old nurse

Epstien has a nice roster. Still losing. They will be losing more as they dealt 2 of their top starters. The ballplayers over 30 likely to be with the club next year are Nolasco, Perkins and Mauer. Fien and Pelfrey remain to be seen. For the long term of the club, the continued emphasis on the average age of the club is meaningless. If Hicks could hit, there would be no Sam Fuld. If Tonkin pitched better there would not be Guerrier. Numerous under 30 players have had a chance to work out They did not. You grab what you can find. That would be older players. There is no intent to build with them, only to field as competitive team as possible for this year.

The dreaded control problem. They tried to sneak him through waivers so he could work on the control in Rochester. Didn't work out as planned. His replacement was Sean Henn, who didn't work out as planned.

He could have Nolasco pitch to him

Nobody wants to see an honest player fail. (everyone will cheer Arod failing)

So you didn't care much for the Steinbach and Molitor era of the Twins? You were out there supporting the 99-2000 Twins? 35-40 year old players with no trade value generally do not make an mlb team for long. Those that do generally have a long term contract from when they were good. Ryan is not going to do that. With 4 more years of Mauer and if Nolasco turns out to be a bad contract I doubt Ryan will sign anyone to a 4 year contract. I doubt the Twins will ever have a 35-40 year old with a bloated contract that makes them untradeable.

The argument is field the best team possible. The attendance for the 1999 and 2000 Twins was so poor they talked of contraction. The fan base did not appear to eant youth and hope.

Your op was you didn't want to watch players who are near 40 playing. I did not know that 35 was the new 40. By any definition it is not like the 35 year old players currently on the team are holding any prospect back. In their absence, no one stepped forward to take the job. They are not even statistically the worse playing players on the team. Now if 31 is the new 40, then you have a case. You will also really limit your pool of players. Half of the players that picked up the bat for 50 AB weren't very good. Every team has the problem of having marginal players. Complain all you want about having some poor players? Where do you expect to get them from for this year? On a short term deal age is irrelevant for a fringe player. What can they do to help your team now because they are replaceable. Who has stepped forward to replace Willingham, who is more than a fringe playe? No one. . In all unseriousness, is there a reason you want to see only young men play baseball?

Pelfrey has done nothing the last 3 years, but he has done the work in his career to deserve a shot at making the rotation.

There are things better served by video, there are things one see by observing. Shading the defense does in a bigger picture. Different ways they set up How a runner might time leaving a base with a pitch. You can see how they work a lot better ( Yep, sort of grit), what gets different people rattled, and watch the decision making process. I think you can tell better how they make adjustments watching the game. I think they can get a better idea of tendencies of the other team. It would be anything you can do to find an edge for your team. Anything to do with the human element Maybe for some they don't see the game any differently when they watch it on television.

There are 99 players hitting below .220 with at least 50 AB. There are 135 players with 50 AB who don't even have a positive WAR. 220 out of a possible 430 are below 0.5 WAR. There are a lot of marginal players out there. It is a problem every team has. Who's fault is it? Blame Brayce Hemmeigarn. You can't blame one person.

The Twins had compensation picks in the first and second round. The extra first round picks were Berios and Bard to go along with Buxton. Melotakis and Chargois were the second round picks. So Walker was the third round selection, 6th of the Twins picks. Chargois and Bard have spent time being injured so they can be out of sight, out of mind. Melotakis has not been over the top good to draw attention to his performance so far this year.

It is much more exciting to see 25 year old players battle to hit even the Mendoza line

In watching a game you can get a sense of the whole thing that you can not get with video.

None were a long term contract. Short term contracts for vets are to bridge. On the other hand, he is looking to build with Nolasco and Hughes.

Chief's article didn't say the Twins don't use all of the technology, just that they employ an advance scout. As far as marginal pitchers go, are they pitchers they have seen before? You can know what a pitchers throws, but it generally helps to have seen the pitcher before. Of course it would help to not have some marginal hitters.

Almost every player playing poorly for the Twins is very expendable. There is no one blocking a player from being added. There was an effort last year per Antony. There is a concept called you can't always get what you want. You can't accept that. With a limited supply of talent, what were they supposed to do? The rehash after the year showed that there were many pitchers not performing that signed FA contracts. The pitchers they did sign did about what you would expect them to do. It would not be unreasonable to think that they could discern what was a poor pitcher. I don't think it is unreasonable to think they knew they needed better starters. That left trades. Do you really think they could have packaged players together to get a significant pitcher? Their best prospects were in A ball, Arcia and Gibson coming off injury. On the major league side it was Span. Span packaged with Arcia and 1 of the other top 10 prospects might have brought back a decent pitcher. I don't think for a 2 year rental that would have went over too well.

It sets the bar for what is scarce, above average available pitching. One can hope that a lackey for a GM looks at fangraphs and thinks a big number for -ERA is a good thing. In terms of starting pitching, the Twins do not have much to sell

You can aim high but miss. It takes 2 parties to sign a contract. I do not know what other free agents they went after. The only thing I can be certain of is there was not much high end pitching talent that signed with the Twins for the 2013 season. What happened on the path to that point is conjecture. I would guess that I would have to wait for Ryan to retire to tell the story of "sometimes you can't give your money away". Jesse over at SB had an interview last year with Anony and came away with this quote RA: We made very competitive offers to a couple pitchers, and maybe even better offers than what players signed for. You get into a situation when you're coming off of two 90-plus loss seasons - some pitchers, and to their credit they are looking to land in a place where they'll get a chance to win, and some teams can just offer that and a player will look at it and believe it moreso than when we say "Hey, we're trying to win, too."

