Dave The Dastardly

There's a guy with heavy-framed glasses, a pocket protector, a Mac laptop and a cell phone up in the locker room that put's the question out to 37 different video game buddies and reports their majority vote to Rocco, who then flashes it to the catcher. They got it down to a science... little play on words there. Contextually speaking.

I feel a swindle coming on... We got an orthopedic surgeon on stand-by?

How desperate we are. We have yet to plumb the depths of Old Man Winter, spring training is but a bright spark on the horizon and yet we yearn for the New Messiah, who also happens to be the Old Messiah, to sign with invisible ink on the dotted line and lead us to the Promised Land, which we haven't seen for 40 years. Pathetic. But then we are Twins fans, accustomed to riding plodding camels with the Three Kings; Disillusionment, Disappointment and Diatribe, leading the way. If only we could find the damn stable! Merry Christmas!

So if no other team stays interested in Correa where's his leverage to jack up his salary? That Twins contract Correa just opted out of just might be his best offer. Take it or leave it? With no more opt outs?

The Twins have already made one mistake with Hendricks, letting him go, trading for him would be their second.

What's all this "trade value" talk? Is this Monopoly or baseball? If we look at Arraez' player value all we need to know is he hits the ball, more than anyone else on the team or in the league. Hits put men on base, hits drive in men on base. No hits, no runs.

Ten year deal for hundreds of millions with multiple player opt out options? You call that a "contract"? It's a rental at best.

$50 million is on the low end of the MLB going rate for a mediocre career. I bet he'll have to pinch pennies in retirement.

Wow! TD sure scrambled the info I tried posting. What's the secret to posting chart-like info?

Okay, so the Twins have "Farmed" out shortstop. Unless of course the FO goal is to quickly swap Farmer for two PTBNL, a broken down reliever and a partridge in a pear tree. Anyway, I asked Daddy Warbucks to give us a quick assessment of the financial impact of swapping the two shortstops. Stats (2022) Player Salary WAR HR Ave (Maria?) RibEyes OPS Cost per WAR Cost Per RBI Correa $35 mill 5.4 22 .291 64 .834 $7 million $546,875 Farmer $3 mill 1.0 14 .255 78 .701 $3 million $ 38,461 If you're the Twins accountant (or the Run Creator Coordinator), who's your Daddy?

So does the custodians.

That World War I smell was a clinger. Heard through the grape vine Paparesta fired locker room swamper Dizz N. Terry because he thought the guy was behind spreading that ‘nightmare diarrhea’. Might've had a hand in it. Just goes to show the little guy always gets it in the shorts...

Yep, smart move to clear up the log jam and pick up a decent prospect in return. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Correa to get a return gig with the Twins.

God, that photo looks like a pending double-groiner pull! Lord have mercy! Makes me flinch just looking at it. Pulled one myself in my mid-forties. Doc told me it would take 6 months to recover. I protested. Told him professional athletes recover in a third of that time. Doc told me Number One; you're not a professional athlete, Number Two; you're in your forties, you're lucky you still have a groiner to pull, Number Three; you've never stuck with the physical therapy I've prescribed for your past coaching-related injuries so six months would be a gift in your case. Doc was wrong... took me 7 months to fully recover. But a double groiner-pull? Shoot me!

I've got a jar full of fake silver coins; you know, US mint quarters, dimes and nickels I'll throw in on the Correa deal since they're no longer accepted as legal tender at Fleet Farm, which is no longer "fleet" (took awhile to get checked out) and they're not much into "farm" either. But they do have a large selection of potato chips and peanuts though. "Plow Through Our Chips" is their new farm motto. Anyway, there was this sign on the checkout counter "Please use your plastic to pay for your items as we don't have any coins to make change." What's the country coming to when its own coinages of the realm are no longer legal tender? I suppose partly because you can't even get a Salted Nut Roll anymore without forking over a $2 bill so what do you do with coins? Put 'em in a sock and carry 'em around like a sap? So I'll up the ante for Correa with my coinage. Maybe Correa can drill out his bats and stuff 'em full of coins. You know, since MLB deflated their baseballs and spindly grandmothers can no longer hit moonshot homeruns. Ought to add a couple of points to his OPS. But if he ain't into jimmying his bat, there's gotta be ten bucks in my coin jar. Enough to get Correa a couple two-three bags of chips at Fleet. He can split the take with Boras. Let the chips fall where they may.

