mikelink45

Young arms. Nothing in this article gets me excited about Belisle. He is just another filler and its time to move on from that to getting the young arms firing. Tonkin has not impressed me. If he nailed the first three batters and then had trouble I would see the over use, wrong use argument, but he just is not reliable. There are enough other players on this team that need to be tested. I prefer Duffey. I also prefer both Berrios and May over Santiago. I want upside, not just okay.

Spring training will be interesting. Will they change any of the drills, will they have a different evaluation system? We have the same pitching coach which does not seem good, the same manager - questionable, but maybe the new coaches will instill some new ideas - if I read the articles right Molitor seems to be open to input. As far as clearing redundancies, that should be the cuts in the Spring.

Expect him to be a Twin. Talk about calculating the odds. A player under performs, gets injured, plays all season in the minors after an aborted MLB career and is owed multiple years and multiple millions when there are other sluggers on the market! Yup, he passes through, and he is still a Twin. Low risk gamble. If he goes the money is off the books, if the stays we took no risks with potential.

Interesting. Not exciting, but at least another name to talk about. They have enough players they can drop that I do not worry about that. Checking stats - the ERA number for the last two years are amazing. Why? His career numbers are really pedestrian - who are we getting? http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/belisma01.shtml

I do not see the value. Jason Stark has an article - Does Baseball Still Dig the Long Ball - http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/18592522/does-baseball-dig-long-ball and it is an interesting read when we talk about these sluggers. Baseball is starting to recognize the need for more complete players. We have sluggers and we have players who know how to strike out. We need players who can catch the ball and players who put the ball in play. Vargas, Park, Carter, Napoli all have the same set of abilities, some have future potential. Why pay more for something that is not needed. Another reader pointed out pitching. That is the place where we need help. And I would take a glove over a bat at this point.

Let's hope so. It seems like other first round picks get more love than ours has. What is Kiriloff projecting to be? Does he have the appeal that other number ones get? I have not seen it.

Since Haley represents our big pitching acquisition I would sure like to see him better than prospect 21 in a mediocre farm system ranking.

This is quite accurate and Seth has set us up to expect this with his reports. It is a real indictment of the previous FO. To have the high draft choices year after year and still have this report is really sad. The reinforcements are not on the horizon.

So far we have not moved forward during this off-season, unless you are bedazzled by Castro, and our hope for moving forward are new, younger players. Loved Morneau back when he and Mauer were both good - they are not any more and bringing him back is a step back. Is there any team in baseball more likely to bring back their former players?

Okay we will be better. We will lose 90 instead of 103. what good is that? Our best chance for improvement is with our young batters, but if they had been better last year we would still have been last. It is the pitchers and better framing does not put new arms on the same old players.

Is it the draft or the development of players? I do not know, but it seems as if there are two aspects to this and based on how prepared for the transition that Buxton, Berrios, and others have been I am concerned about the pipeline for developing them. I am also concerned that we have not put more minority coaches in place. The new hitting coach having a system wide meeting was good and I hope there is some direct follow up. There are a lot of scouting services and a lot of shared information now. If it is the draft and the FO listened to the scouts than a sweeping change might be required.

It is all about approach to pitching. We used to expect 200 innings, it was not an elusive goal, but we began a dramatic shift and what confuses my old mine is that we seem to have more arm injuries in the five man rotation, less inning years than I remember from the 4 man, complete game period. Here are the yearly total innings pitched leaders - note Mr. Blyleven with 271 in 1986 after 293 innings in 1985, and Jack Morris with 293 in 1983. And from 1980 to the beginning of baseball the leaders were routinely getting 300+ of close to it. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/IP_leagues.shtml This Grantland article asks what is happening and starts with: Tommy John surgeries are ripping through baseball at a faster pace than ever before. Twenty-five percent of active MLB pitchers have had the procedure, which reconstructs a pitcher’s torn ulnar collateral ligament, as have 15 percent of current minor league pitchers. Last season was particularly distressing: More pitchers had the surgery in 2014 than in the entirety of the 1990s. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/tommy-john-epidemic-elbow-surgery-glenn-fleisig-yu-darvish/ I must emphasize that this is Tommy John related and now we are seeing a new series of injuries which have not had an operation developed to get them back on the mound. Jeff Passan wrote the book ARM and was on NPR in an interview that I found interesting: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/31/472541597/injuries-increase-as-pitchers-throw-harder-faster-and-younger but none of these answer the question - why didn't we have this many injuries prior to 1980 when pitchers threw more? Of course there were some, but it does not register for me that the numbers match what we have today. I tried to find stats, but could not. Anyway, I find this whole discussion to be interesting and puzzling.

Sorry for the confusion. I think that the Twins not insisting that Polanco play SS in the winter league is consistent with them not playing him at SS in AAA. It is poor player management.

