PseudoSABR

I've been dealing with significant injuries as well. Parnell, Ramos, Fister, Maybin, and the Hamilton one hurts with him playing so well. I've made good waiver wire grabs with Kubel and Colabello, but my lineup isn't as good as it's scored so far. My depth could vanish if some guys come back to earth. Nicasio was also a nice pick up so for the rotation in the MLB draft. But the play of Gallardo, Pineda and Perez has carried my rotation, and with Bauer reemerging, my rotation has some depth to go along with Buchholz and Fister. There's a lot of competitive teams, and often the team with the most pitching starts and hitter's innings ends up winning; so depth is so important along with setting your lineups daily and your rotations weekly.

Honestly this list (of alternative explanations) is full of latent racist stereotypes. Haircuts? Tattoos? Attitudes in the home? Makes my stomach churn. If you can't connect systemic racism, poverty and poor upbringing, no one will connect the dots for you. Does it really matter if it's skin color or cultural iconography that leads to mistreatment? No one is suggesting that any opposition to Obama (or any kinship to Republican party) is based in any part in racism. That said, however small the portion of actual racists (or latent racists) is, it is significant. We've had political candidates send out flyers with Obama depicted as a monkey or in African regalia etc, etc. Clearly these politicians are capitalizing on something within their base, however unsavory. For Republicans to succeed locally (and nationally), they will continue to curry the racist vote; in some sense, they'd be stupid not to. Modern racism largely exists not as an active hating process, but rather as an unconscious set of assumptions and social negligences. If we're not willing to acknowledge the existence of such racism, we're part of the problem.

A healthy Scott Baker or a horse like Nolasco both are very, very valuable.

I don't disagree--the same evidence, however, could be used to suggest how consistent the culture is, that they do well (battle their tales off etc.) even in Gardy's absence. Those who are looking for a fundamental shake up in the Twins culture, probably won't ever get it. Even if Gardy retires, much of the old regime, and the Twins way, will remain.

Well the evidence is pretty anecdotal given how few games Gardenhire has been absent; so I think the case is pretty thin, just based on this. That said, if Steiny called for Dozier to squeeze, he doesn't deserve to manage either.

You don't pitch to Joe Mauer!

"You miss none of the balls you don't swing at." -P. Florimon

You're putting far too much weight on ERA...

I'm encouraged by May's start too, but this kind of talk is just counter productive.

That's exactly what they did with Nunez. (And really, these kind of statements can apply to all teams all the time). There's simply not that many better SS prospects than the collection we have in the high minors already. All teams tend to covet their SS prospects.

The prospect rankings are listed on Bauer's baseball reference minors page. (Not hard to double check that kind of thing if you have some cynicism about my statement of the facts). Bauer was more highly regarded than any arm in our current system prior to his trade to Cleveland, though there were questions about his makeup. He was the third overall pick not three drafts ago. The notion that you can just go out and get shortstop prospects like Didi without giving up another significant part (top 5 prospect) is absurd; if Didi costs something less than that, there's probably something wrong with him. More, it would cost something of significance to go get prospects equivalent Danny Santana or Jorge Polanco, which we already have. Of course, the Twins need to address SS longterm and you're right that depth and upside help--but it's not a matter of them simply pulling the trigger or some such. Beyond singing Drew, there's very little the Twins can actually do to address there current SS depth without hampering the team's future in some other way. The Twins do have depth now (in Escobar and Nunez) and have some potential in the high minors with (Santana, Goodrum and Polanco (if he can stick at SS, and they are certainly giving him the chance to)). The SS stop situation looks far better than it has been in years (though still not what any of us would like).

Bauer was a top 15 prospect before last season, higher even before then.

If his defense was as atrocious as the metrics suggest the Twins, much less Gardy, wouldn't have put Florimon's job on the hot seat. The pitching depth is actually very healthy at the A level, and within a year we've traded Butera for a middle infielder with youth--which was ****ing unimaginable this time last year. For those that wish to read into the move, whether founded or not: the move suggests 1) confidence in A-level pitching 2) Santana is not ready to replace Florimon 3) Florimon's defense (or anyone SS's) does not forgive his bat 4) Bartlett is not the replacement SS (nor a replacement OFer). One wonders what is up with Sulbaran that makes his arm expendable to firstly, an obviously worthless part and secondly, a questionable worthwhile part. There's probably something there, if abstract and amorphous.

What was that? What do you call those? Homedingers?

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 17m Buxton's wrist had been showing improvement as the #mntwins broke spring camp, Antony said. Some good injury news for everyone.

