ND-Fan

I got a feeling that Twins don't make a trade because asking prices are to high for the rentals and longer term players the Twins will not give up that much of their farm system for couple of players. I think they have plans for part of farm system to be up next year after we loose bunch of players to free agency. If we make a trade it will be second tier player a lot of people will be disappointed in. But he will fill void for them statistically on the pitching side. I my gut tells me they are going to use some kids in the farm system to make run. This is the new executives philosophy they don't go for broke win World Series they just want to be playoff contender and if get hot to win World Series that's fine but they want to be playoff contender year in year out. The days of going all out to win World Series is gone for small market teams but to be playoff contender is the goal long term. This also means even less is done if they are wild card which they showed the last couple years. So don't expect to many moves this season either.

Game was lost on Buxton base running error which cost them at least one run. This team gets itself in trouble when players try to be stars in winning a game they need to work on getting important at bats to score runs in close game. If they make playoffs this will be there downfall.

I think they will make a move but its little early to make some deals because a lot of clubs are not ready to make a deal until we get closer to the trading dead line. All the teams are evaluating themselves now what there long term plans are and what if they were to trade would they be looking to get in return. The Twins are same I am guessing they are looking at what talent they are willing to trade and what's not to be traded. The Twins have some very pressing issues coming at the end of this season we are losing three pitchers to free agency and we could loose a fourth to if we decide not to pick up his option. This means next year we will be looking for a lot of pitching help in either free agent market or trade market plus what will be ready to called up. So these are considerations to think about too for the Twins because this club if can keep quality pitching around they should be contender next season as well. I wish they had signed one these pitchers to longer term deal this spring but it didn't happen and I think the price has gone up with the way they have been pitching. Gibson and Ordorizzi I think will command good money this next off season if they continue to pitch like they have this season . Like always quality pitchers are going to command money and both these guys stock has risen now this year and especially when they are coming into their prime years next couple.

Why would they be sellers with this team were just short a piece or two that could put us into the World Series and even as team stands now they could possibly could make a run for the World Series. Last years selling of Pressly is why our bull pen is as weak as it has been. Now we will end up trading away what we received last year plus some of other prospects just to find what we had. Instead were looking for at least 2 relief pitchers instead of one relief pitchers. The Twins are going to need to find help for the Bull pen and barring injury seemed to be set for position players and now for starting pitching I think they are going to have to go with what they have now unless something develops for a pitcher from another team willing to trade for reasonable value and is more than a rental.

Todays game was poorly played game on the Twins part because the Twins didn't do the little things today to win a baseball game. There success with the long ball today cost them a game when they could have come back in this game. Here for example today in the eighth inning they had runners on 2 and 3 with nobody out but everyone was trying to come up with the big hit instead of just getting the two runs across. If they would have done that they would have tied the game in the nineth. With KC out of pitchers they could have won a game in the extra innings. Same was true in couple of other innings if they would have moved some runners another run could have been scored. Also Twins defense made errors today but i feel this is because to many of team were trying to come up with the big play. They just need to get back to fundamental baseball doing the little things. This where manager needs to come in make a few corrections before this become a habit. But this is just one game and teams do this at all levels get way from doing the little things but its learning experience for them if they make the corrections will just make them a better team.

I find where the Twins are right now kind of funny because we are in this situation because of move we made last year by this front office. This when they traded away Ryan Pressly for future prospects and now we need reliever which is going to cost us prospects plus probably a player. If the Twins would have just kept him alot of our bull pen needs would have been met by just staying pat. Second the prospects we have recieved have made no impact at major league level yet and we would still had controll with Pressly like they are seeking now to find a reliever. This front office have made some very good moves but some there moves have not been the best. This has been there weakness they have under estimated there own potential to win in there first 3 seasons here and haven't had strategy in season to bolster the team to be winner. Yes they made moves to have potential to win in the offseason but sometimes it takes in season additions to get where they are winning now this season they are being tested again how much faith do they have to improving this team for this fall. Baseball is sport when youre winning you need to take advantage of what ever is going right because even when on paper you should win doesn't mean you will win.

