JB_Iowa

Watching him pitch is cruel and unusual punishment.

I think it is actually the media that makes the awards. They've been announced but I don't think they'll be presented until January when they have their Diamond Awards dinner. I also place a lot of value on someone being in the line-up for most of the season. Dozier did win "most improved" and "media good guy". Story here: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20131017&content_id=63065186&vkey=pr_min&c_id=min

Welcome to the forum. It's okay to be a rubbernecker ... that's usually what I'm doing on the car crash threads. Most of the time I get so lost in them that all I can do is gawk. And I'm definitely a rubbernecker on Twitter ... although I usually call myself a "Twitter Voyeur". Never have sent a single tweet. So I applaud your willingness to post here and hope that now that you've "broken the ice", you'll add your comments on some other threads as well.

Twins Daily ‏@TwinsDaily 4h Sorry! All tickets to the @TwinsDaily #Meltdown have been sold. 9:43 a.m. - 13 Dec 13 Congrats, guys!

There were just so few bright spots last year -- pretty much had a 50/50 chance of having the right guy in mind no matter what! Thanks for posting the list, though. Interesting to see the company he was keeping.

Actually, that's who I thought it was going to be. And if there is anyone who missed it, there's a nice column on him on the PP site: http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_24712792/tom-powers-twins-brian-dozier-enjoys-labor-love Hats off to him (and to his fiancee) for putting their labor to good use. (Oh, but he could stop tweeting hunting photos any time. )

Geographically I'm closer to many of the SoDak posters than to most of my fellow Iowans. Watched a lot of Twins games on Sx Falls stations while growing up. (Have some recollection that they were mostly on channel 13 but I'm not sure that's right).

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 4m #MNTwins are definitely in on Kurt Suzuki, per PWDK. No deal is close yet but dialogue is ongoing. Pinto's balky shoulder helps MN chances. 12:21 PM - 13 Dec 13

It's been almost 40 years since I read the book (and wrote some paper on it applying the ideas to something else -- all of which I've totally forgotten). But the older I get, the less I believe in any one truth. In any situation, there are a myriad of factors that come into play. It's why, so often as human beings, we seem to be speaking out of both sides of our mouths. We just react differently to different people, ideas and situations. I think you could highlight a number of John's reasons and they would be part of why we are seeing what we are seeing and include in that fact that there was $25m in "free money" (so to speak) from the TV deal. TR didn't even spend all of that annual TV money on Nolasco and Hughes (I think this would appeal to TR's conservative side). Add in a green light from his owner to spend plus (I would guess) some impetus from both the business AND baseball sides (underlings plus field staff) to improve the club (I think TR probably felt some guilt about the crappy hand he dealt Gardenhire last year). I don't see an organizational shift in philosophy. Under TR, the Twins are always going to build from the farm system but I think last year showed that some of those prospects may be a little farther away than we think. I believe that keeping that farm system mostly intact is important to TR and that's why he seems reluctant to make trades this season (and actually sounds a little more reluctant now than he did when the off-season started). He is able to hold onto the core philosophy of building the farm and club from within -- while, hopefully, satisfying his bosses (plus underlings, fans and media) just by risking some monetary resources. If you had the green light to do that, why wouldn't you?

On a minor league deal, it makes some sense. He still has some potential. Maybe this makes a trade of Doumit or Willingham a little more likely (I realize it doesn't solve the LH/RH dilemma and that TF was not particularly suited to Kubel).

While that's true, they also haven't shown a lot of aggression in acquiring a catcher. I think that if they were truly concerned, they would have been a lot more active on the catching front than they have been.

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 2m I asked Terry Ryan if he'd be fine to open 2014 w/current roster. "No," he said. "We still have a lot of work to do." #MNTwins 7:37 AM - 12 Dec 13 Tag on this one should have been #goodnews

Rhett Bollinger ‏@RhettBollinger 59s Ryan said he's not disappointed he didn't make a deal here at the Winter Meetings. Laid some groundwork. "I'm open for business," he said. 7:11 AM - 12 Dec 13 Basically what Seth said. There'll be more to shake out. It was, however, nice to see the Twins make some moves before January (before December, actually). And a Christmas present or two would be good, too, Terry.

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 9m Terry Ryan said pinto has had no change in health status. "I'm not worried." 6:56 AM - 12 Dec 13 · Details I hope there isn't a reason to be concerned about him or Sano -- I guess we'll see in 2014.

We also saw this one: Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 1h Suggestions Garza deal could come by Thursday aren't correct, PWDK says. Still a "lot of activity" on free agent ex-Twin. MN still in mix 4:18 PM - 11 Dec 13 · Details

Didn't know where else to add this so I'll post it here: Jayson Stark ‏@jaysonst 38m Teams that have checked in on Matt Garza are being told he could sign in next 24-48 hours. Lots of #Diamondbacks buzz today. Retweeted by Buster Olney 8:02 AM - 11 Dec 13 · Does this mean that the Tanaka posting decision is likely to be announced in the next day or two now that mlb has approved the system? Has Team Garza just decided not to worry about the Tanaka situation (which looks like it may drag on). Some pressure to just get a deal done?

