jokin

C'mon. This absolutely begs credulity- and not exactly a vote of confidence that any of Diamond/Johnson/Gilmartin/Raley can step up into the role. I'm glad they've listened to the fans concern about the need for a LHSP. It must be some kind of loyalty test for Dougie, or maybe just to see what level of dupe he's willing to descend.

Dutiful Doogie will be sure to get and publish the stories next offseason about how it was down to the Twins, the Yankees and the Dodgers for Sherzer, Lester and Ramirez. Meanwhile, the club will have shocked everyone and proved how aggressive they were in bringing back Nick Punto to stabilize the middle infield situation, Josh Johnson coming home to the place of his birth (he says he remembers how great the winters were here before he moved to LA at the age of 6), to both shore up the lack of LH starting depth and revive his starting career and Torii Hunter, who "took a steep discount" to finish up his career at the age of 39 with the Twins in CF and as a mentor to Hicks and Buxton. The "vanguard", if you will, leading the way to the delayed core- ETA 2016. Remember, you heard it here first.

I don't get the bolded part, Nick. The entire coaching staff, contrary to the first guillotine-heeled instincts of nearly every other club in baseball, was given a 2-year extension- practically moments after yet another disastrous 96-loss season. Contrary to 2012, this year, they didn't even make a token sacrificial lamb out of one of the batboys. In effect, 2 more years were purchased to continue their 2014-15 master-plan: 1) Shore up the Starting Pitching from "Pathetic"...to... "Fair to Middlin' chance to get 3 Times through the Batting Order"- without raising the Net Payroll- Check. 2) Bask in the marketing Before-and-After-Glow of hosting the All Star and Futures Games- Check. 3) Deposit the annual $25M media checks into the capital fund paying down the Pohlad debt on Target Field- Check. 4) Sell "Hope", both this year and next, in the Dr Feelgood designation-mode of the club allegedly sporting "The #1 Farm System in Baseball."- Check. With Sano possibly going down- this could mean he is possibly delayed from becoming an effective and entrenched major leaguer until at least 2016, thus, assuming the dreaded "announcement" that he's going under the knife, they would now already have a ready-made post-season excuse to give to season ticket holders for yet another 90+ year on the Loss side, and every perverse incentive to shoot for one or two more top 5 draft picks in June 2015 and possibly 2016 before any significant attempts at increasing the payroll. I go with Sandbun on this, the scenario of Sano going down means 2, or even 3 years before this team will make the full commitment to compete.

In this case, I would tend to trust any outside and neutral talent evaluator over a guy, part of whose job is to promote the players under his supervision. Produce just one outsider with scouting cred who has even suggested that Santana is the best athlete in the organization and I'll be all ears. But for now, put me down for nominating Steil as an early front-runner for most preposterous statement of the year. How many plus-plus and plus ratings does Santana possess in his arsenal? Did Santana strike out 18 batters while throwing 93 MPH FBs in a State Championship high school game? Has Santana been recently compared to 3 of the best pure athletes in baseball history, Mantle, Mays and Trout?

As near as I can tell, the checkbook has been closed since December 23, when Suzuki and Pelfrey were signed. To the contrary of your conclusion, if Sano is out for the season, it merely adds another reason to forestall "the parade" of any new potential roster-bolstering acquisitions until the rest of the "core" hits the bigs for good. If Sano ends up on the shelf, wake me up in 2016.

How about as a 30 year old? Joe Torre- @ age 30, NL MVP playing 161 games at 3B in 1971. And his only prior experience at the position was 72 games at the position the previous year- this is exactly what I'm proposing that Mauer do this year should Sano prove to be out of commission for 2014, get his feet wet at the position, sharing time @ 3B with Plouffe, also providing the opportunity at getting another LH bat into the lineup against certain RHP. By season's end, it gives the team another option going forward- as they assess what to do with Sano.

Catchers who are good athletes and end up switching positions frequently have 3B as an option- Torre and Bench are examples. Joe Mauer was a good enough athlete to be offered a QB scholarship at an NCAA National Championship-level football team and played Point Guard for a MN High School State Tournament team. Killebrew, Torre and Cabrera would never be asked to play SS, but they did adequately man 3B, Mauer's easily a better athlete than all 3.

Where would Polanco and Minier rank in that list? I have no knowledge of Vielma's athleticism, but it seems rather unlikely that anyone in the organization, even Santana, is more athletic than Buxton.

Thry, this discussion has been ongoing from Mauer's first contract extension. Of course, 1B isn't 3B. But we all know what an athlete Mauer is, and we also know that guys much less athletic have manned the position and done well (Torre MVP, Cabrera, Killebrew), it's not like anyone's asking Mauer to play SS here...or reinventing the wheel- there's not a doubt in my mind that he could handle the position better than any of the aforementioned.

Rosario to 3B?... perhaps a bridge too far?

....but seriously...this move makes sense to begin implementation this year, perhaps by moving Mauer to 3B against some RHP with a platoon partner like Parmelee, with Plouffe at 3B and Mauer at 1B against LHP. It could improve this year's offense and prepare the team for the inevitable transition to Vargas/Sano/Plouffe at 1B in 2015.

All of which begs the question: Why is Gardy still at the helm of a clearly rebuiling team, and a team that seems fully intent for the next 2 years on the continuation of the practice of NOT "Winning Now"?

