bird

The problem with this argument is that you've put things into an accurate historical context.

You should post more often, paulblair715. Oh, and you were a great player, fun to watch, so thank you for your service. We ALL want to see what Meyer and May can do. We will too, probably within a month or two. My question is, what did people see or not see here in the past few weeks regarding those two? Meyer was awful mechanically in his last start, by his own admission. May tiered in the 3rd inning in his last start I believe, and hadn't been stretched out. And it's not like Milone was looking terrible too. We're all tired of scrap heap guys, but I don't view any of our starting five as being in that category (for once). The problem with starting May and Meyer is you have to jettison Milone and Pelfrey BEFORE you know what you have instead of after. And it's a risky assumption to say you can replace them immediately with someone else from the minors with "potential". So I don't see much wrong with the temporary decision they made, despite my passionate yearning to see the young guys in action.

nater's point was May, Meyer, Berrios, and Wheeler. Not Pelfrey and Stauffer.

It's hardly confusing. Nick Burdi, Jake Reed, and Zach Jones are at AA, all may be less than a year away, Chargois, Bard, Romero, and Melotakis were injured all of last year. These guys could all end up being fast-tracked through the system, all as relievers. Of course, many of them will fail. As for relievers turned starters, Duffey made it to AAA last year. Many consider him a top 20 prospect in a loaded system. Same goes for Cedaroth, who throws 95mph and who Sickles for example views as our 17th best prospect. That's for starters.

Molitor: "I was forthright and transparent."

Not being snarky, but it's because some of us believe that Meyer, May, Buxton, Sano, Polanco, and Rosario are close but not ready, and that in any case a player on the final roster will likely perform better than they would have to start the year. The use of the term "competition" is an oversimplification of the decision-making process. A lot of things go into it, dating back to well before spring training, and it's not all about a few spring training games either.

First of all, where are we getting the "couple more years stuff? Not a single one of the players you mentioned was sent down because they are too young. The fact that May, or anyone else, is either young or old is irrelevant. Great, a whole bunch of people believe May would help us win more than Milone would in April. Maybe all those people are wrong. We're still in a fluid stage of this rebuild. Yeah, it's easy to say let's just go with the young guy over the old guy. The trouble is, maybe the "young/old" guys, including May and Meyer, would stink up the joint right now. Or maybe not. But it's not like any irreversible decisions are being made on a single one of the more promising prospects mentioned. So let's not get too sold on the thought that Robinson, Milone and Pelfrey are "washed up" and May and Meyer are saviors with expiration stamps and under quarantine for two years. It's a fluid situation and every one of these prospects needs to be thought of separately.

Mauer's batting .200. A scholarship for him too? That darn Ryan.

1. If both Vargas and Santana struggle, that might be frustrating since they occupy such key slots in the order. We have to expect a tough adjustment for both of them, I think, as they face tough pitchers who now have a good book on them. But if one or both demonstrate the smarts and talent to make those adjustments, and Arcia matures with his approach, this could be fun. 2. Gibson might be the #2-3 starter he was projected to become, making him a pretty decent draft choice after all. 3. I'm less concerned with the bullpen, for a couple reasons: 1. the guys they sent down, Oliveros, Achter, Tonkin, Pressly, Thompson, Pryor, and Darnell, if inserted as replacements en masse, wouldn't be that embarrassing. A couple of the current guys will falter, and a couple of those guys will emerge as good replacements. In the meantime, Burdi, Jones, Chargois, and others are knocking on the door. 4. Yes, Paulie will be a better game-day manager, but I'm going to wait to see signs of a healthy clubhouse environment. This, to me, is perhaps the hardest and most important part of a manager's job. I know people will disagree with me, but I believe Gardy managed his clubhouses about as well as any manager in baseball. Even the bad apples, guys like Delmon, were managed well by Gardy. Paulie seems to be liked and respected too, so I'm optimistic. 5. Meyer's handling has been a lightning rod for criticism. His spring performance should put most of that to bed. But alas, it probably won't. Hopefully, he'll make the necessary adjustments quickly, because we'll hopefully find a slot for him by the trade deadline. Right now, though, he'd get carved up.

The Twins couldn't appear to disagree with you more about Santana's ceiling, thrylos. I believe we've heard more accolades for Santana from the team's field people than we did for Plouffe or Dozier at the same stage, and in the case of both of those players, their value has inflated dramatically since they got to Target Field. If Santana works out like Dozier and Plouffe have, I'm not going to quibble that we might have to trade Escobar for less than his optimal value to make room for someone like Polanco. And if Danny doesn't turn into much of a player, at least they have options. It was only a couple years ago that we had countless comments here about how the Twins were inherently bad at developing middle infielders, and now we know that was a false perception.

