jokin

There are times to ignore Reusse, but this is a time for the muckraker to tell it like it is, starting with the headline and sub-headline and he kept piling up the scorn and derision within the body of the article: Santana's half-season ban puts Twins in deep troubleArticle by: PATRICK REUSSE , Star TribuneUpdated: April 4, 2015 - 12:57 AMVeteran free-agent shows he’s a lying fraud

I haven't followed Santana's career closely. Do you, or anyone else, know if he's ever been linked in the media, even innuendo or rumor, to PEDs previous to this event? It's been reported that Ervin's PED of choice doesn't have a known masking agent and is detectable in the bloodstream for months after injections (Rafael Palmiero was one of 11 players caught using stanozolol in 2005)-- so then, I'm wondering how he was able to hide his PED usage for all of these years as a professional? Why is he playing on his 4th team in four seasons? Are the one year deals offered by his previous two employers possible red flags that a typical GM must take into account for potential PED issues when considering long-term contract offers? It would seem that having an informational buddy network of drug spies on potential FA and trading targets would be a good use of a relatively small amount of funds in order to mitigate the risks from signing or inheriting long-term contract liabilities. I'm not trying to second-guess Twins management here, I'm just wondering how and why the League, with this new draconian policy for first-offense suspensions, has in effect, put the small and medium market teams especially, in a more precarious financial position than the players. It would seem with the half-year penalty, this type of long-term signing for a Starting Pitcher especially, entails far more risk- from PED suspensions, known/unknown injury, non-performance- than the expected derived benefits would warrant.

In the real world, this seems like a pretty straighforward case of fraud, but since A-Rod is still getting paid after a career filled with perpetrating one fraud after another, MLB obviously isn't... the real world.

Man, it's like you've been saving up your inspirations via images for just such an event...

If I may Nick, can I expand on your cogent comments...? In the business world they also call it failure to perform due diligence In the underground gambling world, they also call it crapping out.... and man, did Terry ever throw a deuce on this one!

For me, SS Eric Aybar sets the low bar for Santana with his 2014 numbers: .278/.321/.379/(.700) BABIP .297 It's entirely reasonable to see Santana come close or even likely exceed these numbers- the power number by quite a bit more. I think it's somewhat significant to note, that Santana's BABIP numbers jumped from previous minor league seasons in both AA and AAA. In some 700 PAs over two seasons, his combined BABIP was ~.360. Even a drop down to a .330 OBP would still mean that Santana could still OPS in the .730-.750 range which would place Santana among the top 4 SS at the plate.

Folks from the little Dutch kingdom have known for 100s of years that in order to do business with all of its much bigger neighboring countries, it's requisite to have the ability to effectively communicate in multiple foreign languages. after reading this "prospects'" autobiographical account of himself,my guess would be that the Netherlands have extended that custom to their former colonies. A 16 year old kid, and budding economist, who can use the word "ascertain" correctly in a foreign language, is indeed, very impressive, but alas, this was also the "tell' in this fine tale that brought me back down to earth.... since, of course... you published this on April Fools Day, and since we're the long-suffering followers of the MN Twins, we don't deserve the next Curacaoian wunderkind, so this is obviously all an elaborate, yet elegant practical joke. Well played, Jeremy.

Yeah, the pitching situation has been a disappointment, but knowing and not being much surprised by the Twins to come to the personnel conclusions they did, it kept me from making a final W-L prediction until we knew the final roster coming out of ST. I am lowering my expectations from my preliminary assessment more towards the Vegas oddsmakers over/under of 68. Even though last years' experiment with "more veteraniness" can only be considered a failure, they took that concept to the next level, spent more on the premium end of veteran continuum- but without the other commensurate upgrade in the other areas of weakness to make that big investment have a better chance of bringing in dividends. The bullpen, as currently constructed, projects to somehow be worse than last season. Besides all of the regression candidates in the positional lineup, Escobar's emergingly-decent bat (wRC+ of 102 in 2014- tied for 5th among all MLB qualifying SS) has essentially been semi-benched in favor of three guys (counting Hicks) that are in the bottom ten in wRC+ for all MLB OFers from 2012-14- Robinson 76 Schafer 75 Hicks 71 It's pretty universally agreed that the other teams in the division made more improvements in their roster. With the ALC-heavy schedule going well into the second week of May, the Twins could very well already be out of first place by double-digits come May 15.

