mikelink45

I would not be excited about his ST invite. With all the arms needing work, we always have extra catchers around - lots of them. I think some marginal catchers have made a career of ST catching. Here is an example from 2016 Catchers (5) Name Pos 2016 Age Juan Centeno C 26 MLB Mitch Garver C/1B 25 A+ Carlos Paulino C 26 AAA Alex Swim C/1B/OF 25 A+ Stuart Turner C 24 AA

Interesting - obviously Cody has a lot of surprises in his list since two players would not be in the top 20 and two are barely in. But I was most interested in the wide spread over Littell. I have had the feeling that he is AAAA and is a tease for the team. When I see 18, NR, 11, 14 it would seem that he is a mystery for your group as well.

I believe there are lots of good managers, acceptable managers, but few great ones. I believe in a full coaching staff of quality people to prop up the manager. I also believe that the FO needs to provide better players and especially better BP options than they gave Molitor. Good luck Rocco. The real key to a manager is maintaining a positive attitude with the team. https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11320-our-managers-the-twins-through-history/

I have watched and rooted for LaMonte for the last couple years, but I honestly feel he will make it when he is with another club. I think Cave is number 4 and they never really considered Wade. Then Kiriloff comes up and Wade continues to be pushed down. I am sorry about this, but maybe he is a good trade chip.

I share your concern. I do not see Sano, even if he ups his game, staying at 3B for years. We need a fall back.

Is he moving up fast enough to take the Buxton spot if Byron does not reach his potential?

Maybe we should be talking about Pineda instead of Romero for the bullpen. And Perez can join him there.

I was caught up in Dave Schoenfield's article about which teams have the best chance to return to the playoffs from those who were there last year. When I got to the section on the Indians, it read more like an article on the Twins.http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25870218/which-2018-playoff-team-most-likely-miss-year Schoenfield said, "Maybe the most frustrating comment from a front-office executive this offseason came over the weekend from Minnesota Twins general manager Thad Levine at the team's TwinsFest. Asked about Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, Levine answered: "My view ... for doing it is the best time to acquire players of that magnitude is when your window to win is wide-open. Not when you've got your fingers underneath the window and you're trying to jam the window open. I want to do it when we're projected to win the Central and we're ready to put our foot on someone's throat." So, don't sign a star ... unless you're already expected to win the division? Not that Machado and Harper want to sign with the Twins, but no team could benefit from adding a player of that magnitude more than the Twins, who are trying to chase down Cleveland. The Twins have some strong rebound candidates, and the other three teams in the division are bad. Minnesota did add Nelson Cruz and Jonathan Schoop, but imagine Machado or Harper anchoring its lineup." So when do you add a great player? My thought is that you add them when they are available. Do you see any 26 year old stars lining up for next years free agency? As the article states, they might not want to sign with the Twins, but among agents and Free Agents, I think our position is pretty obvious and not very inviting. I still see last years Darvish sweep stakes as more of a show than a real effort (and we are lucky that is all it was). Puckett's Pond rates Brian Harper the best we have ever done. https://puckettspond.com/2011/11/03/best-twins-free-agents-ever/ Twinkie Town gives a depressing recap of Free Agents and Trades https://www.twinkietown.com/2016/7/6/12101434/where-the-twins-have-gone-wrong-a-history Rett Bollinger says Molitor was the best Free Agent signing we have ever made; https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/paul-molitor-is-twins-best-free-agent-signing/c-214194398 I remember when Shannon Sharpe was traded for and made a big difference, when we brought in Chili Davis, and Torrii Hunter to push the other players. Maybe that is what we are doing with Cruz. But the real question is - would you sign Harper or Machado if they were willing to come here? Or would you tell them to hang out for a year or two until we are a better team?

I have a difficult time evaluating players values - especially in a trade like this because we have been raised by TD to see Kiriloff and a future HOF player and who wants to trade such a great player? Of course I also have to wonder what Realmuto's value over Garver/Castro really amounts to. Then I look at Mauer and Posey and think about the catcher position and the wear and tear it takes. We see a few players seem to defy aging, but for the most part catchers wear out and take different positions. When does that happen? This 2015 study gives some insight. https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/01/02/what-baseball-player-prime-age/mS39neFWm4hrVukT6lSYuK/story.html This 2017 article adds more perspective although it does not look at the catcher position https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/what-age-do-baseball-players-peak/ And finally, here is an aging curve for catchers https://blogs.fangraphs.com/catcher-aging-is-a-curve-not-a-cliff/ We would buy Realmuto as he is rising, but pay for him on the decline. Will Castro get 2 WAR again, will Garver improve on his .9 WAR? That is a lot to think about.

I always hope for the prospect that refuses to be sent out, the one who is just so good he breaks the barriers and goes north.

