Otto von Ballpark

Not only did he really struggle as a starter in 2011 and 2012, but his initial conversion to relief in 2012 left something to be desired too (not exactly great K and BB rates for his age pitching relief in AA). Hopefully it was just transitional, and his AFL stats are encouraging in that regard. As an aside, how often do teams send a guy to the AFL and then leave him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft two months later? Seems like a waste of an AFL roster spot, although I suppose the team may want to see more of the player before deciding whether to protect him or not. (Which would not bode well for Pressly's chances this year, if the Red Sox sent him to the AFL and still decided to leave him unprotected. If they wanted to sneak him through, not sending him to the AFL would have been the better play, no?)

This write-up really needs a closer look at 1984. A rare season where the Twins were in contention, and in key consecutive games on Sep. 27-28 at Cleveland, Davis blew the save in the 8th inning and lost the game in the 9th both times, mathematically eliminating the Twins from the pennant race (leaving them 3 GB with only 2 more to play). Davis was hardly the only weak link on that club, and certainly not in the legendary Sep. 28 loss, but he took the official loss in both of those games and definitely was the poster boy for the Twins collapse that year.

Frankie Rodriguez was definitely overrated as a prospect and had a dismal career, but in retrospect, his 1996 wasn't too bad -- he was basically an average back-of-the-rotation starter that year over nearly 200 innings (topping 200 innings if you could a stint in the bullpen), given the elevated offensive environment of the time. Walbeck deserves this because he was near Butera-level with the bat in the majors, despite a better minor league track record, yet was handed a starting job in the majors for several seasons.

I don't think anyone is saying these players are bad compared to the population as a whole, or even the entire universe of pro baseball. But among players who were on the Twins major league roster, some players had the worst performance (or the worst performance-to-expectations ratio). These are those players.

Is this a duplicate article? I saw this posted last week with 11 comments already: Worst Twins of All-Time Series: Scott Klingenbeck - Blogs - Minnesota Twins News & Rumors Forum

You could probably do a whole series based on just the 1995-1996 Twins teams. Matt Walbeck would probably be a good choice. On the 2000 Butch Huskey team, I've always had a soft spot for Sean Bergman -- saw him beat the Yankees in New York that year. Off the top of my head, Steve Carlton's Twins-only performance would certainly qualify him for such a list, and it might be interesting to learn more about his time with the team (having occurred just before my serious fandom).

Best case scenario for Dozier is actually Scott Diamond. Limited high minors experience through age 24, terrible year at AAA/MLB as he turned 25, and rebounded as he turned 26. Although Diamond's success is generally regarded as a little odd/flukey, so that probably doesn't bode well for Dozier. Most guys who are good at 24 and bad at 25 don't fare quite so well at 26.

Remember, Dozier dominated AA in 2011 and was about to turn 25 with a month at AAA under his belt when promoted to the majors in May. I don't think that's rushing a guy -- I wouldn't expect him or anyone to hit their full potential right away in that scenario, but they shouldn't absolutely fall of the table either like Dozier did.

Parker -- I think you have Dozier's age wrong in the article. 2012 was his age-25 season (not 26), and in 2013 he will turn 26 (not 27). Shane -- I am sure there is room to criticize the Twins handling of Dozier -- obviously his 2012 results couldn't have been much worse -- but this level of "handling" probably only affects a guy's performance at the margins. The guy was 25 years old and posted a 67 OPS+ at the plate, and was about as "valuable" in the field and at AAA. What would "better handling" have likely achieved? A 75 OPS+ in a full season at AAA? A 67 OPS+ while struggling at second base as well as shortstop? Do either of those outcomes really improve Dozier's outlook? I would have to guess he will be marginally better in 2013 than 2012, mainly because he couldn't get much worse. I'll also venture a guess and say that Dozier never approaches his 2011 numbers either at AAA or in the majors.

Just noticed this again. "For Better Or Worse: Brian Dozier" shows 4 comments on the front page, when I click the article I see only 1 comment, and when I visit its comments thread on the forum I see 5 comments (which at least jibes with the front page count, since the top "comment" in the forum thread is just a link to the article). Mac OS X Chrome browser, for what it's worth. Also, unrelated, but the same article seems to be missing a link where Parker wrote "Click on this link to see our official thread AND take the survey" -- there is no link there, so I had to manually navigate the forum to find it.

