Champuckett

My main concern about Molitor isn't whether he is a good or a bad coach. We pretty much know at this point the answer to that question. My concern is the Pohlad loyalty to retaining him for reasons unknown, which may have been off putting to potential PBoB and GM candidates in recent weeks. We already have lost 2 major candidates, how many more will be lost? You can't truly rebuild a franchise with the vision that you have when there are a bunch of caveats protecting certain front office personnel and coaches. We need to let the new guy in charge do what he needs to do to make this the best possible club that they can, and if that includes relieving Molitor of his duties, then that is what needs to happen. Trying to keep certain things as they were, maintaining the good ol boy front office mentality, will only prolong the crux of the issue we have been facing for far too long.

#41

They did ask him according to multiple sources and he declined to have an interview. It's probably something as simple as he had the Blue Jays job lined up pending some final details and did not want to dishonor the team of his future post. In addition, I am sure the Blue Jays job was more intriguing as there seems to be more flexibility than the Twins are willing to give. Maybe he was not interested in rebuilding, but wanted to work with an already established franchise.

Nice find, looks like it was just announced. Guess that quickly answers that question. Pray that we do not wait too long on other potential candidates to get sniped from under our noses.

Looks like ex-Red Sox GM Ben Cherington is out citing personal reasons. The Royals VP J.J. Picollo was interviewed while Kansas City was in town. Sad to see Ben Cherington opt out of even sitting down for an interview. I was hopeful we might have a chance at picking him up. Curious on his "personal" reasons for this. Seems like the three biggest possibilities at this point are McLeod, Picollo, and Antony (ugh). Still a number of weeks left for interviews.

This 1000x. This is a complicated topic right now and for some it's as black and white as day and night. To others it may look like a knee jerk reaction in response to the terrible Twins front office and lack of doing pretty much anything for the past 4-5 seasons. I feel even posting something that is not in line with the basic premise "we need to trade Dozier immediately" will automatically get me and others a ton of flack almost instantly. Going against the grain. People are just salivating at the idea of rapidly trading the guy, not considering what his actual value is, not considering the reality of baseball trades and what the current market is. Please understand that we should definitely be shopping him in the offseason, seeing what offers are there, seeing what the new director of baseball and the new GM can come up with. It will be a great test for them if they can conjure up a great deal for the franchise. There may be some amazing gems of offers waiting out there by desperate teams. At the same time, there may not be in 2017. We don't know yet. Also understand that many big time trades often do not work out, sometimes for both parties. The idea that we will automatically acquire all of the pitching needs we are searching for and are guaranteed to come out of the trade in the net positive is absurd and the general feeling to take away from these boards on the subject is that this is in fact the case. Trading for the sake of change, for the sake of just making a trade happen, for the sake of doing something as kind of a "screw you" to Terry Ryan to do something in the offseason when he did basically nothing over the last 5 years, is not a good reason to justify forcing a trade. I think people are overestimating Dozier's trade value. 2B is not currently a premium position. There are plenty of great hitting 2B all over the MLB as we speak. Teams are not dumb and/or fooled by his one time 40+ HR year. They know he is inconsistent, they know he only averages around 25 HR and they know he does not hit for average, this year being the first time he is respectable in that category. Going into 2017, we will not get a 4-5 person trade by the likes of Viola, Knoblauch, or Santana. He hasn't won any major awards and he didn't win any World Series. He isn't worth as much to non-Twins clubs as we hope he would be, not yet. If he were to maintain his elite status into next year, then we can start talking about the potential for huge blockbuster trades, but as it stands right now, Dozier is probably only worth something slightly better than the Denard Span trade and we know how that turned out. If that's worth it to you to try something like that, then more power to you. We do need to strongly address our pitching needs, but we also need to relax a bit on how we are treating our commodities. There were many shouting to trade Dozier last year, I'm sure you can all find the thread if you search for it. How would that look now if he had the season he had, right after we traded him? "At least we tried!" I am guessing would be the response forgetting that trying is not an excuse for enacting hastily executed poor decision making. Ease up just a bit, we will get what we need from Dozier in due time.

This is the thread that I would hope Twins fans would be paying very close attention to. The next 5+ years are going to depend on how well this decision is made. We can talk all day long about which players from the Twins need to be traded, which need to be better developed, who needs to be promoted, which is 95.78% of all threads on these forums, but the person that is actually going to be making all of these big decisions is of the utmost importance and seems to be in the works right now with Twins ownership. I'm kind of meh on Alex Anthopolous. Still, he would be 10x better than the TR of the previous 4 years. Both Ben Cherington and Jason McLeod have my vote. All of these guys who seem to be getting the most acclaim and discussion and would be vast improvements over what we had. They all seem to have one thing in common, they are young, they are tapped into the times, and are enthusiasts of using modern day scouting and mathematics to evaluate players. They also are all willing to wheel and deal. Here's to hoping the decision made is the correct one.

