play some LF, RF, 1B, and DH enough to get 400+ plate appearnces. Luis Arraez will play a utility role to get 300+ plate appearances. Willians Astudilio will split the catching with Garver, as well as play some utility role (and I would have a game scheduled with PR where he will play all 9 positions). A huge piece of the puzzle will be figuring out how to fit the carry over players of the previous "prospect" group: Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco but they have to be given a lot of opportunity to play. Is this team "ready"? Of course not. It probably will lose 100+ games but by the end of the 2019 season you should start to see signigicant improvement in many of these guys, no matter how young. That improvement should carry over into 2020 and signigicant improvement in 2021. Add in the "tanking" impact of drafting at the top of the draft, as well as the development of the next wave of players like Blake Enlow, and maybe we can develop a competitive team and maintain it until the financial costs become significant and ownership just will not budget keeping it intact.

Everything is relative. Hitters are bigger and stronger too.

I assume that you mean the pitchers that threw for 100 innings in 1982. One was Frank Viola, whom I already mentioned. Viola was a 1981 2nd round pick who played less than a year of minor league ball. He was 22 when he made his Twins debut. Another was Brad Havens. Havens was one of the 4 players the Twins got in the Rod Carew trade (Dave Engle, Paul Hartzell, and Ken Landreaux were the others). He was 22 years old in 1982 but actually made a pretty decent debut in 1981 for the Twins. The rest of the staff were left overs and scrubs. Of the two left handers, Havens had the much better start of the career but I think he had arm problems in year 3. He could get AAA hitters out, but bounced around the major leagues with multiple teams for 7 more seasons, never really getting back to the 1981/82 levels he pitched at. Viola took 2 years to develop. He really took off in 1984 when this group made a mini-run at contention. A couple of mediocre years, then became Frank Viola and a true ace. So, lets say they start Frank Viola in Elizabethton in 1981 instead of AA. I am sure he completely blows the Rookie league hitters away and like a lot of college pitchers he is moved up to A league at end of year. He then starts 1982 in Wisconsin Rapids A level. 1983 he is in Visalia A+ and he does well enough to get promoted to AA. Since you can never be too sure, he repeats AA in 1984 and does AAA in 1985. He splits 1986 in AAA and the majors and in 1987 he is in the rotation full time but still developing. The problem is in 1984, a year the modern Twins approach would ahve him in AA, he placed 6th in the AL Cy YOung voting and the modern Twins conservative approach has him just starting his adjustment to the majors the year the Twins win the World Series.

Again, that isn't my point or my problem. I ASSUME that the players I bring up aren't ready to "handle" the major leagues. None of the Twins players brought up in 1982, the core of the 87 World Series Champs, were ready then either. They lost 102 games. As far as "service time", the Twins would apparently rather their players fail than have to pay them. If you bring the players up a year or two early and they don't play well, but then turn into great players and now you have to pay them, so what. I would rather have the great players than push them two more years in the minors THEN have to go through the same adjustment at the major league level. Hicks is a great example, actually, of everything I am speaking of. You bring the players up early, have patience with them as they develop and let them work through their mistakes. You have a manger and staff skilled and patient enough to work with the young players. The Twins did none of that. Hicks was 23 when he made his debut so he certainly wasn't "rushed". But then, the Twins had Ron Gardenhire as a manager and he simply could not tolerate workign with the young players. He was just the opposite of what the Twins from 2011 on needed, yet they kept him in the job for 4 seasons of 90+ losses. You could see the improvement in Hicks in 2015 when Molitor took over, but by then Hicks had worn out his welcome in MN. The fact is, in New York, Hicks' 2016 season was amongst his worst as at the major league level but they kept with him and he improved significantly the next two years. One of the biggest points I will make with Aaron Hicks as an example is that the potential in Aaron Hicks was ALWAYS there. He could have had his 2018 season earlier and in Minnesota. The problem was Minnesota did a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible job of developing him and other players. Couple that with very questionable draft and other personnel decisions, that is why we are where we are.

1. Because of his defensive liabilities, half of the league has limited interest. 2. I heard the Astros and Tampa made offers, but the Twins offer was significantly better. Considering that his year one salary is, for modern times, not all that much and the second year is a team option with a trivial buy out, whatever was being discussed with other teams could not have been a good offer. If Houston is anywhere in the ball park, he signs there and probably the same for Tampa (both states with no state income tax btw). 3. While Cruz was going to get signed somewhere because teams need power hitters, I think the interest was more limited because of Cruz's 2018 first half/second half splits. His OPS+ for the first half of the season was 146, but declined to 113 in the 2nd half. Cruz was down in every statistical measurement. 4. Of course, a OPS+ of 113 would be 2nd amongst current Twins, trailing only Eddie Rosario's 115 from last season. 5. Hopefully, Cruz will have a good season, but he will not be in a lineup that has the types of hitters that Seattle did. Last season, Seattle won 89 games with Cruz hitting 37 home runs and having an OPS of .850. But, Seattle ahd 6 hitters with at least 290 plate appearances with OPS > 100 last season. The Twins had 6, but 2 of those are no longer in the lineup and the Twins do not have comparable players to Robinson Cano and Mitch Hangier. 6. ASk yourself, why would a team that won 89 games in 2018 with arguably a much better lineup than the Twins not be interested in a productive AND POPULAR player returning on a very team friendly contract?

