Mark G

Yes I do. I am being tongue in cheek about it because it is just another one in a long line of typical bargain basement "no lose" moves we are so used to seeing; an oft injured guy you are hoping can catch magic in a bottle for at least one more season (or at least part of one), and if he doesn't you lose nothing. You can grumble about it or you can laugh about it. I just chose to laugh this time. ?

I know; when I read this I was shocked......SHOCKED! Signing an older pitcher coming off of pretty serious injuries in the last couple of years was something I never thought I would live to see. Wait, I just remembered; he is left handed. That's a horse of a different color! Brilliant. BRILLIANT! See what we can accomplish when money is no object? ? You can drop the mic, guys; your work is done here. ?

A lot has been said about competing within the division, and how the rest of the division stacks up vs. how we stack up. We should also keep in mind that we don't get 76 games against this division anymore; we get 52. Those extra 6 games against the Royals, Tigers, etc., are replaced by games against each division in both leagues that we haven't played before. This extremely humble observer is as wary of the schedule change as I am wary of possible additions to the roster, or lack thereof. Will it be a blessing, a curse, or will it matter at all? ? It will be interesting to see. Stay tuned.........

Ouch! Please don't bring the gov't in; the market place can correct things far better than pandering politicians can. And the majority of them are from NY and CA, so it just changes who from those states are gumming up the game. ?

I agree completely. Reminds me of a lesson my father taught me long ago when I asked him what a particular thing was worth. He said: "that's simple; it is worth whatever someone is willing to pay you for it at the moment you are looking to sell it, and that can change at any time." Max is worth whatever another team is willing to offer for him at the time we are willing to trade him. Sounds simplistic, and maybe even sound like a cop out, but it is true of virtually everything in life we want to buy, sell, or trade. In baseball, control is valued as much as a players stats at times, so how much someone may be willing to offer may decrease as the amount of control decreases. It will all depend on how badly we want to move him, and how badly someone else thinks they need him. Listen to all offers and only take one if the return is to our benefit. He is an asset we don't have to sell, but maybe one that someone else needs to buy.

"their hitting philosophy is try to maximize hitting the ball the hardest each plate appearance and that will pay more dividends than doing a lot of little things (bunting, stealing, hit and run)." Spot on. That, and........wait for it........"launch angle". Look at Buxton, for example. There were times last year I thought I was watching a golfer with a 4 iron the way he launches it. And when he truly squares up the ball on the barrel and lifts it the way he does, it is a HR or extra base hit. Problem is he doesn't square up close to 80% of the time, and when he won't do the other little things he would be so good at, namely using his speed, he strikes out 33% of the time and only gets on base in any way just over 30%. And he is only one example of the hitting philosophy that we have been using since '19. That year we just happened to connect 307 times, and apparently think we can keep it up. Time to stop riding those coat tails and get back to doing the things that manufacture runs. Or are we happy with the way things are going?

It seems funny to me (not funny as in ha ha, more like funny as in weird) that so much scrutiny is being paid to a years old injury, to the point of not signing a super star esq player, and by the same teams (us included) that were going to throw, or did in our case, 9 figure contracts at our own Buck, knowing he may never play a full season again. 7 years, 10 years, 13 years........Buck didn't make it through year 1, and we seem perfectly content to keep hoping for healthy seasons to come, and as well we should. Is CC so much more of a risk than someone like Buck? Just a very funny scenario for an extremely humble observer to watch from a distance. ?

