d-mac

I'm ok with the Twins holding on to a top 2 draft pick for the 2017 draft, which is supposed to be one of the best in years. It's a lost season after all.

I don't think people should get all worked up about an increase of 15 minutes a game over the past 11 years. That's an increase of about 8%, or less than 2 minutes an inning. It's barely perceptible. I think games appear to be dragging on to us (as Twins fans) lately because our pitching staff has been one of the worst over the past 4-5 years. Lots of baserunners and runs, slower game.

Having a better pitch framing catcher would definitely help Milone.

And he's young. A 21 year old in AA? Yes please. And Chris Mitchell's KATOH projection system ranked him as the number 2 prospect in the Cubs org before the season started. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/katoh-projects-chicago-cubs-prospects/

If you mean this Billy McKinney: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa737528&position=OF And I think you do, I'd do that in a heartbeat. He doesn't have much power but hits for a high average and draws a ton of walks. Not too many high OBP guys in our system right now.

BTW, something definitely appears to be afoot with Abad. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/07/giants-trade-rumors-bullpen-relievers.html

Meh. I'm not going to get worked up by this move. Should Chargois have been the first one up? Yes. But it's not as Boshers didn't deserve the call up nor deserve the demotion in the first place, much like Chargois.

There are enough competing options for entertainment dollars and interest. It's pretty easy for a casual fan to go someplace else for entertainment (sports or otherwise) or to simply flip the channel and change the radio station, plenty of substitutes. Different story for us on this board since we live and die with baseball and there are no good competing substitutes for Major League Baseball. So in a way we are captive customers, but the casual fan is not, and they produce the majority of teams' revenues.

The great thing about the free market is that if a business puts out a crap product and their customers are unsatisfied profit margins go down and eventually become losses. Put out a quality product and satisfy customers, revenue goes up, profit margins go up. Simple. Businesses are punished for putting out crap that nobody wants. Fans are unsatisfied with a crappy on field product, revenue is declining. I've been saying this for a while now, firing TR had to be done. It's not only the smart baseball decision, but business decision as well.

I've thought about this for a bit now and here's how I'd go about things if I were the GM: -I'd have called up Berrios and Chargois yesterday. Dump Ramirez. And I might consider sending Trevor May down to Rochester (if he has options left) to get stretched out as a starter. Move Nolasco, Milone, or Duffey to the pen to make room for Berrios. -I'd work on trading Nunez ASAP. Then call up Polanco. Have him split time between 2nd, SS, and 3rd the rest of the season. -Trade Suzuki, sounds like there is some interest in him right now. Call up Murphy. Add Garver to 40 man. -Trade Kintzler and Abad for whatever we can get. Call up Boshers, add Hildenberger to 40 man and call him up. -Trade Ervin Santana for best available package, eating salary is a must. Move Milone, Nolasco, or Duffey back to the rotation. Call up Melotakis. August: -Dump Nolasco for whatever we can get. Eat salary if we must. May should be stretched out by now. Recall him and insert into the rotation. - Dump Milone for whatever we can get. Add Wheeler to 40 man- call him up, insert into ration. - Dump Plouffe for whatever we can get. Add Beresford to 40 man. Call him up to be UTIL player. End of August- If my math is right, there should be 33 players on the 40 man (38 today, removed 9 players, added 4. The rotation will be Duffey, Berrios, May, Gibson, Wheeler. C: Centeno/Murphy 1B: Mauer/Vargas/Sano 2B: Dozier/Polanco SS: Escobar/Polanco 3B: Sano/Polanco RF: Kepler/Grossman CF: Buxton/Santana LF: Rosario/Grossman DH:Vargas/Sano/Mauer/Grossman SEPT: -Call up Garver and Park on the 1st. -Add Granite, Wimmers, and Baxendale to 40 man and call them up. -Once MiLB season ends add Palka to 40 man, call him and Walker up. 40 man at 37 players Offseason: -Trade Dozier. Appears that 2B at the deadline is a buyer's market. With his two years of control left, offseason might be a better time to trade him. -DFA Danny Santana. -Remove Dean from 40 man -Centeno, Landa, R Rosario other candidates to be removed from 40 man. 40 man at 32-35. Tentative Roster for 2017 ST: C: Centeno/Murphy/Garver/FA? 1B: Mauer/Vargas/Park 2B: Polanco SS: Escobar 3B: Sano RF: Kepler/Grossman CF: Buxton LF: Rosario/Grossman DH: Park/Vargas Bench: IF: Beresford OF: Grossman/Granite? Bat: Vargas/Park Catcher #2 SP: Berrios SP: Gibson SP: May SP Duffey SP: Buy Low High Risk/Reward FA. (Wheeler in AAA, Hughes potential return in second half) Bullpen: (Very Fluid) CL/SU: Chargois CL/SU: Hildenberger CL/SU:Pressly MR: Boshers MR: Tonkin MR: Melotakis LOOGY: Rogers In AAA: Hitters: Murphy/Garver/Stuart, Vielma, Granite, Palka, Walker Pitchers: Wheeler, Jay, Gonsalves, Slegers, Wimmers, Baxendale, Reed, Jones, Bard

Comparing Dozier to Bryant is like comparing apples to an Apple iPhone. Sure, they may have "apple" in their name, but it's not exactly the same thing.

Dozier will be turning 30 next May. So, he'll be in his decline phase when it's time to compete again. Smart teams would sell high on him now or in the offseason.

Que?

I agree with everything you said here. But... Milton? We traded Eric Milton a long time ago. Although... We probably should move Nunez. I'd be nice to sell high for once. He's the perfect deadline trade candidate.

