dgwills

I did do a some research on those guys earlier. Every player I looked at had major question marks. Usually game calling/pitch framing. This would include Pena. Unless the internet is lying to me again of course. It's not like I personally scouted them.Our pitchers need all the help they can get. I really wanted Lucroy, but I'm sure the Brewers know his value better than anyone. I also think of Hicks as a fourth outfielder so to me the cost was not very high. He's proved me wrong before though

I read his comments on mlb as well. Honestly I didn't mean to take a cheap shot like that, but now I see that it looks that way. Really what I meant is that he hated Ryan and the pitch to contact philosophy the Twins once had. It was very consistent, to a fault even. I probably agreed with him more often than not. Definitely couldn't beat him in a debate as his research was much better than mine. That's what I miss about it was the information he brought and the spirited debate. Considering how active Puck was it was odd that he quit so abruptly. For some reason it came to mind and I mentioned it.

I understand your point. They are horrible. With Buxton,Kepler, and Walker in AAA I think we're ok with a band aid for a couple months though. Unfortunately Nolasco has negative value. I mean if you traded him for a bag of balls you'd have to throw in 15 million, so you can't expect too much. Atlanta would only do this if they couldn't get anyone to take on those contracts. For the reasons you stated I think that might happen. Personally I think we are kind of wasting Buxtons service time if push him to fast and he has a sub 700 OPS season. I'd rather see him work that out in AAA ball.

I wonder if Atlanta would trade Michael Bourn or Nick Swisher for Ricky Nolasco. They all have similar (bad) contracts. That would give us the a placeholder in the outfield for Buxton/Kepler and it looks like they could use SP depth more than OF depth. They could use Plouffe too, but I have no idea who they could trade us. Hopefully we trade him for pitching as Seth suggested. We could get a reliever from the Angels and they have a few prospects similar to Kohl Stewart. Maybe Cam Bedrosian and one of those prospects would work. Those moves would make the roster pretty easy to fill out. Seth's projection looks good enough for me except I think Buxton should start out in AAA. Santana could be the fourth outfielder or a utility infielder depending on how spring training works out.

I've been bored recently and decided to participate in forums on reddit and youtube. It was terrible. There are a lot of people who refuse to accept any data or analysis that conflicts with their point of view. How many issues are absolutely black and white? If you are completely unable to see any merit it any opposing argument, what value does your opinion have? I'm referring to those forums, not you by the way. I had to stop. I was getting to the point that I didn't believe in representative democracy anymore. Speaking of which, do you remember Puck? I wonder what happened to him? He would go crazy on here with hundreds of posts. He wasn't an idiot, but he was certainly unreasonable.

I think you left out the most likely option that they go with Suzuki and Murphy this year then next year they go with Murphy and someone from farm system or another acquisition. Personally I'm fine with this. There's not a lot of catchers out there and they could of done much worse.

Looks like I'm late to the party. I did read all the posts and nothing I'll add is new, but I'll put in my 2 cents anyways. I really like this trade. I can understand than some people don't and it really depends on what you think of Hicks. I've never been to high on him. He does have a lot of tools so I can see why some really like him. To me he's just had one really good spring training and a good month last year. The rest of the time he has been just dominated at the plate. To me it looks like he just doesn't have the ability to adjust his approach when necessary. I think he's a fourth outfielder and likely out of baseball in a few years. Not that I want him to do badly, but that's the most likely outcome to me. Also outfield is not a position of scarcity in mlb and the Twins have many better options. The Twins desperately needed a catcher. I really wanted Lucroy and would of been happy with Norris. I can only assume that those talks didn't go well due to the scarcity of the position. They probably tried for some of our elite prospects. The other options were terrible. You could pay big money and lose a 1st round draft pick for Matt Weiters who has tons of question marks going forward, no thanks. Every other option was old and played bad defense at a defense first position. The guy we got plays league average defense and is not a complete black hole at the plate. He's also young and can improve. Playing less will help Suzuki and stop his option from vesting. Maybe someone will come up from the farm system to compete, but it will be a while and they are not great prospects. Certainly nothing you can count on. This also gives the Twins a lot more options in dealing with Plouffe. Now that there's not a huge problem at catcher they can take the best offer or keep him if they don't like any.