Yup. This is going to be a compelling story, on many levels. 1) We'll all be pulling for him- seems like a good guy, very talented, but caught up in the Yankee vortex, 2) it's a huge chance for Andy to rewrite his legacy, 3) this a huge opportunity for the club to stabilize and bolster the rotation as the next wave arrives and gains their sea legs while ideally quickening the pace on the return to relavancy and contention-status.

Unfortunately, Gardy's new 2 year contract and Terry's public apology for not gettting him better players means that Gardy's opinion will likely hold sway here. And really, what are the alternatives that Gardy can put out there instead? I hope for the 2012 Kubel to make a return, but I fear that the 2013 version of Kubel is closer to the real one....and that Gardy sticks with that version for too long before cutting bait (all the evidence we need is the fact that Doumit kept getting meaningless ABs when the club clearly would have been better served giving those ABs to players like Parmelee, who are/were still potentially part of the future). I think they try to sneak Parmelee through waivers.

Unfortunately, he previously junked the cutter after it turned awful early in 2012. Getting rid of the slider definitely should help his elbow health, but he's going to need a solid new approach and a clean bill of health to turn the cutter and the slow curve back into effective out pitches. All eyes on Andy for getting it done. I think people are going to come to realize that this signing is a higher risk/reward type than merely a bad year bounce-back play. Could be a spectacular success story, or another Pelfrey acquisition, only @ 3 years, instead of 2.

So in a nutshell, it's not an either/or thing, it's more like a neither/nor thing...X 3...?

Pinto is nursing 2 injuries and the acting GM complained about him coming to camp overweight. Not exactly a huge vote of confidence for him heading north out of ST. Plus the braintrust continues to hype Fryer. There's a fighting chance that Pinto plays the first couple months at Rochester. But I'm with you on Pinto playing himself into the starting role by mid-season. And the Twins would think more than twice before they pulled another Wilson Ramos deal. And FWIW, Turner is a 2016 debut under ideal conditions, while Navaretto is probably more like 2018. There is no sudden depth bursting through the Twins catching pipeline that should precipitate such a half-cocked trade like this.

There has been speculation that Ryan has had a couple back-pocket trading partners for Correia's services for some time. ARe you hearing anything along those lines, or are your comments solely based on Gibson's first outing? It's hard to believe they will cut Correia loose, unless they're pretty certain that Gibson is ready to step up, plus, that the Twins are also reasonably assured that the #5 spot will be ably manned by Deduno, et al, while we all await a Meyer and/or May call-up at some point in the summer.

Kennys Vargas. There are reports that he now is a Fielder-like 275 #s, which seems like a potential near-future red flag. Beyond a great play at first and the constant reports about his daily efforts at turning the Ft Myers BP batters boxes into his own personal launching pad, does Kennys pass the eye test as a an impact guy by 2015 in the Twins lineup? Escobar being out of options, it seems like Gardy is going to shoehorn him in to the utility role. Also, without Carroll, there really isn't any other current option behind Plouffe on the current roster at the Hot Corner.

Thanks for the link, JB. I'm glad they're apparently all on the same page with a solid game plan. This is the type of situation where a pitcher is earnestly searching for answers, that Anderson has obtained positive overall results. Things must have been becoming desperate for Hughes; according to Pitch F/X, he didn't throw any sliders in 09, 10, 11, and only 4% in 2012, before his heavy reliance on the elbow-straining slider in 2013- that 24% number is quite a heavy "lean". His 2013 numbers indicate his control didn't leave him, he just became eminently more hittable, witnessed by his OBA of .286, 15% whiff rate, and a marked increase in LD% and decrease in GB%. And not only his Slider was hittable, so was his FB and CU. Hopefully full health, a new slate, and a new plan can create more movement on all of his repertoire of pitches.

BA is not an accurate descriptor of the qualitative difference between the two players, and Drew's injury years are easily thrown out of the equation. The 2013 yawning gap of 166 points between Drew's OPS of .777 versus Florimon's .611 OPS more than offsets the defensive differences, and then some by quite a bit, as reflected in the 2+ game fWAR difference between the 2 players.

It wouldn't be the first time. Drew Buter says "Hi". http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/1206/mlb.poll.best.catcher/images/Drew-Butera.jpg

A trifle more meaty stuff from LEN3 today. Hughes is evidently completely abandoning his slider, which he relied on for nearly 24% of his pitches last year, in favor of reviving a cutter, which he had essentially abandoned the last 2 seasons, and upgrading his curve. I wish Neal could dig up more info on this new approach by Hughes. ie, 1) Is this new plan based on input from the Twins pitching braintrust? 2) Are there arm issues from overuse of the slider that precipitated this change? 3) Is there an attempt through this new plan to cut back on his fly-ball tendecies?

We had this debate on another thread, much like the trading of Span and Revere without a backup plan to Hicks ended up creating a huge hole in the 2013 lineup, the loss of Morneau has also not been adequately replaced with a meaningful backup plan for 2014- and there is a degree of denial, hope and wishcasting on the part of Twins management and some fans. Some combination of 5 major question marks: Pinto, Kubel, Parmelee, Colabello, Willingham- has to REALLY come thorugh to avoid the C/1B/DH from being an "enormous downgrade" year over year.

The switch to Smith concerned me at the time and it does give me great concern about the next succession plan. Rob Antony seems like a nice guy and all, but I fear that he might be already tabbed as the heir apparent, and his lack of portfolio is similar to Smith's.