USAFChief

As promised, the moderation team spent a few days considering this issue. Although USAFChief is posting this, consider it a team response. We would summarize by first separating the question of how the recent Sano thread was handled, from the more general issue of editing. In most baseball discussion threads, we emphasize (among various things) staying on topic and not turning things overly personal. Matters of character or broad-reaching social issues reside better in the Sports Bar forum, if anywhere.The Sano thread was a bit of an outlier because the issue concerned current events for the team but also revolved around an aspect of the player's very character. The article itself stuck with factual items in the news, but it was natural for readers to want to go beyond that. In my view the discussion remained mostly constructive (even if people took positions along all points of certain spectrums, and even though it eventually went into a death spiral and was closed). At a certain point one of the moderators issued a warning to get back to focusing on the thread topic. After that, some tangential posts were removed. As part of that, a paragraph pertaining to a removed post was edited out from The_Phantom's post. Shortly after that, we thought of what seemed like a better solution: move the thread out of the Twins forum and into the Sports Bar. With hindsight, the latter solution would have removed the need for the first solution. But the intent wasn't to change anyone's meaning - it was to remove a part of a response that no longer had a context. We all agree that when a post is edited and/or removed, communicating to the poster of such is a must, and we will all do better moving forward. We apologize that this did not happen with Phantom in this instance. Conversely, we take great issue with the characterization offered in the initial post of this discussion, both with regard to the intent ("completely changes the tone, reasoning and overall point of a post") and the frequency ("A lot of it is happening"). Some of the moderators make it a personal policy not to edit, at all, ever. Some of the moderation team will continue to use the edit function. For example, earlier in this thread Ashburyjohn laid out a few reasons why he considers editing to be a useful tool - kinder and more effective than either 1) deleting a post entirely, if a clean excision can be done instead, or 2) an in-thread warning or a note within the post that an edit was necessary, or 3) simply issuing a warning point to the member and moving on with one's day. (Note that sometimes those other techniques have their place.) Bottom line...we don't all agree on the subject of editing. We ended up about where we were before...some of us will edit, some of us won't. But we'll make it a priority to always PM anyone who's post is edited, with at minimum an explanation. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this aspect of our efforts here. And again, our apologies for the mis-step on that particular post.

It's like you literally took my stuff, and claimed it as your own!

Let’s give it a try... Hey, I just invented a new word: plagiarism!

ninja'd.

phrasing.

Noe Pauer.

Fantastic stuff, Matt!

Logan Morrison says hi.

I don’t know what your definition of bad hitter is, but he’s got a .719 career minor league OPS and hasn’t slugged .400 at A, AA, or AAA. I don’t like Granite much, but I’ll take him over LaMarre.

Only 150?? Great, another china doll. Bilateral carple tunnel weakness?

He has 2800 PAs in the minors. We already know what he'll do. I sure wish the Twins had added a RH hitting OFer over the winter, but LaMarre ain't it.

speaking of which, lots of open pit mine size holes left in the April game thread schedule. I know many of you who dig the game threads are ready to put shovel to earth and fill em. Step right up.

where'd you dig those up from?

Holy cow, Tom...impressive editorial work!

As the alternative hurts Vargas financially, I’m not sure he agrees.

Wow.

LaMarre’s problem isn’t splits, it’s that he’s not a good hitter against ANY pitching. He has over 2800 MiLB PAs with a .719 OPS. On a side note, I also mistrust almost any “reverse platoon split.” There are small sample size examples, but the number of hitters who actually hit same handed pitching better over time is minuscule. I will bet against those small sample size examples continuing every time, and I’ll win that bet almost every time. The Twins could really have benefitted from bringing in a decent RH OF bat.

Joe Mauer isn’t winning or losing a job based on spring training. The backup outfielder, a bullpen job or two, the backup catcher...these are often a different situation. There is a competition going on in ST, and those jobs will be won or lost based on talent, tools, and track record, AND on how those players perform in spring. As mentioned above, spring includes not only the games, but over a month of daily workouts and practice from which the staff can judge. How else would you do that?

Congrats!

Given he throws LH, I doubt it.

As it should be.

Every arm in a bullpen matters. Every arm in a pen will find themselves in multiple games that have yet to be decided over the course of a season. The "last man" will be in fewer than the first several, for sure, but close games happen all the time in MLB and you can't just have an arm that you only use in blowouts. He'll be needed.

I don’t think Jason Belmonte* agrees about the speed of a bowling ball limiting hook. *probably the world’s best bowler

I bet I can predict 80 percent of what Bert Blyleven says.

I will be shocked if anyone still thinks Adrianza is a starting SS by June 1.