Jham

Is Sanchez on the 40 man? It could be that a stipulation was made with Sanchez and or Aybar that a roster spot be held open so they feel they have an actual shot of making the team. Sanchez would need to make the 25 man as well. Polads have 2.5 mil reasons to cut him.

I think the concern about the weight stems from the team's concern. If his bosses weren't concerned we wouldn't be either. At least not to the same extent. The team actually talks to the kid. So public concern from the fo is a thing. Probably not a big thing. But it's there. Way behind the k's but still there.

FTW!

I agree that Mauer has an important year coming up. I disagree that fans and especially posters are overly harsh. First, posters like Mike are using actual stats and comparisons. Granted stats don't tell the whole story. But what does Joe do that doesn't show up in the stats? 2nd, the contract. Of course people are frustrated that by far his best ever season came the year before he signed good contract. He missed April that year. He hit 11 hr in May. 8 or 9 in June. And 8 or 9 the rest of the year. What was he doing in April? 3rd, a lot of what is considered criticism of Mauer is just not agreeing with posts that praise him. Greater than Puckett? Depends how you look at it, but a statement like that is only really asking for Mauer-bashing. I'm sorry, but although I don't blame Mauer for not being a leader, and I personally question whether he's a winner, it does play into perception. Like Wiggins for the Wolves, it too often is difficult to tell whether he cares whether the team wounds or loses. Wasn't his first ever game winning hit last season? Better than Puckett?

First, it's not like posters critical of Sano's shape are cheering against him. They want him to reach his full potential. Same as those defending him. Whether or not weight is a factor, it certainly could be. Wouldn't we want a player with the potential for greatness to give himself every opportunity? Second, strike outs, not weight, is Sano's biggest problem and biggest obstacle. I'd he doesn't solve for k, his eating habits don't matter that much. He'll always be a power only 2 outcome hitter. Finally, people need to stop using the word elite for his bat. And stop with big papi and cab comparisons. It does him no services to compare him to players who were and always were better all around hitters. 30 hr is nothing with the new balls. He had darn well better got 30 if esco is going for 20. Sano has never hit for average. His k rate isn't comparable to anyone from any era. The comparisons only fuel the fire when he can't meet the unrealistically high expectations. If the scoring report was plodding slugger and not future mvp, there wouldn't be this much discontent.

Not at this time. But the Rays did trade for him. Same way I see the twins bringing in kalk and trading odorizzi instead of signing cobb as curious. Could mean something, could mean nothing. But look at their stat lines coming through the minors. Polacios is only perhaps 1 step away from matching the likes of Gordon and adames.

Not from what I've read. Strong arm, good glove, range, etc. He's extremely slight. Alexei Ramirez build. I think sometimes people see that and assume glove first/ only. So I would expect him to gain weight and strength, but I have not heard real concerns that he won't play short. I'm guessing the rays think that they can put some muscle on him, teach him to elevate, and have a shot at a 15 to 20 hr ss.

You need to post more. Human nature is darn fascinating. It makes us incredibly predictable at times. And incredibly unpredictable at times. There is no metric to measure the human elements. And yet we each diligently chase our own best interests. Even if it's just a opinion. The Rays don't get ripped off. I looked at Baseball America's prospect rankings for Polacios, Polanco, and Gordon. Really similar profiles. Biggest difference is that Gordon started as a top prospect, Polanco had to work his way there, and Polacios will need to work on to those lists. Polacios is only a year older and 1 level behind Gordon. His offense had developed similarly. His defense is evidently better. Given Polacios' offensive breakout last year, and the sure route to the bigs for ss being defense, it's actually a little is he's not more highly regarded than the 3 others with defensive concerns (and offensive concerns is say). Lewis, Wander, and Gordon were all big dollar bonus babies and have carried all the hype. But if we had to be truly honest, I'm guessing we'd admit doubts regarding each of the other more highly regarded 6s. Lewis slumped after a hot start and always had concerns at short. Gordon's production finally matched the hype, the hype turned around and finally met his performance. Wander Javier had similar questions about his ability to stick at the position, and much like the others, his bat, while showing flashes really hasn't Terry matched the hype. Meanwhile Polacios has quietly climbed the ladder while out hitting the others, apparently adding the power, and without the apparent question marks regarding the glove. In summation, Tampa rarely loses trades. Though they often trade fairly. After all, their model requires frequent trade partners. And you should post more.

