chpettit19

I think Cruz has earned the benefit of the doubt by leading all of major league baseball in HRs over the last 5 years while hitting in one of the worst HR hitting parks in the game. I don't think 40 HRs is an unreasonable expectation of him this year. That being said, unless you're really convinced he's fallen off a cliff and we're looking at LoMo 2.0 I don't get why anyone would be against this signing, or how him not being able to play any defense is really a negative thing. How is the "flexibility" to rotate lesser hitters through the lineup to give them "half days off" a better option than plugging an elite bat into the heart of your order every day? You can only play 8 defensive guys each day. You're not subbing your DH into the game to play a position ever. If someone is too tired to play the field give them the day off and let them just relax while we put the best hitter we have in at DH and watch him launch balls into the second deck in left or over the batters eye in center. Now if the plan was for Cron, or Austin, or someone like that to be your everyday DH then I can understand frustration. But as of now Cruz is the best hitter on this team. Being able to plug him in everyday without question should be an unquestioned good thing. I don't get why anyone would prefer Buxton's bat in the lineup while he's not playing center, or Kepler's, or literally anyone else on this team. If the goal is to put your 8 best fielders and 9 best hitters out there as often as possible, having a DH only who is your best hitter isn't a bad thing since you get an "extra" hitter. I think the bigger reason you see fewer "DH only" types is because there are fewer guys who can hit and can't field. We're seeing the elite bats be guys who field well, and even be up the middle guys. Boston seemed to do alright with Ortiz as a DH only, and now with JD as a DH only.

Renting Rendon would likely cost you one of your top 3-5 prospects and another 1 or 2 top 10-15 type guys so that's something to take into consideration. And I believe they changed the rule and you no longer pick up draft picks for rental players, but maybe I'm wrong on that. That being said, I don't think Rendon will be available as I think the Nats want to build around him. Maybe someone like Donaldson if the Braves don't live up to expectations, though. And then you're talking much lower prospect loss as well. I think you need to take the prospect cost into account as well.

Arraez's path to the majors is a Marwin Gonzalez type utility role, I think. He's played a bunch of 3B in the winter leagues and has worked out all over the IF and some OF for the Twins. If he keeps hitting I could see him stepping right into Gonzalez's role in 2 years when Gonzalez is gone.

The push is coming from Lewis, Javier, and Arraez. It's not that him struggling this year means he's never going to be a ML player, it's that he will get passed in the immediate future of the Twins' organization as well as the big picture future. He's already been passed in terms of future plans with Polanco, Lewis, and Javier I'd think being the IF plan of the future, and if Gordon struggles again and the other minor league guys do what they're expected to Gordon may never see a Twins uni as they will get to the majors next year and he'll be sitting in the minors still. To be honest I'd guess the FO is already looking at him as trade bait if he can get off to a hot start, and, at max, a backup IF for the Twins down the road. Nothing wrong with that, but I'd guess Gordon himself is feeling quite a bit of pressure to perform this year as he can feel his ML future slipping away.

That's fair. I'm not overly excited or down on either of them. Just find it interesting. Not saying it's good or bad, just interesting that their stats (given, only offensively) are super similar, but they tend to be viewed very differently on a lot of these boards.

Delmon Young was a minor league OF too, doesn't mean he should have been in a ML outfield. Having watched Austin run I can't imagine he's a useful outfielder. I think it is a sign that this FO, and possibly Rocco, too, take defense serious and don't want to put bad fielders out there if they don't have to. And it's not like Austin has lit the world on fire at the plate in his career. It's been spotty chances for him, but he's a career league average hitter. Taking ABs away from any of our OFs for that doesn't seem like the right move to me. If you think consistent ABs makes him an above average hitter maybe there's more to the idea of finding him a second position, but I just don't think he's good enough with the bat to make up for what I would guess is subpar OF defense.

I find it interesting that so many people seem so confident in Cave being at least a useful ML piece after 309 PAs of 113 OPS+, yet are so worried about Cron after 2035 PAs of 112 OPS+. And that's not even mentioning so many people really wanting Austin to be on the team despite having 400 PAs of 100 OPS+. Seems like a lot of this is maybe a little emotional attachment to guys who've worn a Twins' uni.

