Darius

So it's an awful idea to spend ownership's money, which is only limited by their preferences, to get a good pitcher because people are worried about mortgaging the future? But, it's a great idea to send 2 of our top 3 prospects (one being a SS, Gordon, and one being an extremely promising SP, Romero), a young team controlled OF who recently won AA MVP while putting up video game numbers and is primed for an offensive breakout (Kepler), and another young starter as a cherry on top (Jorge)? Not sure I'm following the logic. But, got it.

In other words, "the actual plan."

I do agree with the premise of the article. We're always pushing things off into the future. We can never sign anyone now, because of how it will affect payroll down the road. With the team we have in place offensively and defensively, considerinf the depressed market....if this isn't the time to sign a quality player, there isn't a time.

Are the Tampa Bay Rays really the blueprint to follow? Do they even have two division titles since their inception?

So they could've shut him down before the playoff game to have surgery, had a better chance of winning the game, AND got him back at the start of the '18 season. Sounds like a couple of missed opportunities there.

The central will be pretty bad. The Indians should be solid again. With that rotation, barring injury, not much question there. The Twins will have a hard time replicating what was done last year. Santana surely won't be as good as he was during the first half. The bullpen is improved slightly, but still not a lockdown pen by any means. They probably won't get the insane streaks simultaneously (Roasario, Buxton, Dozier, and Polanco), and who knows what's happening with Sano. I'm anticipating fewer wins. I also anticipate more competition for that second wildcard spot. One of the two will come out of the east for sure (with Boston and New York). The second will almost certainly come out of the west (with Houston, an improved LA squad with a healthy Trout, and Seattle). As it stands now, I find it difficult to see it shaking out any differently. I'm not sure anything short of signing Darvish could turn the tables to the Twins favor.

Sidney Ponson

It seems antithetical to say they should be in win-now mode, while at the same time calling it irresponsible to invest significantly in a front line starter. Payroll is barely at $100 million (with revenues around $250, and rising). A major signing should by no means hamstring this team going forward, especially with Mauer, Hughes, and Santana coming off the books in the near future. Also, these signings aren't made in a vacuum. A Darvish signing likely increases merchandise revenue, ticket sales, possibly additional revenue from more playoff games, more primetime TV appearances, etc. Sigmkng Darvish vs some washout reclamation project doesn't necessarily mean that the difference in their contract price will equal foregone revenue. The problem, IMO, is that people have convinced themselves that they can't afford it, and I'm not sure why. In reality, they can. It's just a matter of where ownership's priorities lie. Think of it this way, the Pohlad's are risk averse investors. When it comes to baseball, they'd rather take the safe return, and invest in treasury notes as opposed to a potentially volatile, but high-upside IPO.

Gordon and Polanco are too high, IMO. Not real high on Gordon. He could be an OK player, but I just don't see much of a ceiling there. Not an especially great fielder. Not especially blazing fast. No power. Not real sure what he brings that puts him in the top 50 prospects for ESPN. I don't think the Polanco we saw in the second half last year is the guy he is. Offensively, that's clearly unsustainable. Defensively, he couldn't fall apart to the point where you can't warrant playing him at SS. No Kepler in the top 10? He was better in High A to AAA than anyone else on that list, outside of Buxton. He's already shown flashes of brilliance in the majors. Still only 23-24, right? Not sure I could justify putting some of those guys ahead of him. I think Gleeman nailed the list, with the exception that I'd put Kepler ahead of Polanco. It is supposed to be the 10 best players under 25 right now. A guy like Graterol may have a high ceiling, but shouldn't be in this list yet.

Still don't understand why there isn't a way to speed up pitching changes. Are the pomp and circumstance and the half-mile power-walks still necessary? Send a laser signal down to the 'pen and send the pitcher down a zipline. Or, I have some good ideas for trap doors, similar to those used by the Romans to unleash wild beasts in the Colosseum. Or, have the pitcher on the mound keep a smoke bomb in his back pocket, smash it on the ground when he's done, and the new pitcher would have instantaneously replaced the old one when the smoke clears.