I too find it hard to believe Correia had a truly comparable offer. Maybe a one-year deal for a hair over $5 mil, maybe something with an option year or incentives, but I can't imagine he was offered more than $10 million guaranteed over two years and turned it down. The dude is 32 years old -- there's no way he's looking at maximizing his value for his hypothetical next contract in 2015 when he'll be turning 35 years old. He needed to maximize his earnings at the present time, just like the vast majority of free agents always do, and I believe he did that with this Twins contract. That said, I don't think TR was lying. He was probably just mistaken (like he was mistaken about signing Correia in the first place!) TR probably doesn't know for sure -- unlike some situations in other sports with qualifying/matching offers etc, baseball teams are generally making offers "blind" or at least limited by what information the agent or player gives them. TR probably thought Correia could get a larger deal. Does that mean Correia left money on the table? Maybe Correia hoped to get a larger deal but couldn't afford to wait and take the chance. Who knows?

And whenever I hear "prospect for prospect swap" I think back to the Young-Garza deal (although technically they all at least some MLB experience under their belts in that deal). So suffice to say, I am terrified of prospect for prospect swaps. (I think TR would do it a lot better than Bill Smith, of course. But I don't expect one anytime soon.)

As much as I like Willingham, remember he was a free agent last offseason and settled for 3/21 from a last-place ballclub. He's a useful player, and could possibly fetch a useful player in return, but he's not THAT valuable on the market. He's not going to fetch a top starter or top prospect of any kind.

They should call it the Twins Apology Tour this year. I remember the Marshall, MN one as being reasonably attended some years back. Probably any of the outstate events would be best for interaction chances: Marshall, Worthington, Montevideo, the Iron Range cities up north, etc. Of course, you will have to watch for a more detailed schedule -- some of these events will be weekday mornings/afternoons at schools, etc. and mostly just for schoolkids. The ones I've attended were open to the public at hotel banquet rooms in the evening. Interesting that they're sending out Aaron Hicks and Kyle Gibson -- neither has yet appeared in the majors (and barely even at AAA) and I suspect neither will open 2013 with the team either. Also interesting is no Morneau. Although I don't know if he normally goes on these things. Last one I saw featured Pierzynski, so what do I know?

I have been zinged! Hats off to you. If the only tangible result of my earlier post is the creation of this post, I am satisfied. It's probably more than any of my other internet posts will ever achieve.

That's cool. I know the limitations of software, far too well! Thanks for all the work you guys put in -- it's nice to have a go-to Twins community again.

Thanks Brock and others. I assumed there was some SEO considerations about the articles. That's not really a big deal anyway. But duplicate threads are definitely more annoying. When I see there are three identical discussion topics about Mike Pelfrey going on, including two identical ones featured on the front page, I'm more likely to ignore all of them. It's a safe bet that none of the three is going to attract the attention and thought that one combined thread would. Breaking it down further, can multiple front page stories be tied to the same discussion thread in the forum? I get that regular users like me are always going to be a little dumb and post duplicate topics from time to time, but there really shouldn't be any excuses for featured authors doing that too. (I like your featured authors, and I have no problem with both Seth and Nick having front-page articles about Pelfrey, but honestly, the original articles were not different enough to warrant two separate discussion threads in the forum. It's Mike Pelfrey, for heaven's sake!) As for dumb users like me, perhaps the most elegant solution would be auto-suggesting existing topics -- basically, if a user tries to submit a new article or topic and it has a title keyword match (probably just player name) with an existing topic (i.e. Pelfrey), suggest that the user simply post in that existing thread instead of creating a new one. Maybe make posting in the existing thread the default option for such scenarios, particularly for regular users such as myself, so it would take some user effort to get around it. Then, the new article or topic just becomes a new post in that existing thread, continuing/steering that conversation rather than starting a parallel one. Not sure what platform you're using, but I have some experience coding an AJAX auto-suggest feature if I could be of help. For example, say that user howeda7 posted the first Pelfrey thread Saturday night. It accumulates, say, 50 posts by Sunday night, when Seth posts his Pelfrey article which becomes post #51 of that original Pelfrey thread. Post count is up to 60 when Nick posts his Pelfrey article, which becomes the 61st post on the original thread. No merging/jumbling/locking necessary.

