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?

I feel like I will leave two cents. The Twins do use advanced metrics. That is obvious. Do they use them enough? Only time will tell. Did Billy Beane's advance metrics blow it when they let Willingham go? I bet they would have like his stat line last year. Did they predict he would get hurt and suffer this year? I don't know. Is it fair to say that Ryan isn't using them because his team has lost 90 games the last 3 years. Absolutely not. First of all, he took over at the end of the first season and has increased the talent in the minors a ton. All the praise people give Houston is due to them. They have lost a lot more then the Twins have. The true issue at hand is if they Twins are using enough of the advanced metrics and since none of us are baseball executives, we need to go by the results. Any advanced statistical analysis would tell you that our sample size is too small. We need more time and data to determine if they way they are using enough advanced metrics is right. Ryan obviously puts a lot of faith in Goin, the article is clear on that. Whether or not Ryan understands the metrics is a different story, but from what I have gathered and based on my opinions of the man, he likes to play dumb in certain arenas to get the old school "one up" or "poker hand" approach. Gardenhire is a different story all together and that I will not touch, I just don't like him at all. I believe like most things, there is a happy medium that isn't discussed. The Astros also spend a ton of money on their scouts and put a lot of credence to them. Stats are very helpful and will provide a ton of insight. At the end of the day, stats can only tell you with clarity what has happened and what is likely to happen if the stats are repeated. They can not tell you if the player will continue to increase their ability or if they will maintain that ability to put up the same stats. That is where scouts come in. So, in conclusion, I am somewhere in the middle. Stats are very helpful but are based on interpretation. I believe the Twins should have more "stats guys". But, I wouldn't want someone making decisions on player development, drafting, signings, or lineups based solely on stats. There has to be a mixture of evaluation and stats.

Mark McGuire has done a great job as a hitting coach. He also was in trouble for steroids. The world is about second chances. I am sure glad that my bosses judge me based on who I am today and not decisions I made when I was younger.

It is also impossible to tell by stats if they are pitching out to try and stop him from running. I would imagine the other teams are doing that quite a bit to try and slow him down. Another note, if you steal on first movement of a lefty and he throws to first and they get you at second it is still considered a caught stealing. If anyone is able to watch some of these games and could let us know if he is being "caught" or if they are "scheming" towards him, that would be great?

I disagree with the negatives you pointed out. His hands are busy until the ball is in flight, at which time they become completely still, they are in a great position to strike from. His leg kick seems large, but his foot hardly moves, it is more of a timing mechanism then anything. He has a smooth easy swing, short and compact through the zone with great extension.

Think about Plouffe. How bad of a year is it when Herrmann is hitting ahead of you in the lineup... Sad year for Mr. Plouffe. On the upside, he is still getting paid to play baseball.

For me it is a two way race for first place. Between Buxton and Albers. Both have had remarkable years. Buxton across two levels which is always difficult. Buxton also plays a huge roll as the CF and steals a ton of bases so he makes it easier for the guys to hit while he is on base. Albers is in the top ten of most pitching categories for the league. And the only Twin that is close. Gibson was somewhat close but Albers had better numbers then Gibson when Gibson was called up. For me it is: 1. Buxton 2. Albers 3. Sano P.S. Walker is a good player but playing at his level age wise and his BA is still a little lower then I would like. Also, he is prone to long droughts as he did in June I believe, but he would be 4th or 5th for me. Still a great year.

I take Guerrero. He could be a SS with less range or play anywhere else. There is flexibility in his position. Since we don't know for sure that Sano can play a big league 3B and we don't know if Rosario can stick at 2B defensively either, we would have options. Abreu can hit, no doubt about it, but so can Guerrero and he lends himself to be an option a lot of places which is good with all the moving pieces we have coming up. Now if we get different coaches, I would say Abreu, but with who we have, I say Guerrero.

The bright side, if any, the White Sox don't have anything from Liriano. We got a possible good utility guy and Pedro, what ever he ends up being, and the Sox got nothing.

I am the first one to say that money should not be wasted. I don't feel I have the right to spend the owners money but I like to speculate on what he should or shouldn't do in my opinion. I believe this is a great investment. First, it appears that based on the reports, all the teams feel he wont be a short stop. That doesn't mean he wont be one. Look at Sano, every report leading into this year and most still to this point don't believe he will stay at third, but his defense gets better daily. Second, lets say he doesn't play SS and has to move to 2B. Dozier has been a great surprise as what appears to be a capable 2B. He hasn't had the time to prove he can do that year in and year out. Dozier's defense has been great, but offense is up and down and I hope he can maintain what he has been doing, but we can't plan the future around him doing it. Third, again assuming that Guerrero has to move to 2B. Rosario is just a prospect. He has to prove he can play. His defense has always been the biggest issue with him. We know he can hit, but can he routinely make all the plays? He is a natural OF and could make the transition back to the outfield. And this would give us a possibility of trading a good 2B in Dozier or Rosario for pitching. Fourth, let's say that Guerrero can't hack it in a big league infield at all. If he just hits the way he has the ability to, we can find a spot. If he was athletic enough to play outfield then he is athletic enough to play 1st, or 3rd or OF. What if Sano has to go to 1B? Conclusion for my long winded self. IMO, this is a player with versatility that is perfect for our situation of younger, unproven talent. He can play where the whole is or the players coming up can find a way to play around him. I would sign him over the great hitting Cuban prospect 9 times out of 10. There is always the chance that huge Cuban hitter could be the next Miggy. But based on the video I saw on this Guerrero, he reminds me a lot of Nomar, just a heck of a lot stronger.

I appreciate the time you took to read the article. It was long. I think you misunderstood the part about the older games, he left them out of the table for the reason that he wouldn't just guess. In the final table there was only one situation where it wouldn't create more runs in the AL and that is by the 5 hitter, equal. He didn't use the clean up for obvious reasons, the never bunt. The time frame he used was because it is the only play by play data available. It is also useful because through it you can extrapolate what actually happened when a team bunted vs. not bunt. Oxtung, my point was that stats don't tell everything, not that they lie. And if you are comfortable having a computer as a coach, that's fine too. I am not, you can get a picture of our game from stats but that isn't the whole game, unlike chess, the pieces in our game are people, they are not just numbers. That is why so many people ask about seeing the minor league players in person so that they have context to the stats we see. The article wasn't written to say you should always bunt as much as to disprove the notion that bunting is always bad. Like I said before, I understand the math, I disagree with your interpretation of result. That doesn't make you wrong and me right, although it is obvious that we both think we are. We will disagree and I am ok with that.