Don Walcott

Berrios has mastered 7 dominant innings every start in AAA. It has to be frustrating for him that he's not even gotten an opportunity to pitch in the majors yet. Milone is simply not very good, and he's not helping this team. It's too early to bag the entire season (see 1991, 2015). I hope they pull the trigger as soon as possible on replacing Milone with Berrios. Maybe Milone needs some confidence building in AAA like he had last year. Or maybe he just isn't good enough to start in the majors. Either way, it seems to me like our best shot at winning a few more games is making this move now.

I think, and actually hope, that the main story line this year will be how Molitor manages this team. Obviously, there will be as much scrutiny of him on this site during the season as there was on the FO during the off-season. I think he'll get it right. He's smart, not tied to conventions, and he knows the young players who are becoming the core of this team. I think he'll have a lot of sway regarding if and when guys like Berrios and Duffey get called up to the rotation. He'll have a lot to do with the success of guys like Santana and Arcia, to get them enough playing time, and finding permanent roles for them during the season. He'll have a lot to do with setting up the bullpen to be successful. I'm looking forward to this season more than I have in a long time. GO TWINS!!

So many people on this site predicted Nolasco would make the rotation. I really hope he does well. On the other hand, I really would have preferred to see Berrios in the rotation from the start. If Nolasco does poorly for 4-5 starts while we confirm that Berrios is too good for AAA four more times, and the Twins end up 2 wins from making the playoffs, I'll be very unhappy with the front office. What happens to Nolasco gets rocked? Does he go to the bullpen? AAA? Released?

From what information we have now, it appears that the White Sox made a promise to LaRoche, verbally, pre-contract. Post-contract, they gave his kid a locker and let him be around virtually all of a terrible losing season, while his dad was overpaid and under-performed. Sounds like the mistake the Sox made was the original promise. What happened last year constitutes performing on that promise, even though it wasn't in the written contract. In my book it's still a contract, once you establish performance and LaRoche's reliance on that performance. So they put themselves in a position this year to have a big problem. Very poor decision-making by the Sox. So this year comes around, and there are players and coaches who don't like the situation, and probably complained that they didn't like the situation last year, but didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings about it. Management had no choice but to go back on their deal. It could be that the deal was "so long as nobody has a problem with it . . . ." So now that some of his teammates and some of the staff have a problem with it, LaRoche is put in a very difficult situation. As much as I think he wasn't doing the right thing imposing his kid on his co-workers in the first place, I think he did the right thing retiring rather than continuing to cause a problem. Although, to be fair, most people would have just not had their son continue to show up to work, do his best for the team, and get overpaid for another year. However, in his world, where kids should be allowed in the clubhouse full time, he did the right thing. I doubt the MLBPA will do anything about it. First, if players can require that their kids get to be in the clubhouse, only a very few players will be allowed to make this strange demand, and the majority will not. The majority probably also don't want other guys' kids around all the time. So the MLBPA will likely side with the majority. Second, if players were bothered enough to complain about it to management, right or wrong, there's a problem in the workplace that has to be resolved. If you prevent the Sox front office from making this decision, you force a bad situation on a whole team, which affects a lot of careers, not to mention the fans of the team. Going forward, I expect you'll never see another team make the initial mistake of the verbal promise backed by performance, again. Which is too bad, because I wish this would happen to the Yankees.

I love this! And then, two or three weeks into the season, Berrios gets called up for his first start while Nolasco is still sulking in the bullpen!! Problem solved.

Is it too early to say that it looks like Park can hit?

The Jays are a lot of pitchers' kryptonite.

I'm a little older, so my first hero was Rod Carew. However, Puck came along. There was never a player who was more fun to watch. Even thinking of him just standing at first chatting up the 1st baseman from the other team makes me smile. And whenever I went to a game, he never disappointed. The first game I ever saw him, he was 4-for-4 with a bunt single. I saw him hit a line drive that seemed to never get above about 6 feet high, then hit the base of the wall in left-center against Dave Stewart. Knocked Stewart out of the game. Same game, he also threw out Rickey Henderson trying to go 1st-to-3rd on a single. I saw his 2000th hit. Whatever else has and can be said about him, I don't think there's ever been another player who brought so much joy to the game -- for his teammates, the fans, even opponents . . . everyone.

I kept expecting to hear something about how fast the guy is. Is he fast like his brother? Speed doesn't slump . . . .

