diehardtwinsfan

This. There was no one blocking him when he was called up. Unfortunately, there is now.

Personally, I don't get too excited about all glove no hit guys. I know there are exceptions to the rule, but it's really hard to quantify their impact. How many plays in a 9 inning game does a SS see on average? How many more over the course of same game will an all world defender get? If that defender is converting one extra out per game (and I doubt this) over say a league average defender at SS, then he might be worth the black hole in the lineup though that would depend on just how bad that bat is. Most of the all glove guys that I've seen aren't worth the leash they've been given... That's my 2 cents at least.

Service time, makeup, attitude, approach, results, tenure, age, and probably a hundred other things that I haven't mentioned here. There's lots of factors that come into play with these decisions.

He's 21 and has put up a .455 average in 15 at bats. As a college sign, I'd expect him to do better than the GCL, as he's old for the league. But this is also SSS. I'd say way too soon to tell.

Glad to see Burdi with a good month.

My first problem is the idea that Buxton is somehow going to be the savior of this season. That's ridiculous. He was pretty bad in his limited sample, and now he's had a month off to go with it. He isn't suddenly going to come up and light the world on fire. My bigger issue with this though is what I said earlier in other threads. We are creating an options issue here. He went on the 40 man early, got 40 at bats, and is now burning one of three options. He will more than likely see one burnt next year as well. It's poor options management. I get that he's a highly respected prospect, but they struggle (see Arcia, Oswaldo). Arcia was put in that same situation and no one thought the options game would be a problem, yet next year, he's out of them and is still clearly not ready. He may very well be up next year to stay (and I hope that is), but if he struggles at all, the Twins are going to find themselves in a spot where they are forced to keep him on a roster when he isn't ready.

$100M dollars, the face of the franchise, etc. Baring an Adrian Peterson type scenario, it won't happen. Period. Heck, look at A-Rod if you want an example. The Yankees wanted to do anything they could to get out from under that contract this last offseason and still held on to him. This isn't just a TR thing. No way Jim Pohlad signs off on it or the average fan (who like it or not is far more responsible for filling seats at TF than the knowledgeable fan)

Mauer is more likely to move back to catcher than he is to get cut. He's got 3 more years left on his deal. We may as well stop thinking this is an option.

I don't know when it happened. Ben Revere came close in A ball during his first full season if I remember right, but rookie leagues are much shorter. SSS I know, but certainly exciting.

