TheLeviathan

It's definitely a bad thing for Treadwell. Good that we snagged Reiff.

Please don't confuse me - I do blame the Pohlads. But I think Ryan was absolutely part of the program. That's why he was hired, beloved, and retained for so long. That was a partnership in penny pinching. Now, to what extent it was the Pohlads, I think we're going to find out over the next five years.

I've been saying back to the VJ days that OL is a league wide problem. Even with 60M in room we're going to have a helluva time landing anyone. Time to pony up quick, or we'll be cleaning up scraps.

Yeah, sounds like Zeitler is off the board too.

I do agree with your second paragraph. I think Smith was partially let go because he was more aggressive and his results didn't reflect that. That wasn't entirely his fault either, but i do think that's accurate. I'm also not arguing that FA will fix the Twins. What I am arguing, and I take issue in the first paragraph with, is that the Twins (under Ryan) spent money wisely and that the Pohalds were the driving force for that. I think Ryan had a very old school approach about what kind of money "should" be spent. He long bucked market prices to dumpster dive. He long avoided high level IFAs in favor of trying to mine the baseball rich fields of Australia. He refused to even bid on Cuban players. He refused to get involved in high risk anything - be it trades, contracts, draftees, or whatever. While you might cite that as entirely the Pohlads, over the years of listening to Terry I came to believe that part of why he was hired was because he shared their vision. Terry often said the Pohlad's never even gave him a budget. I believe that because I don't think they needed to. I think Terry self-imposed as often as they directly imposed. Because that's who he was. And the Pohald's new it. Ryan got to be old school and penny pinching without ownership pressing him to be aggressive and the Pohlad's got their huckleberry to keep costs down and profits up.

Can any Russians pitch?

I'm convinced the Pohlads were only a partial issue. Maybe I'd accept a majority of the issue like 60/40, but not entirely them. I'll be more than willing to make that 90/10 if this new regime also feels handcuffed, but I think our prior FO willingly hand-cuffed themselves plenty of times. Until I can separate Ryan's beliefs from the Pohlad's strict operating directions, I wouldn't lay it all on them.

Yeah, lots of people were talking one year deals and other nonsense. If you're an OL free agent you WILL get paid this offseason. The Vikes are one of about 25 teams with OL issues.

His age and his decisions for his family.

I don't think we ever had a shot with Whitworth or Kalil. C'mon Reiff.

Legion = damn.

I would describe anything this organization does that can be labeled "smart" as good. We need to have a low threshold at this point. As for Huntsman, maybe he sees it as a chance to be a much-needed buffer? Or to be in perhaps the most key position available to have influence over our issues with Russia? I hate to make it seem like he's a white knight of some kind, but that's the best I have.

Young players need opportunity and lots of rope to fail and learn. I've often thought the team has struggled to find that balance. Some players have been given rope (Plouffe and Koskie come immediately to mind) whereas others have been jerked around a lot more. Patience with young players as an organization and as fans is crucial.

The only chance Hicks has to break out is if he starts throwing from the mound. He'll never hit.

Hey...Jon Huntsman as ambassador to Russia? I might be able to count that as not just "not stupid" but a rare "good" decision!

I'm encouraged that there appears to be widespread, across many political lines, opposition to the Republican plan on healthcare. Those divides could be the start of something productive in putting the Republicans out of power.

I haven't seen the movie, but did they hint at the Old Man Logan story? (Where Wolverine slaughters the X-men himself while being shown a powerful illusion) Just speculating, but maybe they didn't want to tell that in Jackman's swan song and instead played it coy?

Shoulder injuries are the worst. I hope it's just a minor thing.

I probably wouldn't have signed him at all. But the 49ers may not have a ton of options. And this may be a coach on the field move for a young QB.

I'm betting this move has to do with Shanahan's time in Washington with Garcon. Not defending it, just spitballing explanations.

49ers have something like 110m in cap room. I'm guessing a heavily front-loaded deal. Still, Garcon is getting up there in years.

Your litany of excuses (and I'm sorry, that's what they are) would possibly work if we were talking about two relatively short periods of time. But we're not. One period of time was very long and includes an example of an IFA that was perhaps the best of the last 20 years. A gentleman we know the Twins could have had, under Ryan, with a willingness to spend more. Instead that gentleman signed with Florida. Over money. Best of my recollection Luis Rivas is the best player Ryan ever signed. We (not even arguably in my book) have at least four significantly superior guys signed by Smith on the Twins 40 man roster right now. We don't need your list. It doesn't exist. It stinks. That's the whole point. And if you want to blame the scouts - who the hell is in charge of them? Did they just suddenly become competent for an oasis of 4 years and then, magically, go back to incompetence? To suggest Terry Ryan was general manager of the team for nearly 20 years and merely, by some bad luck, had no similar "opportunities" to use dollars to sign better IFAs strains credulity. And that's putting it very, very nicely. And that's not even including the facts we know about the gentleman above. Or the nickel and dime approach to FA for 20 years. Or the 20 year track record of unwillingness to spend money being a recurring theme under his tenure. Why? Why work so hard to basically stare the simplest explanation in the face and reject it? We have reason to fret, in part, because the guy's effort you're working so damn hard to spin hasn't utilized effectively all options available to a GM. I hope we have magical luck this year and everything comes up roses. I really do. Otherwise this young offensive core we have will be wasted. I hope our new FO does what the previous regime was so damn reluctant to do - explore ALL options. Aggressively.

Part of the reason I'm fretting the pitching is because, short of everything going right, it looks to be a problem. And that's even if I accept these under 25 hitters are the bee's knees. So, yeah, if the fairy tale comes true - great. But reality is rarely happily ever after.

It's awfully convenient (and ridiculously improbable) that the only four noteworthy IFAs the team could have had happened in a 4 year island of Smith surrounded by a sea of 20 years of Ryan. You should probably take heed of your own take on this. This likely had far less to do with "opportunity" and more to do with "philosophy". And that's fine, Ryan's philosophy can eschew that angle of talent acquisition on whatever grounds he wants, but that has consequences. And for this team those consequences are largely not positive. You're welcome to list all of Ryan's grand international accomplishments, both in scope and success. I mean, if he really was doing the same thing there should be ample examples from his 20 year run compared to a 4 year run. My memory says your list will be short, but maybe I'm wrong.

Except, in your scenario bird, you would have to be choosing to break the rules knowing there would be a consequence. If you did so, you didn't cheat, you just accepted those consequences as part of your decision. That's what these teams did. They agreed to the rules, knew the punishment, acted, and accepted the punishment. That's not cheating, that's just making a choice.