Cobb is available to sign, but we were instead interested in trading for 2 other Rays pitchers. We sign Kalk to run numbers. And in the end we choose Hodor. Could be nothing. Could be significant. Also, I believe Sanchez only helps our depth of he makes the team. Less than 50%in my mind. K not guaranteed, and signed prior to the Hodor trade.

The fact that you consider Jorge Jay and Stewart as reasons for optimism makes me all the more pessimistic. Two failed first rounders and a AAAA pitch to contact guy. I see the draft of Jay (And reed and Burdi) as huge organizational failures. The pick of Stewart wasn't awful, but they're failure to either develop him or correctly scout and market him for trade (along with Kepler arguably) is somewhat indefensible in my eyes. I believe Stewart passed Rule 5 draft despite having AAA experience? Hoping he learns to miss bats is a bad risk.

Why trade against leverage (trade deadline) in order to receive a half season or less of a player when you could have traded for them preseason and had them all year? That said, I can't imagine the Rays trading Archer. The guy is a stud and young and under contract. Unless he demanded a trade and said he would absolutely not re-sign with Tampa, they should keep him and continue to build around him.

I dunno. From what I heard other teams knew not to pick him or he'd have gone to LSU. Twins were basically the only team that could offer him enough money by undersigning on Lewis. I love Enlow. I'd have him as my number 1 pitching prospect in the org. I think he needs to be fast tracked before that spin rate causes his arm to detach at the Enlow.. I mean elbow.

Gonsalves and Romero are nice prospects. They are not Sano, Buxton, or even Berrios or Gibson as prospects. Gonsalves has hardly cracked a top 100 list in his career. Ditto the Romero, although this site seems to hold him in much higher regard than others. These aren't blue chippers. I don't think anyone would bet on either of those two being better than Darvish over the next six years. There's a solid chance that neither of the two will have a season as good as Darvish's worst season over that same stretch. But more to the point, we're trying to win this year. World Series runs take talent and luck. Giving up seasons where you could have enough talent to get lucky is disappointing. I'm concerned that we're gearing up to be sellers at the deadline at this point.

National debt is roughly equivalent to the yearly Gross National Product. Jham's debt is roughly equivalent to 3-4x his gross annual income. Go to law school and buy a house they said. It'll be fun they said. My mortgage lender has assured me I'm carrying a healthy level of debt given the interest rates. So I'm going to say the US debt isn't the biggest economic issue we're facing. It's all relative. Which is the point of this discussion. I still favor early arbitration. Get rid of the incentive to tank and save money. Small teams can still compete as top salaries should come down (as we're seeing already).

Correlation and causation. He throws more sliders when ahead in the count. Higher slider usage could also mean better overall command or taking advantage of the larger strike zone. I'd like to see figures regarding control or number of pitches thrown ahead vs behind in the count

Agreed. The free market has limitations. It can devolve into a race to the bottom. What's most profitable in the short term is often, perhaps rarely the most sustainable in the long run. Too many decisions which tend toward profits instead of fans and the free agency problem will solve itself because there won't be fans, free agent dollars, or competition.

I agree on the disparity aspect. That's why I argued for a revenue share. But rather than a cap which tends to hurt players, a luxury tax and revenue share mandatory spending provisions makes sense to me. Part of what made teams into b Yankee farm systems want that they couldn't compete, but rather they refused to compete. The have not teams engage in a race to the bottom. Fans lose out. Players lose out. Cheap owners pocket extra money and the Yankees who willingly spend don't subsidize the teams that don't. I get that the Yankees can afford to be more aggressive. But they certainly don't have to be. They still push the envelope. And I don't see how arb eligibility changes things for the haves and have nots. Years of control remain the same. It prevents stockpiling of young stars at a discount which is more fair to players, but you can always buy out arb years, and I think it would drive down the price of free agents on the higher side. But I'm not dead set against a cap.

