Don Walcott

Unfortunately, if the Tigers are competitive, they're also likely to add the best available pitcher on the market before the trade deadline. And the Twins are highly unlikely to do that (or even try). If Miggy stays healthy this season, he'll probably have another MVP season with the support from the Martinezes and Upton.

I totally agree that the Twins should have and could have afforded to sign Cueto, Zimmermann, Price or Greinke. But they didn't. No use crying over spilled milk.

Good point. How much the Twins spend relative to other teams is really the comparison we should all be concerned about. Right now, it seems like the Twins are supporting a payroll of a team with no ambition for the playoffs, despite last year's team and a window of opportunity for a team with a lot of underpaid young talent.

I had some sake at lunch, and fell asleep. What did I miss?

By the way, why would we debate between apples?

Nobody said they were apples to apples. I also mentioned the debate between sabermetrics and traditional measures. These are good debates. As for the "do not pass go" crimes, Shoeless Joe Jackson was on the ballot. In my opinion, Rose should have been given that opportunity, but they changed the rules so he wouldn't get that opportunity. Possibly, they thought he'd get voted in and didn't want that result. The roiders are given that opportunity regardless of testing or admissions. The more Rose gets debated, and the more he digs his own holes deeper, the more I don't care if he gets in (though as a player he definitely deserves to be there). However, denying him even the opportunity to be voted on seems unfair.

So you aren't aware of a debate about whether Rose should be eligible for the Hall of Fame? Maybe I've been imagining it, but it seems like people have been debating this ever since they passed a rule specifically to exclude him. And now that we have the steroid era players, the debate has broadened to what is worse, what Rose did, or what steroid users did? And the only reason for these debates is the Hall of Fame, not whether Rose can be a hitting instructor. I was pointing out how passionate the debate is when it becomes about the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Actually, another possibility is that the Cardinals knew they'd done something illegal, and if they sued someone for taking proprietary information, they'd be found out.

Taking information from an employer is not necessarily illegal, though it can breach a duty of loyalty or an employment agreement. I would assume that St. Louis had an employment agreement with Luhnow, or whomever it was whose laptop was used to obtain access to e-mails. As part of that agreement, there would likely have been a definition of what information was considered a trade secret belonging to the Cardinals, and what remedies the Cardinals would have for any unauthorized use or disclosure of this information. A breach of that agreement could result in a civil suit, seeking injunctive relief and damages. If there was a breach by Luhnow or anyone else who jumped ship in 2011 for the Astros, I would have expected a lawsuit by now. The fact that St. Louis hasn't sued anyone either means they have no evidence anyone did anything wrong, or that they failed to protect their trade secrets contractually with their employees and therefore don't have much of a case. At this point, I highly doubt that anyone with the Astros is getting in trouble with the FBI.

So this all happened in 2013-2014. The next question is who in the Cardinals' organization was aware this happened, and to what extent did they use the information stolen to inform Cardinals decisions.

Steroids were a banned substance in MLB from 1991 forward. Obviously, someone recognized there was a problem, or there would have been no need to add steroids to the banned substance list. The main problem is that testing didn't start until 2003. I whole-heartedly agree that MLB and the teams are partly responsible for the debacle. However, I do question the achievements of those who broke the rules to gain an unfair advantage, and I don't think they should be in the Hall of Fame.

I apologize, I read his stats wrong on BR. 6 home runs in 831 PA. 4 home runs in a full AA season. Then he goes to Houston and becomes a great home run hitter in the Astrodome. His last big home run season coincides with the first season of testing. Sorry, I have suspicions. Of course, we are all just voicing opinions, so try not to get angry about mine.

Steroids have been banned since 1991, but no testing was performed until 2003. So Bagwell would not have been tested during his prime.

Steroids have been banned in MLB since 1991.

Bagwell hit a total of 8 home runs in two full seasons in the minors from 1989-1990 -- over 1,000 PAs. That he turned into a home run hitter in the majors is suspicious. He also hit 39 homers at age 35. His former teammate and buddy, Caminiti, was an admitted user. Caminiti said he thought about half of the players were using steroids during that era. I wouldn't say that Bagwell is a "non-question".

