DaveW

What role would that be?5 more days on the roster, then sent back down to AAA for the rest of the season where he can continue to post a sub .700 OPS while having little value defensively? Then Cut in the off-season? I have a feeling if this happened you would be leading the "we should have traded Valencia when we had a chance" group.

Of course you would!

He has 5 million or so reasons not to. Hell, I'd live in Rochester for a year for that.

Also the people complaining that we got "another Revere/Mastrionni" are a bit ridiculous. Yes, Pineda projects to be the same type of player, but by the time he is ready for the majors there is a good chance that one or both of those players will be gone or on the way out anyways. The nice thing about Pineda is that he looks to be a legit CF fielding and arm wise, you can never have enough of those in any system and if he develops it just makes our current OF crop that much more rich and deep (allowing us to trade some down the road to fill other needs) I am actually pretty surprised we got someone like this for Valencia.

Also from what I have read from Red Sox fans, they HATE the trade.

Didn't Morneau have "attitude" issues for awhile? Twins kept him around. Lohse took a baseball bat to the managers door, hard not to hear about that. I don't think they really ever questioned Garzas attitude, Gardy wasn't a fan of that trade from the beginning and still mentions it from time to time I believe. I don't recall them crapping on Neshek or Hughes as well or ever questioned their attitudes. Make no mistake about it, the reason Romero, Neshek, Slowey, Hughes and Valencia were all let go is because they just weren't that good anymore and they had better in house replacements. Lohse I agree they grew tired of/he grew tired of them, and Garza wasn't exactly flipped for scraps at the time as Delmon was highly regarded, plus that never did sit well with Gardy and was a gross mistake by Bill Smith. I know your thing is to blame the organization for incompetence at every turn, but if a bunch of people were saying Valencia had attitude issues there is a good chance he in fact had issues. You shouldn't really be questioning anyone's sources to be honest, since you weren't able to back up the whole "The Twins wouldn't trade Willingham for Bundy" straight up claim. Lastly, the Twins aren't the only team in baseball to do this, as I mentioned above, if you want to be a bit of a punk on the diamond/crappy teamate you better make damn sure you aren't easily replaceable. If you are an easily replaceable player you better play the game the right way and not be a burden otherwise teams will stop giving you chances.

There have been reports in the past with his attitude, there have been articles on it and I believe Nick Nelson (who has his sources) at one point said this was the case as well. I'm not going to waste my time looking through the archives. Either way, Valencia was simply not a good ball player and didn't fit into the future plans.

He still has an awful arm. I like the rest of his game though.

Here's a pro tip: If you are going to have a ****ty attitude and be a ballplayer, at least make sure you are a good ball player so that the team will have a reason to put up with your crap. That is why teams lived with Jeff Kent and Luke Scott and why guys like JD "The Readl Deal" Durbin and Valencia were let go.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2s1rozn.png

I forgot about Escobar, but I think you are right, they want to see him playing every day. I have zero faith in Florimon, so if he contributes anything someday in the majors I will be pleasantly suprsied.

The most depressing thing about this is that the Twins had no one else who warranted a recall in the system. (INF edition)

When is Plouffe due back? I imagine Nishi won't be in the majors for long and at least he provides MI depth (something Valencia did not). He can't possibly do as poor as the first time right? Looks like he hit ..295 with a .695 OPS in July, not exactly a "hot" streak to get real hot and bothered about.

Blackburn was from Oklahoma as well.

First of all when I posted the orginal post he was in the 5th inning with only 2 runs given up, I noted that it would be nice if he could get his 3rd QS in 4 starts since being recalled, I thought maybe he had turned a bit of a corner as he had a couple nice starts since then. More than likely he didn't turn a corner and will continue to be the suck, however it would be nice if he could get back to his old ways and become a decent #5 again. The money is already owed to him next year anyways, I'd rather they avoid brining in the next Marquis, Livan to fill out the rotation in 2013. Ideally though the Twins have 5 superior options to start the season with.

2 very good starts 1 bad start (today) 1 horrendous start Who else does that remind me of..hmm..

The Twins have now traded about 15% of the active jewish ball players in baseball this year.

Revere's arm is so freaking bad.

Gotta stick with my fellow Okies.

Depth, the potential to fill in as a #5 guy instead of taking guys like Duensing out of the pen to fill in. Hell you can even live with his 4.49 ERA from 2011 as a #5. Ideally the Twins have 5 superior pitchers at the start of 2013, just hope that when the time comes Blackburn can at least contribute a 4.50 ERA or so.

Hicks will be manning CF in Target Field soon enough, they shouldn't displace Span this Sept for the hell of it.

He hasn't made that many bad pitches and at least since coming backs looks like he could contribute as a 5th/6th pitcher next season. (instead of dumping the 5.5 million)

Blackburn hasn't looked half bad again. Hopefully he can get his 3rd QS in his 4 starts since coming back.

Plouffe destroyed AAA in 2011, and has mashed the ball in 2012. Even in the majors last year he still posted a 91 OPS+. Its a bit of a no brainer that Plouffe will play better then Valencia moving foward. Valencia had a 0.5 WAR last year and a -.7 WAR this year, at this point Carroll can match his production at third base or any number of AAAA players they could grab off the waiver wire.

He had a .688 OPS in AAA this year and had no future with the team. The Twins did the right thing, they got rid of someone with zero future for 2013 on the team and now they can give those at-bats to other players to evaluate where they fit. I'm guessing we start seeing Alexi in the lineup nearly every day as sort of a last audition for them to keep him around, or maybe this opens up a spot for Escobar sooner. Ideally we can move Carroll as well this month, though if we are stuck with him next year it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.