chpettit19

1. It being "basically the same front office" is techinically pretty accurate, but in practice it coudn't be further from the truth. The guys leading the front office are very different and are giving different directions to the people under them and are looking for different things when determining what players to have at what levels. Not to mention Falvey is known for the work he did with the pitcher development program with the Indians, and it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. 2. There's a huge difference between a MLB veteran (Santiago) going through spring training and the start of the season and a guy who had a cup of coffee the year before (and got absolutely rocked in the short stint). The veteran's confidence isn't going to be hurt be a slow start to the season. Berrios getting rocked again would have worn on him and possibly broken his confidence for a long time. It's a lot like the mistake Mollie made putting Buxton in the 3 hole for absolutely no reason. Too much pressure on a young guy who had no track record of MLB success to fall back on confidence wise when he struggled again. They aren't robots or just numbers put into a system. They're people and these things matter. 3. As I've said on other threads, the struggles Berrios had last year were mechanical/skill things that he could work on in AAA. Him striking out a ton of guys in the minors because he simply has filthy stuff doesn't mean he's going to succeed at the major league level. Buxton was up despite his history of struggles because his problems are mental and his inability to handle major league pitcher's control of their breaking pitches and the sequencing of their pitches. Berrios starting in the minors to show that he had corralled his arsenal and could pitch to the corners and not just rear back and throw is the smart move. The minors are there for exactly this reason. Give young guys the chance to work on their skills and refine their mechanics. 4. I would've liked to see him earlier because I'm a fan and I have the luxury of living off hope that he will perform as we've all been told he has the ability to. The front office doesn't have that luxury. They don't get to come in and say "hey we hear this kid is going to be great so we should just throw him in and watch him be great." He got shelled last year. In every start but 1. He showed almost no glimpses of being MLB ready last year. Filthy stuff with no idea where it's going ever. The claim that he was "one of their best pitchers" is purely prospect love. He hadn't showed anything last year or this spring for that claim to be based in anything other than pure hope that he turns into what we want him to. The idea thrown around on these threads that the Twins should just be randomly calling up prospects to "see what they have" is absolutely ridiculous. I didn't have much faith in the previous front office regime, but calling guys up just because they throw hard, or are supposed to be good, or have stolen a bunch of bases, or are hitting for a high average in the minors is not how you run a major league organization. Analytics are great and I'm glad we finally have people in MN who are going to use that info, but simply looking at a spreadsheet full of numbers and saying "he has nice numbers on this screen so lets call him up" would be disastrous. Internal scouting and seeing how they are getting the numbers they're getting is vital. Simply being more physically talented than minor league players doesn't mean you'll automatically succeed in the bigs. There's so much more to it than that. Good (even great) minor league numbers don't mean you'll have even average numbers at the next level up. Go look at the leader boards for the minors and see how many guys you've never heard of put up some good numbers.

I think it really comes down to, as others have said, do you believe in calling the best pitcher on any given team a "staff ace" or do you reserve the term "ace" for just the top pitchers in baseball. I'm a believer in the idea that the words you choose mean a lot and overusing them kind of ruins the true meaning. Because of that I'm not a fan of the "staff ace" phrase. You can be your team's best pitcher or their number 1 or whatever, but for me if you're going to use the word "ace" you should be talking about one of the handful of best pitchers in all of the game. Depending on the time, and the influx of talent at that time, I don't believe in there ever being more than 5-8 aces in all of baseball. A lot of it to me is the feeling they give you. I don't put Ervin in that category (even this year) because it wasn't a huge shock that he had a game that he gave up a bunch of bombs against a good offense. He's been pitching great this year and I'm happy to have him, but if you hear Kershaw, Scherzer, Kluber or Bumgarner (in the postseason) gave up 4 blasts and 6 runs in 6 you're shocked. Ervin gives that up and it's more of a feeling of "yeah, he was due for one of those." That speaks to having to have some sustained success. When Ervin takes the mound this season I do expect the Twins to have a good chance of winning and expect him to put up a "quality start," but am not floored if he gets lit up. I also don't expect him to end this season with a 1.50 ERA. He's just not that pitcher. But I sure am going to enjoy the majority of his starts as I believe he'll always compete and give the team a chance to win.

