bird

The only allergy I wish upon Mr. Santana is a strong one to PEDs. I wish him zero allergic reactions, mind you.

Here here, I'm with ya. "...the possibility of 162-0 still exists no matter how unlikely..." I'm so sick and tired of all the Negative Nancy's around here.

It probably has something to do with him coming back from his shoulder issues and being 3-4 starts behind in terms of preparation for the season, maybe with comfort level of getting up to speed in a familiar environment instead of being thrust into a new one. Whatever the reason, I don't think we should read anything into it. This initial placement doesn't tell us a thing about how "close" he is.

The organization thinks it has the "right" 25 guys of their current 35-player roster breaking with the club, so they simply disagree with you. As for which AAA and AA prospects count as part of the 35? It's always a bit fluid, especially because of injuries. For example, neither May or Perkins are now on that roster. And that roster is a little light on position players. I doubt they consider Vielma as one of them. There are probably some assessments on him within the organization that say he won't make it. I'd suggest they consider Adriana, Park, and Vargas, perhaps Granite. They are in better shape when it comes to pitching, although we all know they may have numbers and they do lack quality. But I think we can easily count ten pitchers who could step up in a pinch, Gonsalves and Berrios, and then Burdi, Chargois, Bard, Hildenberger, Reed, Melotakis, Wimmers, and Slegers. There's ten So, the questions are not about depth really. We question who got the MLB slots for Monday's game, and we lament the fact that the quality (and readiness ) of the roster overall won't get us in the chase in 2017. I know this sounds like a broken record, especially to my pal Mike, and I know I'm in the minority here. But I contend that we don't have a depth problem, and outside of the rotation perhaps (depending on the unknown ceilings of May, Mejia, Duffey, Berrios, Gonsalves), we don't have a massive quality issue with our 35. The biggest problem is readiness. Readiness to compete at the highest level on the part of Sano, Kepler, Park, Buxton, Rosario, Polanco, Vargas, and readiness to take the next step on the part of Berrios, Gonsalves, Mejia, Chargois, Burdi, Melotakis, Jay, Duffey, Gordon. And maybe I have an inflated idea of how much quality is there with these names. Probably.

Dang, I wish I could spread a little of my brainpower around. So much of it just goes to waste.

Hey, do you really think that if Danny Santana was my favorite player, and he is, that I'd admit it?

Very sadly, no.

Well, let's see Park against some decent AAA pitching. He's been facing some pretty mediocre AAA pitching today.

I'm not sure it's strictly this. It could be that they have remaining skepticism. About both of them. Maybe they see a benefit in having Park compete for a few games against another team's versions of Berrios and Gonsalves, and they weighed the possible benefit of that against some other possibility that might be better executed in a few days rather than today. I'd wring my hands about it a lot more if my rotation wasn't Santana, Hughes, Gibson, Santiago, and Mejia.

Easy. Because stuff is messy, not black and white. Because sometimes you aren't quite there with your goal of having a 30-35 deep "roster". Because you're not going to cut 7 guys and reduce your depth by 7 guys. Because it's fluid. Injuries happen. Players return from the DL. Having the bullpen part right is a function of Chargois, Burdi, Bard, Melotakis, Hildenberger, Wimmers, Reed, Jay, Rosario, etc. They must garner the confidence of the team. All of these guys show promise. We may disagree, but for this week, they probably think the 7 guys they have starting out are in fact better options. This will change in some way next week. Why? Probably injury. But if it's a performance reason, who gives a rip about options and the like? Who cares if Breslow gets straight out released if he sucks? Someone will retort that Chargois is a better current option than Haley. The team disagrees with you apparently. Some might be 100% sure it's strictly a Rule 5 decision. They might be right and they might be wrong. If you want to argue that one of these prospects is a better option right this minute than one of those 7 guys, fine, but apparently the team thinks otherwise. Thanks for requesting the answer from someone smarter than you.

I owe you a big apology, Mike. All these years I've been under the false impression that you cared who the GM is. Just ribbing you, but you know that.

I have it on better authority than The Wise One that it will actually be 2027, Mike.

That might depend on if they can crank a fastball up to 94MPH.

Hope DanSan has an eBay account. Those gloves will move.

Leads me to believe they're coming out of the blocks very concerned about short starts from Santiago and Hughes in particular, and aren't ready to trust a couple of the others to give them longer starts either.

This is an insightful and well-articulated summary. I'd add two additional things that I see evidence of with Falvey that I thought were woefully lacking under St. Peter/Ryan. One is being more strategic, as opposed to tactical, about virtually every aspect of organizing and operating the baseball operations. The second is greater competence when it comes to qualitative analysis. The evidence I'm seeing of this most notably comes from Falvey's comments about interpersonal stuff, about culture, things like that. So I'm very much heartened that it appears we're not dealing with some smug nerd who's developed a love affair with all the new technology that captures useable information. Falvey has an executive's strategic perspective about taking advantage of information resources to drive improvements. That he values qualitative judgments probably as much or more than quantitative analysis is a huge plus for me.

This is my one criticism of the new FO regarding the off-season. A sad carryover, but I hold hope it's a one-off phenomenon unlike the previous FO.

100% agree!

Yeah, the thing I get worked up about is the rush to judgment, the intolerance, the unfairness, and the total lack of charity we some times see. And it happens to "both sides." Dozier was recently labeled a petulant, selfish whiner here over a couple of innocuous comments. Gardy was frequently unfairly ripped over things he said, with no mercy. So it cuts all ways. Instead of standing up for one side or another, lets stand up for restraining harsh judgment and realize we often don't know what's actually going on.

By an eight year old.

We wouldn't have to search hard to find a very very long list of Twins prospects who people on these threads stuck a fork in and then with great conviction railed about the team's latest blunder. Only to see the prospect have a terrific career. Perkins. Hunter. Cuddyer. Who's next? Pressley? Park? Even Buxton by some.? Now Duffey? Or next Burdi? Which of these guys will have the fork pulled out of them? The list goes on and on and on. It will always be here on TD. So, putting it another way, basically, as long as they aren't thriving in the majors, you can keep arguing that it was a bad decision to draft them. Or blame the team because your timetable doesn't match up with reality. Basically, a person can never win an argument that these prospects represent promise because there's always some prospect who has actually already failed to justify their point. And that example will be brought up a billion times while every example like Cuddyer, Hunter, and Perkins is quickly forgotten.

All I care about is that a couple/several AAA and AA relievers pitch superbly and prove they're ready for the next step, that a couple/several of the seven uninspiring relievers that make the club out of camp pitch well enough to inspire trade deadline offers, and that Falvey finds someone to overpay for a couple/several of them when the time comes.

Delmon Young: Doorman at Trump Towers. Joe Mauer: Mannequin at Macy's Men's Furnishings Kennys Vargas: Selected to play the lead in the new movie "The David Ortiz Story"

The Twins do not have a shortage of pitchers of the caliber of Wimmers, Haley, Tonkin, and Tepesch. These are fungible assets. The best way to move forward in this case is to REDUCE friction by picking your (temporary) poison and letting two guys go. And hopefully, Molitor and Falvey don't create friction by caring a whole lot about which ones go bye-bye.

I'll wait to acknowledge the wins too, Mike. I'll also wait to hammer a nail in the coffin, that seems fair. It's a simple fact that Burdi, Melotakis, Bard, Chargois, and a number of others drafted and groomed as RP's are regarded with promise and pitching in the high minors. Every one of them missed a full season or more due to injury. Nobody said they can control the timetable for any of these prospects. Any frustration we feel about that issue is sort of superfluous, really.