Rod Carews Birthday

It looks like it's the start of the silly season that pre-dates the trade deadline. Some people on TD think that the team is just about there and acquiring a big bat (or two!) would put us over the top. Problem A is that those guys have to be available, and problem B is that you have to be willing to put together a trade package that you are willing to live with and that they will take. Every team's fan base always overestimates the potential of their prospects, because prospects are all about hopes and dreams of the future. Twins fans are no different and are all about trades until they see the price. Those people are right. It could possibly work, if we are willing to pay the price, which we aren't because there are too many sacred cows among the prospects. On the other hand, some people on TD think that this team is terrible and that it just needs to be blown up. The players are bad. The manager should be fired. The front office needs to go as well. The hyperbole is so over the top that it's hard to take it seriously, even if there is a grain of truth in some of it. AAAAAND where does that leave you after blowing it all up? A truly terrible team with a brand new (meaning inexperienced) manager and front office guys who are willing to take a job with a confused organization. That works if you are fine with being terrible for a period (100+ loss terrible) followed by -- if we're pretty lucky -- another potential shot at the playoffs, etc. with a new batch of players. The problem is that those players may not work out to be any better than the old ones, and the cycle starts over. For me, I think that the mostly stand pat approach is the best answer. Trade for someone who could help around the fringes and/or trade someone who you think is replaceable. That's not exciting, but no matter who we trade for, if the injured guys and ineffective guys aren't producing, this team isn't very good. AND, if they are producing and healthy, the second half could be pretty good. YMMV

I've been around baseball in general and the Twins in specific to say "why not?!" It's certainly a long ways from a sure thing, but my optimism runs deep. I lived through some pretty ugly decades of Twins baseball and this team has a lot more going on than many of those did. Health is always a question mark, but the pitching staff is a long ways from washed up (Happ & Shoemaker anyone?) and hitting is a weird thing - guys could break out unexpectedly without warning at any moment. I'm still saying they will win in the mid-upper 80's and make the playoffs. A record like that doesn't come from a team with perfect luck and perfect health. Then, when you make the playoffs, anything can happen, and for those of us who have been around awhile know that for a fact.

Based on his past performance, Gasper has no defensive position. That means that he needs to be the DH, which means he needs to be among the very best hitters on the team in order to justify his existence as a full-time DH. When teams don’t have that guy, they generally rotate the position in order to give guys 1/2 days off — most teams are like this (as are the Twins). It generally works pretty well. If given a full season of run at DH, he MIGHT be close to a league average hitter, something like a 95 OPS+. That doesn’t represent DH numbers. There is a reason that TWO major league teams have looked at Mickey Gasper and decided that he’s probably not a major league bat. Could they catch lightning in a bottle, like they did with Kody Clemons? Of course the answer is maybe, but he showed pretty much nothing in his first go around with the Twins. (And Clemons is quickly turning back into Kody Clemons, not quite a major leaguer). At this point, I really don’t see the point of giving Gasper an extended run. YMMV

He did deserve a better fate, but him coming out of the game didn't lose it. That's on the offense, which was "offensive". I don't love Duran giving up the game tying run, nor Sands giving up the game winner, but they get to do that, and if the offense were even functional, it wouldn't be an issue. C'mon boys! We've gotta get some runs!

The pitching staff deserves better. Much better.

It’s a little sad that Alcala didn’t work out, but the inconsistency that he showed made him frequently unusable in any kind of substantial role. There was probably only a 20% chance that he would have eventually worked through his difficulties with the Twins. The trade to Boston probably increases that chance a bit, but not by a tremendous amount. He needed new scenery and we didn’t completely give him away — probably a good trade. It won’t surprise me if he goes to Boston and becomes a useful setup guy for them. Relief pitchers are weird like that. There are a whole bunch of them out there that washed out of one organization (or even several) and transformed into successful pitchers with another — only to lose it and resurface with still another team for more success. I think it is likely Alcala could be one of those because his stuff will always be tantalizing so teams will continue to give him a look.

The Twins are in a bit of a catch 22 situation. On one hand, they have some specific needs and have some prospect capital they could spend. On the other hand, they probably aren’t good enough that filling a need or two will make a substantial difference. Add in the fact that they also probably aren’t bad enough that a fire sale is in order and you are left with a status quo type of deadline, with perhaps something small and marginal around the edges. Not exciting, but likely the best use of resources (unless you have lots of $$$ to spend).

Exactly. Remember the “2nd base logjam”? That certainly worked itself out quickly. What people sometimes fail to realize is that Player X, with this flaw or that flaw that makes you not want him, isn’t going to command a tremendous value from another team that sees those same flaws. That other team is also likely to send you Player Y, who has this flaw or that flaw that makes them not want him. I get this is why players are packaged for big trades and that there are few one for one challenge trades, Arraez for Lopez notwithstanding. The reality is that the players who really have tremendous value in a trade are usually on a team’s untouchable list for trades.

Ty France is a player who so far has produced at about league average, while playing better than advertised defense. Luckily for him, he seems to hit best in spots that matter most. I doubt it's an actual skill, but lucky is just fine if it's on your side. He gets on base at a good pace, which is also a valuable skill (as is, apparently, getting hit by pitches). In a vacuum, I would prefer a player like Freddie Freeman, or prime Albert Puhols, but we don't live there. For the investment, you've got to be pleased with what France has brought to the table so far. If it continues, I will definitely call his year successful. He is most definitely better than anybody else we could/would put there at this point.

