deanlambrecht

At least we made it somewhat more respectable in the bottom of the 9th. Parm with a helluva shot there.

Um, sweet!

It is thin when put in the perspective Souhan provided, and it's also likely a bargaining maneuver. Every purchasing-GMs has an interest to downplay the strength of the market. I think this is about what you'd hear from most decent negotiators at this point in the process.

It's probably not fair to vote now that we're down 8-2 in the 6th, is it...? Sadly, I'd vote the same now as I would have prior to the game. We're really going to end it almost as ugly as we began it, I think. Next poll topic: Can the Twins be Yankee Killers next week?

I'll give a general thumbs up and address the free speech argument. There is no constitutionally protected free speech right recognized here (or in any place like it). There is no right to free speech on a forum that you don't personally own. I appreciate your advocacy of it, John, and I would do the same. However, this isn't a "free place" in any sense of the term. It's a private website. I only say this because I've seen, on other forums, people jump all over this to criticize and make wild claims about a right to free speech on someone else's website. They're wrong. Just like if you walk into my house and start saying things I don't want you to say, I can stop you from saying it by warning you, and eventually throwing you out if you don't stop. Same rules apply to a private website on the internets.

While I, too, question the medical staff of this team (see the Pavano article), I think luckylager's post is about right.

Let Diamond pitch up near the recommended max innings, using Duensing as his replacement in a 5 man rotation. I don't see why we need to see more of Duensing as a starter for any reason. With strategic use of Diamond and Duensing, we'd need only a 5 man rotation, and we can get a bit more of a look at the others whom we need to test out. But the general thrust of the Seth's plan is spot on.

Yes, the front office made several blunders... And most of them weren't on JR's watch. Ramos/Capps, the Johan trade (admittedly, Smith was put into a difficult position there), Hardy/Hoey, Nishioka, etc... Smith did a great job with international signings, a pretty good job with the draft, and a completely abominable job with the Major League roster. The only move he made that was considered a good one by analysts was the Hardy for Gomez trade, which he later reversed with the ridiculous Hardy for Hoey trade. You don't think the Twins have a solid core of young-ish players? What do you think Scott Diamond, Joe Mauer, Denard Span, Ben Revere, and Glen Perkins are? They certainly need more pitching but their hitting core is pretty good. Willingham is the only guy who is old enough to show a significant decline at this point. Frankly, it's getting harder and harder to criticize the Santana-Gomez (et al) trade. Gomez is having a good year, and continues to have big upside at a very young age. Santana can't be considered anything but a disaster for the Mets. He's put together only a single complete season at the level of success he achieved with the Twins, his first one, and ever since: Has been on the DL for seasons-length of periods of time, with repeated shorter DL stints. Despite his no-hitter earlier this season, has been pitching quite poorly this season, including being a complete and utter disaster since he tossed that 134 pitch no-hitter. Yet they're paying him in the mid $20M range every year, and still owe him $25M next season (which is looking increasingly troublesome). With the other players in that trade, we netted Jon Rauch in the Mulvey trade, which worked out well for us for over a season. Indeed, Humber was a disaster, and while he's still hanging by a thread it's looking the same for Guerra. We got some interesting production from a very young Gomez, and the CF threat he posed to Denard seemed to spark something in Span to turn his languishing career around. We then we got Hardy for Gomez - as you noted, a fantastic move (and that we blew this with the Hardy to B'more trade says nothing about the Santana trade). Gleeman wrote about this earlier this year, calling it a lose-lose trade (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15979). I'd argue the Twins did better than did the Mets. Whether or not we would have done better by letting Santana go and getting a few picks for him is the only argument, IMO, that flies, but it's a purely speculative one. As Gleeman aptly points out, the pieces we got for Santana were highly ranked when we got them. They didn't pan out like we'd hoped. Obviously neither did Santana. None of the teams we were targeting were willing to give us the pieces we wanted - perhaps they were suspicious of Santana's ability to keep producing at the level we'd seen, and perhaps so were we. And if the lot of 'em were suspicious, turns out they were right. Outside of that, Brock, you've got a far superior argument here compared to those having a little freakout about our front office. The comparison point isn't the Yankees or Red Sox. It's all other teams in baseball. Compared to all other teams, based on performance over a reasonable time frame (a decade), our front office looks far better than most.

