DaveW

Yeah, I definitely think IMO that "smaller communties" are better, at least when talking about sports and our beloved Twins. That was my favorite part about BYTO, it was a good number of active posters (and guys who would show up once in a blue moon) but you knew who they were, remembered their posting style/hot takes/bits etc and while it was much more "wild west" everyone more or less got along. Even with the long drawn out battles between Lev and Pseudo, you knew they each enjoyed the banter. For the most part, nobody at BYTO took themselves too seriously, it was sort of like a bunch of buddies from college getting together years later to get drunk and watch baseball at a bar, insults were handed out like candy, but they always came from a place of love. The people that did take themselves too seriously: Stat, Itstime, Rob come to mind, ended up being a nice comic relief for the rest of us. I think that was the beauty of BYTO, nobody with the exception of Nick (who was doing his own thing anyways) was trying to be some baseball blogger, writer, or anything of note, it was just a bunch of dudes and a couple ladies who shot the **** about the Twins 365 days a year, and to your point, yeah it never had the "negative" feel to it. Luis Rivas the knife wielding maniac and Nachos Bell Grande Silva came more from a place of love then malice. Of course none of those bits would be allowed at TD because it's much more buttoned up. Additionally TD has a ton of people who are using it to try to be the next big blogger/writer etc, and while I commend people for that, I do think it takes away a lot of the more "fun" aspects of a forum as people tend to take things a little more seriously then they should. I mean, it's only baseball at the end of the day, but as mentioned it is good that a community does exist where new bloggers can perfect their craft, so to speak. I definitely see the value of TD, the larger community and the more blogs, and I continue to obviously view/participate, just personally I wish the smaller community was still around, where you knew everyone's "posting backstory" a bit, knew their bits and had long season running memes with word filters and what not. Where you could call someone an idiot (just like you would to your buddy in the bar when he said something stupid) and it wouldn't turn into an international crisis. Basically this is the same reason why I don't use twitter, and curate FB to only see posts from like 20 people, I could really give two ****s less about what random people are talking about, that's sort of my experience here, there are 15-20 posters that I enjoy bantering with, and the rest I could really not care either way about. This is why I particularly enjoy the Wild Thread and Sports Bar Board as a whole, since it's a smaller group of folks. To go back to your point about negativity, I think a little has to do with the fact that during BYTO the Twins were a really fun, competitive and scrappy (trademarked) team. The last 5 years his org has been a complete dumpster fire, so I get the negativity, though I do wish we could create some fun bits around specific players without people thinking it's some sort of personal attack.

spoiler alert: He didn't. Every few months we come across him going nuts on the Twins Facebook page.

yeah BYtO was on the way out, but that was because we were all too busy (let's be honest, lazy) to create any sort of real "content" for the site. It was a great forum though I do think forums like this are a great thing though, Twitter is a complete cesspool of humanity, why anyone would try to seriously discuss sports on it blows my mind! It's nothing but trolls and nasty folks as far as the eye can see. FB is a little better, still not ideal though.

Hmmm who?

Yeah the interviews were awesome. Also Glen was(and remains) the man: @glenperkins/status/216374422330806272

Would have kept Stat around for sure.

I like to call them #alternativefacts

Add Lambo to the list. Jew is on life support, I see him pop up in T Pups chat from time to time, just not the same though....

Kenny Rogers 2006 IIRC

My favorite Bit was that after itstimetomeltdownandkickbabies got banned (or quit?) he came back as justanotherfan, us mods knew it instantly and basically told everyone else via PM. We let him do his bit for a few weeks about he was some lawyer from Maine, eventually of course he had another meltdown. Also LoL to him contacting the Twins about copyright infringement

I would honor this momentous occasion with an act of Rocketpigging, but then I realized that London has some pretty strict obscenity laws...

R I P MackBrownSwallows Statfreak Richard McBeef Narf rongardenhire AJ Trolpo Klobs itstimetotakeit Brock1978 Shorty Frodaddy ofx dankind Sydney Ponson

WWE stock is one to buy

I use Coinbase. Once you execute a few trades it ups your limit pretty quick. It's pretty secure as well.

File this under "meh" I don't understand why Santana remains on the 40 man roster at this point though. This guy is a better replacement IMO. Still think they messed up by DFA Park though. If Light was gonna be let go anyways, why not just let Light go last week and DannyS today?

Brock: Buy. Bitcoin.

What prospects do we actually have that could be "blocked" in 2017? Berrios is the only SP that could be "blocked" IMO Kepler/Buxton have already gotten starting gigs. Who could potentially be blocked? Park or Vargas? Rosario? Duffey? 4 guys who have been well below average players thus far in the majors?

Very well said. It's insane anyone is just "cool" with what this team has done, worst team in baseball and one of the worst teams in all of sports the las 6 years, the fact people want to continue to give these losers the benefit of the doubt when they literally make no impact moves to help 2017...but much more importantly 2018/2019 and beyond is insane. I said it a few times before, the Pohlads are very very lucky that they own a team in Minnesota which is just used to losing and doesn't care at this point, put them in a city that has a passionate/smart fan base and people wouldn't be showing up to the stadium to watch this 95 million dollar garbage at all! At some point the fans, media, etc need to demand for results better than "worst team in baseball" unfortunately that doesn't exist currently in Minnie. I'm sure Dave St Peter and co will try to play off the fact that they are raising tix again for a crap product by saying "Look at us! We just opened another 3 bars at Target Field!" I'm a diehard Twins fan/Wild fan and Vikes fan and a New York Islanders season ticket holder (don't even care for the Isles) but I can say without a doubt that even if I lived a few blocks from target field I wouldnt be a season ticket holder and would be hard pressed to goto more than 10 games a year with this current "team". Front office has been a joke for 6 years and have been a joke so far this year as well.

Yes Sano will give us better results at 3rd then Plouffe...but now we have a ton of question marks at DH. Park was a disaster, Vargas has a 103 career OPS+ Not good.

Ideally he can start out strong and the Twins can flip him, I just don't see it though, not with this current defense.

I'd keep Sano, Buxton and Berrios and I would look to trade anyone else in order to acquire high upside pitching. Would have to be blown away to trade Kepler Would do all I could to trade: Rosario, Santana, Santiago, Kintzler, Escobar etc If Hughes "comes back" he's traded as well, if Gibson starts off decent, he's on the block. If Perkins comes back healthy, as much as he is my favorite player he should be moved as well. This team is a couple years away, there is zero reason to keep anyone at this point that won't contribute it 2019 and later.

Ditto, but then again, why did we just waste a bunch of money and starts on Santiago? Who was terrible in Minnesota last year? It's like we continue this stupid cycle of over paying for mediocrity and being afraid of actually making a meaningful "splash"

When it comes to current pitching, IMO without a doubt the Twins are the worst team in baseball when talking from a talent standpoint.

I'm not sure how anyone can say the lineup will be fine. Sano and Dozier are the only two who have a very good chance to be above average at the dish. I was impressed with Kepler last year, but he only had a 98 OPS+, which is well below average for a corner OF. So those three I feel "ok" with The rest? Lots of question marks up and down the roster. I certainly don't think everyone knows it will be fine...