dgwills

I'm all for a 1 year contract with Revere. He'd fit well with the Twins next year.

Years ago myself and 3 coworkers went to a bar in North Minneapolis. It took about 10-15 minutes before we made it through the metal detector and and to the bar. Many people there were giving us odd looks. The bartender told me "You don't want to be here". I thanked him for the advice and we left. I also lived near the Cardinal on Hiawatha and had to take the bus through the Lake street area to work when my truck broke down. It was not pleasant. If you think advising white people to go to a bar in that area is a good idea, you live in a fantasy land. I also did a job at Century plaza in Minneapolis which is the headquarters for welfare in the area. 95 percent of the people there were wearing bulls and bears gear. They certainly seemed happy to be there and everyone on our crew was shocked by what we saw there. This was around 2002, so many of those people are likely your students parents. Now I'm sure that just by relating my personal experiences in the area you think I'm a horrible racist. That's actually not true. I can't even think of a bad relationship I've had with a black person whether it's a friend, co-worker or boss. As far a the black community as a group in the Minneapolis area, I would say they kind of suck though. It's certainly not someone's fault if they're born there though, so I'd give anyone the benefit of the doubt until they gave me a reason not to. Still though, saying that the rest of the community has to go out of there way to appease them is going way to far. Now if you're just sticking to the issue of holding police accountable for their actions I'd agree with the protestors. Cops have had the ability to go way overboard on the use of force for a long time without consequences. This can lead to the death of anyone regardless of race. Unfortunately this is something I have experience with.

I don't think he's on the trading block. There was just some people who speculated that he was due to the poor record of the Marlins. Fernandez is a great pitcher. There's no way they get rid of him.

I used to live south of Tampa. One of the guys I hung around with went to a game at Tropicana and was in the same section as Upton's girlfriend. She was pissed and was yelling "All you do is get *itches pregnant" to Upton. He was in the outfield just looking super embarrassed from what I was told. Anyways.. I would do this in a second if I was the Twins. Takes care of 2 problems and doesn't cost much. I'm not sure if the Padres would. I would also trade Nolasco for Bourn or Swisher from Atlanta for the same reasons.

I really didn't know he was that old. His ops+ last year was 87. 100 for Wieters. If you include defense though Joseph had 2.2 WAR vs .8 WAR for Weiters. I don't think that it's worth the 15 million dollar difference. Only a 1 year commitment though. I can see why they did it now, but I still wouldn't of.

I was surprised they even gave him the qualifying offer. They have Caleb Joseph who's better defensively, cheaper, and younger. He doesn't have as good of a bat, but it's not that big of a difference. There's no way they wanted Weiters to accept that offer. I'm glad he did. That's what the Orioles get for being dicks.

Hicks did have a good year. If you include AAA it was real good. He's just so streaky though and given his splits the value I see is as a good 4th outfielder. The Twins could of used that, but catcher was a huge problem. I didn't like any of the free agents, so I think they did pretty well. There's just not a lot of good or average defensive catchers who can hit at all. Murphy just has more value to the Twins than Hicks did. Walker could make an interesting 4th outfielder in the future anyways.Good analysis. Thanks.

Umm. Maybe the ballpark will take longer? You're right of course. They have some bad contracts to deal with. I do like their pitching prospects.

Looks like they're in full rebuild mode. Personally I think it's the right move for them. Probably hoping to be back in contention when they get that new ballpark. Angels will be looking pretty tough next year.

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.

Trevor Plouffe to the angels for Cam Bedrosian and Victor Alcantara. Or something similar. I don't know the Angels farm system that well.

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 think OBP is the reason we should try to trade Plouffe this year and Dozier next year. If you replace them with Sano and Polanco you improve OBP quite a bit. Of course this assumes Polanco continues to improve which is by no means a sure thing. Rosario really hasn't had a good OBP since his suspension. Considering how he hit before that I think he will end up with a respectable number. Buxton and Kepler should help this stat as well. I haven't given up on Vargas either as he has some good OBP numbers in the minors. Plenty of power coming along as well which the Twins seem to be focusing on. Overall I think we will end up with a good looking lineup for the next few years. What I'm really worried about is the mediocre pitching.

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.

I agree with this. He also has to think that if he doesn't get a good offer it's good to have a backup plan. I have to reply do to your poker reference. I used to play quite a bit and I've had people call me because they knew I was bluffing. Then I'd have still have a better hand. That was always the funniest thing at the table to me.

I said Rosario could play second if needed. This implies an emergency. Oddly in the same paragraph you mention moving Sano to the outfield where he has never played. How is he NOT an outfielder by this logic.

The last thing I want to see is Sano in the outfield, but I have to agree with you about Hicks. To be fair I've never been really high on him though. There's really not a spot for him here. Oddly I've seen more people talk about trading Rosario. Doesn't make sense to me as I think he's a better prospect, not to mention he could play at second if you needed him to.

Well.... Guess this proves I'll click on any link I see on Twins Daily.

Hicks was my biggest surprise as well. I never thought he would be able to hit major league pitching. Honestly I still don't believe it. This year I think Arcia will focus more on being a complete hitter and do well. Kohl Stewart just needs a plus pitch to develop and he should jump back up in the rankings, so I'll include him as well.

I'm pretty close to writing him off. The problem with projecting that is that major league pitchers can throw strikes. He's going to have to have a good year or he's a non-prospect.

This better be a bluff as other posters already mentioned. Moves like this irritate me on my low level softball team. For a professional team it's just ridiculous. If the Twins are serious I think we should start an ongoing thread on why all of the management needs to be fired.