goulik

So if Meyer turns into the Ace we want, Hughes is a 2-3, Gibson is a 3-4, Milone is a 4 and Nolasco a 4-5 you have a true rotation. Elite? No. Average rotation, yes. That does not take into account May panning out as a starter either. I didn't say elite, I said rebuilt and I did not say its done, I said close to rebuilt. Yes, one of the worst starting rotations when you look at the whole year but only two of those have been part of the whole year. When looking at just the six pitchers being discussed and the current playoff system, your a good offense (not even necessarily great) away from the playoffs. Keep in mind, Neither Minnesota World Series was won with an elite rotation.

This is my point in conversations often and in a few of my posts. This looks like the Rebuild is close to fruition at least in the Rotation. Now for the hitters(see Buxton and Sano)

My guess is the Twins (and all MLB teams) create their own advanced stats and Gardenhire spends more time on those then Fangraphs

DISAGREE!! Hoping for prospects to develop and the lineup to sort out to this batting order:Buxton CF Mauer 1B Dozier 2B Sano 3B Vargas DH Santana SS Arcia RF Hicks LF Pinto C This is hoping they reach requisite professional skills to make this happen (Mauer is high OBP guy, Dozier keeps up 20 HR/yr avg, etc)

Sean took the loss and deservedly so yesterday. He went 4.0 innings and gave up 7 runs on 5 walks and 4 hits. 6 of those runs were in the first. For his MiLB stat line: http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=543219#/career/R/pitching/2014/ALL

I Agree with Kabs comparison to DeJesus up to this point. The concern on Rosario is a drug suspension followed by poor numbers. People in general and baseball players in particular have bad years. Here's to hoping he turns things around and becomes the MLB player we hope he will be. On a side note, he will not ever get to be the guy with a cool name like DeJesus let aloneCoco Crisp, or Milton Bradley. In that way, he is NOT comparable.

Too many posters think baseball is like football. Bad season equals off season rebuild and next year we are a contender. TR did not take over a football team. He didn't just take over a major league roster that was bad, he took over the whole crumbling system which needed to be rebuilt from low A on up. If you want a one year rebuild, go back to football. (I love football too btw) IMHO Definitions: Rebuild: remaking an organization. This could be a full demo (fire everybody, fire sale on players), or gut job (fire somebody a la Smith, trade some good players for prospects, and reorganize your field staff) we went gut job. Transition: moving from the old core players to the new core. In baseball this usually takes 2 years. Year one, new players come up, off season signings to fill glaring holes, call up rest of new core, second off season fill any remaining holes with FA So discussing this in baseball terms yes this was a transition year. Correia and Willingham are gone, AAAA players of last year are gone (Walters, Diamond, Worley, Colabello, Florimon, Mastroianni, etc... Do I need to go on? There were a lot of AAAA players...) Prospects have been called up and in some cases, so quickly our heads were spinning (Vargas and Polancos cup of coffee). Has everything gone great? Things never do; Prospects always fail (see Hicks though it's too early to give up) I think the rebuild is going right on course, maybe better than I expected with the exceptions of Sano and Buxton. They did not arrive but I did not expect Santana, Vargas or Escobar and to be honest, I'd given up on Plouffe and he has emerged from bad to average 3B. This off season we will need some out field help. Frankly, I thought we were gonna be hosed up the middle but C and SS are more solid at this point than I expected. Next year we will have other lesser prospects also push the MLB squad and emerge much to our surprise. Finally, I think we have playoff contention written all over this club next year. A rookie or two will have major sophmore slumps (see Arcia) players will rediscover their potential (see Arcia, oops, sorry, that's what I'm hoping for, see Plouffe, Dozier, Escobar) Meyer, Sano, and Buxton will all arrive (one or two of them will struggle mightily and TD posters will call for demotions and question the FO) and I think our starting rotation for the first time in years will be above league average.

Brandon's numbers continue to turn my head though I rarely think of him while reading or formulating prospect lists which continue to omit him. Any thoughts from those of you with connections on his projectability and prospect status?

Agreeing on the potential top 50 part of your statement and Having loyally read all the Ryan Eades updates, what do you base the second part of your opinion on or was this tongue in cheek?

On Tuesday, Sean started but only pitched two innings. In the first he struck out the side but mingled in a walk and two singles leading to a run. The second inning was a 1,2,3 affair with his 4th k. Then it rained and Hamburger was the pitcher taking over the next day. Here's a AA video of a 3 k inning in New Britain http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=33318093&sid=milb And another from Rochester http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=34851531&sid=milb

Suckatude!!!