79 if my stat site is correct

The premise that it is an organizational outlook in scouting and valuing talent that has developing players who simply do not have those particular traits and/or skills gives me pause. Stop me where you think I am in the wrong lane, so to speak, but I tend to believe that this FO values athleticism and flexibility very much. We go out of our way to develop players who can play more than one position and therefore have the athletic ability to play in a variety of places and situations. We have had players capable of running more, but have been kept in check much of the time. In my extremely humble opinion, and again, stop me if you think I don't know what I am talking about, but the overall analytic, or computer approach has more to do with it than most teams in the league. I remember reading somewhere a while back (last year or the year before I think) that Rocco actually talked about this type of thing. He said, in so many words, that the statistics show that bunting for a sacrifice, attempted steals, and aggressively taking the extra base didn't succeed enough of the time to use these tools on a regular game in game out basis. Base running is not the only area we are at the bottom; sacrificing, bunting for base hits, and hit and run attempts are also near the bottom if my stat site is accurate. Yes, it begins in the FO and carries down onto the field, manager and coaches included. We have had the players, we just believe the stats say the risk outweighs the reward so we don't take the risks. Might be true, might not be, but more and more this team is simply not fun to watch bringing in a train of pitchers and waiting for the 3 run home run. Old Nurse is right; where have you gone Tom Kelly? Our Twins fans turn their lonely eyes to you.

Right now my only comment would be to tell ZiPS to Zip it and take a realistic view apart from the damn computers. If these 3 up their game, but only these 3, .500 will be a bonanza. But, then, I am just an extremely humble observer; what do I know?

When will we face the fact that any player, from RP to UTL players, cost? If they are not in their beginning years with no leverage in contract negotiations, they are going to cost money. And a lot of it. It is what it is. Pay or be left with the best of the rest. There is simply too much competition for players today to putz around hoping for reasonable (and I use that term very loosely), contracts. Identify the positions you need, and the players you want to fill those positions, and offer what is needed to acquire them or play the young guys and accept where you finish!! Mic dropped!

"Escobar was a joy when he was with the Twins, but the team doesn’t have a clear need for a utility player." That is pretty close to heresy on this team. We crave UTL players. We turn regulars into UTL players to spread around at bats. A reasonably priced UTL player falls back into our lap, and we are debating it? And if you are taking this seriously, feel free to yell at me. I won't hold it against you. ?

Thanks for that 7:00 am pep talk on a stupid, freezing cold Friday morning. I needed that. ??

I'm sorry, but I found myself laughing at the entire article, as though it was meant to make me. Please don't tell me this article was serious; I will shed a tear if it is. ?

You lost me at Gallo is a better defender. Are you putting him in LF? Because being better than Max in right field is quite the stretch.

I could live with any or all of the above. My only nay in the entire article is suggesting signing Gallo and moving Kepler is a net gain. If I am proven wrong I will take my crow medium rare, but I have serious doubts about that one. Otherwise, I would like to see us bring those guys here; would be nice additions.

I don't pretend to speak for anyone else, I am far too extremely humble for that ?, but my issues with this would be 1) age - he appears to be declining with age. 2) price - how much of the salary do we cover and how much, if any would SF be willing to cover. 3) He is a SS - he has never played anything but SS and would be brought here to play SS. That moves Farmer into........what? We moved Urshella to save salary and open a position, and brought in Farmer because of his experience at SS. Farmer would now not be SS, and I ask myself how many super utility players does one team need before it becomes a game of musical chairs with someone always without a chair. And last, but not least, 4) we are not signing a FA and only spending money, we have to send a body (bodies?) as well, and I would rather save that kind of capital for a different kind of trade, not trading for another infielder on a team loaded with infielders (if you count almost ready prospects). Now if it was purely low level end prospects and SF was willing to eat a considerable portion of the salary, it would definitely be more palatable, but that still leaves the game of infield musical chairs with Arraez, Miranda, Farmer, Polanco, potentially Kirilloff, and now Crawford. And I wish I had a dollar for every mention of the guys coming up in the next year or two that would crowd the field (pardon the pun) even more. And Crawford would definitely be a one year stop gap, so I wouldn't move any of the others to clear roster spots or free up playing time. At the end of the day, as much as I like the guy and would enjoy watching him play the game, it is the kind of move a true contender makes, not a team that can't decide if it is trying to be "competitive" ( I have come to hate that word) in a poor division or rebuild, and either way it is far too little for either scenario.

Sorry, it was meant to be a joke. I guess I better work on my delivery, huh? ?

The Tigers might be willing to part with Baez for a package of, say, Ryan, Ober, and Duran. It would be a little steep, but if we could maybe get their 12-15 rounds draft picks thrown in, it would even things out a little. ?

