Joe A. Preusser

I'm not ignoring anything. Nolasco is gone, Milone won't be back. Mejia is next man up instead of Pat Dean or whomever. I expect a rotation of Santana Gibson May Berrios Santiago to be as much as half a run better than this year. Support a young, emerging bullpen and add a very good catcher and that could easily move to 1 full run per game better.

I think we're closer to competing for the playoffs than that. A strong C, a closer, a couple of BP promotions. Progression to norm for Nicks starting 5, better OF defense from day 1, strong offense. Wild card contenders.

Chargois Rogers Presley Duffy Tonkin 1 FA or trade back end piece to close. 1 promotion for Light, Reed, or whomever is next up. That has the potential to be a power pen. When Tonkin is probably your worst reliever, your pen is an area of strength. Now go get a top tier catcher, roll with Nick's starting 5, and let the offense do what the offense will do.

I'm not advocating dumping money on free agent SP, even if there's anyone available. I would advocate going after a strong C, a back end BP piece, and maybe a strong setup guy. None of that would require flushing Doziers production down the tubes. The outfield defense with Buck, Rosario and Kepler is no worse than average, possibly better. In the infield you just have to accept Sano and Polanco because their offense more than makes up for it. Believe me, I'm a defense first guy at heart. I was just fine with Floriman for a long time. But the team we have is the team we have. It's not a video game where you can pick and choose every leverage opportunity and make it work. Losing Dozier from our lineup would completely change the dynamic and quite possibly turn an area of strength into yet another liability. You are right, we need to pitch better to get better. The best (and possibly only) way to do this is to put an excellent pen together and bring in a strong C. Prospects and one of our 1B/DH can pull this off.

You cannot simply remove 40 HR, 100R, and 100 RBI and expect the offense not to miss a beat. Our offense is good and getting better. But as I've said in other threads, it's good enough to compete, not good enough to gut for pitching. Addition by addition, not subtraction, should be the blueprint for the new GM.

Honestly, I would be just fine Rolling with Nicks starting 5, especially if we make some or all of the following moves. Add a quality catcher. Add a back of the pen piece. Promote 1 more reliever from minors. Duffy to pen. Seriously, take out O'Rourke and maybe Kintzler or 1 more and add in Duffy and two fresh, good strong arms and suddenly our pen is young, fast, and a strength. Our offense, a great pen, a nice C, and Nick's starting 5 get us to .500 and probably playing for a playoff spot in Sept.

It's absolutely not the same rotation. No Nolasco, no Milone, Duffy to the pen. No Pat Dean as our 1st backup. How much better is our team ERA without the numbers those put up. I'm pretty sure we would gain half a run per game right there. I'd like to see what a year of Nicks starting 5 would get us. Do NOT trade Ervin or any member of the offense that isn't a DH/1B. The offense is good enough to compete, but not good enough to start hacking off chunks to leverage into pitching.

It's absolutely not the same rotation. No Nolasco, no Milone, Duffy to the pen. No Pat Dean as our 1st backup. How much better is our team ERA without the numbers those put up. I'm pretty sure we would gain half a run per game right there. I'd like to see what a year of Nicks starting 5 would get us. Do NOT trade Ervin or any member of the offense that isn't a DH/1B. The offense is good enough to compete, but not good enough to start hacking off chunks to leverage into pitching.

Uh, yeah. My point was that his 2015 numbers overall were still good. And his 2016 numbers overall are almost MVP worthy. There are peaks and valleys in any players' seasons. Would you honestly not take his exact 2016, or even his exact 2015 season every year?

This is awfully cynical. His overall stats from last whole year and this whole year are still quite good by themselves. No player is exactly as good every game of the year, this isn't a video game, we are talking about a human being. Does Dozier appear more streaky than other players? Sure. But who cares?

With how much we will hit, that pitching staff could win 95 games. It could also lose 95 games. Would like to see the new GM make a large acquisition at SP or CP to mark the start of his/her tenure.

Nick, I'm not an ostrich with my head stuck in the sand. I dont want to just read fluff pieces and feel good stories. I want baseball content. I am fully, painfully aware of how bad this team has been. The pitching has been gut wrenching. The fielding dismal at times. I am capable of great frustration with this team. Where I start having issues though, is when people allow this sub-par record/performance to color their perceptions of EVERY SINGLE move, decision, act or thought made by the front office, coaching staff, or anyone else involved with the org. I get it, it's been a long time since we've had a great team. But every relation is not a correlation. Every issue you raised in the original post i would bet has come up comparably with anothwr player and org this year or in then recent past. I bet our feelings about them wouldn't be quite so negative if they weren't ties to our angst about our own org. To me that speaks to a severe lack of objectivity. Just because Bux struggled, it doesn't mean coaching, player development, he's a bust, etc. It might mean any one of those things, or it might mean none of them. No one on this site is qualified to make that determination, or at least very few. Yet time and time again with frustrating situations like that one, it's an automatically over-negative response. You mentioned I don't post much. I used to post multiple times a day here. Now I just stick to game threads and the Simpsons caption contest. I just couldn't take the inherent, automatic negative responses to literally everything I posted. I've never blogged before, maybe I should give that a try. Lastly, I want to say there was a reason I started my last post indicating there was no disrespect intended to you. I have generally enjoyed reading you over the years. Actually, I followed you here from Nicks Twins Blog.

That's been building for a long while, possibly years. And believe me, I held back.

It will change how you feel about it. How you discuss it. How you approach topics and ideas. And lastly how much you enjoy it.

No offense to Nick intended, but IMHO it's sh*t like this article that have made this site almost unreadable. The fact that I still come here so often speaks to what a strong fan of the Twins I am, and certainly not to the tone and quality of the content bring posted. It has pretty much been reduced to the following: Every move made by the Twins is sh*t. I know better than seasoned professionals what is right for this team. MY priorities are what matter, and if the team's don't align with them then they are wrong. If a player isn't performing like an All-Star RIGHT NOW, he's crap and not worth a roster spot. Anyone under the age of 25 is ok, anyone older is crap. If an All-Star player like Dozier or Mauer go through a stretch of rough play for a period of weeks, he's crap, cooked, worthless. Like all baseball video games have shown, a player performs at the same level all the time. And if his rating dips below All-Star, you trade him for a prospect that will always turn into a new All-Star, because that's how player development actually works. Now imagine, a positive upbeat fan trying to follow his favorite team and having to wade through a sea of this sh*t every day. And before anyone tells me that I'm out of touch with reality let me say that to a large extent, reality conforms to your attitude and mind-set. Reality is what you make it, or as ObiWan said, many of the truths we cling to depend on your point of view. I don't know, maybe there's just a hell of a lot of bitter, miserable, depressed people in Minnesota and on this site.

It's Oswaldo Arcia and it's not even close. That dude is on a mission and I can't believe more people aren't talking about it. Get past his terrible 2015 and get ready for his unbelievable 2016, because he is going to be the LH bat this lineup needs to become elite. I predicted it last year, a year early as it turns out, but I am right about this.

Yes, doesn't that mean he's probably performing well? We're not going to run him out 2-4 times if he's getting blown up./

Danks is the rabbit (with white Sox) and the Twins are that little girl's snake. Going to be a fun game.

Part of me agrees with the original poster and part of me thinks pitchers should man up and hit. Either way both leagues should be the same.

Kepler.

Grrr.

And they are a tax that somehow transfers.

Blech.

Rocket!!!

Apparently it also scared the official scorer.