tobi0040

Hicks would have to be miles better and hopefully that .280 average holds up! Small sample size, I get it.

I can't argue that he is not older or taller than Arcia, although I am not sure that being 6-2 makes someone a better OF than someone that is 6-5. But right now my money is on Mauer in a foot race. We used to have a kid that was slow and when he would run after a ball, the coach would yell "unhook the plow". That is what I want to yell when I see Arcia chugging out there. This was a long time ago, but Joe was the national football player of the year and averaged close to 20 points a game in basketball as well. An adjustment period would exist, no doubt. But I think he would be a better OF than Arcia. I really do.

Here are the things the Twins could do to improve their defense as I see it. I would also like to note that our rankings today do reflect Josh Willingham out there 68 games this year. -Players could improve defensively. It is interesting to note that Plouffe is now average defensively becuase he had the chance to get better. Santana and Pinto have not had that chance (Pinto has not solely been a catcher even in AAA). -One of Arcia, Vargas, or Sano can be your DH -A more athletic player such as Joe Mauer could move to a corner OF spot, having a guy like Arcia less exposed at 1B. He has to be a better corner OF than Arcia. -Players coming up are better. Buxton is an obvious example, but if Hicks or Rosario could be an adequate bat that would certainly be a huge upgrade in a corner -If we have to, someone who is not improving could be traded or cut -Our pitching could get better. In addition to Meyer coming up, I would think a correlation does exist between bad pitching and bad defense. It seems reasonable to expect that the worse the pitcher, the harder the ball will be hit, the more balls that will drop. I think the solution will lie in most of these bullet points.

Which stat do you guys think will play a bigger role in what happens....the fact that only one guy was brought back after 4 90 loss seasons? Or the fact that the one manager was a Twins manager? I think the fact that it was the Twins. I think if Gardy does not resign he will be managing next year.

I agree that I would rather see TJ than a shoulder injury, but I don't buy the notion that TJ in young player does not change much. Most starters lose velocity. In this case Thorpe going from 94-95 to 92-93 reduces the odds he becomes a factor for the Twins, IMO. He still can for sure.

I think 5/80 for Shields is a tad low. I see him closer to $20M AAV. No doubt he will likely get fewer years than the big two though. I will try my best and not get too excited about any of these four. I think a bounce back retread on a minor league deal sounds about right. Maybe we can send a guy to look at Harden again (joke). But something like that is much more likely. I have never understood the logic of since we have a bunch of righties we need a lefty. I don't see much cross over between a righty one day making the lefty the next better. I think this type of logic can net a less talented pitcher, something this team does not need.

I don't know that we have enough information to know whether or not Molitor was offered any of those jobs, if he was interested, or why he wasn't offered if he wasnt. The link below is a good history on hall of fame and good players and becoming managers. They point out how very few HOF players have become managers and highlight one of the main reasons as ownership groups/front offices may not want to be overshadowed by a figure larger then they are. They also mentioned that Ted Williams was a strict disciplinarian and was bound to fail. They did not highlight what to me seems obvious, the better the player, the more money they made, the less likely they will need to work when they are done playing versus a utility infielder like Ron Gardenhire. But the article did produce a list of "good" MLB players that have been managers a long time and mentioned one recent HOF player (Ryne Sandberg) as a new manager. The list of good players are Joe Torre, Lou Pineilla, Don Baylor, Alan Trammel, Lemon, Berra, Tony Perez, and Gil Hodges. At the end of the day, I would view a HOF career as a net positive and would give a few points for a better career over someone who did not have as good of a career. Not the sole reason why I prefer Paul over Doug. But a factor. I also don't read much into Doug's teams success at multiple levels and the various coaches and how that influences him today. At the end of the day, both Doug and Paul had multiple coaches influence them and both in some ways probably impacted the players they were, with that, Paul was a better player. Molly went to Cretin, I am guessing he had really good instruction there and heck, at one point Doug was managed by Ron Gardenhire who we all want to run out of town! Maybe that cancels out good instruction he received elsewhere. I too agree that he is likely the manager with one major factor for the Twins being name recognition and igniting fans. The lure of the stadium is wearing off. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/12481356/