This is not the player that was coming up through the minors and sold to the fans of the Twins. The potential that Sano has as player is now just shadow of what he could be. He may fit into this Twins line up and provide extra power to carry this team or i should say assist this team to winning. The bottem line here is that he had the talent to be so much more than that he could have been one of the elite players in the league. Now we get a player that is maybe 50% of what he could have been and if my guess is correct we will not be a Twin much longer because he is going to become expensive luxury that can be replaced by many coming up in the system. The assessment on talent potential was correct but the assessment on character makeup and individual makeup was way off. Thankfully some of the other Twins talent has exceeded first thought by everyone and now some of expected talent is getting there. I would be surprised to see Sano here by end of next season and i wonder even for this season.

I watched this and yes Garver did do good job showing a stike on pitch that you are writing about. But i also saw previous couple of pitches where the umpire missed a call on strike on the corner. I took this call more as a make up call for the strike that was missed earlier in the at bat. If you are right and catchers can influence the umpires to make calls on pitches that are not strikes then we are in trouble with pitch calling in baseball. If this is the case we are heading for electronic strike zone calling done by machine and if my guess is right its not to far away. With advancement of technology we see pretty much every pitch now if it is in the strike zone or not. If we start seeing where are distinct advantages for some players and not others public is going to demand that umpiring is taken over by the technology. I guess this should not surprise us on this tennis has already switched to verifying calls by electronic technology. My thoughts is more they use there technology to gain advantage the more they loose because people watching the game demand that their since of fairness in the game. Thus we end up changing the game and possibilities of having the human element of chance being removed from the game. What I worry about we soon will loose what was special about baseball the human element to the game.

I believe that cave is going down to minors and i have heard that hildenberg might start there as well. This would put Astrudillo and Austin on the club for the short run. It would make since in they would control Austin and Astudillo would give them viable third baseman and would let them move Marwin Gonzales around the diamond. Hildenberger would have plane pass ready come when they need pitching.

This could be the next wave of development for baseball and we will be leader in player development. I have my reservations about this it may work for percentage of players but my experience over the years has been players learn the most just playing the game of baseball. Today we are seeing flood of players from carribean and venenzula these are hot beds where kids are playing the game year around. I think the current labor contract has hurt major league development by teams worring about player service time instead of letting players come up learn the game by playing it and being taught it from the veterans. We have whole generation of people involved in baseball that have played MLB on video games and also now play fantasy baseball but this is not what it takes to build quality players. I think its working short term but I think were killing the future of baseball and why it was popular for so long. I may be totally wrong here but the game has become more boring for me to watch because of analytical thought put into the game we have taken the human element out and reduced the superior players ability to show case there talent in the games by doing their analytical analysis. Yes this is smart thinking on giving your team a chance to win but these shows of superior physical plays also have been reduced so the game is not as fun to watch or remember because we have less of these to remember from the games. This was part of the game that made it special in the past. The example being for instance instead of Willy Mays making spectacular catch over his head that is shown in replay about him instead we had shift on that predicted that tendency for player hitting that baseball hitting that ball there we had player positioned there same outcome out but nobody remembers that play. This may be over simplified but I think its happening now to many times in baseball the game has never been played better but it has become boring where in past this caused situations where superior baseball player had situations to show case there talent and was reason for there teams to win. Today this has reduced number of players to equals on the field to where game has come down to more of equation of whose game plan is superior to that opposition. I am having hard time to explain this but game was much more fun to watch when you had human element variability in the game not as pure a game but was much more entertaining game to watch. Just my thoughts on this I may be way off here but it what I have been thinking about baseball lately.

