diehardtwinsfan

Just a nit to pick, but Palka just got promoted to AAA. I'd probably let Sano ride at 3rd for the time being. Bat is there now, glove needs work. Plouffe came up and wasn't a great 3B either at first, so at some point, Sano just needs to put the work in. He isn't going to do that at DH. Nunez and Dozier are an interesting issue. 1+ with Nunez and 2+ with Dozier. I think you have to trade one of them. I don't see Nunez getting as much as people seem to think given that his defense is pretty bad. I like him in a utility role/bat off the bench type situation. He can get a good 4-500 at bats in a season that way in situations that largely minimize his weaknesses. If someone offered me a good deal for him, I'd probably trade him, but he strikes me more as a guy I might want to keep around for a bit longer as he won't be expensive, and he fits a role that won't necessarily take away PT from the younger guys while still providing some much needed depth. Dozier on the other hand... I have to think you trade him to make room for Polanco. I expect a drop off in 2016... probably 2017 too, but I would like to believe that while Polanco might not be Dozier, he won't be one of the team's problems in 2017. Keep Santana unless you get a great offer. Nolasco and Milone are the ones that need to go to make room Berrios (and May for that matter, he shouldn't be closing). If you get something for them, great, if not, it's time to accept these as losses and move on. Definitely trade Suzuki. It's a sellers market behind the dish and he might get more than what he would have gotten 2 years ago. They can definitely resign him this offseason, though I'd prefer they go big (Wilson Ramons)... of course we all know that won't happen. As for the pen, I want Melotakis and Chargois up pretty much now. Both are on the 40 man, so as soon as guys like Abad and Kinzler are traded, they come up and take their places. I'm a bit surprised Melotakis is still in AA. I know he was hurt in 2015, but he's doing quite well for having a year off. For that matter, I'd like to see Hildenberger moved up to AAA as well. That's another relief arm that I'd like to get a bit closer to the show.

I was looking more at his June numbers (279/.346/.456). Didn't realize he dropped off the planet again in July.

I just doubt Zunio's stock has fallen that much. If it has, by all means, sign that deal. Heck, I'd probably send Suzuki over there too. Just don't see Seattle selling low.

You do understand how much of a crap shoot the draft is, especially in the mid-late first round? When people are ecstatic over getting 3 ML players in a class of 40, that should tell you something. Look at the average WAR for a pick around say 22. It's not high. Yes, outcomes matter, but they are still context specific, and I often see outcomes listed as a criteria in a way that quite frankly every major league team would fail at. That said, if you look at where the national pundits place it, it's not talent acquisition... We seem to have (and have had over the last few years) plenty of talent in the system. Development on the other hand. I think there's some fire under that smoke...

Murphy, BTW, has come on strong of late. Not sure what was going on earlier this season, but he seems to have figured things out (at least in a SSS capacity).

I don't think we had a great offer on the table 2 years ago, but based on what Nick just posted, we can ask for (and get) something nice... I'd trade him.

I agree, we want to make it black or white. Truth is, we want to boil just about every problem down to one thing when most problems are the combination of a number of things. But truthfully, it makes a huge difference. If you treat 'just scared' with a 'it's racism solution', I can pretty much guarantee that you'll only make the problem worse. And yes, I tend to agree with your last point, but I suspect most police officers won't agree on that gut instinct thing. Just about every cop in a major metropolitan area can point to said gut instinct keeping them alive. They have a dangerous job. Let's not forget that.

College draftee taken 1 pick after Buxton. Destroyed A ball and AA in same year and spent 2013 in AAA/MLB... Yeah, I don't think his stock has fallen that much. If Seattle offered him up for Nunez, I'd sign the paperwork before anyone had a chance to change their mind. I doubt Seattle does that.

This I tend to agree with, but hopefully he's making long term planning right now on acquiring prospects for some tradable assets. This season is toast.

Yeah, the upside is there. Definitely need to see continued improvements in the K category. He's taken a nice step forward this season. He needs to take another one next season.

Buxton was also promoted way too early. Lost season in 2014, and hot month in AA in 2015 and he gets an early ad to the 40 man. That was a mistake. He wasn't ready. I would fault the Twins for bringing him up too quickly, and I'll fault them again for not having a backup plan for him in 2016. But to use some counter examples, that Sano kid was pretty good when he got called up. That Kepler kid has been pretty good as well. That Duffey kid did well also. He wasn't even highly regarded. The reality is that some are ready and some aren't. I don't think we are in a situation where all of our guys just fail when they make it up here. We definitely have a problem with the team being somewhat impatient with guys (in the case of hitters bringing them up to soon, and in pitchers, sending them down too quick).

