Reginald Maudling's Shin

I get the feeling Dick doesn't pay attention to baseball outside of his PBP duties.

What do you mean by unused revenues? How do you know what their budget is? If you seriously think the Twins should not be in rebuilding mode with this pitching staff then I congratulate you on your optimism. Otherwise I vehemently disagree with you on the process of adding talent to the team. If you are merely saying the Twins should have got better free agents for the money they spent, then I don't really disagree with that. But, if you are expecting to retain numerous free agents for a period of time until the next wave of youth comes from the minors, then I'm saying that isn't wise. Also, no matter how much money they would have spent this year in free agency, they weren't going to compete with this lousy pitching staff. Once they traded Span and Revere everyone should have known this is a rebuilding year. That doesn't mean you indiscriminately increase payroll to placate a handful of impatient fans who can't read a minor league boxscore.

To win a championship? I'm not saving "don't ever sign free agents". The Twins have a lot of potential MLB talent at several positions in the lower minors. Buxton is a "superstar in the making" to quote a BP analyst a few days ago. Sano can be a legit middle of the order bat. They also have more pitchers to get excited about than we've seen in a long time. If thinks shake out right you could have a real nice, cost controlled core of players in a few years. So why would you want to spend money now in free agency when you could be blocking these guys? And why would you not want as much flexibility as you could possibly have when this happens?

Then who are the core players you are building around? No, never mind. I don't want to be put in a position where I have to point out how bad the Twins are. You can believe they have a core to build around, that's fine. No point on going any farther with this discussion.

Long term. This is not the best way to build a team. And again, there is no core group to build around.

This team is not good. There is nothing to supplement. This is not 2010. I think the best approach is to wait until your core of young players develops and then become a player in free agency. It makes no sense to spend to an arbitrary number because you can, that's not going to give you the best team you can put on the field. You may get more short term success but I'd rather they try to win a title, not merely keep some sort of bull**** promise you guys think they made to spend x amount if dollars. It's not hard to understand.

I'll tell you why: The maximum payroll the Twins can spend is still dwarfed by the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels. Target field gives the Twins more money, but not nearly enough to match payrolls with them. So, if you want to win a championship, they can't afford to go over valuation on several players. You still need to spend wisely. You have to find a way to compete knowing your competition will be able to outbid you for elite talent. You do that through developing cheaper cost controlled talent on the minors, not by paying $5 when something is worth $3. Then when the team is better you can go after a guy or two to put you over the top.

If you want to call it nothing that's cool. I don't think building through free agency is wise. We aren't ever going to be positioned to outbid teams. So to make Minnesota an attractive location to free agents they'll have to overpay. Thus. You inherently aren't getting value. If the team was you know, good, then that's a different story. Then you supplement your roster with free agents.

Short answer: I don't think we'll really know until AA. I can't speak to their actual repertoire and what they're throwing, but based purely on the competition, there are too many players in the lower levels that have no shot at the majors to make that call.

What surplus payroll? I don't care what their budget is, it's not a good idea to load up on bad deals in order to put a marginally better product on the field. Every player has a valuation. Just because in the next few years there's not a lot of dead weight on the books doesn't mean you overspend! Do you guys want to win a World Series, or do want to go 81-81?? You can't possibly spend your way out of this hole they are in talent-wise. They are in an excellent position to make several moves IF they have a nucleus of players that can stick around for a while, learn to play as a team, and win. This is how the Twins have assembled World Series teams in the past, not by getting piecemeal guys here and there, that's not an efficient way to assemble a club. Eventually you will have a team full of guys who are all getting paid more than they are worth. You're going to get bitten in the ass this way. Doumit and Willingham are not players you build around, I'm sorry. Neither one can play a lick of defense and they're both soon to be on the downside of their careers. Like it or not guys, the Twins are operating as a business with a budget. They aren't going to sign guys to big deals when the pieces aren't in place to make a playoff run. Again, I don't care what they spend this year. No matter what they do they aren't going to win a World Series. And although some of you are making a compelling argument that adding pieces here and there will make them better (it will), I don't think it's a sustainable approach nor will it lead to a championship quality team. I think you better load up on guys with talent that are cheaper. If the Twins set their max budget at $115 million, As a fan I want that money well spent, not paying $5 for $3 players, which is what will happen if you want to go through free agency to fill holes when you have holes all over the diamond. We aren't going to outspend the LA or east coast teams, so we need to spend wisely. The biggest problem in beating the Yankees win the playoffs over the years wasn't Ron Gardenhire, it was the fact that the Yankees were a better team.

