The Wise One

And I supose every GM in baseball is totally unaware of his numbers/age/ and history and thus would have offered up a decent prospect for Willingham if he were available? There was a reason he was available for the team friendly price of 3/21. To think you can trade him one year later for a great prospect is preposterous.

You hir epeople to scout them before you draft them. You hire people to coach them. You can read the progress reports. What difference does it make in the development of a player who is clearly developing if the GM sees them play in person? If the players are not developing I can see the complaint, but not when progress is going as it should.

You found with the 20 largest contracts that the highest paid pitchers in the last 13 years could pitch at an above average level most of the time. Thus you claim they are a wise investment? They are paid to be outstanding, not above average. You compare outcomes of pitchers in their late 20's , which is when the extentions happen, and think that it should happen for pitcher's in their mid thirties. Brother that is not the same. But I will supose you will demand that I do an age comparison study.

Do all of the players have the same agent? Other agents other than the Levintahans directing players there could make the 20 a tip of the iceberg.

A few backup catchers on the list. A backup on the 40 man roster could fetch more than a Milk Bone and a poop scooper.

Brian Dozier is one rare dude. While it might be rare to fail at the AAA level after some sucess at the AA level, at some point in time a player peaks. It couldd be going from AA to AAA. or AAA to the majors, at some point in time a player reaches their peak and falls back.

This is just idle speculation on my part, as I may as dumb of doofus as the rest here on how the manager operates, but not unreasonable. Any good manager would talk to the subordinates about performances good and bad. Coaching and correcting the mistakes is their job. The second part of the equation is that part of their job is entertainment. They perform in public. So they have media to talk to. When first year or developing players make the same mistakes over and over when more was expected, the manager brings it up to the media in hopes if they hear it from somewhere else the player might finally pay attention. Some veteran player, mostly pitchers, have gotten the treatment. Stars of course wouldn't be in the situation. Mediocre vetrans, they know what they have and it is not going to change. (Doo-doo with deoderizer on it is still doo-doo)

Is it backwards to have high expectations of people? Should he be ripping people who slide by on talent and ripping those who do not do well by a major league standard but are performing better than those that have their skill set? Attitude without the performance to back it up gets you on the dog list. Mauer could be a complete synonym for Richard and not end up in the doghouse. He could have been that way from day one. The team has not had a star rookie since.

Wins are a team stat, but if double digit wins in 4 of the last 6 years is a yardstick for being an integral part of the team then Zito=Correia By your thought process signing a free agent is not a bad thing as it only costs money. Then there should be no criticism of the Twins off season signings as it costs them nothing but money that they have in fistfuls. Praise should be heaped on them as this could encourage them to spend more. Granted they can't spend as much as the Giants as they have 40 million less in revenue. The idea of spending money regardless of the value in return for which it was spent on is a curious one to me though. It does fly in the face of sound business and personal finance. It does though sound like government spending

Scherzer was a prospect they got for dumping Jackson. the Twins should be so lucky as to have the c level talent that Miami wants when they dump players and comes calling

Yes, for stage 4 cancer. Not all lung cancer is stage 4 So why don't you stick to using examples that you know something about. Five-year Relative Survival Rates* (%) by Stage at Diagnosis, 2002-2008 All Stages Local Regional Distant All Stages Local Regional Distant Breast (female) 89 98 84 24 Ovary 44 92 72 27 Colon & rectum 64 90 70 12 Pancreas 6 23 9 2 Esophagus 17 38 20 3 Prostate 99 100 100 28 Kidney† 71 91 64 12 Stomach 27 62 28 4 Larynx 61 76 42 35 Testis 95 99 96 73 Liver‡ 15 28 10 3 Thyroid 98 100 97 54 Lung & bronchus 16 52 25 4 Urinary bladder§ 78 70 33 6 Melanoma of the skin 91 98 62 15 Uterine cervix 68 91 57 16 Oral cavity & pharynx 62 82 57 35 Uterine corpus 82 95 67 16 *Rates are adjusted for normal life expectancy and are based on cases diagnosed in the SEER 18 areas from 2002-2008, followed through 2009. †Includes renal pelvis. ‡Includes intrahepatic bile duct. § Rate for in situ cases is 96%. Local: an invasive malignant cancer confined entirely to the organ of origin. Regional: a malignant cancer that 1) has extended beyond the limits of the organ of origin directly into surrounding organs or tissues; 2) involves regional lymph nodes by way of lymphatic system; or 3) has both regional extension and involvement of regional lymph nodes. Distant: a malignant cancer that has spread to parts of the body remote from the primary tumor either by direct extension or by discontinuous metastasis to distant organs, tissues, or via the lymphatic system to distant lymph nodes. Source: Howlader N, Noone AM, Krapcho M, et al. (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2009, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, http://www.seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2009/, 2012. American Cancer Society, Surveillance Research 2013

