Dave The Dastardly

Until Dougie takes over I'll remain skeptical.

I get the feeling the Twins staff was short-armed by this report. Everyone knows the most accurate information is on Twitter.

Is that Placebo, or did you really mean Palacios?

"USBS has the same entrance system as Target Field: basically empty your pockets" Tom, you got that right.

Did they hold a gun on you?

How come lefties are the only pitchers that are crafty? I mean have you ever heard of a crafty righty? Is it a left-brain, right-brain thing? And what's that mean if you're a lefty but you aren't considered crafty? Does that mean you're dumber than a rock? Or just guileless? Somebody help me out here... I'm ambidextrous. Don't know which way to turn.

I agree whole-heartedly. I've argued against trading Dozier for prospects all along. The Twins have plenty of prospects already in the system. If they're going to build a team for the future they need to find out if the young guys mentioned can play at the major league level now. If they can, Dozier fits. If they can't, we need more than a Dozier trade to build a winning team.

2020? Is this like a Back to the Future kind of hindsight thing? This winter must be more severe than I thought.

Nice lead!

Good question. What's the end game? Are we trying to get back to .500 ball or just playing Make A Deal?

I'm giddy. Is that a picture of the pitcher Diaz with a 1-8 record? If so, how come he's holding a bat? Did his former coach force him to carry a bat around to remind him that's what he's supposed to miss when pitching?

Lighten up dude! The Twins aren't playing (although that might be construed as a blessing), the Vikings have forgotten how to win, the T-Wolves suck (as usual) and I heard the hockey team (what are they called again?) is doing their usual inconsistent thing and winter is slowly tightening its grip around our throats and pretty soon will have us by the balls (don't be alarmed - that's a little play on sports there). What else do Minnesota sports fans have to do right now but be preposterous? A fan's gotta survive any way he can. Even if he has to invent fecal matter. (Will that slip past the censors?)

I agree with the low bar setting. Twins' fans have become so desperate for any signs of improvement they'd go ga-ga if the current management ordered a new case of bats. I guess we'd have to better define "bold and strong" before passing judgement. I don't know how bold it is to realize you don't have a catcher, then go out and sign one. I mean what were the Twinkies going to do next year, just let the pitch roll to the backstop? For me "bold and strong" would be convincing ownership to let Molitor go and replacing him with a manager that's proven he can work with young players, has a temperament that doesn't allow players to continually screw up and knows how to win. Dougie for Molli. Now that's bold and strong in my book.

A) Signed for two more years at a comparatively low salary is a plus, not a minus. Age 30 is no longer the line in the sand it used to be. If it were, why do we have minor league players age 26? Even if we brought them up to the majors in 2017, they'd be toast in three years. Besides, wasn't the new brain trust hinting they wanted to acquire an older player to supply that intangible "leadership"? C) If Dozier's value is predicated on him being able to help a play-off level team, why would that team give up a key player, or pitcher, (which is supposedly what we're after) to get him? Especially if pitching is king? Why cut their own throats? D) What do the Twins have, 5 minor league teams? And none have a potential No. 2 pitcher on their roster? (I'm assuming that also means we don't have No 1's down there either.) Jeez! Clear the deadwood out before they turn 30 and draft nothing but pitchers. And get new scouts and new pitching coaches. E) The current pitching staff woes on the major league team isn't the core issue, instead it's a symptom of an organizational problem. Trading Dozier for one or two more "prospects" is a short term "fix"that will not solve the organizational problem. If anything, our dysfunctional minor league system will screw up the pitching prospects while the major league team struggles to find an RBI guy to replace Dozier. Completely overhauling the minor league philosophy and its coaching staff as well as replacing the scouting department will prove more beneficial in the long run than a Dozier trade, so why spend precious time playing Let's Make A Deal? Forget it, and bring Dougie up to the major league club as bench coach/manager of the future. There. That's my two cents worth, which adjusted for inflation is probably somewhere around $20 nowadays. Still not worth much.

I don't get all this excitement over the possibility of trading Dozier. We (the Twins) finally get a genuine power hitter, after not having one for years, and the first thing we want to do is swap him for a pitching prospect? What? We don't have any pitching prospects in our minor league system? Oh, wait a minute, we supposedly have a half dozen or so exciting prospects already in the minors. If we want to believe the hype. And if we believe the hype, why do we want another prospect? Does that word "prospect" mean something different than what I think it means? Trading Dozier reminds me of folks already in debt up to their elbows getting a new credit card; temporary euphoria because they can keep buying new stuff, but a long-term problem when they realize they gave away the farm for a cheap temporary thrill. I noticed the author of this article termed the JJ Hardy trade as "regrettable". I think the Dozier trade, if it happens, will wind up with the same characterization when all the "experts" start complaining about the lack of power in the lineup. The point is you can't build a winning team by exchanging one component for another. Especially when the newly acquired component may or may not pan out. Unless our long term plan is to trade some of our pitching prospects for a power hitting prospect in a year or two (swapping out components again), I say keep a known quantity (Dozier) and build your new team around him. Otherwise you're merely playing whack-a-mole.

