mikelink45

As a person who has consistently said prove it I can add this to a lot of decisions that have not impressed me. Which might mean that I am just another fan who does not get it. But this maneuver is one that just does not have anything that even looks like it could be one of those - I guess I knew best - moments for the FO. ​We have had a lot of isn't that clever notes, but this is one of those - it really isn't clever ones.

No.I like him, but we have a roster full of possible extensions and still a lot of holes to plug. Somewhere we need to maintain some flexibility. Keep signing him, but don't make a long term commitment.

I am sure you are right. Like many of the players he had different jobs between seasons, but I think he finished with Coca Cola. Thanks for the note.

Boy were the times different. Isn’t that Lounge singer Denny McLain? Why is Bobby Veach mining for Coal between seasons. When comparing athletes from different generations there so many obstacles that statistics just cannot stand up. When someone quotes WAR for a player from the first half of the twentieth century to compare them with current players I have to believe that the person doing so knows it is a ridiculous exercise. It was not only how they were used in the games, the equipment, training, and philosophy of the day, it was where sports ranked in society. A recent conversation with Author/singer Douglas Wood had us both reminiscing about driving to International Falls and getting our gas tanks filled by Bronko Nagurski, the Canadian born young man grew up in the woods, lumber camps and hard work were common for him and his Ukrainian parents. He went on to be in the inaugural class of inductees in both the Professional and the College Football Hall of Fames and was a giant in professional wrestling, but he was always a small town guy running his own gas station and putting on the gas caps to tight that people had to come back to Bronko’s to buy more gas since no one else could loosen the cap. It is a good legend. But what Doug and I both remember is that parents would want to have their young sons shake hands with Bronko. His ring size of 19 ½ might help understand how you would see your hand literally disappear inside his big mitt. But he was not the only working man professional athlete. We know minor leaguers still get jobs that put them in mainstream society, but this article https://prestonjg.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/off-season-jobs-of-major-league-baseball-players-in-the-winter-of-1958-59/ gives a list of 1958 jobs including Hall of Famers like Eddie Mathews and Early Wynn running construction companies, and Nellie Fox running a bowling alley. What a time that was! No they were not just doing it for publicity. In those days salaries and revenues did not allow for 12 month athletes with personal trainers. Smoky Burgess drove a lumber truck and Stan Musial had a bowling alley and a number of businesses to manage, but during the 1940s he sold Christmas Trees from a lot with Red Schoendienst and other Cardinal stars. Roy Campenella ran a liquor store. Jim Palmer pitched a shut out in the World Series and then sold furniture for the winter. Try to imagine Yogi Berra selling you hardware in a Sears store or working as a head waiter in a restaurant you frequent. Or you could buy flowers at Lou Brock’s floral shop. Roger Bresnahan worked as a detective in the off season. When Waite Hoyt was a young player he worked in a mortuary In the winter and Eddie Plank gave tours of the Gettysburg battlefield. Jackie Robinson made his winter dollars selling appliances and doing barnstorming. And both Willie Mays and Willie McCovey sold cars! Our Minnesota Twins took work seriously too – Bob Allison sold cars and real estate and I would love to have some help filling out the resume’s of our early Twins players.

Obviously now on my Christmas gift list.

I just got down another bottle. The excitement is getting hard to contain.

Okay, I am fine with this, but I hope it is not the signature move of the winter meetings. I hope this is one of those nice assets after signing the guys who we really need.

Wonderful - I will continue to celebrate.

You could be right about what he drank - I was too young then to be accurate on what was in the glass, but I certainly remember him enjoying something - here is a fun video - https://vimeo.com/113401282 - but I have since learned - gin and onions was the Hall drink of choice.

In the swirl of praise for infrastructure work the FO is still way behind in showing me the things I am most interested in - the players on the field. Signing Pineda did nothing for me, the loss of Burdi and Bard and the pick up of Kinley are quite confusing. I hoped some of you with better stat magic at hand could show me why I should have a better opinion of this surge in activity. At this stage, if I understand our not so Hot Stove season - we have hired lots of new coaches and filled more cubicles in the office - but of course we have no metrics to judge these moves. We have Lost Belisle, Burdi, and Bard and added Kinley - which is no where close to break even. Out starting staff got a man who will not pitch in 2018 giving us a wonderful rotation on the DL and minimum expectations for 2019. What other excitement am I missing?

Thanks for the invite. If I do not make it, it is the 110 mile drive not the name!

I admire Sabr, BUT Halsey was best with a cigar, a whiskey, and an audience. I can still hear his laugh in my memory and also the stories that would go from inning to inning until he forgot what he was talking about. If there was ever a broadcaster that was meant for the hot stove league, when they really did sit around the old hot stove, he is it.

Yuch! I am really not excited by this. Maybe we want that Yankee look of Hughes and Pineda in 2019. We rehab and he moves on. If we have not filled out the rotation so that he would be without a position by 2019 the FO will have failed. Lets stop being the clever boys on the block and sign what we need to fill the holes that we have now and develop the young players for 2019.

I am amused by your group name. Having grown up with Halsey as the cigar smoking, hacking, raspy voice behind the old time stories and lots of laughter. It there is someone who does not represent Sabr thinking I believe Halsey would be an icon!

Use the relief arms we have - get a good starter and we will be in good shape.

Thanks for the look at Ben - I do enjoy the popeye comparison! It would be terrific he he is another Mauer type of player who moves up quickly. Especially with Catchers it is nice to see them advance before their legs give in to the squats that they live with. I am recovering from a replaced Knee right now and the physically therapy I do is a tough reminder of what we expect out of the knees. The Popeye arms are great, but the wear and tear of daily games - even just warm ups - is a career damaging inevitability.