I have no problem keeping Granite in AA the rest of the year and then add him to the 40 man in the offseason.

Fraud? I don't know if it was as widespread as people want to believe. Maybe it's human nature to want to believe that there are bad people out there that cause bad things to happen. It's not that black and white. Most of the people engaging in mortgage derivatives market had no idea what was in the products they were trading. I doubt most of them were willfully trying to deceive people. The mortgage originators making the bad loans did so based on the same fallacious reasoning that real estate prices would continually go up that the people buying them did. As far as the back door- deals- those are the politicians doing politician-y things. Whether they were truly trying to save the financial markets or looking for their next campaign donation, does it matter? Bailing out businesses that should have failed is bad economic policy. It's the moral hazard of knowing that no matter how bad you screw things up by making risky investments the government will always be there to bail you out because you're too big to fail. Cronyism at it's finest. You want end cronyism? End government interference in the market place. You'll put all the lobbyists and special interest groups out of work overnight. Foreclosure sucks. But are foreclosures immoral? No. The definition of a mortgage is a loan that uses a piece of real estate as collateral. If there weren't mortgages it'd be awfully hard to gather the financing to purchase a house. And nobody wins in foreclosure, it's a lose-lose. A family loses a home. The bank ends up losing money in foreclosures. The bank has to incur the cost of putting home up for sale and then receive pennies on the dollar (this is true during especially during a real estate market collapse)- far less than they would have received had the principal been repaid (not to mention foregone interest). It's in a bank or mortgage company's best interest to keep you in your home in order to pay the loan back. If too many loans go bad, they won't have enough deposits (especially in an era of fractional reserve banking) to cover, thus becoming insolvent. Again, these are all symptoms of a larger problem. WARNING: Free Economics Lesson! Artificially low interest rates and an expanding money supply create asset bubbles. Interest rates are merely the price of credit. If the price of anything lowers, naturally, the demand goes up. If the price for anything lowers, the quantity supplied is lowered. In this case, savings is the supply. As interest rates lower the return on savings lowers forcing investors into higher risk assets to seek better returns. Conversely, as interest rates are lowered credit (debt) becomes cheaper, thus more attractive relative to savings. Thus, people save less and more readily take on debt to purchase things. See where there is a problem? A feedback cycle of increasing leverage and risk taking occurs. If debt is artificially cheap, then it is more attractive avenue to purchase large items with debt than to save- households are leveraged as debt to income ratio goes up. Banks are making more and riskier loans to cover their reduced income from fewer savings deposits and lower profit margins from lower interest rates on safer loans. Banks are increasingly leveraged- Debt outstanding to deposits go up. Investors' returns on traditional fixed income (bonds) go down and more complicated and esoteric (riskier) fixed income instruments (ex- credit/mortgage derivatives) become more attractive along with equities (stocks), thus pushing the stock market higher. Finally, as interest rates go down business expansion and projects that were once not profitable (not economically viable) suddenly become profitable as financing becomes cheaper. Economic bubbles are indeed characterized by excess. But that excess is not sustainable. Those bubbles will eventually pop and the result is a credit crunch in which there is a period of painful deleveraging as the market reallocates resources to more economically productive areas. Those business that over extended by taking on cheap debt either have to downsize or end up failing as those projects become unprofitable. Investors rush to safety as those risky assets go bad. The banks that made too many bad loans and can't cover their deposits fail. And the households that purchased homes outside their budget get foreclosed on when they can no longer afford them. Bubbles not the fault of any single individual person or group (except the government, but I won't go there). You want to end or at least limit the severity and impact of economic bubbles and their corresponding painful bursting? Let the market set interest rates and stop monetary expansion.

FWIW, after last night's game, Park is now hitting .286/.388/.476 at AAA with a 22.4% and 10.4% K and walk rates, respectively. Then if you look at what he's done since July 9th (7 games), after taking a few days off for his hand injury he is hitting .333/.429/.667 with a 14.3 K% and a 10.7 BB%.

But you know, he's aggressive! /sarcasm I hope to God that's one thing that changes with a new (hopefully!) FO. We can't be pushing our minor leaguers to be over aggressive at the plate.

Over his last 4 starts Gonsalves 13.1 K/9 (37.1%!) and a 2.31 FIP.

Just so we're clear, since Sano has returned from the DL and moved back to 3rd, he's hitting .269/.367/.481.

You mean that guy that has averaged a sub 2.00 ERA, sub 3.00 FIP, and a K/9 > 9.50 between AAA and MLB this year?

Are they crimes? Since when was stupidity a crime? Believing the housing market would continue to go up ad infinitum and then leveraging on it was stupid and their businesses failed (or should have been allowed to fail) because of it. By your logic Alan Greenspan should be in jail for his easy monetary policy that allowed a bubble to occur in the real estate sector. It was stupid and the federal reserve should be abolished, but was it a crime? No.

I think this is an intellectual "property" (more like monopoly) issue. Information/ideas are nonrivalrous, meaning my ownership/consumption of an idea does not prevent you from owning/consuming them. Unlike, say the computer I'm using to write this comment. My use of it prevents you from using it. Thus traditional property rights do not apply to nonrivalrous goods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#Criticisms Did the people who accessed the information do damage to the Astros computer systems, or damage and destroy information, thus preventing the Astros from using it? Did they steal money from the Astros' bank accounts or steal identities of Astros' employees? I don't believe they did. Thus what the Cardinals did should not be a crime. If the Astros want to keep their trade secrets secret, then do a better job of protecting it.

Password: Guest https://cdn.meme.am/instances/51394709.jpg

By what, making the gameday experience less about the game and more about the "experience?"