Twodogs

I wonder how many people think that maybe Polanco was being played at 2B this year because of the next future SS down in the minors?? Maybe they put him at 2B because they were assuming that there was another guy who is SS of the future. But now that they see that Polanco seems to be able to hit at the MLB level they might be reconsidering?? Because in the end, they really don't know if the other SS prospect will be able to hit at all.

I remember when Tom Kelly referred to David Ortiz swing as a slow pitch softball swing. I guess you have to see if it works or not before you start changing things.

No way would I trade Dozier, I mean all of the other teams are going to be circling the twins like Sharks off the coast of South Africa. Bottom line is that the Twins right now have no tradeable pieces. They need a legit Ace, one that I can think of that a team might part with would be Sale in Chicago due to issues with the team this year, other than that, nothing. The Twins will get nothing for guys like Plouffe, Suzuki, and probably not much for Dozier either, due to the fact that they are known quantities. Even Joe Mauer, yeah I know he will not allow himself to be traded, be even as much as he has done for the Twins over the past 15 years, he is no different of a player than James Loney, worthless on the trade market. If the Twins want a legit Ace in a trade then they will have to trade someone before they are a known quantity, a couple of their highly prized AA players, as long as they have tons of upside, teams will take a chance on them. I'd say keep Dozier and Santana as they wont get anything for them and trade a couple of their highly touted farm kids, the guys on the roster are for the most part very young; Polanco, Sano, Kepler, Buxton, Rosario, even Dozier has a few really good years left, so the more great up and comers we have the more they get blocked, and the more the guys up at the bigs suffer from inconsistent PT, etc.... They need to use some of those highly touted prospects for one stud pitcher. Then Santana becomes a #2, and Santiago, Gibson, May, Berrios, Duffy fight it out for the final 3 spots I just feel that the Twins over the last couple of years have been over loaded with potential and not much production. Dozier has been productive. You don't trade him for a ? in production.

How can a Major League baseball player have no idea how to bunt?? Rosario looked pathetic. That is something that needs to be fixed for next year with all of the players

I don't know what the Twins are thinking but I feel that if the Twins are going to be remotely successful next season Sano has to be the regular third baseman the majority of the time. I think Polanco needs to play SS and Vargas needs to be the normal DH. I just think that Vargas opens up so much more opportunity lineup wise with his switch hitting ability. He was sent down, maybe that was on purpose??? Maybe the Twins view him as their primary DH next year and don't want him sitting around for the next 2 weeks playing every 4th game. Maybe they sent him down to get regular at bats, maybe they saw enough to know that he is the direction they need to travel in, but right now there isnt room. That is what I am hoping for. I think if Buxton evolves and becomes even half the hitter he is as a fielder, and Kepler and Rosario flank him in the OF. with Vargas at DH and Sano at 3B and Polanco at SS that would be a pretty potent lineup. Maybe Park can come off the bench for the next 2 years until Mauer retires and then take over at 1B?? I don't have the answers but that is what I am hoping for.

I personally think that the Twins need to work Sano at 3rd. I am pretty sure that playing Sano in the OF from Feb to June, probably messed him up at 3rd. I remember getting into conversations with others on this site about Sano playing in the OF and I felt it could affect him. But the reason Sano needs to play 3rd is that the Twins need to get Vargas's bat into the game. He seems to be doing pretty good since his call up. Plus he switch hits. If Sano DH's then Vargas is out and I think that would be a move that should be avoided if at all possible. Im sure that Sano will get better if he plays that position all year as opposed to switching around. JMO

I do think that when the Twins AAA was in the PCL, that maybe the pitchers were less likely to go after hitters?? Much of the Twins minor league affiliates have changed over the years, as a result, I think it would be hard to make a lot of comparisons. I mean it would be just as hard to make good comparisons of hitters and pitchers on the Rockies as compared to hitters and pitchers on the Mariners?? Just ballpark issues I think would affect a lot of what you would be looking for.

Wow, 8 homeruns in 100 PA's. That is pretty impressive for a 23 year old.

Im in the construction industry and I was wondering if you guys had anything in the area of a Bull Dozier. I need one to push the dirt around the middle of the infield back at the shop?

I will miss Nunez, but the Twins got a good return on him. Wish him well

I think as I have watched the Twins since the late 70's that usually the Twins fail when they are trying to develop players. Over the last few years the Twins have had a plethura of prospects that were ranked highly as potential impact MLB'ers. So maybe the Twins should take a different approach, maybe they should develop minor league talent and when they are ranked highly, trade them then for some proven MLB'ers that can make a team win a few games here and there. Instead of trying to trade the Nunez's and the Suzuki's of the world that are basically worthless on the market because everyone already knows what they are capable of. Whereas someone may have over paid for an Oswaldo Arcia 3 years ago. I'm almost of the opinion that the Twins would have a much better chance at building an perpetual winner that way than the way they have been trying to do it??? Sell young guys high buy some proven players low. I know it's kind of anti- the Twin way, but the Twin way hasn't worked out too well over the years.

