diehardtwinsfan

I won't argue on turner. I'd note that Turner and Garver were both considered top college defenders (with Turner being the better defender). I haven't heard any indication that Garver doesn't have the defensive chops. I suspect he'll be better than Suzuki to be honest. He won't be Molina back there, but he should be at least an average defender. His bat is the question. he put up an .880 OPS on low A ball his first full year, but hasn't been nearly as good since. He got off to a horrible start in high A last year before heating up and finishing with reasonably respectable numbers (an OPS just shy of .700). That's not bad for a catcher. He got off to a much better start in AA this season, so I'm hoping that he figures it out later this year and posts an OPS north of .700. My biggest concern is that his K and BB rates have moved in the wrong direction as he's moved up the chain. BTW, just a note, but this is why we shouldn't put too much stock in Lamont Wade's numbers. I'm glad he's doing what he's doing, but the real test for him will be high A and AA. Garver is a good example on how a college player can beat up low A.

Turner has never been good at the plate. He got off to a hot start this year but has pretty much regressed to his career numbers.

so the real question is whether they keep going young. I'm assuming these are more HS guys. I like that by the way. I'll be even happier if they pick up one more HS guy (preferably a pitcher). I suspect most of the rest of the top 10 will be college players. Jeremy noted in another thread that after the 4th or something like that the picks are no longer protected.

I'd sell in a heart beat for a low top 100 prospect. I suspect that's a bit too high of an asking price though. Truthfully, I'd sell for a high ceiling A ball kid that is in the 100-150 range. Davies is more of a back of the rotation type arm. After looking him up, he's not a bad arm, as he gets more Ks than a guy like Milone, but you're talking about a guy who won't consistently strike out 7 per 9 innings. He's a cheap 4/5 guy. I think I'd rather take on more risk and get a higher ceiling than that.

You're asking a state full of Packer fans to actually do something sensible. I'm pretty sure when Milwaukee is in town, you could do a Wisconsin themed game thread and come up with lots of gems.

I've yet to find a beer that I like.

There's a place where college players make sense. Today and tomorrow grabbing a few college bats the best baseball conferences is one of them as you have a better chance of finding that diamond in the rough, but when you're drafting late, those floors stop looking sexy so by all means go for the ceiling. I'm glad the Twins did this (it's what I wanted) even if it wasn't all the players I wanted (though I'm ecstatic that they got Revoldt).

Milone's value is bad right now b/c quite frankly he was just bad. He had (at least I'd like to think he did) value in the offseason as someone who for 3 years has been a decent pitcher, granted a back of the rotation pitcher, but decent. Now... not so much.

trade him for the right return, sure. Not quite certain a Davies caliber player would be that.

They needed some higher ceiling guys and they weren't going to get them from college players. It doesn't mean that they found the catcher of the future just yet, but I like the idea that they are stocking the lower minors with some high ceiling talent. It will be interesting to see if they need to grab a couple of cheap college signs today or if they are comfortable that these kids will all go slot.

Well, I side I wanted HS guys. Guess the Twins listened Only thing I would have liked would have been to walk away with one of those pitchers, but at the moment pitching is strong in the farm system.

He was on my watch list. I really wanted him with that pick and I'm glad we got him there.

Only partly?

To be clear, I'm probably more in the flat tax/no tax territory. No tax means the government gets a ton smaller and that I think does wonders for all of these issues. The real killer here is inflation. It destroys the poor and adds more to their rank. It's going to creep up every year (and let's not pretend that the official numbers are accurate) and in so doing it sucks more and more into it. Inflation is a necessary evil for a government that's way too big. It's one of the few ways they can continue spending what they are doing. Minimum income becomes more of a bandaid. Yes, I agree that something needs to be done for the poor, but minimum income won't fix that b/c it fails to understand why they are getting trapped in poverty in an increasing percentage. As for the fair tax, it does provide a minimum income (around $600/mo if I remember right). It increases demand for used products which puts a premium on quality over quantity. There is also no income tax at all, with the big tradeoff of a massive sales tax. I think most of those are good things. The sales tax doesn't fix the problem that the government spends too much, but it does allow me to not fund it, and it does help the poor in that sense as they can essentially live tax free buying used products.

