diehardtwinsfan

Side note, there are a number of proshares ETFs out there that work inverse of the market. Those aren't bad investments if you can trade ETFs in your plans. TWM for instance, is up something ridiculous (about 40%) in the last two weeks as it does roughly 2x the inverse of the Russell 2k (which has lost about 20% in the last 3 weeks).

I've been doing a lot more trading of late, so I'll simply say this. What you are seeing right now is the beginning. You'd be wise to move your money into a money market for the bulk of 2016. The market is waking up and realizing that nothing was fixed from 2008 and now we've added a ton more sovereign debt to it... debt that some countries aren't going to repay. I wouldn't be shocked in the least if the European crisis comes back in full with defaults from some or all of the PIIGS nations at some point, and that contagion could spread elsewhere too. Cut your losses. You may get a small bounce here given the number of down days, but we are in a full fledge bear market and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the market return to 2008 lows. Buy back in once the damage is done.

I think Polanco might be a decent trade chip while he has value and no real position given the SS/2B behind him and Dozier/Escobar at the ML level. I'm still not sure Milwaukee and Lucroy are the right targets. I don't like going for Garza at all either. He's on the wrong side of 30, and quite frankly he wasn't very good last year. IF (and it's a big if) the concussion concerns are gone and Lucroy is back to being Lucroy, a Murphy/Lucroy tandem would be quite a bit better than a Suzuki/Murphy tandem. I just don't see these teams as partners. Lucroy's value right now is pretty low due to his question marks. If MIL is desperate to get rid of him, then yeah, go get him. But I think they're going to want a return greater than say Polanco... and I don't blame them.

I hope I'm wrong and Buxton wows in ST, comes north, and goes Mike Trout on the AL, but I suspect he's in AAA (and I tend to think that's where he belongs).

sounds like if it was possible to combine the 2 you'd have a sure thing ace...

No, that's not really what I was getting at. They've spent their allotment each year when it came to international. There's been rumors (which haven't existed prior) that the Twins are pretty excited about the class coming up next year and was going to do something similar to the Cubs/Yankees. Those rumors haven't been rampant until recently. Now you're right, it could just be rumors, but this is not something I've been accustomed to hearing in the international market, and it's being repeated by guys like Sickles who are connected to the org, but not apologists by any means.

Milwaukee GM hangs up before Ryan can even finish that offer. Not happening.

I'm assuming that means he is officially a relief pitcher. Personally, I'd give him one more shot starting...

every time I look at this title, my dyslexia kicks in and I read 'does religion trump age?' and I get really confused To answer your question, I suspect it affects a development curve more than anything else. Kids up north get less time and might need more time to develop (or perhaps it's a bonus as they've had less time to learn bad habits)... On the flip side, those kids playing in FL their entire lives get a bit of an awakening when they get shipped North for pro-ball. In all, I don't think it affects things much other than perhaps that first year of pro-ball.

Thrylos, cannot fault you for being bold. Javier I could see based on what I've read on him, though this isn't the Twins of 5 years ago where Javier would instantly be the top prospect for bonus reasons only... That said, have you seen Palacios play? I'm honestly curious. I'm bullish on the kid, but not top 10 bullish.. yet.. (though I have a few guys you exclude for ML experience reasons). Just curious what your two cents are there.

I don't see the players tanking. Too much in it for them if they don't perform. That costs them money in arb and FA down the road... so if by tanking you mean either calling up people who have no business being up, delaying the leaders of your new farm system so that they are being called up with the core, or signing old washed up vets who you know will underperform, sure it might happen... but that's all on the GM... I think for most bad teams, they make take some FA gambles and then do what the Cubs did and trade them off for some more prospects, but I'm not sure I'd call it tanking.

I seem to remember reading on Sickle's site that the Twins were rumored to blow their international FA money in next year's pool. If this kid was available this year, it would make for an interesting dilemma as signing him (which I'm not against) would mean no chance on some of the kids they are really excited about next season. In a way, I hope MLB makes him wait till 2016, as in so doing, the Twins would have a shot at a few top notch talents if they were planning on going all in as rumored. I think it would be wise for MN to do this since they are going to be a pretty decent team for the next decade and likely picking low once the international draft gets implemented.