Sorry, this concept of "earning" it is idiotic. If earning a "shot at the show" is how it works why didn't the Twins give lefty David Hurlbut a "shot at the show"? He was a 28th round draft pick in 2011 out of Cal St Fullerton. He worked his way through the Twins system, having sub-3 ERAs in A and A+ levels, 3.54 ERA in AA, and solid stints in Rochester over parts of 3 seasons. If getting a shot is earned, why did the Twins just send back Romero and AStidulio after his first stint in the majors? What has Matt Belisle done to "earn" the appearances the Twins gave him? Romero, Gonsalves, Hurlbut, Curtiss, Reed, etc have all been succesful in the minor leagues and the Twins to date haven't given them much of a shot. What else do they have to do? Instead, you have to commit to the youthful talent of your organization, and pretending these guys have to "earn" it is exactly why we are in our 8th year of rebuilding with more questions than answers.

The most coveted DH available signed a relatively non-lucrative contract with the Minnesota Twins. I think you need to review what the word coveted means.

LOL....that is because they SPEND money. The Twins don't. They will never spend to that level to compete against these teams. The only real way to compete for this team is to build smart. Ask yourself, why didn't 29 other teams want Nelson Cruz? He is still a good player, but he doesn't move the needle much.

You are missing hte point of the term "quickly". You need to give these guys time at the MLB level. That is why you need to move quickly to get them up to the majors when you are rebuilding. This gives you time to evaluate. Jim Eisenreich did not work out. Lenny Faedo did not work out. But Puckett and Gagne did. If you move Eisenreich and Faedo conservatively and stepwise through the system like we do now, you simply do not find out soon enough. The process for rebuilding a team like Minnesota is bring up the absolute best prospect you have: Faedo and Eisenreich, as well as Gaetti, Brunansky, Hrbek, Laudner, Bush,Viola, Havens, Engle, Tuefel. Find which ones can play. WOrk through their growing pains (102 losses in 1982, 92 losses in 1984). Some do not work out: Faedo, Eisenreich, Havens, Engle. Then you bring in the replacements: Puckett, Gagne, Larkin. And if you have a solid group of players they will develop. Then, you fill in the gaps that your system could not: Dan Gladden, Jeff Reardon, Juan Berenger, Bert Blyleven (in 1987) and Chili Davis, Brian Harper, and Jack Morris in 1991 amongst others. What doesn't work is if the player isn't good enough. Then 10 years of the minors simply isn't going to solve anything. This is the point you are missing.

1. The minor league system is exactly the same as it was in 1982 as it is today. THis claim that it is different cannot be supported by any fact. Jumping a guy from A ball to the majors is the same today as it was then. 2. This was Kirby Puckett's minor league experience. Drafted in January 1982 Phase in the first round, he played rookie ball in 1982. Jumped to A+ VIsalia in 1982. Started 1984 in AAA and then was famously called up. He had 2 years worth of minor league experience. Now, if Puckett was developed the way we develop players now he would have started 1982 at Elizabethon. Then, next year 1983 he would be in A ball at Cedar Rapids, and maybe if he played well would have been promoted late in the season to A+ Fort Myers (my current home). 1984 would be the same from A+ to AA. Then not ready to "push" the player, perhaps returned to AA like LeMonte Wade or held in AAA for the 1985 season. Instead of making the majors at 22 years of age, he would be 25-26. 3. I am not sure who "Baker" is, but Lenny Faedo is the exact reason why you rush prospects. He didn't fail because he was "rushed", he failed because he wasn't any good. ANd because he was rushed, the Twins found this out and were then prepared to find a replacement. Faedo was a first round drft pick in 1978. He started in Rookie ball, moved to AA as a 19 year old, then AAA in 1981 as a 20 year old with a late call up with the rest of the guys. In 1982 he was the opening day starter. He just wasn't a good enough hitter, but the Twins found this out and were able to bring along a replacement, Greg Gagne by 1985. 4. They should have brought Garver up and used him as their catcher instead of Castro right then. Garver is a decent MLB hitter, not a great one, and he would have developed into a decent MLB hitter. This is how it works if you are willing to be patient and develop your players.

