Joe A. Preusser

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.

Strategy-wise, we should be adding, not subtracting. We have a young core of hitters that is scoring runs at a playoff team's pace and will only get better. Add pitching through FE. Only trade prospects or 1B/DH MLB players since that's our one true position of redundancy. This team has been horrible obviously this year, but much of the turnover has already happened. SWitch out 2 BP arms, add someone to the back end, and add two mid range starters and we're competing next year. I don't get the "blow it all up and start" over mentality, and I don't get why we would dismantle the one area of our team that is playing at a high level (the offense).

If you don't have a player who excels both offensively and defensibly, you generally choose one with defense up the middle. But with Polanco and Dozier (and Sano) in the infield, we are generating so much offense that I think whatever deficiencies they have are greatly offset. Especially when considering a Buxton, Rosario, Kepler OF that would presumably be nicely above average, and the fact that we have a great defensive anchor at 1B.

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.

Good catch on the SLC thing. 3 runs in 2 innings is terrible. Berries so far in MN has had terrible results.

A 4 inning start in the minors is a gem? Before that he was terrible in SLC. On a totally unrelated note, Distortion Of Reality is a great band, you should check them out. Also, Ricky Nolasco threw an ACTUAL gem for the Angels, complete game 4 hitter. Want him back?

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.

TR's press conference strategy.

One of Blyleven's lesser known pranks.

Greetings friend! I am going door to door to gauge interest in public funding to replace the Metrodome.

Joe Everyman and his family react after Perk blows another August save.

Thanks, maybe I'll take you up on that

Apparently I'm really into this thread

Insert Kennys Vargas joke here.

Whatever worked to get us through the 90 loss seasons.

Pavano flashing the money maker.

Rick Anderson with a direct line to his pitchers' brains.

What Twins Daily posters used to do before they could come here and rant.

Joe Mauer realizes he can finally endorse Head & Shoulders.