DaveW

Dozier is likely a 106-112 OPS+ hitter moving forward. And yes, that is actually above average for a 2nd baseman...

Agreed, Dozier shouldn't be moved to make room for Polanco. Escobar on the other hand......

Also it's kinda disappointing to see Molitor taking this dig on him: Not sure why you need to take a shot at the kid in regards to his family and friends, and signing with an agency (Roc Nation) that has HIS best interests in mind. Molitor is a hall of famer and was the first 4 million dollar man in baseball, him bringing up Sano's agent is totally hypocritical IMO. Him bringing up his "off the field" i.e. going back home to the D.R is hypocritical as well, Molitor as a young player was actively using cocaine on and off the field. He eventually 'matured' and ended up ok, Sano has done nothing close to the same or has ever been accused to anything close to the same yet Molitor is taking digs at him to the press. note: I don't "fault" Molitor or hold it against him that he was an active Cocaine user, personally, I could care less what an adult does or doesn't do on his own time. However, the fact is Molitor more than had his issues of "immaturity" and ended up just fine, to call out Sano for his family, agency is just so cheap. Nobody called out Molitor for his stuff back in the day (until it was revealed in court) At the end of the day as long as Sano produces, is a good teammate, doesn't make stupid comments to the fans/media and keeps his nose clean off the field, I don't see the issue whatsoever, thus these sort of things should never be written in the first place.

So him going to his home country to visit family and friends prior to spring training is immaturity? Sorry, I don't see it. Were all the other players and young players reported to the team 2-3 weeks before camp? Was this "expected" amongst all players? Did the Twins sign him to a contract prior to this season that locked him up through his arb years with guaranteed money with the understanding that he would show up early? No? Seems like a lack of understanding of a player from a different culture/country that is the issue (if there is even an issue) Again this all smells a lot like the "issues" the Twins had with another talented power slugger from the DR. In fact David Ortiz was such an issue and so immature/overweight etc that he only lead the Boston Red Sox to THREE World Series! Whether this was directly fed to Reusse or not is irrelevant, he shouldn't be writing an entire article on it. It serves no real purpose and only ends up in a cheap attack on a player who has done nothing "wrong" to the fans and is the greatest pure power hitter this team has had since Killebrew (yes, he has even more power potential then the future hall of famer David Ortiz) It's just a cheap "hot sports take" article to generate clicks. Not a coincidence this comes about a week after Souhan and his Parise "article" guess they gotta get the page views on the sports section since the Gophers Hockey team has been out of it for a while. Also, what is "immaturity" anyways? As long as he is producing and he gets along with his teammates etc is there really an issue? Immaturity to me is making a bunch of stupid comments to the media (Nolasco), getting in fights on the field, or getting into off the field issues.

Pretty sure plenty of teams in 2015 threw at other players in "retaliation" Here is just ONE example of people getting upset about home run admirers, I only present you two articles but I promise you another 100 about this one will pop up if you google it. So no, clearly "some people" think that. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25340566/the-rangers-were-not-happy-with-jose-bautistas-bat-flip-unsurprisingly http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14943065/goose-gossage-rips-jose-bautista-toronto-blue-jays-nerds-ruining-baseball

I would think it was a garbage article as well, but you are right, people would be responding differnetly. What is the major difference between Mauer and Sano though? Sano had an amazing 2015. Mauer had a poor 2015 (for his standards) (Full disclosure: I think Mauer has a big time come back year) But in this case the criticism of Mauer could almost be understood. In Sano's case it makes zero, absolutely zero sense. Wait for him to actually struggle/make mistakes etc in games that matter. (i.e. regular season games...the ones that count) before you bring this crap up.

Sorry Seth, but this is just so false it hurts. The NY media and Boston media are tough no doubt, but they would never write this garbage about a guy coming off the rookie campaign Sano did. Now you may bring up the big Panda articles that have come out, but it's important to note that Pablo, in his first year as a Red Sox had a .658 OPS, so they are bringing up work ethic/weight/etc on a guy who had an OPS that was basically Nick Punto's average OPS (of course Punto isn't owed 90+ million over the next 4 years) If Sandoval had Sano's numbers last year there is no way that article gets written, those writers would have been laughed out of town. Ditto with New York, notice how all the anti A-Rod articles have been non existent this year, I wonder if that has to do with the fact that he was a very effective player last year....hmm... It's almost like these two franchises actually take a players productivity and results into play before trying to throw him under the bus (along with their journalists)

There was that whole ridiculous "benching" because he pimped a monster HR a little too much. Of course they made that into a wayyyyy bigger story then it ever needed to be, and to be honest, is a little ridiculous anyways. Who on earth cares that a guy "admires" a 450+ home run blast for an extra second or two? What is more ridiculous and embarrassing to me is that plenty of people, players and teams think that admiring a home run is a cardinal sin, while throwing a 90 MPH fastball at a guys head in retaliation is some how "ok"