I think you're overestimating our "starting 9," and what 2019 baseball is like. Superstars/All-Stars play everyday. The rest of the league is interchangeable and matchup based. The Twins are finally getting into the modern game and have a manager who will (hopefully) be better at using the information at his disposal to mix and match his lineups to fit with that day's game. Go look at what the WS lineups looked like last year. And those are teams loaded with stars. They are mixed and matched and have certain guys, I.e. Pierce and Muncy, who hit in the heart of their orders, but only in platoon situations. There's no more "starting 9" in todays game. It's full 25 and 40 man rosters. The 10 day IL makes it even easier to use your entire 40 man roster as you can give a guy 10 days in the majors to fill in for somebody who's nicked up. Not even teams with lineups full of studs have a "starting 9" that is just penciled in each day. Cruz and Rosario are the only 2 Twins hitters who can even start to talk about being deserving of an everyday lineup spot. The rest are all mix and match until they establish that they're significantly better than the next guy. That is why you have to look at the payroll as being a big picture thing, and not just focus on this 1 contract. Do you have a specific player, and/or contract possibility, out there that you'd like to see the Twins sign right now that you think isn't going to happen because of this contract? If the team is competing at the trade deadline this contract isn't going to stop us from bringing in another player, not even Donaldson and the 12 or so mil he'll have left on his deal then. I think this FO has clearly established that they won't do any deal that will truly hinder their payroll flexibility.

So you think they're going to miss out on a difference making player because of his 2/21 contract? I don't think they're sitting in ST right now saying "dang, we could've signed Keuchel or Kimbrel if it wasn't for Marwin taking up 9% of our payroll." You have to look at the big picture. The hope is Byron and Miguel finally hit their ceilings and become the stars they were supposed to be. At that point you have 2 studs making less than they "should" based on their production. I think Marwin earns every penny of that $21 mil from his on field performance, the flexibility he provides Rocco, his clubhouse presence, and a myriad of other things, but even if he doesn't his contract won't be what sinks this team. He's not coming in to be the star and he isn't being paid like he is. Ben Zobrist signed a 4 year, $56 mil deal at the age of 35. Marwin is the poor man's Zobrist and is on a shorter contract for less money/year. DJ LeMahieu just signed for 2/24 after playing in Coors his whole career and being nothing but a high BA guy and good defender at 2nd. He provides no positional flexibility, and no power. Marwin got a deal that is right in line with who he is. This is what the MLB market has determined productive, but not All-Star level, players are worth. If you think his 10.5 a year for 2 is going to cripple this team you must have no hope at all that the Twins will ever compete.

So the team with superstars found it worth having him around, but the team without superstars is too good for him? I really can't follow your logic. Is it simply because he's making $10 mil a year? I don't understand what you're seeing in your head as how this season goes. Do you think there's one of the 9 players you see as starters who is suddenly going to get 100 ABs because of this signing? There a minimum of 4374 ABs to hand out this year. Do you think handing 400 of those to Marwin is going to cripple the Twins season? What if Schoop doesn't bounce back to his 2017 season and is cut 2 months into the year? What if Sano gets hurt AGAIN? Or Buxton sucks AGAIN? Or Cron and Austin are both negative WAR players? Or Polanco gets hurt? 1 of those things very well may happen and I think it's rather nice to have Marwin around to step in. They didn't bring him in to take someone's everyday spot. He's going to bounce around and give guys a rest. And you can "overspend" (as you seem to think this is) on a guy like Marwin for these 2 years when you have your "core" making less than they produce. It's what every smart team does.

Doesn't it make immense sense to sign a guy to provide insurance for injuries and underperformance? Every team, every year suffers from these things. Going into a season with 9 guys and saying "they're all starting 162 and hitting in this exact order and providing these exact stats" is a recipe for disaster. Marwin Gonzalez is a proven MLB player on a contract that doesn't hurt anything. I can't comprehend how adding a proven MLB player is a bad thing. It just doesn't make sense.

