beckmt

I also prefer Park to Vargas. But depth is not a bad thing, you never know.

Long time to go, but I would like to see the Twins take the highest rated college starter if he is rated to be a #1 or a #1/#2 type with stuff. Twins window will be opening shortly and need to find extra good pitchers to be here no later than 2019(hopefully 2018)

Gonslaves and Garver may be here next year. Gordon looks to be 2018. This fall will tell if Gonsalves or Garver gets a full chance to open with the Twins in 2017. Good luck to all.

Dozier should be traded for the right offer(you should be able to find a right offer this offseason). Plouffe you need to move on from, even if that is a non-tender. Mauer still has value and dumping him would have issues with trying to sell homegrown talent to stay here for less money. Reducing his AB's can and should be done. He is more of a 4 to 5 days a week player now to get best value out of him. Santana I would trade for the right offer(hopefully that comes later in the winter, when clubs really find out how bad the pitching market is). If you do not get the right offer, hopefully he pitches well and you move him at the trading deadline if you are out of contention.

Plouffe, Kintzler, Milone, Gibson would all be non-tenders by me. That would give me the money to sign one of the proven closers on the market this year). I would then fill the rest of the pen with the youngsters we have pounding on the door and see who sticks and who does not. One of the youngsters might(and I emphasize might) be a big end closer, but in that case you can flip the one you bought for another group of near ready major league prospects. Santiago at least has the track record and the stuff to be a #3 or #4 major league starter. Gibson to me is a starter on a bad ballclub, but not on a contending one, why waste the money. Yes, I know I am giving players away, but I do not see any of these four being a part of a contending team and they are blocking spots for other players to develop. This board has been in favor of cutting a starting pitcher to create room, my choice is Gibson.

We don't know what will work out. But we are more than a year away from contending. Some of you from this post would have given up on the Twins position players in the late 90's that developed into a decent group by 2001. I think you should trade Dozier and maybe Santana if you get a good offer including near MLB ready pitching. In the bullpen I am ready to give a great number of youngsters a chance. 2017 is going to be a lost season(hope not but that is the probable reality). Only major pitching piece I might sign would be one of the 4 major closers available. You can flip them in July if you get a great offer and pin a bullpen on them since you will contend during their good period. Rest of this years pitching a going to get overpaid, avoid it. Trading Dozier(and or Santana) for a major league ready pitching prospect or two is the way to go. Dozier needs to be traded now as his value will never be higher, and are you going to sign him for 4 big dollar years at age 32? But not for a group of A or A+ very good prospects who are 2 years away. I would not offer Gibson a contract as I feel he is not more than a 5 starter and Twins have too many of those. Twins will have a crunch in the next 2 years of players eligible for the rule 5 draft and you need to see which ones will succeed. IF you do not this board 3 years from now will be on the fire the GM line after one of the players missed turns into being a star who was lost for $50,000. Yes next year might be painful, but you also might get lucky. The position side of this team is not that bad and improving. It is the pitching you need to fix. Not all of the position players will succeed, but you have enough players already in AA or AAA to fill holes ans see if someone else can do the job(Palka, Walker, Gordon, Vielma, Granite, Garver, Murphy,Park). For this to work Sano has to play 3rd for the next 2 years(unless Mauer retires or can be bought out to retire). So Plouffe is an extra and needs to be flipped or non-tendered. Between Plouffe and Gibson, you will have the money to sign a big closer, without changing payroll by that much and fixing the back end of the bullpen. Perkins could also be done and you could get even more salary relief there.(injury retirement).

I think you save money this year and not invest in questionable pitching. You may need to add a reliever or two, Greg Holland is a good thought. Give plenty of the young pitchers chances to succeed or fail. They spend in 2017 offseason on front line pitching if you did not get some very good youngsters by trading Dozier.

Would not bother to protect either Wheeler or Turner. Do not forget you have to add Hughes and Perkins back so you will need about 10 spots. That should be easy. Cut /Let Walk 1. Andrew Albers 2. James Beresford 3. Pat Dean 4. Tommy Milone 5. Logan Schafer 6. Kurt Suzuki 7. Michael Tonkin (tough decision) 8. Trevor Plouffe - Trade/Non-Tender 9. Buddy Boshers - EDIT: eh Order might be important as might have to have rule 5 before non-tenders(I do not know the order) Would not add either Walker, Turner, or Wheeler. That would reduce the issues of the roster. Will be interesting .

You are not getting a pitcher like Glasnow in trade from a club with a limited budget without giving up more than he is worth. I am all for trading Dozier for close to major league ready starting pitching(Urias?). I like Santiago a lot more than Gibson who to me is a #5 starter. I would start 2017 with Murphy and Centino at catcher and Turner and Garver at AAA. Promote quickly if they show they are ready. Grossman is fine as a 4th outfielder to start, maybe if Rosario fails again a short term fix. Have hope that Granite will evolve and be here in 2018. Would get rid of most of the relievers keeping only for sure Chaigos and Rogers and possibly Pressly. Here is where I would promote freely and give the kids a chance, we will need them by 2018. After dumping a bunch of marginal prospects we should have plenty of room on the 40 man to protect anyone we think has a decent chance.