Let me see........a 36 year old light hitting SS with a great glove for 16 mil.........how can I put this? NO!!!! Sheeezzzz......why not just bring Simmons back for a quarter of that money? ? We let Urshella go for a song, and we went and got Farmer instead to play.........where, if we were to bring in a guy like Crawford? I actually have more faith in this FO than that. Just my extremely humble observation.

Damn, my friend, you better check the posts more carefully from now on. I was not the one who posted about Correa, I simply put in a post saying maybe he didn't know or forgot. I was wrong about you not being harsh; it is I who should humbly remove myself from this until you get your posts straight. And possibly a new attitude. Take care, my friend.

I guess that old man you refer to must be me. ? Because I am old enough to say when no player has more games played than 144, and the Gordon's and Celestino's were in almost that many as well, we must just look at the game differently. And it is probably because "played", in my day (and still in my mind) does not include DHing and pinch hitting; it means starting at a position and "playing" the game (Buck, for instance, only played the field 58 times according to the stats I found). As for the concept of rotation, it simply looks to an outsider looking in, and I am FAR from the only one who sees it this way, that the rotation, per se, is rotating days off or rotating DH's so that all the players "play" as many games as possible and distribute at bats. It is few of the non pitchers playing the position they are best at every game, and utility players subbing when a pitching match up might be bad, or if a starter is hurt, but "flexibility" ruling and most players playing multiple positions, including ones they have little experience in. I don't know, maybe it is just each persons internal definition of the word rotation, but moving players around from game to game, in and out of the line up or, again, having rotating DH's, is to me......well........a rotation of sorts. Do we look at the game so differently, or is it just a debate over semantics? (And you couldn't be more right on how he works pitchers) ? And you were right on this as well; I didn't show at Target Field to watch, because they are simply not fun enough to watch for the prices you pay for everything from tickets to a bag of peanuts. Doesn't mean I don't watch, though, and I follow pretty closely. For decades I watched far more often from the stands instead of the couch, because it was fun to watch from there; can't say that now. If that is doubling down, does this mean I am tripling down? ? And you're not harsh; we just look at it differently it appears. I know you are far from alone in how you view it, and I also know I am far from alone in how I do. Hence the fact 1.8+ mil showed up, but that's all. Just my extremely humble observation.

I always get a kick out of folks saying Arraez doesn't have a home; what do we do with him? In the last two years I can think (off the top of my head) of what? 5 players maybe? who only played one position through the entire year. Correct me here if I missed someone, but Simmons, Donaldson, Correa, ,Urshela and Buck. I didn't take into account catchers because we DH them at times as they platoon. Who on this team does have a "home" that they play 130-140+ games a year at other than those few? An above average hitter who at least has some experience at multiple positions and has multiple years of control left is the odd man out? On this team? Falvine and co. may very well be thinking about it, but unless we have a surplus of just that kind of player, they better be thinking twice.

It strikes me as a kind of macro vs. micro discussion. On the micro side, that is true, he was hurt and missed time, including that series. On the macro side, it is easy to forget, sometimes, who is hurt and who is not. And it doesn't change the overall frustration with trying to figure out who you are going to see on any given day based on Rocco's version of a rotation. His rotations take into account injuries, but also are simply his mindset, which is frustrating to try and figure out; hence the decisions fans like me make to simply not try buying tickets when you can watch on TV and not necessarily care who plays that day. It is just an overall theory on one factor that may be affecting attendance.

I concur pretty much across the board. When I was young, I would go to 8 - 10 games a year pretty regularly. Back then I knew the team, I knew who was going to play that day, who was going to pitch, and unless they got bombed early, they would be in the game quite a while. Today I have no idea who is going to play today, where each player will be on the field or in the lineup, how long the starter will last, and how many RP's are going to go in and out. If I am going to watch a team of 20 or so players go around like musical chairs, with certain players left out on any given day, I will do it from my living room with remote in hand. I love the sport, more than any other (well, I do like pro bowling a lot too, but I digress), but I am only willing to pay the prices they charge for virtually everything if I genuinely think I know what I am paying for. And I just don't know those things anymore, so I watch from my couch and I have become the best arm chair manager in town. Ask anyone. ?