Loosey

I'm not an advanced defensive metric savant, so I will have to take your word and fangraphs and SABR's word that Dozier isn't very good at fielding baseballs. I also agree by using the eye test. That being said I hope someone on the Twins analytics staff can do an analysis that would show the difference in runs if Dozier was traded for a good starting pitcher and Polanco moved to second base. You will probably lose 20 HR's but what will the new pitcher bring in runs saved over the year, and how many runs better will Polanco be defensively? Additionally, even though Polanco will not be as powerful as Dozier I think he will hit for a higher average and OBP, so will his defense and ability to get on base make up for the lost runs in a Dozier trade?

AL MVP: I think Ortiz could be up there because he is having a great season at the plate and it is his last season. But my guess is Trout or Altuve. NL MVP: Bryant

Which if it actually did, tells you the mental makeup of this team is weak.

Whenever you went to get food did you tell your wife you bought 989 pounds food, however you were only able to carry 10 lbs back to the car?

This team seems to have fallen apart when they lost the game they had to start over on August 10. They had just won 9 of 14 and were up 5-1 or 5-0 against Houston before it started raining. The game got called and they played a double header the next day. They got swept. Since the game that didn't count they are 3-14. 2 wins came against the Braves. That thunderstorm really messed things up for the Twins. . . . .

I agree signing Santana has ended up being a good thing. If he pitches like this next year the team stinks they could get a return for him. He was just an example of being sort of an out of place signing. If would have been signed prior to this season after 2015's near wild card miss, that would have been great, but it didn't fit the mold of a team rebuilding. Basically, they lucked into him it seems.

I think you might have touched on this in the article or maybe it was another commentor but one of the biggest planning fails this team has made in the last 5 years is not going into a full rebuild. I know you can't bring up a draft pick instantly, but the Twins tried to cling to mediocrity until the prospects got up here and the margin for error was razor thin. Mediocre players are usually neither great nor terrible, but often times they are good or bad. 2011 was the 1st 90 loss season the excuses came out fast and furious about it being due to injuries and bad luck. - Fine, move on and right the ship in 2012. 2012 was just as bad if not worse. The injuries excuse wasn't going to fly anymore. This team was toast and needed to start a complete rebuild - Career years were wasted and the team was unwilling to used them as assets (Willingham). 2013 the team did very little, brought up some players to fill out a roster, signed a few veterans to short term deals, traded Morneau with his value as low as possible. It LOOKED like the rebuild was on. 2014 - Signed Nolasco and Phil Hughes.... two medicore pitchers who cost a decent amount of money, for a long time. Rebuild over. This is when the planning went off track in my opinion. A rebuilding team (which they were) would just use AAAA pitchers or sign vets to 1 year deals to get through the rough years. I think there was likely business decisions a part of this as attendance was down and winning solves that. But Nolasco was no better than many cheaper guys, and Hughes has one nice season, which he was then extended for (also extended Suzuki). 2015 - Signed Santana (3 starting pitchers in 2 years), Extended Phil Hughes. Team exceeded expectations and had a winning season. Gave perception that the team had arrived and was ready to make the next step to compete for titles again. Had a new wave of prospects ready to come up and build toward the future. 2016 - Didn't fix their weakest spots (bullpen, catcher). Didn't move Plouffe. Signed a repetitive piece in Park, Moved players all over the place because they thought they had "too many good players". Prospects have not worked out yet and veterans have faltered. Basically they lucked into 2015, did nothing in prior years to improve the young talent outside of the draft and now are stuck in a weird place now. One year removed from being competitive, but in a season in which they could end up with the worst record in baseball. Here's to a new GM/President of Baseball Ops putting together a plan.

3 weeks ago I think most would say he is probably coming back next year, however after these last 10 games I think its 50/50 on if he just resigns for the reasons you stated. I never really thought of him as manager type of guy. It almost seems like he was somehow forced into agreeing to be the manager by someone.

The way the team has seemed to just give up here over the last few weeks I am beginning to wonder if privately Pohlad is pulling back on his "Molitor must stay in 2017" rule for his new GM. Not sure how a new GM will evaluate the teams people in charge of development, but that is where I think the new GM should start. Also, if my first assumption is correct, I could see a complete cleaning out of the MLB coaching staff. I personally think the scouting, while not as up to date as many teams, does a fair job in evaluating talent, it's up the the people on the field to help them players reach their potential and it's not being done.