Not to mention 1B/DH is completely clogged up as well. I think the Twins are hoping Arica+Rosario both do "well" in the majors the first few months of this season and Kepler rakes in AAA for the first few months, then the Twins suddenly are in the position to make a good "baseball" trade and trade one (or both?) of Arcia and/or Rosario to fill another hole (starting Catcher? Elite young bullpen arm? High upside SP prospect?) and then open up a corner OF spot for Kepler. I am a BIG Rosario fan, however the fact that he has the ability to be at least an above average defensive CF while being able to hit very well for a CF I think the Twins should be shopping him somewhat aggressively. Then again though, if the Twins eventually trade Plouffe and move Sano to 3rd, then suddenly Kepler's path to the majors becomes quite a bit easier. How is Kepler's D in RF? If Arica can get back to his 30 HR upside, would a OF of Arcia-Buxton-Kepler be a disaster? Or would it be "ok"

Perkins will be fine, he might not be "all star" level Perkins, for whatever that means, but I would be willing to wager a healthy margin that he is at the very least a top 50% closer in the majors next year. For what we are paying him (not much) that makes him a real nice asset. (And I think he can certainly be an allstar elite closer again if he can stay healthy)

Most amazing to me, is these "comments" and articles are being written about a guy who had a .916 OPS and 18 HR in 80 games as a 21 year old! What has Sano done on the field wise to deserve this? Now if it is July and he is struggling with a .800-.840 OPS (which is hardly struggling anyways) then feel free to bring this garbage up, at least then it sorta a tiny bit of sense, but now? WTF? Even more ridiculous is that Nolasco, a guy who has done worse than nothing in his time as Twin, comes out a couple weeks ago and says, to the media, that if he doesn't get a rotation spot he will basically pout and demand a trade. Yet, we don't see any damning articles or "quotes" from management about Nolascos work ethic, attitude, etc Only in Minnesota! I can't wait for the inevitable Strib piece about how Karl Anthony Towns isn't "mature" enough or something.

2 of those three are debatable to say the least. This seems to be the new manidate when it comes to the Strib to generate page views: "Make some outlandish claims about the best player on the local teams" first it was Souhan and his ridiculous article on Parise (5 goals, 7 points in the last 2 games lol) now it's Reusse trying to stir up a bunch of crap in regards to Sano. It's just lazy, cheap, and reeks of click bait, and the real sad thing is they are about 8 years to late to this crap, as even Bleacher Report and SB Nation have started to pretend to care about "real" journalism theses days.

As someone who works in the industry I can say with about 95% confidence that the majority of the issues that cause these slow down and crashes (happens to me as well) are due to the ads that TD is serving, or to be more clear, the ads that their ad network/etc are serving are causing this. (Which also leads to the corrupt Flash errors as well) No ad network is fool proof, but some are a LOT better than others and at the end of the day the revenue will be pretty much the same, more than happy to shooting you guys over a list of a half a dozen or so providers who at the very least will stop a number of these issues. (least of which being the auto play, auto sound, auto expand video ads)

If that is the case the Twins should immediately move him back to his natural position of 3rd base or have him DH. At that point you give Plouffe an OF glove.

Also shaming Sano for going home for couple weeks in the off-season is so freaking cheap. He isn't obligated to show up weeks early for spring training, why is he crapped on for going home and visiting family and friends?

LOL Spoiler alert: This really isn't worth wasting a click on, as it's just typical trash coming from the Reusse and/or Souhan sections of the dying Star Tribune. Instead of potentially criticizing the Twins for creating a situation where you are playing one of the greatest young talents you have ever had out of position, you write up a hit piece with flimsy "comments" and take cheap shots at a guy that could very well hit 500 HR some day (hopefully all for the Twins)

Caucuses are deeply flawed, you are asking people to spend hours out of their own day to "participate" in a caucus, which eliminates a large amount of the population, (Pretty much anyone with kids, anyone who works a lot of hours etc) it comes down to retired people and college students for the most part, which aren't a good cross section of the "public" when it comes down to it. We should have went to a popular vote a long time ago anyways. Stats already have enough "fairness" seeing how each one gets two senators. The idea that elections often come down to people in Florida or Ohio is insane.

Hield would make a boatload of sense for this team. You can never have enough pure shooters, go buy some size in FA. You can't pass on a guy like Hield (pure shooter) just because you have LaVine. There would be plenty of minutes to go around.

Hilary basically ignored Washington, sanders sprang a ton of money in Washington, the amount of Bernie ads being run was absurd. Alaska? That's barely even a state.

Him winning Cali or NY would be a major miracle. He still can't win anything other than the white vote, this has been his problem all along.

It doesn't matter, the math still doesn't add up or come close to adding up.

I think starting Buxton in the majors could be a mistake, I think if they could have him start in AAA for a month or two and gain some confidence at the dish it would do a World of good for his game. Unfortunately, plan B is to have either Santana in the OF everyday, or Arcia and Sano in the OF every day, yikes. Tonkin needs to be cut. He just doesn't have the upside warranted to give him a major league roster spot and "wait" to see if he figures it out. Let him TruTV catch on somewhere else and maybe he ends up being an ok 6th inning type.

sounds like something a nerd would say....

National enquirer also broke the John Edwards and Tiger Woods stories. Just wait, this will snowball over the next weekx

Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?