beckmt

At least Sano said the correct things. I was worried that he could take it badly and become a big issue for the Twins.

You have to be realistic. With the large number of sellers, the buyers should be able to pay less than market value for assets. The better teams are only going to get better at the trade deadline. My issue is how the sellers will opperate. If sellers sell controlable assets to maximize the return, some of these teams are in a position to get very scary good for the next five years. (Yankees and Houston come to mind with great farm systems to buy the assets and there may be more teams in that group). Twins will have to make a realistic assessment of assets and may have to both buy and sell to position themselves for the future. Good luck to the FO for planning that mission. Failure means that the Twins could be looking at 2 - 3 superteams when our window is open. That is a big task.

If Dozier has the same stats at this time next month his value both going forward and to the Twins in trade will be close to zero. If you do this you are betting the Indians will not fix their pen. That in my mind is a horrible bet. Their are 13 teams who probably will be selling and a few more that might sell with a losing streak in the next few weeks. There will be less buyers and they will be looking for specific items. So you are rolling the dice to see if you lose Dozier for nothing.

If you expect Dozier to get only $6 million a year, I wonder what you're smoking. Some contender will offer him more than that as a possible full timer, but a worst a role player.

Reasons to trade Dozier. 1. Would you put a QO on him at this point, it may look different from now, but if the stats look like this maybe some return is better than nada. 2. Trading him does not mean you cannot sign him in the offseason, but the Twins have a fair about of middle infield depth, so probably do not need to resign Dozier. 3. Resigning Escobar makes a lot more sense, younger and somewhere around the price for Dozier. 4. If you resign Escobar and possibly Mauer or another 1B for next year, you can still have Sano play some third and you do not need Dozier to play.

No battle there, we are too far out, catching Cleveland is the only hope. Cleveland will fix their bullpen issues, so we need to be a lot closer to catch them. Hope on, but do not see a good way forward.

My biggest issue now is that the Twins are looking completely helpless against lefties and especially the soft tossing ones. How long will it be before clubs with decent depth will call up soft tossing lefties for one start against the Twins expecting to win.

I am certainly in favor of signing Escobar within reason this offseason, he may even make more than Dozier, but I feel it is a better use of resources. My point is when do we go all in, instead of the half moves we have seen. Or the alternative to me is when do the better players check out and decide to go elsewhere after their 6 years are up here unless the Twins sign them to an above market deal.

No answer to this question, but Gardy looks like an all star manager compared to Molly.

This might be fine if we did not expect to contend in 2019 or just wait until next year and the good hitters will all move on because their is no commitment to winning here.

So you are saying that a bad week that moves him under .700 is not also a possibility. I am saying GM's know what they think is correct. Dozier has tended to have very good second halves (most of which occurred under no pressure). All is takes in one GM to pay the correct price. If Dozier goes under .700 OPS, he will have no trade value.

RIght now Morrison and Dozier together will not buy you very much if anything. Dozier needs to go to a club that does not need him to be the focal point of the offense. Bring up Gordon and when Polonco comes back you will have a better idea of what you need. My concern with Polonco is that last year was the result of the PED's and not his baseline. Until we know that, we have very little idea of how to proceed and what we have.

This seems to have wandered a bit off line. Twins are missing 3 regulars at this time and Sano is not yet back up to full speed. But we have seen enough to assess the way forward. 1. 3 - 13 in one run games carried to a full season speaks of being very unlucky or a bad manager. This pace would set a new major league record by about .100 in winning percentage. Therefore I say lets tag this to the manager and fire Molly. His bullpen usage is about the worst I have seen in many years of watching major league baseball. Twins have 3 pitchers in the top ten of appearances, they are already losing effectiveness, guess what will happen in August and September, but hey we will get a much better draft pick out of it. 2. Dozier this year seems to already have lost effectiveness, bring Gordon up to play and put him on the bench, so it hurts his value, he soon will have little anyway. Alternative is to trade him now for what we can get, maybe can still get a suspect for him. He is not playing well enough for a QO, so get what you can. 3. If Mauer can hit when he comes back, see if he will take a 2/$12 or something in that range, we need to player who understands to take walks and work the count. 4. Lock up as many of the young players as you can this offseason, consider trading the ones who will not sign, they will probably move on after 2021. 5. Find or develop a great bullpen, if the Brewers can do it, why can't we. So far the relivers we have in the minors are looking like AAAA types, hope a couple of them can contribute in the next 2 years. 6. Move Lynn and Ordorizzi close to the trading deadline, they are better than most of the starters that will be on the market, get Gonsalves up here and audition the other starters in Rochester. See what we have for 2019, so we know what and how many we need to buy.

You cannot continue to burn relievers and expect good results to happen. Top managers know sometimes you have to use a different person to get key outs and if they fail it is only one game. Not use the same ones all the time and when they fail you see the Indians current bullpen (they fail most of the time). Twins hitting until some of the DL players return is not good enough to carry this club, pitching is going to have to. Either the FO is going to have to pull up other relievers from the minors and let some talent go, or Molly has to go and find a manager who knows how to manage to run the Twins. Some relievers do not show up the overuse until the next year. That may be the case now with Rogers. If this continues the fire sale should be interesting. It is also interesting the Gardy with a much worse club has them ahead of the Twins. He is a much better manager than some of us gave him credit for.

Constant baserunners and no easy outs will make lot of difference of how the games go. I can see the FO already starting to get away from the swing and miss types in the last few drafts. That is a refreshing change.

We have 2 major issues 1. extremely bad bullpen useage by the manager 2. too much swing and miss and soft contact by a lot of the hitters. Second will take time, but I always have been of the mind that you need a bunch of professional hitters who make a lot of contact and foul off a lot of pitches they cannot handle. I do not care how good a bullpen is for the opposing team when their starter is at 100+ pitches in the 5th inning with this approach. Their are ways to handle this, but most teams are not deep enough in the pen at this time to do it.

Twins are getting eaten alive by junkballers. This is on coaching and the manager. You can't fire the players so lets start at the top. Molly's bullpen mismanagement is classic and the Twins relievers will be out of gas by August. They need a manager to light a fire up the butts of some of these players. Do not have any more answers, but change in managers will certainly let the Twins know where they stand by the end of the year. If players do not respond to that it will be time to do some drastic readjustments to this team.

I am thinking more like mid 2020.

Who knows which outfielders will still be here long term by the time he gets here. I am guessing 2021 at the eariest. Sano (if he is here long term) or Rooker will be 1B and DH. Only if they retain all the outfielders will he have a problem with a spot (if he makes it). I might have rolled the dice with a pitcher, but that is much riskier and Twins have a number of pitchers knocking on the door now.

Kower

This seems to have worked well for the Twins

Gorman goes to St. Louis

I am in the BPA camp. Just have to keep having decent drafts and signing the players. Just cannot miss on the first pick. Only player I have seen I have doubts on is the pitcher with a lot of stuff, but control issues. Those seem to have a much bigger bust factor than most.

Before we get too giddy, I do not think that cleveland will fail to solve its bullpen issues, and it is only there that they can be vulnrable. Expect a move to be made in that direction in the next couple of weeks, failing to do that will force them into a race that would last close to September, instead of a cakewalk.

I am guessing more in the $8 - $10 million a year for Escobar, still a nice payday. I would not balk at a slightly higher total, but 3/$36 would have to think long and hard on it.