whydidnt

Because at this point wins in 2012 are pretty meaningless. It's more important for the team to evaluate young players to see if they can perform at the major league level than it is to keep a guy like Jeff Gray around. AND I'm the first to admit that to this point I was wrong about the bullpen this year. I thought it was going to be horrible and it really has been okay. Guys like Gray, Burnett and Burton have been better than I expected. It's too bad most of the time they are pitching when we are down by 3-4 runs - the last 3 games being the exception.

Let's not forget he was facing the A's. I think the best of their 4-9 hitters entered the day hitting something like .226 and none of them has scary power either. Not a real good test for a guy. From what I could see, he still had problems commanding the fast ball, but the A's couldn't figure out how to hit his off speed stuff. at one point I think it was something like 38-31 k-b on the board, and then Oakland just started swinging at everything. An improvement on what we've seen, but I think we need to see him against a major league team before we get too excited.

As a knuckleballer, Dickey is a terrible example. They are the one oddity that you can't use to compare to other players. History is littered with quite a few knuckleballers that didn't find success until late in their career, including guys like Wakefield and J. Niekro. I don't think Gray is awful, but I don't think he's a guy you want to build your bullpen around either. His age, track record and stuff should make him expendable if the Twins have a young guy ready to move up to the majors, that's just how it is when you are struggling to win, you have to find out which of your young guys you can count on.

Uggh, what's the hurry to deal Morneau, he has little trade value right now because of the injuries. So why trade a potential MVP type player for questionable prospects. You know the Twins aren't going to take the $14 Mil and invest in a quality starter if he's not around. I say the best thing to do is to see how he performs the rest of the season and then make a decision. I hate to see them let him go as they have NO ONE anywhere near ready to come up and replace him and his offense. Just because it's a lost year, doesn't mean you throw away guys that could be decent assets for nothing. If they got offered a Texiera like deal, I'd have no problem with trading him, but that's not going to happen. Trading a potential MVP type player for a B level prospect just doesn't interest me. We know Morneau has risks, but so does a B level prospect, with the prospect probably being a bigger risk to ever produce a the ML level. I'd rather have Morneau here than another 20+ million in the Pohlad's pockets.

I think they just need to play him and see if he can adjust and improve or not. The HR's show he's got some talent, but like others have posted, if he can't manage the strike zone, he'll never be a quality MLB regular because his glove is so suspect. Let's not forget Cuddyer was very mediocre with the bat his first 3 years with the Twins, and turned into a solid every day player...he wasn't as bad as Plouffe, but if Plouffe somehow turn's into a poor man's Cuddyer, that would be pretty good for this version of the Twins.

I agree, and I doubt Gray will pull a Hamels and admit he was throwing at Morgan anyway, so we'll probably never know. At that point I wasn't paying real close attention to the game. Had the umpires warned the benches before Carroll got thrown at? Anyway, I guess if you're going to throw at someone, doing it in the 9th inning of blowout is about as good of time as any, better than in a close game, but stupid nonetheless.

This is the real issue. He over rated the current starters and depth, then compounded the problem by bringing in a guy who is lousy. It's interesting that we see these old guys with questionable stats/stuff come here, get blown up even more than before and then pop up again elsewhere with decent results for short periods. Have we ever had any sustained performance from one of these old horses coming off a bad season? Pavano doesn't count, he was pitching well before he got here. I don't remember one, so why do we keep wasting millions on them? Even 3 million is a lot when you are cutting payroll.

In the post game show, Laudner said that it was in retaliation for Gray hitting Morgan earlier in the game. Gardenhire said that wasn't the case in his press conference, but the announcers said it sure looked like he hit him on purpose, guessing there was some sort of old bad blood between Gray and Morgan.

Well, as much as I think they both need to go..if I have to chose one, it's Anderson. He's been here a long time, and over that time has seemed to have a lot of communication problems, especially with high upside type guys. If he had just had a problem with Liriano, it would be one thing, but also Garza, Lohse, Slowey to name a few off the top of my head. A huge part of his job is communication and getting these guys to perform, he seems to have failed at that when it really matters most.

