Platoon

I did not watch the series religiously, but I did see Salvador Perez hit several times in both the series and the playoffs. While we may think that Oswaldo is a glutton for the high heat, Perez makes him look like a strike zone aficionado. I am not sure I have ever seen a catcher (Posey) stand up through an entire at bat,

A great reason not to SEND HIM. SEND HIM.

I would have been a lot more surprised if he had answered your question with "your" type of quote than the one he gave you. TR does not impress me as the type of guy to openly admit that he would learn anything from listening to someone else. That said, Worley's quotes lend themselves towards personal. That seems to fit in with a trait the Twins have displayed in the past. There was a doghouse. Now I imagine every team has a doghouse. It's the amount of time you spend in it, the depth of the ostratacion, and whether you can extricate yourself from it that determines whether the doghouse is a productive tool of motivation, or simply somewhere for your "dogs" to live till you get rid of them?

CONTROL

One interesting comment by Mackey. He mentions a possible Twins inferiority complex. I know that's hard to quantify, but maybe the Twins have gotten so inurred to this small market mantra they feel to much like the "little engine that could"? Money? 5 mil is only 3 mil over Gardies reported number. The Pohlads probably know more about making money than I do. So someone in their office has a calculator that would show them that it takes only 150,000 fans at a minimal $20 per seat, per annum to pay the difference. On a 3 year deal that's under a half million seats. Image? The Cubs are a storied franchise. Albeit sometimes it's the wrong story, but from reports they have tons of young talent, a big name GM who seems willing to fill in the holes, and frankly a bigger more urbane city. Control? To me this seems the only logical reason the Twins have not initiated contact. I don't know either man personally, but I doubt TR would be willing to cede any real manner of roster control to someone else. He might throw someone like Gardy a few crums, ie Bartlett, but there is only one guy who decides when the Sano's of the world move up. I would venture that he has more hair than flexibility. Lastly, the Twins do not seem like an orginasation that would already know who their choice is (you really can't tell me TR leaned a thing from the Molitor, Dougy B. interviews), have maybe already told the applicants where they stand, and then upset the apple cart. TR is a little like the captain of the Titanic! He has set a course, and a little thing like a iceberg (Maddon) is not going to make him change course. Hopefully this voyage turns out differently?

Your resume made no mention of any of your teams "gettin after it"? If you had done your research you would have realized that this is one of the, if not the, major component of the "Twins Way". (That and the odd habit of droppin our "g" at the end of some words.) With out this indispensable, and fortunately hard to quantify, trait the Twins would be just another small market baseball team, willing to settle for second best! Or fifth best, depending on how many teams are in the division!

As an operating principle I like your rationale. One of the advantages of the Twins interminable patience is they are an organization that might or could do this. It will require the front office to assure the new manager that his job performance will be judged on whether the team is more competitive by the end of the year, not by his W/L record. . The FO also needs to lay out to the fans that this is the way forward. About half of this should have been already accomplished, but injuries and some misplaced priorities made 2014 a completely lost season.

If I did my math right, Big Papi was 26 in his last Twins year. In 455 games he hit 58 HR's. At 23 Arcia is on a much higher pace already. He definitely has responded to Bruno's coaching, as he has eliminated some of his ugliest AB's in September. At his age he is not close to maturity either as a hitter or fielder. And no he will not be a Torii type glove man. But for those who advocate his trade, be prepared to weep and gnash your teeth for years. Arcia is a prototype for the next several years. There will be more young players coming, and all of them are going to struggle. Those with the patience to appreciate talent should enjoy themselves. Those looking for instant gratification will be in for a long couple of years.

The left field issue seems to be currently in vogue. What the Twins need is someone who can catch the ball in left field. You have to have at least two guys who can catch the ball in the OF. Run scoring has not been an issue. So that could be Shafer, Hicks, or Santana if they continue to refuse to give him a legitimate look at short. Since they are not bringing Buxton up to,start the season, Shafer in center and Hicks in left works for me. Why Hicks in left? Because that's where he is either going to play or not play. Santana goes to SS until he proves he can't. Why this was not done last fall is a puzzle to me. But it leaves player auditions to still be held. It was one of the things that removed any doubt in my mind that a change in managers was needed.

BTW I talked to TR today. He wondered why you didn't show up for your interview yesterday?

I too think hicks will make it. He is the wild card here. If he gets his head ............. Well you know what I mean! He is your LF/CF guy. He has some tools, but doesn't or won't use them. That can change. What you can't do is try to use tools you don't have. Who knows, he could be one of those guys that benefits from a new manager?

Parker has a column about the Twins use of metrics. In the middle of the column are stats on how the opponents ground ball BA's have dramatically increased this past year. For all GB, .235 in 2013. .258 this year. And up the middle, .500, the highest in the majors. Maybe that will help solve the debate.