There are plenty of at bats to go around. He may not start on a daily basis, but there will inevitably be short term injuries, slumps, and days off to get through. I don’t think that makes him any less valuable, in the same way that Willi Castro is valuable. Having a non-starter who “could be” a starter limits the amount of drop off that occurs when bench players start. Let’s just keep them all healthy and productive.

I am in agreement that Festa pitching a little deeper into games will do wonders for the bullpen fatigue situation. However, it's really just a question of whether he can stay in control of the game in innings five and six. If he can do that, I think he will be given enough leash to continue to pitch, but if he can't get people out the third time through the lineup, the extra innings are negated by the runs given up. So to oversimplify things, he just needs to pitch reasonably well. If we can score some runs, that will be enough.

If the offense can get/remain straightened out, it will do a lot toward keeping the team in contention. It seems quite likely that there will be a dip in the starting pitching situation, so it's time for the offense to step it up. The sky isn't falling on the pitching side. We're still covered and we haven't dipped into "break glass in case of emergency - hello Randy Dobnak" territory yet. In a bizzaro way the games might just get more "interesting" -- in both good and bad ways!

Weird headline. How about "Twins' need for long reliever grows with Pablo's injury" instead of the clickbaity title? If Adams can come up and pitch well in 2-3 inning stints, that could be extremely valuable to the preservation of the rest of the guys in the bullpen. Alcala probably has better stuff than Adams, but at this point he has probably worn out his welcome and needs to go, which is a shame. I think he will figure things out somewhere else and be effective. Such is the nature of relief pitching. A huge number of successful relievers have flamed out with a previous team (or several teams).

I prefer to focus on the point of the article, so I don’t really care about the rest of that stuff. I wish more people would join me in that. From a completely selfish standpoint, I don’t want anything to get in the way of a sale and new ownership. This bill could do that, so it commands my attention. I don’t care how much or how little the Pohlads make from the sale, I just want it to happen. Let’s go billionaires! Get busy and buy the Twins!

That’s me wishcasting that it will create a sense of urgency for the Pohlads to sell the team. I don’t care at all how much they get from the sale, I just want it to go through and provide a little ray of sunshine for fans. As a fan, there is nothing we can do, unfortunately.

THIS is exactly the point that is important to Twins fans specifically right now. Politics is just politics and there will always be disagreements, but sometimes we have to let things pass and not be offended by everything the other side says. SHORT ANSWER: Let’s get this team sold RIGHT NOW!!!!

I'm not sure in the current times that there is such a thing as a politically neutral format. Such is the nature of the beast. Unfortunately there are always triggers out there for people (on both sides) that prevent them from looking past the chaff and into the real information. It's the world we live in.

Point taken, but paragraph two (the one that is the most controversial) is probably necessary to really clue people in to exactly what bill we are talking about. Otherwise, it would be lost out there ("buried on page 966") and people wouldn't realize what to pay attention to. Bills like that (on both sides of the aisle) pass all the time and it is only after the fact that people realize what has happened (when it is too late). Without an article like this, I would probably not have known that this was out there. Now I do, and I'm glad the article was written.

It's always about the price and return. Absolutely, I'm a fan of trading any one of our pitchers, for the right return. Unfortunately, the Twins' idea of the right return and the other teams (or mine) are likely going to be different. What I'm not a fan of is trading for the sake of trading -- creating churn just to make it look like something happened. Until we know the target and the proposed package from the team that is willing to actually trade said package, this is just us saying "Looky here! We've got a bunch of pitchers!" Right now, nothing is likely to happen until for at least 5 or 6 weeks. Let's wait a little longer before the speculation gets out of control.

The bill, if passed and signed, would represent a major change in how teams are valued and taxed. That means that selling the Twins would be even more messy (maybe even impossible) than it is right now, which greatly affects something that many (probably most) fans want to happen, the sale of the team. Yes, it's politics. But also yes, it belongs on this site because it affects something integral to what this site is about. If a tax bill put a $10 fee on every ticket sold, I would expect to see that here as well. I also hate politics on non-political sites, but the effect would likely be direct and deadly.

I can't specifically answer to the merits of sending Royce Lewis to Fort Meyers vs. St. Paul. If he can get better and more specific coaching, then by all means send him to Fort Meyers, otherwise St. Paul. Right now he is doing very little in the way of helping the team so he will not be missed while he is away. Putting it more bluntly, if he doesn't figure it out, he'll hang around for second/third/fourth chances and then be out of baseball. It's time to take the plunge.

Then some results need to be forthcoming. REALLY SOON, because it’s getting ugly out there.

I completely agree where the overall team is concerned. The beginning of the season produced far too many “sky is falling” comments and the streak produced a bit too much optimism. The twins are probably that 85-87 win team that they were predicted to be, although they took the bizarre path to get there. I agree less when it comes to individual players. Perhaps someone with a very long track record of excellence — Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa — deserves a very long leash with regard to substandard performance. However, players that have had limited success probably need to be looked at somewhat more skeptically, like Julien, Miranda, or Lewis. Those guys aren’t finished products and sometimes they may need their run in a lower stress environment like AAA to ultimately be successful in the big leagues.

No, but Matt Wallner is!

He would benefit greatly and it is well beyond time to do it. He’s been a mess offensively since the middle of last season and in his current form does almost nothing for the team. The Twins did it with Wallner and Buxton with good success. Julian and Miranda were no worse when they were sent down. Time for the reset.