I look at your grades and the one that sticks out is the coaching. In theory they may be A's, but lets give them an incomplete until they show us something. Alston was going to make the pitching better and Pickler was going to give us the on-the-field stats and both are gone. The hitting coach had worse results than the pitching coach last year and the pitching coach was the one let go. I cannot judge any of these hires because I personally lack the information and ability to judge them, but I have been reading about great hires, new managers who were really going to turn things around, new coaches who could really relate and in 65 years of rooting for teams and trying to page attention - I was too young before that to count - I have heard more stories about how the new guy will make all the difference to pay any attention anymore. I mean I heard how the new FO was going to spend the money and make us so much better. That is why I wrote my blogs about hitting coaches - https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11336-hitting-coaches/ and pitching coaches https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11326-minnesota-twins-pitching-coaches/ all of whom were going to be great when they were hired and I still cannot tell if the failed or succeeded.

I love Berrios and his enthusiasm - you can see it when he pitches. The FO has not won me over. After the first year I was told that they did not have their guys in place, just wait. The second year they were putting their guys in place and now many of their guys like Pickler and Garvin are not around any more so we made more adjustments. Now they have their guys, they have available funds, and they have gone for flexibility. I am still not in line with them, not even a little bit at this point.

Actually I am in agreement, if I can get over the helpless flailing that I still picture with Buxton. I loved the Go-go White Sox of Fox and Aparicio that won on great fielding and good contributions from a below average offense, and also the period of Whitey Ball with Ozzie Smith and Lou Brock in St. Louis - run, field, pitch. Great ball clubs and I would love to see a team do that now.

Polanco 3B is what my foggy crystal ball projects for the future.

I believe scoring runs is still the best way to win. I love defense, but without offense nothing works.

I think that the Twins might need to steal this name. The fans are blue after years of failure, but every little blip they want us to go Wah Hoo.

I do not care what Buxton and Sano will be! I want a team that wins. I want a roster of big league players and if the three year superstud prospects come through, great, but if we are just waiting than maybe the fans should wait and buy tickets when the prospects come through. Year after year it is if Buxton and Sano.... Put a team together and when Buston and Sano arrive they will ride with talent to a title. Has this front office hypnotized us? Are we all waiting for the illusionist to mystify us? This is professional ball. That means that the teams are supposed to be playing for the championship. If Sano and Buxton had come through last year we still would not have been in the World Series. Quit being Minnesota Nice. When we stink, we stink!

ESPN must have looked at its stats and found that the Minnesota audience has fallen asleep so why not try to wake them up with some outlandish speculation. Nice try, but I am going back for my nap.

Haven't I read this essay before? Last year? The year before?

