Twodogs

I see what you are saying, I'm thinking maybe that they should have 9 guys who go out and play the field and maybe a different 9 can hit? Then every team could just throw a bunch of DH's out there. The hitting and the defense would both get better.

You are correct, in Donaldson they have someone who improves the defense at 3B over Sano. But to try and tackle being ranked 26th out of 30 teams on infield defense by spending 92 million on a 3rd baseman I'm not sure it's really the reason they got him. I mean if you are really trying to improve infield defense then you have to focus up the middle which, they might have gotten worse with Arraez taking over for Schoop and Sano taking over at 1st? That has been my point all along is that yeah they might wish they had better defense overall, but I don't think they want to sacrifice the hitting to do so. They would rather have weak defense and be able to mash than have great defense and have 3 holes in their lineup. So right now they are built around hitting and that is what they added. And again this is just my opinion, but I'm not totally convinced that Donaldson wasn't signed just because they needed to do something to show everyone that they are all in. To me, it's why the Twins play sooo many shifts. I mean some teams out there don't shift as much as the Twins do and there are probably reasons. Yes you are also correct in the fact that the pitching would look much better with solid defense behind them. Look at some of those slick fielding teams of the early 2000's. Some of those pitchers looked pretty decent as Twins, but most of them weren't very good. But because they could pick it, they were serviceable for sure. Nonetheless I'm pretty sure Polanco has SS locked up for a couple of years at least, due to his hitting.

Yeah, I don't think defense was really at the forefront of their minds when they signed Donaldson. I mean for starters he might not play 3B for them for the length of his contract. The fact of the matter is that he most likely will become the DH at some point in his tenure with the Twins so as to keep him healthy. It wasn't too many years ago that he missed major chunks of seasons battling calf injuries and such. Nonetheless he makes the defense at 3rd better, but I still don't think that was the real reason why. The Twins had no one at 1B, so either they get Donaldson, who is a tremendous hitter and they move Sano to 1B or they get some free agent firstbaseman and leave Sano at 3rd?? What were your options? They needed to make a splash free agent signing, were there really any comparable 1st basemen out there to a say Donaldson? So at the same time does Sano improve the Defense at 1st? I don't think so, at least not for a year or so, until he gets used to that spot. I mean what could be worse for the Twins than a potentially shaky defender at 1st? With Polanco and Arraez chucking one hoppers over there constantly? So as much as Donaldson does improve the Defense at 3rd, it was in my mind definitely not the reason they signed him. They signed him so the Twins can hit even more Dingers!!!! Which is cool, plus he is an on base guy, defense was simply just and extra that they got with him, because let's face it, at his age, most likely his defense is on the downswing, but as Nelson Cruz has shown, older guys if they take care of themselves can still swing the stick. Moustakis was signed on December 5th, he was never targeted by the Twins as they were trying to sign pitching at that point in time and Castellanos doesn't play 3B, he is a rightfielder. I remember discussions about Castellanos and posters were throwing around the idea of putting Kepler at 1B if they brought Castellanos on and that doesn't make much sense. Plus Castellanos at this point is not in the same category as Donaldson as far as hitting goes. Donaldson has hit 30+ bombs 4 or 5 years Castellanos has never hit 30. Plus Castellanos is like a .320 something OBP guy and Donaldson is like .369 OBP guy. So yeah Castellanos was a little cheaper, but he also can't hit as well, and he didn't play 3B. So I still don't think anyone really cares about defense that much anymore. Don't get me wrong, I wish they still did.

I really don't think any team out there really cares very much about defense anymore. That's why all the teams go to crazy shifts and stuff. I don't think Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel or hardly any SS from the 80's and early 90's would have ever wanted to play in a shift. Those guys could cover ground big time, but, sometimes they didn't hit the best, Ozzie, a hall of famer was not known for his hitting, he was known for his defense. That's not the case these days it's all about hitting. As long as Polanco hits, in this era of baseball he will be run out there somewhere, with Donaldson and Arraez I don't see anywhere except at SS.

Hopefully Kepler and Sano are dousing each other with Champagne in October?

I also thought using the spring training sites with no fans was a decent option. I mean why open up those giant ballparks with no one in them. So might as well play in the spring training complexes, plus there is a lot of workout and practice areas right there. So might as well at least start like that and then move back to their parks when that time is able to come. MLB really needs to think about this, I know this is going to seem egotistical, however, if the NBA or some other professional league gets back to playing before MLB then MLB will lose out on an opportunity to become the national past time once again. It seems to me that obviously the NFL and the NBA and maybe a few other sports have passed baseball in popularity over the last few decades. However, if MLB was the first professional league to get up and running everyone in the US would tune in to MLB especially if it's the only option for a period of time. People are dying to see live sports on TV and it would probably help people stay inside more. Now I'm not saying to do something that is unsafe. I'm saying that MLB has to be 100% ready to go when sports are given the opportunity to open up without fans. It just seems like they throw ideas around and they don't seem to have a for sure plan that they are going to implement when the opportunity arises. They need to draw something up that is safe and go with it and try to be the most prepared when they are given the chance to play. So that way they can beat those other leagues to the punch basically by just being all on the same page and ready when the government tells them it's ok. The likely hood of all states being able to all go at the same time is almost nill. So if they have an Arizona plan or a spring training plan it is way more highly likely that Arizona will be completely open way before New York will, and since we will only be able to see it on TV it really doesn't matter if they play in their home parks or not. Regardless, I can say that I am hoping for sure that at some point they can get started. Other sports too, I'd just like to see baseball get top billing for a week or two. Maybe guys like Ronald Acuna and Mike Trout or even a Nelson Cruz will become more of a household names once again. MLB could help their product out a ton by just having all of their ducks in a row and Uber ready to go when the ok is given.