When a hitter golfs a pitch at his ankles over the fence, I know what Bert Blyleven's comment was even with the sound off. "He left that one up in the zone, and [your hitter's name here] dropped the barrell of his bat on the ball."

It's a great question, and I like Mr. Kemp's answer. I would always be a seller, and especially at the deadline, when teams feel some desperation, regardless of my own record, the caveats being: 1. Will my replacement, within a window of less than a year, be a better performer than the player being dangled out there? And do I have two replacement candidates like this? 2. The buyer must be willing to overpay. 3. Untouchables are limited to future HOF types and players who the fans adore, and to a much lesser extent, guys who help via those nebulous intangibles. 4. My bias is for acquiring lower level prospects.

Have they passed on an inexperienced talent with talent though? And in favor of a vet of lesser talent? Gibson, May, and Meyer are the first real talents I've seen around these parts in awhile. The last inexperienced talents we had before them had names like Walters, Hernandez, and DeVries. That said, I do agree they tend to distrust young pitchers to perform with any level of consistency. But it's not like Milone is talent-free. He may win the job because he should. Now Correia, that's a different story..

We've had this conversation before and I'll grant you that Gardy wasn't perfectly consistent nor always tactful. But I think it's wholly unfair to suggest he made a habit of seeking opportunities to criticize any of his players in public. The notion of him as unfair in that way is overblown. Gardy and Molly treated Hicks identically in public in how I see the two specific incidents. Both are fair in their criticisms. I was more humored by the outcry over Gardy, who in fact WAS prompted, and explained in a short, to the point comment why he took the action he did with Hicks. And now, we're seeing a number of commenters "throwing Hicks under the bus" ( albeit gently ) here on this thread. Just sayin'.

I'm a bit humored by the fact that Molitor is receiving praise (rightly so) for taking an action that, when Gardy did the same, he was ridiculed mercilessly for throwing Hicks under the bus. Enjoy the honeymoon, Paulie.

Yeah, slightly ironic, but tempered by the facts that it wasn't the first or only flaw mentioned, and that the TD complaints about the Suzuki acquisition centered on his offense. I don't recall a single comment about his pitch framing deficiencies early on here on TD. And now, a bit ironically, we're all over the guy like a cheap suit.

I'm curious about who he should have chosen instead. His other choices were Fryer, Herrmann, Rohlfing, and Pinto as I recall. And Pinto was not an option really. Because pitch framing :-)

I agree with your last sentence, mike.

No, you got it all wrong. Torii's going to give an honest answer when Sano pulls his baseball pants on and asks "does my butt look big in this?"

Didn't you just love it when Cookie Lavagetto put the double steal on for Killebrew and Battey?

Loved it when the Killer powered one out to left-center, flipped the bat and stood admiring it, and then did the slow trot around the bases jawing with the pitcher. Not.

Number one for me is the rotation, and not just the 5th starter. Will we field a rotation that's at least MLB average in 2015, and will we see evidence of much better than that for 2016 and beyond? Number two: will at least half of the most promising youngsters show signs of becoming impact players and mainstays? I'll be watching Arcia, Vargas, Hicks, Pinto, Santana, Rosario, Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Kepler, May, Meyer, Gibson, Berrios, Tonkin, Graham, Reed and Burdi in particular. Will ten or more of them show further signs that they will become above-average major leaguers? My surprise candidates are Olivaros and Vargas.

I'm skeptical of the conclusion being drawn by Mans. Is he parroting some scout's opinion? Has anyone else definitively linked Meyer's shoulder problem to a flaw in his mechanics? It's entirely possible that it's true, and maybe I'm struggling with semantics. Most of the observations I've read talk about his height and the inherent difficulty in repeating his delivery, but I don't recall talk about his mechanics being "flawed" or a lot of talk about how he has "motion issues" that subject him to this greater risk of injury. And Mans's is the first opinion I've encountered that makes a direct link between his mechanics and his injury history.

Jeff Mans has been playing fantasy baseball since he was 12 years old and was a PC repair mogul until he decided to become an expert at pitching mechanics. I sure hope someone is printing his comments off and xeroxing them to hand deliver to the dinosaurs over at Target Field so they can be alerted to the problem. Maybe they can get someone in here to fix Meyer's mechanics on a freelance basis.

The verdict's in. Billy Beane is an idiot. Terry Ryan is a genius. Cut and dried.