I'm not sure Plouffe or Nolasco would fetch a C+ (on Sickle's scale at this point)... I'd trade them anyways. I'd probably DFA Nolasco at some point. I agree on Park. I'd want value. Lesser so on Suzuki as he's quite possibly gone at the end of the season. May as well get something if someone offered it for him, but don't be surprised if it isn't a C+ guy. You can always sign him back if the interest is mutual.

I haven't followed Zunio's career, but I have to ask how it is his stock could have fallen that much. He was drafted only a couple years ago. I'd note I'd do it in a heartbeat assuming that my scouts thought he had the tools... This team can certainly be patient to develop him.

BINGO!!!!!

Now, we are a lot closer But to be clear, no one is passing aside black lives. Black lives matter sounds wonderful too, but if you think the ALM is antagonistic, how is it that you don't see the antagonism in BLM? Maybe I'm wrong about it, but I doubt Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile were shot because the officers firing the gun hated black people. In Sterling's case, he was supposedly reaching for a gun (whether or not he needed to be subdued is a different story, but when the police are called to investigate a situation where someone is threatening someone with a gun, I think you need to recognize that they are going to be on high alert expecting to possibly see one). These are not situations where everything is clear cut black and white Jim Crow racism. You have a conflagration of items such as unconscious bias, bad training, a complete lack of professional approach that tends to escalate tensions rather than calm them, and a whole host of other things, and boiling it down to race ignores all of that.

I won't argue if you want to say there's latent racism. The end results of the system certainly affect black in a more negative manner than it does white people, but that doesn't make the people in the system racist. But if you want to talk rates, these issues happen at a MUCH HIGHER rate to people who are POOR or are for whatever reason in poor areas, and since blacks are found in disproportionate numbers in that category and in those areas, it's going to happen at much higher rates to them. Correlation does not equal causation. It's true in baseball and it's true here too. The assumption that because it happens in higher rates to black vs. whites means that it's racism is at best a conclusion based solely on correlation, and it's largely unprovable and very offensive. You're on dangerous ground when you start saying that a bunch of people you don't know are racist and assuming that since it happens in higher numbers to black that the end result must be racism. Yeah, there are racists out there, but in my experience most of these types are well into their retirement years. I'd note that I know a bunch of cops as well. These aren't racist people, not in the sense you're implying... Jaded, yeah, there's probably a few there. Unprofessional who demand they be treated with a certain level of respect? Sure, plenty of those as well. Again, we really need to get beyond the idea that the police force is made up of a bunch of KKK supporting white guys who decided they are going to get up and go kill a black guy. It's not nearly that simplistic, and quite frankly it's offensive to 99.x percent of the men and women who put on a badge each day. You're looking for a solution to this problem in all the wrong places. You start dealing with police professionalism, and you solve Philandro Castile as well as Deven Guildford. Oh, and that gets me back to my point, does Deven Guilford's life not matter? I ask, because quite frankly, you just dismissed it.

This is essentially what I'm getting at in regards to the other discussion.

I'll accept that apology and offer one of my own. But if you don't that response, then don't start telling people what they do and do not understand. For my part, I apologize, so let's drop this part of it. On to your second point. No one is passing aside black lives. No one is saying that black lives don't matter. My point is that the problem isn't racist at all. There's plenty of whites who have died at the hands of law enforcement in similar fashion. Here's a sad story of one of them. It doesn't get the media attention, but it doesn't make it any less true. Framing it in racial terms ignores this issue and forces unnecessary standards on the police who already have enough to do as it is... and it misses the problem altogether. The bigger issue here goes back to professional behavior within a police force. It is a job that is inherently contentious and people who lack conflict resolution skills have only one means to resolve it. That lack of professionalism by the way is race agnostic. My sister has seen the bad of that internally as sexual harassment is a common form of retaliation. This has nothing to do with people's feelings getting hurt. It has everything to do with the fact that problem isn't racism, and framing it as such pretty much ends the conversation. Someone like my sister is going to get turned off pretty quick to a framed discussion around racism. She isn't a racist and yet gets called one every day. You start talking about the real problem (professionalism), you get people like that listening.