The Astros had Bregman-Correa-Altuve-Gurriel across their infield to start last year. They had Marisnik-Springer-Reddick across their outfield to start last year. Marwin still got 489 ABs for them last year. Which Twins starter are you plugging in for 1 of those guys? Rosario for Marisnik? Sure I can see that. There is literally no other Twins starter I would plug into that lineup. Maybe you see our players differently than I do, but I think it's safe to say the Astros had a better lineup last year than the Twins do this year and they were able to creep into the playoffs even with the weight of Marwin getting 489 ABs dragging them down. He's not a world beater but neither is anyone else in our lineup. Who are you concerned this established, quality big leaguer is taking ABs from? 2/21 is nothing. That is not hampering our team in any way, shape, or form. We could cut him tomorrow and be just fine eating that money. My point is that "kicking it down the road" means you're giving up more in the transaction. We got him for a reasonable contract that doesn't hurt us. If we are competing and hit the trade deadline and decide we need a guy like Marwin to get us to the postseason then we're bringing this sort of contract in while also sending out prospects. So now we're paying the money anyways and we also lost prospect talent. And if he makes us better at the deadline he makes us better now. Why would you want half the season of better? To save $5 mil? Signing him doesn't hurt us, but might make us better. I don't see the downside. No 2 year deal is ever going to cripple a team. Ever.

Me neither, but your post was asking why we would sign him now when we could just wait until the deadline and get a similar player then. And I'm asking why you would want to wait and see when his signing only costs money as opposed to trading assets for a similar player who will still cost money. I don't follow the logic of ever wanting to trade for a similar player to one you can just sign and save your prospects.

I don't get why anyone would be down on this signing. The biggest weakness of this roster before today was flexibility. We brought in one of the most positionally flexible players in MLB for a price that isn't going to hurt the payroll in any meaningful way. Oh, and he's a switch hitter so can give anyone on the field a day off anytime they need. It's a new era in baseball. Most guys aren't playing 160 games anymore. And at this point the Twins don't have anyone who's earned the right to demand they're out there every day (other than Cruz at DH). It's a long summer and there will be injuries and there will be guys who have bad years, or bad stretches. More depth is not a bad thing, ever. We are more talented now than when we woke up this morning. That's a good thing. Do we need more pitching? Yes. Does making our position players better hurt our pitching? No. I don't get the posts after every signing complaining that "now we won't sign so and so." People were mad when we claimed Cron because then we couldn't sign a "proven MLB" player, but now we sign a proven MLB player who has a ring and can help show our young guys what it takes to be a champion and we're mad that we didn't sign him earlier? Just don't get the complaints about this signing at all. The day we bring in a Marwin type guy to replace a Trout type guy we can complain. He's not replacing anyone at this point. And anybody getting sent down because of this signing wasn't that great of a player to start with.

Why wait til the deadline and then have to trade assets?

With all the off days in the first few weeks of the season I'd be surprised to see the Twins keep 13 arms to start the year. I think they take those few weeks to a month to get 13 guys action at the plate and in the field and delay their bench decisions until after the real games start and they see what everyone is looking like. Then they send someone down and bring up the extra arm when they need to.

1. The DBacks wanted (and got) MLB ready/MLB experienced top prospects. The Twins don't have anybody like that. That means in order to convince them to change their plan and go with a rebuild, instead of a retool, you'd have to give up one of our top 3. I'm cool if that's something you'd like to see, but the idea that you're bringing in a perennial MVP candidate by trading a bunch of non-elite prospects is rather far fetched I think. If you wanted them to trade MLBers for him then I'm not sure what you think this team would have been capable of without a pair of Rosario, Berrios, or Kepler, because that's what it would take to get a perennial MVP. 2. Grienke as a thrown in suggests the Twins would have been taking on all, or at least 90%, of his current contract. He is due $34,500,000 in 2019, and $35,000,000 in both 2020 and 2021. Goldschmidt is a free agent after 2019 and is going to get something in the 3-5 years, $30 mil a year range of a contract. That means you're paying 2 guys $60 mil a year for the next 3 years. What sort of team do you think the Twins can put around them? Keep in mind you just traded away either 2 established MLBers and some of your top 4-15 prospects, or a pair of your 3 top prospects. Big names are all well and good, and I'd like to see the Twins a take a swing at them at some point, but this is not the time to do it through trade. Now if you want to argue that the Twins should be in on Harper, Machado, Kimbrel and/or Keuchel I'd be more inclined to agree there. I don't think trades for high priced guys is a smart move at this point. Each year we are seeing more and more that it takes the entire 25 man roster to win in the post season, and the whole 40 man to win in the regular season. A roster with a couple high priced studs and a bunch of sub-replacement level bums is not a recipe for fixing the Twins' woes. But with the hope that your roster is going to be filled with low priced, top flight young talent for the next 6-8 years I think this is a good time for us to make a splash with a FA signing. I'd love to see Keuchel in a Twins uni for something like 3 years and $60 mil. I think the Padres are looking at their next 6-8 years and seeing that their entire team will be pretty cheap as they call up a stable of young stud arms and a few uber-talented position players and that's why they're chasing Harper and Machado. In conclusion, I'd love to see improved play at Target Field (I actually feel pretty good about this team compared to how I've felt the last few), but it needs to be done the right way so we don't watch it fall off a cliff again in 3 or 4 years. And I think making any trades at this point would really raise the likelihood of that happening. As someone earlier posted, it's a numbers game with prospects. And a team who refuses to (or can't depending on who you ask) spend big money needs to have a constant stream of prospects. I think the FO has that stream in place and will open the tap in the next couple years and we'll see if their plan worked or not. I think we also all need to prepare ourselves to start seeing our top guys get traded as FA gets closer. I think that'll be the next step in the plan for continued contention. We'll see how it all plays out.