The home runs and the power at a typically non-power position are not what impress me the most. Considering that just about everything wrong that could have happened this season has gone wrong for the team. He was no exception for the first 2 months of the season. The typical .235-.245 that Dozier had hit over the last 4 years has remarkably improved for the first time to almost .280, even during this most recent power stretch. I was content with him hitting his 25ish home runs with his mediocre .240 ba and assumed that was the real Dozier, the one we would watch until he retired or left the team. Instead the guy has learned how to hit for average and has quickly become one of the leagues best all around hitters in 2016. It's well within reason he can be a 100+ run 100+ RBI 40+ HR and .280ish avg by the time the season has finished. Elite status. I realize a majority of people are ready for him to fall back to reality and his old ways. Maybe that's where he is headed and maybe that's where the chanting for trades comes into play. Who knows what will happen with him, I just know as a fan of the Twins, it's nice to watch and almost daily see this guy impress.

Just hit his 3rd homer for the day. Trade him, his value is maxed.

Another 2 home runs today. Trade immediately?

Park had a promising start to the season. In those horrid early weeks with the 0-9 start, he was one of but a few hitters actually hitting home runs and xbh's if memory serves correctly. Looks like the injury prevented him from furthering that trajectory. Wondering if this is again a player concealing an injury or the team medical staff failing to do their job in correct diagnosis and appropriate follow up steps to recovery.

We're going to have to acquire an insanely aggressive GM to trade Dozier based on recent history. They were unable (unwilling?) to trade Plouffe, a far lesser talent than Dozier, a non-all-star, and someone who was in a good spot in his contract to trade him away. All of this, when we seemingly had too many options at 3B/1B, which mistakenly put Sano in a tough spot in right field. There isn't nearly the same logjam problem at 2B, although Polanco is certainly making his case to start thinking there might be. It's all going to depend on whether or not the Pohlads do what they need to do and get the right GM who is willing to make trades that may hurt the team in the short term but provide large upsides in the long term.

I think this has been mentioned countless times before, but we all knew at some point Sano was going to move from 3B to 1B due to fielding woes and durability issues of such a behemoth of a man. This may be happening sooner rather than later as Mauer enters the final 2 years of his contract and continues to decline in productivity.

Considering what we initially had to give up to get Nunez, this trade is fine. Nothing fancy or spectacular, but also nothing too ridiculous or lopsided. We ended up having the upper hand the last time we did a trade with the Giants. Curious how this turns out.

It's looking more and more like you may get your wish as we inch closer to the trade deadline. Comments from Rob Antony about specific players so far makes them appear in conservative mode still. Instructions from the owners? Unless he whips something up at literally the last second, it doesn't seem likely anything is going to happen. Nunez is probably our #1 trade option and everything else other teams are not willing to trade much for.

It is refreshing to see a bit of transparency by participating in a thread like this on a fan website by a Twins employee. Takes a bit of cajones too, considering how the Twins have done in recent seasons. I don't think well informed fans actually believe for a second that there is a complete lack of an analytics department/statisticians and analysts in the field within the franchise. I think the concern is how much of that research and data has been used to effectively make key free agent acquisitions and trades during the season. I think there is a general hope that with Terry Ryan leaving, being more of an old school guy with an emphasis on the scouting aspect of the game, rather than the math, is giving some fans hope that changes will indeed be made toward a more aggressive analytics approach. I think that was part of the backlash against TR and I hope that the Twins do trend towards that direction.

Nice to see some post-podcast conversation be discussed here after the explosive (by Minnesota Nice standards) conversation we heard. I try to listen to just about every episode as they have a talent for getting into the gritty details on an emotional and frustrating level of how I feel as a fan regarding this franchise. John clearly took the unpopular opinion as the rest of Twins fandom has been lighting torches and getting the pitchforks out in response to TR's job the last 5 seasons. I will give him credit for sticking to his guns on this. However, the writing was on the wall and has been for the last several years. There was no indication that moves TR was making were going to make this a better team. He had a lot of chances to get this thing right, way too many chances, and got what he deserved for failing to do his job and failing to adapt to a rapidly changing and increasingly analytics heavy baseball world.

