spideyo

I'm still not sure if it was made like this, or if it was actually a full-fledged snowperson at some point

Ok, here's a question: If you are bringing a guy in solely to be a bench bat, why Ramirez over Colabello? Neither are on the 40 man currently, so you would have to kick someone off to make room for them. If you ran into an injury situation, or a "guy is sucking and needs to get his head on straight in rochester" situation (which given our recent history will both probably happen frequently and simultaneously), you are stuck in a situation with Ramirez where you would need to pass him through waivers, whereas with Colabello you've got three full years you could be shuttling him back and forth no problem.

Oh, one more: A pitcher named Anthony will leave the Twins organization one way or another in search of a "fresh start"

Is there a good source for who does and doesn't have option years left for the Twins? I'm curios not only about the current 40-man, but also guys who could end up on it later in the year (like Deduno, Walters, Ramirez)

I think he'll do very well once he gets up to the bigs, but I think this injury, while it is totally legit, is a blessing in disguise. It gives the team an excuse to keep him off the 40 man a bit longer, and give him a little more time to ramp up to top form, while also giving the guys already on the roster a chance to sink or swim in real games. I would bet within the first month of the season one of our other pitchers will pull a Matt Maloney and make it REALLY easy to decide who needs to go to make room for Deduno.

Did anybody in the AL carry only 11 pitchers all year last year? It seems to me that 12 is the current norm, and much of the last two years the Twins have actually carried 13. I could be wrong though. I think the bench will at least start off as Butera, Mastroianni, Escobar, Carroll. Plouffe is a little dinged up, Dozier hasn't played a regular season game at 2b, and Florimon still has to prove he deserves that starting job. Gardy is going to want options. Butera has actually hit well in the few games he's played in camp, and has a track record of working very well with our pitchers. Wouldn't be surprised to see him be Deduno's personal catcher. Once Diamond and Swarzak are healthy, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Twins push to get down to 11 pitchers, so that they can keep Carroll and Escobar up, but still bring up either Ramirez or Colabello for some more punch. Unless they can run a 5-man bench though, the only reason we'll see a 5th OF up here is if Parmelee struggles in the field

Totally agree. I think Terry Ryan wants to give Gardy the opportunity to succeed, and part of that includes giving him the best tools to do so. Also remember, the Twins need to shore up fan support NOW or they will have an empty stadium in 2015. Keeping one of the most exciting young guys on the team in AAA for a bit might make sense on paper, but Hicks as the starter will sell some tickets and get some positive attention to the team (at least at first). You think it's hard to get them to spend money on stars now, imagine how it would be if they let attendance keep sliding.

Response to the original 5: 1 - true 2- only for about ten days 3 - maybe 4 - true. Initially, sidelined by injuries, but Escobar will play so fantastic filling in that they'll give him the job 5 - Regular, yes. Star, no. And leviathan's 5: 1 - yes at the plate, but he'll struggle a bit in the OF 2 - it will average to be marginally better, but like Diamond last year, there will be at least one surprise stellar performance 3 - I think Carroll, Florimon, and Escobar will all play at least 50 games at SS, but Dozier will play most of the games at 2b. It will be better than last year, but below league average 4 - True 5 - True. Also, many people on the boards will wonder why we don't trade him or make him play 1b/3b/dh/of more I'l throw out my five too: 1) Not only will the Twins use more than 10 starting pitchers, their rotation on July 1st will only contain one pitcher who is in the rotation on opening day (and that person will be Cole DeVries) 2) Our bullpen will be excellent in games where the starting pitcher goes 6 innings. Burton, Perkins, and Duensing are stellar. In games where the pen comes in before the 7th, they will struggle greatly, and no one other than the above 3 will perform to expectations in the first two months of the season 3) Morneau is a silver slugger/MVP candidate again and is signed to a 3-5 year deal. The boards explode with people pissed they didn't trade him 4) Doumit hits decently and ends up getting traded at the deadline, with Butera returning to backup catcher duty, and Colabella and Parmelee platooning at DH. 5) Plouffe will develop into a very good fielding 3b, and Bert Blyleven will start telling lots of anecdotes about Gaetti.

Scott Boras may be good at getting huge contracts for his clients, but he's a dick.

I think that lost ball yesterday finally sealed the deal for him. He definitely has talent, he just seems so raw sometimes.