I think so many of us dislike the "pitch to contact" phrase because we're so used to guys with mediocre (at best) stuff "pitching to contact." When your stuff isn't overpowering and you're laying in strike after strike after strike without nibbling it usually leads to the results we've seen over the last handful of years; lots of balls flying out of the park. When you have electric stuff like Berrios you don't have to be as fine with your location and you don't need to nibble so much to induce weak contact. "Pitch to contact" is a mantra often used to help guys with electric stuff who want to strike everyone out learn they can be in the zone and get a few 2 pitch outs and last longer as opposed to all 5 or 6 pitch at bats that end in strikeouts. Kyle Hendricks doesn't "pitch to contact" in that way because his stuff isn't that explosive. He nibbles and paints corners while mixing pitches really well. The problem with the Twins using the "pitch to contact" mantra was they didn't embrace the velocity era until a few years ago so they had guys who's stuff dictated they needed to have pinpoint control who were trying to just induce weak contact all the time while throwing a ton of pitches over the heart of the plate. When you're filthy "pitch to contact" means quit nibbling and attack the hitter (depending on the situation). When you're running out a mediocre array of pitches "pitch to contact" means throw pitches that start as balls and end as strikes on the edge of the zone to limit the number of balls hit 450 ft against you.

To me Duffey just doesn't have the stuff to go through a lineup multiple times. I know he was good his rookie year, but that's his first time through the league with nobody knowing anything about him. I think people got the scouting report on him last year, and as someone said earlier, they knew to sit on fastballs in the zone and let it fly. You don't need big velocity to be succesful, but if you don't have it you better have big time command. Duffey just doesn't seem to have that type of command on his fastball. He can get away with low velocity and not great command once through the order and maybe even twice. But the longer you leave him out there in an outing the higher the chance that he leaves 89 down the middle and it goes 450. Someone mentioned his HR/FB% numbers and that it was unsustainably high last year. It may be unsustainable to stay at 19.5%, but I'd expect to see him at the top of the league in that percentage every year as a starter. When big league hitters can eliminate all but one of your pitches they get really, really good. And when that 1 pitch is an 88-92 straight fastball that you don't command very well they get even better. I know Mariano only had 1 pitch, but he had pin point command with it on both sides of the plate and up and down. And it was a filthy pitch. All that being said I just think his repetoire lends itself to having more success in the pen than in the rotation. I'm of the belief that if you can get 3 outs you should be able to go through the lineup once and get 7 or 8 outs. I'd like to see Duffey (and almost every reliever) used in that way. Not just in games the starter didn't get through 7 in, but whenever he's needed. Go out there and go through the lineup once and hit the showers. Andrew Miller in the playoffs style. I think you could have 2 or 3 guys that do that for a full season and throw 100-110 innings and really make up some ground for a less than stellar rotation.

I think Buxton is all between the ears. He's missing fastballs cuz he's got no idea what's coming at him. I think in the minors he was just sitting and hunting fastballs. The major league pitchers have scouting reports on him and know the holes in his game and they're abusing him by mixing pitches and keeping him off balance. I think he's going to bust out this year, and I'm hoping it's soon, but I also do think there is a pretty drastic difference between minor league players and major league players.

I am pretty close to your side, yes. But the difference, to me, with Buxton and Berrios is that the things Berrios needs to work through are things he can do in the minors where it isn't hurting his confidence or the team. Buxton is baffled by big league pitchers being able to spot their breaking stuff and mixing pitches on him. The guys in the minors are not as good at those things so he needs to be facing major league guys with scouting reports on him and learn how to adjust. Berrios needs to tighten actual physical skills. He can, and in my opinion should, work on those struggles in the minors. The things he's trying to fix are the things that the minors are there for. There's plenty of guys who throw gas and have a nasty breaking ball, but being able to harness those things is why they go through the minors. Him learning to harness those things is what I see as his struggles right now. And I think he's pretty close. He looked awfully good in the WBC. But right now there's not an opening in the rotation (although I'd be happy seeing Gibson go to the pen, dude can't go through the order more than once). Without a glaring "this guy is torpedoing our rotation" opening at this point in the year I think you let Berrios tighten his mechanics outside of the spotlight.