I'd take Vargas over any of the options mentioned (because JD Martinez isn't an option). I like the idea of Todd Frazier, but it's not very realistic. Does the team really need a RH bat that badly? Buxton, Sano, and Dozier are locked in every day. Polanco, Escobar, Garver, Grossman, and Vargas all can swing from the right side. I'd let Rosario and Mauer ride most nights against lefties. That leaves Kepler and Castro as the only "true lefties," who you need to get out of the lineup every single time a lefty comes up, IMO....and Kepler still may improve his splits and Castro's defense may offset giving up the out in the 8-hole. Also, the only way to get a young guy like Kepler to turn the corner on his splits is ABs. He's not going to figure it out watching from the bench. I just don't really see a scenario where anyone good enough to warrant a few ABs in lieu of Kepler's development would accept that role.....or that someone willing to accept that role here would warrant a few ABs. Maybe Chris Young hits that sweet spot?

Just because a contract may be a risk and hurt the team a little down the road, they should not avoid them all together. At some point you have to take a risk. There are also the possible outcomes of an "ace" caliber starter through the vast majority of the contract, or a trade deadline move returning elite prospects. How often do the Twins have an opportunity like this? A potentially explosive offense and great defense are already place, and the best free agent starter on the market is expressing some legitimate interest in joining the team.....and we're too scared of failing to capitalize on something potentially great.

Honestly, I think the argument the they're not cheap is lazy. The argument is: If you're not going to be good, just totally tank it. OK, I get that. But, then you go on to mention 4 young players that needed the seasoning. There are 10 players on the team involved in the game at any given point. So, what's the argument behind not filling the other 6 spots with competent baseball players? Don't the fans that helped build the Golden Gooses deserve to watch at least mediocre baseball on a nightly basis, regardless of whether you think you'll win the World Series? How is perpetually losing 100 games, surrounded by terrible washed out journeyman, a more conducive environment to player development? What exactly does saving that money on other players aside from 4 youngsters accomplish in terms of making the team better? Nobody is asking them to sign someone to a Giancarlo Stanton like contract. There are many serviceable guys out there on short term deals that don't prevent future spending (which, there is really no limit on other than that arbitrarily set by ownership). Per the 2026-2017 free agent tracker from CBS Sports, 21 of the top 30 free agents signed deals with 3-year terms or less. Among the players on the list on short deals (not limited to top 30): Edwin Encarnacion (3), Mike Napoli (1), Rich Hill (1), Wilson Ramos (2), Ivan Nova (3), Greg Holland (1), Carlos Beltran (1), Neil Walker (1), Luis Valbuena (1), Edison Volquez (1), Mitch Moreland (1), Matt Holiday (1), Brad Ziegler (2), Alex Avila (1), Neftali Feliz (1), Koji Uehara (1), Charlie Morton (1), Fernando Rodney (1). How does signing a handful of short-term deals with quality players to make your team respectable mortgage teams future in any way? For example, if you sign all of Encarnacion/Moreland, Hill, Volquez, Holland, and Rodney in the hear 2015, the team is most certainly better and all are off the books going into this year but Encarnacion (who is in his final year....and a pretty damn good player). How would that have affected anything besides the Pohlad's net income? All the young guys play, they win more games and maybe stay relevant beyond May in 2016 or make that final push to the playoffs in 2015. I'm sorry, but they're cheap. The narrative that this somehow beneficial is just false. Since 1992, we've seen the fruits of those spending habits. Even when they good, cheap, homegrown teams in the '00s, the refusal to supplement those in a meaningful way led to early playoff exits. Meanwhile, since the Twins last championship, the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants, Angels, and Cards have combined for 14 of them. Throw in the Diamondbacks, Marlins, Phillies, White Sox and Cubs in there for 6, who went all out and spent significantly in those years. Even the Astros last year were around $140 at the time they won the World Series, I believe, and are at about $130 going into 2018. Its chicken and egg, and my opinion is you have it backwards. You need to spend something to win. If you sit around and expect to win in order to spend money, history shows you're going to be sitting around for a while. If you're OK with that, more power to you. But it certainly doesn't make those that think the Twins need to spend to be competitive "lazy." Pot/kettle.

What exactly makes it "not worth it?" It's better to have no chance of deep playoff run and save ownership the money? What's the end game? What's the money being saved for? Will it be any less risky in the future? Really trying to understand this "spending money on good players is bad," paradigm that has taken hold.

Gibson was our best stater in the second half last year. We wouldn't have made the playoffs without him in the rotation. Would it really be a good idea to give him a bunch of meaningless innings in blowout losses just to save Taylor Rodgers and Ryan Presley for the following night? You wouldn't give him a chance to build off of last year and see if he has turned a corner? Considering we're likely not bringing in a free agent starter of note, Gibson is integral to this team's success.

