Jham

Referring only to age, not effectiveness!!

I disagree. 38 HR can play at every single position on the diamond including DH. Not only could Dozier potentially move to first or third, but certainly many of the others you mentioned could also move first or third. How long will Cano and Kisler stay up the middle in your eyes?

Innings pitched seems like an archaic and arbitrary way of factoring usage. I mean, assuming most pitchers are on some sort of pitch count these days, a pitcher with fewer innings is probably throwing the same amount of pitches, but with fewer breaks. I would NOT send Gonsalves to the Fall League, and I can't imagine any good coming from it. Not every pitcher fully recovers given a full off season. I'd suggest that a pitcher's arm only has so many bullets. I'd rather he save them for the big leagues.

Ok, for 1, Brian Dozier credits getting his toe down early to the turning point in his career. Having Buxton try it while developing isn't the worst thing. 2nd he still gets his foot down early. He just adds a leg kick before. 3rd, to me the biggest reason for his recent success is his change in approach. He's swinging early and being more selective. Either pitch recognition is better, or more likely, he's anticipating/guessing better. 4 this steak of success is nice but not likely to last. Pitchers will adjust. Then we'll see whether Buxton has really improved past Aaron Hicks.

No comments about Dick's claim that Dozier is a plus defender? Is he?

The Twins and Buxton were/are tinkering with his swing. This is pretty common when a player struggles as much as Buxton has with MLB pitching despite hitting well in the minors. You have to try some things to gain some success and confidence. Whatever works, as they say.

K, yeah, Dozier's value will never be higher... He deserves some MVP consideration on an historically bad club. What a year.

Watching this pitching and defense it's hard to imagine how these teams could be last in the division...

As much fun as it is watching Buxton use his speed, it's pretty fun watching him not use it!

That was an athletic but super slow and terrible tag by jr murph. Come on Andrew!

Insanity seems pretty harsh. "Twin can do no wrong" seems like unnecessary hyperbole. Incompetence gets thrown around more than it should. I could be put into that category, but if you'll allow me to defend myself without labeling me, I'll explain. First off, we throw everyone in the organization into 1 category. It's clear the Pohlads, Molitor, and Terry Ryan were not on the same page. Who knows whether the scouts and minor league coaches agreed on anything. So when guys like Dave say "fire them all", I just think, "some of the guys you are firing probably agree with you..." If Molitor and Ryan and the Pohlads were not in agreement on the roster, who got their way re: which ever transaction you didn't like? How long did the power struggle go on before Ryan stepped down? Did we fire the right guy? Second, I can't agree that playing in the majors makes a mediocre player better. More often it seems it exposes them. Most of the guys we can't wait to get rid of, were once very highly thought of prospects. Why would we want an average prospect to be part of our future? And why on earth would that be the plan? If Garver ends up being a really good player, we should adjust our plan. But he should not be THE plan. Ditto Vargas, Turner, Palka, and any other flawed prospect. It's like we've got all these holes in the dam, we've plugged the holes as best we can, and the proposed solution is pulling the plugs and inserting younger, more optimistic tissue paper. (Dean and Albers are different, that's more like used toilet paper, legit beef there). Lastly, we're asked to blindly cross our fingers and hope for the best by getting rid of somewhat productive players for nothing at all while inserting players with similar flaws. Why would we trade the players with no value for zero return, and hold on to the players with inflated values for less production? But I'M the insane one... It's one thing to gamble on Sano's bat or Buxton's D, another thing entirely to gamble on Sano's D and Garver's everything.

Easy, Gophers are losing at home to Oregon State.

Which part... Mostly I was wondering aloud. I did presume to say Sano's swing was not going to change. I've mostly never seen anyone retool their swing. Dozier's actually 1, Bautista another. I'm not even sure Dozier's swing changed as much as his approach. I didn't follow Dozier's swing when he was hitting .300 with little power in the minors. But you'd assume his swing changed. I would guess the team has tried to get Sano to level out his swing so that he can catch up to high heat, cut k's, and generate more back spin, but from what I've heard, he's pretty reluctant. On a complete aside, I wish I knew why lefties can get away with that swing, but righties tend to need more straight to the ball swings...

Yeah Santana is a tough call. Unless we get a really nice return I keep him. We had a framework in place at the deadline. So we sort of know the market. Have to look up the deal. I mean, there's risks with golding or trading guys. Santana is a really close call. Hopefully it would be a win either way. We went young and left Kenny Rogers out and he made like 3 more all star games. We held on to Blackburn and he turned into a pumpkin. We traded Silva and that didn't work out either way. I'm thinking keep him since our pitching is so thin. Make your moves with Dozier, Polanco, Sano, our Buxton. I would also require controllable upside pitching in return, not necessarily a mlb ready pitcher. IE continue getting younger. I was against a tear down rebuild. And asked to keep the core a month ago. Now I think we probably saw the market for esan and doz and it didn't bring back the necessary return. I think we flip Sano or Buxton for legit pitching prospects, look for progress next year, and make a 2018 push. Santana makes more sense to deal after next season or at the next deadline.

Another question is what is his peak, and when does his value peak...

