mnfireman

Better to get hurt in he AFL and have the whole off-season to heal than to get hurt in-season, again. Anyway, lets hope that this year is the anomaly and not the norm.

Anybody expecting the team to contend next year should think again. This is only year two the rebuild, the team chose to ignore reality in 2012 and 2013. Injuries to Sano, Buxton, Meyer and May as well as the PED suspension of Rosario haven't helped either. Either the kids gotta play and the team takes its lumps or another year of plug and play AAAA players and the team takes its lumps and loses more fans at the gate. What will the Twins brain trust do??

When I said that the talent is there, I meant that players like Arcia, Santana, and Dozier are good young players, but for whatever reasons are mistake prone. Mauer had a down year, but Suzuki and Escobar played above expectations. Plouffe played to what everybody hoped he would, and actually improved a little on defense. Vargas hit well, but that was it. No range in the field and no speed on the bases. And the LF by committee, other than the statue that was Willingham, didn't do too bad. Fundamentally they left a lot to be desired. Balls dropping between fielders, bad routes in the OF, missed cut-off men, throwing to the wrong base, can't throw out runners trying to steal, and the list goes on. I can think of at least a dozen occasions where innings were extended because of the teams defense. And on offense, even with the improvements by these players there were far too many players picked off, too much station to station base running, runners not being advanced, strike outs when a ground ball or fly ball was needed, etc... Lots of room for improvement, and I didn't even start on the rotation!

Step 1 - New blood on the bench While neither condoning nor condemning the firing of Gardy, it was way past time for a change. His style just wasn't doing it anymore. The team was fundamentally unsound. The talent is there, but it seems like they don't know how to play the game. Throwing to the wrong base, missing cut-offs, getting picked off, bunting when its not needed, etc... This team needs a field staff that can get these kids to play baseball, not whatever the past 4 seasons have been. Step 2 - Veteran leadership This team needs a Torii Hunter type - a veteran who is both willing to help teach the kids how to play and ready to smack 'em upside the head when needed. Gardy never started throwing players under the bus until Torii left, and even then it was the younger players. If the team dives into the free agent pool it needs to get a veteran with some fire. Step 3 - Commit 100% Fuld, Mastro, Escobar, Schafer and a few others are nice players, on a contending team. As reserves. They are not everyday players, especially on a rebuilding team. Either sign veteran starters to be gap stops or get the kids up here. Granted injuries didn't help, but the future needs to be with the big club. This goes for the rotation as well. This team should be going into year 4 of a re-build, but its only going into year 2. The Band-Aid method didn't work, do it right. And we fans need to realize this also. Step 4 - Don't be afraid to be a copycat Take a look at St. Louis, Pittsburgh, KC, Oakland, Tampa and a few others. They play younger players until they become expensive, and then have younger players ready when they lose those expensive players. Or invest wisely. San Francisco has a terrible offense, but oh that pitching staff and defense. Minnesota used to be the team to emulate in the reload method, maybe they will remember how to do it. I'm sure there are things that could be added to this re-build plan, but I feel it would be a start and after another year or two this team will be viable again.

Spending just to spend will not fix this team. Nolasco, Hughes, Gibson, Mays and Meyer should be the rotation, who loses a job if you go spend on a starting pitcher? Suzuki, Mauer and Dozier are pretty much givens in the IF, with Santana and Escobar fighting for SS and Plouffe holding for Sano until ???, who loses a job. Hicks became serviceable, Arcia needs to play, Schaefer looks to be more than able to be a fourth OF and Buxton is on his way. Vargas has DH covered. Pinto and Nunez round out the position players. The bullpen was overused but up until August was lights out. The problem was thinking there wasn't a problem. Instead of 2015 being year four of the rebuild, it will be year two. They should look at how the Cardinals and Rays develop young players, get them to the majors, use them in roles that they can succeed in, and let them walk when they get too expensive. And repeat.

