Target Field of Dreams

nope...grew up in Coon Rapids, but settled here a few years ago.

Love this! I'm 32 years old, married with 3 boys living in Roseville, MN. Born and raised in the Twin Cities and lifelong Twins fan....mostly instilled in me from an early age by my dad. My earliest baseball memories were from when the Twins were winning World Series titles. The 1991 series, has been and will always be one of my fondest memories. Anytime I see a game 7 replay or watch an old grainy video on youtube of that game, I am taken back to my friends basement with us all huddled around their "fancy" wood framed television hanging on every pitch and then crazily jumping around and sprinting around their neighborhood yelling at the top of our lungs after Larkin's game winner. Outside of game 7 of 1991, some of my other fondest memories are their run back to being legitimate contenders in 2000 and 2001, their deep run against the Angels in 2002, game 163 win against the Tigers at the dome and Thome's game winning home run in the 10th inning of an August game against the White Sox in 2010. Favorite all time Twins: Killebrew (though well before my time), Kirby, Brian Harper, Chili Davis, Brad Radke, Rick Aguilera, Doug Mientkiewicz, Torii Hunter, Johan Santana, Scott Baker, Morneau, Span, Jim Thome, Brian Dozier, Miguel Sano I've been following TwinsDaily since it launched and keep coming back for the speculation and discussion on where the team should go. I don't post a ton, but love reading up on the analysis so many others on this site provide and love the conversation generated here. If things don't work out with Falvey, maybe the Pohlad's should look at hiring Twins Daily in total as a GM. We'd make some sweet trades, dumping all of our bad players for All Stars and it would be amazing.

Sling is an awesome solution, especially for $20/mo. For $40 you can also get ESPN which is still a steal of a deal, but for me personally I went with the FSN package and use a HD antenna for locals and am able to watch pretty much everything I want and all Twins games. It really is a great solution.

I totally agree with this and I think you missed my point. I was not arguing that fans decide not to come to games because Mauer is playing 1st. My post was in response to someone else's that said that the Twins can't bench Mauer or change his role on the team because fans will not come then. My point was exactly the same as yours.A winning team gets fans back in the stadium in every case. This team gets there by vastly improved pitching, but also by giving no free passes to position players simply based upon their contract or past success. If moving Mauer or any other player on the roster to a reserve role improves the team, then new management can't be afraid to do just that.

Winning games by putting the best team on the field will fill seats. This team is doomed if new management decides to construct the roster by playing badly declining hometown heroes every day when the fact of the matter is the team is better by playing someone else. They need to make decisions based upon current talent and future potential alone.

Agree. If this is the way we go, we absolutely need to sign/trade for other starting pitchers this offseason. Sign Hellickson and see if Dozier can get us another solid option? Free agent market looks mostly bleak What do you guys think are realistic options?

For some reason the Brewers games were just blacked out for me, but I was able to watch the Nationals games this weekend. $20/month, to be able to watch majority (maybe all) of the Twins games at home and on my phone for the rest of the season...steal of a deal! Finally a real option outside of cable! Sling customer service on Twitter is actually really, really good too, in case any of you ever need a quick answer from them.

Sling didn't give me a clear answer. I tried to watch the game today and got a blackout on regular FSN as well. For any of you that have had success what streaming system were you using?

Have you actually been able to watch a game through Sling yet? I tried last night...since the Wild were on FSN, the Twins game was moved to a FSN alternate, but I got a message that the game was blacked out on the alternate. Hoping that was because it was the Milwaukee alternate station and I live in MN, but not sure. It would be really stupid, but not surprising to me if MLB blacked out games that are on FSN but watched via Sling. Going to try again tonight. Hopefully I can watch . I have a Roku 3 and love it...to add onto the device discussion.

Great piece Seth! Love your approach of laying out your predictions but also being mindful that this is a 22 year old guy we are talking about and we need to give him time to develop and grow as well. Sometimes as fans we can be pretty unfair to the guys when they don't immediately meet our grandiose expectations. With that being said, I am pretty optimistic that Sano will in fact meet them or come close to them and am excited to watch him play.

Right...kind of lost me at this part....proves that he really doesn't know that much about the Twins to leave Dozier off. Made some good points, but then this took away a lot of his credibility.

Great analysis Nick! We definitely over-value our own players here. Fans of all teams do this...part of the emotion of truly loving a team and having their players become your favorites. It sucks to see players we like moved, especially ones with the skill-set that Hicks does, but the reality is that us thinking of him as a potential All-Star is all projection, based on an extremely small sample size of actual production at the MLB level. The performance against RH pitching is the biggest thing most people leave out when discussing Hicks, and that is a glaring weakness. If we get a league avg catcher in Murphy for the foreseeable future, that is a big win as we did not have one in the pipeline for a couple years at best. We have a lot of talented OF in the pipeline and this trade should allow us to focus on other positions to further improve this team.

