mikelink45

I agree with the rookie - make that a rookie starting or relieving pitcher

We are waiting, waiting, waiting. Obviously not as great as Wisler. At this point shouldn't we bring in all available arms and have some competition at least?

One more reason - we don't want them. At least I hope we don't.

I know Buddy and Gus - I have no idea if Mike Bell is good or not. How do you judge bench coaches? I never see an article about what a bad bench coach someone is. How did Shelton do so bad that Molitor got fired, but so good that Baldelli was MOY? Were there Bench coaches in the 50s,60s,70s, 80s? I don't know. There are many positions in the coaching staff that just can't be judged by people like me. If the batters are lousy does that make the hitting coach bad? If the Pitchers include a CY Young does that make the pitching coach good? No answer to my own questions so have a seat on the Bench Mike and hopefully all will go well and Rocco will like your company.

sometimes I am shocked by the comments about Terry Ryan. At one time he was one of the most revered FO figures. Times changed and we moved on, but Terry did a good job in his time.

Well I would have to look at the off season and list what I learned - no one wants to play here except players who have played here. We wanted to improve the rotation and it is the same except for two pitchers who have not been replaced, the BP looks the same, but no Sam Dyson - what a great player he was for us, the Bombas are the same except we have no first baseman and we no longer have Schoop. What am I missing. Oh wait, we no longer have Castro as backup catcher and everyone is excited because Avila turns out to be better than Juan in some obscure stat and therefore we are better at backup catcher. I keep thinking of the movie - Ground Hog Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCG2AwzTxA

Well the obvious response is - the easiest signings are those that were last with our team. Welcome back Sergio - you will know everyone on the team when you come back.

Since you have laid out all the conditions that mean pitchers will not sign with us, perhaps its time for the Berrios extension before he has a choice of locations

As I read our reactions to each missed free agent and the excitement of the winter meetings I have come to the conclusion that the FO really is concerned about readership and postings on TD. I mean we have had a "why we should sign him" article about every FA that has been signed so far. Just to be clear - not signed by us. We went from everyone with an arm that has not fallen off to all the hitters who can add to Bomba mania. We debate, we anguish, and we hope. Well at least we read and post. So imagine if we made the first big signing of the off season. Over - done, nothing to talk about. So we wait. Then we get four articles about the winter meetings which actually turned into reports about other teams signings. So we write about how Dobnak is better than we think (how do you know what we think?). Maybe the Twins would sign another level of pitcher - no. Maybe the next level. How perfect an opportunity for our favorite site. If the Twins had not passed on all the players we have heard from we would not be writing about all the FA that we have never heard of. They are FAs? Wow, who cares? Well we do. Gleeman and the Geek get a chance to really dig deep into the pool of possible. We get to anguish and almost forgot we had 101 wins with this same group of players - sorry we did lose Cron, Perez, and Gibson. But now we can talk about the wisdom of Wisler and trading Eddie Rosario - the player we say was not as good as people think he is but we can trade him to the dumb teams who do not know he is as bad as TD writers think he is. So thank you Mr Falvey and Mr Levine.

Rooker, Kiriloff, Raley...I am not excited about adding or subtracting players just to do something. PITCHING is the need.

We have the positions filled (except 1B). Are the Twins supposed to do this just to spend money? Can he pitch?

The FA stars are gone, the dregs are no better than what we have. Remember that Plutko and Civale were outstanding in Cleveland last year - who had heard of them? Lets start working the magic with our own pitchers. Make Thorpe and Graterol into the new Ace in waiting pair. Or Dobnak, Smeltzer, Poppen. Time to stop anguishing over money not spent.

Wow - that is enlightening. I guess all those signing masked this reality.

Wow do the options begin to look bad as we move to this part of the FA season. Of the three Cron, by far. Then it is Rooker, Raley, Kiriloff on my list. Who knows - maybe it will be Cave with Wade 4th OF.

Don't forget Atlanta, White Sox, DC, Angels all made moves too. Baseball will never get to a point where it forces players to be in franchises they don't want other than the draft and six years of service time. Let's just hope they do not do away with that.

Wow are we desperate! Good old Willians (did I spell that right) fills in on lots of levels. If nothing else goes well we can write about the turtle. Yes he is valuable to the FO, yes he is fun to write about. Go Mr Astudillo, because right now the winter meetings are over and we have nothing else to write about.

Yup, we could lose a lot. Our guys are really good. The rest of the MLB teams are salivating to get the Twins prospects! Rule V happened today - Wander Javier did not happen today. None of the players we had available went anywhere until the second round of AAA Rule V when 24. The Tigers took 2B Brian Schales (Twins). So, yawn, another big Rule V day went by and the overall impact was zilch. There were a number of pitchers taken by poor clubs with nothing too lose. Good luck to them and their picks. Oh, by the way, the 26th roster spot did not make a difference.

If Johnson can work magic - use that on Thorpe, Dobnak, Smeltzer, Graterol or any other young arms. We do not need any more Martin Perez types. Use arms with potential and coach them until they are better than the reclamation projects.

When the best is off the table, then the second best is swept up, do we get desperate and jump at the left overs? If we cannot get what we want is it reasonable to say we should get what is left? I cannot buy into that theory. If Bumgartner does not sign with us I can understand. Does that make Kuechel suddenly desirable? The real question is how does he compare with Dobnak, Graterol, Thorpe, Smeltzer. I hate buying out of desperation. The same with Ryu. Why would he sign with us. We are the proverbial bargaining chip. It is the way the Vikings coerced a stadium because the could more to LA. The only question worth asking is whether the free agent we have available has more upside than the players already on the roster. Is the expenditure worthwhile? Dream big, but the train already left the station and we were not on it. So don't pursue free agents just to say we got one.

I know I already commented, but suddenly I realized what the title of this post is and it came to me - how do you know what I expect?

Read the following - I want the best offer I can get so I am going to make sure no one is eliminated from the bidding and then I will take the offer that puts me where I want to be.

Wow is this optimistic. I hope you are right. I will not argue that you are wrong, but I look forward to Dobnak, Smeltzer, Thorpe, Graterol battling it out and hopefully a good pitcher will emerge from the challenge. If it is Dobnak it makes a good story, if it is Graterol we might have a real #1 or #2.

The risk factor does not offset the desires of the players. East Coast/West Coast will always dominate the decisions. Warm southern venues look attractive when we are in FA season and they see our weather report. While I frolic on my snowshoes these players cannot relate.

I like this - it really demonstrates the value of the international free agents to the current Twins lineup.

I tried to explore this in a blog https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11724-%7B%3F%7D/ We have done well with Minnesotans - Perkins, Mauer, Winfield, Molitor, Morris, Goltz, Kindall, Koosman, Hrbek, Steinback... Who is the next great Minnesotan? We better sign him.