Dave The Dastardly

Sounds kinda rocky to me.

"I'm glad I ain't afraid to be lazy." Augustus McCrae - Lonesome Dove You could add me to the same fearless crowd.

Nice article with a great title! Love it!

Thanks for the vid link. Have to agree, he doesn't look grossly overweight. From some of the comments I'd expected to see him using a wheelbarrow to hold his gut in place while he runs down to first. And they saw the camera puts 10 pounds on people. Maybe for the Sanoman the camera takes 10 pounds off.

I think what is lost in the TD discussion is that Dozier's future salary is a relationship strictly between the front office and Dozier and oftentimes the discussion doesn't necessarily take into consideration the relationship between Dozier and Twins fans. Even though the latter relationship impacts the first. Twins fans, in general, like and respect Dozier both on and off the field. Because of that they'll pay (buy tickets, jerseys, etc) to watch him play. If the Twins let him walk and replace him with a virtual unknown that can't equal Dozier's production on or off the field, it's going to cost the organization some ticket sales. It's also going to cost the team some wins. Which is also going to negatively impact the organization's revenue through more lost ticket sales (the well-worn bandwagon metaphor). I'm sure our analytics-oriented FO has a formula that tells them exactly what the trade-off in cost/revenue is between letting Dozier walk and offering him a deal. If so, the team's offer to Dozier, if they make one, and I think they will just to placate Dozier's fans, will be at that inflection point. The problem is recent baseball player salaries often have had little relationship to "value". To be honest, from an economic sense, I believe player salaries have been grossly inflated over the past few years. And that's probably why we're seeing the current lack of activity in the free agent market. Players have been getting more than their "worth" for the last few years and naturally hope to continue doing so and that's what has been distorting the market. What we're seeing now is an adjustment to player salaries closer to real value as determined by the analytics movement. Unfortunately for Dozier, he's going to be caught in the downside adjustment to the market. The Twins will offer him less than he believes he's worth as compared to other similar players already under inflated contracts and therefore it will be difficult for him to accept the Twins' offer. He'll walk out of pride and the Twins will take a public relations whipping for letting him walk if they don't at least make him an offer. Jeez! That's a lot more than I set out to say. Must be that extra cup of coffee I had this morning. Or maybe it's cabin fever. Let's get this season started before I really go nuts!

Twill be interesting to see if any one of the minor league catchers really "catch" on this year. Don't know why, but I'm keeping an eye on Rortvedt. Although this Silva guy also sounds interesting.

I've never given much credence to the "Ace Pitcher" theory. In football you need an "ace" quarterback because he takes the field every game (barring injury of course). Baseball? A pitcher takes the mound every 5th game. That's 20% of the season - again, barring injury. Even if the team wins every time the ace takes the mound, we're talking maybe 30 wins. When's the last time any pitcher won 30 games? How many pitchers have won 20 games in a season in the last five seasons? I think the answer to that question is something like 10 or 12. Too lazy to check that right now. But I bet I'm close. I'm with Doc, give me three No. 2's, a strong defense and some big bats. Three of a kind beats a single ace every time.

Palacios For Odorizzi Not Odoriferous

Shades of Terry Ryan! Empty the dumpsters, raid the old folks home, sign another has-been and keep the prospects down on the farm. The Twins Way!

Ah, the search for a "true ace"! Sort of like looking for a new Messiah; nobody knows what he should look like but we all think we'll know him if we see him. We used to think a "true ace" could win 20 games a year while throwing a minimum of 250. I mean if a guy is a "true ace", as differentiated from a "faux ace" that's not an unreasonable expectation, is it? But how many pitchers have crossed that threshold in the last five years? The answer is none. In fact there's been less than 10 players in the last five years that were 20 game winners and no one met the 20 wins/250 strikeouts yardstick. The closest was RA Dickey in 2012, 20 wins, 230 strikeouts. Quick, all those out there who believe RA Dickey was a "true ace" raise your hands. Thought so. My point is, forget hoping for a new messiah to make a "sermon" on the Twins' mound (little play on words there). Give me five No. 2's (maybe we should define that standard) and I'll feel saved. So will the Twins.

“By definition doesn’t a player stay with you if he’s performing at a value less than what you’re paying him and he’ll walk if he’s performing at a value above it?” Levine said. I haven't yet been "sold" on the new Twins regime, but I don't understand the controversy over that remark. As a man who has in the past been involved in numerous salary negotiations, I think Levine is spot on. The trick is to find that point where the organization is getting exactly what they're paying for and the player is being paid for exactly what they're contributing to the organization. If you can't find that point, its best to walk away from the deal because one side or the other will be disappointed. Disappointment leads to disarray.

Evidence? On a fans' site? I thought we were restricted to hyperbole, uninformed opinions and pure speculation! At least that's been my modus operandi.

May we get what we want, may we get what we need, but may we never get what we deserve.

Now that we've been knocked out of the Darvish Derby, I hope we don't make a deal just to make a deal so the front office can claim a "win" in free agency. I'm thinking about a couple past Rule 5 moves here...

You want to throw in a plow, too?

Remember how those circular ramps vibrated and jiggled under the feet of hundreds of fans leaving after the game? Scared the crap out of this country bumpkin the first few times I felt it.

