diehardtwinsfan

You know, I find this ghost injury thing interesting as when players change teams, you don't hear about it. I think this is what it is, shoulder inflammation, and probably a bit more than a typical pitchers. Meyer has a history with these issues. I have no problems taking it easy here. Hopefully he heals up and is pitching again next month.

well, what I like is that after his slump, he's still got an OPS over .800. As much as Mauer's slump has sucked, I think most posters here would have been pleasantly surprised if we were told that 2 months into the season Mauer maintained an .800 OPS. Not sure if he's back so to speak, as he showed flashes of his old self at various times the last 2 years, but it's encouraging none-the-less.

agreed... glad this was the move. When Nolasco finally gets the DFA, you might actually see May in the rotation for a bit.

That actually does make more sense to start with St. Peter if there's a culling to be had. That could probably happen sooner than later while giving the new guy a chance to observe what is and is not working well in the org and then make changes as needed at an appropriate time.

Like it or not, the starting CF is hurt and I think there would be a lot more consternation of Maestro spent every day of those 2 weeks manning CF. I'll believe it's more of the same if Buxton is doing poorly and not immediately sent down when Santana comes off the DL. There is no harm in a 2 week cup of coffee, especially if he's playing every day.

I think he should have spent the remainder of the season in Rochester (or close to it), but if this is just the 15 day type callup, I'm not seeing the issue. That's what the 40 man is for and Buxton is on it. No harm in assessing him for 2 weeks to see what improvements have been made and where he still needs work.

In this case, teams with more picks in the top 10 or with higher picks are the ones with more money. So isn't like the Yankees are just buying everyone. I don't mind the system. As for Ben's comments. College players have less leverage, especially seniors. Usually those deals are worked out in advance, so the guy taking the underslot deal is agreeing to a number knowing what position he's going to be taken.

Speaking of which, I had to get one a few months back... That rain analogy is a pretty good way to describe the cleansing process... /:) Ducks

I don't know about that. They got pretty decent value for both Butera (technically a trade into the system by the way) and Herrman. I wouldn't write off Garver and Turner either, or even Murray for that matter. Yeah, there's not a hot prospect there, but all of those guys could be quality ML pieces. I think we tend to be a bit spoiled by the Mauer years that we forget that his time in behind the dish was at HOF levels. That said, I have me eyes on a couple of HS catchers that should be available with one of our picks in the second round. I'd grab one at least... if not both. We could certainly use some depth.

The 80s... the last great decade for the music industry. It was all downhill after that.

After reading your second thought, I assumed you had never been to Seattle. It's pretty much non-stop light rain for about 6 months. The summers there are very nice though.

I agree the Mets have Wright. He's their version of Joe Mauer by the way, except that he's signed longer. But he hasn't had a good season since 2013 and has lots of injury issues. Plouffe can be a 1 or 2 year rental. That makes him fairly expendable, not to mention in AL games, you have someone who can potentially DH that doesn't happen to be your 9th best hitter.

I really hope you're trolling? I'd pass on Guillen. I want a Joe Maddon type. Someone good at bring talent along and patient enough to work with it. That's what we need. I don't see Guillen as that.

As someone who has dealt with addiction in his past, I'll simply say that I don't know if firing him (at least for now) is the right thing to do. It's probably the one thing more likely to drive him deeper into his addiction. What he needs right now is help. Get him the help. If he's not responding properly, ignoring his accountability, etc. then fire him and let him hit rock bottom. If he's responding properly, then I'd keep employing him. When it comes to setting an example, this is a good example for the young players. They need to see these kinds of things. Hiding it from them is not the way to help them overcome their own demons (and I guarantee you they all have them). It's society's job to punish him for what he did, not us. He will pay his dues for this offense, and the team rightfully should get him the help he needs and use that as a condition of employment.

The Mets might be another fit as well.

I suspect the high price tag likely means he has someone already lined up to take him. It's meant to discourage anyone but (guessing here) top 10 or so. Maybe that's us... who knows.

Vargas actually might be one to add here. It might take a bit of work to make it fit, but there's little room for him here. I could see him being packaged with someone to potentially get a bigger return. It would have to be a good fit though. Otherwise, they have Mauer, Park, Arcia, and Vargas all on the roster next year for 1B/DH. I wouldn't mind Kennys as an occasional bench bat, but that really diminishes his value. As for Trades: Some of this sell high thing is rather ridiculous on it's face. You want to keep the guys performing as they are part of the core. Knowing which ones will fall flat on their face requires a crystal ball that I'm pretty sure none of us have, and if you sold high on everyone, you're always selling. That's not a good place to be either. Suzuki might be the obvious exception, but based on the rumors at the time, he wasn't going to net much, so I really don't understand the complaint. I trust Ryan in that he isn't going to let guys go without getting value. He certainly sold high on Revere, and I doubt he'd have gotten a better return on Span. Not really sure Plouffe had much value this offseason. It's not like it would have been selling high. Frasier got squat, and he was a much better chip. I'm guessing whatever Plouffe could have netted last December would still be an option next month, and it won't be much. I'd ship him off. Not expecting a return there though. Not certain I agree on Nunez. He's got arb years left (I think), which makes him attractive. His bat is a difference up the middle. Not so much on the glove, but for a team desperate for help, he's a nice short term plug in for a couple years. That is valuable. I personally wouldn't mind keeping him around as a bench bat/utility player, but I could see someone offering enough to make it work. I don't see why Abad won't be traded. yeah, he's going to get a C/C+ prospect, but that's exactly what you do with minor league signings such as Abad. If Boshers does well over the next month, he's on that list too. I'm not sure I'd part with either Rosario or DanSan at the moment. Neither have a ton of value and both I think are worth more to the org here right now. I doubt Rosario had a ton of value this offseason, and given the OF defense issues, trading him this last offseason would have been pretty short sighted anyways. Both have shown promise, and having a bit of a surplus here can be valuable in giving guys ML time but providing depth in the event a guy like Kepler comes up and does really bad at first. Baring a string of decent starts, Nolasco gets DFAd at some point. If he gets hot for June, I could see him being shipped off for something (again very little), but I'd take what return I could get as the alternative will be eating the full contract and watching him sign a make good deal elsewhere. Suzuki is cheap. Yeah, he's not good, but he costs pretty much nothing and his option won't vest. I think you could get a C prospect for him from a team desperate at C. Heck, Butera and Herrman got decent prospects. I would not trade Park. Sorry, he's looking like the real deal. I think the big thing to remember is that teams rarely dump 5 guys at the deadline. There just aren't that many deals. We should be able to declutter a few guys from the 40 man, and that's good. But just as I think it's unrealistic to expect to see a ton of guys moving. I'd say that trading 2 by the deadline and maybe a 3rd in August is a pretty reasonable expectation. Who those are, I have no idea. As for targeting, I'd probably go after guys in A ball/rookie leagues. There's more risk with them, so you can get a higher ceiling (to a point). We don't have a lot of near term 40 man slots and the lower minors are not as stocked as the high minors. Only exception to that is if someone had a blocked catching prospect in the high minors.

