glunn

In the cases of Berrios and Buxton (and Kepler and any number of relief pitchers) I would not see this as a sign of defeat. If the FO sees them as ready and believes that they can improve the team, then I would see this as part of a plan for victory. At the very least, new blood might change the team chemistry for the better, and the callups could get MLB experience. As for Arcia, I wish that he was doing better in AAA. I am going to be watching fewer games until they are less painful to watch, but I think that it's too soon to give up on this season. Our chances seem remote, but other teams could falter and the Twins could get back to May baseball, at least to some extent. In my opinion, now would be a good time to bring up some players with the goal of winning more games, thereby reducing apathy and giving more reason for hope.

I think that this falls into the category of issues that are deeply felt where agreement will never occur. I am suggesting that we try to look past such issues and see if we can find a solution that is appealing to all sides of the debate. I am old enough to remember the days of illegal abortions and women risking sterility and death by paying some hack with a coat hanger. Surely, no one wants to go back to that. So even if the Republicans can get enough members on the Supreme Court to get rid of Roe (which seems like a real possibility), I would think that they would not want to revive backroom abortions for women who cannot afford to travel to places like California where abortion will always be legal. I am looking for win-win solutions, not victory over the other side. Please keep in mind that overturning Roe would mean nothing in liberal states whereas what was done in the St. Louis study would reduce abortion everywhere. Why can't this be the basis for a win-win solution? It worked in St. Louis, which is a proven innovator in terms of its MLB front office. Why can't it work everywhere?

I appreciate all the comments and debate in this thread. NOW I WOULD LIKE TO TRY SOMETHING NEW. I think that it might be very interesting for each of us to put each other in the shoes of the other side in an attempt to try to find more common ground. I was hopeful that the common ground might be early and continuous education combined with free and abundant contraception. I have looked into this further and found an article about a real world study that suggests that this could reduce the abortion rate by 41% to 71%. http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/05/study-free-birth-control-significantly-cuts-abortion-rates/ The study was Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. According to the article, "The researchers enrolled 9,256 women from the St. Louis region into the Contraceptive Choice Project between August 2007 and September 2011. The women were aged 14 to 45, with an average age of 25, and many were poor and uninsured with low education. Nearly two-thirds had had an unintended pregnancy previously." This was a real program in the real world. I am wondering what objections anyone might have to implementing this program everywhere, assuming that it works equally well in other places. I also sympathize with people who believe in abstinence. In the final paragraph of my original post I stated: "I would also be more than willing to compromise by including a recognition of religious values by always stressing in all education campaigns the fact that access to birth control does not mean that having sex is a good thing in a particular situation. Having sex can be a very bad thing in a particular situation, even using birth control. It seems to me that the message should be that the decision to have sex deserves careful consideration from a moral and religious perspective, but if you are going to do it then use at least one form of birth control -- two if you are very smart." I am wondering what objections might exist to this proposed compromise. Please keep in mind that there are some of us who believe that a fair proportion of kids have always had sex in their teens and that there is no way to stop this. As a fiscal conservative, I object to paying taxes to take care of unwanted children who result from failed abstinence programs just as much as a religious person objects to paying taxes for programs that might promote promiscuity. Is there some middle ground here? There are lots of threads on lots of sites where people can argue why their position is correct. I think that it may be far more interesting to see if there might be enough common ground to actually start a movement that will actually reduce the problem by at least 500,000 abortions per year. I have little hope that people with deeply held views can be persuaded to change those views, but I would like to see if we could work together to find solutions that everyone could embrace.

No, not a football fan.

That double by HIcks seems meaningful in terms of killing Kluber's shutout and ending the series with at least one positive note.

I watch games to enjoy them. When the Twins are playing this poorly I think that it makes sense to stop watching. If enough people stop watching then the front office will be under more pressure to change what it is (not) doing.