The contact, no walk pitchers are fine if they can pitch like Lackey did the other night against the Twins. Doesn't matter if they are strikeout pitchers or not, the Twins need no fat pitchtossers.

There are players are being labeled as underacheivers in this thread, so if they are not performing up to expectations what culpability does a hitting coach or manager have in that. There is another thread where it is blame the pitching coach

Survival rate for stage 1 lung cancer is 50%.

Trolling? No, more like calling out dispespectfull behavior from someone who puts not just moderator, but supermoderator with their avatar. You can call it trolling rather than accepting the fact you added disrespect and muck.

A moderator complains of the quality of a thread while adding nothing of quality and continuing the muck. too funny

Strawman argument on the K/(. Ok he pitched mediocre in the minors with a 4.3. Do you really want somebody who gets piqued and then performs poorly? Can you show me the quote where I said that "I love pitch to contact" ? Making more claims to satisy what? Are you trying to set up a fight? Why not claim "This guy is a Twins FA apolgist"?

I love your comment. Count your blessings that you made it to the big league post level before you were on the receiving end of the argument used against a point they don't like but have no other way to disprove. "It is not available to me so therefore________________" When you ask for data, you well get rebuked for asking because you couldn't provide the information they wanted.

Lannan had a 4.3 ERA and a 5.2 k/9 ratio in the minors last year. He did little in the minors to show it was a mistake to send him there.

When the teams that want to keep their kids from super 2 stautus start calling them up then the picture will be clearer.

Can you move the thread to wherever the occupy Wall Street people went? The liberals complaining about business making profits is getting tiresome.

Dickey would not have been on the market until next year. Cabrera had a long track record of not being good and then is great. Busted for testosterone. 16 million for a .280 singles hitter is excessive. Flagged for incredible myopia and petty bickering

Mythical player game. Mythical players must be what you are paying the ringers for a beer league team. Mythical player B has a higher upside in that there is the 60% chance of turning into a more than useful player. Player A is on the downside of their career. Gee, do we build for the future or do we hope someone doesn't crap out? Building a team is for the longer haul, not one year at a time.

15 that would be average or better? That opens a can of worms. Is average whatever you want it to mean? Of the uninjured I would count 7 on the list. Scott Baker, MIN * Erik Bedard, PIT Joe Blanton, LAD Aaron Cook, BOS Kevin Correia, PIT Ryan Dempster, TEX Scott Feldman, TEX * Jeff Francis, COL Freddy Garcia, NYY Zack Greinke, LAA Jeremy Guthrie, KC Rich Harden, OAK Dan Haren, LAA * Edwin Jackson, WAS Hiroki Kuroda, NYY Francisco Liriano, CWS Kyle Lohse, STL Derek Lowe, NYY Shaun Marcum, MIL Jason Marquis, SD Daisuke Matsuzaka, BOS Brandon McCarthy, OAK Kevin Millwood, SEA Roy Oswalt, TEX Carl Pavano, MIN Anibal Sanchez, DET Jonathan Sanchez, COL Joe Saunders, BAL Carlos Villanueva, TOR Chien-Ming Wang, WAS Kip Wells, SD Randy Wolf, BAL Chris Young, NYM Carlos Zambrano, MIA I am still waiting on the slick fielding free agent shortstop that can hit you said the Twins should sign.

The Cubs loaded up on pitchers, how is that working? Toronto took in half of the Miami Marlins. How is that working out? How are the Dodgers doing?