I know its the same coaches and scouts, that's why I said they're being given different standards and different direction. If your boss gets fired because the company is failing and new guys come in to run things they give you different ways to do things and have different expectations. He's going to dominate AAA. We already know that. But getting people out in the minors is different than getting them out in the bigs. The way he gets people out in the minors matters. He needed to tighten his command and control after last year. There's no way you can argue that point. He had no idea where the ball was going. In the minors you can get away with that because the hitters aren't as good or smart. Doesn't work in the majors, though. It's why some guys end up in the pen. You can't be a starter and survive without knowing where the ball is going. It's the same thing Buxton has struggled with the last couple years. He can hit fastballs. In the minors he just looks for fastballs and pounces because the pitchers don't have the control of their breaking stuff to challenge him well enough. The guys in the majors do. Until he learns to recognize and hit major league breaking pitches he'll fail. He can't learn to do that in the minors so he needs to take his lumps in the bigs. Berrios can learn to control and command his stuff in the minors. There's no reason to have him struggle in the bigs and lose his confidence when he could be working on things in the minors. As Dantes929 said...he's not a robot. There's a human element to things and if he hasn't improved his command he'll get shelled again. And it doesn't matter who you are, if you get beaten enough times it's going to effect you. When he comes up he needs to have everything in place to succeed. When he does come up I'd like to see him in the pen where he can just let it fly and see that he can get big league hitters out. Once he has that confidence and there's no doubt in his mind that he can succeed then you unleash him as a starter and have him carry that confidence and attacking mindset over. The Cardinals do it with all of their guys and it seems to be working pretty well for them. Danny Duffy talks about it all the time as well. If Berrios is throwing pitches without 100% confidence that he's getting the guy out on that pitch he will fail. Any pitcher will. Letting him dominate AAA and tighten things there before you bring him up is a good decision, in my opinion. Working on things while you get your brains bashed in against big leaguers is not a good strategy. For him or the team.

Different people leading things with a different set of standards and different directions given to their people. My guess would be that with this front office Berrios would have been up last year, but we would have been in the pen. Not getting his brains bashed in every 5th day. But point taken. It's not easy to trust this organization yet. But pitching is supposed to be Falvey's thing so I'm hoping for some good things to come.

It's going to be hard for anyone not actually at the games watching him throw to determine if Berrios is ready. Him putting up dominate stat lines doesn't mean there's nothing left for him to work on at AAA. Walk numbers and strike/ball ratios are good and all, but don't tell the complete story. AAA hitters are going to chase more pitches than the guys in the bigs will and get themselves out more. This is a situation where we need to trust the Twins' internal scouts and coaches to determine when he's truly controling his pitches and not just throwing it down the middle or completely missing the zone. His stuff is major league ready, his control wasn't even close last year. Stat lines are only going to tell us so much at this point.

That's all speculation. If we knew for a fact Granite provided all those things at the major league level it'd be one thing, but we don't. Not even close. Granite is still just a prospect, and not a very high end one at that. The only thing in there that we know for sure is that he provides more speed and better defense (not saying much there). There's a legitimate chance Granite is never more than a pinch runner/defensive replacement.

I think the 16 straight games and the fact that the starting pitching is drastically out doing their expectations are good reasons to keep the extra pitcher around right now. I think the effect it's having on games is overstated at this point. Why does your DH need a day off 9 games into the season? The guy stands there and watches 20 pitches and swings 3 times a night. If he's tired he needs to be cut cuz that's ridiculous. Him sitting was because Mollie wanted to get Escobar in there along with Polanco. Sitting Mauer and Kepler against a lefty is another questionable excuse as well since almost everyone on here was just praising Mollie for sticking with his best defensive lineup and allowing the young lefties to face lefty pitchers early so as to not make them platoon players at the age of 24. The 9 men that are in the lineup shouldn't be changing as much as it is. Nobody should be tired yet and none of these guys are unknown commodities. We know the young guys need ABs and we know Giminez, Santana, and Escobar are not everyday players (you could argue EE maybe, but Polanco needs to be in there). Molitor is making this all more complicated than it needs to be. Mix and match the lineup order, but he has his 9 starters already. The 13 pitchers is an overstated problem. There's no world beater sitting in AAA because of the extra pitcher. It'll be nice to have Vargas or Park up at the end of this 16 game stretch, but it's not a gigantic issue that they aren't here now.

