S.

Fixed that for you.

Robinson > Boyer

Because scrap heap veterans have been working so well for us http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Wayne-Knight-Laughing-Jurassic-Park.gif

I'm far too apathetic to bother looking up the stats, but it sure feels like Sano has knocked in or scored like 75% of our runs over the past week or two.

http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/t364/100grandonmywrist/m1C1E.gif

If we let them each pitch 3 innings, theres a good chance they won't be available for a few days. Silver linings and whatnot.

So much for avoiding a bullpen day by starting Duffey instead of May.

My favorite aspect of this bullpen is how they're all stepping up to try to get Terry Ryan fired. What's Drew Butera up to these days? He'd be a solid upgrade to our pen.

Reasons to watch the Twins: Good pitching Good fielding Good hitting Good prospects Good veterans Good broadcasters

The offense should not be even remotely set with this. Vargas has been super hot, but to just assume he'll maintain how he's played since his call up is unrealistic. Santana has also played way over his head. Escobar is a utility man at best. Plouffe is destined for a utility role or will no longer be with the team once Sano is a full time player (unless Sano is joining the ever growing group of DH/1B). Arcia isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. I don't think we can necessarily assume we'll see both Buxton and Sano next year either. Not to say most of the players listed can't or won't be part of the next successful Twins team, but I certainly wouldn't call that largely set. Then on the pitching front, we're still one of the league's worsts across the entire board, even with Hughes doing well and Gibson performing decently. Last offseason we were assuming Meyer would be up before the ASB and look how that panned out. Right now, May is a long way away from being part of a "competent front four" and Gibson wouldn't make the playoff rotation for many actual contenders. Quite frankly, all I really see is a team doing most of the same **** they've been doing for the last 4 years, and praying every one of their prospects pans out as well, or better, than expected. If this is a rebuild, color me unimpressed with the way we've been doing it and confused with a whole lot of the decisions made in regards to roster construction, promotions, signings, and play time.

Lord knows how much stress he might be subject to if he badly wanted to win the World Series. If the stress of trying to make the All Star game turns him into a pumpkin, then he should probably start seeing some doctors in the next couple years before we try to make a real playoff push. If this is just Gardy making excuses, then he really needs to quit it because it isn't doing him, Mauer, or the team any favors by saying crap like this.

Get rid of them all. People can talk all they want about "bad luck" with prospect injuries, or how the team is improved over the last 3 years, but this is still a terrible baseball team. Yes, rebuilding takes time, but at the rate we've been 'improving' it'd be 2017 before we even have a chance to sniff a wild card. On the pitching side we're 27th in team ERA, 26th in team WHIP, 30th in K9, 25th in opponent OBP, 27th in opponent OPS, 27th in opponent SLG. Remind me again why I'm supposed to be enthused about this? Exclude Hughes, and the rest of our pitchers are probably 30th in every pitching category. On the hitting side, it seems like lots of people are conveniently ignoring how lucky we've been with some of our players. Sure, we've had some bad luck with prospect injuries, but as much as I want to see him in the bigs, Sano wasn't going to suddenly make this a good team on his own. Suzuki, Escobar, Santana have all played much better than anyone could've expected for much or all of the season. Vargas has been mashing since his call up. Sam Fuld played very well for a stretch. Dozier was on fire in the early goings. Our SS in CF experiment hasn't been nearly as disastrous as it probably should've been. And the list goes on. From the major league clubs standpoint, I'd say we've been quite a bit more lucky than unlucky, and the result is still going to be a 90 loss season. Maybe I'm just too negative, but I don't see any way the FO can seriously look the fans in the face and claim they're justified in bringing back the exact same coaching staff after four years of this garbage. There isn't another org in baseball that would put up with this without making some significant changes.

When you're fielding a World Series caliber MLB team with as much high priced talent as the Twins, you gotta milk your fan base for every last dollar to keep signing those top tier free agents. Oh wait... http://gifatron.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/seinfled.gif

You're gonna need a better argument than "guys go on the DL all the time" to defend the FO if that is the 2015 opening day rotation.

But it will. And it did.

Awful trade for the Rays. Another disappointing deadline for the Twins unless there were some deals that we haven't heard about yet. 2015 opening day Twins rotation of Hughes, Nolasco, Gibson, Milone, Pelfrey? Someone call me in 2016 when we finally see some prospects.

What exactly is the bad luck in him being injured? Quite frankly, I'd call Pelfrey being injured good luck, since that was the only way we were going to get his atrocious numbers out of our rotation. And it should've opened up a rotation spot for someone other than career minor league pitchers. Signing Pelfrey was a bad decision, but this team is certainly no worse off without him, so I wouldn't consider that much of bad luck.

This whole game: http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/gif/1f3258b49a635e28caba1be9ec5ec7c98e9f98c.gif

Talk is cheap. The FO and ownership have said all sorts of things over the last few miserable years, but it doesn't mean a damn thing to me if they're not going to make a whole lot of significant changes.

As a first baseman, the Mauer we've seen so far this year is barely above replacement level.

Mine are going to get something else I probably can't talk about on this forum.

His bat is a big part of this discussion, so I was including that in my point of view. I can see where you're coming from though.

Suzuki is nothing to write home about when it comes to throwing out runners or framing either. And I find it hard to attack Pinto for struggling to catch Deduno. I'm pretty sure it'd be challenging for any catcher who didn't have experience catching a knuckleballer or someone else with no command and wild movement. I'm not sure what people expect taking a young, raw catcher and having him pretty much exclusively catch a guy who has zero idea where the ball is going to go.

If AAA was always an accurate gauge of how a player will do in the majors, then Parmelee and Colabello would be perennial all stars. I also don't know how you can look at our lineups and pitching staff and tell me that signing Kendrys Morales as a rental for a few months makes us no longer in a total rebuild.

Isn't finding out which young players are going to be future parts of our team exactly what a team in a rebuild should be doing? If we don't figure out what Pinto can do as a regular catcher, what exactly is our plan for catcher for 2015+?