Sean bookended his bad start by pitching 6 shut out innings August 7. He allowed 3 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5

Growing up during the 70's into the early 80's I did not pay attention to baseball. I knew Minnesota had a team called the Twins but I grew up a 6 hour drive from the stadium. I grew up in Hockey territory in a basketball crazy town and my favorite sport was football. My home town didn't even have baseball past 8th grade so there was not much to inspire me. I turned 11 in 1980 so the Twins were not inspiring this young man in any way during my early years either. To give an example of my 1975, 6 year old baseball knowledge, I knew the LA Lakers were originally from Minneapolis and had moved. I liked the Lakers, so I rooted for the Other Minnesota baseball team (I couldn't have told you a single players name) the LA Dodgers not realizing the Lakers had left Minnesota. By 1980 I knew LA was in California, but if you asked me my favorite team I still said "the Dodgers" (though still unable to name a single player) One year at Flaming Pines Youth Camp (The pine trees looked like they were on fire surrounded by the Maple trees every fall) a friend of mine started talking to me about this young baseball player named Kirby Puckett and he caught my interest. In '86 I became a true fan of the game and learned other names like Timmy Laudner and our own Kent Hrbek. Hrbek was the home town hero to go with our superstar. He made what I considered great plays at first base and hit enough long balls that I rooted for him to get gold gloves and all star nods. Despite his less than athletic looking build, he put up numbers that led to him being OUR all star and my standard of what I want to see from first basemen (though those Yankee biased national media types always overlooked him and Hyped East or West coast players) Hrbek will never be in THE Hall of Fame in Cooperstown but he will always be in OUR HoF here in Minnesota. Kent Hrbek is the standard that Minnesota Twins first basemen will be held up to. 28 years later Joe Mauer has taken over Hrbek's position as home town hero at first base. Joe is the second coming of the hometown guy. Unlike Hrbek, he sat behind the dish, made a superstar name for himself with the national media, and received the awards and praise denied his predecessor. Batting championships, gold gloves, MVP, and regular All Star appearances are all Joe's yet criticism for not being the inspirational leader of the team has dogged him the whole way. Now Joe has moved to First Base, Hrbek's place. So how can Joe Mauer get past all this negativity? My suggestion is to be Like Hrbek! First, Joe needs to get Healthy and stay on the field. He could accomplish this by spending more time fishing and less time working out. Go on an outdoors show with a local hero and boom, health. Second, he needs to loosen up! Hrbek was known to enjoy some beer, for getting loud and boisterous at times, and for his jovial laughter in the club house after a win or a prank to loosen up the team. Joe is known for being clean cut, quiet, and soft spoken(NO PRANKS). Maybe Joe could finally be the player we all wanted if he had a few before every game. This might loosen him up in the club house, loosen his lips in an interview, and well, no, probably still no pranks but the fans might warm back up to him and become more accepting of his aging body and declining numbers. In fact I think he should gain 50 pounds of fat so he could look more like Hrbek while he's at it.

My guess would be Pino going down temporarily until the next trade

Am I remembering wrong or wasn't Sulbaran a ptbnl? In any case, I would like to publicly thank Correia for being a dependable innings eating professional pitcher. You walked out to the mound and put up MLB numbers consistently and anchored a really bad pitching staff with a needed veteran presence. You suffered through multiple 90 loss seasons with bad defense behind you and bad bats supporting you. When all around you others spent weeks, months and entire seasons on the disabled lists, you strapped them on and marched out there for unappreciative fans. Thank You for putting up with us. God Bless!

Hughes, Gibson, May, Millone. I like the rotation through the first 4 so far! Heck, in '87 I only liked the first two names in our rotation at the end of that season!

Black Jack at the beginning of the game tonight discussed his first horrendous outing as a rookie. May is in good company, hope he stays with them.

That Gardy tutelage starting to pay dividends.

IMHO, May needs to be up the rest of the year no matter what he does... Time to adjust to the majors even if he goes 2 innings, 6 runs tonight and next week

At the moment we only have 5 Starters on the 25 man unless you count Deduno. There will have to be a reliever or bench player sent down or traded to make room for Mauer and another one for Nolasco. Both were assigned to Rehab on the 5th according to the Twins transactions page which means the 25th (or before) these moves will have to be made.

Not to nit pick but looking again at your list, you have 14 bats and 12 pitchers (counting the x pitcher) so I think subliminally you already knew you'd have to cut Colabello...

I think Colabello is done now that he was sent back down. I REALLY rooted for the guy and hoped he'd be that guy that made it late and became an every day player, but at this point I do not expect him to wear the Twins Uniform again.

Liam Hendricks made the AAA list

8 of the 21... Now we need to trade for this Dalton Pompey kid.

Keep up the good work DAM DC. If you get Seth's attention, maybe that will also get TRs attention.