Yes and often times hamstring injuries are caused by more quad workouts and not enough hamstring workouts to counterbalance.

That is my point exactly, They don't, as a result people are less likely to be able to stop it in today's game. And most people in 2002 or whatever got lost when Billy Beane put Hatteberg at 1B. Now everyone knows why, but back then, it wasnt the way you do things. Now you wont sneak up on anyone trying to out On base percentage people, they are all doing it now. So try something different, something that isn't being done.

No you are exactly right, lately they have been sending out guys like Kepler, Buxton and Grossman. Guys that can run a little bit better than Sano and Arcia and Willingham and on and on. But Kepler and Grossman were definitely not in the lineup plan at the beginning of the season.

I think the Twins have taken the wrong approach to building the Twins. If you look at some of the players on the 40 man roster, you are looking at a bunch of guys who have 20 homerun potential, but most of them are poor defenders and they all strikeout way way way too much. Basically I think trying to play like the Boston's of the world is the wrong approach. I mean those teams are always going to outspend the twins, so they will always have overall more power production than the twins will have. The FO is trying to put together a power producing hammering team that will force runs in with bombs all over the place. Problem is, overall, the twins will always have less monster players than the teams like the Yankees because the Yankees will always out spend the Twins. So for the Twins to try and assemble a power producing team, they will for the most part, have, 2nd tier power hitters, I know he is past his prime, but I am just using as an example, The A-rods of the world will not be coming to Minnesota to mash 600 homeruns, just isn't going to happen, instead the Twins get the Buyeng Ho Parks, the Oswaldo Arcias of the world, guys with tremendous power potential, but also have a lot of flaws in their games. Plus the Twins play in a park that isn't homerun friendly. So why try and compete with those teams on their field. Hey I mean just because all of the neighborhood dogs are barking up some tree doesn't mean that it is the only tree to be barking up, nor is it necessarily the best tree to be barking up. So the Twins have players such as Dozier Plouffe Vargas Arcia Sano Park Walker All of these guys are taking up spots on the 40 man roster, imagine for a second that there wasnt a DH???? What in the hell are the Twins going to do with all of these guys?? They are all average to below average to maybe even poor fielders. Yes it is true, everyone of them could hit 20+ HR in a year. In fact if all of them hit 20 HR's in a given year the Twins would have 140 HR's out of them, that isn't even one run per game based on HR's, but now you look and they all average 150 K's per year and that would be over 1000 times someone wont be on base, 1000 time a runner wont be moved over, 1000 times that someone wont be driven in, etc..... Then go and figure that they are poor defenders and that is a lot of stress on a pitching staff that cant afford Clayton Kershaw either. So when we talk about pitching, the Twins are always going to have to have at least 3/5ths of the rotation as a pitch to contact type of rotation, yes they could potentially develop a Berrios to be like a Johan Santana, but even with Santana the Twins still had the Brad Radke's of the world and those guys did quite well when they had Torii Hunter, Jacques Jones, etc.... running around out in the OF catching everything hit in the park. Imagine what would have happend to Brad Radke with an OF of Miguel Sano in Right, Oswaldo Arcia in Left, and Danny Santana in Center. Radke would make Nolasco, Santana, and Milone look like All-Stars with that Twins defense, which I am sure has probably been deployed a few times this year. I think it's probably too late, because they are so far into this mess that they will need to try and make this crap pile work somehow, but if 5 years ago, they would have taken a different approach instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, today the twins could have been catching people off gaurd. Imagine if the Twins would have put together a team like the early to mid 80's St. Louis Cardinals?? A team built on speed and defense with occasional power hitters sprinkled into the lineup. Imagine a franchise that has guys like this. Ozzie Smith 600 career stolen bases Vince Coleman 700 career stolen bases Wille McGee 350 career stolen bases Tommy Herr 200 career stolen bases Lonnie Smith 350 career stolen bases Terry Pendleton good hitter with 20 HR capability Jack Clark Legit Power Hitter Kieth Hernandez good hitter with some pop There are others too like Van Slyke, etc... But I think you get my point. Back in the 80's you had guys like Ricky Henderson, Ron LeFluer, Tim Raines, Vince Coleman, every team had at least a few guys that could run and some teams like the Cardinals had a bunch. I'm not making generalizations, but usually if those guys were fast they were also pretty solid defensively. If you also think back to that era, each team had a couple of catchers whose only job was to call a game and keep the running game under control, to have a catcher that was hitting around the mendoza line wasn't usually a concern if they could throw out Ricky Henderson a few times. Now fast forward to todays game, a bunch of slow plodding power hitters, a David Ortiz mecca, you also have had guys like Mike Napoli catching who probably would have a hard time throwing out the garbage let alone a guy like Ricky Henderson in his prime. So baseball right now is a prime target for a team that can put pressure on the other teams defense by running. Yeah Vince Coleman wasn't much of a power hitter but if he swiped 70 bases, isn't that kind of like hitting 70 doubles??? Last part of my thoughts are this. The giant monster hitters are in-vogue, they are commanding huge salaries, I mean look what the Twins had to pay Park and he hadn't even played a game in the bigs yet. The slick fielding fast guys are probably a lot cheaper in todays game to get ahold of, they aren't putting up the numbers that everyone is watching in the newspapers and the magazines and they aren't showing up on sports center. So the Twins can scout speed and defense pretty easily, and those guys probably won't be nearly as expensive as the Parks of the world. A lot of speed would put pressure on teams that are not used to that kind of game right now, that kind of defense would make our pitchers look better than they are, which I am sure would make those pitchers happy too. You sprinkle a couple of big hitters in the lineup like Sano, Dozier and Park and then have 6 other guys with a skill set such as a Wille McGee and you have a playoff team every year. I mean back in the 80's?? who were St. Louis's pitchers?? Ken Forsch, Danny Cox, Joe Magrane, John Tudor. Not exactly the types of guys that cause a small breeze in the park because of so many swings and misses. So would it have been a good idea to copy the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980's?? No, everyone had those types of players. I feel now is the time to have done it, when it's not really the popular thing to do. I mean isn't that really what Billy Beane did in Oakland with Moneyball in the early 2000's?? He did something that no one else had done, or even really thought of at that time. Now everyone does that, looks at On Base Pct. so now there isn't really any advantage to spend all of your time on that. The Twins need to bark up a different tree if they want to build a playoff contender, either that, or out spend the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cubs with the current formula in place. Right now, it doesn't surprise me the the Twins pitchers have done a little better with Kepler, Buxton, and Grossman out in the outfield. I think that is a small start to something better than Oswaldo running around out there.