A lot of people talking about making signings "that help for the future" around here. Most free agents that hit the market have already hit their peak and are getting paid for what they've already done while the contract covers their decline years. I know it's frustrating that the Twins have such a small payroll compared to other clubs, but that's the reality and it just needs to be accepted. With that being the case the Twins will very likely never be in the running for "big time" free agents. Would Machado and Harper fit as signings that "help for the future?" In terms of talent you'd assume they are top 10-15 players in MLB for the next 5 or 6 years, and that'd be great to see in a Twins uniform. But the last 4-5 years while they decline their contracts would kill the payroll (nobody enjoyed watching Mauer decline while he got paid 20% of their payroll). The Twins, and other teams with similar payrolls, need to build through drafting and developing. That's what has killed this team, not lack of huge FA signings (Darvish would've killed us for the next 5 years had we signed that deal). So, yes, they are waiting for Sano and Buxton to figure things out, or for Lewis and Kiriloff to reach the majors and become superstars. Then they'll be waiting for the next prospects to arrive while trading off the guys who are about to get expensive to reload with even more prospects. That's the reality of it. This team can't "buy wins." These types of deals are the ones they have to make. Is it frustrating? Sure is. But that's the life of a low to mid payroll team. Everyone wants to sign the long term deals, but then when they do and they don't turn out they're mad at that. Do I think this FO is coming in and saving the Twins and turning them into perenial contenders? Not yet. But there's a lot of people on here who make it so there's no way the FO can win unless they nail all of their signings perfectly. It's fun to dream on being able to sign the superstars in their mid 20s to long term FA deals, but that's not the reality of this team.

Machado is a great fit for any team. Top 10 players are great fits for any team. Talent wise. Payroll wise is a different story. The Rays went out and signed their superstar to a team friendly deal and still couldn't fill in enough talent around him to ever really threaten for a championship. Signing a guy like Machado out of free agency for one of the two richest contracts in baseball history is not a way to build a contender. The reality is this team is never going to be in a position to sign guys like that while the Pohlads are in charge. Building from within and signing veterans to 3-4 year deals in free agency is how they compete. Blowing up the budget just to say they got a premiere guy is how they win the headlines and lose games. Look at Seattle if you want to see how the works out for teams that can't afford to give long term contracts to guys that won't perform for the entirety of their contract. And their budget is way higher than ours. The Twins can't afford to have huge chunks of wasted payroll. I love Mauer, but if that contract proved anything that was it. Machado is not a smart signing.

Agreed. Although, it could be argued that competing with Cleveland and winning the division is a good step on the path to true competition for the WS. Where I want to see this FO separate itself from the previous ones is to not stop at winning the division a bunch and getting stomped by NY (or whoever) in the first round. Competing with Cleveland (and everyone in the division) is just one step on the climb to championship competition. If they stop on that step like the previous FOs were happy to do it'll be time to ship them out.

