jokin

And though I missed it the first time in yesterday's presser, Ryan also confirmed that Arcia was headed to LF.

Yep, you're definitely on to something here- there weren't a lot of options. I've written about it before, but since the Twins were insistent on going this route, a more defensible case can be made for the soon-to-be 34 year old Rios (and his estimated one-year price of $8.5M would have saved them some money, besides).

Are you dodging my second paragraph, Brock?

Deadspin is an ideologically driven, vulgar and sensationalistic sports-TMZ, and was the cudgel that Berardino acknowledged that he used to give his line of attack a patina of credibility.

Yeah, that's my point, I'm pretty sure I parenthetically noted the difference between our countries, with the intent to appreciate the irony of where certain aspects of the media now reside. Certain areas of the US media have taken upon themselves the "denouncing job" against "thoughtcrimes" here that the Communist Party used to dictate to the "journalists" in those countries.

Yeah, that story on the Senator-elect from Colorado supposedly caught lying about playing football in high school was Deadspin's finest hour of credibility. And the Governor of Arkansas is germane, how so? If what Deadspin does is so credible, why don't the writers at Twins Daily emulate their style of gotcha games all day and freely sprinkle each editorial with multiple vulgarities?

I could fill up a dozen pages of crap that Gawker has published that was either not credible, or ideologically driven for the primary purpose to harm someone's reputation, simply because they didn't follow Deadspin's political orthodoxy. And yeah, if I wanted to live in a country where denouncing public figures for their Constitutionally-protected points of view (in the US, anyway) was the norm rather than the exception, the People's Republic of China or North Korea would be the place to be.

Yeah, Deadspin has the exact same journalistic standards as the Washington Post and the NY Times./sarc

Deadspin is demontstrably not a "credible media outlet", as Mike Berardino alleged. Parent company is Gawker, an online blogging company that features "Gawker Stalker Maps" (a blatantly irresponsible encouragement for the Rupert Pupkin's of the world to commit mayhem on celebrities as well as on Gawker's political targets currently in the news) and a blog called "Defamer", as well as Deadspin. The chairman of the parent company called his company's primary focus as "'traffic-whoring' and 'SEO bomb-throws.'" Another goal is to harass, whip up controversy and shout down anyone that disagrees with their own extreme political views. One of their "accomplishments" was to hound the creator of Javascript, and CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, out of his position at Mozilla, for merely making a small donation to the sponsors of a state referendum in California that they opposed. Deadspin's recent "accomplishments" in sports journalism include "buying" a Baseball HOF vote from Dan LeBatard, and in October, completely beclowning themselves by breathlessly claiming that the Senator-Elect from Colorado had lied about playing varsity football in high school. Their supposed source was an elderly man, who thoroughly denied the story once it was published. Of course, the clowns at Deadspin hadn't thought to crack open a yearbook and avoid being so thoroughly embarrassed. They never even wrote a formal retraction and apology immediately after they were found out- but (somewhat, ironically given their name) tried to "spin" the story their way for days afterwards. This demonstrates that Berardino used poor judgement in both his choice of his stated source he deemed "credible", and in his timing for asking the non-baseball questions, laced with innuendo. How is supporting someone for Governor related to which teams might, or might not sign Torii Hunter? The current Arkansas governor is not some crackpot, the guy was a US Attorney who successfully prosecuted and crushed a white supremacist organization and later became the Head of the DEA Not your finest moment, Mike Berardino, you came off as the crackpot, although Joe McCarthy might approve.

Pretty good summary, Seth. I've been waiting for someone to float this trial balloon: The perfect name to pick up to continue the "break-up-the-country-club(house) with more aging-gamers-and-grit" offseason theme. I am also surprised that Andrew Albers and Johan Santana, Craig Breslow and Jesse Crain weren't mentioned. They could trade for Grant Balfour and it would likely only cost them a C- prospect- in so that the Rays could get out of the $7M contract. Back to the Future, Part Deux, indeed.

I think given Ryan's past comments on him taking responsibility for the teams he's given Gardy, it seems like it might be worthwhile to consider what Molitor is looking for in further position player upgrades. Ryan might be inclined to accede to Molly's wishes and still be "looking to see what's out there" at the Winter Meetings as well as what's on the waiver wire/Rule 5.

Actually, this door is not quite closed all of the way. This afternoon he told Berardino this:

That is an awesome use of pun-ditry. I really wanted the Twins to take a run at Saunders. Obviously, there wasn't a perfect fit of contracts and arms to get this done on the part of the Twins.

The source involved here was likely Hunter's agent playing hardball with the Twins.

Greed is spot-on here. On every little turn in the story, the Twins were still a part of the conversation. When it was reported that Molitor was doing his own full court press, it was very evident that the Twins weren't going to give up on this one. Terry Ryan identified early-on what he wanted, statistical evidence be damned, and he's been really good in the past at bargaining against himself (Pelfrey). Once we heard about Guardado and Thanksgiving dinner, I was pretty sure that we were witnessing the Twins version of a Brett Favre moment. My only question at the time was whether or not they would be held up for a two-year deal to get it done.

Terry Ryan said the Hunter is the RF. Multiple reporters, including the MLB.com guy that writes all of the content on the Twins own website (Rhett Bollinger)... have reported this and of Arcia's destination. I have a hard time thinking that just-the-facts Bollinger just made this quote up out of whole cloth:

And Berardino is hearing about his own faux pas on social media.

Terry Ryan, and Paul Molitor, to an even greater extent, are staking their careers on the exact opposite assessment.

As I said, I'm wondering if he was asked that inappropriate question in LA or Detroit in the same circumstance. It looks like he got a "gotcha" question when he least expected it, and reacted poorly. It happens.

Citing Deadspin as a credible "national media outlet" as his excuse for asking the question? This is the gotcha group that "bought" a HOF vote from Dan LeBatard, and just beclowned themselves by breathlessly reporting the "scoop" that the Senator-elect from Colorado had never played varsity football in high school. Their single "source" was a confused old man who immediately denied the story. And all Deadspin would have had to do to verify the story was to crack a yearbook. Bad timing decision by Berardino, bad source to use for justifying his reportage.

Let's not pretend that established relationships between the media and the players aren't an important part of the process. Today was not the day for the off-the-field, confrontational questions. Hunter didn't handle it very adroitly, but I would be interested if he got any questions like this at his introductory press conferences in either LA or Detroit.

That would be monstrous enough for me. (Actually, Arcia's personality would seem like a really good fit with Torii's, but moving him to LF isn't likely to end well).

Boy, that's an interesting set of solutions... but unfortunately, it's mostly exactly the opposite of how TR rolls.

I remember that same look when Nolasco was signed...

Yep. Questions about baseball at an introductory press conference- All. Good. There's only one press conference when you're introduced. As Chitown stated, for the non-baseball stuff, there's plenty of time left between now and season-end for letting Torii be Torii.