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I wonder where Mauer ranks in this statistic.

I am still hoping for a Twins Daily shirt that we can wear to games. It would be cool to go to a game (in Anaheim for me) and see comrades wearing the same shirt. And if hundred of fans wore the shirts at Target Field, the Twins front office might start visiting TD more to see what we are thinking, or at least to read Parker's posts about what players are doing right or wrong. I would also not mind paying more for the shirt if you got a trademark license from the Twins/MLB. It would be nice to have something that includes the Twins logo. I wonder what such a license might cost.

So far it appears that everyone agrees that Meyer is the Twins new #1 pitching prospect.

I wonder how many players get away with cheating by staying one step ahead of the testers.

With Liriano, at least we have a chance of getting an ace.

I wonder if Mauer would be willing to waive his no trade restriction.

At these prices I worry that the Twins won't get anyone decent from the free agent market. It seems to me that we are looking at another losing year or three until some quality pitchers can come up from the minors and/or trading for prospects.

This would be painful in the short run, but would have a chance of making the Twins very good in the long run. But there would also be a risk that the young pitching prospects may never pay off. Interesting to think about.

Money doesn't buy championships. Just look how many the Yankees have won lately. Money may not buy championships, but with the coming disparity in TV revenues, the Twins may be outbid in the free agent market even more than before.

You have some interesting ideas and a great sense of humor. Tony Robbins might actually help, but Jimmy Hart???

You gentlemen have done a great job. Thank you.

Good one, Brock. It would also be nice if the doubters renounced their televisions and there was no one left to watch Fox News. If you do that, conservatives will just start drowning witches again. Nobody wants that. Especially the witches. I love being your straight man. You are on fire my friend.

This is a great blog, and I hope that the Twins explore this. I also wonder why a low budget team can have so many great starters while the Twins have so few. Is this scouting, coaching, draft strategy or luck?

I agree with this, and you said it well.

It will be interesting to see who hires Figgins. I agree with Seth that he could be decent again.

Good one, Brock. It would also be nice if the doubters renounced their televisions and there was no one left to watch Fox News.

If Plouffe could be consistent, he could be amazing. Maybe some competition could help him focus, or maybe it could hurt him.

I think that you are both correct. Spending some money would help the team be more competitive next year -- maybe they could even get to .500. But the Twins don't have enough money available make the improvements necessary to win the division. I hope that I am wrong.

I suspect that you may be correct, but we have no way of knowing whether this is true. For all we know, Ryan and his people have been spending a lot of time trying to make good trades and/or trying to make deals with free agents. All we get to see are the results when they make a deal, and good deals often don't happen until January or after.

Great article. I hope that the Twins decide to spend at least some of the increased TV dollars.

I don't agree that there should be a higher standard of reasoning for why a group can discriminate. When it comes to employment and business practices I absolutely understand more stringent criteria for discrimination, but private groups should have no such standard. I would vehemently disagree with any state law that says otherwise. I'm free to discriminate who I choose to associate with. I don't have to date a certain number of redheads or blondes. I don't have to have a beer with a certain quota of hispanics or overweight people. Likewise, any group should be able to make similar choices. By this sort of whacky logic 8 year old boys that don't allow girls to join their club are in violation of state law. This entire concept, along with hate crime laws and other non-employment based discrimination are major steps in the wrong direction for me. My moral objections to the way people choose to discriminate shouldn't be codified in law because that sets a bad precedent that curtails freedom. These attacks on the boy scouts are reinforcing that bad precedent and, to me, that's evidence of lefty-politics influencing the group's actions. That disturbs me. You say above that you don't disagree about the tax loophole, so I would hope that you might support the ACLU on that basis. I think that there is a larger point here. We need a constitution to protect minority groups, especially those that are unpopular or historically oppressed. Without the Supreme Court, people of color would still be riding on the back of the bus and living in "separate but equal" schools. The majority does not need such protection. My sense is that the "lefties" and the ACLU should be praised for fighting for such minority groups. The Democratic Party paid a high price for supporting gays during the 2000's, because the anti-gay marriage initiatives in some states brought out a lot of conservative voters that won some elections for the Republicans. And as others have noted, the ACLU has been reviled for standing up for its principals, even when this meant helping Nazis' rights to march through Skokie. I wish that my conservative friends would be more active in supporting the rights of minorities and the rules contained in the Constitution to protect such rights, even of they don't like the people who they are protecting or their lifestyles and beliefs. Finally, with respect to redheads, I would think that you are smart enough to want to date as many of them as possible.