He pitched 7 with 3 runs on Monday, Right??

Nolasco was able to get up to 93 - 94 on Monday also, seemed like he actually got faster as the game went on. with that kind of velocity it makes his breaking ball pretty devastating and I think that is why his strikeout to walk ratio looks pretty good this year as opposed to the years he was injured. I think if he keeps up that velocity he will be pretty good, kind of like before all of the injuries.

Trevor Graham is the former coach of Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, track athletes, he was the one who sent the unidentified steroids to USADA that uncorked the whole BALCO thing, he was either mad at someone or let go as coach, but nonetheless, he sent them the stuff. BALCO was manufacturing or at least distributing steroids that were not detectable by the current testing methods at the time. I don't even think A-rod failed a test, I think MLB proved that he was buying them from the doctor in Florida fiasco and maybe Ryan Braun was a part of that also?? Nonetheless, why would anyone think that they aren't making more undetectable steroids at this point in time?? I was a USADA athlete tester this last weekend at the world cup (wrestling) at the Forum, USADA keeps the samples now for olympic athletes for 8 years. If they retest their sample 8 years from now and they fail it then, then they strip them of their awards and medals. I'm not sure if MLB is keeping samples for 8 years, but that is what USADA is doing to try and assure no cheating. Even masking agents will get uncovered over time, if an athlete has said masking agent in his system it will be deemed that he was cheating. 8 years later in a baseball career? what do they care at that point in time? they've already made their money probably.

Watching the Angels and the last two starters has amazed me as far as, they have no velocity hardly at all. Weaver was 84 all night and Chacin was 88, he his 90 a couple of times. Their pitchers make the Twins look like they have flamethrowers. ha ha

Tommy Milone is lighting up AAA also, so when do they have to call him up?

Yeah I was one of the people who predicted that Ervin would go down with an arm injury because he isn't able or actually doesn't need to juice at this point in time. But I was at the game tonight as well as last night and I will be there tomorrow also. What I saw out of Santana was the fact that he was able to throw 92-93 pretty consistently, so I really don't think his arm is bothering him; It's that his pitches are way too hittable right now and that is most likely caused by poor location of his pitches. After watching tonight I would think that Santana has a shot at fixing his ailes a little bit. What I have liked over the last few games with Buxton, Kepler and Grossman out there is their ability to actually catch the ball.

Making the list next year. Ricky Nolasco, Brian Dozier, Byron Buxton

Tommy Milone's numbers look pretty good??

Yeah he has been throwing bullpens and coming up with a stiff arm the next day. So they have been treating it as shoulder inflamation

Nolasco has gone from the 5th starter to staff Ace. He has nice K ability, it seems that he has found an extra couple of MPH's on his fastball and that is probably why people are flaling away at his breaking balls this year. Geez, looking at his K to BB rate he looks like he will get an extension, Hughes did??? No but seriously, everyone has a negative opinion of Nolasco and that is getting in the way of actually looking at how he has been pitching lately. Nolasco brings a lot of intensity out there on the mound which is a nice change from all of the dull pitchers that have been slung out there over the last few years. His biggest fault was he was injured in that first year and Hughes was not, so Ricky got the blame and Phil got, well, an extension. I think the Twins poor defense all year has played into some poor starts for all of the pitchers, Santana, Duffy, etc.... I think Nolasco could put together a good season this year, if he goes to another team he will put together a really good season. The Twins are bad and they don't have much fight in them. I hope that changes but I'm not sure that it will with this current roster. This whole thing may need to be blown up, players can get used to losing over time.