I like the Gordon deal for both sides. For KC, they keep a franchise player, making the fans happy and promoting their brand. For Gordon, he's a local hero. He'll probably make up for any money he left on the table with local endorsements for the rest of his life. I also think the defensive metrics are unreliable. However, Gordon is a great left fielder by any measure. That might decline a bit over the next four years, but he seems like the kind of guy who'll keep himself in as good a shape as possible to curb that decline. And offensively, he's been an important player for the way KC has played. All around, it's a good fit.

The Hall of Fame became a forum for debating the moral worthiness of Pete Rose, and his gambling. The Hall of Fame vote then became the forum for debating sabermetrics v. traditional measures of greatness, particularly in reference to Jack Morris. Now, it's inevitably become the forum for debating the morality or ethics of cheating by way of taking steroids. These are all interesting debates, and I don't think anyone is wasting their time if they engage in them. Nor do I think anyone has a definitive answer. And everyone has a right to their opinion. It's a good debate to have among fans, even though we may be tired of it. I personally don't want to see steroid users in the Hall. However, because MLB was a shambles at recognizing a problem, then doing something about it, there is simply no way of knowing whose numbers are tainted, nor to what degree. Not every user is willing to admit it, and we know some will go to their grave denying it even though they did it. And even if we did know who used, we don't know how much it affected their HoF worthiness. The individual players should not be held blameless, however MLB and the teams should bear some responsibility for it. In about ten years, I hope, all of this will be history, and we can move on to the next debate.

How about the 2012 Giants? The franchise that had previously supported Barry Bonds in breaking records had another MVP candidate that year -- Melky Cabrera. Without his 113 games of production, the Giants probably don't make the playoffs that year. However, the team doesn't get punished. Rather, the team benefits from getting MVP production out of a role player up until he gets suspended. And you'd think, of all franchises, the Giants would have been able to spot the steroid user. Somehow, teams that benefit from steroid users should be penalized.

I did not, at any point in any post, suggest the Twins operate in a "non-profit model." Those are entirely your words, and your argument. This is what is called a "straw man" argument, where you attribute an argument to an adversary and conveniently destroy the argument that was not made. Let me put this in my own words, as I have above: the Twins are in a good position, based on development of home-grown talent, to actually win something this year, next year and for a few years. This would be a good time to spend some of the money we would otherwise bank, to ensure that we actually win something. Making the playoffs generally results in 20% increase in revenues. And aside from the business reason for doing it, I want to see the Twins win again! There is no question that the money is there to do it. If our owners don't want to do it for money reasons, I will be very disappointed in them. I'll continue to support this team, my favorite of any sports franchise, as I have for more than 40 years. However, as much as I believe I'm a die-hard fan of the Twins, without '87 and '91, would I still be so supportive? Not sure. But I am sure that this franchise needs a good run. If for no other reason, the Twins need to earn the loyalty of a new generation of fans.

For my statement regarding writing off losses against profits from other businesses, I trusted information I read on a Vice Sports article: https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/your-poor-baseball-team-owner-is-lying-to-you I'm not a tax attorney, so if you know something I don't, that's fine. However, I read another article in the LA Times that discussed the ability of sports franchise owners to take tax deductions as being one reason Steve Ballmer buying the LA Clippers. http://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-ballmer-clippers-taxes-20141117-story.html Anyway, it's beside the point since owners aren't losing money. In fact, the players' share of revenues has been steadily decreasing since 2002, when it was 56%, down to 40% today. So the owners are actually making a lot higher percentage of much better revenues. Additionally, all owners share profits in MLBAM, the on-line streaming company. The owners are probably making $50-100 million per year from this business whose revenues are expected to be $1 billion in 2016. So the owners aren't anywhere close to taking a deduction on losses from this investment, and we shouldn't be fooled into thinking they can't afford a few big free agent signings. As I said above, I'd prefer if our owners used some of the money they are banking to make this team competitive now, which is a good time to take advantage of all of our homegrown, young and inexpensive talent. This is not just what I think would be wise in a business sense, but would make me happy as a fan. You may have some expertise that I don't regarding business appraisals, but the last time I was involved in one (last year), income is not the only method of valuation (and actually it's revenue and not income that is used). There are also the asset approach and the market approach. Of particular relevance to the valuation of MLB franchises is the market approach. Baseball franchises are local monopolies, and there are a limited number of these available. Again, the Twins' owners bought the franchise for $44 million, it's value is closing in on $1 billion this year, and it will continue to appreciate in value. So there's no reason to worry too much about the value of the franchise. As for wanting the money from the operation of these businesses to be used for more worthy causes than paying the talent, I don't think we're going to be able, legally, to require anyone to donate the profits they make in this industry. However, I suspect that it would be more likely that the money ends up being donated to worthy causes after it's paid out to players, as opposed to being banked by owners.

