gil4

Chief - I was assuming you were the one he met.

Made me laugh first, then it scared the hell out of me. Everyone is a role model. Some people are just bad ones.

I didn't see the game, but I had seen enough already. In order to justify that glove, he needs to hit a lot. He doesn't.

With the 12-man pitching staffs (and sometimes 13) there just aren't enough roster spots to keep both sides of a platoon. The RH batter in the platoon just doesn't get enough AB in a strict platoon. If both make the team, they will likely designate one the starting CF and the other the 4th OF, and Hicks will likely get his rest days vs. RHP, Schaeffer will get his rest days vs. LHP. In order to give the corner OF days off both will get ABs against the non-platoon pitching. It's a semi platoon, but lots of people have talked about this arrangement. I think the one concern is Hicks will have to hit RHP in order to have a useful career. Do we keep him in the majors and limit his exposure or do we send him to AAA, give him ABs both ways, and hope he progresses some more?

If Arcia becomes an average outfielder I will be thrilled. As it stands, he tries to make up for his lack of range with bad routes and stone hands, and for some reason it's not working very well. It's not hopeless and we have seen comparable defenders turn it around (Plouffe), but right now average is a goal, not the present condition.

That's some powerful rust. His two HRs were amazing. Hopefully we see him up before September. (I think he only had two - vs. Pirates and Cards)

No kidding. I saw my life flash before my eyes just thinking about it.

I'm not sure. If he's like his old man (and I don't really think he is) we'd take the wallet but leave the personality. I guess it might be fun to have a remake of you're fired/you're hired Lite beer commercials with Gardy taking Billy Martin's role.

Twins AA manager Doug Mientkiewicz was drafted by the Twins in the 4th round of 1995, when I was 30. I'm 50 now and with that milestone I have officially scrapped the idea of brushing up on my knuckleball and heading to one of the MLB tryouts. (If it really starts dancing I can still dust the plan off and use it.)

I'm excited about Gordon as a prospect, and I'm really excited about the fact that there are five more rated higher.

I don't know if my nerves can take another game seven. Can we make it game four to complete the sweep instead?

It wasn't slow typing, just a lot of it. It was worth it - good analysis. I didn't realize Turner had hit so well after that slow start. From what I've heard. he's MLB-ready or close to it behind the plate, and that by itself has some value. I like Polanco and I would guess his future value will be higher than Turner's, but Turner's floor is higher. I'm sure Rosario is coming up on the list, but there are definitely causes for concern there. Is Garver coming up or is he outside the top 20?

Under team control until 2019 - no need to pay full market value for a couple of years.

If he does it on days that end in "y" I'll be much more impressed,

I'm having a hard time putting too much weight on that -1.6 dWAR over 74 games. Until a manager sets his glove on fire, he's not as bad a defender as Willie Norwood, and hitting was at least in the same ballpark. Norwood just kept it up for 294 games. Which is worse, 79 OPS+ over 294 games or 66 OPS+ over 74 games? At least with the latter you can blame SSS.

The Pags-Leius platoon we really only effective the one year. In 1992 they stunk - when you put their OPS+ together it was 101, which would have been fine if you put them together by averaging rather than by adding 75 (Leius) and 26 (Pags.) The real combined OPS+ was closer to 75 than 26 because Pags only had 108 PA due to injuries, but still, the race that year might have been interesting longer if they had repeated the '91 performance. In 93 it was Leius' turn to get hurt - 10 games, 22 PA - and Pags got traded to the O's in August that year to break up the duo. The 12 and 13 -man bullpens have really cut into the platooning possibilities, and the Twins really just hit on an ideal match in 1991. In today's game, Leius would really have to play some SS and 2B, too (because there's no way Pagliarulo was going to do it.) The platoon did help both, although it helped Pags more. Here are their 1991 PA & OPS both with and without the platoon advantage: Pags - 374 PA/.712 OPS vs.19 PA/566 OPS Leius - 161/.872 vs. 74/.640.

It's harder to be strictly a platoon as a predominant RH hitter because there are so many fewer ABs against LHPs. The RH platoon partner really needs to be able to do more.

Historically I don't know that's the case. They were well-paid, but Nick Punto probably made more in inflation-adjusted baseball income than most HoF players prior to 1970.

We will have the first pitching coach on injured reserve from drawing too many circles.

Just spending isn't good enough. Who would you sign? How much would you be willing to spend? No team can afford to spend money for the sake of spending. The contest is about efficient and effective use of limited resources. I know the saying goes "You have to spend money to make money," but it's not completely accurate. You have to spend money wisely to make money. Even the Yankees can't afford to throw away too much money without hurting their ability to compete. Would you sign Max Sherzer? Would you sign him for 7 years/$200M, or whatever crazy figure it will take? Would you trade Buxton for whoever the Shields equivalent on the market is today? The Royals have some things they did that are worth imitating - especially paying attention to OF defense - but sneaking into the wild card and getting hot in October isn't a repeatable strategy. Maybe they knew something about will Myers (and Wade Davis) that nobody else could see, or maybe they got lucky. They did have a number of former top prospects who they believed were on the cusp of putting it all together, so they went for it. Are the Twins there right now? i'm going to leave that as an open-ended "maybe" right now, because I have to go. Just know that if the Twins go for it now and fail, it will be disastrous. KC almost did that, and they still have to pay the piper this off-season, although with the post-season run they made, they might be able to afford it.

Just throwing something out there to see if there is anything to it - is it possible the disruption of the previous two years had more of an impact on pitchers? Nobody pitched 200 innings in 1994, and in 1995 there was the shortened spring training. Then in 1996 everyone was back to the full schedule. I'm not sure how we would test that - DL rates, maybe? Attrition rates? Were there a large number of pitchers who continued to pitch for a while but were never the same after the strike? I think we're really fighting Occam's razor on this one, though, because 1996 is right in the middle of the steroid era, and the whole generation is suspect. (Even Andy Pettitte used them?) My understanding of the way steroids work is they allow shorter recovery times between workouts, so they allow more workouts. Maybe someone can follow that type of routine for a limited time without steroids. Maybe Steinbach was working out with one of the users - there was no shortage of them. But that's one maybe too many. The simple answer is maybe he was juicing. Even if he wasn't, it was so prevalent that there's no way he knew nothing. If he knew something and did nothing, he's an accomplice.

Thanks for your interest in the manager position, but we have decided to move in a different direction. Jim Pohlad asked to keep a copy of your resume on file in case he has any other openings you might be qualified for. I'm not sure what that might be, but he seems to have something in mind that he won't tell me about. - T.R.

I am of the opinion that tangibles matter more. Being on great A-ball teams doesn't change the fact that it's tough to overcome a 25% K rate. RBI totals are greatly influenced by opportunity. ABW is an interesting prospect, but he has some serious flaws in his game that could very well overshadow his strengths as he moves up.

My first thought was "there's no way wind power could generate enough electricity to do all that" but then I saw Dozier's hairdryer wasn't included in that, so we're good.

If Ozzie gets the job I'm leading the campaign to get him fired from day 1. I'd rather have THE Ozzie and manager than that clown that used to manage the White Sox. Don't make that call, Terry.