I'm sure that detail is the result of good reporting by Berardino. I doubt the Twins volunteered many details when they first announced it to the press.

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 42m Arcia sitting with right wrist issue. Doctor to examine today. Same spot as last year, he said. #mntwins

Hold on. I'll go outside.

If Colabello stays hot; Willingham is another guy we can sit and rotate Kubel in against the right handers. I wonder if the three of these guys (along with Mauer), can hold down 1B, DH, LF all year, giving each enough rest to stay healthy and enough at bats to stay productive.

Ben, our recent trade was made more interesting by Parnell's possible TJ surgery. I had hoped he'd hold up longer, so I took the risk of including Familia, but I had to give you some legitimate value, even if I felt Familia is being underrated. If Parnell stays down, Familia will eventually get a shot to close with the heat on the fastball.

I'd like to add some thoughts to the recent discussion. I don't pretend to speak for anyone but myself; I do however have deep-seated investment in creating a fruitful place for intellectual discussion about baseball. On stupidity. My problem is two fold. Firstly, I feel there's an issue of extremism. Not just the language of words like 'stupid' (and its more palatable euphemisms), but the actual position held behind the use of such words is extreme--such language (and position) seek to dismiss alternative points of view not only as different, or simply wrong, but mentally deficient, as if the opinion has no business being held by thoughtful, respectful people whatsoever (godforbid). The position is always already inflammatory because it is intentionally dismissive. More, extremist positions not only alienate those who disagree with you, but also those who partially (even mostly) agree with you. Posters who attempt to draw comments back towards even-handedness are posited as oppositional due to the entrenched position (in this case, that the Twins (and those who agree with them) are apriori thestupid.) Secondly, there's something inherently lazy in calling something stupid. One of my problems with eager judgments of the front office is the assumption that we (posters on this forum) operate with the same access to quantity/quality of information as the Twins do. We never know the full story--especially, (and frustratingly) as close to the vest the Twins run their operation. We have to accept that there's many reasonable paths to take in any one decision when running a baseball (or any) operation; rarely are decisions out-and-out mentally deficient. Calling any one thing the Twins do stupid is a judgment based on an incomplete information, and more the judgment lacks precision and explanation. While many have a gut feeling the Twins mismanage their operation and bilk their consumers, the evidence is always circumstantial and incomplete. Many are eager to formulate a pattern--and are quick to say, look, here's more evidence of their incompetence--even if such evidence is specious, a square peg in the round (pigeon) hole of one cast-in-dye opinion. The thing is even if such posters turn out right; the basis and certainty was not on the evidence as is--but on a hunch; such posters seems to make a 'bet' that they are correct (and they may well turn out to be), but such thinking isn't going to elicit a discussion (and that's why we are here, to discuss, not to be right). I think we should take a little introspection as to why we want to dismiss any opinions or actions (as that is the purpose of using a word like stupid). Indeed, do we tend to Troll those who disagree with us? I know in the past, I behaved in such a way, as to suggest my opinion was a foregone conclusion and those that didn't hold it were some how obviously deficient. Sometimes, our desire to post is rooted in the reaction that we want from it. If the moderators don't intervene in thestupid discussion, posters like me will be compeled to rehash the extremism, inflammatory-ness, and laziness of such positions. And that's just a lot of hot air and not really about baseball. -- This said, I've been pleased with the shape of discourse on the board since this topic began some months ago; the notions of exclusivity, for my part, have totally ameliorated. I'd like to thank the moderators for the continued fine job they do.

If that's the case--the team is doing him right not by not publicly disclosing. In many places of work, no matter how small the drug offense, an extensive rehab program with a legitimate paper trail is required and enforced.

It's a bit depressing to see the opening day rosters without the Twins top three hitting prospects. What speaks to the system's depth is that there's still so many players worth tracking.

I'm really thankful for the bullpen depth in AAA this year. We'll need. Our bullpen's have been short lived smoke and mirror routines; and we'll have to cycle the tricks to keep success going. I was encouraged by those swing-miss strikes and strikeouts by Hughes; now if he could limit that long ball... I think he'll have a lot of success at home. I think the bench is better than it has been in the past, while it would be nice to have the promise of presley or parmelee, but it the Twins may have made the right call with bringing along Colabello and Kubel. Still don't really understand Bartlett over Presley (beyond Presley's poor attitude...) I'm worried about Willingham.

I think it's psychologically pretty simple--we tend to aggregate our judgment towards the mean when we see our judgment swing hard one way (0-2, 3-0). Not the worse of predilections, I suppose.