Medical doctor, scientist, or whatever, I'm not sure how he jumps the shark. Whether you like it or not, evolution is nothing more than a theory because to date no one has been able to actually observe it happening in the way it claims to happen. The same can be said of any other origins theory such as the big bang, creation, the giant spaghetti monster or whatever. All of these theories can have holes poked in them by people with critical minds... evolution is hardly exempt from this. But here is my question. Who would you rather have? The guy that says evolution is a theory and leaves it up to the states and the schools to decide what they want to teach in this area or the guy that thinks it belongs to the federal government? For every Obama there's a guy like Rick Santorum. Don't forget that. You and I might not agree with Ron Paul on everything, but what we should be able to get behind is that he doesn't believe it should be controlled by some bureaucrat in DC. I don't believe that Obama has taken the position that the federal government should dictate what is taught in schools. I also think that local school boards do their students a disservice when they don't allow science teachers to discuss evolution. Yes, evolution is a theory, but there is a lot of evidence supporting such theory, including fossils that have been dated.

I think you got the gist of my message, and you are welcome. This is an area where we are in complete agreement.

As I recall, the Twins have not had much success hitting his weak stuff. On the other hand, I don't think that the Twins will bid enough to even have a shot at him.

Totally agree and times like that I tip my cap to the ACLU. If you want an example of when I have a problem: Boy Scouts. Now I deplore what the Boy Scouts do to homosexual boys as far as discrimination, but part of a free society is being able (to various degrees) to discriminate. As a private club, they have the right to make the guidelines of membership whatever they want. No matter how much we don't like that, it's an important line I don't want the government or anyone else crossing. Leviathan, I have great respect for your intelligence and reasoning, but I respectfully disagree. So long as the Boy Scouts are receiving tax-deductible contributions, it seems to me that they should not be allowed to discriminate against gays. When donors to the Boy Scouts take tax deductions, it effectively increases what other taxpayers must pay. In this way, the Boy Scouts are different from a private club, such as a country club. Members of country clubs don't get charitable deductions for supporting such clubs. But donors to the Boy Scouts are subsidized by other taxpayers. If the Boy Scouts want to stop sucking on the taxpayer teat by receiving tax deductible contributions, then I will not mind them discriminating. In the meantime, I resent indirectly subsidizing their discrimination. Right. Boy scouts can do as they please, but they shouldn't get a break, if they're going to discriminate. Honestly, charitable deduction is problematic altogether. Each charitable deduction just increases everyone elses tax burden in very undemocratic way. That donating to religious groups earns a tax deduction will never make any sense to me. I share your dislike of the income tax deduction for gifts to religious organizations. I am especially sickened by the television evangelists who solicit cash from people who are barely scraping by so that the evangelist can live in luxury. HOWEVER, an often given justification for this deduction is preserving the wall between church and state. If churches were taxable entities, then theoretically the IRS could use the tax laws to audit and persecute churches that are disliked. My response to that argument is that churches should be tax-exempt entities and therefore not subject to income taxes, BUT no one should get a tax deduction for donations to religious organizations. I also believe that church-owned real estate should be subject to property taxes, just like country clubs and gas stations. Incidentally, it is VERY easy under the tax laws to create a religion, and if you carefully follow the rules, there are major opportunities for abuse.