gunnarthor

No, but I really think Mauer would hit .350 if he had the monster to slap a bunch of hits off of. So part of me would like to see that. But it's a small part. Glad he's staying.

Generally, I like it. I do think we need to trade Span and I've been a big fan of sending him to the Reds for pitching and a shortstop but if we trade him to Atlanta or Rays for pitching, that's ok with me. I don't think Sanchez comes for 75m, I think he'll get the 90 he's asking for but I like the idea. Marcum is another guy to go after.

Thought they had the best bullpen in the NL. But yeah, MLBtraderumors said they'd trade a shortstop for a closer or leadoff hitter. My bad. Thanks for being a dick about it. That said, I'd be ok with trading Perkins for an everyday shortstop.

Would you deal Glen Perkins for Didi Gregorius? I would but the Reds don't need bullpen help.

Reds need a leadoff hitter and a CF very badly. Their leadoff hitters had a sub .300 OBP last year. They also need another corner outfielder or resign Ludwick. Willingham would be a better/cheaper option and would probably hit 40 HR in that park. The Reds are really just giving up some prospects in a win-now trade. It makes sense although none of these type of trades ever happen. I'd be happy to leave Hamilton out and add another pitcher but it's not an absurd trade proposal.

Per MLBtraderumors, David Bromberg signed a minor league deal with the Pirates. Sorta sad to see him go, I was hoping he could turn into a Matt Gueirrer (sp) type for us.

He's a very bad player who is also old and plays in the OF, the one place we have depth. I don't see a fit here.

Hicks, Gibson and Santana. Maybe Tonkin. I think they'll protect Santana just b/c they don't have much in the way of MI depth and have room to spare. Hermsen isn't going to be picked in the rule v draft.

No, let it out. Don't hold back. Anyhow, I'm in the good for him camp. He tried to make it here, failed and went home. I certainly won't call him a D-bag for that. And I'm glad he got paid over there. Hope he wins MVP.

Payroll matters a lot and it's one of the reasons I think Smith is no longer GM. That said, I do think Ryan is a good GM who can do good things with a cramped payroll. I don't want to blame the FO for what I assume to be ownership issues. It was nice to see Howard at the Strib bring this up last week.

I'd be ok with it. If healthy he makes the team better and a minor league deal is pretty low risk.

Perhaps I am not up to speed on the Boy Scout stuff. The only Boy Scout association thing that I am aware of was the old USSC case where the Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts right to exclude a gay scout master despite New Jersey's anti-discrimination law. Since that case, there has been a lot of pressure on the BSA to change their policy but I don't know of any current ACLU/Boy Scout activities. To your central point though there is nothing that would force you to open your home on poker night to people you don't want. Anti-discrimination laws require some type of public accommodations component. For example, the Boy Scouts would use high school property for their events. Your poker night would not.

He made a number of good small deals - Rauch, Pavano, Cabrera. He also signed Thome, Crede and Hudson. He changed the offensive philosophy away from piranha ball to getting some offense out of our lower order spots. Because of needing to sign Mauer, he locked in a lot of contracts. Blackburn always gets thrown out but he also signed Kubel, Baker, Morneau, Span and Cuddy to nice team friendly deals. Fans revolt on his trades but he really had no choice on the Santana deal. Garza/Young was the type of trade fans had been demanding for years. Hardy was traded b/c of payroll issues and the coaching staff wanting a "different direction." Fans here act like Ramos is an all-star catcher when in fact he was an injury prone player with plate discipline issues whose prospect status was falling. And fans are less likely to complain about the Bullock/Diamond deal now compared to when it happened. As mentioned, he made a number of good small deals and the 2010 Twins were the best Twins team since 1991 in large part because of how Smith went about creating the team (again, no piranhas!). Smith came into the Twins at a horrible time and, as Kwik notes, didn't have all that much power. The Twins had missed the playoffs two out of the last three years and had just had their first losing season. Santana, Silva and Hunter were going to be gone. Liriano was coming back from injury. Mauer was going to need a huge deal. And we had an aging core. Smith built for 2010, it worked, but the window fell apart in 2011. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been fired but he did get too much of the blame, (and I think he was fired more b/c he wanted to spend more money). As mentioned, I like that Johnson took over the draft and changed some of our philosophy but it hasn't yet panned out for us.