Glunn, I really didn't weigh in on your other comments. I've cut this up a bit, and I'll try to here. quote name="glunn" post="384388" timestamp="1439097983"] 1. Religious conservatives and prudes abhor promiscuity and don't want to promote wanton sex, especially among teens. They prefer abstinence programs, even though such programs have not been effective in the past. It's a little bigger issue than this. I agree that a lot of conservatives want abstinence programs. It's bigger than that though because many of us do teach our children to abstain till marriage. This is far more than simple sex education. This is a value system that some people in this country hold, and have a right to hold I might add. I don't expect people to share that same value, but I do think that there's plenty of agenda on both sides of this issue that gets in the way here. I think the real pollution into this debate is that both sides tend to distort this for their own gain, with religious Conservatives saying 'abstinence only' and more liberally minding people calling it safe sex (when at best it's only safer, while not adequately disclosing the real risks that remain with contraception. There's no such thing as safe sex). Personally, I'd simply prefer sex education to stick to the facts and allow people to choose for themselves so that they understand the risks that they are taking. It really isn't hard and can be done in a way that presents all the facts and risks so as to allow kids to make these decisions for themselves. This is very doable. "glunn" post="384388" timestamp="1439097983" 2. Some fiscal conservatives don't want to use taxpayer funds to pay for birth control and all of the wanton sex that might ensue. I am a fiscal conservative who is tired of paying $50,000 per year per prisoner to sit on their asses in prison for non-violent crimes while I work like a dog. It seems beyond dispute that unwanted children have a much greater than average propensity to end up in prison and on welfare. From a fiscal perspective, it seems clear to me that unwanted children are bad and birth control is good. Can anyone seriously dispute that? I don't want to use taxpayer dollars to fund anything outside of what was declared in our constitution. Things get really sticky when your money is taken from you by force to be used to fund things that don't fit with your values. People don't like that, and rightfully so. The fact that people cannot agree on mostly anything is one big reason as to why I personally think we need to take a very constitutional view to government spending. Simply putting those tax dollars back in the pockets of the working masses would do wonders to solve this problem that you described. I also suspect that if you look at the demographics of where abortions are happening, you'd find that they don't always line up with the poverty demographics that create crime. I don't know if this is true or not, but I suspect abortion tends to happen more among the wealthy than the poor. I could be wrong there, but I know a bunch of people that have had abortions, and every one could afford to use contraception, just as they were able to afford their far more expensive abortion procedure. That said, birth control is already cheap and in many cases free. A woman can walk into the local health department in most places and get the pill. A large box of condoms can be purchased cheaply too (for probably the same amount as the average college students weekly liquor bill), not to mention that many universities (my school did) and charities already give them away also. Anyone with a job that makes minimum wage can afford them as well. Birth control is also covered under most insurance plans too. It's already cheap. Making it free is something that can be done fairly easily if you wanted, and there are certainly worse things to spend tax payer dollars on, but while it may put a dent in the abortion numbers, I really don't think it will reduce it as you suggest. It's already readily available. Education is still the answer here, though I'd have no problems giving money to private organizations that wanted to give away birth control (and only birth control). This brings us back to that value system. I'm not Catholic. I think their position on birth control is ridiculous (not to mention untenable from a Biblical point of view). However, it's not my place to force them to conform to my value system, nor do I think it is in anyone's best interest in a free country to take their money in the form of taxes and use that money to support a value system that they do not hold. I would note that most Catholics I've interacted with don't agree with the church's position, as do their priests (or so they say at least) That said, even if condoms were readily available as you suggest, I don't think that abortion rates would decline much at all. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they went up, but let's assume that they will drop some, it certainly won't be 950k abortions/year, but I'd say odds are good it would drop. The problem is that people don't carry condoms with them where ever they go. Condoms aren't 100% effective and their efficacy rate (high 90s) is tied directly to being properly put on and not breaking during intercourse (and that efficacy is decreased significantly against certain STDs). I do know that once people start having sex, hormones/opportunity tend to take over and the lack of birth control when neither partner has any isn't always (or even usually) going to stop them. Making it easier to get birth control may help those trying to be responsible, but I think you fail to recognize that some people just don't care and many don't have access to it when they need it. I've met my fair share of those folks too. Your last point is key. Education. It needs to happen better. Much of what you said there is spot on accurate. I don't think it's a compromise to point out that the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STDs is abstinence. The fact that this is considered compromise is part of the problem however. Birth control will fail sometimes. I think you have to show them the numbers (failure rates against both pregnancy and STDs), and as you said, be honest in that there are lots of non-physical consequences to sex that not everyone will handle the same. Personally, I just wish that sex education was honest and agenda free. It isn't difficult to simply lay out the facts and risks so that young adults can make decisions on their own. The problem is people trying to make their decisions for them.

The argument in favor of abortion has over the years specifically attempted to dehumanize what is, at the end of the day, an unborn human. I would note though that an infant, a toddler, and most younger children could not live independently of their mother. For that matter, some adults cannot. Are they no longer people too in that definition? What exactly is magical about the crossing of a baby through the birth canal that bestows life on it and makes it a person, protected by the laws of this land? The problem here with the 'rhetoric' is that the cold, termination of a defenseless human life is exactly what it is, and your description of it (regardless of whether or not you agree that abortion is murder, right, wrong, or whatever) is precisely that... cold. It dehumanizes the act, even though the act itself is quite reprehensible, and I'd add that when performed in the 3rd trimester, that fetus would likely be viable. The failure on the pro-choice side is recognizing that pro-life people really do view abortion as the cold, termination of human life. Actually, they view it more as a cold indifferent murder of human life. I intentionally softened that rhetoric to allow for that discussion, but you did much of the same in your post insisting that "the issue isn't about 'living', it's about 'human being'." Simply dismissing someone's viewpoint to fit it into your world view is the 'rhetoric that derails thoughtful discussion'. It leaves people completely unheard, does it not?

I won't argue with you about our nation's history. You won't find me saying that we needed to nuke Japan or that was done to the Indian population on this planet was somehow right. But even then, there were humans who were against these sins, and while I agree that humanity holds life in utter contempt, I fail to see how it is that we should continue to overlook our human/sin nature and continue holding life in utter contempt. But last I checked, the sins of our ancestors doesn't somehow justify our current sins. The abortion debate is very much about life. You can go on and tell yourself it's about control, and perhaps to some it is, but to simply oversimplify the entirety of this issue in order to fit your world view is, to be blunt, nothing but ignorance. You can see by my posting history that I'm a pretty big believer in personal liberty, value the freedoms that we pretend to have in this country, that I personally hate any kind of unwarranted intrusion into anyone's life, both here in this country and overseas. So perhaps you should take me (and those who echo these views) at my/our word when I say that we believe it comes down to human life. If it was simply a matter of choice, I wouldn't be on this side. If I walked into the thread about the Minnesota dentist who shot that lion and say that people against his are only here because they seek to control the actions of others, I would rightfully castigated for such an opinion. They are outraged because they found those actions reprehensible. Just as people who are pro-life find abortion reprehensible. How does this somehow fit here, yet not over there?