Uggh, has the Twins organization slipped to the bottom of the league rankings? Considering we are the worst team in the majors and it appears at least 3/4 of the players in the minors are struggling, what the heck is going on?

I can't argue with your point. For me, and probably a lot of others though, I think Butera stands out as the poster boy of what's wrong with the Twins. We see them continue to run out guys that have no business being in a major league lineup over and over again. When the off season comes, rather than upgrade even a little, we just bring them back and do it over again, and then watch Gardy's face turn red when the team loses. You can't expect to win when you are willing to use guys like Butera as your regular catcher for extended periods unless the rest of your lineup features a pile of hall of famers in their prime. Sure he's not the only problem they have, but it's probably the one they continue to repeat the most. It shows a blind spot in the organization, where for some reason certain players are allowed to fail over and over again, yet seem to be "favorites", and other guys don't seem to be given much of chance and are shipped out. It would be one thing to allow a guy like Butera to fail consistently if he had some sort of track record that indicated he could improve, but he doesn't.

I think you make great points regarding both Mauer and Morneau. The only issue I have with it is that it means Butera plays 2 out of 3 games. So much for him just being an "emergency fill-in", huh? I think we'll see Revere starting at least 2-3 games, depending on Span's availability, and Plouffe will be back at 3B when Revere and Span are both playing. I know it won't happen, but I'd still like to see the Twins flip Willingham to RF and put Revere in LF. I doubt Willingham will be any worse in RF than what either Plouffe or Doumit has been.

I was only half watching, but I thought he said Doumit popped his calf, was going to need an MRI, and was probably headed to the DL. I hope I heard wrong. That would be a big loss to this lineup. Of course Blackburn probably is too, It seems to be the same with him every year, he pitches awful for a month and then decides he has a aore arm. Glad we're paying $4.5M for him this year and next. Great decision to give him that long term deal.

I think Souhan is right on most points for once. I'd love for someone that thinks coaches and managers don't matter to explain to me why every franchise in the league spends millions of dollars a year on coaches and managers. It absolutely matters, certainly not as much as talent, but if it didn't matter, teams would just throw the last retired player out there for the league minimum and go about their business. The bottom line is that the Twins are the worst team in baseball, if not for Houston completely blowing up their team last year, this would be the 2nd year in a row we could claim this honor. It's time to think about replacing the coaches. It can't get any worse. It's a no risk proposition, what could happen, you lose 120 instead of 110? Perhaps a new approach will help some of these guys. Marquis was a waste of 3 million when he signed and he still is. It's the same sort of crap we saw with guys like Martinez an Hernandez, bring a guy in that's lousy, lie about his strengths, like throwing strikes etc, and then act surprised when he stinks, all the while flushing millions down the toilet. It's like my Mom always told me, if you're going to do something, do it right, or don't bother. I wasted $30 to sit and watch the Twins stumble around on the field yesterday. If it hadn't been such a nice day, I'd have been really mad at myself. It appeared none of the hitters had any clue what they were going to do when they faced Lowe. Whatever approach we are using from a coaching standpoint, it needs to be something other than look at the first pitch and then pound the ball into the ground when you have 2 strikes on you. Bottom line is that yes the Twins don't have a lot talent, but where do you draw the line between not having talent, and the coaches not properly getting the most talent out of the players they have? I realize we aren't playing for wins this year, which is why it's even more crucial to fix the coaching issues now. They need to start a new approach while these guys are young and learning on the job rather than at the end of the year. Why waste the next 3 months if change is inevitable anyway?

I think at #2, you have to take the BPA. Hopefully, we won't be picking this high very often, but if you are you have to take whoever you think is going to have the best major league career. It shouldn't even be a question unless you have two guys rated almost exactly the same on the board. After the #2, then you can manage the draft more for organizational needs.