Yeah what ashburyjohn said. Colabello has actual skills, so if they did add him to the major league roster, it wouldn't be as a novelty act or a "feel good" story. Also, if you go back to my original post, I originally had said you could ARGUE that he would be our best Right-handed bench bat. After that I may have gone overboard with my statements in my attempts to defend myself, but my original intent wasn't to anoint him, but simply point out that based on potential and small sample size alone, he looks pretty darn good when you set him against the bench options Gardy has had in the past.

Does he have any minor league options left? That probably might make a big difference. If he is out of options, they might opt to have him start in AAA, since he won't have to be exposed to waivers until he gets put on the 40. If he does have options left, I think it'd be much more likely that they find a way to get him on the 40 so he can at least start the season with the Twins. We won't have diamond for a couple weeks of the season at least, let the other two D's have a couple starts, see how things go

Also: Company 401k Plans - Minnesota Twins Profit Sharing/401k Plan

Company 401k Plans - Minnesota Twins Pension Plan I'm sure a large part of the reason they opted out initially (although it's not clear when they actually opted out) is that Pohlad probably felt they could run things more efficiently and better for the whole organization by doing their own thing rather than letting the League dictate things. While we all may have our gripes about how the team spends money on it's athletes, they really do take good care of their people. There's a reason why it's really hard to get a foot in the door with the Twins, and a reason why most people stick around with the organization for a very long time.

A lot of coffee and cocoa is gonna get sold on opening day

I really want Deduno to start for us and do fantastic, simply because he doesn't fit the traditional model of what a successful pitcher should be.

It's really all about context. Ultimately, it's really about the fact that we've basically had **** for right-handed bench bats over the last 5 years. I'm not saying he's gonna win a batting title or anything. Just that the fact that he's 29 and hasn't played AAA or MLB yet don't immediately mean he's a washed up piece of crap. And yes, he hasn't had an at bat in an official MLB game, but at least some of the pitchers he's been facing in ST and in the WBC ARE major league pitchers. Also, I think a lot of people would argue that Butera has never had an MLB-quality at bat

My understanding is that Colabello is a decent fielder. Unfortunately, it's at the one position where we have incredible depth of options. If he could cover both corner OF spots and/or 3B, his chances would be upped considerably. Heck, if Mourneau got hurt or traded, a Parmelee/Colabello platoon at 1B would be pretty interesting. So basically, my point is that offensively, he'd be one of the best right handed bats we've had in half a decade. Defensively, he probably isn't any worse than some of previous bench guys, he just happens to specialize in an area where we aren't lacking for depth

I think after all the court cases he basically withdrew from everybody and holed up in Arizona until he died

Let me restate that: one of the best right-handed bench options since 2007? I would be willing to bet money that at the ML level he'd at least be able to hold his own compared to Matt Tolbert, Brendan Harris, Jason Repko, Craig Monroe, Randy Ruiz, Luke Hughes, and our rotating cast of extra OF from the first part of last year.

The wonderful thing about baseball, is you aren't doomed to go down hill once you hit 27. Yes, he's a bit older than average for where he is, but he's not exactly an old man. It's also not like he spent 10 years wasting away in A-ball. Who knows, maybe if he had ended up in someone's farm system at 21 and had pro coaches helping him develop instead of toiling away in independent league games for 8 years, he might have developed faster and been a legitimate product. Anyways, even though WBC and ST are small sample sizes, I think you can pretty legitimately argue that he would be the best Right handed bench bat we've had in many yeats

Joe Mauer is Mr. Twin because he fits exactly what the Twins want their brand to be. He is quiet, keeps his head down and goes to work every day. He leads by example, and has committed to being a Twin for a long time. Not only that, but he is quintessentially Minnesotan. He is polite, close to his family, married a girl he went to high school with. He's got a cabin up north and likes his mom. Heck, she actually answers all his fan mail for him.

With Morneau and Mauer back, and Parmelee still needing as much time as he can get practing RF, Colabello wouldn't be getting many opportunities to play. We know he wouldn't be starting anyways, why not let him get game time with the minor league squads so our starters (and our guys battling for starting jobs) can get more at bats and fielding opportunities?

Spinning off a discussion in another thread, just curious what YOU think the ideal strategies are for building a batting order. Please don't use this thread as an opportunity to bash Gardy, it's not about him. Possibly something like: 1: Fast base stealer 2: High OPB guy 3: Big hitter 4: Power Guy 5: Second best power guy 6-9: who ever's left.