Halsey Hall

That will hurt his pocket book big time.

Amen. Not expecting much next season, the first thing I do this off season is get someone to replace Plouffe. He MUST be gone! Yes, he does disappoint nearly every single day. I've been infracted, or scolded on here for stating so before, obviously not stating it in a way that wasn't polite enough. But, IMO, Plouffe isn't a ML player, and I'd much rather watch anyone else, even if they did disappoint nearly everyday, just for the change.

Good for Nick. Good guy, good player, always giving it his all. I still wish we'da kept him.

I think if Mauer was still single, he would of stayed catching. But with a wife and little one's his health is more important. I know he'd like his buddy Morneau back. He probably made sure the Twins weren't planning on that before deciding the move. He'll be very good at first base.

Nam vet here. And my thanks to all who have or are serving as well.

I'd call it the curse of Tom Kelly. He's the one who wanted David to go to left field, and Ortiz didn't appreciate it.

Right on! Having talked with Terry many times thru the years, he is an honest, straight shooter. He may tip his hand here a bit. This line hit me instantly when talking about Molitor: There’s some continuity here with bringing [Miguel] Sano and [byron] Buxton and [Eddie] Rosario and those types of guys. They’re very familiar with him. I don’t think that’s all of a bad thing. There's just a ton of fixing that needs to be done with this team. Obviously, pitching is at the forefront, and Terry addresses that first. 2 year deals would make alot of sense if he's thinking of going with the youngsters. And with that quote, it's my opinion he is. Most of our lineup sucks and he can't fix that and the pitching also. I think we go young, have another bad season, but really point to 2015 for a steady climb up the ladder.

I had paragraphs, but it was timing out, so I copied quick as I could. When the posting finally timed out, I pasted it back, and it came out with no paragraphs. LOL, just my luck, but at least I didn't lose it all. I don't know if he coaches during the season, but he's got coaches that should be doing that.

Finally an enjoyable game to watch at last! Go Pirates.......

Can Gardy develop young players? Well I doubt it, but who knows. But that's not his job, anyway. He's the manager. His job, ultimately, is to put on the field, daily, the best players to win a game that particular day. I know it's been a long time, but when TK was manager, he always tried to place a player in a position where he had a chance to succeed. Granted there wasn't all the numbers stat-heads use these days, but TK seemed to be pretty good at it. Gardy I'm not so sure. Having been to spring training every year since '91, and I'm there almost daily, in my opinion this is the time where the developing starts. I'm not sure where to go with this, since there's different routes, but I'll try this one for example. Max Kepler. And I'll try to keep this as short as possible. The Twins sign him as a 16 year old out of Germany. He's smart, speaks 4 languages fluently, and comes from an athletic family as his folks are world renown balletists. He comes as a raw, young, kid with potential in some scouts eyes. His development involves teaching and learning, starting with the basics all the way to the finer points of MLB. And so it starts, at the lowest level in the organization. He's taught how to play the outfield, (positioning, cutoffs, situations, etc) and the same at first base (footwork, situations, etc). The same thing hitting, everything that he needs to improve on to advance. And this is repetition, repetition, repetition, at all levels, until it becomes second nature. And this goes on with each kid that comes to camp. So now we come to spring training and there's players playing on 4 different fields, a huge number of players at all different levels. Gardy spends most of his time with the major league team. He's usually standing around 2nd base or shortstop on most of the drills. And many of the drills are fundamentals, which these guys have worked on over and over again at every level. And there's still mistakes made. Gardy will take a player and talk with him if something is amiss, but he generally doesn't work with him. A coach will do that. Ulger will work with the outfielders, Steinie with the catchers, etc. The coaches are coaches, and the teaching never ends. Gardy is the manager, the overseer, and has these coaches to do the teaching and developing. Gardy has to appraise all these players, and ultimately decide which one's make the 25 man. Which 25 guys will give him the best team possible.

Thanks, RB for the GDT's. Even though alot of this goes right over this old guys head. Finally, this season comes to an end. Though, in about a week I'll be looking forward to alot of changes and spring training. It should be an interesting off season.

Now the question becomes who will win 2 games first, Gardy or the Gophers. My money is on Gardy.

The question becomes can Gardy hit 999?

But, Pelfrey is better than Hernandez, De Vries, Gibson, and probably Diamond. He's back end of the rotation, but we need at least 2 really good starters. TR has to go get them somewhere.

Hey chief, me too. I was there!

I thought the Twins would be to young to remember a 154 game season, guess not.

What comes first for Gardy, 1000 wins or 1000 losses? I wonder if the playoff losses count in his 944.

Ahhh, so the shoe's on the other foot. And speaking of things to think about, the only thing I've been thinking about for too long is apple crisp. Soooooo, today I tried my hand at making it! Who says you can't teach and old dog new tricks? And it isn't to bad, especially with a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream on top. This is just my opinion, of course, with no disrespect to anyone. But much thanks to ChiTown for inspiring me to step into uncharted waters.

Wow, who'd a thunk it?

Twins are just delaying the end of the season.

I think Gardy needs 3, I'd just like to see 68 wins. 70 would be better but I'm not much of a dreamer.

That was a nice win! And no drama from Perkins. I wonder if we can get 4 more W's?

I just spent the entire long day playing in a golf scramble with a meal afterwards, and I'm still thinking of apple crisp.

That's just what I was going to say. And I'd walk across a mile of broken glass just to get of sniff of it!

Poor Dick is really disgusted. I'll bet he just can't wait to get this season over. I'd hate to have that job now, and not be able to say what I really wanted to.