If this is their only 1b/DH move it leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't think it is. I think it's ST competition for Austin and Sano (and Grossman if he's still around). 5 mil isn't nothing, but he can be cut before the season without having to pay most of that so if he shows up and clearly doesn't have it then you're not doing any real damage to your budget. These boards would blow up during April and May if the Twins didn't make any moves like this and just handed the 1B job to Austin and he comes out of the gates striking out 40% of the time and we don't have any sort of possible replacement. I know the Twins have a history of making this kind of move and just stopping because "$5 mil is a lot in our small market," but this just doesn't feel like that kind of move to me. I don't think they're concerned with it from a budget standpoint. They're taking a flyer on a guy who has some potential. They didn't give up any prospects and I just don't feel that it stops any of their other acquisition plans this offseason. Much ado about nothing if you ask me. Adding depth is good.

Max is (likely) never going to be a 1-4 or even #5 hitter on a championship team, and he never was supposed to be. I see a lot of Josh Reddick in him. Big time defender who hits 6-9 in the order. Not a superstar, but can definitely be a starter on a WS team. No, he hasn't gotten there with the bat, but he's looked drastically better than the guys who were supposed to be hitting 1 and 3 for us right now. Maybe he never hits above .250 with 20-25 HRs and that'd be a shame, but if he's a gold glove type defender that's still useful if you're not relying on him to hit 5th or 6th for you. What is often missed on these boards, and in some of the articles, is that looking at all 25 (or 40) guys on the roster individually is useful only in the connection between them and the other 24 (or 39) other guys. If anyone on here, or in the organization, was thinking Max was the future protection for Sano hitting in the 4 hole they were fooling themselves. That was never what he was supposed to be. I think that is the big thing the front office has been working on during these first 2 years. Getting accurate reads on the guys in the organization and what realistic ceilings for them are. We labeled Sano the next Carbera and Buxton the next Trout. That's absurd. It's fun to think of how great they could be, but Sano was never going to hit .330 with 40 and 120, and Buxton was never going to do that and steal 40 bases to go with it. And Kepler was never going to hit .300 with 30 and 100. I know he had some good numbers in the minors, but using that as your basis for what they should do in the majors is misinformed of how it works. Max came up with holes in his swing and he's done a solid job of making progress on closing them. That's what leads to all the pop ups. He hasn't closed the hole and pitches throw pitches to the places he doesn't have the ability to square the ball up yet. Continued work (and he's certainly showed he puts in the work to fix his struggles) should likely lead to an uptick in the BABIP and in turn BA, but he's still not going to be the 4 or 5 hitter on the next WS Twins team. But if you have him hitting .275 with 25 in the 7 or 8 hole you're onto something. They can't all be superstars and not being a superstar doesn't make them a bust or useless. It just looks bad when the guys who were supposed to be hitting 1-5 almost all completely flop and a guy who isn't supposed to be there ends up getting thrust into that position. If Buxton, Sano, Dozier, Mauer, Polanco, and Rosario all hit the way they should have all season and Kepler was hitting 7th people wouldn't be so down on him and the Twins would have competed for a playoff spot. Kepler isn't a failure for not "stepping up" because the other guys failed. Kepler did his job this year. Would it be nice to see improvement, and should we expect continued improvement? Yes. But if you're waiting for him to hit .300 with 30 you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Maybe he'll do that someday, but it shouldn't be the expectation.

I'm not for or against the decision. I understand why they did it. I also understand why people don't like that they did it. But saying the "human aspect" of it is all bad isn't correct either. Buxton hasn't performed, but because everyone saw him as the next Trout and franchise savior he kept being thrown out there and treated like he was already Trout. I think we can all agree the FO knows Buxton as a person better than we do. Maybe they've seen that he responds better to tough love and they believe this will light a fire under him. Does it strain the relationship now? Sure. But if he takes this anger and turns it into production moving forward and the team starts winning and everyone is happy maybe he doesn't look back in 2023 and say "F the Twins, they sat me for a month in 2018." The human aspect is much more than just "you have a player mad at you right now so you failed." At the end of the day, if Buxton doesn't figure out how to hit he's not a cornerstone player anyways and they don't care if he leaves at the end of his deal. The FO and coaches need to get him to start hitting above .200 or they don't care that he's pissed anyways cuz they move Lewis to center and move on from Buxton.