Capital is a limited resource. If you spend it now, you do not have it later. If you made the mistake above, you have $15 million less capital to work with because you made the error. For many owners, $15 million is chickenSht and nothing to worry about. But the Pohlads have demonstrated that they don't really care.

Wrong, it could be meaningless. Not moving the needle at all.

It is also a no win signing.

1. Sorry, but Pohlad being "explicit" is just a PR statement. It is meaningless. The Pohlads have short changed this team since they owned it. 2. Sorry, but your claims about "financial mistakes" are wrong. When a business makes financial mistakes it hurts their ability in the future to be able to respond with the same financial flexibility. If I blow $15 million today, I will be less inclined to potentially blow $15 millin tomorrow, particularly since that $15 million is spent. 3. The concept of signing these short term free agents makes terrible sense over the long run. If the player proves they can still play at a high level, they will go somewhere else.

Exactly, you have to pay the price of having hte young guys "earn it" at the major league level. You lose the ball games while they get the experience. The make mistakes. They don't play as well as they are going to once they develop. But, even though Frank Viola has a 5.21 ERA in 1982 s a 22 year old you put him out there the entire year and then keep him on the mound for 210 innings in 1983 despite his 5.49 ERA and 1.590 WHIP. Compare how the Twins management stuck with Viola to how the current FO handled Romero. As far as Buxton's "success", whatever his problems are it isn't a matter of rushing him through the minors. What does Byron Buxton have to prove in the minors? He has a .901 OPS at AAA level and career minor league .874 OPS. If you look statistically, sending him back to the minors isn't helping him either because his overall statistics are declining. Obviously, part of his problems is that he cannot remain healthy and the 2017 season gave a glimpse of what he can potentially do. But, how long do you remain hopeful? This is the deal if the Twins ever want to have a real contending team. They need to have a plan. They need to plug guys into the lineup and develop them, take the losses, and hopefully their talent choices they made will pay off.

I get taht the Twins FO isn't going to move Rooker up in 2019. But, how well has their decisions really panned out so far, as well as the previous FO? What the mistake you and the Twins front office make is that significant development for a rebuilding team MUST take place at the major league level. Throughout this 8 year "rebuilding" the Twins simply have not committed to rebuilding. They employed Ron Gardenhire, a manager that showed no interest or skill in developing young talent, for 4 consecutive 90+ loss seasons. Then they replaced him with Paul Molitor who probably is a good manager for a team with developed talent but showed the same committment to mediocre veterans. The reason you need to do the development at the higher level is that if you plod your prospects one step at a time through the system it takes too much time to weed out the ones who will be major league baseball players from the ones that will not. Again, the 1982 Twins are the only model for rebuilding this team should look to. The starting Twins CF at the start of the rebuild in 1982 wasn't, as everyone knows, Kirby Puckett, but Jim Eisenreich. Eisenreich went from the A Midwest League in 1981 to starting in CF at the Metrodome in 1982. His health conditions made it difficult for him and he eventually became a decent MLB player with a career OPS+ of 103, but if he was in the Twins system now he would not have made the major leagues until 1984 or 1985. And while this may seem insignificant, it also would have meant that Kirby not reacing the majors until 1985-86 range. Same with the shortstop Lenny Faedo. The issue is you need to identify the players quickly so that you can discard the players who cannot play and find replacements for them. Pushing that reckoning off while playing players that will not contribute over the long run just pushes when you will be competitive.

Wrong. If this ownership wastes money today they will be less inclined to spend money in the future. That is how all business work and the Twins ownership looks at this team as a business, not a competitive sports team.

Cheer up? In most ways I could care less. The ownership of this team has screwed their fans over for decades now, with the only exception being the short generation of 1987-1991. Even when the team was quasi-competitive in the 2000's, the ownership was too cheap to put the money into making a true competitive team when even $15-20 million more in payroll may have made those Mauer-Mornea teams truly competitive, not jsut a team that won in the weakest division in the majors and then got swept in the playoffs. That is why the development process of those World Series teams needs to be followed by the current rebuild, and frankly, it is not.

From experience, this is exactly how the Twins ownership has operated since the advent of free agency in major league baseball.

"Being ready"!! WHat a quote. The issue is not that htey are ready but whether you want to develop them on the major league level. The reason why Hicks and Gomez did not develop has nothing to do with when they were brought up. Instead, it was the toxic, anti-developing player that caused them to dail in Minnesota and be more successful elsewhere. If Hicks or Gomez made errors the management did not tolerate them, and they did not fit the mold so like David Ortiz they were shipped out. Likewise, "earning" it is an idiotic concept for a team trying to build into contention.