The thing about this is most of them aren't really that good. Who can you point to and definitively say, "that guy will be lights out." Maybe Reed? Otherwise, everyone has question marks and maybes associated with them. The bullpen has gone from awful to average. They have a lot of mediocre depth that turn into some "if."

It's not even a question. Of course Darvish makes you a better baseball team than Cobb and Lynn. What other goal is there? A frontline to starter to slip in front of Santana and Berrios in the rotation makes this team a legit contender. Cobb and Lynn don't do that. In the end, this is along the lines of me trying to decide whether I'd rather marry Katy Perry or Beyoncé. Sure if fun to think about, but no way is it actually going to happen in any of the infinite parallel universes.

This should absolutely be done if you want to win over/keep fans as we progress further down the rabbit hole of instant gratification and the need for action at all times. You already hear from most people under 25-30 that baseball is "just so boring." At some point, just like anything else in this world, you have get over the nostalgic past and move forward if you want to keep up. The NFL and NBA do it all the time. You think as many people would watch those if they were still wearing leather helmets minus the forward pass, or they were still shooting baskets through a peach basket without a shot clock or 3-point line?

Gibson was pretty excellent for an extended period of time last year. I think we saw that step forward. Also, I don't think he ever really "teased" anyone prior to that. He was just bad. Just my opinion on the matter.

The obvious candidate is Kepler. I think he'll have a good year. I think Gibson finally turned a corner in the second half, and will put together a good season. Garver is another candidate, assuming he gets a good number of innings as the second catcher/DH/1B. As far as Hildenberger goes, I think he already "broke out." He was the team's best reliever last year, IMO, and it wasn't really close. I think what we saw out of him is about as good as it'll get....which is pretty good. Maybe a guy like Chagrois gets healthy and puts some things together in a role similar to Presley's last year, My top breakout candidate that I haven't seen mentioned much: Duffey. That hammer has already proven to be an asset, just needs to find consistency. I think that'll come. If he can put it together, Duffey, May, Hildenberger, Rodgers, and Rodney could make a high quality group to lead into Reed in the back end.

I'm not sure I can buy into these measurements a whole lot. Sprint speed for example. How is that measured? A high water mark, or a composite of some arbitrary number of measurements? At what point do they measure? Again, the high water mark, or an average of the speed throughout that run, or some arbitrary point in time? Clearly, there's some flaw in something's meauring Grossman's sprint speed as an equivalent to Kepler's. Also, I'm not sure sprint speed really has much bearing on Rosario's game. Given the nature of left field (playing close to the wall, playing angles/bounces), I just don't see speed as something that separates a good LF from a poor one. What are the league averages? We're seeing baseball trend towards speed and athleticism. We're also seeing a trends if getting young talented players to the major sports faster (it seems, no data there). Every year, faster more athletic players are coming in at age 20-22, and the slow sluggers (Thome, Fielder, etc) are being phased out. Roasario may have been in the 98th percentile in 1990, and would be in the bottom quarter in 2028. I'm not sure the necessarily mean he isn't detrimentally slow. I just can't say his ranking drop in relation the league is alarmingly without more context/data. When it comes to his arm, which a lot are taking issue with, I don't think the perception of a "drop off" is being adequately discounted for the luck factor. I'm guessing he had fewer "easy" opportunities (aka, tested frequently one year, and not the next after proving yourself). Accuracy can have luck involved (which side of the base you end up on in relation to the runner). Bounces can involve luck. Maybe based were overslid. Considering that there doesn't appear to be a huge regression in his arm strength, it's not something I can definitively say is a problem with Rosario and not a statistical anomole of some kind (on either end of the spectrum in each respective year). I know the new thing is forcing data. We've arrived at this place where we think any number is better than nothing, and that's simply not he case. People love to throw stuff against the wall before it's properly vetted. Data can be skewed, and can create bad analysis/decision making. I'd like to see this played out longer. Long story short, I'm not ready to say this isn't a statistical issue (sample size, skewed by outliers) or a measurement issue (flawed techniques, searching for patterns in an inadequate range of data, apples vs oranges, etc). I'm not ready to say Roasario can't play LF. I think we'll have a better idea as this upcoming season progresses.

Yeah, my first thought when Insaw this was that Yu narrowed his list and let us know we aren't on it.

Ah, I missed that his kid wasn't in the organization anymore. But, yeah...Not a serious comment/question in the first place.

Do you think promoting Pudge's son to the bullpen would be enough to lure him out of retirement?

Where's Bryce Harper?