Santana, Gibson, May, Duffey, Berrios. Obviously, that leaves a lot of money on the bench. But I think these 5 are the most talented starters we have, and in a perfect world, that would be our starting rotation on Opening Day. If Hughes is the 2014 Hughes again, he'd replace Duffey.

I was going to criticize May for not going deep in another thread, but looking at his performance game-by-game, by the time they decided to put him in the pen, he was showing the ability to go deeper into games. With small sample size and improvement, I though I'd be roundly criticized on this site for taking that position. Milone for his career goes less than 6 per game. Even in his best year, he only went 6.1 per game. Last year he went 5.6 per game. I think it's pretty safe to predict he'll need a lot of bullpen help, and I believe May will do better than that. I understand that we'd all like to have the Royals' bullpen, but that's not easy to do. The only franchise that has been able to do this consistently for a long time is the Yankees. I think the Twins should model themselves after the Indians and the Astros, whose bullpens were among the best at least partly because they had to pitch the least.

My problem with Milone as a starter is that he is incapable of regularly pitching deep into games. For his career, so far, he is averaging less than 6 innings per start. This, despite his apparent ability to "settle" into games and do fairly well the third time through the lineup. The problem is that the third time through the lineup happens in the 5th-6th inning. Last year, he needed the bullpen to handle 3+ innings on average. Having a guy like Milone puts too much stress on the bullpen, which leads to a tired bullpen getting tired and injured and worse as the season goes on (like what happened to the Twins last year).

It's interesting the different perspectives different fans have regarding their owners, how much their owners should spend on players, and how much their owners should expect to profit from their ownership. In England, fans of soccer teams consider the teams to be part of the community, not a for-profit corporation. The teams would NEVER move from their location. They expect their owners to spend as much as they make, or as much as it takes to get results. American ownership of certain teams, like Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa has been severely criticized for practices that are generally accepted here, such as making a profit for the owners and leveraging the value of the team by taking on debt. Fans have been more approving of wealthy owners who are willing to lose money to win, such as Manchester City and Chelsea. However, even though these teams may lose money on a year-to-year basis, the value of the teams appreciates incredibly. Our owners bought the team for $44 million in 1984. The value of the team is closing in on $1 billion. They have made a lot of money on this team, and even if they lost money, they could take that loss against taxes on one of their other businesses. They would have to lose a lot of money for this to ever be a bad investment. I would love to see this team spend like the Tigers do, especially when our farm system is starting to pay off and we have a window of opportunity. However, it seems like a substantial amount of the fan base, as represented on this site, would prefer to have the owners make more money, thereby showing what a smart team and a smart business they are in terms of profits and losses. Some fans even go so far as to seemingly blame players like Joe Mauer for making too much money, and financially hurting and even paralyzing our owners, explaining why they don't spend money to improve the team. It's a very interesting difference of opinion. If the Twins were publicly owned, like the Packers, would we all be encouraging the team to bank a bunch of money, rather than sign on of the four ace starters who were available this off-season?

I agree with the analyses above that Joe isn't getting calls he used to get, and he needs to change his approach. I think he'll work hard to do that. I also hope that umpires stop the trend of expanding the strike zone this year. One good sign from last year is that he had more plate appearances than in any year of his career. And his strikeout rate actually went down from 2013 and 2014. I expect his OBP to come up, though I don't expect more power from him. So he still will get on base a lot more than the other guys in this lineup.