johns

Why would you want umpires to be perfect? There's an entire mythology of umpires stinking at times, it's part of the game. The umpire is one of the players on the field, just as a shortstop botches the occasional play, so too the umpire. At what point is the human element acceptable? Where is the line?

Aroldis Chapman is reportedly seeking a contract in the range of 6 yrs, $100M. Give it to him. Right now. Throw in an extra $10M bringing total to 6 yr $110 (which figures in the fact of actually getting him to WANT to play in MN). Why you may ask? Because we will turn him into a starting pitcher. As a reliever, he is not quite worth that type of money. However, when you add together the value of the prospect of him being a dominant starter, it is quite a different story--especially the value of starting pitchers to 1. the twins 2. in this thin FA market. Worse case (barring catastrophic injury) is that he returns to being a dominant reliever. Best case? Twins create their own way to 'create an advantage' and have a dominant starter. My theory is that Wade Davis didn't suddenly become a dominant reliever a few years ago: he developed another pitch, matured, learned how to pitch. Remember, Randy Johnson was a Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn when he first came up to the Big Leagues and then learned how to pitch. Aroldis Chapman, as evidenced the past few years, does not have an issue with control anymore, and he has very dominant 'stuff'. Sign him. Now. What a bargain he could be--and our new leadership would be credited with being 'innovative'.

Torii Hunter was signed for a few reasons, but the main one might have been to mentor Buxton. I believe you will see Buxton much sooner than we all think.