diehardtwinsfan

22 in FTM would not leave him off the radar. That said, drafted in 2006 and is 22 now? Something doesn't add up. If he's 22 in FTM, he's on the prospect radar with a decent season.

Keep in mind that 40 man considerations are different for college guys than HS guys, as the HS guys get an extra year before needing to be added. That said, so far, this is turning out to have been an excellent draft. Here's to hoping those guys force some tough decisions in the near future.

I'm not sure Gardy would score well in this particular metric...

I really think the Sano/Buxton injuries hurt the Twins in that aspect. I expected the 2015 Twins to behave like the 2001 Twins, where they surprised a lot of people early, but the rookies struggled as the season went on. I still think that's possible, but Buxton and Sano will be starting in the minors instead of the majors for 2015. That said, Plouffe has shown to be a pretty decent stop gap and could have quite a bit of trade value when Sano is ready, which I think is good for the long term prospects of the franchise. But even with that in mind, they had a top 5 offense last season (and that's with a dreadful first half). The offense has some regression candidates in Vargas and Santana in particular (though it's got some of the good kind of regression in Arcia and Mauer too), but on the other side, the pitching has some regression candidates in a good way (May, Nolasco, and Gibson in particular). I'm not expecting playoffs, but I do think that the team could easily turn out to be a pretender that makes things interesting well into August. I'm not happy with them defensively (particularly in the OF), but with Rosario and Buxton being right around the corner and quite possibly playing in 2015, I think this problem will take care of itself.

I'll be the optimist and say that I think the Twins are a lot closer to winning now than people realize.

Minor league deal without question. I'd be a bit curious though if Johann would want better opportunities. With 4 starting spots locked up and some decent competition in Meyer and May, I wonder if Johann would come here.

Couple things I'm wondering. 1) Would it make more sense to look at the number of double plays as a percentage to the number of opportunities (i.e runner on 1st with less than 2 outs)? The number of opportunities should be distributed somewhat on a bell curve (at least for the guys playing the position all the time),but I'd think this would smooth out some of the irregularity. 2) What about heavy GB pitchers? I would naturally expect more double plays from a staff that has a GB focused staff. I'd think that would overstate the defensive effectiveness of those SS due to the opportunity issue.

at this point, I think they are guaranteed. They would have had to been not offered arb (i.e non-tendered) if they didn't want to pay him.

If they wanted Milone, I'd probably do it for whatever TR could get. That said, I suspect that the Giants have something setup to block all calls from Terry Ryan.

I honestly thought Duensing would be non-tendered in favor of Orouke this offseason. But against righties he still has quite a bit of work to do, so keeping Brian around for another season isn't necessarily a bad idea. But yeah, this kid is a LOOGY... I wouldnt' want more than one in the pen, but having a guy like this that you can bring in a criticial inning against a couple of left handed batters is very valuable.

Rather surprised to see Gonsalves on that list. I like him, but that seems a bit high.

I seem to remember a big fiasco before the season started where he was at a wild game wearing an LA cap or something like that as well. Who knows. There probably is something to a lot of this though. He's older and single. He could go party with Arcia, Vargas, and Santana, but I'm guessing he doesn't exactly fit in with that crowd either. Hopefully he can get around some of those issues.

I'm running the latest patched version of 10 and I'm fine, but I had the same problem with 11. That said, turn off the advanced editing features and just reply with text. That will allow you to quote.

