shimrod

I expect the Twins reputation as cheapskates will scare off free agent pitchers, even if offered a premium salary. Players will want to play for a good team - I can't imagine anyone wants to sign a big dollar contract and find it offset by filling the roster with rookies and cast-offs. If you're going to convince a top free agent to come to MN I think you need to start by trading for premium talent. Bump Berrios back to number 3 by trade and you might have a chance to bump him back to number 4 via free agency. Yes, it's expensive in both prospects and dollars, but I think it's the only way we sign a top free agent pitcher. My personal expectation is that the Twins are "in on" everyone, fail to sign a difference maker, and next year's rotation is no better than the crew that got blown out this fall.

"He was pitched 6 "Balls..." I agree Eddie swings at too many pitches off the plate, but to be fair the home plate umpire didn't seem to much care where the pitches were thrown. His strike zone could be charitably described as erratic.

Sam Dyson is a grown ass man who I'm sure is very capable of jumping on a plane and pitching the same day... It's my understanding our players prepare for the games by studying their opponents...tendencies, weaknesses, strengths... and pro ball requires more work than just showing up and throwing. Unless Dyson spent his plane ride watching video and studying Miami batters, he wasn't prepared and shouldn't have been playing. Or maybe all that talk about analytics and film study is BS and the players actually spend their pre-game playing cards and getting pedicures. In that case, grown-ass man just had a bad day.

Correlation is not causation. Your post says a whole lot about you and virtually nothing about Kyle Gibson. How does noting the pitcher didn't follow his normal routine and then pitched poorly reflect on the commenter? Perhaps you interpreted the statement as a dig at religion but I didn't read it that way. Not that Gibson cost us the game. The bats and the bullpen deserve more opprobrium.

I think the eye test belies the numbers. He just looks baffled on so many pitches. Every time he comes to the plate it's high hopes balanced against low expectations.

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Baldelli is the biggest problem to date. No experience and it shows. We're going to waste another season getting the manager up to speed. In the long run he may work out but in the short run he's killing us.

Once again, why wasn't Tortuga batting for Kepler yesterday?

Kepler had no business batting there. He may have hit lefties better than righties last year but it's important to remember he didn't hit either particularly well. The team needed a productive at bat in that situation.

"He must have really not liked something about Minnesota." Perhaps he likes to win.

"If he's not willing to characterize the year as rebuilding, but his sights aren't on winning... then, uh, what?" Then, business as normal with Twins management. The aim is to be "competitive" enough to produce decent ticket sales while banking the profits. They may set winning the division as a goal, provided the rest of the division is taking a few years off.

What's more likely to elevate their games...forcing them to step up and carry a mediocre roster or surrounding them with talent that allows them to relax and play? That's the question. There's money available to bolster the lineup. Do it.

Deadline trade fodder. Indicates that team management does not expect to win. How do you keep that expectation from filtering down to the players? I'm pretty sure you can't. I don't think you can build a winner without trying to, you know, win.

Moves like this are signs that management is not trying to win or contend; they're setting up to sell, again, at the deadline. I also won't be surprised to see it backfire, again. Performance and winning are contagious. Hitters improve when their teammates are hitting well. Good defense leads to good defense. Perhaps the only thing holding back our young players is the lack of good players next to them on the bench and in the lineup. At some point it will be time to go sign the high-performing free agent who will instill confidence in the younger players. I'd have thought this was the year but we're again sifting through the dumpster for players we can hope to flip for marginal gains in organizational talent. Waiting for the young players to lift themselves by their bootstraps and collectively form a contending team before you add talent is foolish. You've got tot prime the pump.

I've read on this site, on multiple occasions, that the Twins ownership/management (one or the other or both) cap expenditures at some percentage of revenue and excess profit is not carried over to next years budget. Correct me I'm wrong, but if true... Setting a target budget based on percentage of revenue is good business. It's the refusal to use the money saved by coming under budget I find infuriating. It's an arbitrary rule that handicaps the team's ability to compete. Normal people don't budget that way. I have no problem financing an expensive vacation next year by staying home this year, or driving an old vehicle a couple extra years in order get a better ride when I finally replace it. I think the fans would be fine with a couple seasons on the low end of the salary range to finance a Machado signing. That, in my opinion, drives all the anger over the Twins budget. It's a one way ratchet that can come in millions low season after season but will never go 1 dollar higher. Given the refusal to carry over money year to year and the taxpayer funding of Target field the Twins, in my opinion, have a moral obligation to spend up to their self-imposed maximum each year. If it costs them an extra $20,000,000 to win an additional home game at least they gave their best shot at entertaining the fans who funded the stadium. And who knows, maybe that extra win puts the team in the playoffs. The argument that there's no use spending the money because the team is not in position to contend is BS. If the ownership doesn't see it that way they can refund the tax money and set the budget as low as they want. Once you take the citizens cash you have an obligation to put the best team you can afford on the field. Forfeiting the season while you pocket an extra 10 or 20 million is no longer an option. My point is, fiscal prudence only makes sense in the long term. If saving money this year does nothing to improve next years team it's just ownership screwing the fans, again.