On top of that. Sano has also always been precocious. He had the body at 19. He was a pro at 16. He has been groomed since what 12? This could be his worst year. He could be peaking. Save his first month in the league, he's looked like a streaky slugger with a good eye, very high ks, and a compact yet loopy swing which generates top spin instead of back spin. The swing won't ever change. He'll hit the roof of stadium he plays in, but fewer seats as result. Dozier has an outside shot at 40 hr from 2nd base. I just don't know if Sano will ever have that in him...

Not next year, the next 5. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that sano is at our close to his peak. If we get Dozier like production from Sano we'll be ecstatic right? Or we got Dozier like production from Dozier. For a little while... right now Dozier is much more useful. Next year probably. The year after probably. 3 through 5 meh. So what if Dozier can only bring back a Mike Fiers, but Sano can bring the next Arrietta. Then who do you deal?

6 call ups, no Palka... 31-32 man roster seems a little extreme to me. Let em finish the playoff run. I'm beyond caring at this point.

Well I'm not convinced we're going to get 2 good years from Gibson, Duffey, May, or Mejia. I'll take Santana's next 2 seasons over any of theirs. And if I'm wrong... is that really such a bad thing? If our socks are blowed off by an offer, cool. If not, this year has proven one thing: getting younger does not necessarily mean getting better; better now, better ever. Speaking of... Important question. who has the better 2017-2021 Miguel Sano or Brian Dozier? Who will make more money over those 5 years? IE if you could only keep 1...

Yeah, but I've been on the consider trading Sano or Buxton side of thinking before, and it's so unpopular that i understand why someone would rather not go there. I think you guys hit the nail square. Trade for immediate pitching, or trade for future pitching. I've said we should consider both options and take the largest return. See where we sit then, and adjust our timeline accordingly. My sneaking suspicion is that sano brings back the most franchise changing return... if nothing we offer brings back a haul, I'm not sure what we can do. Ride out another season and cross fingers on gonsalves i guess.

Nick, I appreciate your well written article and thought you put into it. But you can see the issue with framing we have. 3.35 ERA, 1.32 WHIP are fine numbers for a young reliever. Well then what did the Twins do wrong? That's the difference between my statement and the premise of your article. We can disagree as to whether Tonkin is successful or unsuccessful (see my Sano numbers above). But there's a big jump from saying Tonkin is or isn't successful, AND the team is to blame! I offered an opinion (opinion as fact if you want to take it that way), but I didn't draw any even broader conclusion based on that opinion. Perhaps that's my issue more than opinion stated as fact. It's opinions drawn based on other arguable opinions... It just makes the arguments incredibly cumbersome and unwieldy. We can cite stats regarding whether Tonkin is good or bad, but you can't cite stats to combat an opinion of the Twins made a mistake making Tonkin pitch more than an inning.

You see, it's difficult to quote stats regarding whether there was any plan (my original post) or whether a decision is "bone-headed" (your post). So I'll state again, be as critical of the results as you want, but don't assume causation. People assume that every decision regarding the team was Terry's. They assume that the reason Tonkin has had little success was his usage. They assume May's back was injured due to relief pitching. They assume Sano's "struggles", if you want to argue he's struggled this year, have been RF related. I'm not arguing stats, which is why I haven't quoted stats. I'm arguing using those stats in order to outline an agenda. So, for example, Sano hit 11 HR in 38 games, 159 PA in right, 5 in in 30 games, 138 PA at 3rd. .864 OPS compared to .795 OPS. Those are facts via Fangraphs. I could say, hey we should move him back to right field. I could also say moving him out of the OF to 3rd messed with his hitting. I could go further and say that moving him to 3rd was a bone-head move. But alas, the stats don't tell the whole story. So I won't infer the causation. There are a multitude of arguments in both directions, and I sure to God hope our new GM isn't as quick make judgments as Leviathon, no offense. I just prefer a more cautioned approach, but I appreciate your fire and resolve. And if you think I'm relying to much on the Tonkin thing, I don't think you've read any of my posts. My beef is with the pitching in general. I think any other criticism threatens to distract from the enormous issue we have with the rotation and lesser extent bull pen. I've challenged the impact of May's relief appearance on his health, I've challenged whether Park or Plouffe changed the needle in either direction at all. So I'm not cherry picking Tonkin. I used Tonkin to point out that the article seems to be searching out additional reasons to bash the team, when what I perceive as actual problems lay right there in front of us. Last post about Tonkin. Promise.

You've somehow highlighted and missed my point at the same time. What opinion did I state as a fact, again? I believe I stated that the criticisms are fair. What I disagree with is the using opinions as fact, which then obviously leaves no room for debate, discussion or disagreement. 1 side is right, the other wrong. And this is exacerbated by emotional responses and raw nerves that come from losing 2/3 games. This is precisely when you need clear heads and not snap decisions. In my opinion, we need to fix the pitching staff asap. I guess I did state this as a fact, but no one has disagreed with that part. But really, a lot of the criticism amounts to choice of the color of paint in the guest room, when there's a hole in the roof and water in the basement. I'm questioning the productivity and focus of the article is all. Plus, NIck and others make valid points that can easily be glazed over because of the unnecessary attacks. IE counterproductive. We all want the same thing.

Is Moli on any kind of job watch?

1) Do you even really believe that? 2) For a third time, my problem with the article is the stating of IMO ridiculous or at least arguable opinions as facts. 3) You have to pitch at least 1 inning to pitch multiple innings. Tonkin has had 3+ years to prove he's anything more than Jason Kubel's brother-in-law. He hasn't succeeded in any role.