Tyler Jay sure has accomplished a lot for a 16 year old

Sounds like he was a victim of his own success. He was very lucky his first year and that led him to take a bad approach at the plate. It's just too hard to overlook things that have worked for you in the past. He'll still have value as a 4th outfielder/utility infielder going into next year.

I always liked Morneau, but last I checked Mauer is still playing his position. I'd have to agree with Mr. Bonnes that we have to us the DH position to see what we have in some of the younger players.

Farm system is still looking strong. Walker and Stewart are interesting prospects. Walker has really made no improvement on his biggest weakness, but he just keeps on producing and moving up the ladder. You'd expect a guy like Stewart to strike a lot of people out in the minors. Even without that he has progressed through the system and the other numbers look good. Whatever works I guess.

Horse racing?

I had him in my fantasy baseball league for most of the year. The best thing about him was how consistent he was. Even most elite players have prolonged slumps. Not Duffy. He helped me win the league.

You make some good points. Personally I think signing FA pitchers are a crap shoot. If you have a couple good pitchers it makes sense to try to fill out the rotation in free agency. They had nothing though. The hitters they had were getting old. In my opinion it was time to go into rebuild mode. What I meant about the contract is that they should not let that cost stop them from signing other players. They have signed players to large contracts, so it has not hurt the team in that regard. When you take the contract out of the equation you just have to see if Mauer is the best first baseman on the team. Where he bats is irrelevant. So as long as he doesn't block a better 1b it doesn't matter. You could make an argument that having Mauer caused them to release Colabello, but I don't think that's the case. It could also be argued that he is stopping them from signing a better 1B. That would depend on if they have that opportunity or not.

Absolutely they had to sign Mauer. The Twins should just look at the contract as part of the cost of the new ballpark. It seems they have. Really they didn't waste his prime years, as they had some good teams until they collapsed due to horrible pitching. Not sure what they could of done about that. As long as Mauer doesn't block anyone it's fine having him on the team. That being said, Mauer doesn't change the fact that they have two good 3rd basemen. Moving one to 1st just lowers their value. They're better off trading Plouffe while they can.

I agree with you, but they did help him hit free agency faster. That will be good for him. Of course they risked his chance of being a mlb player by hurting his development. Everything seems to have worked out perfectly for him now.

oh.. well that makes more sense. It's a pretty confusing article otherwise.

I'll agree it's a weak league since I won it last year. It's a basic format for hitters:runs,rbi,home runs, stolen bases, avg, and on base percentage. Mauer only has a chance of doing well at 2 of those categories. Up to 4 if he goes crazy. Recent history does not show that as being a likely scenario. Sorry but he's just not that great as a first baseman. Could of been in the hall of fame as a catcher though. It just didn't work out.

I've never been against Mauer, but he did not get drafted in my fantasy baseball draft. I think that says a lot.

I like Dozier well enough, but I would just hang on to him through arbitration. The Twins will not miss much if he leaves at that point. He is in his prime now.

I also prefer smart people in management, but this has not worked out for the Houston Lastros yet. I think you need to have some balance. Time will tell of course.

Anyone who does not think Hicks is a bust at this point is delusional. Hitting is the hardest part of baseball. He does not have that. Never did. The fact that the has had any success at all says a lot about his work ethic and intelligence. I'll give him credit for what he has done, but he is not a major league baseball player and never will be one.

If Molitor wasn't the front runner the whole time we would all be very happy with this hire. I agree that Kwak nailed it. The thing I like about Molitor is he just seems smarter than Gardy. Managers usually can't win games with their decisions, but they can definitely lose them. If you haven't seen that, then you haven't been watching Twins baseball. I also can not see how having a strong relationship with ownership is a bad thing. Anytime you want someone to spend millions of dollars it's good if they like you. Which he probably will do. He has to care more about winning than anything else. He wouldn't be in the HOF otherwise. That may cause some tension with Terry Ryan though.

I can't believe you threw down the "c" word for that. That's out of control It really doesn't make sense though. As far as Pinto goes, I don't know what I'd do with him. With where his defense is he can only be a back up catcher and bench bat. Gardy doesn't like to play him that way though. The only option is to trade him or get a new manager.

That really is true of all sports. When you enjoy playing in the rain, it's because you love it. Glad you are having fun AJ.