This new wave of front offices that has changed how players are viewed is going to bring about whole new wave player strikes and labor discontent in next few labor contracts. I look at how labor percentage of revenue has drop considerably in last few labor agreements. Then add in how management is not paying now for early good years of player later in his career we have all flash points to create a labor impasse. I got to believe these new front offices have set in motion where they are going to have to be paying young players millions of dollars based on their potential to become stars in baseball. They may have contained costs for owners on short term basis for last 10 years but now they will entering phase where now players coming up to big leagues will be paid big money after a year or two in the big leagues. This going to lead where baseball will be paying more in the development phase of player and if that development doesn't happen as it does with prospects the costs of players are going to escalate. The old system where they didn't pay for stars until later in there careers was more certain payment plan where they paid for actual performance but when that performance may of happened. Now they will be paying upfront for the potential and when they are producing the most. The problem is now they are going to have also pay huge money for the busts in baseball. Take for example now where would have the Twins be now with Buxton and Sano they would be paying these players now millions of dollars probably locked into contracts when they are still developing. The other choice would have been to let them go and loose the potential and let some other club develop your talent. Not all players develop the same look at Hicks look like a failure on the Twins part now he's developed into top player for Yankees. I am afraid these new front offices may have put smaller market teams in much worse position than they were before they did all there cost analytical work to cut player costs. If Baseball is going to fix this they are going to have to go where they are going to guarantee certain amount revenues to players and then between ownerships that all clubs are guaranteed amount of revenue paid from high revenue clubs but with agreement they also have to spend certain amount of revenue to field a team. I don't know how it will all get done but if not we will have failing franchises if they can't fix labor and differences between markets in next labor contracts.

This is good signing for the Twins. If they would go out now and sign Kimbrel i would think they would have put forth a team that could win the central division this year. If the team would come together Sano and Buxton have exceptional years they could contend for American league title. I also would believe this would be sell to players they are in as front office and also would give them confidence in them as players. Also would help them in getting fans in believing they are in to win and not sitting waiting for it all to come together. I think this new managers influence with this front office and finally they are relizing they are needing to inverst in this team if going to be winner.

I have been very critical of this front office but this is positive step in my opinion for the Twins finally they are putting in place core of players that they can start building a team around. They are finally sold that they do have core of players to build around and move forward with. I think they will like to do something in the future with Buxton and maybe Sano but we will see what they will do with these players. I just see that they may have burned some bridges especially with Buxton with this last year on trying to limit his service time. Also if they don't pan out Kepler and Polanco will be here long enough to build with Lewis and Krillo so this to me is smart move. The next big questions will be what they are going to do with the pitchers but i have been thinking on this they may just put qualifying offers out on both Gibson and Ordorizzi for next year and i wouldn't be surprised if they might take the offers because i have hard time believing they would get much over that. They would be paying on the high side but its only one year deal and gets them close to their prospects coming up in the pipeline. I sure wish they could now sign Berios and Rosario to longer term contract this would be nice begining to nice core of players locked up and something to build around in the future. If Buxton has break out year i would look to signing him to longer term contract in the next year. I think agents are seeing the light under this current contract for baseball if you are coming out as free agent as 29 to 30 year old your market value or staying in baseball is going to become very difficult. This ensures Kepler and Polanco jobs till there 31 to 32 years old. Because even when they fight over the new player contract agreement players and Kepler are going to be to old see any benefit in new player contract. The game has changed for the players in baseball and last labor agreement has been bust for players like Kepler and Polanco because of service time management by clubs they are getting all their top years at reasonable prices and latter years they have been just going back to cheaper younger player because of how they have analysised the game.