Well, you may have seen him more than me, but the strikeout rate may be inflated because pitchers are pitching around him and he's trying to make something happen. Maybe that's not happening, but the walk rate seems to be pretty inflated to. If that is the case, they are hurting his development by leaving him in low ball as he's likely to learn a bad habit. Guys with his kind of talent come along so rarely that I think teams need to treat them differently than they would typically. I'm not sure instincts is the right word to use, since instincts can't be learned, can they? I would agree that some of that knowledge on positioning, etc. comes with experience though. From my perspective though, if he's mashing, you put up with a lot of bad defense and push on. I worry a lot more about a guys glove if he hits like Valencia or Plouffe has with the Twins (or coming up in the system for that matter).

Have to agree, don't see much benefit to keeping in a low A, when he can learn just as much in the field at Ft. Myers and hopefully continue to advance his game against some better hitters. His value to the Twins will probably never be from his glove, so they best make sure they nurture the bat in every way possible. He seems to be the kind of hitter that we haven't seen come along here for a long time.

Well most of your points have flavor or accuracy, but I don't think we really know about the leadership, since none of us are in the locker room, and really what difference does it make? Where I disagree is that I don't think he has to hit like 2009, but more like 08 or 10 to make the contract viable IF he catches. It's too early to tell if that will happen, if it doesn't, then you're right, but I don't think that's a guaranty. I tend to think the 5+ years we saw of him hitting well are a better indicator of his talent than the last 1+ year. AND I do complain about his performance from time to time and do think he could some things differently to improve. He needs to start adjusting or it's more likely you'll be right. I just hope you're not. I don't know if you're among the crowd, but most of the state would have been in a huge uproar if the Twins hadn't re-signed him and let him go the year they were opening a new stadium. Twins were in a hard spot and Mauer's agent did what he was supposed to do and got a great contract for his player.

Actually, he didn't hit like the best player in baseball in 2010. He was good, but had similar seasons in 2006 and 2008 and was pretty good in 2007 too. In 2009 he it like the best player in baseball. He's been very good every year he's been healthy, about 5 or 6 years by my count. That's what they are paying for and I'm hoping that's what they get. It's way too early to judge the contract as one of the worst ever based upon just 1+ season of play.

Well, I have to disagree. If he starts hitting like he did in 2010 while catching 70% of the games, it will be a fair contract for both sides. I think a lot of people underestimate how valuable it is to have a catcher that can both hit and play decent defense. It's a rare breed and allows you to have a no-hit good field guy somewhere else in the lineup without taking an hit compared to other teams.

Sounds like we are arguing about 2 sides of the same point. I never implied that a manager can take a non-talented individual and make him a HOFer. I simply said that manager CAN influence how guys play. I think it can be both positive and negative. Your point regarding Valencia is interesting, because last year Gardenhire threw the guy under the bus every chance he had. Who knows what kind of influence that had on him, this year he tried a different approach, was it right? I don't know. But I do know that managing people is more than just telling them what to do, it's about getting people to buy in to the idea that doing it the right way is the best way to do things, and a one size fits all approach doesn't work. Talent has a huge impact on how guys perform at the major league level, I'd argue that you can't make it the majors without talent, and you probably can't make it to the HOF without having way more talent than 99.9% of the population. But I'd also argue that we see lot's of "talented" guys fail in the majors, do they all fail because lack of talent? I really think there's a mental aspect we'll never be able to measure. You can't argue Gardenhire was responsible for the Twins winning for a decade and then that he has no responsibility when the team completely fails over the last two years. If manager's have virtually no impact on the success or failure of a team, why do major league teams continue to pay guys millions of dollars a year to do "nothing". If they can hire any Joe of the street and get the same results, wouldn't at least one franchise had figured that out by now, and we see a contests for manager for the year - win and manage the Twins for $75,000 this year? I think most franchises have figured out that the Manager does have "some" level of impact and because of that they try to hire guys they think will improve their chances of winning. I will repeat that talent at the major league level is more important, but that being able to extract the most out of that talent is the manager's job, and some are better at it than others, just like some guys are better at laying bricks than others.