You know, last I checked, the consitution was the supreme law of the land. No state law should trump it. While I'm well aware that states and courts have no problems tossing aside the constitution as needed, I'm more bothered that you seem to think it's OK. I'm no fan of the KKK, but like everyone else in this country, they have a right to their opinions and a right to organize around them so long as they are not imposing on the liberties of others. All groups are by nature exclusive. Using this logic, you can justify forced integration of women into the NFL, or fraternites, forced integration of men into sororities. Forced integration into professional groups, and everything in between. This idea that everyone should be able to be a member of whatever they choose is foolish, but the day this country stops allowing like minded individuals to organize and share ideas is a sad day for this country. I would think that for the ACLU to win, they'd challenge it on the tax deduction ground, which like others, I'm more likely to get behind. But that is dangerous ground too... The better solution would be to significantly shrink the size of the federal government and its wars without end so that we no longer need an income tax. Then that problem solves itself. Lot of stuff here but in general, anti discrimination laws are also based on the Constitution (either state or federal). Many times, Constitutional principals conflict with each other so every right in the Constitution has limits. You love freedom of speech but you can't depend on it to protect you from child pornography charges, falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded room, slander someone or make false/misleading advertising claims (smoking makes your hair grow!). Association rights, which is what we are talking about originally, have limits too and they are also set by the type of association it is. It gets messy and you have to determine if there is an expressive association, which isn't the same as a free speech right. But one end of those limits are where discrimination is and, generally, anti-discrimination statutes will trump association rights unless the group meets a set burden of proof. You're confusing anti-discrimination with forced inclusion, which aren't the same thing. Groups can exclude and still do. What they generally can't do is exclude based on an immutable characteristic, unless that characteristic would significantly change the message the group intends to send. So, Jenny isn't playing in the NFL b/c she's a woman, she's not playing in the NFL b/c she's not good enough. College frats and sororities would probably not be able to exclude black members, for instance, but would probably be able to exclude opposite sex members since frats/sororities have a single sex message. Heck, Augusta just now let in its first female members. But to the original topic, the Boy Scouts were able to discriminate against a gay scout master. I don't understand why the ACLU should be targeting that type of case (I'm also not sure if the ACLU actually took that case).

Totally agree and times like that I tip my cap to the ACLU. If you want an example of when I have a problem: Boy Scouts. Now I deplore what the Boy Scouts do to homosexual boys as far as discrimination, but part of a free society is being able (to various degrees) to discriminate. As a private club, they have the right to make the guidelines of membership whatever they want. No matter how much we don't like that, it's an important line I don't want the government or anyone else crossing. Here's where Boy Scouts became an ACLU issue. As a general rule, First Amendment association rights do not trump state anti-discrimination laws. It's actually a pretty easy decision. The Courts have invalidated discriminatory practices in many different private organizations including private schools, labor unions, non profit organizations and even law firms. One of the major cases actually came from MN - US Jaycees v. Roberts. The Jaycees tried to exclude women from membership in their private group but it ran into conflict with a MN anti discrimination law. The US Supreme Court upheld the state law and required the Jaycees to allow women into their organization. The standard for permitting a private group to discriminate in violation of state law came down to being able "to show that it is organized for specific expressive purposes and that it will not be able to advocate its desired viewpoints nearly as effectively if it cannot confine its membership to those who share the same sex, for example, or the same religion." Thus, the KKK could legally exclude black members b/c a black man in white sheets would significantly alter how their message would be received. The Boy Scouts case went to the Supreme Court. To win, the Scouts would have to show that allowing homesexuals would change the Boy Scouts "ability to engage in its protected activities or to disseminate its preferred views.” The Supreme Court actually did side with them, although I think the dissent by Justice Stevens was sounder. But that's a pretty easy case for the ACLU to take.

I agree. He did a number of good things, foremost improving our international footprint. He got too much blame on some trades and he, unlike Ryan, was willing to make "win now" trades which fans were clamoring for for years. I like that he put Johnson in charge of our drafts although, admittedly, those drafts haven't panned out yet.

See this is where you lose me. Right off the bat let me make this clear - morally and intellectually I can make a strong case for gay marriage and fully support it (frankly, I think my case is a better one to get gay marriage cemented than what you typically hear), but we do live in a democracy. We can't just identify some laws and ideas and ban them from the public conscience or the law book simply because we think their source is in religion. That's taking the concept too far. It's making the same mistake the religious people are making by legislating their ideas. To me, free speech exists to give everyone a voice - including voices that dissent or disagree with us. That would include the ability to profess one's faith and the need for the country's laws to reflect that. Religion is always going to infiltrate government at some level because the law is often built on moral ideas and moral ideas often comes from religion. Where the ACLU and others need to draw the line is where the freedom to express one's religion infringes on the rights of another - which is very different than what you said. The two issues you cite are complicated because abortion is an incredibly messy exchange of morals even for people who are "pro-life" and the idea of "rights" in this scenario has always bothered me. Likewise, marriage is a privilege not a right. I think you'd find if you analyze more of the religious ideas you want gone from discourse you'd realize that they too get caught in difficult moral dilemmas. That isn't for the ACLU to decide and when I hear their members say similar things I am very worried. Morals do have place in our society and laws. Most law schools actually had you take a class on it (I didn't but most did). Certain laws - such as laws against prostitution and drug use are illegal b/c of how society views those actions and not necessarily b/c those actions are - per se - evil. As opposed to murder or theft, for example. At the end of the day, you can trace pretty much any law we have to some sort of moral under pinning, either from religion or cultural practices. That said, morals can't be the end all. A majority of Americans have, at certain times in our history, supported lesser rights for women, homosexuals and other minorities. A lot of this discrimination was based on religious and moral teachings. This is a link of southern pastor Phil Snider supporting same sex relationships by comparing the discussions now and of racial segregation made 50 years earlier. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/phil-snider-missouri-pastor-anti-gay-rights-speech-surprise_n_1997036.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false The ACLU has done a great job of supporting people's right to express their religious views. They represented the idiot Baptists that protested military funerals, for instance. The ACLU gets a bad rap b/c it'll step in and stop a city from supporting certain religious views and people forget about the ACLU supporting individuals religious rights.