Here's a look at where we stand as a team and compared to last year. First base appears we have improved us on power front from Joe Mauer but in doing so we have lost on base percentage and definitely went backwards on defensive side of first base. The net result I think were slight loss overall at first base because we have weakened whole infield with what joe did defensively. Second base we added SChoop looking at it objectively we have about traded even with what we had in Brian Dozier that is assuming that Schoop bounces back. SS we have Polanco should be improved when we have him for full year but defensively we will go back some because of first base. Third base with Sano this could be our biggest gain if the reports are right on him being healthy. I could see we have the player of two years ago. The big question can he recover his hitting skills if not were in serious trouble for the season. Catcher we will have Castro back but I think our future is with Garver and Astudillo I have feeling were going to see much more production from Catcher hitting than we have seen last few years. Left field with Rosario should stay same with improving as major league player. Center Field we will be better there defensively with Buxton and I can't help that he's going to hit for at least 230 to 250 mark this year which will be acceptable with all his other skills. Right field Kepler I believe is the player that will have breakout season hitting and defensively will continue to improve. DH is biggest improvement on this team with Cruz we will be getting increase in offense. Pitching I Think we will have adequate starting pitching to compete especially in AL central. Relief pitching is going to be process of finding right combinations of people I believe the Twins front office has come to decision to explore what we have in the farm system and anything they can pickup before season opens up. Overall I think we could see improvement in the team but my guess is were sitting with 80 to 82 win team. This is not enough to make to playoffs but would be a third best season in over decade. If I was grading this front office they have made necessary moves to keep competent team on the field if the core responds but in doing so they have cost us any chance of making a play off run if this core suddenly gels and probably may have cost us chance at the playoffs. My grading process player additions C, coaching staff I would give them B- with new manager plus but I have severe reservations about pitching coaches hired may just see where we start seeing more career ending injuries for all this allusive need for velocity; and finally overall Front office use of resources I would give a grade of D- because well knowing where we are if the core produces we are on way to having contender but just sit wait to me is great mistake opportunities only come around few times for major league club and when they do have to take the risk and the faith in your players and people you hired to get the job done. This front office lacks the confidence to believe in their players and unwilling to risk their reputations going forth with a plan to win it all and if don't believe that then you need to blow it up and start over. But this sitting on your hands and hoping things turn around is worst position to be in because your neither progressing or getting worse your just wasting time of players and fans. I believe it comes down to either you believe in what you got or you don't its simple as that when you have made that decision you go out use all your resources to win or if not tearing it down putting plans together to rebuild the club in next couple of years. This is where we are now not where I would want to be if was trying to sell this club to the public.

I remember about Cuddyer is when my son competed at the hit pitch and run at the dome. The competition was on early on Saturday morning at the dome where we were to be at the dome at 7 am in the morning. When we got there and waiting for them to get set up we saw Cuddyer at the dome already and he was running laps in the dome by going up and down stairs in seating section at the dome. I believe he was there working out for at least 1 to 2 hours and he had game later that day. I was impressed because we had been there night before to watch the Twins and see a player back at ball park that early again next day with game later that day. My son was impressed and it was good example to him that he worked very hard to be good player. My son for years after that had poster of Cuddyer on his bedroom wall given to him at the hit pitch and run and he had became one of his favorite players for the Twins. I thought I would share this memory of Cuddyer we have as a Twin player.

If the reports are right i think Sano could show most improvement this season if he can get back to recognizing pitches staying way from the slider to not become easy strike out hitter. My biggest concern is also can he hit hard throwing fast ball pitcher last year he was having hard time catching up to them. My guess he returns to player he was two years ago. Buxton is the player i have no clue on if he's going to hit or not. My gut is if he can just play and not get hurt i think one day he will figure it out enough where he becomes above average hitter. The problem i see is he play's so hard that i just think he's prone to hurting himself never getting to point where he can figure it out. Kepler this where I am going out on limb I think he's going to become one of these quality baseball players that becomes way above average player. I just think he will become this super player that in his early years he will be able to play center field, right field and first base if needed. Later in his career he will play top right field and when he is finishing his career probably end up at first and DH. I just hope we get to see this player because I just think he is just late bloomer and we just might trade him to someone else because his numbers didn't show up as analytical people think they should. I may be wrong but what my eye see is very good player and its going to come I just not sure when it will come. He has above average speed, above average arm, very good mechanics on his baseball swing and he barrels ball very well and he hits ball hard all the necessary tools become very good player. Also has good attitude and works hard as his game from coaches and teammates. Again I think he could become one the major league all star player. If these players all have productive years the Twins will be much improved club over last year. Pitching should be adequate with enough starters if they stay healthy to carry the club. Also the bull pen is not bad as everyone thinks May has making for closer, Taylor good eight inning setup man and Hildenberger seventh or eight setup man plus couple others to mix in their in like Reed. My biggest concern is that we may hit more home runs but we will have nobody on because we lack batters with on base capabilities. We will see how year plays out.

