singlesoverwalks

Simple question for you, Seth. When are they going to call up Kaelen Culpepper?

**** it, I'm going to put Either/Or on while watching the game tonight.

Old RD. Father of Ike Davis! I did not know that!

It's like the mid-'90s, except we didn't win the World Series in the last five years.

This was a good call when it was written, and now if you look at the list of remaining unsigned free agents it's just blindingly obvious. It must be done.

I get it. All of the available free agent first basemen are roughly the same, and we have to sign one of them, so just sign the cheapest of them. Makes sense to me.

I think I'm coming around to the view that they should spend maybe $7-10 million on a serviceable right handed hitter who will make them less vulnerable to lefty starting pitchers, like Goldschmidt or Ozuna, and spend the rest on relievers. Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez could catch fire this year. BTW, Rodriguez is left-handed. He should try first base.

Good call, let's do that. Martin is the exact opposite of the traditional first baseman (no power, good speed), but if he could handle the position then the Twins could spend their little smidgen of budget on the best bat they can find without worrying about whether the guy can play first. They could sign a DH like Ozuna or a corner outfielder so Larnach can DH.

Is there any hope that one of our glut of replacement-level outfielders learns first base?

I guess this (tendering Larnach) is a move you might make if you believe (1) you're unlikely to find a player worth keeping on the 40-man roster in the Rule 5 draft and (2) redundancy (AKA "depth") is actually a huge advantage in roster construction because of the frequency of injuries. And also, obviously, (3) you're not going to sign any free agents. So your theory is that when one of your slightly-above-replacement-level players goes down with injury, you're going to have the competitive advantage of not needing to call up a minor leaguer who's not yet ready for the big leagues. Another theory is that if you're going to be a bad team, you keep your good prospects in the minors for as long as possible so they can all come up in a big wave and give you a solid competitive window in some future season. They're "blocked," but really you're manipulating their service time. You stock up on replacement level players and hope one randomly has a career year so you can trade him at the deadline for more prospects. Again, this theory assumes you don't think the Rule 5 draft is worth it this year.

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Instant classic.

I think the front office makes decent decisions given their constraints, but the on-field management is a big problem. Not that we have a perfect roster, but we could have had that wildcard spot. In other words, we need a new manager.

Yep. And also, the manager gets to manage our team because he sees and understands more than the players' L/R splits that any of us can get on Fangraphs. The best managers know that stuff but are able to make better decisions because they (1) have more information than us thanks to seeing the game with a trained eye and (2) have an intuitive tactical sense that comes from decades of experience in baseball. Those managers will occasionally make moves that seem counterintuitive to us because they know something we don't, and those moves will often work out. They'll get more out of their team than we thought was possible. We should be trying to find a manager like that.

This is a very good point. I'd say that actually a few high-budget or super-smart teams (like Cleveland) can do this often. Relentlessly playing the matchups and not letting starters pitch to hitters a third time turns out really well if you have a bunch of great relievers. But if you have a mediocre bullpen, your starter is often just a better pitcher than most of your relievers.