The Royals pitching was awful and made it easy to take walks. But the Twins still deserve credit in doing what they should and taking those walks. My hope is that seeing how much taking walks helped them win games will help them continue to be patient as the season moves on. Especially Rosario. He has an incredible talent to get the barrel to the ball and with just a little patience to get better pitches to hit he could be a big time hitter. Buxton needs to be dropped in the order starting tonight. He never should have been in the 3 hole to start, but he's clearly pressing and trying to do too much right now. He needs to hit in the bottom 3rd until he relaxes and starts having success. Overjoyed with the success of the team so far, but have a terrible feeling in my gut that we're watching Mollie completely torpedo Buxton's career by putting him in a terrible position. It's amazing how much more fun it is to watch good baseball than that trash we had to watch last year. Even if they don't make the playoffs or even reach .500 I'll be much happier with it all if they just continue to put up professional at bats and play sound defense.

I like the overall construction of the order yesterday, except for Buxton in the 3 hole. A good September is nice and all, but we all know September stats aren't overly telling due to roster expansion. Buxton looked confident and aggressive in spring, but didn't exactly light the world on fire. Hicks looked confident and aggressive a few years back in spring and we learned awfully quick that that doesn't mean much. Buxton is the future of your franchise and putting him in a spot with excessive pressure when he's had no real success in the bigs outside of 1 September surge doesn't make sense. "He struck out, one of three on the day, but I'll still take him in that spot right now" suggests you'll accept him in the 3 hole until he continues to strike out in big situations at which point you'd like to see him dropped in the order. If that's what happens it's an absolute failure on Mollies part. Buxton has the talent to make Mollie look like a genius by ripping off a .330 10 hr 30 RBI month and we all hope he does. But his track record shows he's more likely to have a .220 1 hr 4 RBI month and force Mollie to lower him in the lineup and crush his confidence. I don't understand the logic of putting so much more pressure on the kid instead of just letting him hit in the bottom 3rd and find some success before moving him to the heart of the order. This very well could have been an outlier since Mollie wanted his lefties in the lineup yesterday and there was a nasty lefty on the mound, but even in that case Polanco, who has shown he can hit big league pitching already, would have been a better choice. Flip Polanco and Buxton and I love the lineup. Buxton's speed on in front of Dozier as the lineup turns over sure would be nice too.

Loved the win, and loved the fact that they did it by playing solid, fundamental baseball. Taking walks when given to them and playing good defense. Hopefully they can keep that up all year. That being said, am I the only one with a huge concern over hitting Buxton in the 3 hole? Kid has great potential and looks like a totally different hitter now, but he has still never had real success in the bigs. I know he had a good September, but it's pretty broadly accepted that September stats should be taken with a grain of salt due to roster expansion. He's finally showing that he may be turning a corner after a good spring training so I don't understand why you would throw him in a spot with a ton of added pressure at this point. It very likely may have been simply because Mollie wanted his lefties to hit and they had a tough lefty on the mound, but if that was the concern why not switch Buxton and Polanco? Buxton needs to just go out and play as pressure free as possible to find some success and then move up the order. Polanco has shown he can hit big league pitching. I don't like the added pressure on Buxton at all. I think he's a confident guy and a few bad games in the 3 hole won't kill that confidence, but why even put him in that position?