I agree we need to start trying to put some of our core under contract you can't have team made up bunch of players on one year deals. You never develop a team and get core to build around. Also if you wait to long to sign some of these young players they get to last two years of arbortration its likely they will not sign contract other than one or two year deal. We are fast approaching that with some of young players Rosario, Sano, Kepler, Polanco are within a year reaching there final two years before free agency. This likely means we either keep these players and get draft pick if we loose them to free agency or we have to trade them for other prospects before they become free agents. So we have team made up bunch of one year free agents and players worring about becoming free agents no core to build around for the future. I sure don't see the teams in playoffs last year built this way with exception of A's and we know there success rate for making it deep in the playoffs. I don't understand how this front office thinks they are building a team and also going to sell this team to the public when you have no core to build around or to sell to the fans to come out and watch this club. Maybe they are smarter than i think but i get impression they think they can just coach up these players and then easily replace them with next young player build a winner. If so this will be first front office that has been able to do this. I think everyone of this new generation believe Houston is model to follow but believe me Houston has been lucky in that players they have choosen have developed like they thought and haven't experieced career ending injuries to their top prospects. They have had high rate of sucess but this doesn't always happen. The Twins have had this happen in last 10 years some of draft picks were not bad draft picks based on player at the time but injuries to these players and then not developing like they had hope have turned some draft classes into failures. Also some of the trades they made for top prospects didn't turn out like we all hoped to mention two of the worst were Myer and Young with young being number one draft pick in major league baseball and Myer being a first round pick both ending up being busts and nothing in return for them. This happens more in baseball than the successes so keeping good players in organization is priority because finding new ones is like shooting craps. The Twins prior decade when we won all those division titles was largely do to the fact that Twins were hitting on their prospects with number of them becoming quality major league ball players. So you see there is skill in finding players but also their is large degree of luck to because a lot things can go wrong with these choices in players. I hope we are onto era where we have skill as well as luck in developing players. We will find out in the next year or two but will also see how we are at keeping this talent here also.

I would say we will either acquire a pitcher through a trade like last year or we will pick up player released during spring training. My guess we sign a reliever before spring training from free agent market. These are moves i expect us to make before season starts unless we have major injury then we could make a move. I was pessimistic about coming season but i can see possible path where we could make a run this season. I also could se where we just post another bad season again and wait for the prospects to arrive here. I also wonder what are long term plan is when we haven't locked up any players for the future. I look at where we stand even if we have decent year what is the plan for the 2020 year when we will be loosing three of projected starters for this year to free agency. Pitching has improved for the Twins but not if we loose all three of these starters because following year we will be looking for starting pitching and we don't have that kind of depth in minors to just fill these openings and pitching on free agent market is always expensive and risky. The chances of resigning our pitchers could become expensive and not lock to get them back on the pitchers we would want back to pitch.

I guess i have problem with putting prospects into top of the value for baseball. This seems what wrong with baseball right now everyone values players who haven't even played inning in the majors yet. I could see where we are at now some these players are maybe in top 15 through 25 value but until they have reached majors in mind they are still crap shoot there are so many things that can happen. I look at present former top prospects of Buxton and Sano they were sure no failure prospects and now we have real doubts about these players. Year in year out performance at major league level is what cuts it. That is why big market clubs are always ahead of us they are filling there teams with proven talent and supplementing with there minor league system. Yankees are pondering this delema right now do they stick with there young kids see if they develop or should they be signing some big name free agents now to win immediately. This is one of the reasons fans have hard time to understand baseball because its not like basketball or football where usually the number one draft picks accelerates you in few short years to top the league. Baseball is full of failure picks and then signing lower pick that turn into next big star. I agree these top prospects look to be real players into the future but until they are here there just growing crop that has great potential but we don't know that we will get to see yields they may have because something can up damage them before they ever get here.

