TheLeviathan

Also, this is an elementary fallacy.

Respecting common courtesy isn't the same thing as respecting a code of "do it our way because we said so or else".

None of that is about courtesy. It's about a small group of people trying to impose their belief set on everyone else through threats, intimidation, etc. If my neighbors need to sleep in on Sunday because they work late on Saturday, I'd be just fine showing the courtesy to not mow the lawn. If their flying spaghetti monster or antiquated way of doing things is the only reason? I'd say no thanks - I respect your beliefs but that doesn't mean I have to share them. All you described is again how people who are too weak minded to allow others to do things differently are capable of strong-arming their petulance into a justification to act like clowns.

It was a good soapbox. I'm not sure how anyone can look at how the Twins entered the season at CF and feel good about the FO's choice. I'm glad they went with Hicks to start, but after they went through the same thing in 2013 they should have been better prepared. That doesn't make them a bad FO - but it makes that decision utterly indefensible.

I think that's all most people are saying. I'm baffled by the resistance to the notion that the Twins slept on the job of adding more talent to back up centerfield and the shaky starter they had there. Whether you want to blame management on the front end or the back end with Presley is really irrelevant to me, however you shake it that player failed them and failed their depth and that does fall on management. I'd suggest, though, that adding a better CF option wasn't as difficult as you make it seem. The decision to do so may have been more difficult than some of us would've liked it to be, but there were most certainly better options out there. The problem is that they seemingly went with Presley and Bartlett as their choices. And we can see how that turned out.

What else is there exactly? I'm honestly perplexed what kind of thing would've led to that decision that can't be traced back to a management decision. A few examples would help this notion you keep espousing.

Right, I don't buy the "Presley was a bad guy" as an out for the front office. They traded for him. They brought him to Spring Training. They chose to have him be their fourth outfielder until the bitter end. That's on management and no one else.

They targeted him, in a trade, and kept him on the roster well into March. Sorry, but if he failed so spectacularly to be dumped and leave you with nothing but Bartlett for CF....the mistake STILL rests on management.

And you missed an important caveat. Had Fuld not fallen into their laps at an ideal time...we'd be seeing the like of Chris Hermann or Kenny Wilson in CF right now. So while Hermann may have a better OPS....I curl into the fetal position thinking of him manning the position. Wilson may actually give that OPS+ a run for it's money from what I can see. So to keep score - the Twins had one thing go wrong and had another thing not gone very right....we could've seen a horrific CF situation.

Which is not a bad break. It's a mismanagement of that player on some level or another. What we don't know, but other than Presley being a criminal of some kind the fault for that lies with management. It's not a bad break, it's bad management of your roster. That's the distinction that continues to create a disagreement here. You want to give a pass to management on that and I don't see how, in any way, they deserve that.

Surreal is not the word I would've chosen.

If said prospect flamed out badly the previous year and you aren't blocking anyone in AAA - there is zero excuse not to have a better Plan B. Plan B, for all I care, could have been your fourth outfielder on the 25 man who could at least provide some quality. The problem is that you tried to protect management by saying "a few" things went wrong when, in reality, only one thing went wrong. And then they had the good fortune to have Fuld dropped in their lap. Had Fuld not been waived this position, right now, would be in worse shape than Florimon and shortstop. It may still reach those levels if Fuld does what got him waived in the first place. I'm not sure why you're going to such lengths to dismiss an obvious lack of planning. Which, to another poster's point...what meaningful distinction is there in misappraisal vs. mismanagement? Appraisal of talent is part of management's job. It's a distinction with no difference other than sounding better for the front office. Whether the gaffe was in planning on Pressley being Plan B or doing the same Plan B as last year doesn't change that there is a ton of very obvious fault to go around on this one. Good general managing involves appraising your roster for weaknesses. Depth at CF was apparently on that radar at one point, stopped, then became a bunch of musical chairs, and now rests in the hands of a young player who is showing nothing to indicate he's ready and a recently waived pair of journeyman. Not. Good. Management. And all that happened was one thing went wrong that has already happened once and had very good odds of happening again.