Incremental improvements mean a lot to some people on the board, but it may not mean much to you. To have obtained a frontline starter by trade look at what Gio Gonzales, Garza, Shields, or Samardzija netted in trade. I do not think the Twins had enough near major leaugue ready talent to pull of a trade like that. Even if DeVries, Worley, Pelfrey and Diamond were healthy last year to go with Correia it was going to be a collection of 4/5 starters. In an evenhanded look, any one if healthy could be viewed as the number 2 starter. Correia turned out to be the healthiest on day 2 of the season. His role was going to be the same regardless of what "spot" in the rotation. Throw 6 innings and keep the game close. Which Fransico Liriano are you going to get? The 2010 and 2013 version, or the 09.11,12,14 version? Liriano was traded from the Twins, so the Liriano/Correia contract comment seems a little odd to me. I don't think it was one or the other. There was more than enough money and roster space for both of them. LEN had sources say the Twins were interested in bringing back Liriano. Sources can be a tricky thing. IIRC somebody had a source that Scott Baker coming back to the Twins was a done deal. Sources are quoted. It really doesn't mean much at times.

Every team needs a fifth starter. Correia fits the bill. Consider the 2012 starts of PJ Walters, Vasquez, Swarzak and Duensing. Maybe Correia looks better than another season of that. The real sad part was at the time of Corria's signing the Twins needed about three pitchers to head up the rotation

a 3 for 49 slump will get you demoted.

MLBprospect guide.com lists the following as amateur free agent signings in 2007. Note this includes players from Cuba, Japan, and Canada Kelvin De Leon OF $1,100,000 2007 D.R. Young Il-Jung RHP $1,000,000 2007 Korea Julio Teheran RHP $850,000 2007 Colombia Martin Perez LHP $580,000 2007 Venezuela Jefry Marte 3B $550,000 2007 D.R. Dae-Eun Rhee RHP $525,000 2007 Korea Cesar Puello OF $400,000 2007 D.R. Rymer Liriano OF $300,000 2007 D.R. Esmailin Caridad RHP $175,000 2007 D.R. Tomas Telis C $130,000 2007 Venezuela Roman Mendez RHP $125,000 2007 D.R. Wilfredo Boscan RHP $15,000 2007 Venezuela Enrique Burgos RHP 2007 Panama Arodys Vizcaino RHP 2007 D.R. Dimasther Delgado LHP 2007 Panama Chris Jakubauskas RHP 2007 amateur free agent Michael Almanzar 3B 2007 D.R. Hideki Okajima LHP 2007 Japan Che-Hsuan Lin OF 2007 Taiwan Junior Lake SS 2007 D.R. Kosuke Fukudome CF 2007 Japan Larry Suarez RHP 2007 Venezuela Alexei Ramirez SS 2007 Cuba CJ Retherford 3B 2007 NDFA Juan Duran OF 2007 D.R. Mariekson Gregorius SS 2007 Netherlands Jason Smit SS 2007 Austrailia Alexander Perez RHP 2007 D.R. Gustavo Nunez SS 2007 D.R. Avisail Garcia OF 2007 Venezuela Yuniesky Betancourt SS 2007 Cuba Tim Collins LHP 2007 NDFA Jean Segura 2B 2007 D.R. Manny Correa RHP 2007 D.R. Fabio Martinez RHP 2007 D.R. Alexi Amarista SS 2007 Venezuela Pedro Baez 3B 2007 D.R. Hiroki Kuroda RHP 2007 Japan Santos Arias RHP 2007 D.R. Adrian Salcedo RHP 2007 D.R. Daniel Santana SS 2007 D.R. Scott Diamond LHP 2007 NDFA Oswaldo Arcia OF 2007 Venezuela Jenrry Mejia RHP 2007 D.R. Jordany Valdespin 2B 2007 D.R. Jeurys Familia RHP 2007 D.R. Francisco Pena C 2007 D.R. Wilmer Flores SS 2007 Venezuela Jose Ramirez RHP 2007 D.R. Arnold Leon RHP 2007 Mexico Leandro Castro OF 2007 D.R. Starling Marte OF 2007 D.R. Masahide Kobayashi RHP 2007 amateur free agent Yasuhiko Yabuta RHP 2007 amateur free agent Jonathan Galvez SS 2007 D.R. Edinson Rincon 3B 2007 D.R. Gabriel Noriega SS 2007 Venezuela Jorge Bucardo RHP 2007 Nicaragua Richard Castillo RHP 2007 Venezuela Alexander Colome RHP 2007 D.R. Wilking Rodriguez RHP 2007 Venezuela Leury Garcia SS 2007 D.R. Manny Solis 3B 2007 D.R. Eury Perez OF 2007 D.R. Marcos Frias RHP 2007 D.R.

1-11 are signed as previously stated, just keep going down the list http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=franch_year&team_ID=MIN&year_ID=2014&draft_type=junreg& There might be a better list out there. Might not be up to date http://www.baseballamerica.com/draftdb/index.php

First of all, On Gonzalez. St Louis had no choice but to call him up. They had no one else. Without a plus fastball, with a very poor curve, all he really has is his change up. One pitch pitcher that don't have a fastball do not fare well in the majors as starters. St Louis does not deserve praise for promoting him. That is the point you keep missing. You compare Pino to May. I never said Pino was better than May. Compare May's numbers with Hendrik's AAA numbers. Hendrik would appear to be the superior pitcher. Did the numbers translate to the majors for Hendriks? I do not put much stock in AAA numbers. It is a different game.

Yes they have faced a tough team in the Angels Yes they have injuries with a real lack of depth Yes they have a few starters not perform will You are correct on all three statements.