1. I agree with all the people saying postseason Miller isn't something we're going to see during the regular season from any team for quite a while. You'd blow your guy's arm out in a month and a half. 2. I'd say the reason the Indians and Cubs were able to use their "closers" in different situations is more because of bullpen depth than it was out of those guys simply being so good. In the playoffs the games are generally all very close and getting out of a jam in the 5th-8th inning by using your best arm is only good when you can bring in someone else you trust to get those 3 outs in the 9th. The Royals are still the real blueprint people are/should be following. It's getting 3+ arms that can get 3 outs with 0 runs on the board almost every time out. At that point you can use them however you see fit. The Royals prefered set innings and just knew the other team wasn't scoring after the 6th, while the Cubs and Indians mixed and matched their power arms and had them going at different times. The Orioles have followed the Royals set roles strategy to great success with Brach, O'day, and Britton. The true blueprint is to have multiple arms you can really rely on and then it's up to your manager to know his guys well enough to know if they need set roles or if you can move them around like Miller. Chapman clearly hated pitching anything other than the 9th inning in a save situation and it nearly cost them the World Series. It was the only thing you could say Joe Maddon didn't do perfectly correct, but he didn't have a great read on Chapman or at least wasn't able to fully convince him that he was being used correctly. 3. As for the Jay draft pick...I'm not a fan. When you have a top 10 pick you have to nail it. I'm not an advocate for "drafting for need." Especially that high in the draft. There will always be a need for pitching. "You can never have too much pitching." But you need to get your pick right and drafting the guy with the highest ceiling and best chance of reaching that ceiling is the best way to do that. Collect assests and then consalidate them when the time is right. The argument that Benintendi would still be in the low minors for the Twins if we had drafted him is a huge indictment of the way the Twins do things. He is better than any Twins outfielder right now and if you're looking at things objectively the Twins would trade any player on their roster for him right now. He'd be the best player on the Twins right now. Buxton is the only guy you could argue would block Benintendi. But there's 3 outfield spots so that wouldn't be a problem. Rosario and Kepler are not even close to the type of player Benintendi is. He's going to hit in the top 5 of the best offense in baseball. As far as the draft goes, taking big time college bats is a safer bet than taking any arm. It's all really about the amount of risk you're willing to take and weighing ceiling verses floor. A dominant college reliever has a pretty reasonable floor, but their ceiling is also relatively limited and the likelihood that they reach that ceiling is much smaller than the likelihood that an elite college bat reaches his. Draft assests and trade from positions of strength to fill positions of need.

I like having as many dangerous hitters at the top of the order as possible. Having a Schwarber or Santana type guy at the top provides big advantages in the late innings. Focusing on how someone does leading off an inning is focusing on the wrong thing, I think. He's only guarenteed to lead off 1 inning. It's nice to have a guy who can work the count and make the pitcher work right out of the gate, but also be a threat to take that first pitch, get-me-over fastball 400 ft into the bleachers. Then late in the game when it's close and you're scratching for runs you want to have a dangerous guy up as soon as the line up turns over. You want a guy with some extra base pop and RBI skills to help drive in 2 out runs when someone at the bottom of the order gets on. And you want to follow him up with another good hitter. I never understood the Punto, Casilla, etc. 2 hole hitter. Why would you turn your line up over and have a guy who can't hit sitting there trying to drive in those big runs. Put your best hitters at the top of the order and give them as many PAs as possible throught the year to maximize the damage they can do.

I don't know if you seriously think a front office that's been in place for 3 months needs to be taken to task or not, but it seems a little aggressive to me. What moves would you like to have seen them make? I can see frustration with no real bullpen improvement, but other than that I don't know what moves you wanted them to make. I really would have liked to have seen Greg Holland get signed and there were a few other decent options out there, but with only 2 decent trade chips and a really weak free agent class in the areas that the Twins drastically need to improve I'm not sure what the front office really could have done.

From what I've seen on a number of the TD forumst just about everyone wanted Dozier dealt. The difference is whether or not it was a smart move to trade your best player and a proven MLBer for 1 pitching prospect. I don't think that's a smart use of your assets. De Leon isn't Urias or some other 20, 21, 22 year old who may be a top of the rotation guy. There's very few people out there that think he's a number 1 or 2 arm, and I think this situation shows that the Twins scouts and FO personnel didn't believe he was a number 1 or 2. He's 24 which isn't old for a prospect, but isn't young either. Most people think his upside, not floor, is a number 3 arm. If you want more young upside arms in the organization trading your best player for 1 guy who's upside is a middle of the rotation arm isn't the way to go.

I'm with you on almost all of this. It is disappointing that there's really nothing that should get us excited for the upcoming season beyond the hopeful next steps of Buxton and Sano. My question, though, is what things did you want the FO to make happen? We all want to see better pitchers take the mound for the Twins this season, but the FO can't just make them appear. There were a few options out there for the guys to look into, but I just don't see any moves that would have made significant improvements.

You can't say there's a chance he develops a quality breaking pitch and follow it with the only risk being his shoulder. There's a clear risk that a 24 year old who hasn't developed a 3rd pitch yet (that's the way I'm reading your post) never develops a 3rd pitch and 2 pitch starters do not have "really high floors." It's been mentioned a lot that most evaluators see his ceiling as a number 3 starter. That's not a really high ceiling let alone a really high floor.