Today we have turned to the Dominican Republic like we used to look to Cuba. Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, Alaberto Mejia, Michael Pineda, Jorge Polanco, Fernando Romero, and Ervin Santana. We also have three from Venezuela. Perhaps the best way to get past the border wall is to hit a ball over it. In the past it was Cuba that was the birthplace of ballplayers. In the 1930s, Cuba like the rest of the world was trying to fight the depression and Cuban baseball, a main stay of their nation and a feeder system for baseball elsewhere was hurting. President Gerardo was overthrown and the dictator Bautista came in to power. The Cuban League was hurting but this winter league had talent - Cuban native Martín Dihigo and Negro League stars Ray Brown, Ray Dandridge, Josh Gibson and Willie Wells. Then after a 1947 agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues American clubs sent their top prospects across the Gulf of Mexico for more seasoning in winter ball. Minnie Miñoso, Camilo Pascual and Zoilo Versailes, Negro League stars like Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe and fresh-faced American prospects Jim Bunning, Tommy Lasorda and Brooks Robinson created one of the most stacked collections of baseball talent anywhere in the world. This was Cuban baseball and to Cuba, it was not the winter league, it was the major league with four teams all playing in the same stadium and competing for the national championship. But, of course, history and politics intervened, and a different dynamic took place. Our most important Cuban connections were probably in our very first years as a Twins team when Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Zoilo Versalles and Tony Oliva made our Cuban Connection. They were lucky to get out of Cuba before the two countries became such enemies that a player could not sign and leave. Lucky for the Twins or the 1965 World Series would not have happened. Tony's father was a cigar roller in Cuba who promoted his sons movement to the US to play ball. On his immigration papers he was listed as his 18 year old bother Pedro instead of the 21 year old Tony. He came over and changed his middle name to Pedro. He came to the US during 1961 spring training and had 7 hits in 10 at bats in the final three games of the spring, but the Twins decided their rosters were full and let him go. Luckily he went to Charlotte to train with a friend and the Charlotte GM, Phil Howser, called and convinced the Twins to sign him. He led the league with a 410 average. Versalles was signed in 1958 – before the Cuban revolution. Camilo Pascual was in US Professional Baseball in 1951 and Ramos by 1955. All of them missed our hatred of Cuba and the communist government. Cuba has also contributed to the HOF with Cepeda and Perez, but has great stars like Canseco, Pascual, Campenaris, Palmeiro, Luque, Cuellar, Minoso, and Tiant ( a Twin in 1969). In 2014 a Twins Daily post looked at all the Minnesota Twins Cuban players – ”Once upon a time, when I was young, the Twins were a team that had a lot of Cuban players. In 1961, six Cuban natives saw time on the Twins' roster, including All-Star Camilo Pascual and future MVP Zoilo Versalles. In 1962, two more Cubanos played for the Twins, one of them being Twins Hall-of-Famer Tony Oliva. All of these players left Cuba before Cuba was closed off to the US by Castro. In recent years, the Twins have had only one Cuban-born player, Livan Hernandez, who lasted less than a year as a member of the Twins' rotation. Here is a list of all Cuban-born (169) major league ballplayers:\ http://www.baseball-...ce.php?loc=Cuba Here is my unofficial list of Cuban-born Twins: Julio Becquer, Leo Cardenas, Bert Cueto, Livan Hernandez, Hank Izquierdo, Marty Martinez, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Jose Valdivielso, Sandy Valdespino, and Zoilo Versalles. All of this brings us to the Twins' newest acquisition, Kendrys Morales. He had been in the US long enough that I had forgotten that he was a Cuban defector. He would be the first position player from Cuba to play for the Twins in almost 40 years.” By stringer bell The revolution was understandable – Bautista was a terrible man and a terrible dictator and Castro was an unknown. “We heard bombs going off and we knew (Fidel) Castro was in the mountains, and Bautista was there,” said Brooks Robinson, a member of Cienfuegos in the winter of 1957, in an interview with the Hall of Fame, “but we would have a bomb go off in the city and then one went off behind the ballpark one time, so we knew there were some things happening.” https://baseballhall.org/discover/hall-of-famers-played-in-cuban-winter-league The Hall of Fame website recounts an part of Lasorta’s memoirs – THE ARTFUL DODGER, “When Castro took over the city on the first of January, me, Art Fowler and Bob Allison came out of a New Year's party with our wives, and it was 3:30 in the morning and I look up and three planes were flying overhead,” said Lasorda. “I said ‘Geez who in the world is flying at this time at night?’” The planes were carrying Batista and his cabinet as they fled the country. Then, Lasorda ended up having his own brush with Castro, when the new leader – a noted baseball aficionado – asked for a meeting with Almendares' star pitcher. “Howie Haak, the scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was with me at the time,” Lasorda recalled in a 2008 interview with Newsday, “So I said, ‘Come on Howie, you come with me.’ When we went into the Havana Hilton into his suite, Howie couldn't believe it. Castro was waiting to talk to me. We talked baseball. And Howie enjoyed that, as I did too. Everybody thought that he was the savior of the country. “When Castro came in, the people were celebrating because they thought he would be good for the country, and so did I,” Lasorda continued. “I found out I was wrong. I wanted to get out of there, but we continued playing baseball after the strike was over. It was a gorgeous country, until Castro took over.” Yes,, that was our Bob Allison, the muscular and talented outfielder of the Minnesota Twins. Following the revolution we found out that we could support a terrible dictator – Bautista, but not a communist – Castro, and so we entered a time when good players in Cuba had to turn to shady characters to get out of one country and into another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_players_who_defected_from_Cuba - many of them are still active and thankfully may be the last to have to go through this political nightmare. The Twins have not had as many defectors as other teams, but Livan Hernandez and Kendry Morales both had a brief time with the team. Now MLB has a new accord with Cuban baseball and hopefully the flow of great players can escape the wall and politics and we can again enjoy the best in the world in our own leagues.

Great essay and so accurate. What is the move that lights the fire under the fans who are waiting for hope? Surely not anything so far and the Free Agent list no longer looks like it has pitching to help us and that is what we need.

I agree, but those arms are already signed and we watched it happen. The bottom of the barrel is no better than Moya, Mejia, Romero, Littell, DeJong and all the other potential arms we have. Lets see the new coaches and system put our own players in position to succeed..

If we are to have faith in this FO their major moves (not signing players from the dust bin) is in putting together better coaches and a better system. The next logical expectation is that those coaches and the system will put our players into a better position to succeed. J T Chagois got a .2 WAR for the dodgers last year. Rosario got a ,3 WAR with the cubs.Nick Burdi had a -.2 WAR with the pirates. Ryan Pressly had a 2.2 WAR with the Astros. Maybe the problem is not in the quality of the Twins, but in the perspective of the FO. It will be interesting to see what Curtiss does. Here is a Strib article about former Twins - http://www.startribune.com/years-of-using-an-average-of-50-players-have-littered-major-leagues-with-former-twins/498267081/ My premise is that it is better to make our current pitchers better than to spend money and time on pitchers who have already established a low performance record.

Sarcasm is welcome at this point

The post was made by his mother'