1. I'm looking strictly at the future probabilities of success based on past performance. 2. The Twins are not good, have tons of holes, and we will not know what positions will be covered with home grown talent a few years from now. Sure you could try to move players in a position of organizational strength on order to fill holes. It doesn't make sense to me to overspend now when you don't know if its necessary 3 years from now. 3. The alternative is not to do nothing, the alternative is to wait until your in house options play themselves out to see where your money is better spent. If the Twins want to get into the business of building through overpaying for free agents they will soon find themselves saddled with a lot of lousy contracts, instead of a nice base of cost controlled players with free agents mixed in here or there. It might not look bad on the next year or two but its not sustainable unless you are willing to have one if those monster contracts fail like the Yankees can do. The Twins can't do that.

I wonder how many 96 loss teams went out and made a huge splash in free agency the next year? Why would you allocate tons of resources to a particular area when you have so many unknowns and weaknesses on your team, and you don't know for sure when you'll get help from the minors? A lot can change over 2-3 years. Your organizational needs can change. Banking on a free agent pitcher to be the same guy in year 3-5 as when he signed, and to just assume you've got that part of the roster accounted for flies in the face of recent history. The real future of the Twins is in A ball right now. I love Arcia, am intrigued by Hicks, but the real difference makers ala Mauer and Morneau circa 2006 are Buxton and Sano, and their timetables are an unknown at this point. Put another way, other than Mauer who can you automatically assume is in the every day lineup in say 2015? We hope Arcia and Hicks, but we don't know. All others are a crapshoot. So what happens if 5 of Berrios, Gibson, Mays, Meyer, Diamond, 2013 #1 draft pick turn out to be the best rotation on the AL, but one of your prospects you counted on who is in A ball right now flamed out? Would have been nice to have that extra $20 million to go get a great position player or two to fill out your roster. I guess you could say you can never have enough starting pitching, but to make a big move to address only one position of need when you could potentially have several is short sighted.

NyQuil, Darvon, and some sort of fish paralyzer here.

I don't know that I had a point, other than to compare experiences at AT&T vs. other parks. I understand what you're saying but the Giants are over the top with their schtick. I don't remember this much fake ambiance in Minnesota, for example. They interrupted a standing ovation for their ace pitcher, that kind of did it for me. Now get off my lawn.

Went to a Giants game last night. I think every square inch of the place is filled with ad space. Also every half inning they do some stupid promotion or gimmick to keep their idiot fan base entertained. Cain walked off the field after giving up 3 hits in 8 innings to the Braves, and the fans that were smart enough to give him an ovation were interrupted by mass karaoke. I hate the Giants. End rant

Did Arcia borrow someone else's glove when he came up? If not he should.

(Something something )...schlecten tagen, Nein! Nein Nein I don't even know a full verse.

So, when it would make sense to bunt, they don't.

Nice BP fastball on 2-2. This is why you occasionally need to be able to strike someone out.

It really can't be understated how bad he is doing PBP. It's like listening to Ben Stein read the Gameday description. Except he doesn't give you the "in play, out(s)".

It's fun watching the Red Sox whine like little bitches when they don't get their way.

I would think if you didn't know what was going on, you run like hell. But Mary Ann probably have the stop sign.

If you sign a free agent pitcher on a 5 year deal, not expecting to contend for the first 2-3 years of that deal, a lot of bad things can happen over those years that would hurt your team. If Greinke gets hurt or becomes ineffective, then you have to go out and get another pitcher to replace him, and/or you are screwed for the rest of his contract. That's why these deals never seem to pan out. It doesn't matter if you have the money right now or not, you still get bent over. The reason for not doing it now is that it's two more years of possible injury and ineffectiveness. I wouldn't make that gamble on any pitcher right now.

Absolutely.

I watched a little but of Stanek vs. Kentucky this weekend. The UK guys were even saying his velocity was way down. I've never seen him pitch before but he didn't look overpowering at all.