mikelink45

That is really depressing.

Okay it is August and the Twins have kept us around and speculating since Spring Training. Who will be cut, what FA will be brought in, will the minor leaguers get a chance, will Dozier's 1/2 year of brilliance begin soon? Are we buyers or sellers, who will be our all-star, will anyone take our deadwood at Trade Deadline. Now what? The Twins are 9 games back in the Central and perhaps even more telling they are 13.5 back in the wild card. At 49 - 57 the Twins now have 56 games left. Being just an 8 fame winning streak from 500 what are the chances of strong finish? Yawn - does it matter. The new acquisitions are ready to contribute to the big club in about 5 years, the best players in the minors in 2 years. The Twins still have Belisle taking innings. Why? They still have slugger Morrison and his 193 BA taking regular ABs - Why? I believe DFA was created for these two. Any reason that Romero and Gonsalves are not in the rotation for the rest of this waste year? Is there some logic that it is better to go with Belisle, Rodney, and Reed than some of our minor league arms? Is there any reason Rooker should not get a preview rather than Morrison? Is there no one in the minors who could benefit from removing Wilson at Catcher? Other than seeing new talent and getting a preview of better times what does the rest of the season mean? I know the Vikings are about to start playing exhibitions that are even more pathetic than our chances to catch Cleveland, but at least there are individual goals for the players on the Twins. Or we can watch Thibodeau in daily debates with his best player as we wait the highly anticipated (cough-cough) Timberwolves, or switch over to the 8th place United. Maybe a trip to the lake, a walk in the woods (my choices) are the best choices. Meditation about what it means to be a Twins fan. Our all-time record puts us 101 games below 500 - maybe that is our destiny. The state parks await. Or the state fair with everything on a stick can take away our baseball blues. A concert or two, or a trip to the minor leagues to see what the young Twins look like (and please do not repeat that we have built up our minors so we can use them for trades). Look for hope before the leaves turn, the wind shifts and the flakes fall. We know that there are a lot of fans with the same doldrums. Most of them entered the season without hope and that is the hardest part. Baseball is such a tease. And, of course, there are the teams like the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees that should be put in one division so that they can beat each other up and give the rest of us a real chance. Enjoy the sunshine, harvest your garden, check Twins Daily for new stories and let the radio put the Twins in the background while you sit on the deck and remember what a gorgeous place we live in.

I noted that Molitor in his conversation covered for Belisle. Lucky hits! Right. The saga with May has made me laugh for years. How many columns were touted about this high velocity guy who should be a starter, but wait he is a great reliever. So much hope, so little delivered. He has a career 0.2 WAR and a 5.16 ERA and a 1.43 WHIP. Did he deserve the promotion over other relief arms in the system?

I hope not. Houston put the team on the MLB field before doing trading. They let the cream of the system rise and get in place, then filled in. Since we have an under-performing and decimated MLB, these players are where the real baseball fan has turned and it is tough to watch them get handed out like popcorn to bring in rentals and old guys.

Yes - this is a long list. I hope for the best, but I worry that we have more movements around the edges and not direct action where it is needed. FA are never the answer for me.

Or he is a clone of half season Dozier

At least we did not get Jose De Leon

I am confused. He got on, but got picked off. He got is daily does of special K. It was not a bad day, but this is the start and I will be inspired when he starts hitting the ball hard and has consistent contact over a length of time. I have been through the Sano and Buxton script too long to not be skeptical.

Buxton is one of the saddest stories I have seen with the Twins. How did he get so lost? Will he come back? Who can be his mentor? With all the coaches we now have maybe there were too many messages

Dozier has been a net loss for the year. He should have been on fire for FA, he should have been leading the club, but he has struggled even beyond his normal half season splits. Dozier has value here because he is a known quality and we all tend to over value our own assets. But as an upgrade for anyone, he is not making it happen and giving up anything for him just makes no sense. Including for the Twins. If we need Adrianza and Polanco to team up in the middle next year we will be fine. Eventually Gordon will be there and then Lewis will be up and either Gordon or Polanco will be at second. Dozier is 1.1 War and Ehire is 0.5 WAR with less playing time. It does not matter what Dozier did in the past, right now he is not essential to this team or anyone else, but maybe we will get lucky.

I am amazed we got this much. It is amazing how pitching sells - for me none of these players is as valuable as Escobar, but his return was not as much as I would have liked to see. Now if we can continue to move down the list with Lynn, Rodney, Odorizzi, and Belisle it will be great.

Speechless.

This is awfully early for malaise to set in, but we really only have trades, Rosario, and Berrios to make the Twins enjoyable. I saw that AZ was looking at Dozier or Escobar - why didn't we make them choose Dozier? Does Sano look better striking out with less weight? Was that the adjustment - 3 out of 4! This team just is not attractive to a fan except for the two I listed and Gibson. The FO has talked a lot and now has 4 new players in the top 30 prospect list - http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018?list=min But what about the majors? I keep looking for a hook that will be the theme for the rest of the year and keep me watching, listening, caring. One more final thought - we added more prospects, but we have not figured out how to make prospects into productive major leaguers so how does it help to have more prospects?

Let's hope! He went with a good attitude and lots of pounds, now he is back with a good attitude and fewer pounds. I look forward to progress. At least he is on the field while out other prospect is in the minors and on and off the DL. I want them both back and producing so I can have hope for 2019.