Problem is that Arcia should be getting his chance too, and he hasn't. I think Molitor should be able to find room for Buxton, Arcia, Kepler, Grossman, and Park between 5 positions. I don't like that Arcia continues to ride more pine than he should. yeah, he hasn't been stellar, but when he's had consistent PT he's been decent enough to warrant a closer look. Bottom line is that the Twins need to look closer at him, which means he needs to play.

Not sure I'd throw Santana into those pitchers, and heck even Hughes was quite good before his extension... Putting that aside a second, I want them to celebrate wins. Just means they want them. Dance parties? Who cares. If that's what they are doing instead of normal BP, OK, I get it. If that's what they want to do in spare time to build comradery, who cares (even if I don't understand it). That said, if no one on this team is embarrassed by their play... well, that's a big problem.

Not really a Reusse fan. Not sure I agree with everything he said here, but I do agree that most of it is pretty spot on. This team has been dreadful this year.

as long as the Reps and Dems are owned by said corps, those loopholes will never close. If you want a guaranteed income, then perhaps the fairtax is worth looking at. Not sure I'm a big believer there, but I won't argue if someone said it beats the heck out of our current tax system.

The real question is how much better next year's class will be... and that's a dangerous assumption to make this far out on it's own. If that class is significantly better, then trying to accommodate Groom makes some sense. It's probably worth asking how much he wants though first. If he's asking 8M, it's pointless to waste time. He's not coming here.

I don't know if it needed to be a prospect of note. That's kind of what a C prospect is (using Sickle's scale here for the record). The money saved on Milone could have went towards a decent RP. It certainly wouldn't have saved us this abomination of a season, but we might have a couple more Ws at this point.

Holy crap. I'm going to have to start watching him more. Don't really watch HBO's political stuff, but this might change that. On that note, an interesting debt relief concept might be to fund an organization that does just that. Wonder how that would work.

quote name="always33" post="495182" timestamp="1465425970"] The only people who came to any conclusions are the scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying the environment. Obviously, the conclusions they have formed thus far in their research have raised legitimate concerns among other citizens, and in result of that, politicians picked up the theme. I don't know why you, someone who probably hasn't taken any science beyond your college generals, assume that you know more than these scientists. /quote] This just isn't true. Plenty of people have come to conclusions about it. Plenty who have studied this their entire lives don't agree with plenty of other people who have studied this their entire lives. This isn't about assuming who does and doesn't know more. This is about looking at the conclusions and being able to recognize that the sample of data people are working on doesn't allow for them, and it doesn't take a higher level degree to figure that out. I pointed this out before, but this planet has (according to scientists) experienced 5 ice ages... FIVE. After each one, the planet warmed up. Was all this man made? How so if mankind wasn't even around for most of these? I wholeheartedly agree on the being good stewards of the earth. This has nothing to do with liberal scientists, atheists or what not. I suggest you look a bit closer at my posting history. I'm most definitely not some died in the wool Christian conservative Republican who hates all things liberal or agnostic. It has nothing to do with whether or not science has a place in the world. I do however recognize that science is not some altruistic field. It is vulnerable to the same pitfalls that every other field is susceptible to (including religion I might add) when money and power come into play. Everyone has a belief or assumptions. The problem is not that they have them. The problem is failing to recognize them and a general human failure of being willing to put them aside when there is reason to do so. Case in point right here, as I'm apparently being lumped into "most Conservatives". I'm not really conservative (at least by it's current definition), but your repsonse indicates that you believe I am such. The problem is that these beliefs suddenly become 'fact' and these 'facts' suddenly become something that we must all live our lives by. This really isn't any different than forcing your morality on others at least in terms of methodology, and I think our society has plenty of examples from both our past (racism, slavery, prohibition) and present (gay marriage) that should tell us that it never ends well. Your choice to hold to a belief (or not to, I'm not really sure) on climate change is yours. And if this is important to you, then by all means choose to live your life accordingly. No one is saying that you cannot or should not. I am saying though that anyone who is really serious about this should probably take a real close look at just how much they don't live this in their current lives. It's practically impossible to live in the US in any capacity and not be a hyprocrite if you believe in man-made climate change. Everything that we do from our jobs to our standard of living would have to change in order to be consistent with those beliefs. quote name="always33" post="495182" timestamp="1465425970"] So basically, I think your statement about people jumping to conclusions about problems they know nothing about is arrogant and even offensive, as is your comment about not respecting people you disagree with. If I couldn't respect people I didn't agree with, I would have no respect for a single person in the world. That could, of course, have devastating results. I won't even go there. /quote] This is nothing to do with me not respecting people I don't agree with. You're the one jumping to that conclusion. I simply said why it is I have problems respecting those on the left and listed a few reasons as to why. That's a far cry from simply not having respect for people b/c we don't agree. There is a distinct difference there, and I think you understand that. And like it or not, jumping to conclusions about problems one knows nothing about is the height of arrogance, as it pays no respect to what you don't know, and in this field, there's plenty of that. quote name="always33" post="495182" timestamp="1465425970"] This is, of course, said in all due respect. /quote]

