Loosey

I don't disagree that the Twins are currently not doing a good job at all at developing players. However, there are players they did develop that didn't get to be in consideration for ROY vote due to the way they were brought up or other reasons. Johan Santanta was a rule 5 pickup that was not very good his first year. He ended up turning out ok if you consider 2 Cy Young Awards good. And Joe Mauer exceeding his Rookie status during his 35 games in 2004. Justin Morneau took a few years of Major League seasoning to develop into an MVP type of player. So while I agree in general to your assessment the Twins are bad at developing players, I don't think the ROY vote percentage is completely fair.

Let’s start over. Way over. If you were GM of the Twins and you could go back to last October 5th (the day after the final game of the season) what would you do differently know what you know now? Here is a list of offseason moves the Twins made from October 5th to the beginning of the season: 1) Torii Hunter Retires 2) Signed Dan Runzler to Minor League Deal 3) Traded Aaron Hicks for John Ryan Murphy 4) Signed Joe Benson to Minor League Deal – Released in spring 5) Signed Aaron Thompson to Minor League Deal – Released in spring 6) Signed Juan Centeno to Minor League Deal 7) Signed Byung Ho Park 8) Acquired John Hicks (waivers) 9) Signed Buddy Boshers to Minor League Deal 10) Signed Darin Mastroianni to Minor League Deal 11) Signed Brandon Kintzler to Minor League Deal 12) Signed Fernando Abad to Minor League Deal 13) Signed Ryan Sweeney to Minor League Deal – Released in spring 14) Arbitration signing – Tommy Milone 15) Arbitration signing – Eduardo Escobar 16) Arbitration signing – Eduardo Nunez 17) Arbitration signing – Casey Fien 18) Signed – Kevin Jepson 19) Signed – Trevor Plouffe 20) Signed Carlos Quentin to Minor League Deal – Released in spring Wow! When you look at the list of signings and re-signings done in the offseason as a whole, it is really pathetic. I mean what on that list would have made this team better? Byung Ho Park was an incremental gain and the Aaron Hicks trade was meant to be a lift to the Catcher position. Outside of that everything else was status quo and minor league signings. Not one major league free agent outside of Park. No real backup plans in case the youngsters didn’t work out. Now what could have been done differently? First of all the Joe Benson, Ryan Sweeney, Carlos Quentin signings were extremely worthless in my opinion. They had no shot of making the major league roster and took spring training at bats away from guys like Buxton and Kepler. 1) Trade Trevor Plouffe. I know the market was not great, and was actually pretty bad in terms of returns for 3rd basemen. But if the Twins could look at it as more than just trading Plouffe, instead getting incremental gains by being able to put players in correct positions as well as whatever the return for Plouffe would be. (Plouffe Skywalker day is over so they can trade him now) 2) Do not re-sign Jepsen and Fien let Milone walk. Opens up two other RP roles and a SP opening. There were lots of options out there and they didn’t appear interested in exploring any. I get they don’t want to block younger arms, but we have yet to see one of those arms up here. I like the Fernando Abad deal so far so that is a good one but then they should have added ML arms. Steve Cishek would have been nice for starters and maybe a 2nd veteran arm like Neftali Feliz. Both are shorter term deal (2 years and 1 year with current team) Also, its like the Twins forget they can trade players they recently signed if they build up value and have younger replacements ready to backfill. . . 3) Trevor May is now a starter. 4) Don’t trade Aaron Hicks. I get the thought here, but don’t do it. Having his defense in the outfield while Buxton is in AAA would be nice. Also, would have given the Twins flexibility to keep Buxton at AAA to start the season and not sign Benson, Sweeney, Quentin, and Mastro + Grossman later on. 5) Actually go out and sign a catcher. The White Sox signed 3 of them in the offseason. The guy I thought the Twins could have gone and got was Giovani Soto. 6) Sign Byung Ho Park. This has worked out so far. Compare him to the DH’s the Twins have had hitting the last few years. 7) Sign another Veteran Outfielder like Rajai Davis. I know this is all hindsight. But many of these suggestions were mentioned on TD during the offseason. So it isn’t like I just cherry picking players who are performing well. Also, this would not change the team to playoff team, but would hopefully make them respectable. The Opening Day Roster would have looked like this: Outfield Aaron Hicks Rajai Davis Oswaldo Arcia Eddie Rosario Infield Joe Mauer Brian Dozier Miguel Sano Eduardo Escobar Eduardo Nunez Super Utility Danny Santana DH Byung Ho Park Catcher Kurt Suzuki Giovani Soto Starting Pitchers Phil Hughes Ervin Santana Ricky Nolasco Kyle Gibson Trevor May Relief Pitchers Glen Perkins Fernando Abad Steve Cishek Neftali Feliz Ryan Pressly Michael Tonkin Tyler Duffey In this scenario the Twins would have left most of the youngsters in AAA but there would be flexibility to promote or replace opening roster players who became injured. This flies in the face of everything Terry Ryan and the Twins said their plan was during the offseason, but clearly the youth movement didn’t work in reality and giving them AAA time is probably what would have been best from the start of the season. They are all in AAA now in reality. So this roster construction would have been of great benefit for the Twins in my opinion. Hindsight is 20/20. What would everyone else have done differently?