The paragraph in the middle of the article about ground ball averages would possibly answer the Escobar/Santana debate raging in DocBauers brain. . Maybe we missed Florimon more than we thought?

I was not trashing Ploufe. (If I do trash someone it wil be obvious). But I should have been more precise. Until the Twins get a competent CF and LF their ERA's are not going too far south. I am not a pitch to contact guy, but it's what we currently have. We just did the SS in the outfield thing. And the God knows who in left thing. So maybe I am just weary from watching fly balls land like hailstones, outfield fences being treated like they were electrified, and cutoff men being missed like a Ponder wide receiver. I don't think either Plouffe or Sano will solve that. it just seems putting Sano in LF is another Santana type idea. It's a year later. No one is sure if he can play SS. And unless Sano is lights out in LF, we will be wondering the same thing about Sano in 2016. We been dere, done dat. Btw, Plouffe is not a (the) problem. He just happens to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Nothing wrong with Plouffe. But he is another average player on a team of average players. His problem is that there is a top 5 prospect in the wings on a team looking to the future. To me there seems only two possibilities here. Either the Buxtons, Sanos, Santana's, Arcias, and Vargas's of the world start playing and contributing, or the Twins are in the 4th year of a ten year rebuild.

Two simple questions. Who is going to be of more value to the Twins by mid 2016? And who wants to see this last two years OF replicated?

I have both Sano and Plouffe throw in person. Sano has a cannon. A comparison would be The difference between Santana and Escobar from SS. And as for wheels, he ain't no Vargas!

They are smaller, and if it was just an isolated incidence, I would agree. Players like Suzuki, Dozier, and Escobar can at the best make us respectable. That's not really a long term strategy. The perfect example was Suzuki. He was signed as a stop gap mentor, got hot, and we treated him like Johnny Bench. The rationale that he would improve our pitching staff, did not materialize. Instead of trading him at the deadline at his highest value ever, he will be here into the next year, year and a half, and we will let him go for the legendary PTBNL. This will be Willingham déjà vu all over again!

Maybe it's because we are closer to the daily workings of the Twins, but it seems they inevitably hang onto "dispensable" players too long. Whether you move a player has a lot to do with your teams present and future. A team like the Twins should have moved guys like Willingham. He fulfilled no need on a 90 loss team. Perkins? Do you need an elite closer in this situation? There are others. And I am not advocating trading everyone, just to clean house. But if you can identify a team who needs to fill a specific hole, make the trade. If the Twins truly are aiming to be contenders in '16, there will be quite a few different faces here. Or there will be no contention. You can name any member of the current Twins, and make an argument that they should not be dealt. And you would have a valid point. Unfortunately if you win all those arguments, the team will continue to lose. You might as well sell high, than just dump guys for PTBNL.

With the exception of "fixing the starting pitching is easy enough" I like this. It addresses a major issue/problem the Twins have. They can't begin to stabilize their roster or lineup until these two guys are playing here. I am not a big Plouffie fan, but even I think that he is currently a better fielder than Sano. But we have seen Plouffe at his best this year, and it is his ceiling. My point, the Twins have, for the last several years, fielded teams of nice, safe, middling players. Good enough for Dick and Bert to go "wow, what a play" a few times. But what they need is for Sano, Buxton, Vargas, Arcia, Santana, and a rejuvenated Mauer to become the cornerstones. The Plouffes, Doziers, and Suzukis then fill in the voids. If that scenario does not play out, we will again be looking for the next rebuild, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our last World Series win.

The twins OF defense would look completely different with even an adequate CF. For all his physical talent Santana really did not help out the corner guys at all. I like Santana a lot. As a middle infielder and lead off man. Who knows, someday he could even be a decent CF, but I hear they have another guy coming up the pipe. Oswaldo is not going to win any Gold Gleves, but I have the distinct feeling that if you trade him, in 2-3 years the level of remorse will make the whining over Cuddy, Morneau, Span, and Revere pale in comparison. Big guys like him do not become polished hitters at 23.

Be careful when you try to take North Dakota. I hear the guy who runs Grand Forks is a brilliant strategist!

Was this the same guy as in "who's on first"? I had no idea that guy had a medical certificate?

I have found rocks to be detrimental to the operation of my iPad also.

The easiest way to solve this is FSN needs to test applicants for the prestigious FSN Girls position with a series of baseball related questions. To wit: * define the infield fly rule, in 240 words or less. * which side of second base does the second baseman stand? (Shifts excluded) * how tall can a shortstop be? * what would you consider the best chance of getting from second to third base? Upon completion of this test, and submission of 2 glossy 3x5 photos, FSN could make their decisions based on the applicants knowledge of the intricacies of the game, rather than on their bright shiny smiles!