I was supposed to be in Minneapolis that week for work, but I managed to be able to give it up in exchange for a week in Orlando.

If he just wanted the fat contract, I think he'd have switched to Boras. I don't think that's what this move was about. Jay Z presents a whole lot of marketing opportunities, not to mention anyone who thinks they have some musical talent would go that way too, that a lot of other agencies cannot provide. I am guessing Jay Z isn't in the agency business to start playing hardball with the major sports owners.

First off, you don't need a half dozen people. You need one, maybe two. That's problem number 1... But honestly, based on what you said here, if you're on the jury, do you give a not guilty verdict? I ask, because whether they were understaffed, incompetent, or both, what you just said doesn't get you around the reasonable doubt criteria to put him in jail. If you're explanation is that the investigators were incompetent, then quite frankly, "not guilty" is the only verdict, whether or not you think he's actually guilty. All those protocols that they bypassed were there to prevent this type of thing from happening.

These guys were deposed about a week prior to the murder investigation. There's nothing free and clear about them at that time. Lest we forget, Lenk was being deposed at the time of this investigation... There's no run like hell in the other way for him. I find the explanation that they framed him or were just flat out incompetent to be far more realistic than the one that says he actually did it. When you toss the questionable evidence, there's nothing linking Avery to the crime other than the fact that he was dumb and creepy, and I'd add, there's plenty of room for reasonable doubt. It's up to the prosecution to explain how and why it is that Avery's blood sample that they had in storage was tampered with. It's up to them to explain why it is a person with a clear conflict of interest who was not supposed to be a part of the investigation was repeatedly on the site. It's up to them to explain how it is that this same person managed to find nearly all of the key evidence in plain view after repeated searches of the same area (up to as many as 7 searches I might add) turned up nothing. It's up to them to explain why it is that they could not follow simple protocols for recovering bones, testing DNA, procuring evidence, etc. I might buy issues with protocol on incompetence of the investigators, but that alone is reasonable doubt, and that's before you get into the problems with James Lenk or the fact that someone accessed Avery's blood.

I haven't seen the full video of his confession, to be fair, but the details he provided weren't backed up by the evidence found. If she was murdered in the garage or the bedroom as Dassey said, there would be traces of her blood all over the place. That type of evidence doesn't just disappear. That garage in particular would have been impossible to sanitize, even for those who know what needed to be done, and to claim that Avery was capable of doing that part to an expert level (while simultaneously screwing so many other things up such as not using the incinerator or compactor on site) is borderline laughable. Avery and Dassey both are clearly on the low end of the bell curve. If one or both were involved in a crime as bloody as what Dassey claimed, they would have had no problems finding Halbach's blood everywhere. The fact that they didn't tells me she died elsewhere.

I take issue with a few things here. Several cops (who were involved in the investigation) were being deposed. That killed their deposition (motive) not to mention Avery ended up settling his civil suit unfavorably to him in order to raise money to pay for his new defense (more motive). So, sorry, but I have to disagree with your conclusion. There is upside, quite a bit of it actually. And they didn't need a dozen conspirators. Lenk (who had both access to the property and pretty much all of the key evidence) as well as possibly one other person is all that was needed. It's quite possible that the fame job was Lenk simply acting alone. And when you take into account the complete inability for police to follow proper protocol, questionable circumstances around all of the key evidence, you have either incompetence or a frame job. I don't know who did it. It may very well have been Avery, but I have no doubt that SOMEONE decided to help out the case as there was blood in the police storage obviously tampered with. Again, documentary motives aside, that blood had been accessed. There's no reason for anyone to have accessed that blood except for that purpose. At that point, it really doesn't matter what I think about who did or didn't do it, how solid the remaining case is, the confession, etc.. Avery has reasonable doubt. That is the standard, and nothing else matters. I'm perfectly fine with anyone here thinking he did it, but I'm really trying to figure out exactly what 'reasonable doubt' means to people if flat out incompetence and/or subterfuge on behalf of the investigators doesn't account for it.