I don't like the theory at all. We've screamed for years about the Twinkies always picked up reclamation projects off the baseball players scrapheap and throwing their salaries away by mid-season when "hope" that the Twins Way would rescue them from incompetence vanishes. This flipping idea is worse and sounds more like going to the casino when you're short rent money. Here's a smarter strategy in my humble opinion; bring up all those not-so-young-anymore prospects that have been languishing in the minors while we try and milk a few wins out in the majors and find out if they're really as good as the hype. If they are, we have lots of decent players under team control. If they can't cut the mustard, flip them to another team and restock the minors with more "prospects". You want a "consistent long-term winner" as the new brain trust's announced grand strategy has proclaimed, that's the way to do it. Not short term flipping.

I wouldn't call the dismissal of two coaches a "shake-up". And dismissing Bruno but retaining Allen who's pitching staff owned the bottom of the major leagues smacks of illogical thinking for two guys supposedly into analytics. Hey, you're either into using data or you're not. If you are, Allen should've been out the door ahead of Bruno. Neither have I been impressed with the new management's degree that their plan is to build a team that consistently does well over the long term. Jeez! What a revolutionary concept! I bet there isn't another team in baseball that ever thought of doing that. If it's first occurring to the Twins organization I guess we were even further behind the ball than I thought. And they're going to add an experienced free agent player for "leadership"? How about adding a guy who can hit, or pitch? If you're worried about leadership, get a different manager. Leadership is supposed to be in his job description. Isn't it? Sorry folks, but I'm not jumping on the bandwagon quite yet. I need to see something besides platitudes and minor tweaks before I break out the Homer Hanky again.

Thank You for the interpretation.

What's that mean in American?

#18 Because I misplaced my self-flagellation whip.

Prospect Rankings are like the old Seer-Sucker Theory; for ever Seer who claims he can predict the future, there's some sucker who believes him. There's only one way to "predict" whether or not a guy is going to cut it in the Majors; put him there, let him play and see what happens.

A-Rod comes with some baggage? That has to be the understatement of the year. The guy has more character flaws than Donald Trump. Well, maybe not that many. As a mentor for the young Twinkies? Huh? You mean like how to avoid getting caught doing PEDS, then lying about it after the evidence was solid against him? Adding A-Rod to the Twinks would be like driving a stake in Dracula's heart. I can think of no better way to drive away what fans the Twins can still count on.

Carlos Gomez? "The" infamous Carlos Gomez of inconsistency fame? Why waste the money? We can have the inconsistent Buxton on the squad for less dough. Besides, glancing at the roster, the Twinkies are long on outfielders anyway. I'd rather see a young'un get a chance than pick up another oldster off the junk heap.

Sorry, but I just have to jump in here and throw a wet blanket over some of the posted opinions. If this gets rather lengthy, shoot me. 1) Regarding search firms. I have had some experience with search firms on a personal level and I have never been impressed. In my experience they are no better or no worse on selecting the "perfect" candidate than an organizational committee. Just take a look at both Mpls and St. Paul school boards record for hiring superintendents as well as the Univ. of MN when hiring AD's. All three use search firms and all three replace "perfect" hires almost yearly. The real role for search firms is to provide a scapegoat for when the new Messiah trips on his robe. Let's face it; hiring is always a crapshoot no matter who's making the decision. 2) Get over this bias against internal candidates. Just about anyone worth his salt is going to be an internal candidate at some point in his career. If he's not, why does he have a responsible role in the organization? Yeah, he may have followed along with his former boss' beliefs and methods, but what else do you expect from a trusted employee? But going along with the boss doesn't mean all internal candidates are clones of the former boss. A good organizational man/woman will have observed what works and what hasn't worked and formed their own ideas of what they would do different if they were in charge. That's a plus that no external candidate will have; that first hand knowledge within the organization. 3) What serious outside candidate would risk their career coming to the Twins? The owner has already "hired" the manager for next year, the major league club is pitiful and a long ways from posting another winning season, the minors are full of unproven "prospects" that may or may not pan out but need to be brought up to the Bigs in order to determine if they're major league material, the organization itself is dysfunctional and the ownership is notorious for doing things on the cheap. So if you're an up and coming GM candidate and anxious to prove your moxie so you can someday move on to a big name club, would you want to roll the dice and hire on with the Twins? As we used to say in my business, paraphrasing of course, the Twins are a ball club where GMs go to die, not build a career. So if the team can't attract serious external candidates, are we better off to hire a marginal candidate just because he's "external"? 4) Quit with the analytics. Yeah, its a helpful tool, but it's just that; a tool. One of many needed to run a ball club. You wouldn't hand a mechanic one wrench and expect him to overhaul an engine so why would anyone expect a GM to be a one trick pony with analytics? General Manager means the guy has to be good at overseeing an entire organization, not just one department. If the guy can't get all the departments on the same page, analytics isn't going to save his ass. Or put the Twins back in the "not-embarrassing" portion of the win column. My advice, give Antony the next few months to prove he's not a Terry Ryan clone and instead of wasting time and money on "searching" for an outside candidate, let it be known external candidates will be considered and see who wants to throw his hat in the ring. It may be humbling.

Landlines ceased to exist about the same time the human species was irretrievably linked to cell phones. We are now the Borg. Resistance is Futile. Sort of like the Twins.