But they all were slow-balled in what should have been a May debut for each in their "I've proved I'm ready and I'm coming up" years. Non-entity after non-entity were routinely promoted in front of each of them.

Ohh, they've gone many fathoms deeper in some of their roster logic this spring. Tommy "the Minimizer" Milone comes to mind, for one. "Throwin BB's" Blaine Boyer is another, Timmy "Lean Cuisine" is a third.

That quote was the most disturbing and deserved it's own mention in the article headline. It sure seems like he's set the bar needlessly high for flame-balling college RPs. Check with how other teams do this, Terry.

This scenario would be the best lemonade out of lemons story of the year- "The Accidental Wade Davis" effect?

This is the kind of guy that Terry always finds within his quantity over quality offseason bullpen shopping methods and ends up making me eat my words about a March 31 "Adios!", at least in the short term. And what's not to like with Boyer at the human level? Thanks to Parker.

Great, then I'll mark you down as all in favor of more of the same until further notice? ie, Deduno, Darnell, Johnson, Walters, Albers, DeVries, et al, ad infinitum.... And besides Hughes, who else has been Mr Consistency in the Twins rotation during this decade of pitching futility? And yeah, calling up Gibson in 2013, clearly the best AAA option, instead of continuing the pointless starting pitching shuttle shuffle between non-major league entities in the midst of a pointless season, Liam, Samuel, PJ, Pedro, Cole, on say, right after his May 8th outing for Rochester in 2013, would have had Gibson throwing for the Twins when his arm was still strong. It would have given him at least 9 extra starts with a much fresher arm, and accelerated his acclimation to the majors.

Seems like you created an excellent potential polling question and possible quiz contest. (And personally, I think we all better hope for the best, but prepare to be livid).

Are people still easily fooled or fooling themselves on this "we'll see them in two months." It ended up essentially being 3 months before a call-up for Gibson two years ago, and pretty much after he had used up his arm in AAA in first post-TJ season. There was no reason not to call up May and Meyer by some time in May last year. And besides the obvious choice of Pelfrey as the first SP to jump into the rotation, maybe add Darnell or Wheeler to that list- based on previous precedent.. (The excuse used in the past for not calling up Gibson, May and Meyer was "consistency", this year the Twins apparently are looking for "minimization", we'll have to see who minimizes best down in AAA).

Boon to the team, indeed. And the biggest beneficiaries will be Alex Meyer individually, and the Twins pitching staff and Twins win-loss record collectively- if mastering this pitch helps Meyer reach his full potential- and does so that much sooner. Allen spent years and years working on this pitch in the minors with the near-ready Tampa Bay pitching greats of the recent past. Meyer should be spending the next chapter of his apprenticeship in Minnesota, not Rochester.

One of the critical keys to success for Alex Meyer is nailing down that change-up of his as a consistently effective third/fourth pitch. It doesn't seem very helpful to be 1000 miles away from the guy who might be the difference-maker in getting his major league career jump-started.

I nominate this post for Threadwinner

The only possible positive outcome for Pelfrey was in Ryan making the obvious-to-some move that many of us have been calling for from his first year with the Twins. Not out of the woods and into the clover yet though.... the next question for Pelfrey to answer is if he can pitch effectively on back-to-back days. A new Wade Davis isn't built in one ST appearance.

Yeah, me too. In the spirit of the TD blog, I was trying to put a more hopeful, positive spin that the Twins braintrust's thinking could possibly be catching up to reality...

How many variations on this sentence theme have been written over the last 3 seasons?

Plenty of evidence that both should have been called up no later than last May or June (Gardy even wanted Meyer in his pen out of Spring Training) in a year when the Twins were spinning their wheels. Why waste those starts on guys everyone knows were not part of the future?

You keep presenting evidence that supports the case to consider promoting faster.

I think you missed my point- I'm in full agreement that the current status quo is not going to end well. I was saying that the Twins talked themselves last fall into believing that signing Hunter would be both a defensive upgrade by placing him in RF w/ Arcia in LF, plus he would help upgrade Hicks in CF through his mentoring (and perhaps Arcia, as well), as he had been mentored by beloved Twins CF vets previously. Only now in late March have they come to the conclusion that this plan was currently not viable.