Starting to dig Twins Daily, but I have a couple concerns from a user/reader perspective. 1) The big one is probably the number of topics with duplicate articles and threads. Right now there are two fairly generic articles about Mike Pelfrey on the front page, both linking to their own respective discussion topics in the Twins Talk forum, plus several other generic user-created discussion topics on Pelfrey in the same forum. The problem has been even worse for earlier signings and trades. It's a hassle to navigate and read, and it's probably stifling discussion -- I can't believe that I am alone in asking, where exactly am I supposed to post on the topic of Mike Pelfrey? Did I just pick the "wrong" thread to post in? From a user perpective, I'd love to see some thread merging to solve this. Yes, that's work for an administrator or moderator but it really should be done. Otherwise I have no real confidence posting here. And front page articles with generic topics like Pelfrey should be pointing to the same forum discussion thread -- there is no reason why Seth's announcement of the Pelfrey signing needs a separate forum thread from Nick's analysis of the signing a few hours later. The discussion will be essentially the same -- point them both to the same discussion. 2) On another related note, I really dislike clicking on a forum thread for an article, and then being required to click through again to actually read the article. Not only is it an inconvenience for users, it prevents article content from being searched by the forum search tool. (For example, searching for "Baseball America" in the main site header search box brings up Nick Nelson's recent Mike Pelfrey article -- in two duplicate places, no less -- but searching for the same phrase in the Twins Talk forum does not return that article or its discussion thread at all, even though the discussion is ostensibly in the Twins Talk forum.) If the article text was reproduced in the forum thread, that would obviously help. And if we are merging threads like my first suggestion, you could do some kind of top/permanent post for any articles linked to that merged thread. (I fully grant that featured author content should remain featured.) Also, maybe the forum search tool should default to the same site-wide search parameters used by the main site header search box? Hopefully this all makes sense. Sorry if any of it has been addressed elsewhere.

Here's what I am seeing right now: Front page (says 23 comments): Top of article page (says 2 comments): Bottom of article page (says and displays 4 comments): Forum shows all 23 comments correctly. I remember coming to the site in the wake of the Revere trade I think, and seeing 100+ comments on the front page articles, clicking them, and then only seeing one lonely comment underneath the article. I gave up on pursuing any discussion at that point. It's probably something worth fixing!

I too am seeing this problem. Mac OS X Chrome, also have seen it in Windows 7 Firefox. Today the "Health Permitting, Pelfrey Could Deliver" article shows 22 comments on the front page, but when I click the article, it says 2 comments, but it actually displays 4 comments. Last week it was displaying only one comment on the article page, but the front page was advertising ~100+ comments (and all the comments would show up if I visited the forum).

Yes? Not for a contender, mind you -- if the Twins had a halfway decent infield, and starting pitching was the ONLY weakness, I would probably insist on a top-of-the-rotation acquisition for 2013 and aiming for 90 wins. Otherwise, when it's just one of several weaknesses, and you are coming off some ~65 win seasons, it's probably best to address them all conservatively and aim for 80 wins in 2013. (That reminds me -- what are we doing about the infield?)

Interestingly, Pelfrey is a guy we should have gotten in the Santana deal. (Well, we shouldn't have dealt Santana at all, but if we were going to deal him to the Mets at that time, and we wanted some near-ML ready starting pitchers, Pelfrey would have been light years better than Humber and Mulvey.) Would have definitely changed the complexion of that deal and a little bit of Bill Smith's legacy.

Can't comment on 1965 or 1967 (or 1984, for that matter). My worst have generally been mentioned here already: 2004 ALDS Game 2 (decent expectations, curse hadn't set in yet) 2004 ALDS Game 4 2009 ALDS Game 2 (I should have known better, but I didn't) 2002 May 17 vs Yankees (for starting the curse IMHO) 2006 ALDS Game 1 (BIG expectations, no Yankees, what happened?) 2006 ALDS Game 2 2010 ALDS Game 1 (bad games, but by now the curse was expected) 2010 ALDS Game 2 2008 Game 163 (expectations were low) 2002 ALCS Game 5 (not a fun way to go out) I'd like to add another: 2001 August 14 vs Cleveland -- season expectations were low but this pretty much knocked us out for good that year (although the four-game sweep in Tampa that preceded this game didn't help matters): August 14, 2001 Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians Box Score and Play by Play - Baseball-Reference.com

I remember this one too, exact same circumstances (watching it late in college). I've always felt that this game set the tone for the Gardenhire Twins record against the Yankees. The plucky 2001 Twins didn't seem to have a problem with NY. Neither did previous Tom Kelly Twins teams, beyond their inherent late-90s sucking in general. Nothing that seemed to foretell a curse.

I don't mind this signing. Much better than the Correia deal -- less money, a little upside, better track record aside from the injury. Would have probably preferred Baker, assuming their recovery timetables are similar. Swap Lannan for Correia and I would actually be pretty OK with this offseason, although I'd certainly welcome a low-risk signing to top off the rotation. Apparently neither Baker nor Pelfrey wanted to give a team option year -- they are clearly looking to hit the market again next offseason. Could be bad for the Cubs and Twins, respectively, if they take a while to re-establish themselves in 2013 and the teams don't get a discount or first refusal rights on a 2014 contract. (Although a fully recovered Baker could almost be worth a qualifying offer.) I too am curious if the Twins expect Pelfrey to be ready by opening day (or if not, when?).