Top 5 must have Buxton, Hildenberg, Berios, kiriloff, and Lewis. I guess i have hard time figuring Kiriloff and Lewis in the top 5 when they still aways away from making appearance in the major leagues. Lewis is at least more than year away from making the majors and even then if he sticks in the majors. I have gone through to many sure fire prospects to know that this doesn't happen many times looking in the past that i can remember Olivia, Carew, Blyleven, Puckett, Knoblauch, and Mauer were high prospects that came up and stayed. I know there were probably several more but look at the people on the list several on them hall of famers or near hall of famers. I also have hard time with putting Gibson on the prospect list when we are in last year of control of him before he becomes free agent. I just have the feeling were getting to point they are waiting to see how these players are going to turn out before they gain some control in the future. This sounds logical but I have feeling were going to get to close to free agency where names on this list do turn it around are just going to play it out to free agency. Because they know they are going to get good money in arbitration and do not extend their time to free agency. This leaves us with either trading or playing them until we loose them to free agency so we are in this continuous rebuilding mode trying to find a core of players to build around. I think at some point here they are going to have decide what players have future and try to lock them up to build nucleus to build winning club. Maybe I am wrong here but I look in past when we were successful that's what we did and some how we have gotten away from that. This should have been easier with the new stadium and general revenues increasing. I think because of the new stadium ownership and management haven't had work as hard in past to get people coming through the gates so they lost this competitive edge to put winner out there because if don't numbers really start to get ugly. I have feeling they are getting to where they may realize the honey moon is over.

Twins like i have said are just not going to make all the moves the public thought they were going to make. They are going to see what they have this year and will only add players right before spring training if they can get a deal and trade later for prospects. I think the Twins are preparing for a revenue drop that major league baseball teams are going to see in the next few years. Patrick Ruesse was discussing the changes in tax law and how it effects businesses on buying tickets and suite rentals how they will not get to deduct these expense in the past. Trust me the Twins would ge already hearing that with last 10 years performance on the field. I also betting they are seeing down trends in season tickets sales and i pretty sure last year end of year tv ratings were down for the Twins. Major league baseball is going to have to address what analytics is doing to the game. Since they have become primary force in baseball we have seen slowing down of games, less offense, and moving of players around the field like chess pieces to be replaced with players with similar numbers. The results of this has been we have much slower game and less offense making the game boring to watch and second we have no player identification with the team you have rooted especially in the small market franchises. Clubs like to Twins have gone to promoting the baseball experience of night out to find different foods and beers to attrack customers but people are finding it expensive night out and these people have no affliation to the baseball team and soon as there something new and cheaper they move on. Also the Northern clubs like the Twins have not been helped by MLB scheduling since we become out door team also because they are scheduling early season games who wants to go watch baseball when your freezing. Especially when majority of baseball fans are more elderly than average not great marketing for baseball. So in short they have made baseball more boring and longer and now schedule games in these northern franchises when large portion of their fans will not tolerate to watch a baseball game. The bottom line is they have golden age of revenue increasing but I believe in doing so they have not tended to keeping the game exciting something people wanted to watch have been gradually loosing the interest of next generation of fans for baseball and also loosing some there old fans. They need to get back to basics of keeping the game reason fans are showing up at the ball park.

I don't think Twins fans hate Byron Buxton and i sure don't either and i think he is quality individual when he has been interviewed and what he has shown to public. I have followed his career through minors and all the coaches speak highly of his talents and almost all of them think he has abilitity to become big time player. The two things that have me concerned with him is he's going to have learn to play his aggressive approach to defense but not put himself in positions where he can get hurt seriously. I think over time he can learn this but if he continues like this now it could end his career permanently something I hope I won't have to see. Second thing is his batting and what I am afraid has happened to him is that by his pure athleticism he has been able to hit without having to do much with identifying pitches and being able to work counts to his favor where his abilities are at advantage. I think he can learn this but its going to take time and being able to hit at the big leagues because he has proven he can hit next level below. The problem has been he hasn't been healthy enough to keep playing and second is he needs to work through this and I wonder if any Major league team will let him have this many at bats to learn this. The Twins have been a team with poor records we have experienced in the past should have had him up here working on this but here's the problem with that they don't want to give up service time to potential star player. So now we have player where fan base is wondering and up in arms on this high prospect why he's not performing and second we have player that's need confidence and belief in himself than he can do this. The Twins gave up on his predecessor in Hicks too because they thought he wasn't develop into the player they thought her would be and traded him now with a new club he had developed into the player we first thought we had. The fan base had all but given up on him when he was here and now everyone has opinion why did they trade him. That's the problem with baseball there is not a lot of patience on developing players by teams or fans because we all think that baseball players all develop the same way. Even the stats people are wrong on this look at many of the star players today some took longer to develop but they had long and very productive careers going later playing above the normal curve for a player. Buxton needs time and see if he can put all this together because of his talent he can still be above average player with just his defense and speed because every time he gets on he's basically in scoring position with his speed. Second his defense is probably going to save you at least 1 run a game so again high value to your pitching and your ability to win a game. Lets hope he can put it together.