I'm interested to see if Arcia progress from 2014 as if 2015 never happened. He could be a real asset for this team. I think it will be interesting to see if the Molly and Bruno can help with the hitting approaches of several of our regulars: Can Dozier use all fields? Can Rosario take a pitch or two? Can Mauer get more hits early in the count and pull the ball occasionally? Can Sano and Park cut down on strikeouts without sacrificing too much power? Can Buxton make regular and consistent contact? There is a lot of potential for improvement from this lineup from guys who are already good. If a bunch of little things go right, we could have a great offensive team.

After signing the highest profile player in South Korea, the Twins send him and the South Korean press to Rochester? I thought this move was to increase the Twins brand in South Korea, not destroy it.

Johnson immediately came to my mind, primarily because of height and he was a late bloomer with his control. You can't teach the size and power.

Santana was busted before he ever played a game for the Twins. His suspension actually hurt the Twins, and the Twins got no benefit from trotting him out there on roids. I do think that teams that benefit from roiders on their rosters should be punished. Best example was the Giants riding Melky Cabrera in 2012, and only making the playoffs (and winning the WS) because of his MVP roided up performance before he was caught. Shameful.

Reminds me of the story in Hrbek's book about when he was getting nothing playing in the minors, buying large amounts of eggs as the main food staple. One day he dropped a carton of eggs after coming home from the store, which basically brought him to tears. However, there was a certain pride he had of going through that time with no money, and dreaming of getting to the big leagues. Love that guy.

We should find out if he's better pretty soon, as there are lots of ABs in the daytime during Spring Training. Maybe he needs to use the sun-glare black more liberally -- like John Randle. I'd pay to see that.

Meyer's too tall and Berrios is too short. Now, we need to find a pitching prospect who is just right . . . .

Poor Billy Beane!!

There was definitely value to shutting down the other team and saving the bullpen for the next game, especially after they emptied the bullpen the night before. And three of those runs came in the bottom of the 8th, so the game was actually much closer throughout.

If Berrios blows people away in ST, he should get a spot in the rotation. I understand all of the arguments about money and an extra year of control, but at some point this is a potentially competitive team, and fans should be pulling for the Twins to put the best team on the field that they have available to them. If this were another rebuilding year, I'd understand saving Berrios for the future. But I think this team has potential to contend, and it would be a shame if monetary considerations prevented them from giving it their best shot this season. I've been frustrated this off-season that the Twins did not do more to improve this team, despite the opportunities to do so. I'll be even more frustrated if the Twins construct their lineup to maximize profits at the expense of making the playoffs. That said, if Nolasco blows people away in ST, he also should get the spot. Competition for spots is good for the team, but only if we reward performance.

I think Santana and Tonkin are the most easily replaced. If Arcia is good, he has power from the left side that we don't have otherwise. I'm hoping he mashes in ST, makes the team, and finds at least semi-regular ABs in the middle of the lineup, protecting our very right-handed regulars.

I truly admire the passion of the fans on this site. However, the fact that this much is being said about a pretty much irrelevant signing Carlos Quentin to a minor league contract is a very sad commentary on how little the Twins have done to improve this team over the off-season.

It seems to me that what matters about strikeouts is when you get them. With bases empty, it really doesn't matter whether you get a strikeout or another type of out. With men on base, unless you're getting a double play, it makes a difference. If you have a guy on third and less than two outs, it definitely makes a difference. I'm fine with Gibson's approach to try to keep his pitch count down, get outs on batted balls, and stay in games longer. However, according to the article, Gibson may be able to add timely strikeouts to his arsenal. According to the article, we have good reason to be optimistic about Gibson. If he can develop into a right-handed version of Keuchel, we'd all be very happy.

Forbes does not factor MLBAM money, it's not technically income for the baseball franchises, but a separate investment by the owners. Future revenue from TV is factored into the franchise value, but not last year's revenues.

The Twins have more money to spend than we see on the Forbes breakdown of revenues. First, they have MLBAM, which makes them and every other team owner a ton of money. Second, the league TV deals are getting better, which give all teams more money. Third, and most importantly, on the heels of an exciting season of being relevant, the Twins can and should expect more revenue in 2016. In fact, if we just go back a few years to when the Twins were good, we were among the top drawing teams in the league, with 3 million fans coming to games, instead of 2 million (which appears to be our baseline attendance when we're terrible for several years in a row). So if we're good, we'll make more money. And if the owners would invest in this team now, it's the perfect time with all of the cheap young talent we have. This isn't my own theory, it's from Vince Gennaro, and his book Diamond Dollars.

I would love to see them trade Milone and put Berrios in the rotation.