Thanks for your first post. Hope to hear more from you -- maybe a little about your interest in the Twins in the "Rookies & Lurkers" thread? And I, too, want to thank everyone responsible for TD for their vision and their hard work in making it a reality that has to be much, much more than anyone could have wished for. Now if the Twins could only do a little winning, maybe TD could go to yet another level.

I don't know about that. In his new position, wasn't he doing things like negotiating for and renovating the remodeling at Hammond Stadium? Things that would be more on the business side than the baseball side? It is probably a position for which his talents are well-suited. He and his family got to stay in the Twins Cities. And, while I'm sure that his change in job status wasn't comfortable for any of them, there were probably factors that helped compensate (he would have been a failed GM whether he stayed with the team or went elsewhere). The incongruity in all of this is that he was the one selected to be the new GM in the first place. I go back and read the articles from when his promotion was first announced and still can't get a feel for why he was the one selected.

It's a real blog from Mike Berardino and I'm guessing they are real quotes. I've really come to appreciate Berardino and am so glad that he was hired by the PP. After 15 years in south Florida, he brings a fresh eye (and different contacts) than many of the other local sportswriters. He's very active on Twitter, seems to interact quite a bit with fans and, although somewhat cautious like all beat writers, seems to really work at digging out interesting tidbits and ideas. He is also more likely to throw in some statistical analysis than many others in the mainstream press. If you don't follow him on Twitter or read his blogs or articles in the PP, you're missing out on some great info.

Officials from other clubs are scratching their heads as well at why the Twins and Pelfrey haven’t hammered out a deal. “Minnesota is a good place for him,” an official from a National League club said this week. “Pelfrey is soft.” Another official, this one from an American League club, said he was taken aback when reports first surfaced of a two-year offer for Pelfrey. “I thought it was extremely odd,” the official said. “If he doesn’t sign back with the Twins, I think Mike will probably scramble and sign a one-year, incentive-laden deal somewhere, but it won’t be with a contender.” http://blogs.twincities.com/twins/ This gets kind of curious -- especially read the comparison between Pelfrey and Hughes. Easy to see the (alleged) Boras point but if the league reaction is as stated above, it also puts Pelfrey in a really uncomfortable spot. Boras has misread the market before. Is this another case? (Oh, and you have to LOVE the comment that Pelfrey is soft. Blech.)

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 6m Rakuten president says no decision on whether to post Tanaka. 2:49 PM - 10 Dec 13 from Bay Lake, FL · Details

To me there is difference between who you target for trade discussions and free agent acquisitions and the actual negotiating process. I would guess that Bill Smith was more removed from the decision on who to target than Terry Ryan is but based on Ryan's statements when he "retired", I have to think that Smith was more involved in the negotiation process itself (the game has changed and is for "bright young negotiators).

DING***DING***DING****DING***DING I feel like we hear the same thing every year: "Next year's crop of free agent pitchers will be better." Then when we get near that time frame, it's always "Free agent pitching is really thin this year". I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't sign Arroyo (I don't like the idea of the 3rd year at all) ... but I don't think they should make the decision based on who might be available next offseason.

I am not a Bill Smith fan -- I was begging for him to be fired in 2011 -- but I consider what happened to be a massive organizational failure, not just a failure of the GM (although I certainly think he was in over his head). I actually think that what happened is that the Twins were distracted. They began to anticipate the opening of TF and the new revenue streams it would bring and began to think more about marketing and publicity than they did the product on the field (I think both the Mauer and Nishioka signings were based primarily on marketing rather than baseball.) To some extent they got away from the idea of making every penny count and they did squander some of their assets. I think Bill Smith & Co. thought they were "going for it" with some of their decisions (Matt Capps, anyone?) -- even though they appeared questionable to many fans. Despite his years with the organization, Bill Smith seemed a bit of an odd choice for G.M. Neither someone in a traditional mold who had risen from the scouting ranks or someone in the new "wunderkind" mold who understands and uses statistical analysis. As stated above, he was really an administrator and I'm not sure he had a solid framework for analyzing the information provided to him by others. And I think that the way he prioritized the "voices" was different than someone who had either a strong scouting background OR a strong statistical analysis background -- I think that's why Gardenhire may have gotten as much "say" as it appears he had. Would the organization be in better shape if Terry Ryan had been G.M. from 2007-2011? I'm not sure. I think he might have been better able to keep the organization focused on "every penny counting" but I think the opening of TF was going to have some impact on their thinking regardless of who was G.M. Plus, they were cyclically at a point where they were faced with tough decisions. The organization seems to have swung back to a very small market mindset over the last 2 years. It is only now, after the misery of the last 3 years and an OWNER who finally stepped up and made it clear that there was $$$ available to be spent and that should be spent, where it seems to me that the Twins are finally finding their footing as a "small-to-midmarket" team. A place where they follow the small market mindset of building the farm and acquiring prospects but where they ALSO can take some monetary risks in free agency. They still need to make every dollar count. But maybe now they can watch every dollar instead of every penny.

Jon MorosiVerified account‏@jonmorosi 3m One GM interested in Tanaka believes he will, in fact, be posted. I expect we will find out for sure in next 24-48 hours. 1:08 PM - 9 Dec 13