Willihammer

Park is on pace to be a ~2.5 WAR player this year. Assume that is his true talent, factor in decline, and you're looking at about 4.5 to 5 surplus WAR over the life of his contract. Plus a team option. That should be an attractive chip for someone that needs a RH bat / 1B at the deadline I would think.

The Hughes extension is a good snapshot of some of TR's weaknesses IMO. 1. An over-commitment to free agent acquisitions. Particularly the multi-year contract signees. Hughes had an outlier performance, something other GMs would recognize. His trade value probably wasn't that high, but I have to believe a trade opportunity would have been there, if Ryan had pursued it. But he has built this image of the Twins as the anti-Marlins. It sounds callous to say, but sometimes the best thing for the franchise, is to uproot a player and ship him off. They do it every time they recall or option the Buxtons of the system- Buxton has a wife and kid too. But for whatever reason TR cultivates this image that if you sign with the Twins you don't have to worry about being flipped and I believe that costs him trade opportunities. 2. Poor appreciation for the forces of regression. Kinda ironic because a big part of the justification for signing Hughes in the first place was, his HR/FB would normalize into something resembling league average if he moved into a more league average home park. But Hughes' HR/FB in 2014 wasn't just normal, it was 6th-lowest in baseball. A correction in 2015-18 seemed completely possible, if not likely. And then there was the K/BB rate which was the GOAT, practically screaming regression. 3. Poor appreciation for age related decline. Again, sort of ironic because the other appealing thing about the original Hughes contract was that Hughes was one of the younger free agents in the class. But instead of letting him walk at age 30, Ryan made sure he locked Hughes well into decline years. 4. Lousy timing. As mentioned already, there was no point in extending a player likely to regress, with 2 years remaining on the contract. Not trading him- okay, maybe a deal wasn't there. Maybe. But to go so far the other way and extend the guy? Just completely unnecessary. It turned an asset into a liability, and will handcuff the team when all the young talent they've drafted during this downturn is ready to audition in 2016-2018.

To be clear, "luck" is shorthand for variations in outcomes that appear to be random. That doesn't necessarily mean they are random. It could mean that the causes of those variations aren't easily measured.

I wouldn't want the owners to be like Jerry Jones either. I mean, I have a job and I know that it sucks to be micro managed. Too much involvement hurts output. But I wouldn't expect to be completely unaccountable to my boss either. I know I wouldn't do my best work if that were the case. Neither extreme is desirable.

"Line of Succession." Begins with the owners, doesn't it? Presumably Carl knew something about baseball and the Twins when he chose to purchase the franchise in 1984. But the Pohlad boys, do they even like baseball? Do they watch the games and root for the team? I mean we moan about the incompetency of TR and Molitor, but what can you really expect if the CEO and owners aren't baseball people? Is that the case? I mean, I hope that's not the case. But from where I'm sitting, 2/3 of the family is completely hands off this team. Making movies and whatnot. Jim is the only owner who even sits in the front office. And whenever there's an interview like the one Scoggins did, the man sounds ambivalent about the team. If the insularity begins with the owners, then its no surprise the rest of the front office follows suit, is it? And why should fans expect any differently going forward, as long as the Pohlads remain owners?

Exhibit Q in the stinking Whities out-defending the Twins today.

Has anyone been to Giordano's yet? Does it live up to the hype?

That right there. That's why managers dont need to think very hard about filling out a lineup card. Just put the best hitter at the top, the very top, on down from there. So you can avoid that as much as possible.

Unlimited pitch count on Milone and Fien.

Sano positioned for Saladino like he was Jose Abreu.

The Twins are 450-550 since Target Field opened. They are 1432-1604 under Ryan They are 1701-1823 under Ryan/Smith They are 91-99 under Molitor. At some point results have to matter.

Sunday maybe. It would be Milone's turn and Twins are TBD on who's starting. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule/index.jsp#date=04/29/2016

I'd love to see Milone flipped for a reliever.

I take that back, he was rostered in Nov 2014 so this is only his 2nd option year.

Not to mention, this is Meyer's final option year.

#Twinsbaseball

DUMPSTER FIRE? NO! THAT'S AN INDUSTRIAL GARBAGE BURNER BEHIND THE LEFT FIELD WALL!

Did Arcia forget which hand his glove is on?

Reason # 12 to hate Ryan Braun- the Garciaparra-esqua rituals performed after. every. pitch.

And Suzuki with a double! That's the heart of the order man!

Exactly, Suzuki and Milone were due up next.

I wonder if a pitcher has ever willed a foul tip into the umpire's mask.

Screw that, put him in left tomorrow!

Ha. I take it you're subscribed to Arcia's Instagram too?

Front row of a Steve Miller band concert?