Aside from Pohlad saying Ryan wanted to leave immediately rather than wait until the end of the season, as Pohlad had originally offered, it's clear why the decision was made. TR came in to rescue the franchise, to rescue Bill Smith, and to rescue the potential loss in profits to the Pohlad family. He made promises and offered hope for the future. He quickly went to work on rebuilding a devastated and ruined farm system. He told the fans and the owners that we were going to have to rebuild to make this franchise into a winner again, and he was right. He just wasn't the man to do it. All of the rebuilding efforts, draft choices, and foreign acquisitions have all resulted in below expectations in productivity. This may change in time, but as of July 2016, no one can say that thus far, our great hope for the future we find in May, Meyer, Berrios, Buxton, Sano, and Park have worked out for us. It took Jim Pohlad much longer than the fans to fully realize this and to realize that the initial promise by TR had still not come to fruition. That, coupled with the lack of off-season trades and in season trades this season, when we have a lot of cards to play, were not happening. The most minute and minor possible changes were made, releasing Arcia, releasing Jepsen, releasing Fien, players that were not integral or key contributors that could make a splash on the open market. We have a lot to work with, yet still nothing is happening as we near the trade deadline, no results and I think the trigger had to be pulled at that point in firing him a few weeks ago, as revenue is slowly drying up and the Pohlad product is continuing to produce at an unacceptable rate for their shareholders.

This. Not to take anything away from Carew, he is a legend no doubt, but Ty Cobb won an astonishing 5 more batting titles than Carew and 4 more than Gwynn with a grand total of 12 batting titles. No one else is even close. It is obvious that the MLB still hates Cobb and the racist label still attached to him. Aggressive players like Cobb and Rose are continually shafted by the MLB at every corner, as they value player personality and attitude over player productivity. The decision makes this crystal clear.

TR is irredeemable to me on a personal level right now and has been for years. TR's job is safe from the owners in almost all cases unless they lose a staggering 60-75% of the remaining games, which is looking less likely at this point. Pals don't fire pals.

Ortiz 2.0? 1. Shows deep ball potential and a solid power bat in the middle of the lineup at an early age. Check 2. Injury prone while young / lack of offseason conditioning. Check. 3. Taught by the Twins trainers to shoot the ball to the opposite field, but instead opts to continue hitting for power. Check. 4. Potential problem with Twins training staff and coaches. Mentions in the media of a lack of discipline or focus from said staff and coaches. Check. 5. Let go by the Twins due to "roster issues", not enough room on the team for him and replacements inbound. Check. 6. 3 time World Series Champion and MVP.. potential Hall of Famer. Unknown.

I remember when I was about 10 years old, just about the same age as this kid, and I was attending a Twins Fest with my mom. Carl Pohlad was on the Metrodome floor walking around and he saw me with my terrible neon green Twins cap which were popular in the early 90's. He actually approached us while we were checking out the World Series trophies and he seemed very interested in my enjoyment of the Twins and baseball in general. He wished us luck and to have fun in continuing to watch and support the Twins. My mom said she was blown away that such a rich business man would give some average fans like us the time of day and go out of his way to greet us. But he did. I think the Pohlad's have a soft spot for children and to a greater extent, families, and it shows with this article, the level of honesty he gave to these answers to this kid that has an interest in baseball and the Twins. I think they are all about being family friendly and that's why you always hear an emphasis on concessions and bringing the family to the park. That's what Carl wanted and those values were instilled in his sons. It's just not enough to "have fun" and put out a competitive product unfortunately and never will be. I do appreciate what the Pohlad's did for the state of Minnesota, giving us our only 2 professional sports wins in the modern era, but I think it's clear it is time for them to move on and get into other business ventures. Something where there is not so much pressure to please a large fan base that are getting hurt by caring about such a lousy product on a daily basis. You can't be so delicate in this business and I think that's what they continue to be, delicate, to such a degree that necessary decision making does not happen, ala rehiring Terry Ryan, Bill Smith, etc.

When was the last time the Twins did a mid-season trade of a hot commodity? Frank Viola? I don't think it's likely that this happens, as intelligent as it would be to execute. TR doesn't like "giving away" players that are playing well. Suzuki of 2014 comes to mind. He just doesn't like doing it, when all indications point to a player having a career year and being at peak value.

This article has nothing new that anyone lurking or participating on these forums should probably already know. He's right about everything he says, but he also is wrong in missing the most glaring issues at hand. Ownership. The head honchos that make the biggest decisions about the franchise on a macro scale are not mentioned. Maybe we'll see that article soon? In a few months, maybe in a few years? It wasn't Terry Ryan that talked his way back into this job after he retired and said he no longer had any business being a GM(looks like he was right). It was the ownership that begged him to come back. Not only that, but the guy they replaced TR with was fired and rehired immediately back into the front office. Oh, and the guy they just fired as our manager of the last 10 years is back too. The same owners that had no comment on TR passing up the opportunity for one of the games best managers in Joe Maddon, who incredibly became available just weeks after Gardy was fired during our manageral replacement search. And the same owners that still have "100% confidence" in both TR and the Twins skipper as we are going through a horrendous season. How to this day, has no midwestern or Minnesotan major sports media source mentioned this? We can go after the front office, the coaches, and the players in every article for the next 10 years, but it's not going to help make this a better team. They need to start calling out the direct and correct cause of the core problem here, and thus far, they have not.