I think it starts in the minor leagues. From a numbers perspective everything looks great, but clearly there is something not being developed for success in the majors. I can't recall ever seeing players of Berrios and Buxton's abilities in the minors fail as badly as they have in the Majors. I know there is a big jump from AAA to MLB, but the differences in how Twins players perform is like they only face guys that have no chance to be MLB players in the minor leagues and then in the Majors only face the MLB players. Something isn't right, and it needs to be corrected quickly.

Why not move him to bullpen? I have always thought he would end up being a nice reliever. Give the 7th or 8th and I think with his curve and usually pretty good control on his fastball he would do well out there.

yeah but if you still had payments on that car you would most likely continue to drive it. Or you could trade it in or sell it, but there have to be people willing give you what you want for it, which isn't always the case. Also, if I had a car that lasted from 2001-2015 I would be very happy with that run. I would probably consider that car one of the best cars I had ever owned.

It is strange to me that so many people dislike Mauer to the degree they do. If someone put Mauer points down on paper without his name and said a large portion of fans dislike this player it would be confusing as to why: 1) #1 Overall Draft Pick 2) Grew up in city he plays in 3) Multiple Batting Titles 4) Multiple Batting All Star Games 5) 1 MVP award 6) Chose to stay "home" after going into Free Agency 7) Struggled through brain injuries forcing him to change positions 8) Has never been in trouble with the law or said/done anything offensive Yet a large majority of people dislike him.

First of all if Carew or Killebrew played in this era they would have been compensated equally or greater than Joe. Second, piggy backing off of the first part of my post, the game has changed drastically from an economic point of view. Yes, Joe makes a lot of money, and it would have been nice if he played like 2009 for every year since, but he didn't. If Twins front office decided to let Mauer walk in 2010 because his asking price was too high in the same year as they were moving into Target Field you would have been the loudest one on these message boards and on your blog calling for every member of the management to be fired and complaining about how cheap the Twins are.

Does this system by Dr. Peter Fadde test players current ability to recognize pitchers or does it also teach them or train their eyes and brain to recognize the pitch as well? Even before I read your line about him wanting to test Buxton I was thinking this would be a great tool to train Buxton on if in fact his greatest weakness right now is pitch recognition. Great post by the way.

I don't think Plouffe is going anywhere this year, UNLESS a playoff team's starting 3rd baseman goes down for the year their backup is awful and their minor league 3rd baseman gets popped for PEDs the rest of the way. Then I think the Twins could maybe have an outside chance to get a B/B- C level prospect for him.

When is the Gonsalves ETA in Minnesota if he keeps this sort of production up? July 2017?

Even back then his swing looks "choppy". It looks like he strides way too soon then swings with all arms instead of it being one fluid motion.

I think at some point Buxton will break out. Right now there is a hole in a swing that pitchers are taking advantage of. It seems to have followed him back to AAA which in a weird way is a relief to me. I think he had corrected some things his first time down in AAA and they were working back up here for a week or two when he got his batting average all the way up to .250. Then all of a sudden his swing seemed to get out of whack, he wasn't staying back on pitches, was guessing again and it all spiralled out of control. The fact he isn't hitting in AAA now tells me that he has the skill to be good it is just a kink in his swing that needs to get corrected.

Which also tells us the Twins may be able to re-sign to a one year deal instead of a multi-year deal in the off-season if they want to as another year of stop gap since interest is seemingly low.

Thanks.

If he was claimed by a blocking team and no trade was negotiated, can he be placed on waivers again or is it done after that?

Completely agree. The Twins appear to operate in a vacuum at times. As you mentioned, moving May to rotation would leave a hole in the bullpen, but again as you mentioned that can be addressed both externally and internally. Nolasco and Milone are not better starters than May in my opinion. The team should put players in positions to succeed, clearly the bullpen is causing issue for May from a health standpoint. Additionally, incrementally the improvement from Milone to May is likely to be greater than the regression from May to his replacement in the bullpen.

Or the splits got worse because the competition got better. . . .

You know more about minor league stuff than me. In my own head it just seems counter intuitive to have guys spending equal time in lower levels as they do in uppers, especially if they are dominating a lower level like it appears Kirilloff is (at least using his statline). But I get it is case by case basis and I know there is learning curve outside of baseball as well. And Stats don't tell the whole story.