DaveW

Ozzie would at least give people a reason to watch. There literally is no point in watching this team right now if the weather is nice outside/other things to do.

By "turn it around" I mean be able to by some miracle get the Twins to 70 wins. GM, Asst GM, etc all need to go no matter what happens the rest of the season (baring the greatest turnaround in the history of sports.

No, he played winter ball and after he went back home for a couple weeks.

They could have had him working all off season in RF, they didn't. He played fall and winter ball. They didn't move him to RF until very late in the offseason.

I too will be at that NYY series for better or worse. I'm a glutton for punishment I guess.

Ah, thanks for the info on that.

Must win game

False

Honestly, when you start an argument with a statement like this, it's really hard to take the rest of it seriously. You can more or less find "dirt" on every politically powerful person in America, and make an argument that the majority of them have done something where if they weren't rich/powerful they may have gotten in trouble. The "Hilary should be in jail" trope/meme is just tired at this point. Hilary has some things going on where I can see why people would be hesitant to vote for her, but not because "she should be in jail with her husband"

Speaking of the felon thing, I think that "law" needs to be overturned as well! If someone gets a felony, pays their time in prison/fines etc then I think they should be allowed to vote. Not allowing them to vote is just more of a scarlet letter effect and is a symptom of a much larger issue with incarceration in America (namely it's a complete disaster and embarrassment as a whole)

Let Ozzie have a half season, it can't get any worse than it is now. If he turns them around then the new GM can decide if he wants to keep him. Or just fire Mollie and bring up dougie baseball....

Re: Park His last 21 games: .155 average .540 ops 27 strike outs. He needs someone to work with him.

Park has an OPS that is barely acceptable for a DH and is striking out 30% of the time. Yes, he has been one of the better hitters on the Twins this year, but the Twins are also looking like a 115 loss team this year. Additionally pitchers have been making him look worse and worse as the year has gone on. He absolutely is a guy who could benefit from some AAA time and coaching (from a non Tom Brunanski) in a lost season for the big league club.

Kepler should certainly be in AAA. Play Grossman, Buxton and Arcia everyday in the meantime. Let Arcia even take his licks against LHP, it's a lost season, no need to even platoon Arcia currently as well, while Sano is on the DL.

Are the Twins rebuilding though? The front office has given no indication they have been rebuilding over the last 5 years, and haven't said so yet now. How long are these rebuilds supposed to take anyways? Also I would disagree that Hughes is tradable next year if he pitches like a back end guy for a bit, he is still owed through 2018 IIRC. As much as I like the idea of May/Meyer in the rotation next year, I fear the Twins won't give either guy (much less both) a real shot at it with veterans like Nolasco, Hughes and Santana owed the big bucks.

I read the article, (see my edited response) and had seen it before. Of course the Angels and Yankees are gonna say he was #2 on the board several years after the fact, ditto with all the teams that "barely" passed on him. Every team wants to act like they and their scouts knew he was a special player....in hindsight.

Not highly regarded enough to get drafted until the end of the first round.... All that other talk is just random hindsight and a lot is full of half truths. The Angels having trout as the #2 player in the draft is highly, highly suspicious....

That's the scary thing. If the current regime is still at the helm, I don't trust them not to make the same mistakes again. They have been doing the same thing for 20 year now. I wouldn't mind a reasonable 1/2 year contract to a Hellickson type, but I don't trust them to even do that.

Trout was never that highly regarded as a draft prospect, there is a reason why he went so low in the first round, of course the Angels caught lightning in a bottle and the rest is history. Gibson was a potential top 5 pick before his injury in college IIRC, he was absolutely the right pick at the time for the Twins and nearly everyone (back on the BYTO boards) was absolutely pumped with the pick.

