Loosey

At this point I don't know if I would bring any of the top prospects up to Minnesota for the time being. From what I have read and the feel I get just by listening to the current players, it does not seem to be a happy or good place to be right now. I've heard the term "toxic clubhouse" thrown around by a few people on here. If that is true I don't want my top prospects getting poisoned by that as well as trying to find their way as a big league ball player. Wait until that gets cleaned up then bring them up en masse.

Of those 14 errors do you have what percent are fielding versus throwing?

Correct. I'm confused by the Twins number being larger than the Royals. I thought we were only allowed to do that versus Cleveland.

I don't understand the whole scoring more runs than the opponent thing.

I agree Sano will be fine. But I also would send him down to AAA. Not only because he is in a slump right now, but to get him away from the current environment at Target Field. The amount of negativity surrounding the team seems to have rubbed off on every one. Remember when he used to be a goofball that was always smiling last year. I haven't seen much of that from him or any for that matter this year. Maybe some time in AAA where he can be around a different environment and also beat up on some AAA pitchers will get back Sano from 2015. Just my thoughts. But as I said in my first 5 words. I agree.

Yeah, that's the hierarchy of MLB. I don't know, I just thought after a historically bad start the team would give in to the temptation to business as usual and just say "eff it" lets see what some of these kids can do before we grab some guy who 10 other teams didn't want. Maybe that will still happen at some point this season before it's too late. It's all up to how the Front Office looks at things. I also am beginning to wonder if, I know it's a long-shot, Pohlad has given Ryan and Molitor a "turn things around ultimatum". If you they play the kids they will most likely continue to lose at a historic rate. But soak up every last drop a veteran has and they may be able to scrape together a better last 3/4 of a season.

I feared this would happen with him and his extreme pull tendencies. But I also thought, if I could see by watching games on TV only really hits the inside pitches well opposing teams could see the same. Yet for the first half of last season he was continually pitched inside and he took advantage of it. Then the 2nd half happened and it the All-Star player from the first half was gone. Maybe it takes a while for the book to truly be out on a guy or maybe Dozier was locked in and took advantage or every mistake pitchers made inside to him. Whatever the reason, he needs to change his approach. He has received a nice payday. If he wants to get another one in a few years he will need to become a different type of player or at a minimum hit the ball to right field. If he can at least show some sort ability to hit opposite way he will force the pitchers to come back inside occasionally. If he doesn't he is going to be a .200 hitter that pops the occasional long ball on a pitcher missing his spot badly inside.

Fair point. I just think IF they can use young guys they should give them run first. If they can't cut it or aren't ready yet, THEN go out and sign the older vet to a minor league deal. As I mentioned in my first post, in any normal season I would be fine with this signing and most would actually think nothing of it to be honest. This season is just so off the rails that even the smallest insignificant thing will set people off. I'm not upset about this signing, and I do understand that everything can't be about the younger players and at some point healthy viable bodies will be needed. Personally, I think this deal is a move they are making to get ready to put someone on the DL (May) and temporarily replace him with Burnett. I would love to see Chargois up even with his past walk issues. But I understand the Twins tentativeness on it. I just hope they look at each call up individually and not look at what happened with player A or player B to make decisions on player C.

In a normal season I would be fine with these types of transactions to build depth or add bullpen parts. I'm not upset about it, but I would much rather have them move up young arms instead. Sean Burnett does nothing for me as a fan. Chargois or one of the other deserving young arms could be both exiting and actually improve the pen.

From what I have seen he fields 3rd base pretty well.

I remember watching the first Televised Spring Training Game this year and Dozier hit a double and I think a HR to right field. So he is capable of hitting the ball to the right side. Now, he needs to recognize that he can't be a one dimensional pull hitter if he wants a chance to get a 2nd contract. If he doesn't understand that he may end up being a very expensive minor league 2nd baseman in the future.

The poor attitude, work ethic criticism has to stop. Personally I find it to be more of a stereotype than anything concrete. If this were a veteran (Non-Latin) player there would be no concerns. He spend a portion of his off-season on vacation. So did every other player in baseball. He shouldn't have had to spend it shagging fly balls because he shouldn't have been put in that position to begin with. He is 22 years old and ultra talented. No way he is traded. If they did that I would just quit being a Twins fan.

I would continually tell stories about how Friday the 13th came to be: https://youtu.be/QuAnEqjxLwg

Bremer said it happened during the last homestand. So I don't know if it was Hughes, but it could be for something unrelated to the shoulder fatigue thing.

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.

I'd take replacement level at this point.

I assume the player who was critical of his analysis was a pitcher. I don't know how a player would hear what DickBert has to say during a game when they should be playing in the game. Most logical explanation would be a pitcher who was pulled and had the game on in the clubhouse. if it is an everyday player who is complaining based on hearsay then it is even worse. . .

Yeah, the 20 moves when put together as a whole off season actually shocked me as to how bad of an off season it really was. Outside of Park what did they do?

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?

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?

In all honesty, what do you suppose it would take for the Pohlads to sell the team. According to Forbes they are worth $910M as of March. If someone came and offered them full price $910M would they accept? $1 Billion?

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.

Alex Meyer.