After reading some posts about abortion in the thread about the Republican presidential debate, I am starting this thread as a place to have a respectful discussion of abortion and possibly identify some paths towards solutions that most people can agree with. In the other thread, someone referred to abortion as "baby murder." My sense is that other than a handful of psychopaths, no one wants "baby murder." That kind of labeling makes it difficult to continue the discussion. Let's try to avoid that in this thread. It seems to me that almost no one is "pro-abortion." I support Planned Parenthood and some of my contributions help fund abortions for women who cannot afford them, but my strong preference is provide easy access to free birth control to every person so that abortion is rare. Planned Parenthood provides a lot of free birth control to people who could not afford it, but it's a drop in the bucket compared with the need. It frustrates me that the politicians who have passed laws making it more difficult and expensive for women to obtain abortions tend to not support easy access to free birth control. I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. From a purely fiscal perspective, free birth control is a good move, as revealed in a book by a noted economist: It appears that the abortion rate has been dropping, but there are still more than one million abortions per year. http://www.mccl.org/us-abortion-stats.html It seems to me that if we provide easy access to free birth control to those who need it, we should be able to cut the abortion rate in half. The key would be to get the birth control to the cohorts of women who would otherwise be getting abortions and raising public awareness of the options for avoiding the entire abortion dilemma. I believe that there are two main reasons why this is not happening: 1. Religious conservatives and prudes abhor promiscuity and don't want to promote wanton sex, especially among teens. They prefer abstinence programs, even though such programs have not been effective in the past. 2. Some fiscal conservatives don't want to use taxpayer funds to pay for birth control and all of the wanton sex that might ensue. I am a fiscal conservative who is tired of paying $50,000 per year per prisoner to sit on their asses in prison for non-violent crimes while I work like a dog. It seems beyond dispute that unwanted children have a much greater than average propensity to end up in prison and on welfare. From a fiscal perspective, it seems clear to me that unwanted children are bad and birth control is good. Can anyone seriously dispute that? I would like to reach out to all of the pro-life people and ask them to embrace an all out birth control strategy with the goal of reducing the number of abortions by at least 500,000 per year, essentially cutting the rate in half. I realize that there are many Christians who want to end all abortions, but I would hope that they could see the benefit of a 50% reduction. It seems to me that we should all be able to agree that it would be a good thing to eliminate 500,000 abortions per year. I personally don't feel that abortion is "murder." If I did, then I would want to overturn Roe V. Wade, either by a constitutional amendment or a conservative Supreme Court. On this, there will always be disagreement. But we share a common desire to reduce the number of abortions. Why can't we work together on that? I would also note that the Catholic Church still takes the position that birth control is a sin and that sex should be only for procreation. I support their right to believe whatever they want, but as a fiscal conservative I think that it's wrong to ask everyone to pay taxes to take care of unwanted children who would never have been conceived if the mother had used birth control. The Catholic Church is not covering the costs of such unwanted babies -- this is falling mainly on the taxpayers -- and if abortion became illegal tomorrow then we taxpayers would be on the hook for about 1 million new unwanted babies per year. If we ever need population increase I would rather get it from immigration reform, not millions of unwanted babies. Finally, if it were up to me, we would spend the extra money that it would take to drop the abortion rate even more, up to and including requiring all broadcast stations (as a condition of renewal of their licenses) to devote significant time to education about the resources and choices that are available to prevent pregnancy. I would make condoms available in the office of every school counselor beginning in the eighth grade. It seems clear to me that this would not increase the rate of premarital sex. The kids who want to have sex will have sex whether or not condoms are freely available. Blame their parents or the abstinence programs or Hollywood, but adolescents have been having sex for millions of years, and some of the most memorable of them have been Catholic girls. My point is that if they use birth control then no one has to worry about an abortion or an unwanted child and my taxes can go down. Please keep in mind that preventing unwanted pregnancy pretty much prevents abortion. Yes, there may be some women who get pregnant deliberately then decide to have an abortion, and my birth control solution would be worthless in those cases. However, I suspect that this is probably less than 50,000 women per year. So if we went all the way -- mobile birth control vans, education in all schools, public awareness campaigns by all broadcast stations -- I think that we could eliminate more than 950,000 abortions per year. I would also be more than willing to compromise by including a recognition of religious values by always stressing in all education campaigns the fact that access to birth control does not mean that having sex is a good thing in a particular situation. Having sex can be a very bad thing in a particular situation, even using birth control. It seems to me that the message should be that the decision to have sex deserves careful consideration from a moral and religious perspective, but if you are going to do it then use at least one form of birth control -- two if you are very smart.

This is one of the best posts I have ever read.

The abortion debate frustrates me, because it tends to devolve into labeling and insults, and key points get ignored. That said, I am going to start a thread where people can respectfully discuss this. I am also deleting Mike's post about baby murder, because it violates TD policy by misrepresenting the position of another poster in a manner that is insulting.

It would be very nice to score the runner on third to give Perk more breathing room.

Why doesn't Cleveland spend the money to put decent padding on the outfield wall?

Torii comes through. Now it's up to Perkins and the defense.

We need a double play here then two doubles.

This debate is going on in so many threads that if I tried to merge them then the server might catch fire. I see a lot of wheat here and some chaff. As many posters have argued in multiple threads there may be good reasons for some of what is being labeled an incompetence, cowardice and/or laziness. For example, maybe Ryan did make a serious bid on Tulo. Maybe he spent 10 hours on the phone trying to make that deal. We will never know the details. Obviously, there is a lot that Ryan knows that we don't. Ryan may have had his expert study Tulo's medical report. None of us will ever know whether that occurred, much less whether Tulo has some question marks physically. Personally, I don't know whether Ryan is lazy, incompetent and/or too set in his ways. I have seen arguments for and against all of the possible positions on multiple issues. There are enough posts on Ryan on TD to fill an encyclopedia yet little consensus. Lately the focus seems to be on alleged bungling of the trade deadline and the failure to make roster moves that seem obvious, but some people gave up on Ryan a long time ago and for them he may never find redemption. My point is that if we knew more we might reach different conclusions and regret labeling Ryan as incompetent or lazy. I think that it's great to make a case that Ryan is wrong about something or has made a terrible move, but it sometimes seems unfair to then conclude that he must be stupid and/or lazy. Personally, I am bitter that Ryan did not do more at the trade deadline and that we did not get Tulo, but I say that knowing that if I knew what Ryan knows this may have made a lot more sense.

Parker, I am wondering what you would do now if you were the GM and the manager. What might be done in terms of roster moves and/or lineup management to generate more offense?

If we could clone May, then I would want 2 of him as starters and 2 of him as relievers. He seems to have great potential in both areas and who knows what the Twins will need most if they can continue to contend.

I wonder how this could be measured. If I was the GM, I would have someone meet with each player periodically to discuss, among other things, how each coach has helped (or not helped) him. As a fan, I am wondering if this could ever be measured, because there are so many variables.

It's always darkest before the dawn and tomorrow is a new day. Maybe we can sweep the Jays. Anything can happen in baseball. Choose your cliche, but let's enjoy the rest of this day.

I think that there is plenty of blame to go around, but every team has bad days and bad series.

Someone should be warming up in the bullpen now.

In hindsight, Molitor should have stuck with May.

Welcome to TD!

Pelfrey has given the offense a chance. Now we should get some runs and close out this home stand with a win.

There is wisdom in your post but remember that all birds start in the bush and proven MLB players tend to be older birds.

I think that they were afraid of Hicks and less afraid of Mauer. Plus Hicks was ahead in the count.