I guess I'm on the other side of this debate, though to be honest, I wouldn't get worked up either way. We saw with the Span trade how easy it is to get a really good prospect when you have a reasonable contract on a player Dozier has done this 2 years in a row now, and Plouffe put together a pretty good season last year after teasing us with that Ruthian performance a while back. I'll be honest in that contract or no contract, I'm not sure I see either player spending much more than a couple years with the Twins. I'd add that I think both will be trade candidates as early as next season. Plouffe has Sano chasing him down, and there's some decent 2B options in Rosario, Escobar, and Polanco, all of whom are in the high minors/ML. You could in theory move one of them to that LF spot at some point, but beyond that, there really won't be room for either long term. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it will be the key factor in the true value of the contract. The question at hand is how reasonable it is for the player to reproduce that season and whether or not there is room for improvement. I think Dozier is a much more sure thing that Plouffe in that regards. He's done it for 2 years now, and I'd probably lean towards extending him. Bottom line is if he can continue to do what he's doing, the contract will be tradable. He's got 1 year at the league minimum followed by 3 seasons of arb. A 4 year deal with 2 options, or a 5 year deal with 1 is probably what you are talking about, and I'm guessing the total value of that deal would be something like 4/25 with 2 options or 5/35 with one (guessing the value of the options would be in the 8-10M range). Those are pretty reasonable contracts, and the Twins would have zero problems moving that if Dozier maintains his production. That would not be the case if they went year to year, as the extra year/options is what really makes that contract valuable. Given that Dozier has maintained this level of production for 2 seasons, and seems to have the work ethic needed to continue that, I say do it. As for Plouffe, that' a bit different. He has more of a "sure thing" chasing him down, and that sure thing (even with contact issues) still was quite impressive in AA in 2013. He's also only done this for a year, but unlike Dozier, he has some OF experience. I'd probably wait another year on him and see how things play out. That's me at least.

That problem is something we can worry about if it happens. Worst case, Sano can come up as a DH, LF, or even 3B for a cup of coffee if someone gets hurt. Odds are one of those positions will see some DL time next season.

I like Dozier for Giolito, but I don't know if the Nats would do that. Problem with trading Dozier right now is that there really isn't a replacement, unless people are sold on Escobar. Rosario might be that guy in a year (if he isn't in LF) and Polanco may be that guy in 2, but neither of them are sure things to replicate what Dozier is doing now.

I don't agree with this. There's this little thing called the 2nd amendment that says something about "shall not be infringed". I get gun safety needs to be a priority, and I get that these accidents are tragic and happen far more often than they do. But gun ownership has more to do with the framers of our constitution wanting a well armed population as a means to provide a check and balance against a tyrannical government (which they all become when there's nothing to stop them) then it does to stop the random crime (which it does help without question). The problem is that this debate is always framed in limiting gun rights. The government can just as easily spend it's resources on promoting gun safety and making that a public priority than attempting to limit everyone's rights to gun ownership based on the actions of a few. I do feel sorry for this family, and that toddler is going to have some terrible issues to deal with because his/her mother didn't think things through. My mom kept a gun in her purse. it was in a sealed compartment that you had to undo to get at it. It also had a safety. Granted, it was an oldstyle revolver, but for that type of purpose, that type of gun is a good one to use.

Nolasco is untradeable right now.

I like Meyer, but 99.99% is just asking for TJS in the spring... Do not anger the baseball gods.

Mauer hitting 20. That's the crazy part I think you could sub out May for Meyer on this list (minus the Sept shutdown), but in general, I think most of us would be pretty happy if that was the season.

Bonds Clemens Johnson P. Martinez Mussina Bagwell Schilling E. Martinez Walker Smoltz Can't really argue with Thrylos's list. First 7 are no doubt about it.

I'm guessing that the team doing well will do wonders for traffic down the road... I'd imagine the same with VikingsJournal. Hopefully Minnesota sports picks up a bit in the next few years. Good teams will bring in fans.

400 AB is not a full season. It's much closer to 650. Mauer had 455 AB this season and missed quite a bit of time for injury. that's my point. Gardy needed to let him play, every day, minus the occasional day off for rest. He finished this season with 250 AB... That's not enough to get into a rhythm, and not enough for him to figure things out. He may very well be a bench bat, but I don't think it's fair at all to say he was given every opportunity when the longest period of consistent playing time he got never amounted to more than a week or two.

I wouldn't look at it this way. The team can make room for Sano's bat... and if Moncada is as good as advertised, they'll make room for that bat too. For what it's worth though, Moncada is still a SS (though it's expected he'll end up at 3rd). Even though there are decent 2B and SS prospects, I'm not sure any of them are at his level in terms of potential. He's also going to need some minor league seasoning too, so it would give the team time to figure it out... If neither can move off of 3rd, they can trade Vargas and DH one of them. If for some reason that won't work, someone would pay a pretty penny in prospects to get one of them.

I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect this one may be regretted someday. He didn't exactly get a fair shake with Gardenhire, and to his fault, he didn't exactly earn it in his limited opportunities. I hope he lands with a team where he gets a chance to play every day. His offensive stats last year weren't bad for the league, so I think some last place team will let him play every day as filler. For his sake, I hope he makes the most of it.