problem to me is how many at bats do you give him to see if he has it? 1? 2? 3? A manager isn't going to give the hook after 2 batters, and by the 3rd you're in trouble

I have to think Gordon and Jay will be up in the top 3 in 2017, if for no other reason than draft status. If they both do exceedingly well, then they will likely be top 50 MLB prospects as well. As for dark horses, I really like Thorpe, but I suspect he's going to be eased back in, probably remaining in EST and eventually being sent to Cedar Rapids. If he continues where he left off in CR in 2014 (he started slow but got significantly better as the season wore on), I think he's a pretty sure bet to be in the top 5. He was getting national attention prior to that, and putting his TJ concerns to rest would likely revitalize that attention. If he struggles though, then he's probably in the 8-15 range. My pick to rocket up the lists at this point are Gonsalves and Palka.

The Michael ranking doesn't surprise me, Thrylos has been high on him for a while, and health issues aside, he's been pretty good in AA the last two years. Given his pedigree and injury history, he might be something decent... And yeah, people do make mistakes all the time. How many times was Pujols passed on in the draft? Thrylos makes his fair share of them too. Perhaps this is one of them. Perhaps it isn't. Time will tell. The LH/RH splits bother me a bit more though, as the bulk of pitchers he'd face will be from the right side. Those are some extreme numbers. Probably guarantees him a lefty specialist job though in the majors..

I'll simply say that if I saw the prosecution's entire case, I'd still be saying not guilty. Sorry. I'm not sure where to begin on this b/c all the defense had to do is present reasonable doubt, which they did. The police blew the case when they had guys with a clear conflict of interest (Lenk, who was being deposed for his actions in the 1st case) being involved in the investigation when they publically stated that Manitwoc would not be involved. Add to it that this guy is the one constantly coming up with all the key evidence after multiple searches missed it, and that there were huge problems with all of his evidence: 1) Key having only Avery's DNA on it and not the victims. 2) Avery's blood in the car, the only visible cut on his hand, yet no prints 3) Avery's blood in police storage which was clearly tampered with. 4) Bullet showing up 4 months later. 5) Proper procedures not followed in examination of bullet despite defense's request to have it independently analyzed (not to mention the deviation that was filed and what not) 6) Bones found at multiple sites. 7) A lack of physical evidence at the site for what was a very gruesome crime according to the prosecution... 8) The complete inability of investigators to follow protocol. That protocol exists precisely for this reason. That doesn't even get into problems with the prosecution's timeline, conflicting statements from witnesses, etc. I don't know if he did it or not (I suspect not), but the idea that someone wanted to get him for it is far more likely then him doing it himself. I could watch 3 full weeks of the prosecution, and I still highly doubt I'm changing my mind, especially when you consider that best practices were not followed in this investigation. Those protocols exist precisely to avoid what happened here.

Just a question, but would be allowed to talk about what all goes into signing a free agent? Obviously, if there's proprietary stuff there, leave it out. But I'd really be curious what goes into how the team came to a decision to sign say Luke Hughes and Rickey Nolasco. what went right, not just with the decision itself, but the process, red flags, reasons for doing it, etc. what went wrong, etc. I'd really be curious. I'm sure it's not as simple as just doing it.

well, I'm 6 in. Not sure if Avery did it or not, but no question that his attorneys have met the reasonable doubt standard. No way I'd have convicted him if I was on that jury. Based on what I've seen so far, I'm half convinced that Lenc did that too.

FYI, that was a noticeable improvement (up till today), though my internet is being flakey too right now. I'd note I pulled resource monitor up and was watching network bandwidth during some of the site's slower movements. Noticed a couple of providers that seemed to suck up a pretty large amount of network bandwidth: tg2-den.search.spotxchange.com was sucking up a lot when it's add was running. There were a bunch of IPs too. I'll watch that a bit closer and see if I can identify a some common ones.