What is going on in this paragraph? It's honestly not coherent Brock. What "few things" had to go wrong? Hicks to fall down on his face after...falling down on his face all of last year? Ok, there's one very easy to predict thing I guess. After that are you suggesting Buxton was Plan B? I'm not sure even your most optimistic of fan would think that was any part of the equation. Buxton being hurt had absolutely no bearing on the MLB CF position for this year. Next year? Ok, I could see it. This year? His injury hurts the future but has nothing to do with the present. The last part is an example of a dumb stroke of luck that a semi-servicable player was cut just when they needed it. So, to recap...one thing went wrong....and it was hardly shocking. Everything else is on the Twins for not adding anyone as a viable Plan B or convincing themselves until March that Presley/Mastro was sufficient.

The difference is that those predictions were about projections. Saying "This team has zero depth against much of anything bad happening" isn't a projection. It's an analysis. One that isn't really pessimistic/optimistic. The line to cry out against it showed how deep people wanted to defend in that they defended the indefensible.

You can still have a plan B and create turnover in the roster. They could've picked up Bonafacio. Or Chris Coghlan. Or Torres. Or Chris Young. Are they sexy options? No, but they're also not nothing, aka Kenny Wilson. I don't fault the Twins for having Hicks start opening day. I fault them for not recognizing the clear need for a Plan B or having been dumb enough to convince themselves all the way through March that they already had Plan B on the roster. Either way you cut it, it was a forseeable and enormous screw-up.

It's a mockery of common sense any of this ever happened. All thanks to the unwritten rules.

I'm fully aware it's early for Hicks, I don't want to write him off and I don't think he should be written off for the future. I am, however, completely in the "worried" camp. One can be worried without giving up hope. Hicks badly needs a come to jesus talk and a demotion to AAA. The kid has a mountain of stuff to work on and taking some pressure off him while he does so is imperative. And this scenario should not be a shock for the Twins. That they walked into the season with the horrific options they did behind him is 100% a fair indictment. Nick said as much in a blog post right before the season and we had a line of pitchforks and torches calling him a pessimist. (A completely ridiculous preseason trend we saw far too often) And now here we are - in reality where many of us were trying to pull some people back to - with a huge problem.

It was tough, but if we're going to throw the likes of Kubel, Arcia, Colabello, etc. in the corners than Hicks needs to be able to make those kinds of tough catches. He covered a lot of ground, to his credit, but he was undone by the same thing that seems to make all those tools he has out there still result in an average (at best) centerfielder: he can't seem to read flight paths.

He borderline got forearm on the ball. Which means he overran and overjumped it. If he was better at reading the flight path he likely wouldn't have had to go barreling into the wall. It's not like this is the first time he's made these sorts of mistakes.

And Duensing. Always Duensing.

Folly might be strong, but Hicks made that play difficult. Was it a tough catch? Sure. Was it "I'm going to try and be spiderman and throw myself at the wall" tough? God no. And it only looked that tough because, once again, Hicks is unable to read the flight path of fly balls without staring at it the whole way. Good outfielders don't do that, you often see them take their eye off and run to a spot (I seem to recall Hunter talking about doing exactly that back in the day) and then pick it up when they get closer to where it's going to land. I'm sorry the kid got hurt, but he got hurt because he's not all that good out there and he keeps showing that over and over again.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hicks is just not very good in the field. He took a tough, but very doable catch for a professional centerfielder, and turned it into something he wanted put on a Wheaties box. That catch could've been made without a jump and with only a minimal wall crash at the end, but because he can't follow the flight of the ball without his eyes on it....he made it look impossible. I had high hopes for Hicks but it's hard to keep myself optimistic about him with every passing day.

Given that schedule, I'd argue playing .500 again would be worthy of celebration.

The Twins have been especially awful at filling the middle infield for a long time, there is no question about that. What makes SS more difficult is the availability of options around the league. At second base there aren't a lot of world beaters, but there are a lot of solid players. Just look around the league at shortstop and the depth behind it and you can see that it's not particularly deep right now. To me, the Twins rushed Dozier off of SS after the disaster that was his first go at it. It shouldn't be completely written off, especially if Rosario (or someone else) would give them an alternative. To be clear, I wouldn't move Dozier unless someone forced the Twin's hand, but I don't like writing it off as an option either.

My wife and my little guy are both wearing their Hawks gear today - going to be a fun divided household here for the next week or so.