I'm pretty sure every single team in the draft would easily say "yeah we should have taken trout" just like every team in football says "hey we should have taken that Tom Brady kid with one of our 5-6 picks in our draft" as well. In fact, I think most people were happy with most of the Twins picks at the time, the two players had issues with were Revere (picked about 30 slots too high, but hey, he has actually had a solid MLB career) and Whimmers (not enough "upside") This sort of hindsight/redraft stuff can be done for literally every team in baseball/sports in general, and only serves to paint a unfair negative light on a teams drafting prowess.

There are a lot of really crappy things going on with the Twins these days, and though better days are certainly on the horizon I can't help but worry that the starting pitching might be this teams biggest weakness heading into 2017. Let's look at the "candidates" to fill it out the rest of this year and into 2017: Ricky Nolasco: 5.17 ERA, has no business being in a major league rotation. Phil Hughes: 5.95 ERA, total disaster this year, hopefully its a case of "dead arm" and can come back strong next year, but who knows, things certainly don't look good... Tyler Duffey: 5.33 ERA, after a nice start, Duffey has been getting absolutely LIT UP his last 5 starts, now has an ERA over 8.50 on those games and a WHIP over 2.00. Not good. Pat Dean: 4.75 ERA, not impressive thus far, no real make up to stick in the majors anyways as a starter. Kyle Gibson: 6.10 ERA, guy with significant injury history (TJS) has another injury this year that keeps dragging on...his numbers prior to this year slots him in as a #4/#5 anyways. Ervin Santana: 4.77 ERA Arguably the only guy thus far on this list who sort of "deserves" to be in a major league rotation. Problem is he is looking like a #5, and is getting paid wayyyy to much for such output. Tommy Milone: 5.70 ERA Rough start to this year, has been doing well in the minors, will he get another shot? Does it matter? #5 type anyways at best. Jose Berrios: I won't list his ERA because it is an extreme SSS, for some reason the Twins had zero patience with him (while letting the guys above go out and get shelled time...after time...after time...after time.... He is the only one I feel confident in being better than a #4 type in 2016/2017 at this time. He will be fine, and hopefully a #1/#2, but you need a lot more than that to compete. Alex Meyer/Trevor May: The Twins seem hellbent on giving neither guy a real shot at the rotation at this stage. So what do we have now: A #5: Santana a #4 /#5(if healthy): Gibson a couple guys who have no business being in the rotation: Hughes, Nolasco a #6 type depth guy: Milone a #7/8 type depth guy: Dean A guy who looked like a #2/#3, but is now looking like a #5/#6: Duffey A promising player who can be a #1/#2 but needs to get a chance: Berrios A couple promising players who actually NEED a chance to start: Meyer/May Yikes. Without some major changes the front office and their approach to this rotation heading into 2017, we could be looking at another sure thing 90+ loss year.

The Twins mishandling a young and promising player by placing them in a role that doesn't fit them to cater to an overpaid and mediocre veteran? Color me shocked. But hey, at least they signed Grossman and got a few good weeks out of him so far! That totally makes up for the other 40 debacles this Front Office has committed in the past few years. I honestly don't see how any fan would be willing to watch this team on TV during the summer months, much less drop $150+ to go see them "play" live at Target Field.

I think any year long honoring is lame, but at least in this case Big Papi who is one of the most popular and beloved players in baseball is at the center of it.

The Twins are only honoring him because they hope it will sell a few more tickets to the ball park in an otherwise terrible season. Ortiz has every right to speak his mind, twins fans have way too thin of skin, nothing he has said is that bad. People bash athletes/reporters for not getting any "real" comments or thoughts from a player, and when they do we immediately say "he should shut up!" What's up with that? David Ortiz is a winner, plain and simple. Instead of being upset and him, perhaps we should be upset that nothing has changed in the last 20 years of this franchise and their "efforts"/brain trust. David Ortiz left, hit 500+ bombs, won three titles and a couple playoff/World Series MVP awards as well. During that time the Twins won one playoff series, and had Jason Tyner as their DH in another playoff series. I applaud the man, class act, great ambassador for the game, great teammate and an all time great hitter. The Twins could have used a guy like Ortiz in those playoff seasons.