. Those extra players wouldn't need to travel with the team. They could all stay back and keep playing practice games, etc... Only the guys who need to play would travel. If someone got hurt you could fly one replacement dude in if the road trip is a long one. Oh, I just re-read it and I see that you were thinking our 15 extra could play against the other teams 15. I was thinking the Twins could have their 40 man, plus another 15 guys that way they can stay back and just play scrimmage games against themselves. They they wouldn't need to travel with so many players.

I think Radke's numbers would be way better had he pitched on those late 60's early 70's twins teams because those teams were really good. I'm pretty sure Perry's numbers wouldn't be so hot had he pitched on those late 90's teams that almost got contracted. But better than both of those guys in my opinion is Camilio Pascual. He had like over 100 complete games which wasn't necessarily that big of a thing back then as a lot of pitchers completed their games but he had like 30 shutouts, so that's not just completing a game that's total domination. He had a lot of strikeouts etc.... He was Johan Santana of the 60's.

Yeah when you look at Gladden you'd think he should be on there for sure. But then when you pull his stats it's like not only were they not that great, but he didn't even really play very many full seasons. I'm thinking Gladden was that spark plugs guy, that guy that probably had a lot of that clubhouse factor that can't be measured in stats. I know everyone hates that because it can't be measured but it is there. I'm thinking Torii Hunter's last season with the Twins. With that squad they had an improbable season and he wasn't that good anymore, but they did much better with him than without him so he obviously had that leadership factor that many others don't posses. Gladden must have had some of that too. Too bad Mickey Hatcher didn't stick around one more year, he left in 86', had he been a part of the WS team in 87' he might be viewed differently?

Yeah, I was a young teenager at the time of the Bruno for Herr trade, and I just did not understand it at all. I wasn't that impressed with Tommy Herr in the first place, there wasn't as much baseball on TV back then, but I remembered him due to the fact that St Louis was a premier team back then, but it didn't make sense to trade one of our Bruise Brothers for a light hitting 2B man.

Mickey Hatcher is a great call. To me he is the Shane Mack of the 1980's. Put up some really good numbers for 4 or 5 seasons and just never really got any credit for it. He got more publicity for being crazy than for being a good player. Gary Ward had a couple of really good seasons, hard to not see Gladden on here just because he was part of two world series titles, but Ward probably was better over those couple of seasons than any two or three of Gladdens seasons.

Depending on the number of Double headers per week a 6 man rotation might be best, especially with guys like Odorizzi who typically only goes 5 innings anyway.

Ron Davis is pretty forgettable

Glenn Adams

Tsuyoshi Nishioka. How great was he supposed to be?

I don't think the amount of games actually played even matters at all in this scenario. I mean do the Dodgers not recognize their 1981 World Series championship? There was only about 100 games played that year? I don't ever hear anything about how people de-value the Dodgers vs the Yankees in 1981 because the season was only like 100 to 110 games. Yeah, for that matter, not all of the teams even played the same number of games? Now on the issue of players being put under quarantine and or games without fans are valid arguments. Not sure if players would go for that.

I see even Mike Cubbage mentioned for 3B. Here is another one, he only played one year in the 70's but John Castino won the ROY award in the 79 season?

I have also read some stuff where they could play all of the games in AZ? If that were the case then they could play their normal divisions.

Boston is even going to struggle more with Chris Sale out with elbow surgery.

Jaque Jones had more than one productive year though. He had multiple years of 20+ homeruns and he had multiple years where he hit decent he was a regular for multiple years, I see a Marty Cordova on this list way more than I see Jaque Jones.

Looked at Dave Engle's stats from 1984 and they don't look all that great, however, he was an All Star that year. I think he was a catcher though, so maybe his stats we're good for a catcher in 1984? Side note he finished 5th in rookie of the year voting in 1981.

I think he may even have a different approach vs Lefties vs Righties. He had a total of 16 extra base hits against lefties last year which meant he got an extra base hit every 9.1 at bats. Then he got 52 extra base hits against righties which gave him an extra base hit every 7.2 at bats. Now we all know his power zone is down and in, I'd venture to say most lefties the ball will naturally tail away from Max a little bit. So maybe he dialed his swing down a little with a lefty on the mound and dialed it up a bit with a righty?? He really struggled with lefties a few years back but has improved tremendously over the last couple of years against them.

I'd send Balazovic down. Having an unhappy camper on the team for whatever reason could bring the whole teams morale down. Send him down and put him into the starting role down there. Bring Romero up and either put him in the bullpen or spot start him just like in Rochester, so as to infuse some newness into the staff.

I think had Johan and the Twins won a world Series he would have received a lot more consideration. Someone brought up Kirby and Blyleven, and Morris, etc... But the one difference between those guys and Koufax for that matter is that those guys won the big one. Had Johan and the Twins won it all once I think Johan would get more consideration. There is no replacement for playing and doing well on the biggest stage, think about how many people think Madbaum is a great pitcher, he is good, but those heroics in the WS gets him so much more publicity. This may be Mauer's undoing also? Hope not, but that is the one thread amongst those guys that I mentioned is world series heroics.

I can't even like regular comments on the mobile site from my phone. I can quote people's comments but not like their comments for some reason.