I'm a huge fan of prospects and love all the lists and rankings and info that come out on them. I follow it more than the average baseball fan. But prospects are just prospects. Dozier isn't a world beater and is probably at least slightly over valued in our fan minds because that's pretty basic human nature. My preference has been to trade away our veteran players for prospects for the last 5 years, but the veterans that should have been traded were the ones we were bringing in for 1 year and then extending after they had career years in their 30s. Those are the guys you trade for what you can get and hope one of the prospects hit and you get a good player. Trading an established MLB All Star for 1 prospect isn't the way you rebuild. The Rays trade is interesting, but we need to remember that they're in a different situation than the Twins. They're closer to competing than the Twins are and if De Leon hits they can trade from their excess of starting pitchers to fill holes. The Twins have 2 trade chips anyone would want (other than Buxton and Sano type young guys). I would have preferred both Dozier and Santana being traded, but trading either of them for 1 prospect wouldn't be helpful. Even if De Leon turns into the next Kershaw it doesn't mean the Twins screwed up by not getting him. Right now all he is is a prospect who's never thrown anywhere near 200 innings, while Dozier is a streaky hitter, he is a proven MLB player. I also don't understand the frustration with the FO so far. Would it have been nice if the roster had major changes and we would be competing for championships starting in 2017. I'd love that. But I don't know what realistic moves people think could have been made. Even if they wanted to go out and make huge splashes and spend a ton of money I don't know what they could have done. They need pitching. The offense is serviceable. Would it be nice to have Trumbo, Encarnacion, Napoli, Desmond, "whoever else you thought was a good free agent bat?" Yes it would be awesome to have a bunch of big sluggers and watch the ball fly out at record rates and score a ton of runs. Ask the Rockies and they'll tell you you still won't win if you can't get outs. There were no pitchers on the free agent market this year that would have made any drastic improvement to our rotation. There were some bullpen arms that would have really helped, but the prices were insane for the good ones. It's very realistic to think the Twins will add another piece or 2 from the left over free agents as prices continue to come down, but none of them will make a huge difference. And as far as trades go I don't know what the expectations could have been there either. Again they only have 2 pieces to trade that could bring any return that would be helpful. Trading Santana means you then have 0 good, reliable starters for this season. I would be ok with that, but you better bring back multiple arms that could help down the road. Dozier is too good to only bring back 1 prospect of De Leon's level. At that point trading people just to do it so people think you're doing things is counterproductive. Hold onto Dozier and hope the market opens up more down the road and if not enjoy him hitting 25+ homers the next 2 years and go from there. This was a rough offseason to take over a team like this as there weren't many realistic moves to be made to improve the major league roster.

Trading Dozier for De Leon isn't the same as trading him for 6 years of a number 3. It's trading him for the possibility of a number 3. There's a huge difference there. De Leon may never be a number 4 or 5 big league pitcher let alone a number 3.

I didn't say they weren't doing things. I said they were doing what they could in their way. I'm sure everyone in the clubhouse is doing what they can to connect with each other and to help everyone else out. They all want to win and helping each other is part of doing that. I'm not saying Dozier and Mauer aren't doing that, I'm saying Joe Mauer isn't the type of personality that young players flock to. He's obviously different behind closed doors, but he's a generally quiet guy who doesn't show a great deal of emotion. He's more of the stereotypical "old school" player in that way. Dozier certainly has an outgoing personality and I'm sure he's doing what he can with them as well. It's not surprising to hear EE is often talking with the young guys. My point is that Rosario and Sano especially are emotional young guys who play with some flair. That's not at all the type of player Joe Mauer is. And in general people tend to gravitate towards people who are similar to themselves in those ways. If Joe could get Rosario to buy into 1/10th of the patience he has at the plate Rosario would be much better of a hitter for it. But to get people to buy into what you're preaching you have to connect with them and I just don't believe Joe Mauer is a guy who connects well with those types of players. I have no problem believing Dozier is someone who can connect better with them. But neither of those guys are a Torii Hunter type personality who can really bring an entire clubhouse together. And I don't believe Paul Molitor is either. Joe Maddon and Terry Francona got a ton of praise for their in game decisions during the post season and during their careers. They're very smart baseball minds. But they're even better at getting the most out of their teams by how they run their clubhouse and how they make their players feel. That is obviously made easier by winning games and having the caliber of players they have, but Joe did it with the Rays when they were awful and Terry has done it the last few years with the Indians when they weren't very good. I have no problem admitting this is based off the read I get by watching them on TV and that sort of thing, but I thought there was a pretty clear difference in the clubhouse culture between 2015 and 2016. And I think Hunter was a huge part of it. And I think it matters. But like I said in my original post I could be completely off.

