spinowner

No, my bad. Sorry if any offense was taken. My intention was to speak in general terms, not at you specifically.

Why do you need an exception? I believe the two Santanas on the Twins each had only their last name on their jerseys. And beyond that, we don't need names on jerseys to know who's who. Isn't that what numbers are for?

The photo of ABW attached to this article illustrates a mistake I'm seeing more often on sports jerseys these days. His last name is Walker. It's not Walker II. Yes, he's Adam Brett Walker II but if you put his last name first it becomes Walker, Adam Brett II. Nit-picky? Maybe, but correct is correct and incorrect is incorrect.

Of the 38 players currently on the 40-man the one I have the most trouble understanding is Logan Darnell. Yes, he's left-handed, but that's about the only significant plus I see. And he's going to be 27 years old in February. I'd have waived him before Pinto or Achter. Is there something the Twins FO sees that nobody else does?

I have to agree with this. It should have been #1 and I'm surprised it wasn't on the top (bottom?) five list. Compared to the five who did make the list the Santana suspension was the most avoidable disappointment. By far the most avoidable. A player with his amount of experience should know he needs to be sure about everything he puts into his body. So either he was stupid enough to take the illegal supplement or he was stupid enough not to monitor what he took. And as an aside, stanazolol is probably the easiest illegal supplement to detect. The human body metabolizes it into another chemical that is then excreted, and that chemical is easy to detect and is never present in the human body except if stanazolol has been used. Getting slightly off-topic, I agree that a simple suspension without pay is not a sufficient deterrent to PED use. Santana is getting a huge payoff even after the suspension is subracted from his contract. Voiding the contract, though, is not enough because the player can still sign another big contract, if not with the team who signed the player originally then with another team. I think the player should lose all service time and be required to play for the major league minimum. No arbitration rights and no contract extensions until he accrues enough new service time to qualify for free agency. This would obviously have to be negotiated in the next CBA. If the union and management are truly serious about this issue something like this needs to be considered. The union needs to get past the idea that these restrictions interfere with player rights. Rather, the union needs to see that this protects clean players (the overwhelming majority of membership) from the actions of the rule breakers. The best clean players will be the ones getting the big payoffs instead of the cheaters.

I've looked at (not necessarily read) every post. And when I look at the sum total of what we've written here it is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Apologies to what's-his-name who wrote that first.) The trade will turn out the way it turns out. Nobody will know for years whether it was a good one for either team. As for me, I hope that Murphy evolves into a perennial all-star.

Many of those Robinson starts took place before Hicks (may he rest in peace ) and Buxton were moved to the major league roster. He saw very little action during the last two months of the season.

If I attend a game vs the Yankees I'll applaud Hicks at his first plate appearance and then hope he puts up an 0-fer.

50 outfield starts isn't as many as you may think. In 162 games there are 486 outfield starts. If 4 outfielders split the load equally it's 121.5 starts each. I'd guess starting 50 games is pretty typical for a 4th outfielder.

There are playoffs. Those are the game(s) played to break a regular season tie to determine who qualifies for the postseason.

Check out what happened when 25 Adam Dunns played 25 Dee Gordons: http://www.fangraphs.com/not/dangerous-experiment-a-roster-of-25-adam-dunns/

This is minimization and understatement.

Back to back posts with diametrically opposed opinions. Keeps the conversation lively!

True for almost all trades, but particularly in a case like this where the principals are quite young.

I haven't had a chance to read all the comments. Yet. But I'll say this: There are some players I want to do well because they are on a favorite team. Even AJ, back in the day. There are some players I want to do well because I just like them. Like Mike Trout, for example. I wanted Aaron Hicks to do well for both reasons, but I'm afraid I have to let that go somehow because he now plays for the team-that-must-not-be-named. I wish he'd wound up somewhere like San Diego or St. Louis, anywhere but there.

This metaphor is spot on.

This. It probably won't consistently happen until June 2016 or later but this is going to be by far the best outfield combination in the Twins organization. By far. (IMHO, of course.) Arcia would have to mash big time to make it worth putting him in LF regularly (which would be a nice problem to have). By most accounts I've read Kepler has a ways to go before being a truly viable option. Sano? Maybe occasionally in an emergency, but there's no reason to expect someone with essentially no outfield experience to play better than Rosario, Buxton, Hicks, Kepler and even Arcia.

I hope for this as well, but some people simply are not able to play 1B. Picture trying to let Delmon Young play there, for example.

In baseball the draft is much more of a crapshoot than in the other three major North American team sports. There are many 22-year-olds who come out of college looking good but turn out to already have peaked. And when you are drafting 17-year-olds it is even more difficult to guess how that player will progress by age 25 or so. There's a significant luck component there.

You'll hit more HR's when Yankee Stadium is your home field than if Target Field is your home field, especially if you bat mostly left.

I think we should move Kyle Gibson to catcher. He has a strong arm and I bet nobody would try to run on him. That also would make room in the rotation for Berrios.

No. We want more up-and-comers on our roster, not more players about to go into decline.

We had a thread similar to this a few months ago, talking about essentially having a staff of relief pitchers, letting each one go 2 or 3 innings and continuing that all season. The problem with this idea is that if you have a very good pitcher who you want to leave in for 6 or 7 innings whose turn in the lineup comes up in the 8th inning of a game you use him up. I don't think you'd want him to turn around and start the next game.

The reason AA made the bold moves he made in July was not to strengthen his organization, it was to win the WS this year. The strategy failed, as it almost always does. That's why I put it the way I did. Yes, there can be exceptions, but they are just that. Exceptions, not the rule. It is precisely because the playoffs ARE a crapshoot that a team is better off trying to build a consistently strong organization rather than trading away good prospects for the sake of trying to make a 3-month run. You'll have many more opportunities at the postseason that way. IMHO, of course.

Well, now you understand how it came to pass that Rafael Palmiero became a spokesman for Viagra.