Mr. Brooks

I think part of Arcia's defensive deficiencies are due the speed at which he moved through the system. While I don't think he'll ever be a great defender, in fact he'll most likely continue to be a negative value, I think he is capable of improving to the point of being close enough to neutral dWAR for it to be a non issue.

That is not true. The stats show that the 9th inning matters plenty, which is why, all other things equal, it is given much more weight than say, the 3rd inning, when calculating WPA and leverage. Win probability added - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Willinghammer: You certainly do not need to convince me of Lincecum over Hughes. I just dismissed Lincecum completely as I assume that Terry Ryan wouldn't break the bank for him. I figured Hughes was a more realistic target. I was rallying for Lincecum in another thread, where I stated that it's my opinion that the last 2 years have been as much bad luck as anything.

Yeah, I remember feeling a burning pit of shame in my stomach when an Iraq veteran was booed at the Republican Primary Debate for bringing up Dont Ask Dont Tell. Even in this day and age of extremely divided politics, I could not believe that I was seeing a veteran who volunteered his life for his country, being loudly booed, and not a single Presidential candidate said a word in his honor. And yes, I realize we've veered WAY off topic at this point.

This was probably just an omission, since you had him on your solid everyday player list, but I think Arcia has a chance to be a lot better next year. Gleeman did a nice job of breaking down how he compares to the other 22 year old hitters to get significant AB's for the Twins, and the company he's in is limited to Bruno/Hrbek/Ortiz.

Agreed. We have to remember that the White Sox and Royals are in our division, so it is worth paying attention to what they are doing. So many people seem to have the attitude of well, "they are the Sox and the Royals, we beat up on them for years, surely they'll never be a threat to us." In reality, those teams are setting themselves up for some possible nice runs in the near future. As someone pointed out regarding the Ruesse comments, not many spots on the roster where you would hesitate to swap our guy for theirs. Obviously that should change, if our prospects pan out. But for the time being, with Detroit set up to compete for years to come, Cleveland with a strong nucleus and management, and the Royals and White Sox with good, young, intriguing talent, the days of this being an easy division to win might be coming to an end. I could see a legitimate meat grinder, like the AL East of some years, oncce we are ready to compete again. The 2000's are not coming back. That doesn't mean we can't win, but the days of putting together a roster full of #4 and #5 pitchers, a quality bullpen, and a "scrappy" lineup that "gets after it", and hoping to dominate the Central are never coming back.

No, thats not it at all. It just seems they are talking out of one side of their mouth to Sano: "Be a professional, don't let your emotions get out of control", and the other to Dougie: "Hey, you couldn't keep your cool so you charged the opposing manager, and started a fight with him on the field, that is totally professional behavior, well done!" I guess I don't understand how you can expect a young guy like Sano to take you seriously in that case.

1) I know rebuilding isnt done in a day. Its 3 years into it now. It's not like I'm starting this thread in May of 2011. 2) When has Terry ever pulled the trigger on a big $$, high impact free agent? I think the closest to that is Josh Willingham, which was only 3/24. IMO it is going to take more than that to turn this ship around, as good as our farm system is, it's only going to take you so far. 3) I disagree 100% on your bunting argument. This is the AL, and it's not 1985. One of my biggest beefs with Gardy has always been wasting outs playing "small ball". With runners on 1st and 2nd, and no outs, you should be thinking "we got a chance for a big inning here!" not, "nice, we have a chance to bunt a guy over, and hit a sac fly for 1 run!". If it is a guy who can't hit, like a Florimon or a Clete Thomas, then sure maybe you consider it. But, IMO, with your 2nd best hitter up it shouldnt even cross your mind in the AL.

I know, like I said, I agree with you there. I respect the fact that you were able to admit you were wrong in your initial opinion of Dozier, that is hard to do. I didn't mean to pile on, we all make predictions that go south on us, so I'm sorry about that.

Buxton is a once in a generation talent. Think Mike Trout. Snydergaard is a very good pitching prospect if he reaches his ceiling. But, while they are hard to find, there are several aces around baseball. There is generally only 1 or 2 players in the entire league at any given time who are as valuable as a Mike Trout type talent. I would never make this trade.

Yeah I agree for sure. I'm just amazed at the overreaction to Gibson's struggles, it almost should be expected given all the circumstances.

If the reports are true, it was Dougie who charged the opposing manager. You are correct that I was not there, and the beginning of the brawl is not captured on video, so if the reports at this time are inaccurate, and Dougie was just defending himself, then obviously that is a completely different situation. The incident may have been payback for a play Friday in which Gamache bowled over Miracle catcher Jairo Rodriguez at the plate, Zimmerman said, and when Kremblas objected from the top step of the dugout, Mientkiewicz ran toward him, and they began fighting near home plate. Mientkiewicz fights with opposing manager | Star Tribune Like I said though, I'm clearly in the minority, so I guess it's not as big of a deal as I thought it was. I guess to me the thought of opposing managers fighting on the field mid game has too much of a WWE feel to it, and it's not something you see big league managers doing. I don't like it, but that is just me I guess.

I guess I wasn't aware that fighting the opposing manager on the field is the preferred method of protecting your players. What was he protecting them from? Did one of them have a gun? A knife? Anyways, it seems that I'm clearly in the minority here, so I guess I stand corrected.

Nothing wrong with having fire. You have to be a professional though. Getting into a fight on the field with the opposing manager is childish at best. IMO, it's even worse in the low minors, where you are supposed to be teaching young prospects how to behave like a pro. You really think Miguel Sano takes them seriously now about handling his emotions in a respectful manner, after seeing this kind of behavior from a manager go unpunished? "Hey kid, do as we say, not as we do". Good luck with that one Twins.