Very interesting, and fun with numbers as they say - I won't post or link to the whole article that describes this because it's behind a paywall, but a site I subscribe to published a great article on this subject and looking at the years from 2002-2006 there was a direct correlation between Command (K/BB) and ERA. Here are the charts from the article, you of course would want to read the whole article to get all the details, but it is pretty significant in my mind anyway, you can see a nice trend downward in ERA based upon a players command. This was true for all 5 years of the study. This is also the study that showed 5.6 k/9 was the "magic line" combined with Command to denote a lower ERA. [TABLE] [TD=colspan: 6, align: center]Earned Run Average[/TD] Command 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 0.0 - 1.0 6.05 5.85 6.24 6.22 6.42 1.1 - 1.5 4.79 5.05 5.16 4.93 5.06 1.6 - 2.0 4.59 4.51 4.63 4.41 4.65 2.1 - 2.5 3.98 4.22 4.30 4.28 4.48 2.6 - 3.0 3.60 3.80 3.80 3.60 4.15 3.1 and over 3.15 3.30 3.30 3.45 3.49 [/TABLE] We can create percentage plays for the different levels: [TABLE] For Cmd[TD=colspan: 2]Pct who post[/TD] Levels of 3.50- 4.50+ 0.0 - 1.0 0% 87% 1.1 - 1.5 7% 67% 1.6 - 2.0 7% 57% 2.1 - 2.5 19% 35% 2.6 - 3.0 26% 25% 3.1 + 53% 5% [/TABLE]

Well, if you really think that once a guy gets the majors he's reached the pinacle of his game and can't learn any more than I can't dissuade you from that thought. I think that there is still plenty of learning to happen. From time to time I watch some of the shows on after the Twins games focusing on players like Blyleven, Carew, etc. It seems like the often mention the positive impact a manager had on their careers, I know Carew mentioned Billy Martin the other night. I also think there were many players that played under Tom Kelly that indicated he was a positive influence on their careers. So if you think the manager has nothing to do with it, so be it, but I think most major leaguers have a different opinion. You also conveniently cut out my point that the biggest problem we have is lack of talent, which would seem to agree with your statement. Baseball players really aren't that different from most the rest of us, sure they have a specific talent, and probably are more competitive, but at the end of the day they still can and should continue to learn, adapt and improve, just like those of us in the work force have to. Often we improve significantly when we have a leader or mentor that takes us under their wing and teaches us. Even though we were already vastly qualified to do the job we were hired to do. I guess you think that doesn't happen when a guy gets to the majors though, and that the Manager can't and shouldn't do these things. It's all about the talent the guy does or doesn't have and no amount of coaching will change that, right?

I don't think he's been over-used at C so far this year. He's started less than 1/2 the games there. I sure hope it's just a slump, if not in a couple years, we could be comparing him to guys like Zito, Wells and Soriano for the worst contract ever. And yes, he has to be a regular catcher for the Twins to get full value from him. If he's not catching his bat doesn't justify the huge payday. I think both he and the Twins know that, too. Anyway, let's hope he starts turning some of those grounders to 2nd into line drives. I wonder if there are any stats that show his batting line with or without Mourneau in the lineup. It seems to me that he hits better with Mourneau in the lineup, but that's just a huge guess based upon my probably shaded memory. I still would like to see him take a hack at some of those first pitch fastballs he always lays off, too!

I think Nick's points are all very valid. I don't really understand why they have refused to give him a real shot at the major league level. Burnett seems to have returned to previous form his last few times out, and would seem like a likely guy to replace, but I think the Twins feel Burnett can be a 2 or 3 inning guy, where I don't think Slama is. So, who else would you replace in the pen right now? I don't think there's an obvious spot for him right now, and the Twins bullpen, well not stellar, hasn't really been the Twins biggest issue this year.