Well written nostalgia piece. Brought back a lot of memories. Like the author, I remember the sounds and smells of attending a double-header at Met Stadium, my first professional baseball game. Four kids and three adults piled into one car for the 2 hour drive to the stadium. Got a bag of popcorn and an orange pop. Can still remember both the taste and the smell. Didn't break the old man to pick up the tab either. Bob Allison smacked a home run into our left field bleachers, touching off a stampede. Attended a Viking exhibition game that fall as a member (freshman) of our high school football team. Somehow the team got free nosebleed tickets, but we had to wear our team jerseys. I think the Vikes were that desperate to fill up the stadium for exhibition games. Drum up some fans. I had an uncle that played for the Packers in the 40's, so I'd been a Packer fan up till then. I arrived a Packer fan, left a Viking fan. Baptismal event. Been going through hell ever since. Baseball is still my game though. Twins are more like purgatory than hell; hope versus hopeless.

I agree with the writer's conclusion; no dumpster diving, go with the yutes. However I feel compelled to disparage the mythical importance of "team leadership" in players as long as I've taken the time to comment. When the day comes that teams start signing million dollar contracts with guys who can't hit their weight but supposedly possess this mystical team leadership quality, they will in effect have a nothing bat on the bench. How long will the other 24 players on the team revere the dead weight when he fails to deliver a timely hit to win a game? A game they busted their fannies to win? If you want a pinch hitter give me a guy that can hit in clutch situations. He don't need no stinking leadership. In my opinion, if you feel your team needs leadership, get a new manager. It's in his job description.

Count me as one of those old-school fans that likes to mock pitch-framing. If it's so subtle we can't see it, maybe it isn't there. Kind of sounds like the emperor has no clothes.

Well said.

Nice write-up. Interesting league-wide trend regarding the shift from fastballs to breaking pitches. Don't we have a guy named Duffy that's been sort of ahead of the trend? Just saying.

“The mission of Twins Daily is to gather a community of passionate readers around a core of independent, intelligent, and entertaining Twins writers.” “We haven’t had the success we anticipated we could have in developing a large group of independent Twins writers. When we designed Twins Daily, we attempted to create an organic model for growth. Readers become commenters, and eventually they try writing, which they do on their blogs, and then we promote those to the front page.” I’d like to offer something to this discussion without sounding either long-winded or pedantic. It is an endeavor at which I have often failed. Past failures aside, I occasionally do make a point. Most times accidentally. I am both an avid reader and an avid writer. It’s been my experience that the two traits are not often simpatico. A person can be one or the other, or both, but not necessarily to the same degree of “avidness”. In other words, some folks love reading, but either cannot, or have absolutely no desire to pen anything longer than a “Thank You” note while others write well but abhor reading anything longer than a “Thank You” note. Perhaps this explains the popularity of Twitter. I consider myself a semi-professional writer in that I have been paid for my writing efforts; not enough to retire a millionaire, but enough to remain retired without boosting cars or rolling drunks in order to avoid starvation. Though the pay is about the same. For weighting purposes you may consider me a Triple A level writing prospect who will probably never make the Bigs; a sucker for the off-speed pitch. I discovered my own writing interest as a sophomore in high school English composition class. My classmates, often for their own questionable motives, always clamored for me to read my writing assignments to the class, much to the chagrin of our instructor; the Nun of This, Nun of That. To this day, a half century later, I am the only one of my one hundred and fifty classmates who has ever been published anywhere about anything, though many still clamor to read my work. Was I the only classmate who had an ability to write? Far from it. But I was the only one who had the desire to be a writer. Point offered; you can’t reasonably expect to make ordinary readers into “independent, intelligent, and entertaining writers” with any great degree of success. Writers are born, in my opinion, not made. If a person does not harbor a desire to write, he will not become a writer despite all incentives offered to do so. That’s not to say you shouldn’t encourage those who demonstrate the desire. My initial encouragement came from my classmates. And there’s nothing like recognition from your peers when it comes to encouragement. TD’s “Like” system offers that to a degree. Perhaps an additional system based on the number of “likes” earned over the year, or average earned per written effort, and then turn it over to TD readers for a separate vote in some sort of annual award system like “All Star” , “Rookie of the Year,” “Gold Glove”, etc. etc. You could break it down by the various TD features; Forum, Article, Thread, Commentary whatever. Make it a fun thing. Throw in a Bob Uecher Award for best tongue-in-cheek writing, a Sandy Koufax Award for the writer that throws the most curveballs, etc. Post the winners on TD and email each winner a certificate they can print out and hang on their refrigerator at home. Recognition and maximum encouragement with minimal cost. As for my own TD reading habits, I seldom read blogs, mostly gloss over analytical articles, read almost everything regarding minor league prospects, peruse the “what if” articles for off-the-wall ideas, usually catch Tom’s game wrap-ups, but NEVER EVER miss game threads. Even written a few myself. I’ve gone so far as to “listen/watch” a Twins game on the threads alone. No radio. No TV. Why? Quips, banter, one-liners and the occasional intelligent observation. Maybe TD has to win this one for the Quipper.

The Mod Squad makes TD a fun place to be!!!! Thanks people!

Yeah, but we got walleye.

Whiff Stuff. I'm thumbing through the thesaurus...