Turned it off at 8 - 0. Apparently that was a good decision.

(possibly even routine enough to be an out at first as well for a solid 3B). I'll accept that my recollection of that play favored Adrianza more than he deserved. I will not accept that he (or anyone else) could have made a play on the runner AND made the play at first. He's being criticized for throwing to first rather than making a play on the baserunner. If he can't get the ball to first in time as his first play there certainly wasn't time to do both.

I'm not sure Adrianza makes the play at third. The runner is coming hard and Adrianza has to change direction and come back to the bag or runner. If he's behind the basepath it's another story but he was out in front with the runner behind him. That was not an automatic out.

Stephen Gonsalves allowed nine earned runs on nine hits, both the highest totals of his pro career.... Despite the fine work in his previous six turns, he'd handed out a troubling 21 free passes in 33 frames with 61% strikes. Back when Gonsalves was experiencing the control issues and occasional high-contact games I wondered if that was indicative of focusing on a particular pitch. Were the staff running him out there with instructions to, say, throw 50% change-ups regardless of result? From a developmental standpoint I could see the benefit of forcing a pitcher to use a weaker pitch to build comfort in game situations. I would think by AAA the pitchers should have command of their repertoire but perhaps not. If the issue was forcing development it seems to have worked.

Dozier sure looks like he wants to stay, at least through the end of the season. His play this year's destroyed his trade value. If we need a stop-gap veteran 2B next year I'd like the Twins to look elsewhere. Dozier can put up big numbers with hot stretches but he seems to spend half of every year in a slump. Surround him with consistently good hitters and a team can deal with that, but the Twins haven't done that and it doesn't look likely to happen next year either.

I'd also anticipated seeing better production from Sano at AAA before he returned to the bigs. This could have been Gordon's opportunity as well, but based on his numbers he's not ready.

I'm fully on board the "fire Molitor" bandwagon after watching that debacle. The Astudillo appearance was nothing less than an extended middle finger to the fans who remained to watch the ninth inning.

Ban batting gloves. I'm sick to death of watching hitters step out to re-tighten their gloves after every pitch, even if the bat never left their shoulder. On second thought, maybe not. In the absence of gloves there's no telling what piece of equipment players will decide needs adjustment after each pitch.

I would like to see the league shift to a more performance based pay scale, which would require a revised agreement between the players and the owners. Many have criticized the current system in which free agents are paid for past performance and overpaid for their declining years. Meanwhile, younger cost-controlled players are woefully underpaid. I'd like to see an entirely different paradigm, similar to the salary + commission you see in some sales jobs. Performance pay is currently negotiated in individual contracts. I'd like to see a mandated, and substantial, amount of money dedicated to paying for the actual performance in a season. Having, say, 50 million dollars in pay (per team) dedicated to compensating the players who actually perform would serve as a de facto salary minimum (players should like this). A league wide formula mandating performance compensation based on playing time and production would increase the pay to precocious players and reduce the incentive to get top dollar in free agency. If the players currently asking for $100M + in free agency had been properly compensated in their early years there wouldn't be as much pressure to recoup the money lost during years of team control. Obviously the performance metrics are key. You want to reward individual performance while maintaining an emphasis on team success. I think a substantial floor of money dedicated to performance compensation would act to reduce the guaranteed salaries. Players should be ok with this as long as the performance pay is mandated, ensuring the money goes to the players. Lower guaranteed salaries would reduce the risk to teams of signing free agents, and, I believe, reduce fan animosity toward under-performing or injured players. Right now, there are a few teams who can sign any player for any amount and complete breakdown is only an inconvenience. Small market teams would be completely crippled if they rolled the dice on a top FA and lost him to injury. Moving to a pay + performance system would allow more teams to bid on top players and, theoretically, increase free agent compensation by putting more teams in a position to bid. Yes, guaranteed pay might be less but with proper incentive pay top players should be compensated commensurate with team succes

That's a good point. Only the Twins have this problem with "excess profits" mysteriously vanishing from one year to the next. If the Twins had built their own stadium I wouldn't say one word about their spending. The decision to charge the taxpayers makes it everybody's business.