drjim

I have a feeling they are going to clean house on some 40 man spots as soon as the season ends. Probably not much gained by doing it now instead of a month from now. Good point on Johnson - I thought they were higher on him but he is probably gone. Also surprised on Pryor not coming up, maybe he'll get removed too.

Did you have higher expectations for September call-ups?

I'm surprised they didn't call up Pryor and Achter doesn't do a whole lot for me. Oliveros, Darnell and Tonkin are good call ups, I hope they get plenty of innings. Pinto, Hicks and Herrmann were the obvious selections, Bernier was the charity guy over Colabello, and I'm fine with that. This should mean no more Fryer this year, Duensing/Theilbar/Swarzak/Burton/Parmelee probably won't get much (if any) action the rest of the year either. Good.

He might. Duensing surely isn't and things are trending downwards for Thielbar. He is not the first guy I would have called up but don't have a huge problem. Another example of failed former first round pick they should be taking a chance on.

I"m not against trading Plouffe but I don't see the value in getting a barely top 100 prospect. To me that is a step backwards for whatever they would want to do next year and even going forward. If they trade him, they need to get mlb pitching in return, then it might make sense.

Progress!

Why would another team want them?

Ibarra just got taken of the 40 man. Burton, Duensing, Swarzak (at least) will join him soon enough.

Duensing. The answer is always Duensing.

Gammons just tweeted that the Twins lead mlb in runs in August. And have a -17 run differential. Maybe the lineup is relatively close to set...

I'm ok more or less writing Milone off. Still was a worthwhile gamble.

Agree on all counts.

Not much subtlety with that quote.

May will end up as a decent reliever, but you certainly want more than that. Revere still isn't that much of a loss.

Interesting they passed on Burdi for Reed.

Minor details, but the contract bought out two years of FA and the no trade was only triggered by a Cy Young award, it wasn't an automatic part of the contract. He probably should have given him a longer contract. On another note, this triggered another costly mistake that Ryan made, which was signing Mauer to only a 4 year deal that bought out one year of FA heading into the 2007 season. In a sense it wasn't necessary to sign the extension at that point, and in another sense, it would have made sense to make it at least a 6 year deal, especially since the original deal expired when Mauer was 28. A 6 year deal would have prevented the need for the 8 year albatross that was eventually signed. He also signed Mauer without resolving Hunter or Santana, who were closer to FA at the time. Ryan was, right or wrong, hesitant to sign Santana t the years required, but if he had extended Hunter before the 2007 he probably could have done a reasonable extension, perhaps 3/45 tacked on to the last year of the deal.

Another example of Gardy really not doing Mauer any favors with his comments to the media.

Baseball has basically become the ultimate regional sport. Nothing wrong with that. One of the ironies of baseball is that it is not a great TV sport aesthetically, but TV is going to save it because real time content is king right now, and baseball can provide 162 days of 3+ hours. Another strength of baseball in the modern age is that it is a perfect multiscreen sport. Perfect to have the game one while doing something on a phone or computer. I'm pretty sure that articles of the demise of baseball are as old as the sport, but THIS time it's for real.

I would suspect his primary motivation was that he doesn't want to use the lack of payroll as an excuse while also deflecting criticism from his owner. Exactly like a good and honorable GM should do. I think a payroll target is set that he can work with while having a little bit of flexibility if a good opportunity comes along. I also think the past two years he has operated below that payroll mark. I don't think he has the ability to blow past his payroll target by tens of millions of dollars even if he asks Pohlad nicely.

Innings limit.

That's fair, and I generally agree, but he was probably in the position that he didn't want to pay him but he also wanted to keep him and try to win in 2007 (and perhaps even 2008). It would have been tough to trade him after the 2006 season but perhaps he should have. I would also say that the Santana situation was probably what drove him out of the game.

You honestly don't think concerns about Santana holding up entered into their hesitancy to offer a long extension?

Imagine that, a GM who publicly supports and defends his owner. If your point was that Ryan did a poor job signing free agents (which I agree with), that is probably better proven than through comparing him to actions before the 1994 strike. You might as well say he didn't sign as good of free agents as the Yankees during the 2000s.

Just want to say great post. I 100% agree with the last paragraph, though I would call it his biggest weakness instead of his Achilles Heel - I'm not sure his weakness in that area is fatal when balanced against his other strengths. But he does need to have other people around him who are better at that, and I'm not certain he does. I really have two main complaints when I think of the rebuild so far. The first is that I don't think they were aggressive enough in pursing former failed prospects and give them a chance to rebuild some value when there was reps to be had. A great example is Schafer recently, but that is something he should have been doing more of since he first took over. The second, and that really builds on your point, is that he wasn't as strategic in his free agent signings as he could have been in the sense that he should have been more willing to sign guys who he tried to rebuild value and then flip, especially pitchers. (In my opinion this is the biggest difference between the Cubs and Twins as I compare their rebuilds). In the grand scheme it might not have mattered, if the players never regained value, but it was worth the effort. In his somewhat defense, I would admit there were some mitigating circumstances. The major league roster that he inherited (especially pitching) was such a mess within a year that his top priority was doing what he could just to avoid complete and utter despair that the top priority was stabilizing it to even a semblance of competence before being too strategic. But of course he didn't really get that done until perhaps now (and it is still bad), so he probably should have just tried to sign guys to trade them and collect assets.

Santana also had a no trade at the deadline. There were probably workarounds, but it wasn't as simple as it seems. What it would have taken is a strategic decision a couple of weeks before the deadline to sell, which obviously he didn't do, perhaps rightly.