I guess I don't understand the logic that we can dismiss a hof resume because a few others have failed but we should put stock in high school and olympic runs. The sample size of hof players managing is very low. And the sample of managers that are considered good is extremely low. Again it comes down to the criteria. My personal opinion is that in game management is almost identical across managers. The differentiating factor for me is credibility, smarts, teaching, and lineup contruction (platooning). I think molitor has an edge in credibility and baseball smarts. The other two I have no clue

I really don't see the Twins signing any of these four. I think "go big or go home" that someone stated is about right. We don't need mediocre retreads, we have enough already. These guys don't have the production or ceiling of Meyer or May. My preference of those four would be in this order: Max Lester Schields Ervin I could see, maybe Ervin on a deal if that is what he gets (5% shot). We as fans would just need to accept right now that in at least one of those years he is going to be terrible. in 2-3 of those years he would make our pitching better so it would be OK with me.

Does data exist anywhere that would show Meyer's stirke/ball ratio by pitch? I would be curious to see what impact, if any the new change up had on his BB rates. I would like to see if he lost control of all pitches or if trouble locating a new pitch led to many BB's, behind the count, etc.

He has a career winning percentage of 51%. Lets call it an average season of 83-81. Apparently just yelling all the time does not translate to wins. The reality is this situation is a little unique. He is a risk to offend people and be a distraction. In 9 years as a manager he did not visit the white house due to political concerns, said he loved Fidel Castro, an made very insenstive comments about the GLBT community and race relations.

I see the candidates interally as Doug and Molitor, and nobody else. I think we should start framing this as what do you look for in a manager, and which of these guys are the best match. Having never been around either, it is tough to say for sure. The other caveat is I don't know which is a bigger fan of sabermetrics, platoon theory, etc. That would go a long way in an interview for me. Doug is "in charge of a lineup", but he is also tasked with starting the guys and working through things on their way to the big leagues so I don't think he managers the same way he probably would. For example, if Doug had a guy like Arcia who struggles against lefties in A ball, the Twins would instruct him to play him against lefties and improve. Not sit him and help the team. Differences: Playing career of 21 years, HOF, 3k hits, first ballot HOF, etc. versus 12 years of OK baseball. The last several for Doug were platoon/defensive replacement type years. I like that Molitor was viewed as a smart player whose career exceeded his physical skills. I also like that Molitor basically played everywhere in the diamond outside of catcher. A couple of the other things mentioned are things I don't put much stock in: Doug won a HS championship and broke the bambino curse. He had 115 plate appearances for Boston and only 9 in the playoffs. High school baseball is not that important to me. Doug has a great record as a MILB manager. He has been a manager of a franchise with a top 3 farm system, most of those players have played under him. I think if he is good with minor league players or young players, a minor league manager is probably a great place for him to be. I don't worry about Molitor not getting instant respect from day 1 based on his name. "we need fire". This seems like a temporary thing to me and should not be a huge factor. Gardy gets ejected as much as anyone and we still lose 95 games. My preference would be Molitor if you can't tell! The other move I would love to see is the Twins bring in an external future GM to work under Terry for a year or two, then take over. Someone from an organization that has young, smart, quantitative front offices. Terry is going to retire in a year or two and I would like to see a gradual transition in the meantime and that person working under Terry for a little while would not be a bad thing.

Yes they do, so does power. Big Ben has neither.

The 8% walk rate for Walker is very encouraging. If he walks 8-10% of the time, he could have a career even with a .250 to .260 BA. Because we know he has power.

It is always bold to predict an exact trade, so I won't state the obvious that the exact trade won't happen. I just don't think Gibson is going anywhere either. When the Twins can get a pitcher that will pitch 180-200 IP with a 4.00 ERA or less and that guy makes $500K, they salivate.

