on that, I disagree with you. With the wild card it might only take a season with something like mid-80s wins to find yourself in contention. The Twins did that last year by accident. Although I agree I wouldn't necessarily call them a contender next year, but wild card should be the minimum goal every year for most teams.
Polanco is (or was) a top organizational prospect behind Buxton and Sano, so benching him sounds like a terrible idea. Is Antony dictating to Molitor or is Molitor telling Antony this stuff? Because I also heard Antony say that when Plouffe comes back, Sano will be the guy being moved around again.
Depends on who you ask? The folks already giving up on Sano are likely to be as quickly disappointed with Polanco, at least based on Seth's report of his errors. I don't mind if Polanco moves around but the only open position in the infield is shortstop, and it is wide open now with Nunez gone.
I can't tell if Kintzler would be a good 9th inning guy over a full season. Despite his lack of velocity, I think he might have a year or two in him as a closer.
in Rochester this season: 22 singles, 11 walks, 2 hit-by-pitch, unknown number of reached by error, four stolen base attempts. That doesn't seem like much base stealing work for a guy with Buxton's speed and inexperience.
Of course Mauer was twice the catcher and AJ will never get more than a single vote or two, if any. But it is an interesting contrast that we traded AJ for Mauer, Mauer went on to have a borderline-HOF career, and yet AJ caught almost twice as many games (guesstimating). I think the key word in Halsey's post was "chuckle". ... Which may or may not be to your taste in wry humor...