Someone said it really well earlier. LATENT RACISM is a problem. However, I don't think racism is the problem. A lack of a professional police force IS an even bigger problem. Both of these can exist from people who are staunchly against racism, but the end results can certainly look racist. Police don't simply pull over someone for that broken tail light simply b/c they are black. They do it b/c they are doing their jobs, looking for suspects, etc. Like it or not, that's what they are asked to do. We can discuss whether this is more often than not a simple run around the 4th amendment (I think it is), but the issue at hand is that when call this racism, you start offending a lot of people who aren't racist. Case in point, this very discussion I've had with my sister. Cops get called racist over this stuff all the time. Most of these cops are hardly racist. They do have a job to do though, and like it or not they are following the rules that they have been given. They need to find a bad guy, and all they have is a description. Framing this type of stuff in terms of race immediately turns many of the very people off who would be sympathetic to that cause. I'd further argue that it really misses the point. You don't seem media reports about the white criminals who die in similar fashion at the hands of white (or even black) cops. Why is that? They exist. The problem is that these numbers likely correlate better to poverty rates than they do ethnic rates. Instead of tackling the law and how it leads to latent racism though, the debate gets charged with racial terminology that quite frankly is nothing but more latent racism. You certainly won't get a lot of people to the table on issues of professional expectations within the force when you frame it in terms of racism. I'd argue this is the root of a lot of that violence in that there are cops (and sadly, listening to my sister's stories I know of a few) who have absolutely no business being cops due to their internal makeup. These are folks who demand respect when they refuse to behave in a respectful manner and are (to put it nicely) simply the childhood bullies who are all grown up and simply need someone else to beat on. They have the same issues with white people as they do with black people. The worst part is that they work in a system that offers little in terms of accountability, allows for retaliation, and in general gives them the benefit of the doubt. You want to change the system, you need to change these things. You need to be able to fire the bad apples. You need to be able to hold unprofessional behavior accountable. You need to set expectations with the force that says that just because someone spits on you or gives you the bird doesn't entitle you to escalate (especially since escalation usually breeds more escalation). For all the talk about ALM not standing for something, BLM doesn't touch this problem, even though this has more to do with the plight of blacks at the hands of the police than anything else. Just because it's the folks over on the red side of the aisle (which I am not as you know) who recognize this issue doesn't make their point any less valid. This is a problem that needs to be solved, but its root cause isn't racism. Framing it in terms of race won't help.

That and he's outperforming Walker thus far too.

Lots of these examples of guys who did better elsewhere didn't do so right away. Individually, you look at that and simply note it. Collectively though, at one point you start to wonder. I don't think the Twins problems is drafting. They seem to get some decent talent and the fact that guys can come here and then flourish elsewhere tells me the problem isn't talent. There does however seem to be a much bigger issue with development, whether that be bringing hitters up too quick (Gomez, Buxton, Hicks, Vargas, Arcia), never really letting pitchers get comfortable (Meyer, Berrios, Chargois), or simply not preparing them or teaching them good fundamental baseball... who knows.

The problem is that more than a wrist is broken, and for some silly reason you only want to treat that one. It's a pretty bad analogy. There's a lot broken here. As I said before, the black community has a right to be upset, but by demanding treatment for their issues while eschewing that of others ignores the common ground we all share, and in so doing alienates people who would be on their side.

I don't think you can speak for what I do and do not understand. That's just flat out arrogant. Nowhere did I say the other side was any more classy/non-racist. I'm not blaming the shootings on Black lives matter. What I am saying is that race is being interjected into a much bigger issue, and it forces people to take sides where they should have plenty of common ground. I'll go back to my sister for a second. Every single on her force gets called racist every single day... many times a day. Now how many of them actually are racist? I'd hazard a guess that it's a low number. By pulling race into it, you just piled on to another jaded group. There's plenty of common ground here, as senseless violence is all over the place, whether it's Castille, Orlando, Dallas, or whatever. These problems need to be solved, but by drawing the battle ground on race, you not only miss the big picture, but eliminate the common ground that could unite so many groups. If anything, it is one more form of that same latent racism we were just talking about. Black lives matter. So do white lives. So do cops lives. So do everyone's lives. The black community certainly has a right to be upset, but in focusing the issue on black lives, it becomes a slap in the face to the 5 white cops who died this weekend in what was without question a racially motivated attack. We have to unite on these issues, not further subdivide.

I guess I just don't see his name around here that much. Not really trying to slam anyone by that. Got to meet in ST with you. Seems like a nice kid. I do hope he hits AAA soon.

Any idea where the Twins are going to post the GM opening? I think the two of us could do it...