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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. That's a fair point, but this is still on the league. They haven't had much backbone to push back on this nonsense. They know what they should do but there is a ton of pressure to keep this "old school" silly crap so they ignore it until a situation demands action. Like Chief said, they actually invented the stupid neighborhood rule just to facilitate this BS.
  2. That's just false on every level. If a baseball in the ribs had fixed it, it would've been fixed decades ago. Yet it continually happens. A baseball in the ribs literally "fixes" NOTHING.
  3. If baseball just accepted it isn't a physical sport and stopped trying to force these moments, the game would be far better off. Baseball is such a beautiful sport, it doesn't need this crap and many of the other fake-tough nonsense.
  4. If you're going to complain about one side taking a crisis and turning it into a political advantage, I have an old saying about pots and kettles for you. It's sort of the nature of politics, it isn't pretty but everyone plays it. And since our country desperately needs a rethought approach to guns (from laws to culture to entertainment) one has to wonder what it will take for that to happen.
  5. Maybe this will get the running game going enough for the offense to start moving things. They looked really good handing it off and opening up holes.
  6. Well, in a thread about comparing the state of the Cubs vs. the Twins it's worth pointing out that they are are a significant bit ahead of us after working under roughly the same time frame.
  7. Plouffe isn't a problem, but his age and team control will be soon. If he isn't dealt this offseason, we will have two years of him and then let him go for nothing. I think he is an asset to use now if we believe the future is bright.
  8. By millions, you mean 800 people right? It's also possible for a person to generally approve of what he's done and still say that there are others doing better. And/or that he may not be the right guy going forward. Those aren't mutually exclusive positions.
  9. Plouffe will have to be replaced in two years regardless unless the Twins make a stupid decision to resign him. And, honestly, I think the idea of Mauer being a part-time player is barely more reasonable than Souhan's suggestion. With his contract and stature, he'll be a full-time player so long is he is on this team.
  10. Because you can only play 8 guys in the field and one at DH? Unless Chris Davis is secretly hiding some sweet catcher skills I've yet to hear about.
  11. Well, I'm not sure why we are replacing him necessarily with a "worse player". That player might be Chris Davis if we wanted to. It could also be Kepler. In two years Plouffe should be allowed to walk away, I'm not sure why we need to adjust everything around such a player.
  12. We need to stop trying to make room to keep Plouffe. He's got two years left with this team unless we're insane enough to give a multi-year deal to a 32 year old league average player.
  13. Why do we have to bash Theo Epstein? Are we so fragile in our confidence about Ryan that we can't admit there may be better GMs out there? This just in....my loyalty to the Vikings doesn't change a bit if I tip my cap to Belichek. Or to the Wolves if I tip my cap to Pop. C'mon.
  14. I think it's worth discussing what happens with Mauer. I don't think it's out of the question that Kepler or Vargas is a superior option at 1B by the end of 2016. What do you do then? Trade the superior options because you're stuck with Mauer? I'm no Mauer basher, I think he was ok this year, but his position and production do present an issue.
  15. Not that it's any better or worse, but the details so far indicate a different kind of shooting. But yeah, there are too many guns already out there. I wish there was a way to fix that.
  16. They better positioned themselves to get lucky. They took a more aggressive rebuilding stance and turned it into gold faster. The Twins are getting closer, but the Cubs are there now. We are still hoping with our team.
  17. This wouldn't be so much a trade FOR Morneau so much as a deal to move Mauer and his contract. Freeing up that money and 1B might be worth it, even if you are basically giving him away. Won't happen though.
  18. The Santana point is a good one. I wonder how many people here insisting the Cubs shouldn't get some credit for Arrieta would react the same if we were downplaying the move to add Santana back in the day. Personally, I think Ryan and the field staff get a lot of credit there plus some luck to help put it over the top. It should only be fair to evaluate other teams the same way we do our own.
  19. Too bad we hadn't signed anyone we might have been able to trade him for huh?
  20. What you are missing is that they couldn't even land a "take a flyer on me former top prospect" for Correia. And there was zero chance of that happening. I'll grant that Pelfrey is at least closer to that sort of gamble, but not much. The Twins had a habit throughout their rebuild of spending money and roster spots on guys with limited upside and of whom they had no interest in trading. If they had followed the Cubs blueprint they would've dealt Suzuki and Willingham and never wasted their time on the likes of Jason Bartlett and Kevin Correia and that ilk. And the best part? Better players are better at stabilizing your rotation too! You just deal them and patch-work for two months to audition other players. Yes, Arrieta has been a godsend for them they couldn't have predicted. But they have routinely put themselves in a position to get those sorts of lucky breaks by taking a different, more aggressive stance to rebuilding. It's the old saying - sometimes it's better to make your own luck than wait for it to happen.
  21. That's absolutely fair. I was banging the drum for him a few years ago (and had someone compare Strop and Arrieta to PJ Walters and Jeff Gray), but I never thought he'd be a Cy Young candidate. He might have even come here and flamed out for all we know. But what matters is that during the 2012 offseason we chose to sign Kevin Correia while the Cubs signed Scott Feldman. There was ZERO chance Correia was ever going to perform in a way that would allow us to get a huge return on our investment while there was a slight chance with Feldman. Those little distinctions in approach can matter a lot. We spent most of our rebuild nickel and dime-ing low upside players while the Astros and Cubs took risks. It isn't completely an accident those chances are paying off.
  22. Some of it is luck, but a larger portion of it is putting yourself in a position to get lucky. The Cubs and Astros have targeted players they felt had upside to their cause. McHugh was targeted because they felt like his pitch repetoire could be adjusted and he'd flourish. Arrieta was acquired because they took the gamble on upside over consistency. Yeah, some of it is luck, but some of it is making your own luck. And you can't do that if you won't even put yourself in that position.
  23. First, there are some here who mock Epstein for the praise he gets. Yes, he has some advantages with the Cubs, but the guy is smart as hell. Second, Arrieta is not "just luck". The Cubs went out and payed 6M to sign Scott Feldman (a pitcher with a lot of former sucess who fell on hard times) while the Twins spent about the same amount on Kevin freaking Correia. A guy who had never even managed to hold Feldman's jock as a pitcher. We get what could've expected from Correia, while the Cubs gamble on Feldman came up aces. They turned that profit into a flailing former Opening Day starter and top prospect and a hard throwing reliever. (Strop and Arrieta were a huge return for a 6M gamble) Sometimes a change in scenery is all the "luck" you need. But the real point is that when you're aggressive and take chances to hit big....you hit big sometimes. When you always roll the dice not to lose, you rarely hit big. It's Ryan's greatest flaw - the unwillingness to step out and take big chances. The only time I can even think of him trying this is Span for Meyer and I still applaud him for trying, but let's keep things clear about Ryan and Epstein. There is a reason one is a superior GM and it ain't luck.
  24. I agree, you look at most of the facets of these killers and the circumstances hardly fit a common narrative. But the responses we see in the aftermath try to paint that there is. That's part of why I think the roots of this run really, really deep and won't be "fixed" with most of the proposals out there. It may take a lot longer than any of us want to imagine to address these horrifying acts. We have to get started, but we have to have our eyes wide open on the scope of it too.
  25. Well from a contractual standpoint it would be prudent for the Twins, but it won't happen.
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