Kelly Vance

a guy that throws 99 mph doesn't clear waivers. Make him a BP swing man. Stuff like that is rare. Besides, other guys are just other guys. I say carry him North. Use him often early before the hitters catch up.

well, yeah, but you could just as easily imagine Gibson is decent and Romero and Gonsalves do well the first time around the league. By then Erv is back and May is soon ready.

might be wiser to use the money to extend our outfielders and Doze. Let Romero and Gonsalves take spots 4 and 5. A year from now, they will have learned the major leagues and we will have locked up our crucial position players long term

"I'd be willing to go as high as...." nice of you to offer your own money to sign the FA pitcher.

The more I think about it, the more I want our Twins to let Gonsalves and Romero compete for the 4 and 5 spots. Look at it this way. If 2019 is the real year we will expect to go deep into the playoffs, those guys need the year to get hit, get beat, and get better. OJT. Worked for Berrios. So why let the old guys block them? Let the kids play. May will be ready down the road and Santana will be fine in a month or two. As a spectator, I'd much rather watch the kids than watch Hughes or Sanchez get shelled.

$ 10 million a year is not as low ball, especially for a NL pitcher who has had no other action and is crossing over to the AL and having had a recent TJSurgery. It was an opening offer that any non-idiot would counter. Thing is, unless they are staying in shape, they could sign late, get injured and end up sucking this year. Lynn can't play hardball at this point. These FA pitchers should sign one year make good deals. I suspect that Lynn just doesn't want to pitch for the Twins. OK. I saw somewhere that Odorizzi has been lobbying for an offer to Cobb.

speed never goes into a slump.

He is betting against injury if he plays out the years and turns FA. But his value will be sky high if he develops into the 5 tool player he was drafted to be. Thing is, he is just stepping into the room of elite outfielders. His last year defensive heroics has put him on the map, so he is a gold glove candidate from now on. His reputation is made. So, if his hitting comes around, he will join that elite category of players that you build a team around. Those guys are rare. So he will command a Willy Mays treatment, because with these kinds of FA contracts, part of what you get paid for is potential. If the Twins don't lock him up, someone will value him that high. I know, same old story. But I think the Twins FO ought to make an effort to sign up our core players to five year extensions. The idea is that everyone buys in and this is our window. The only exception being Polanco. We have a lot of guys coming up at SS. I'd go 4 for Dozier and 2 for Mauer. And as for speed. The thing about speed is that it never goes into a slump. I think Buck is one of those guys that will stay fast for a while into his mid thirties. He needs to learn to bunt like Carew.

I've seen enough of Buxton to know he is the real deal. He reminds me of Eric Davis from the 1980s Cincy Reds. Yeah, his style of play got him injured a lot too. But a guy like Buck has to play his way. He can maybe learn to get a better jump so he doesn't have to dive at the end of his run so much, but he is an instinctive player who relies a lot on his unusual speed and has to stay that way. I'm not qualified to talk money but I think you sign him to six years and then tie up the rest of the outfield and I'd extend Dozier if he is willing.

My four man rotation would be Palmer, Cuellar, McNally and Dobson

For me, the one last move should be to extend our best players to guarantee future contention. Doze two or three years at market, extend our outfielders and Berrios. Sano is in limbo for now. Mauer a one year 10 million. If he'd do that.

Twins don't need 3 first basemen/DH types, so Vargas is gone. If they put him on waivers now, he could maybe catch on somewhere. Keeping him is just injury insurance. Grossman gets on base but can't field much. Still, he is the first bat off the bench in a clutch situation. That has value. I think they keep him over Granite.

Don't want Danny Bull. He is a clubhouse cancer with a bad attitude.

I've had 8 kidney stones. One was 4 mm and they had to knock me out to let it pass. Citric acid and calcium accumulation caused them. I don't think dehydration causes stones but can facilitate their formation. Dehydration also led to a couple kidney infections. I've had a few of those too. I concluded I wasn't drinking enough beer and the problem went away.

The Fat Kid was the greatest Twin ever and nobody paid him a nickel for his glove. Still, Sano's obesity shows a lack of self respect, and self respect is what fuels great players. This guy is destined for a short career that, looking back, will be disappointing.

Sano needs fewer (dinner) plate appearances

No disrespect to Palacios, who I hope has a long career and makes this trade seem one sided for the Rays (good luck kid) but getting a starter that makes people argue about whether he slots at 2-3 or 4 for a SS not named Gordon is something we weren't counting on after missing out on Yu know who. So we can still add a FA starter? This allows Gonsalves and Romero to start in AAA and build up some work before getting the call. It puts Sanchez in the garage. Realistically, this takes pressure off but at the same time sharpens the focus on the competition for the last two spots. Going to be interesting to see

I think that is a little hard on Erv. He had trouble commanding his slider and his middle finger was obviously the problem.

My brother is against trading Max. He touts his defense and says he doesn't have many years playing the game and is still learning. He thinks good defense is more important than pitching (yeah, I know, pitching is the most important part of defense). But he overrates Max I think. Thing is, Max is arguably only our third best outfielder, depending on whether you value Rosario's outfield assists, which were plenty in 2016 and not so much as teams stopped challenging him last year. Rosario is improving a lot. He made changes to his swing to stay in the strike zone and he is a clutch hitter. Trading your third OFer who has trouble hitting lefties is a no brainer. For me, it isn't about preferring to trade Eddie.... If Tampa Bay wants Max and not Eddie, that is not an option. I'd rather keep Eddie. I see his hitting improvement as a sign of maybe more ability than Max. Prospects get traded for known commodities all the time and for a reason. Gonsalves and Romero might be ready, but they may also have a debut like Berios and get shelled their first time up in the Show. They may not get it together until 2019, if at all. Looking at this from a functionality standpoint and taking out the sentiment for Max, it looks like this to me. On a contending team, you only have one or two spots in the field that might be weaknesses and could be upgraded. A team on the bubble, like the Twins, may have 3 or 4.So if you can get a #1 or #2 pitcher, who will actually be an important cog, for a few prospects who may be a year or more away and an outfielder not named Buxton, you do it and don't look back. Because on the field, you add a proven SP that you don't have to worry about. That is 20 percent of your SP. Thing about trades, you gotta give up good players to get good players.

You need an ace who can throw that three hit shutout in game 1. Then you need a solid #2 that can hold serve. A good #3 helps, but the days of winning a series with a #3 pitcher like Les Straker are long gone

I side with the fans who have to pay over twenty bucks for a beer and a dog.

I forgot lefse, somebody send Yu a box of lefse. But hold the lutefisk.

Someone needs to take Yu ice fishing. Maybe he will catch a walleye. Then he would realize that Minnesota has way more to offer than LA, which has a boring 70 degree climate in winter, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, Hollywood, Laguna, Malibu, Knotts Berry Farm and all those boring warm weather golf courses.

With Darvish it is possibly 90 wins and #1 WC.. Without, likely 82-83 and on the outside looking in

The owners see revenues rising and the players want some of it. Same old, same old. The minimum salary in 1969 was under $25K. But you could also buy a new Volkswagen Beetle for $ 1,000. Now players are mostly millionaires. Not really much to complain about since they make tons for playing a child's game. Meanwhile, season tickets are increasingly prohibitively expensive for most people, and it breaks many family budgets to take the kids to a ball game. We will never see a return to reasonable ticket prices now, and who wants to spend $10 on a beer? But the market is what it is.... sign Yu and swallow hard.