Twinfan & Dad

We made the mistake of not trading Perkins when he had value. Do you really think Plouffe and Dozier will still be in their prime by the time the Twins are really ready to contend? They both are streaky hitters I give them that, but we have two young guys(Sano and Polanco) ready to play. Trade them both while they have value! As for Berrios closing WHY? HE IS OUR ONE GUY THAT MAYBE WILL BECOME A TRUE NUMBER 1 GUY since Santana. I do agree that May could start and probably be really good but also think he could be a great closer.

I agree 100% with the thinking of building trade value. I was referring to Nunez at short last night instead of Polanco. Yes I know Nunez is our best hitter. Hell throw him in the outfield he's just as good as some of the other defense we have out there. If we are building up trade value for Dozier and Plouffe we also need to have a replacement ready for Dozier. Do we want Polanco getting his crash course after the trade and have the same struggles as other young guys recently sent back down to AAA. Let him play!

It has been well documented that we are going nowhere this year so can we please see if Trevor May is our closer of the future and use him in this role. If not, let's see what he can do in the rotation. He has already showed us that he has the stuff but we need to find out if he has the mental makeup. QUIT WASTING HIS TALENT! It's time to find out what we have with our young pieces so we can address our many holes. Then we bring up Polanco to sit? Come on man! Let's not pull another Alex Meyer. This ineptitude is getting really hard to swallow.

Nice article and very well thought out. We will finally see if Polanco can get hot while He gets some time at SS. If he shows us that he can make contact I think we've found Dozier's replacement. The issue I have with the construction is there are a lot of hit and miss type hitters and they play average defense at best. Finding a few more guys to set the table that play above average defense. Hopefully Polanco is one of those players. I agree Sano belongs at third for now meaning we need to expedite the trades of Dozier and Plouffe. Our catching situation is abysmal. We need to find a long term solution here and overpay If we must. Maybe a package of these two (Dozier and Plouffe) and an additional young prospect could net us one. I agree that the outfield has the potential to be good if Buxton can become what we all hope. A solid veteran would have been a nice pickup this off-season but it wasn't addressed. I would like to see us use a starting rotation of Santana, Berrios, Gibson, Duffey, Hughes. I say Hughes with reservation but would pray that he gets hot and we unload him to someone as soon as possible. I would like to see more of Meyer over a long period where he gets the ball and knows he won't be sent down. We have mishandled this one. I believe that our young guys in the minors will provide 2 or 3 quality arms. Just not this year but still, I have hope there. Last, May needs a shot as the closer. He is being wasted in his role. Closer or let him have a crack at starting again. We aren't going to win this year so lets see what the young guys can do. There you go my opinion and again, congrats on a great article.

Is it time to revisit this idea. I read through the responses the first time I started this discussion and am curious if any opinions have changed. Personally I think Joe could play the outfield just as well as what we've seen from Sano. If we are going to shake things up and make desperate moves like TR is making, why not.

"If your baseball team is playing a must-win series before Mother’s Day, you have a very bad baseball team. The Minnesota Twins, who open a series tonight against the best-in-the-league Chicago White Sox, are a very bad baseball team. How did this happen? How could barrels of ink be spent on following the squad for more than a month in spring training and have not a single article pointing out that the team — currently 8-20 in the American League Central — isn’t very good?" You can find the rest of the article here, by Bob Collins, MPR Newscut. We are screwed if this is the mindset of the front office. This reminds me of the old nursery rhyme "3 Blind Mice"!

With Fein and Milone placed on waivers we can only guess what comes next. I have been a sceptic from the start that the team TR constructed just didn't make any sense. First, I hope this move means that Berrios is here to stay. He has nothing more to prove in the minors and is our one hope of a legitimate top end starter for years to come. Next if Nolasco ca

I think Cliff Lee and Jared Weaver are free agents after this season. These two would qualify for the value TR seems to like for pitchers past their prime.

What a perfect match for Terry Ryan's list of middle tier starters he's accumulated to such great success both past and present. Lets see we have Correia,Pelfrey,Nolasco,Hughes,Santana. Just give him time to add Linnecum and block the path of other young starters.

Bottom line. This is Terry Ryan's doing. A flawed plan of putting together a roster. Poor defense from a group that had a history of poor defense. Inconsistent pitching again from a group that had no clear cut ace and hitters who make contact at below average rates. TR doesn't field,pitch or hit but he sure as hell put this this train wreck together.

I'm sure they aren't grooming May to be the 7 or 8 inning guy forever. If they haven't moved him back to the starting rotation by now it's not going to happen. He is the future closer but when who knows. With the circus that Terry Ryan is running maybe he can bring Eddie Guardado out of retirement he's already hanging out in the pen.

Imagine that another Terry Ryan idea not working out. Lets wait for the next desperation move.