I feel like typing Rosario another 24 times because he is the highlight of our roster and I am not sure what to look at next. It would be great to see your colored reliever chart for the entire year. It seems to me that Molitor gets into a groove with one pitcher and just rides him into the dust - game after game until failure. At the same time Magill is a maximum puzzle. His results have been decent, but he does not pitch - the complete opposite of old friend Belisle. Of course as I look at Molitor for this I believe we have a bench coach, a pitching coach, an assistant pitching coach, an assistant coach in charge of metrics, and a bullpen coach - all of whom might point this out if they are doing their jobs. Six starters, 2 bench, I have been confused over roster management all year. The bench has been a disaster, the handling of minor league arms is a puzzle. Now I expect Sano at 3B so I guess that fixes the lineup?

I think 7 - 8 years is really pushing it, but 4 -5 would still be great and we know they will want the veteran to mix with the young arms. Let Gibson be that player. So far the trades are for arms and OF. Not sure what that strategy is considering our OF talent, but for now, let Gibson stay and get rid of the Belisle and company trash heap even if it is a DFA.

Shocked - no one claimed Taylor Motter for their pennant run! I hope that when the dust settles the team can reconfigure the prospect list with these new additions to the system. I am curious where they will fit in comparison to our current prospects. One last question - what did Sano do to earn the call up?

Maybe we should have the Twins rotate through our minor league affiliate stadiums and have those teams play in the Twin Cities so we can see that future. Escobar and Pressly were productive and will be. I can understand why no one wants the players we want to get rid of. But if the FO can package some deadwood and send them away I would be glad.

Escobar was one of my fAvorites and I can understand why he was the first Twin taken. I would love to see him continue to blossom.

Great to see prospects playing up to expectations and some exceeding them. With Sano/Buxton/Kepler/Garver not meeting our hopes we need to continually find those who might go all the way with their talent.

I appreciate the essay even though I think you are too soft on Falvey and Levine. Your concern about Buxton and Sano is significant. They were the two building blocks we looked at for salvation during our last Gardy years and to have both fall flat is devastating. Yes we can point to Lewis and Kiriloff and Brusdar and Rooker, but they are just prospects at this stage and we cannot count on them the way we did Sano and Buxton. There are bound to be disappointments and injuries. Our core is still good, but catcher needs help and I think playing Garver almost every day the rest of the year is the way to develop his skills. We also need to start thinking about a balanced bench and fourth outfielder until Kiriloff takes Kepler's place. Is Cave the answer if Buxton stays injured? Who will take Dozier's place next year if Gordon continues to struggle? Jump Lewis up and hope we have a young Griffey who can handle the pressure? Who plays 3B if Sano continues to fail, gets injured, gains more weight? If Escobar leaves as a FA who is next for the hot corner? I do not see that player in our minors. Does Rooker take Morrison's place next year - not a high bench mark to make. What if Mauer does leave - is it Sano at first? I have really come around - very slowly - on Gibson and he can be the veteran on the staff with Berrios, Romero, Mejia, Gonsalves. Will we use our young relievers and let them get established? Or will we continue the merry-go-round and sow more confusion. Who analyzes all the coaches - not just Molitor - and decides if we have the right people in place? If 2020 is the target what about 2019?

This is an error on the Twins FO/Management. Catchers develop over time. But not on the bench. Tell me that Mike Piazza was great at framing. Here is a good interview with Brad Ausmus on the difficulties catchers face. https://www.npr.org/2011/08/18/139649031/covering-the-plate-a-baseball-catcher-tells-all Garver has the tools, he does not have the experience, and in this worthless year it would be good if he was given the opportunity to develop his talent behind the plate.

The more I think about what I have observed the more I think that there will be almost no movement at the trade deadline. I think most of us will be quite disappointed. I also hope my prediction is wrong.

How does Gordon's struggles impact the Twins Dozier decision? Could Royce Lewis pass him?

I really liked Seth's take. Ten years from now there better be a change or America's National Past Time will be on the list with Hockey, Rugby, and LaCrosse as "other sports" and I hope to still be alive so do not let that happen. I have lived through the integration, the expansion, the PEDs, and not the metric revolution so I know that change is inevitable. What I hope happens is that some stat pusher in a backroom office suddenly has a eureka moment and realizes that 150 years of baseball was not wrong to emphasize the starter. That a poor 7th and 8th by a good starter is better than a parade of peripatetic relievers. Go starters - wins do matter. Then they will replace poor eyesight with a computer and make strikes into strikes while at the same time getting rid of this nonsense called framing which is in fact fooling the umpire. Then we can get catchers who can concentrate on fielding, offense, and calling the game. Then someone will discover that we have been making this game into a relief pitcher contest which is as boring as basketballs foul the big guy last three minutes and we will limit the teams to three relief pitchers per game. Teams will pay for OBP, steals, runs scored, bases advanced and let the HR slugger learn how to play the whole game and not just isolated swings. Maybe a courageous team will take up Whitey Herzog's mantle and run its way around the shifts and big K teams and demonstrate why they may have been right to have Coleman, Brock, Henderson, Wills...And to be even more outrageous a fast runner, like a Byron Buxton, will bunt for a hit every time there is a shift.