The only reason he would take one year deal with the twins would be is he figuring that we either win and make a playoff spot or if we are not contending the Twins will trade him to a contender next July. In doing this he would need extra money to sign with the twins. But my guess is that we don't sign him and he is signed by Astro's all we were to the deal was to raise anti up on his deal with the Astro's.

My two cents worth is Falvey will always come across glowing in his interviews because he good at telling you what you want to hear but the truth is what he says and what the Twins do will be two different things. This has been the case since he has come hear and that is big difference between him and Terry Ryan. If Ryan basically told you something it was fact but the problem was he didn't tell you as much as you would like to hear. I think this why media were down on Ryan and they are so in love with Falvey until we get factual actions to what was said. The biggest evidence so far is the Buxton call up last fall and we see the Front office and Twins were just lying in the whole process and it still stinks today. Another case is the Gibson arbitration last year how do think that went down with Gibson and with the rest of the players. Fighting over small money with player and what it sent to rest of players in major League Baseball in my estimation not good move especially to franchise that has hard time attracting players to come MN. These are just couple of things I have noticed with change of Front offices not to mention handling of firing internal people and coaches. We on outside just only get little snips of what has gone on. Getting back to Molitor on playing Morrison in todays' front office lineups are put together by analytics department each day and then only a manager can deviate because but he has to justify reason for not playing that said player. Which means there has to be pretty good reasons like player is sick or hurt beyond playing verified by training staff. Managers today don't have power of not just playing player because they don't want too. What is worse is Molitor was never in loop on player roster construction because Escobar trade was prime example of this he learned it off the TV like all the rest of us. This tells me this Front office was never in on making this good working relationship and I hope new manager is more informed or we are in for no input from the baseball side of the business. These are reasons I have been so down on this front office because as small market team it takes team effort from all parties. Some times the Front office needs to listen to baseball people and staff even though they may not what they are hearing. So far I haven't heard to much about the mistakes couple of times but the feel I get they are boy geniuses everyone here are so far behind its amazing you had jobs let alone decision making jobs for a baseball team.

I hate to say it but I have been telling people on Twins Daily that the Twins were not going to spend as much as everyone was speculating. My reasoning for this they were going to wait and see what happens with Sano and Buxton and second I believe this Front office believes they are in long term tear down and rebuild. They will only be interested in signing their people they have signed to long term deals for this organization. I really believe that they think what ever previous front office did was mistake and they don't want that reminder around to look at. I believe if this core is to win its going to have to pretty much carry the day before they get any major help and I wouldn't be surprised then if they traded away from core to add future prospects for their core of players. This sounds bad but I have just gut feeling about this Front office and it has been they pretty much tell you what you want to hear but they think they are smarter than anybody else so they know what's right. The Twins ownership also sets the parameters on spending for the organization and you can see this by last front office and the current front office there is not much difference in how they spend money. If anything this front office is tighter on spending and uses players like chips between the major league club and the minors. Also they have offered only three contracts for more than one year in three years since coming to the Twins. The first was Castro deal of 3 years and second was Rodney for two years and they traded that contract, and third was Reed for a two year contract. The funny thing about the Pohlads was back when they first acquired the Twins they were one of the clubs giving some largest contracts in baseball. Look back they gave contracts of size to Puckett, Hrbeck, Gagne, and numerous others to come play for the Twins. This is when the Twins won championships but since loss of Carl Pohlad's wife they have not pursued winning like they did back then. Just few observations I have made over the years. The thing I never understood is why they haven't put more priority on winning every time they have won look at the attendance for this club after 91 world series win they drew more than 3 million people until it fell to less than half of that total. Same thing here when they won in early two thousands attendance went up and now were falling back again only the numbers don't reflect people in the stands like it did in the past. The Twins I believe are not going to spend much more than 85 million this year and not what people were thinking they would at least spend 130 million.