Given the current state of this team, blame could be placed everywhere. They need OF's to play the OF, not infielders. How many innings were turned ugly because of a misplay in the OF? That goes on Ryan for not getting 3 guys to run out to LF, CF, & RF everyday. Those big innings led to short starts, which led to bullpen overuse, which led to late inning losses later in the year. Still on Ryan, even though it looked like it could have been on Gardy. Say all you want about pitch framing being a skill, it isn't. The skill is the pitcher hitting the target. If he hits the target, he eventually gets the close ones. If he misses the target by a foot, he doesn't get the close ones later. This leads to having to groove a pitch to a major league hitter and/or higher pitch counts. This also leads to bullpen overuse. This is on the coaching staff. Everybody loves the longball, but some situations just require a groundball to advance the runner. Or a flyball to advance/score a runner. This team had too many runners left on base because of SO's. Let the kids hit, but teach them when its okay to play small ball. Also they get thrown out a lot on the bases and/or don't take the extra base when possible. Again, on the coaching staff. Defense. Or lack thereof. I am not going to look the numbers up, but by errors, UZR, Range factor, etc... I am going to guess this team looks ok. Its not. Flyballs dropping between defenders, throwing to the wrong base, missing the cut off man, misplaying balls in the RF & LF corners, infield hits that could have been outs. The list goes on. This team is fundamentally not sound. Again, coaching staff. There's enough blame to go around, and this includes the coaching staff.

What kind of slide was that Herrman? As he got close to the base his foot came off the ground. I think he's safe if he keeps his foot down or slides head first.

The OF defense is a big help tonight!

Hughes just turned 28, young despite several years MLB experience. Gibson will be 27, Meyers and May will be 25 this off-season. I think Hughes should be kept for the duration of his contract and maybe even extended with what he has shown this season. Dozier is another story. If the team can get a good return for him, i say trade him. Escobar has shown he can play every day and Santana would then be able to move back to SS, with Escobar at 2B. Plus it seems the team has several IF prospects nearly ready to move up.

Gardy, like TK, is here until he doesn't want to be. He may not be able to handpick his successor as TK did though. Molitor or Glynn might make sense as they are older and might only want to manage a couple of years, bridging the gap to Mauer or Mientkiewicz.

How about actual returns on trades. The kid they got for Butera was a decent prospect, then he was flipped for Nunez. Millone for Fuld, a waiver wire pickup, looks to maybe work out ok. A decent prospect for Willingham, who would have walked in FA this off-season. Anything for Correia, who also would have been a FA after the season. We could also say that the front office bungled the CF/OF and SS situations earlier in the year by losing Mastro and Presley and playing Hicks and Florimon, but that misplay turned into Fuld and Schafer, which seems ok now. But more importantly it got Santana to the bigs and Escobar and Nunez have held their own at SS and super utility.

Seems to me high school and little league umpires do a pretty good job with the no collision rule at home plate. Oh yeah, in those age groups the runner is required to slide if the play is going to be close. Maybe MLB should adapt that rule also. Close play at the plate, slide or you're out.

Don't know what it is but keep getting prompted to open or save adServerESI.js from core.insightexpressai.com

For his career the Twins are 630-624 when Mauer plays, 272-241 when he doesn't.

Bad hitting, bad baserunning and bad defense. They looked worse than a little league team tonight. The "Twins Way", alas, officially exists no more.

According to baseball-reference.com the Twins are 36-40 in games Mauer has played in this season.

Looking like a Little League team tonight.....in keeping with this weekends theme!

Radke was 22, Erickson was 22, Lohse was 22, Liriano's best year he was 22, Milton was 22, and there are more. But yes, the team seems like they prefer their pitchers to be 25 or older, which may work against them in the future. If a kid is ready, bring them up. The Rays, Cards, Braves and a few other teams seem to be having some success doing this.

Sounds like a ringing endorsement for each of them given KLAW's past criticisms.

I don't think he'll change his swing to try to hit HR's. He thinks he can hit 20-25 a year, that's a number that is achievable without any changes. 10-15 may be a more realistic number, but if he hits .285 and steals 25-30 bases a year to go with those 10-15 HR's and plus defense, I think everyone, including critics/cynics on this website, will be extremely happy.

I don't have an issue with head first slides (except at first base, and usually at home plate), but let's get these guys the correctly sized helmet. The helmet shouldn't fly off while a player is running the bases.

Are ticket king tickets available for will-call pick up or e-printing? The website only show home delivery, unless I missed it somewhere. Thanks in advance.

Skipping the last 4 pages of this thread, an OF of Arcia in LF, Buxton in CF and Hicks in RF totally blows away an OF of Hicks in CF and anybody else who has played corner OF since Arcia and Willingham went down in early April. If anything trotting SS's out to play the OF maybe gives the team an opportunity to showcase these players for possible trades.

I do now!

Today is a perfect example of why I put no stock in catchers framing capability statistics or pitchers not getting certain pitches called strikes. Nolasco is all over the place. The home plate umpire is not going to give him anything close if Suzuki sets up inside and Nolasco misses or is close outside because the umpire will set up based on where the catcher sets up.