Your right in that I unfairly targeted you Brock. I apologize on that. I can get behind any voluntary things as I already do much of that myself. My problem is that this debate never starts or ends there.

In fairness to Brock, I wasn't targeting him specifically. My apologies there. You're right, he's not exactly a lefty in politics and I didn't mean to target him. As for my lack of respect, to be clear, I have plenty of issues with the right as well. I said as much before and I'll say it again. That issue comes down to both sides deciding that they have a better idea as to how you and I should live our lives. But to address your bigger point: Whether or not people believe in human caused climate change misses the point. There's not nearly enough evidence for anyone to be able to reasonably reach that conclusion. The planet has been warming since the last ice age, we don't have nearly enough weather data to even correlate whether you are dealing with natural weather patterns, something manmade, or something different altogether. We have what, 100 years of reasonably accurate weather data on a planet that is supposedly 4.5 billion years old? That's pretty much the definition of small sample size and yet we are running to the conclusion that it's human made, despite believing that this planet has gone through 5 major ice ages, and by default, warmed up after every one of them. Add to it that these same folks screaming man made global warming were only 30 years ago screaming man made global cooling. The reason they had to change the moniker to "climate change" was that they had to dump global warming after a number of successive cooler years. This smacks of running to a solution long before anyone understands the problem (or if there even is one). I'm not saying don't take care of the environment. I am saying though that if this is something that you truly care about, you need to start with you. Get rid of your car. Stop using gas/electricity. Grow your own food and use animals for transportation. Pretty much stop buying anything other than what you need to survive. If climate change is man made, then the only way to stop it is for man to start living without the very technology it has created to survive. As for agendas, this again goes back to my lack of respect (on both sides), as apparently no one can see the hidden agendas by those on the other side. You're quick to point out the resistance of those with the most to lose, and you completely ignore that there are plenty who fall under the "most to gain" who have just as much of a vested interest to be dishonest as those who have something to loose. At the base of all this debate is greed. Nothing more, and nothing less. This is about shifting wealth in the industrial complex. That's why all of the proposals to solve the problem don't involve simple actions like requiring all of those cheap imports to maintain the same standards that we already make our manufacturers follow. That alone would do more to address pollution than any of the proposed deals on the table right now.

Several of the FTM staff will be promoted at some point, at which point someone from CR is going to need to replace them. I'd think he'd be on the list. Problem though is that with him not pitching for so long, you could make a case for him finishing out the year in Iowa.