We already saw he wasn't ready in April. One hot month of May hasn't changed that. Thrylos is right about this one. Buxton needs to change his approach to lay off certain types of pitches. One month isn't going to change those fundamentals. He's doing well and he's confident now... by all means, let him do his course correction here and just enjoy it. Me personally... probably August sometime, maybe September. As for 2017, I'd probably go get an AAAA CFer with the plan of that guy manning Rochester's CF next year and let Buxton start there opening day.

I don't think anyone can definitively answer that question, and if it decisions are made based mainly on a timeline, I think you run the risk potentially lengthening said time. I don't agree with the claims that we are in year 5 or 6 of a rebuild. This is really the start year 4, and most of that young talent in knocking on the door. While this season may be a lost cause, I don't think many of the components of this team are as much of a lost cause as some would think, and the last thing we should do is start trading off those young pieces (except where they are redundant) or simply letting them go. How long that takes, I don't think anyone knows as everyone matures at different rates. When you add the fact that guys are being rushed, that doesn't help. We brought up a number of those guys earlier than we should and we are paying the price for it to an extent. But there is a nice core in Arcia, Sano, Escobar, Park, Rosario, Buxton, Gibson, Duffey, Chargois, Meyer, and Berrios with more potential help in Kepler, Polanco, Walker, Vargas, Burdi, Reed, Jones, Murphy, Garver, and Turner. None of those guys (except maybe Gibson, a DH type eventually, and an OF eventually) should be jettisoned. I suspect just about everyone plans on using these guys anyways, which is why I'm arguing for experience in transitioning talent, b/c at this point, the talent is either in the majors or will be shortly. Rebuilding, like it or not, takes time. Whether Ryan is the right guy for the job going forward I don't know (I've said previously that this was in my opinion the last year where I thought he would be, and the results thus far have given me no other reason to doubt that statement). To be clear, I think changes should be made as soon as it makes sense to make them (probably after the draft, though I think there's a case to go all in internationally and I'm not sure how a new GM would improve the likelihood of this), but I really hope ownership doesn't demonstrate the impatience that I've seen here or we are going to see lots more David Ortiz type situations. And good Lord, that impatience is being fueled by a level of arrogance that I just don't understand. Everyone here is a fan. We don't live and breathe baseball. We don't do it for a living. We look at scores. We don't understand everything that a GM does. Truthfully, I doubt we understand a quarter of that job description. We can only guess. Most of us (myself included) don't manage much more than a team of people, much less an organization, and I've seen enough of dysfunctional organizations to know that its driven largely by impatience, arrogance, and ignorance. Making a change at this level will cause significant ripples in an organization, and as Old Nurse pointed out not that long ago, all that new blood can be just as bad as the old blood. Finding the right fit and the right balance is important, and I've seen little on TD to indicate that anyone here has the right skills to do it, especially if timeline is the primary metric.

Most of those 1-2 year deals aren't going to get you your better results. I'd note I'm not in disagreement on Kazmir (would have taken him over KC, that's for sure), but for every Kazmir, there's quite a few more Pelfrey's. I'm not necessarily in disagreement on going big for the ace, but I'll say what I've said before, those 100+M contracts rarely work out. By the time the other pieces are in place, you're staring at an even worse version of the Nolasco contract. And we did the trades as well. We got Meyer, May, and Worley. Worley certainly didn't work, but I'd hardly shut the book on Meyer and May.

Using that logic, a guy is either always ready or never ready. I think 14 more innings might be a nice litmus test of showing whether or not the guy is ready. SSS is a real thing. I don't think there's anything wrong letting Chargois spend a bit more time in AAA to make sure this simply isn't a nice couple of weeks. He will probably get the call at some point this year and there should be data points on him next year come ST. That's what we want, right?

Probably another one in the Mitch Garver type mold (not a bad prospect either).

To an extent you have a point (particularly the 11 year metric), but 29th in baseball over the last 5 ignores how long it takes to rebuild a franchise, especially since that really didn't start moving forward till 2013.

Something needed to happen. That I don't think was up for debate. The 2012/13 rotations were bad. Problem is that to get decent ones, you had to go long term. Now we have 3 long term contracts in the rotation, and only one is still decent. Unfortunately, so much of this discussion tends to be revisionist in nature as it's really easy to forget the context of what lead to them.

For the record, I'd rather just DFA Nolasco and eat it.