That last link is mine from 7 games into the season. While I was over-reacting to our extremely poor start to the season, I think Terry may have read my article (or more likely decided on his own to do what I was suggesting) and it absolutely turned the season around. He brought up young guys and the team flourished in 2015 and put us in position to do what he is doing now, trying to get us over the hump into perennial contention. I for one am excited to see these moves from Ryan. He traded Hicks when his value was high for a player at a position of need that is an absolute improvement over what we had. Excited to see what he does the rest of the offseason!

I think that is a fair way to look at it. Definitely a lot of risk with Ramos staying healthy...I would prefer not to include Plouffe, though may be swayed if had to. The risk is mitigated some for us that we have ready replacements for Plouffe...we don't yet have that at Catcher unfortunately. If the Nationals go after Wieters, we may be able to get Ramos for less...interesting to see how it plays out. I guess with Ramos as opposed to a guy like AJ, there is more upside potential.

According to MLB trade Rumors (http://www.mlbtrader...om/wilson-ramos) the Nationals could be looking to unload Wilson Ramos this offseason and I am translating that as we may be able to get him at a discount. I know he had a down year LY, but I for one would be all for it as he could pair with Kurt for this next season and help build the bridge to hopefully Garver or Turner in 2017. Even his down year was a marked improvement over Suzuki and he is 4 yrs younger.At worst he seems like a better Defense version of Kurt Suzuki and at best he is an All Star Catcher. (All Stats from BaseballReference.com) Offense Ramos 2015 G: 128 Runs: 41 Hits: 109 HR: 15 RBI: 68 BB: 21 SO: 101 BA: .229 OBP: .258 SLG: .358 OPS: .616 Career 6 years BA: .258 OBP: .301 SLG: .411 OPS: .711 Suzuki 2015 G: 131 Runs: 36 Hits: 104 HR: 5 RBI: 50 BB: 29 SO: 59 BA: .240 OBP: .296 SLG: .314 OPS: .610 Career 9 years BA: .255 OBP: 312 SLG: 369 OPS: .681 Defense Ramos 2015 Fielding %: .995 Caught Stealing %: 44% Career: Fielding %: .993 Caught Stealing %: 33% Suzuki 2015 Fielding %: .997 Caught Stealing %: 15% Career: Fielding %: .994 Caught Stealing %: 25% What do you think it would take? Would we have to include Plouffe or could we just get him with prospects? For the record I would be on board with including Plouffe if we could get him in return. Maybe we could re-sign Matt Capps and send him back to them in exchange?

Huh? Why would he not have been around regardless? He is a better pitcher than Duensing and Thompson and we chose to keep them and expose him to the Rule V Draft. That was a bad decision that is still hurting us right now

Unless you want to inflict serious personal pain, do not under any circumstance look at what Sean Gilmartin has done this year....the guy we left unprotected when we retained Duensing and signed Stauffer....absolutely unforgivable

Time for Hip Hip Jorge! (Polanco)....Or Escobar

Niko Goodrum had an error in the Miracle and Kernels games last night? Impressive

I think people are mainly down on Arcia because of his defense. While his bat has a lot of upside, he definitely still has some opportunity to become a better all around hitter, and his defense hasn't improved with the playing time he has had. With this pitching staff we need an outfield that can cover a lot of ground and Rosario and Hicks provide that. I'd be fine with either Arcia or Vargas at DH though and would prefer they would make that move sooner than later as it makes no sense to have neither of them on the big league roster.

Another reason you don't trade Plouffe right now....unless the return is incredible....is the fact that Santana hasn't proven to be that great at short. If the Twins plugged Sano into Plouffe's spot with Santana I would be highly concerned about the left side of the infield from a defensive standpoint.

Is Polanco close enough to strongly consider trading Santana while he is at a general high point? I really like Santana, but if we have a legitimate replacement for him...(we have 2 as Escobar is also solid) it would be nice to trade value for value rather than waiting too long and trading at a low point.

I would absolutely not trade Berrios or Buxton for pretty much anyone. Santana I would consider and possibly Sano as well given that we have other very good options at their positions. If we can truly get where we want to without trading anyone though, then I am glad to keep them as well. My main concern is that the Twins have had a tendency over the last couple of years to trade guys at the bottom of their value (some of it wasn't their fault due to injuries), and now is an opportunity to get value at a position of need by trading some valuable pieces we may have in excess.

Isn't this season an ideal time to trade Santana? We have Escobar and Polanco should be up soon as well. I like Danny a lot but it would make sense to trade him when he has must value...i realize Hamels is unrealistic obviously