I like San Francisco, assuming they can survive tonights game. Should be a great game and if they survive, like the top San Francisco starters.

Do not think he has the time for this type of integration this year. Outside of replacing/demoting Anotony and bringing a like minded GM on board, my best hope is the replacement of some of the minor league coaches/instructors to clean up the lack of fundementals issues we are seeing in our young players. The rest will have to wait until next year. Do not see him replacing more than a few scouts in the first year, or the scouting/minor league structure in the top areas.

Zuke should have been gotten rid of last year. Pitchers ERA was much lower with Murphy catching. Would be interested on how Garver and Turner will rank on this at the major league level. Stopping runs and helping the pitching staff should rank higher for a catcher is they can be passable with the bat.

Garver looks a little low to me. I would rank him ahead of Turner, who to me now looks like a light hitting backup catcher. Maybe start Garver at AAA, but may need to get him here quick.

Trading is a better way. Salary you cannot do anything about so if you cannot trade Dozier for a #2 starting pitcher or a youngster that has #1 upside and is close to the major leagues you have a couple of choices. 1. Hope Mauer is fed up and either requests a trade or retires (about 20%). 2. Non-tender a couple of the starters to leave room to have open tryouts next year and then go all-in in 2017 outseason to buy #1 starter. Need to sort out which prospects will make it and trade some of the(in your opinion) lesser ones for some assets. Do not think with the turnover this will happen this year. So I expect 2017 will be somewhat written off as a tryout year and then 2018 is when I hope we can compete.

It is hard with this staff to figure out if it is the coaching or are they all bad. Agree the changing now and then later if Molitor is fired next year is not good. Probably would leave things as they are, except maybe replace Bruno with Chad Allen as many of the younger players have worked with him.

I feel it is more the field staff has the problems with fundamentals. Fixing that is the first issue. Players from the Ryan era phase 2 have just started to reach the majors, drafting and player procurement will take another year or two to evaluate. I also do not want change for the sake of change. However all of us want to see the problems fixed as fast as possible. I hope international procurement has extra money assigned to it, as this is the fastest way to add talent at the price of reasonable money. Good luck

Would also have picked McLeod. Think it will depend on money Pohlad will spend. Need an ace plus two end of bullpen pieces to give kids time to develop. Bullpen this year, ace next winter. That will be pricey.

Most of these are watch and see if they develop. Unlike other organizations, a few of these have a real chance. Great list and fun players to watch.

I wanted McLeod, so this was disappointing. Hope it works, will take a wait and see attitude, hope this is not the one person outside the organization who would allow the restrictions placed on him.

I was hoping the guy quoted earlier said Mauer was thinking of retiring. Plan A was to give him his money and retire now, freeing the money for other uses. Thus the $50 million over 25 years. You also have the argument that Jake Mauer is highly respected and this would allow him to interview and possibly become the Twins manager in the next 2 years. Not a given, just to give him a chance to interview.

I feel that giving Joe a chance to retire with a buyout to turn him into the face of the Twins, say 2 million a year for 25 years. It is not about 2017, 2017 is finding what you have and pruning for 2018. Plouffe is a separate issue and needs to be traded or non tending. With the money saved, you could easily afford an ace after 2017.

My second choice, still should be good. Am still a little worried until the offical annoucement as things have a way of falling apart. This one could over authority decisions, but still have hope.

I feel Santana alone will not bring back the assets you need. More likely a high A player with decent upside from a club that wants to contend now. That to me is spinning wheels as you keep trading good assets for A ball prospects. The note about combining assets to a club that wants to contend now is still valid.

The last few days have given me the impression, that some of the players have checked out. This cannot happen and since you cannot fire 10 -15 players the field staff has to go.

Scary thing is that the Twins are 1 bad hire away from being irrelevant for the next 10 years. You are probably not going to be able to fix the pitching staff in 1 year. Trading Dozier gives you hope if you pick the right team and right assets to give you a chance in 2018. Santana you will probably not get you want you need unless you package with Dozier and I would rather package Gibson as it gives you more clubs that might make a deal for some real assets. Both are not paid what they could command, which gives you a better list of clubs to deal with. Dozier still has 2 years of control, which is great for a win now small market team. Dodgers, Pittsburg, St. Louis and maybe one of the Mets, Yankees or Red Sox have the minor league assets(near major league ready) to target. There may be another club, but these are at the top of my list. Going forward Pohlad may have to spend money to make money and if the is buying an ace in the 2017 offseason go for it.