Kudos to Terry Ryan for assembling this roster. Terrible DEFENSE, hit and miss a lot line-up and no clear direction. Please step down Terry Ryan!

This is how messed up the Twins brass is thinking. If he is an outfielder then play outfield. How will be get better if he's not getting reps. Or he isn't going to get better so you make a desperate move to put him back at 3rd. When Plouffe comes back then we put him back in the outfield so he can perform at a below average quality that will be sure to come. Bottom line if this move doesn't make it clear to everyone that Terry Ryan has to go I don't know what it will take to convince some people. This is just messed up.

Name 1 above average 280 lbs outfielder in the history of baseball. Frank Howard, Dave Kingman, Adam Dunn none of these guys were that big and they were awful defensively. Sorry but no way does this experiment work.

WOW! Matter of days before the recommendation from Gardy to move all 1st year players back to AAA for more seasoning. After all he had no patience with rookies when he managed. So much for new blood in the systems thinking.

This team is not going to contend for a title any time soon. We should look at trading Dozier and Plouffe and try and assemble more talented youth in their return. Lets move in the direction of Huntington and the way he moved the Astro's to a solid competitive young team. We already missed out on the opportunity to move Perkins when he had value. Why keep tradeable assets so you can be at best a 500 club?

When you assemble a flawed free swinging group that TR has what do you expect. 7 of 9 hitters in the line-up have struck out more than the norm in prior years so all of the sudden this is going to change? Come on TR, accept responsibility for your failure in the group you have hand picked. If you can't do better then step down and let's look outside the organization for a new direction that can move the Twins and their youth to success.

Not quite what I had in mind USAFChief. Lol Is Murphy a better option then what we had with Sweeney? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! The patient needs a transplant but maybe we can put a band-aid on it for now.

Plain and simple this roster is flawed. Seven of nine regulars are free swingers that are not good at situational hitting. By looking for value from trades of Plouffe and Dozier and replacing them with Sano at third and Polanco at second. This move alone eliminates 2 spots in the order of the power with little contact approach. We still are left with Sano,Mauer,Rosario,Buxton and Park that will strike out higher than the norm. We didn't trade Perkins when he had value so why make the same mistake with Plouffe and Dozier. If we get back some pieces that can help us move forward I'm all in. As far as pitching the mistakes have been well documented but with Gibson, Santana, Berrios and hopefully Duffy along with the power arms a year or two away in the minors, I'm more optimistic. You can look at Houston and Pittsburgh as examples of teams where ownership has decided to stay under 100 million but still able to move in the right direction with lineups comprised of youth and vets. If Hughes, Nolasco and Milone pitch well maybe a contender will come calling. Even if we can unload 2 of 3. If we are in for a long season let's do it with youth and see what we have.

What I find interesting is that we all are Twins fans or we wouldn't be on this forum and being fans means we get frustrated sometimes. I am frustrated as you can tell by expressing my opinion that the path TR has taken isn't working. The GM OF a sports team is much like a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. If a CEO isn't creating value for its shareholders over a period of time he is fired. The GM of a sports team should be held to the same standards. Nothing against TR as a person but he hasn't made this team better in his tenure. Its time for a new direction.

Looking for value on a trade for Dozier and Plouffe is a start. Sano at third is a liability but removing Plouffe from the line-up and inserting someone who doesn't strikeout 150 times is a step in the right direction. I would also hope that whomever replaces Sano in right would be a upgrade defensively. I know that the Sano experiment in right is in its infancy but I have little faith in its success. Polanco also as a replacement for Dozier could be viewed as an improvement in reducing the all or none mentality. With the trades of Plouffe and Dozier hopefully you get back players that are more well rounded in their hitting approach. This still leaves us with our young core of Buxton, Sano and Rosario who are going to strikeout but they are young and hopefully will improve. With Plouffe and Dozier we already know what we have. We didn't trade Perkins when he had value so lets not repeat the same mistake with these two. It's not like this team is really going to contend.

This hits the nail on the head for the point I'm making. This streak will be one of many with this line-up. Hitting is contagious as we know so we can also expect streaks with multiple homerun games but consistency, not with this all or none group.

I agree that the topic of firing Terry Ryan is getting long in the tooth but assembling a line-up that is so flawed as this group is the last straw. How do you expect this group to move runners over and become contact hitters when they have had no success with this in their prior years. You can get away with 3 or 4 free swingers but 7, no way. Who can expect these players to become something that they are not. Do you assemble a basketball team with a roster of all guards or one that has all post players. No! A roster needs balance and this one doesn't pass the test.

The time has come to accept responsibility for putting together a roster that was so unbalanced with free swingers that the strikeout and prolonged slumps were sure to follow. The streak we are seeing now is only one of many more to come this season. A starting line-up that has 7 batters with a history of high strikeout totals made no sense when it was constructed and makes little sense now 8 games into the season. Mr. RYAN its time to go!