AROG

He was highly impressive, still a little wild in the zone, as evidenced by the couple of hits he gave up. Looked like he was squeezed a little on the outside corner on the walk. The one thing I would have liked to have seen was the slider in the dirt. He threw it for strikes which isn't bad for a get me over, and he kept it in the lower half of the strike zone but can get a lot more swings and misses if he throws some dirty ones.

Aaron Hicks may not have hit that much this year but the talent is there and he is still young. GM's love talent and would possibly trade for him to get him cheap, and besides, Grimm didn't exactly have a good year either.

I think the best option for the Twins to get good young talent is to trade good young talent. Teams like the Texas Rangers are dying for good young talent in the OF and would be willing to give something up for that talent. The two players I had in mind were Nick Tepesch and Justin Grimm. Both are good but don't factor in much in what Texas is doing. They have a surplus of young good pitchers and gaps to fill. The more likely candidate is Grimm but Tepesch may be available as well. What do you think?

I know that they can, my point is that I would rather have a proven commodity at $11 million per year then a completely unproven one. I would rather go after any number of guys then Abreu.

I understand the criticism. The Twins need to get better and do so in a hurry. Would you prefer we spend $11-$12 million on a starter? That and he is anything but a guaranteed thing. No one else, including the Astros who were admittedly trying to over pay for him at $55m came close to the bid the Sox did. Now, they may be able to look back on this in 4 years and say it was the best move. Right now it looks foolish to everyone in baseball. Abreu has a slow bat and may not be even an average hitter. I applaud them not wasting money on could be DH's if they spend it on pitching.

I didn't have time to read all the comments but, the only problem I have with the original post is the "you don't need an ace" part. Where I agree that you don't need "ace" production from one guy, you do need an "ace". Whether he was a former ace like AJ Burnett for Pittsburg or like we had in Hernandez. You need someone with that mentality. The Twins don't have that now and should look for someone that is older that used to be an "ace" that can help mold the younger pitchers.

Sportsmanship being just a losers lament? That is probably what is wrong with society as a whole. If one cannot respect people at a basic human level, why be around them? The game is emotional, when you lose, it sucks. Having someone lord over you their prowess and rubbing your face in it is like mid-evil war times when "barbarian" armies raped women of a village after they conquered it. What gives them the right? The game is monitored by its own and should be. With that being said please understand what I mean by "own". "Own" as in own team. Coaches and teammates should get after players that act the wrong way, not opponents. Throwing hard and in is fine, if it isn't done in retaliation but as strategy to get that specific player out. You don't try to hit or to harm. The game is supposed to be a gentleman's game. Unwritten rules are that way because they should be policed within, not by opposing fans or players. Maybe that was more like four cents, my piece.

An innings eater #4 guy that strikes out people for the normal team is an Ace to #2 guy in MN! So I guess it is based on perspective

You keep Dozier at 2B. He has proven he is very capable there and hopefully that will continue. With Rosario, you keep him at 2B for several reasons. 1) He has proven that he can play a more then capable OF defense and doesn't need to practice there for the sake of practice. 2) Say we get to the enviable position of having to find space for Rosario, having the ability to play MLB defense at 2B and all 3 OF positions make it easier for him to be a Ben Zobrist and find playing time in a lot of places. 3) It dramatically increases his trade value.

Absolutely, and if we have players that are truly deserving of the opportunity and pushing for AB's next year, hopefully he will have a fast start and we can trade him at high value.

I wouldn't make that trade at all. We have more then enough guys that can hit for no power and no average. That was a sluff piece that Seattle got instead of just sending Morse away for nothing.

I think Gonsalves is an easy Top 100 guy. He has shown a lot more velocity then they originally thought he would have. I think that Felix Jorge has a shot at it and I think that Lewis Thorpe has a shot at it but both as fringe.

I imagine the Twins would be willing to eat some to all of the Justin's salary for the right return. Just like they are willing to sign young talent to large signing bonuses. But, why pay $3 million just to have him on another team. If they player they are getting isn't worth that much of a signing bonus then I wouldn't trade for him either. That being said, I would most certainly pay half just to get someone that might contribute to the big league time next year.

That is the area I would like to see TR grow. He seems to still believe that we are a small market team, not a medium market team.

I didn't mention scouting as being left up to interpretation because I felt as if that would be redundant. My post was long enough, I am not calling for scouting only, but a balanced approach which would include more statistical analysis. Do we disagree?