Unfortunately, this right here is the disconnect. This IS the question, and it's fundamental to the entire debate. If that unborn child, fetus, zygote, embryo (or whatever you want to call it), isn't alive, then the whole basis for any reason to appose abortion is simply tossed out. You cannot look at and begin to understand the problem of abortion if you choose not to look at whether or not that unborn child is alive. The straw man in this debate is the desire to reshape this debate around something other than the cold termination of a defenseless, living human being.

He's breaking into the prospect scene in the same way Arcia has (though he's a bit more selective with the bat). He's not a big bonus sign either. Given what he did in rookie ball this year as an 18/19 yo, I have to think he's going to be starting in Cedar Rapids next year. Doing well there as a SS will start getting him national attention.

I'm really curious what Ryan will do this offseason here. I think Milone will likely be on the block, but even if he's shipped off and Pelfrey is presumably allowed to walk, you have Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Gibson, and May in those 5 spots. Eventually, someone will hit the DL for a time and give them an opportunity to use Rochester, but there's going to be a few deserving arms to choose from. I think Berrios has the highest ceiling of those arms, but Duffey and Rogers certainly will be making a case as well. Side note, but I don't believe (could be wrong here) that Berrios is a 40 man decision this offseason. I wouldn't mind him as a September callup, but I'd rather not waste an option on him next season unless the plan is to have him in the majors next year.

yeah, I'm guessing the front office looks at more than just a box score to determine readiness.

Let's not pretend that this type of pandering exists only in conservative circles. Both parties have adapted quite well to the sound byte culture we live in and love to pander to their base masses over stupid things such as this. It's part of my disgust with modern politics, as people in general seem to ignorant to realize that it goes on. They are quite happy when 'their side' is doing this, but get all uppity when it's someone on the other side does it to them. It's all hypocrisy at the end of the day and no real problems are being solved.

I think personally that part of my disappointment with Arcia is that with his age/athleticism, there is no reason that he couldn't be an average (or slightly above) defender in a corner spot. I get that his bat is his thing, and I get that it's probably more interesting for him to work on, but he would be a far more impactful player if he could play some defense.

Yes I think it's progress, though let's be realistic and note it's 10 games. He's got to learn about what not to swing at before he starts taking those monster hacks again. It might mean a bad year while he's figuring some of that out, but if it clicks, look out.

I think the dirty little secret here is that at the end of the day, I suspect that most of the Republican leaders really don't want Roe overturned. They've had the opportunity to do it, but it has consistently failed. I don't think that is an accident. Abortion being legal gets their base showing up to the polls far more than what would happen if it was illegal. It's one of many reasons why I think that picking/choosing candidates based on their views on one or two issues is a horrible idea.

I'll toss my 2 cents into this. I'm largely pro-life. I do believe in reasonable exceptions such as rape and when the mother's life is in danger. Beyond that, the issue at hand keeps coming back to a few simple questions: 1) Is that unborn child alive? 2) What rights should it have? This is the part that really gnaws at me. I think question one is pretty easily answered in the affirmative, and while question 2 is more difficult to answer, the result is usually to try and boil things down to a simple choice. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of choice whenever that option is available, but the issue here is not as simple as a woman or couple's right to choose as much as it is about the rights of the defenseless child that gets no say. I would think that there would be outrage over this, but society seems rather muted about it as a whole, which concerns me far more. The outrage we see in society about someone killing a 'defenseless' lion is really quite the disconnect on the abortion matter. To be clear, I was against that too, but you would have though the world was coming to an end b/c a dentist shot a predator (granted, I oversimplified this quite a bit) that would have had no problems killing said dentist or someone's child if it was hungry enough. However, in our country we have seen the termination of some 40-50 million pregnancies (depending on your source), and most of these do not fall into simple common sense exceptions that would exist, and yet there's very little outrage. If that dentist was a mother who had an abortion, can you imagine the outage that would have existed if people had treated her in the same manner the dentist was treated? I'm not advocating these things, but I do think that this nation's hypocrisy on such matters is really coming to a boiling point. Getting back to the topic a bit, I'll echo what willihammer said here. So much of this is solvable with basic contraception. Like it or not, I do think that there's a personal responsibility issue here that gets set aside. If you know where to look, or know how to use the internet, you can find plenty of free birth control out there, and while it's not a 100% effective solution, it would certainly put a pretty large dent in those numbers.

Oh, by the way, I saw what you were doing over your lunch break.

If you were to compare the 2015 Twins to a 2016 Republican Presidential candidate, who would it be and why?

Bankruptcy would likely straighten out the mess. It would suck in the short term though. Of course the currency would be trashed afterwards and land/gold owners will be the new wealthy class.

That was funny.