This all sounds great, but voluntarily reducing revenue will ultimately destroy the game. You'll attract worse owners. Teams will not have incentive to build beautiful ballparks, provide world class entertainment, or provide safe experiences for players or fans for that matter. Ironically, the issue we're talking about is one predicted by evil empire emperor himself, George Steinbrener. When the Twins were being considered for contraction, revenue sharing was being discussed. Steinbrener was furious, and called out the Twins ownership specifically. His issue wasn't even that he'd have to pay money to his competitors so they could sign away his players through luxury tax and revenue sharing. Even he could see that a level playing field would be beneficial to the game. His anger arose from the fact that he would have to pay money to owners who would NOT be required to invest back into their team and improve the balance in the league. In short, the Polads were pocketing the revenue sharing money. Same as they pocket the added profits they promised they'd reinvest from increased team and stadium revenue. The market between player and owner will balance itself out. The problem is that the market at the ownership level is incredibly slow to react because there is almost no competition. No one is that rich. Public ownership is an idea. Potentially, a team could operate at break even or even at a deficit as long as shareholders allowed. This would force other ownership to have to spend in order to compete. The problem is, that human nature takes over. The desire to make a profit will still be there. Let's say you bought a $5,000 share, and at the end of the season, you could have a $6,000 share plus a $250 dividend, or have your share go down in value (you paid for the team based on profitability, and through payroll, you've made it less profitable) and sign more players/pay your farm system better, etc. Suddenly, you're no better than the Polads. The other option to achieve your goal of lower fan prices is to expand. You'll spread demand by increasing supply. But that's just another word for watered down. We see that even with implementation of a salary cap. You have no super teams in the NFL. Some might say the Patriots disprove that theory. I disagree. I think the Patriots have taken advantage of the watered down league. Ditto the Cavs and Warriors in the NBA. If players take pay cuts to play for one team, no one can break the bank to compete with them. It's not allowed. We could have 60 MLB teams, and we'd have a lot lower ticket and beer prices. Player salaries would come down. Billionaires would dilute their profits. It may be easier for teams to compete. You'd probably only need 2 really good pitchers and a hand full of average roll players. However, how much of a decline in overall product will people be willing to accept before leaving the sport? If allowed the market would adjust, but not for maximum entertainment value, but rather maximum profitability. But since the league can't feasibly grow and shrink with every market change, we may have to just stomach some market inefficiency. In this case, lack of reinvestment by ownership and wage disparity between players (brought about by the artificially low supply of teams and major league roster spots). I'd support some form of revenue sharing and luxury tax over a hard cap, but teams would be required to meet a spending threshold in order to obtain funds. I would also make players arbitration eligible immediately. Why fight paying players what they're worth? It's the 6 years of team control that is valuable. This should combat wage disparity. Tanking would be less advantageous. FA contracts would be balanced by lower payroll pools and a larger FA pool (teams offering FA rather than going to arb) but also by the fact that FA would be relatively more valuable because of larger buyer pools and internal options having less payroll advantage. You'd get truer values for both FA and for younger players. Finally, I'd give teams and players the option of buying out arb years while players are in the farm system. IE, young players often need more money when they're getting started. Then have more money than they need once established. If you want 3 years of league min. salary, with no arb options (current system) you have to buy those years out before the players debuts.

Jealous much? I'm guessing you want to be paid what you're worth.

That's not exactly true. The Indians actually fell to the Yankees who got lucky in the alcs and lucked out again in the world series.

Margin of error. Buxton could go down for a month. Santana for 4 starts and we cam still finish first or second in the division. Rougher to do so in the east.

Why even follow the team? Click on for the playoffs. There are 162 regular season games. It's a lot more fun when they win. I'm frustrated with playoff losses. But I've always said that summer itself is a lot more fun when the Twins are relevant.

I'd be ok with Bautista. Only because I'm a fan. No other corresponding logic. As a part time player, he may be able to bounce back. And he's a fiery leader. So a little corresponding logic I guess.

1) But if we need 2, signing 1 brings us closer. It also seems unlikely we'd be able to trade for 2 impact arms at the deadline. I'm also not sure we need multiple arms. We made the playoffs with basically the same rotation. We need quality at this point. 2) We all want the Twins to win in the playoffs. Waiting until the deadline limits our options and ability to improve our chances. 3) Are we really lacking a foundation? I'm agreeing with you on everything except on when to start accumulating talent. I believe teams should always be trying to accumulate more talent. He who hesitates is lost. My biggest criticism of Ryan wasn't the moves he made. It was his getting himself in position where he had to make panic signings because he low-balled, burned bridges with agents, built a miserly reputation, and was too tentative early in signing periods. Opportunities lost don't always re-emerge.

Then why not trade now? Why give up half a season? Why not trade last deadline? We talked and talked about trading for a piece that would help for years. We ended up with a 1 week rental that we traded to the team that knocked us out. And we paid the bill ($4.5 mil) in exchange for a kid they were not going to protect. Coulda shoulda woulda. Never a perfect time or deal. I said last year. Either support the core or blow it up. We've wasted 1.5 pennant chases and suffered through a 100 loss season. Sano, Kepler, Stewart, Burdi, Alex Meyer and Gordon have all lost significant trade value. We've wasted at least 2.5 years by sitting on the side line. I really don't want to waste even another half season at this point.