I want to know what a Run Creation Coordinator does. Does he teach the players not to overrun second when there's already a player standing there? Hmm. Fail. Or is he a like video game player? You know, overseeing the players' Madden tournament in the club house, making sure nobody tries to claim a two-point conversion when they actually kicked the PAT. Wait a minute... I got it. He leads the team prayer meetings. That's why they call him "The Creator"! Dominus Vobiscum.

Harsh, but hard to fault.

I find this whole "rebranding" thing a waste of time and money. Like Dunkin Donuts spending millions to drop Donuts from their name. Whoppee! I'm sure millions of new customers ran out and stocked up on Dunkins after the name change. WTF! Or if anyone else remembers back when 3M, after a CEO change at the top, spent tens of millions changing their well-known blue "3M" to a red "3M". New guy must have been a genius. I don't know about all you other old-timers but I quick jumped in my truck and bought a couple hundred more cases of sticky notes pads right after. Something about the color change inspired me do it... Hell, I'm still wearing my Vikings stocking cap I bought for their first trip to the Super Bowl. Getting the same result from that cap as all the other caps the Vikings have "re-branded" since... still no trophy. Deep breath... okay, I fell better. The Twins will win,.. The Twins will win... in their spiffy new uniforms Relapse! Relapse! Call the guys in white coats... uh, do they still wear white coats? Mauve? Stripes down the leg? WTF is mauve?

Yeah! That way we can be sub rosa fans until the Twins win the division, thus avoiding potential embarrassment if they again falter, but if they take the division we can drop our pants and prove we've been supporting the Twins, as well as other things, all along!

I got ten bucks that says Bechtold and Banuelos will be gone if the Twins don't put them on the 40-man. It's not like there's a plethora of catching candidates in every other team's minor leagues either. Losing the two catchers would force the club to pull all other catchers in the system up one level, which, obviously, from the article, aren't ready for that sort of promotion. So, organizationally speaking, both "B's" will make the 40 and that means one of the two will start the season in the majors, platooning with Jeffers, and the other will hold down the fort in Triple A waiting for an injury to move up to the Bigs. Only prudent for the team to do so. If the club resigns Sanchez, both the "B's" will still be put on the 40, though one might be dangled as trade bait. But even if one of them is traded from the 40 for the ubiquitous Player To Be Named Later at least the Twins will be getting something in return rather than no return if both catchers are left unprotected.

My semi-scientific opinion: too much effort on building muscle, which in turns stresses joints and connective tissue not designed to handle the extra muscle.

Shortstop Angst According to Team Rankings (https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/double-plays-per-game) the Twins ranked 23 out of 30 teams in double plays per game with an average of .73. Pre-Correa (2021) the Twins averaged .85 per game. Twins finish in the division? 3rd in 2022, 5th in 2021. Number One on the list, St. Louis at 1.11 per game. Last on the List? NY Yankees at .65. Which of the three teams made it to the play-offs? Cards and Yankees. Ponder that. Fielding https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-fielding-leaders.shtml Double Plays Turned at SS 2022 1. Mateo Baltimore 91 2. Seager Texas 91 3. Perdomo Arizona 83 4. Lindor NYM 82 5. Bogaerts Boston 78 21. Correa 51 Putouts at SS 2022 1. Lindor 198 2. Swanson Atlanta 193 3. Baez Detroit 187 4. Rojas Miami 184 5. Mateo 181 15. Correa 157 Assists at SS 2022 1. Mateo 417 2. Seager 407 3. Bogaerts 401 4. Swanson 391 5. Lindor 385 19. Correa 307 Games at SS 1. Swanson 161 2. Turner LA 160 3. Lindor 159 4. Bichette Toronto 157 5. Mateo 149 18. Correa 132 Shortstop Salaries (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/rankings/salary/shortstop/) 1. Correa $35,100,000 2. Lindor $34,100,000 3. Seager $33,000,000 4. Turner $21,000,000 5. Bogaerts $20,000,000 5. Baez $20,000,000 8. Swanson $10,000,000 15. Rojas $5,500,000 28. Bichette $825,000 32. Mateo $709,500 38. Perdomo $701,300 How badly do we need Correa?

As long as we're adding dead weight go for Billy Martin. There's too many marshmallows on this team.

I echo the words of others, none of these guys are titillating. Go with the "pipeline" instead. Less risk, more potential upside.

Sounds promising, but until these pitchers start producing at the major league level the "pipeline" has been more like a bent straw.