Clearly you didn't "Rub Her The Right Way".

I saw he played catch on Monday. So that is a good sign.

Why would they not put him on the DL if he really had this type of fatigue? He last pitched May 4 in Houston. Exactly 15 days ago today. Something is going on that is more than shoulder fatigue. I hope he is alright, but something doesn't add up to shoulder fatigue + no DL stint.

Here's a question to chew on: Let's say the Twins do decide that he is no longer a viable starting pitcher and has to be moved to the pen due to him not being able to exceed 60+ pitches. That's essentially a $12M a year middle reliever they will have to deal with. Will this move effect the front office's thinking when/if it comes time to trade Nolasco? If the Twins get an offer for Nolasco but have to eat a bunch of his salary for the deal to go through will the Twins balk at it because they are already basically eating Hughes' salary as well? That is concerning to me.

Maybe the Twins can bring in Mike Yeo to smash some bats and swear a lot. That seemed to work for the hockey team occasionally.

Any official word yet on what is going on with Meyer? I still don't see him in any of the starting pitcher upcoming games for Rochester, they are all TBD from tomorrow on.

He's pitched in 3 MLB games and in my opinion has more than held his own. He has shown he definitely has the stuff to be very good. Now he needs to learn how to harness that against MLB hitters so he doesn't end up throwing 90 pitches in 5 innings. I think he will adapt and learn quickly.

Buxton has been pretty great in AAA from what I have seen. Outside of the Saturday double header where I think he went hitless in both games, he has had at least a hit in every game. He has had at least 2 hits in 7 of his last 10 games with 3 doubles and 3 home runs. Best of all his K/BB ratio is 6/5. .455 OBP. I hope they keep him down there until June still to let him really get this confidence engrained in his mind and let the adjustments sink in. If he can do anything close to this at the MLB level I think everyone in Minnesota will collectively breathe a sigh of relief.

Or the Twins called down there and told Rochester they don't think they have messed with Meyer's head enough yet and said let's pull him from his start, stick him in the bullpen then not pitch him and tell him he he is going to start again a day before he his next start.

Does he? The Twins scouts are very good at identifying talent and then give Ryan the keys to them to sign. I say fire Ryan or keep him on as the Director of Scout Recruiting since he can hire good scouts. After that, meh.

He also has multi-hit games in 5 of his last 9. So hopefully turning a corner and regaining some confidence. Another month of this and maybe we will see a different looking Buxton in a Twins uniform by mid-June.

I would like to see him play out the season in Rochester no matter how well he does. If he hits .400 the rest of the year in Rochester keep him down there to really get his confidence up and know for sure in his own head he is ready for the jump. I question whether he himself had some self doubt about whether he was ready to be a major leaguer once he started to see what the pitchers could do to a baseball. He essentially has player 3 weeks above AAA baseball, and was very good in AA. Let him figure out as long as it takes in AAA. Once he learns to hit a breaking ball I think/hope he will be fine.

So Duffey in for Santana, Berrios for Gibson, and might they actually pull the trigger and do Meyer for Milone?

I only scanned the article, but in my opinion it would make more sense to bring up a veteran type of guy if they aren't going to play.

Math isn't your strength is it?

If this years Twins continue to bottom out I will actually not be too upset. Last year as many have stated may have been one of the worst things development wise that could have happened to this team. It gave the impression they were ready to make the jump to the upper echelon of teams. But that was all based on things like all of young guys stepping up their game from what it was last year. Now this year the Twins will most likely be sellers at the July deadline and there are some pieces that could and should be moved in order to really start the rebuild and put guys in the right positions.

I would assume most thought this team had/has chances on contending due to the "unknowns" and young guys developing into something and no longer being young unknowns. 7 games in they are still unknowns and young.

2nd and 3rd nobody out. How many runs will they score. 0, 1-2, 3 or more?

Just as useful as a strikeout. . .

Don't worry. Park will get us back on track

Is it bad that I am not excited about well struck balls. That Buxton line out had me giddy,

Hopefully three bases type of triple. Not three strikes kind.

I'm calling it Buxton Triple.