I think the Twins could use a hispanic, veteran bat. This could all be completely off, but I just feel like there's a gap between the veterans and the young guys in the club house. I just can't imagine Sano, Polanco, Rosario, or even Buxton and Kepler are real close with Mauer or Dozier. I think Dozier probably does what he can to help the young guys out in their transition and Mauer probably does in his own way, but they're not guys that can really connect with those young guys. I don't think it was a complete coincedence that the 1 good year they've had in the last 6 was the year Hunter was in the clubhouse. I think getting someone who could help guide the young guns would be incredibly helpful. Someone who has been to the postseason. Someone who maybe had their struggles early in their career and worked through them. Someone with some energy and attitude. The answer to a lot of those criteria is Jose Bautista. Unfortunately everything I've heard is that he's not in Toronto right now cuz he's not well liked in the clubhouse. Maybe he'd be helpful for half a season before they flipped him for a midlevel prospect. But I think the Twins need someone who can connect with the youth that's coming. I just don't see anyone in the clubhouse that can. Maybe Ervin Santana? But between Dozier, Mauer and Molitor (the 3 guys that should be the leaders) it just doesn't feel like they're people that connect well with the guys that are the future of this franchise. Franklin Gutierrez is another interesting veteran bat.

The idea that a 103 loss team can have a "roster crunch" or possibly compete for a championship this year are the exact reasons they've been so terrible for the last 6 years (minus one fluke year). Robbie Grossman, JJ Hardy*, Phil Hughes, Kendrys Morales*, Glen Perkins, Trevor Plouffe, Ervin Santana**, Brian Dozier**, Kurt Suzuki, Josh Willingham List of guys off the top of my head that either weren't traded while having a career year or just plain being a heck of a trade piece on a team going nowhere (1 decent prospect for any of them not named Perkins would have been better than keeping them while we continued to suck), *were traded, but were traded at the bottom of their value for pieces that had absolutely no chance of ever being a piece on a championship team, or **are current pieces of an awful team that haven't been traded despite the fact that the team will continue to struggle in the near future. Yes, I realize a Dozier trade is a possibility, but with this terrible free agent pitching class it is a perfect time to shop Ervin and I haven't seen any reliable reports that the Twins have even considered it strongly. The Twins need 4 starting pitchers to compete. Some of them may already be in the system, but other than Ervin there isn't a starting pitcher on the staff from last year that would pitch in the postseason for a true contender. The Twins have refused to be realistic about themselves or were just really, really, really bad about assessing their ability to compete with other major league baseball teams. The White Sox have possibly already passed the Twins in the rebuild timeline and it took them 2 days and 2 trades. The Twins didn't have a Chris Sale to trade in the last few years, but they had veteran guys who could have brought back at least 1 very good prospect. And they had Glen Perkins closing games on a 90 loss team for years. He could have brought back multiple nice pieces. Now the Twins have put themselves back in the crappy situation of being in the middle of the pack for the next hand full of years if Buxton and Sano turn out. We have more solid prospects coming up, but they won't just step in and be big time major league players who are able to compete for championships. By the time we have 25 guys who can help compete for a title it'll be time to start talking about what we can get for Buxton and Sano (assuming they do become who they could). Playing the "we're trying to compete this year" game when you have no realistic chance to compete is the worst possible strategy and it's been our strategy for a decade. Everyone points at the Cubs and Astros as teams who rebuilt right. And they were awful, completely awful, for a few years because they traded every veteran for prospects. Now the White Sox are doing it. Until the Twins are willing to be real with themselves and trade guys who won't be around or helping when they are realistically going to be able to compete they will stick in the middle and go nowhere. You need to get good value for Dozier and his streakiness has made it hard to trade him the last few years, but you need to trade him before this year's trade deadline. As for a roster crunch...there's no such thing on a 103 loss team or a team that's lost 90+ in 5 of the last 6 years.. That's a ridiculous idea. It is possible to have a terribly run franchise that is WAY too loyal to average (at best) veterans at the expense of younger, better players. That isn't a roster crunch, though. It's just poor management of assets.