Having that money is progress. You complain that they acquired mediocre players, but that's what you get when you don't have money to spend. They turned those players into an even deeper stash of good young players and freed up a ton of money to go out and try to find better players. My point is that complaining about the 40 man roster at the very end of a sell of season that went terribly wrong is completely missing the big picture. This season went badly. If Dozier, Santana, Buxton, and Sano play the way they were expected to for the first half this article likely is about where things are going right. The Twins were a playoff team with young guys showing they were going to take a step forward to become the superstar core. The front office went out and got pieces to put around that core to compete while also maintaining flexibility. That's their job. Santana and Berrios were supposed to be your 1 and 2 in some order. Lance Lynn is a legit 3/4 guy. Gibson and Odorizzi are legit 4/5 guys. They had young arms in the minors ready to get their shot when any of them faltered or got hurt. And you hope 1 or 2 of those guys takes a step and produces more than expected. Which happened with Gibson. They brought in veteran relievers who throw hard and strike people out like everyone was asking for. They supplemented that with veterans who can eat innings and had young arms waiting for their shot in the minors. They had 2 young supposed stars looking like they were ready to explode. A handful of other youngsters who'd showed potential and that they were ready to be everyday guys. They had a couple old guys who still had a year or 2 of solid play left in the tank and added a power hitting lefty to supplement that. They built around their young core with an eye on contending and everything fell apart. Is it the FO fault that Buxton and Sano both performed like AA guys? Is it their fault that Dozier was terrible the whole first half? Is it their fault Santana never healed? Is it their fault it took Lynn a while to get going? Did they know their young SS was about to get suspended for cheating? Everything fell apart and the FO shifted. They sold off guys who had expiring deals they weren't sure they could resign or didn't want to, just like every other good team does. The players failed. Miserably. So, yeah, the 40 man looks terrible right now. A bunch of those guys are going to be shipped out. This is a lot like small sample size problems. You're picking the end of a lost season in the middle of a roster transition (that was happening to some extent no matter what the W/L record looked like this year) to and saying the sky is falling. This is what 40 man rosters look like when seasons blow up in front of your face. How the FO responds is what matters. If it's the same 40 man to start next season you can be pissed. But don't walk in in the middle of their work and say the finished product is a disaster. Let them get to the final product.

Your last sentence is the only one that truly talks to next year. The 40 man as it currently sits is not what it will be next season. They have about $100 mil to play with this offseason. They were fine getting rid of a streaky, declining second baseman who was going to be paid more than he produced. They're fine walking away from an old pitcher who outperformed his career stats drastically in his mid 30s and lost this entire year to injury. They are fine sitting Buxton for a month to save a year and give him that extra chance to prove he's got anything close to the hitting ability he showed in 2017. Progress isn't a linear idea when it comes to professional sports teams. Freeing up money from old, declining players is progress. Not resigning Phil Hughes type guys to big extensions after 1 outlier season is progress. The front office's job is to set up a sustainable system to be competitive year after year, barring injuries. They are paid to look to the future and do what's best for the team as a whole for now, 5 years down the road, 10 years down the road, and indefinitely into the future. The coaches and players are paid to make right now as successful as possible. The front office did a great job of adding supplemental pieces to a playoff team while also maintaining flexibility moving forward in case things didn't turn out as planned. And boy did they not turn out as planned. Dozier and Santana can complain all they want about the trade deadline moves, but the fact of the matter is that if Dozier played up to the level he's expected to and Santana didn't miss the entire year they would have won more games. Another poster mentioned wanting a tougher, more cutthroat, clubhouse and I couldn't agree more. Dozier bitched and moaned because a guy bunted against the shift and another guy stole second base in the 4th inning of the game. I'd hate playing with guys like that. You're paid to get them out so go get them out. Don't whine and cry that they are being mean by beating you. It's a business, and whether you like it or not, every business is the same way. If you don't produce and the company is suffering they're going to find someone who will produce and help the company succeed. That's how it works. The players didn't produce this year and the company is going to go find different ones they believe will. Could Falvey be more personable? Sure. But if the manager was it would make up for it. Every MLB team treats their players as just numbers. Every company you don't personally own treats you as just a number. Produce and you're fine. Don't produce and changes will be made. Time to be big boys and deal with it. Buxton has nobody to blame but himself. Figure out how to hit or don't expect to be in the bigs. Simple as that. Nobody owes him anything. He gets paid to hit, not just field. If he is only doing half his job he needs to figure out how to do the other half. It's not up to the FO or Mollie to put him out there just because he's Byron Buxton. Same with Sano. Don't care if you had a good rookie year. This is a new year. The world is a "what have you done for me lately" place and it goes for baseball players too. Produce or we'll find someone who can.