Congrats!

So, let's see. When you disagree with what someone is saying, as thus far all of you obviously do here, you can criticize the argument on the merits, or you can attack the person him/herself. Which do you think is both more effective and is the mode of argument accepted by civilization for thousands of years? (I know, it's hard to tell these days, as standard argument in this nation has become an absolute travesty, but still...). So, I disagree with what thrylos is saying, but I can at least acknowledge that his argument has some merit. Indeed, no one here would argue that persons of African descent in this nation could reasonably take umbrage at being referred to as "property". Right? That seems to be a settled notion, given our nation's terrible history regarding chattel slavery. However, I disagree that Bremer was referring to that. It's not unusual, for instance, to see all sorts of folks wearing clothing items (especially shirts) with phrases such as "Property of the Minnesota Vikings," etc. It's actually rather common, and it's an accepted colloquialism. Frankly, it probably should not be. The phrase has a terrible connotation to it, and could be rightfully offensive to any number of people. But it is what it is and it was a minor mistake for Bremer to have said it, even though it was most likely unintentional and not freighted with the meaning that thrylos attributes it. So settle down. [Edit to correct: Agree] Disagree with the idea, not the person. This item in particular wasn't terribly hard to deconstruct, and the whole forum will be a much better place for all if we stick to the merits of an argument and refrain from personal attacks.

Almost feel bad for Cleveland here. Almost.

Exactly this. No requirement to move him, but we'd be foolish to not see what kind of offers we receive. It's especially so, given that's it's probable that he's playing as well as we're ever likely to see. So, happy to keep him, happy to trade him for the right offer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's exactly what Rocketpig is saying.

I agree with most here, this is an excellent site. I really appreciate the work. I followed over here from Nick's site, and was thrilled to find even more of the great posts that Nick was putting up from the rest of the crew here. Also agree with the commenter that if there's any way you can lure Bat Girl into posting here, even only once in awhile, that would be huge. I'd pay big bucks for another Lego-vision post!

Exactly this.

Exactly this.

Oh, boy. Okay. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/minority But really, why are we having this discussion here? The Saints can do what they damn well please. If it pisses off religious believers, than those believers can simply not go to the game. Or they can kick it up a notch and actively boycott, or even organize a protest. But whining on twinsdaily.com is almost certainly the least effective way to go about airing your complaints, and can lead one into a display of ignorance, e.g., demonstrating that one doesn't know how to use a dictionary to determine the meaning of a given word.

Exactly. I was hopeful he'd heat up and we'd have a huge trade chip on July 31, but we're better off now waiting that out for the best value possible down the road. Concussion sucks. He would have been an awesome life-long Twin.

Too bad we don't have a professional hitting coach to help him work on these issues. IIRC, Plouffe is a first round pick, no?

Here's some actual analysis about Liriano's last start, and what made it particularly good: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/can-liriano-stay-down-in-the-zone-again/

Don't look now, mlhouse, but the Twins bullpen is 14th in mlb, 8th in the AL, and 3rd in the ALC, waaaayyyy ahead of the Tigers and Cleveland. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/pitching/split/128 Great? No. But a long shot from your claim of "zero quality bullpen pitchers." If a starting or bullpen pitcher who projected as one who could help us very soon, that would be one thing. But that wasn't the case. Buxton was the top ranked player available when we got the pick. The pitchers nearby weren't considered by anyone to have a ton of upside, so we picked Buxton. It's kind of hard to argue with that logic, frankly.

No, the logical argument being made is that there are far more unknowns than there are knowns, that draft picks more often than not don't work out, and that the people commenting at this site (and every other baseball blog in America) have less information than do the people making the draft picks. That's not "trust the scouts," it's "we're not in a very good position to know anything whatsoever so we'll see what happens perhaps not before 7 years is up."

Exactly this.

How about bringing back the baggie? Anyone want the baggie in RF?

Ditto. And now I predict the diagnosis for Blackburn: unilateral leg weakness.

Are you out of your mind? Pull up the career stats of Carroll and Punto and do the comparison yourself. I'm not saying Carroll is an all-star or hof level player, but he's been a consistent and solid offensive and defensive player for a long, long time. I also appreciate what Punto brought to the game, as frustrating as he was at the plate. But there's no question that Carroll was, and remains, a much better player than LNP.