Okay, lets all get a grip with Gibson. He's thrown 140 innings after not pitching last year. Couple that with facing MLB hitters for the first time in his life. Everyone needs to calm down. The sky is not falling regarding Gibson. He's got legit talent. He's not an ace, but he should be a solid #2, or really good #3. He absolutely should and will be given a spot in the next year's rotation.

I'm not sure about that. According to fangraphs, he throws his fastball about 62% of the time. I haven't looked it up, but that seems to be pretty comparable to most starting pitchers. His slider also has a positive value for his career. His curve has been a consistently negative pitch and his changeup has been up and down, positive some years, negative others.

There are 25 spots on the MLB roster. There is plenty of room to sign a couple of impact FA's without affecting the possibility of those handful of players you mention getting their shot at a roster spot when their time comes.

Why would I wan't to dismiss his opinion, it's an opinion I share. I just find it funny that a guy goes from saying a player is junk, a waste of a spot, will never be anything, and should be cut, to suddenly preaching to others about their opinion on the topic within a span of 90 days.

Does anyone else find hypocrisy between how they plan to handle this as opposed to how they handled Sano? I'm not sure how you look a prospect in the eyes and tell them you are going to hold them accountable for their actions, meanwhile letting the manager do whatever he wants. The manager fighting another manager on the field in the middle of a game seems like something out of a bad baseball comedy. The fact it happened in real life should be embarrassing to the organization. This is 1000x more serious and egregious of an incident than pimping a HR, IMO. I can't believe that Ryan actually said the following without realizing the irony in his own statement: “Doug is very emotional, I can tell you that,” Ryan said. “He’s very protective. His philosophy is to do things right, even at the expense of a player having to sit for awhile. Players need to learn how to play the game correctly. Doug can teach.”

Phil Hughes is a fly ball pitcher who pitches half his games in a stadium that could be used for little league games. I understand your point of view, but each situation should be looked at on a case by case basis, sometimes it is a legitimate factor.

What I am hoping for is to not stubbornly close off avenues for acquiring talent. There are plenty of spots on this roster that could be improved without blocking a prospect. You know as well as anyone that not all (in fact most) prospects don't pan out. I'm fine with holding spots for Sano, Buxton and Meyer, but beyond those 3, all spots should be open for improvement. I'm arguing for a stop to this ignorance from the front office and the manager regarding advanced metrics, and outside input. Sure, many of the advanced metrics can be flawed, but that doesn't mean you throw out the baby with the bathwater. Teams that have embraced these concepts are thriving, so obviously there is some good to be found in them. They hired one stats guy, mostly (IMO) to appease the cries for it, as evidenced by Gardy's need to get cheap shots in (Cybermetrics). When is the last time they looked outside the organization for input? Why not go try to find a rising star in one of the organizations that is actually thriving at what the Twins strive for (building a consistently competitive club on the cheap)? Are you a fan of the HBO series The Newsroom? I'm not sure if this is actually done, but on the show, when they are investigating a major news story, they intentionally keep some people in the dark, so that when the story is ready, they can use them as "The Red Team". The Red Team's job is to be a fresh set of eyes on the story, free of bias and emotional attachment, to look at the story and try to poke holes in it for credibility. It seems like a good concept to me. But, the Twins organization seems to live in a bubble, they seem to think that they are superior, and to invite someone in from outside the organization would be a sin. Sometimes it seems to me that winning "their way", is more important than winning. I don't think you can complete a rebuild exclusively with prospects.Obviously you want your foundation to be made up of homegrown talent, but it needs to be supported by key acquisitions, and those acquisitions can't always be found on the cheap. Finally, I wan't Terry Ryan to prove capable of not being afraid to take a big risk in free agency. As I said before, it seems like is his scared to make a big money mistake. While you obviously don't want to make too many of them, other teams have shown that you can make 1 or 2 big mistakes in FA, and still overcome them. You can't win if you don't play, you can't hit a HR if you don't swing the bat. If there is a high priced FA pitcher, or a high priced Cuban FA who can help this team, I'd like to see Terry Ryan be aggressive and overpay a bit for them if he has to.

Curious why you don't think Sano is ready?

I agree none are probably a 1. Completely disagree that none are a 2 or 3. Get Hughes out of Yankee Stadium and he's a really good #3, and probably a solid #2.

Agreed. That situation may have been an issue at one point, but it seems like a completely non issue now. He is a professional now, and should be expected to act like one, and should be given a clean slate to do so. I'm excited to have him in our system, and will be following him closely.

I don't know. I'm not sure I follow those organizations closely enough to know what type of organizational changes they made. I'm just saying that I think there are issues other than talent that needs to be addressed. Such as avenues for acquiring talent, the Twins over reliance on "traditional" scouting, their disdain for advanced metrics and outside input, their relative "conservative" approach to FA (Terry Ryan seems scared to death to make a big $$ mistake, well, IMO you can't win if you don't play), and several other areas that I feel need to be addressed. I'm not giving up on the GM or the manager, I hope I am clear in that. Both have proven, while flawed, they are CAPABLE of being successful. I just feel they have failed to adapt thus far, are stuck in a previous era that no longer exists. If they can be self critical, and address their shortcomings, I think they can rebound. If they are not capable of that, and choose to stubbornly plow ahead with what right now is not working, then it could be a long decade.