YAWN I believe we need a daily reminder that the winter meetings have started because the amount of interesting things that have happened are not setting the hot stove league thermostat very high. Maybe they can retrade Stanton again or introduce him with a different jersey or may Ohtani can talk about hitting and pitching again and again....

I appreciate editors and moderators. This site has become a fun community where I like to dip in and sample the ideas and offerings of both writers and commentators and I appreciate the broad presentation styles and opportunities. ​Thank you to all the TD staff.

We have all heard the complaints (legitimate to me) about the use of names like Redskins, Indians, and Braves professional sports teams. I will not go into the reason these are offensive and the degrees of offensiveness attached to each. What I am interested in is where the Indians are when it comes to the ball field. The photo I have put up with this is from my relatives in WI. I found the following list of American Indian professional players - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/american_indian_baseball_players.shtml. Louis Sockalexis is the first, a Penobscot from Maine, who played in the 1897 – 1899 era and the massacre at Wounded Knee was in 1890 – perhaps the end of the major plains wars. The last acknowledge battle was 1914 in Utah – Ute/Mormon war. So imagine we have an Indian playing baseball in the major leagues and other Indians performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. How crazy is history. Louis was a track and football star like soon to be legend – Jim Thorpe, but his career was derailed by alcoholism, but his athletic feats were still prodigious and if racism did not mix with alcohol he might have been more than a footnote in our history. Erroneously he is credited with the Cleveland Indian name – he played for the Cleveland Spyders. As the following short biography describes he was certainly an influence on the name - http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a Out of 48 American Indian Ballplayers 29 played by the year 1930. The most famous includes Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox nations, who is often cited as the greatest athlete in American History. His greatest fame came when he won the decathlon and the, now defunct, pentathlon in the same Olympics (1912) and recognized as the world’s greatest athlete. He was a star in the Carlisle Indian School where he played football at the highest level as a running back, kicker, and defensive back. He is in the Football hall of fame. His baseball career was less well documented and sad. He lost his Olympic metals for playing professional baseball for the New York Giants and because he did not understand the connection that existed at that time he had given up his amateur status and lost his Olympic medals because of those seasons (which included a world series). As a very poor man from a destitute family he was simply earning the money he needed to survive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe The baseball Hall of Fame includes another famous Indian – Albert (Chief) Bender – the pitcher that Connie Mack said he wanted on the mound for any and all important games. He pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics and distinguished himself as a true Ace. Bender was from the village of Crow Wing, near Brainerd, MN and a member of the Ojibwe nation. Chief Meyers (notice the nickname pattern) was a Cahuilla Indian from CA and played 10 years for the New York Giants (principally) with a nice but not Hall of fame career. Looking through the remainder of the list there are some very recognizable names who are listed as American Indian – Pepper Martin of the Cardinal Gashouse Gang, Rudy York, who starred for the Tigers, Cal McLish, Choctawm who I got to see pitch for the Indians, and recently – Kyle Lohse, Nomlaki Wintun, Jacoby Ellsbury, Navajo, and Joba Chamberlain, Winnebago. Today’s players are seldom acknowledged by baseball for their heritage, it is an important part of who they are. Again, I have no idea what percent their heritage is to make this list. But the point I would like to make is that we have lost a lot of potential on the Indian Reservations due to lots of errors in our cultural wars and from a baseball perspective we have made a mistake by not investing in the reservations to develop new players for the future. We have clinics in the Caribbean, and in South America, but nothing on the major reservations. With the money generated by the logos and teams that carry the Indian culture as a part of their corporate structure, shouldn’t they pay a royalty to the tribes, maybe through scholarships or baseball schools. Out multi-racial baseball landscape needs to include all races and this is an opportunity that has been overlooked for too long.

I understand that and I would not say it is unimportant, but we have no metrics to measure the moves of FO personnel. Right now we know a lot has changed and we hope it is a good change, but when will we know? Until recently there were only 4 GMs in the HOF and I suspect it is because we do not know how to really measure their performance.http://a.espncdn.com/mlb/columns/bp/1399247.html Scheurholtz and Duquette have now joined them, but why? There is no clearcut tool - longevity, winning teams, owners with big checkbooks????????????

Granite's low ranking confuses me. I do not see him as a star, but I do see him as a good major league player. I really liked your breakdowns - good ways to look at the prospects. I would say your tendency to lower your rankings for bullpen pitchers has been justified by all the injuries and set backs that have hit the propects over the last few years. If I could go back to Burdi and Reed postings from 2-3 years ago it would be expected that they are already contributing in a big way. But evaluating relief pitchers is hampered by the fact that many successful relievers began with resumes that include failed starter. If a pitcher gets that tag when they are still young it severly limits their growth options. Now - how about your list and Seth's list side by side?

Wait and see. This is the cosmetic phase. New paint, new parts, but same old car. I have nothing against the new FO, I just have a real hesitancy to jump on the band wagon until I see how their moves work out and more important, what their next moves will be. The on-the-field product is still the TR team.

The only problem that counts is when we have too many quality starting pitchers for the five major league slots.

What would we do without Mauer questions? He is a nice player who used to be a great player, but I do not believe that sentiment is going to stir our new front office. When I see someone suggest Hosmer I just see the same discussions - just a change of name. Neither one is a good signing for the future. Rooker is the only 1B/DH option I am interested in and I could see him making it to MLB at some time next year.

Nothing to lose - it makes me wonder how many players go through our system each year. Without TD most would go without an acknowledgment, but in reality the number that is in the system just looking for a moment in the sun is staggering. My best answer 250 - 300 https://www.quora.com/How-many-baseball-players-are-there-in-a-Major-League-Baseball-farm-system That means there are 10+ players for every major league roster spot.