With regard to Hicks and Arcia, how did they not improve their "luster" in 2012? Would you not take a Hunter-esque Hicks and a Kubel-esque Arcia right now? Did you see what Kubel did in 2012? I meant since they were drafted. Hicks and Arcia both had great bounce back seasons, which will see them move up in tons of rankings. But no one thinks Hicks ceiling, for instance, will be what is was when we drafted him. That's what I was trying to get to, as prospects go up the ladder their ceilings come down but a guy like Buxton still has that incredible ceiling.

Well, Benson's main problem (besides injuries) is that he didn't have great plate discipline and that caught up with him when he went above AA. And he had actually repeated AA to get used to that. So, how about Goodrum? Struck out a lot in rookie ball, although he did walk a lot, too. Might have trouble in A ball.

Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, and Matt Garza say "hi". The bottom line is that the Twins have done a bad job of scouting hard-throwers and when combined with their bottom 15 picks through most of the 2000s, they've come up woefully short on arms. It's possible that they don't value hard-throwers as much as other teams but they certainly don't hate them. Two of those (Santana and Liriano) weren't part of the draft and weren't originally ours. How much did we develop those two before they were in the majors? How much did we pay to draft those two. One of those two was too expensive to keep so we got rid of him. Garza got shipped off cause he wouldn't listen to how they wanted him to pitch. Then there's Baker... Garza was shipped off b/c TB wouldn't take Slowey. Liriano had only pitched .2ip at A+ when we got him. Santana had even less experience. (Neither were drafted, not sure what you were getting at there). I think the Twins should get the majority of the credit for developing them. Santana still credits Cueller for teaching him his change up. Santana did sign an extension with us that bought out one of his FA years. I'm just not sure what the problem here is. The Twins have drafted a number of guys that could be called power guys when Radcliff was running things - Durbin, Hunt, Garza. And Johnson has gone even farther after those types. Radcliff also had a lot of success drafting control guys that other teams seemed to ignore. Shouldn't we be happy that the Twins found a market inefficiency and got a lot of success out of it?

Drugs laws are more lax in Canada?

Clearly, the team did something right. Jim Callis of BA ranked the Twins minor league system the 3rd best of the 2000s. No one is perfect but I'm more of the cyclical camp than anything else. You draft low every year and ownership puts financial muzzles in place, it'll eventually affect you. As to pitching, the team did change course when Deron Johnson took over the drafts. He drafted a lot of hard throwers where Radcliffe might have drafted focusing more on control guys. It's still open to see whether that change was good. However, the idea that the Twins are scared of strike out pitchers is absurdly stupid.

Two things, 1) The Twins will still count his AAA innings. He'll be on a 130-150 inning limit and it won't matter where he throws those innings. 2) He's 25. We'll have control of him through his age 31 season, no matter what. I believe that's another reason the Twins are, IN MY OPINION, a bit slow to promote...wait till they are 24, 25 (or older), you get all their prime years...it's a business thing. Maybe. But in fairness to the Twins, Gibson would've been called up at 23 if he hadn't needed TJ surgery.

Most of those things - ending discrimination, respecting the rights of same sex couples - fall under equal protection in our Constitution. Opposition to death penalty and prisoner rights are generally based on the 8th amendment, same with opposition to torture. Religious rights are in the first amendment. Abortion rights, like privacy and travel, are also found in the Constitution. The ACLU protects both civil liberties and civil rights. Civil liberties tend to be thought of as things listed in the bill of rights while civil rights tend to be thought of more as natural law and formulated in statutes.

Two things, 1) The Twins will still count his AAA innings. He'll be on a 130-150 inning limit and it won't matter where he throws those innings. 2) He's 25. We'll have control of him through his age 31 season, no matter what.