I agree. Personally I think the difference between a good manager and a bad one is at most 1-3 wins per year. So it is mostly about talent, but it does matter. In football and basketball I think the coach is much more important. Now the difference between a 90 loss and 93 loss team is not much obviously. But if the goal is to hopefully be good one day, then 3 wins can be the difference between the playoffs and not, home field versus not, etc. Is Gardy a guy that is going to get close to the aditional 3 wins? That is the question that should be answered. I think people on these forums have identified specific thoughts as to why Gardy is not the guy. Including, but not limited to: -This team has tailed off each year. -3rd catcher -the lineup -lack of platooning -playing players out of position. To me, if Santana or Pinto saw reps at their natural position in April-June, maybe they would have improved and been of value to this team in August, September, or next year?

That is why I figured Burdi was not there. His post first appearance numbers are crazy, 38 K's in 20.1 IP. 2 ER. 13 H, 6 BB.

I think chief spin man St. Peter is actually less likely to go than Terry Ryan. They credit him with the stadium more than anyone else. Talk about the goose that laid the golden egg. If someone made me $300M dollars, I would have a hard time firing them. I think his unofficial job title is to put lipstick on a pig and he actually does a decent job at it (given how hard that objective has become).

Damn. Growth plates actually sounded legit.

In the pioneer press article confirming a UCL sprain, Brad Steil gets my nomination for quote of the year "I think he will be fine". I mean, when has a UCL sprain ever turned into a major surgery or time away? And the Twins are typically spot on with an injury prognosis, especially right away. The bright side is Gardy is not there telling him he just needs to tough it out (Scott Baker) http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_26500597/twins-pitching-prospect-lewis-thorpe-injures-elbow

While at the time it was a large annual contract, it was a one year deal. These are different times and I don't consider this apples to apples. Impact free agent pitchers aren't signing a one year deal. Guys like Lester, Shields, or Scherzer are getting 6-8 year deals in the $24-26M range per year. I could actually see us giving Scherzer a one year deal for $25M.

Kohl was pretty good, especially since he wasn't throwing many sliders (his best pitch). The good thing is we have several pitchers you could argue deserved to be in the top 6.

Agreed. I think handing Nolasco $50M and seeing the results this year, which are either an implosion or an injury, highlights and to the Twins may justify not spending big on an FA pitcher. I am not saying they should never sign a guy and I am not saying that I would not, but I will be surprised if the Twins shell out any sort of commitment this year. I could see a few re-tread, minor league deals to guys that were good 3 years ago. It took the franchise 50 years to go out in free agency and spend money. I just don't see them going back to the market and making another large commitment.

I would agree with keeping those coaches. My preference for manager is Molitor. He strikes me as a really bright guy who would get respect. When he tells a 22 year old something, they think....he is in the hall of fame. Not a utility infielder (Gardy) I think Terry stays on until we are good again. Tough to put him in charge of a rebuild, then can him before his prized players are even up here. I think he ends up retiring versus being fired.

I think it is more complicated asd well. When you lose 95 games, more than one person is to blame. No doubt. We can talk about why Gardy should not be fired and even I can come up with excuses. Nobody would have been good with his teams over the last 3 years. He has won the division a zillion times. He was the manager of the year. But to me, I don't believe he is the right guy to lead this team moving forward. He does put the lineup together and decide who plays and who doesn't. He gets to decide who plays SS and CF, and catcher. He never platoons. I have worries about him handling young, talented players. He has head scratching guys batting in certain places. He has an irrational fear of losing his DH. So even if he had talent, I think other managers would squeeze a few more wins a year out of his team. At the end of the day, the single biggest thing that could help this franchise would be for the Pohlad family to sell. Of course that is not going to happen. But that would improve the team more than Gardy, Terry, or Anderson being fired.