Many players start at SS since amateur teams use their best athletes there, but it then sorts out to finding the best position for their developing talents and body type. By AAA we should have them in the position they will play in MLB

I am anxious for Spring Training and some more to work with. This is good speculation and I have no idea how accurate it is. I did not like the Santiago signing, I do not expect Santana to be as good, Hughes is a big and costly question mark, Gibson has peaked and I do not have faith, today I read, again, that May is going to be a starter. Park, Vargas, Danny Santana???????????????? At least it will be interesting to see what develops, but I do think that your starting lineup is as close to a lock as we can get.

How hard did the Twins try? I suspect that they might have influence if they are willing to push a little harder, but then the Twins did not play him at short until he got to the bigs.

Santana May Berrios Mejia Gibson At least we have the potential to be better. Put Santiago and Hughes in and we might be better this year, but not potentially better - not a playoff contender. Give these players a year to develop - trade Santana at the deadline, put Hughes in the Bullpen with Saniago and move them in when Santana and maybe Gibson are traded. But let the younger guys pitch.

I responded to Brock who questioned my position and I will share with you (a kindred spirit) with this list of Twins wins and losses http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/history/year_by_year_results.jsp and wonder how many stars we can pluck out of this history. I know we have had players like Steve Carlton come on the roster for a short time past their prime, but while they are MLB HOF they did not do enough with the Twins to be on the local HOF. Thanks for your comment.

How many of the recipients can you name? I can't and they do not hang as banners on the lamp posts. I am not mad about this, but I know that every year there will be 1 or 2 more and I cannot see that a team with the record that we have had since I ushered in 1961 has that many stars - http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/history/year_by_year_results.jsp If they choose to add more names I will be fine, just like I look at the MLB HOF and cringe at some of the names I will wonder what it takes to be a Twins HOF member. In the long run it is just something to write about while I wait for the season.

I am not impressed by the Twins Hall of Fame. I am a small hall advocate for Cooperstown and when I look at the quality of the total Twin inductees I shiver. We do not have to have HOF inductees, but if we are just going to name nice guys who once played for the Twins we need to change the designation from Hall of Fame to memorable guys.

I remember the long ago Go-Go White Sox with Nellie Fox and Aparicio starring on a team that featured speed, pitching and most importantly fielding. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-go-go-white-sox-flashback-0914-20140914-story.html Yes they lost to the Dodgers in Four, but the point is that fielding matters. With a very weak batting line up they were still able to win. I would add the Baltimore Orioles who were known for Great pitching, home runs and defense. Contrast Mark Belanger who could not hit at all, but could field at SS next to Brooks Robinson who was a wall at 3B with the potential of Polanco and Sano. Paul Blair wandered the outfield and caught everything. Weaver balanced his slugging, fielding and pitching to create one of the best World Series winners. I know that not every great fielding team wins the World Series, but I also know that great fielding and pitching teams do not lose 100 games.

During the winter the filler blogs often talked of putting Vielma at short because he is such a slick glove (poor bat). Does he rate at all?

Nicely done - I will say that optimism brings us to 95 losses. Your points are really valid. There is a reason that Santana was available to us when he was a FA. Dozier is someone I really want to continue his upward direction, but he is in his 30s, he has only been good 1/2 of each of the last two seasons. I had such high hopes for both Buxton and Berrios that I have reduced the team losses because I think they will turn things around this year. Finally - thank you for questioning the Castro effect. I do believe that framing is not going to make this a good pitching staff and his reputation is going to take a hit. In fact I do not trust the framing stats as they are currently. Throwing strikes really does beat stealing them. His bat is weak and we might be saying - I wish we had Suzuki at bat - a few times this season. Nice essay.

When they decided half way through the season to let TR go and get new FO ideas and energy they were giving the fans who have had six years of suffering some hope. Letting TR go in the middle of the season meant to most of us that change was going to happen in 2016. Well it didn't and even though the scribes all say that the FO should not be paying attention to the fans wishes and do good baseball it would do them well to note that they now have fewer fans to pay attention to. I suspect the Cubs can now come to the stadium and get a home team feeling. We are reminded that baseball is a business. Customers usually rank high in businesses (that's the theory) and the team and the vendors need us in the seats. Which is my ranting way of saying the moves thus far give us little to be cheered about. I am hoping something still happens in ST, but the FO may need to have some open dialogues with their fan base.

Disappointment is the only word I can apply. Nothing against Dozier although I still fear his next slump. And nothing for De Leon - I know nothing about him, except what I read in the TD posts. What I wanted to see was the FO making some things happen. So far nothing that gets me excited for the 2017 season or the next from FO change. I am still waiting and hoping.