Rosterman

Wow! What a way to fill up the 40-man roster. What it means to the Twins: Players will be lining up to sign as minor league free agents (unless the regime really changes). This is beyond me at this point.

Okay. At some point you need to send a message far from "Paul Molitor will remain our Manager. in 2017." I'm sorry. Paul is gifted and talented, but heads do have to roll. No matter how joyful was the spin we had on a few consecutive victories, the success of Kepler (for a moment) and Sano (for a briefer moment) and Polanco (for the moment)...a Message has to be sent to Fans that REAL changes will be happening. Yes, these changes will happen at some point no matter what. But with the season basically floundering, another head DOES have to roll, even if you have to pay him to do nothing next season. Will pretty much reinforce in the minds of the ENTIRE coaching staff that their jobs will also be up for grabs in the new season. And with the minor league season winding down, there are any number of bodies you can move -- temporarily -- into the major leagues to work with new and lasting players. No, I would not name a manager from the minor leagues. I would elevate one of the coaches (probably Gene Glynn) for the moment. I might send a couple of coaches packing early and replace them with a couple of folks from the minors (let's see Cliburn get a chance, or Watkins a call). Again, who knows where ALL these guys will end up in the next season anyways. And, yes...there is a search on. That is the biggest worry of the front office and they have to move faster rather than slower, considering all the jobs involved. The team is searching for a new Co-President to head up Baseball Operations. He will probably oversee a staff that currently has 2 VPs (General Manager and Player Personnel), 2 Extra Special Assistants, 5 former player assistants, 1 Manager of Baseball administration and research, a Director of Scouting, A Minor League coordinator, and a Director of Minor League Players...not to mention the various manager/coaching staffs of 7 teams and the main instructors. Over in St. Peter land, we have 2 Executive VPS, 1 Senior VP, 6 other VPs and one special assistant handling stuff that has little to do with who is who on the field. Hummmmm...quite a few Vice Presidents here. I guess we could use two Presidents to run this country! But back to the headline on this missive. Is it time to sacrifice. We just aren't looking at losing 90 games. We ARE looking at losing 100.

But is there some coaching strength in the kinors. Is Dougie and Mike and Jake quality managers getting the msot out of the prospects. Do we hear good works about Chad Allen and Tommy Watkins? Is Jim Dwyer actually a solid hitting coach? Is Cliburn, Artega, Bonilla the real thing? Do the Twins have a solid analytical guy in Joe Vavra? I listen to Bruno talk on the radio and like it, but maybe he needs to be the minor league hitting coordinator, if we trust him with that responsibility. Some of these minor league guys have been around...forever. But looking at the major leagues...did we make right choices by bringing in new blood. We essentially have two pitching coaches in Eddie and Neil. We have three hitting coaches in Vavra and Bruno and Hernandez. We have Butch and Gene doing something. And we have one of the better hitters ever in Molitor who knows and loves the game...but does he know and love the players? He has worked throughout the Twins system, but I'm not sure what he is doing up here in Year Two. The lineup. Has he figured out where to bat whom when yet? Of course, the new GM will have some say in this. The new President of Baseball Operations could do a major housecleaning (or will be doing a lot of interviews of folks already with the organization). But something is amiss. You big guys are failing (Sano to some extent, Berrios who is still early, Buxton who was rushed) yet you can see success in Rosario, Kepler, Santana, Polanco. Wow! Those are 7 powerful names to have on a 25-man roster. We shouldn't be...this...bad.

He should get a looksee. He should probably return to AAA next season. The Twins have to make a hard decision between Park and Vargas. He could push that decision. Palka has essentially passed him on the depth chart, but Palka can still be kept a year behind Walker if the Twins choose. And that is the way the current management would operate. At some point, Mauer comes off the books. At some point, Rosario and Santana become tradable assets. Even with Granite in the wings, Buxton will have to start showing production vs. longterm worth. No, Walker will not start 2017 with the Twins if they keep MOST of their current roster. He could be an able callup if you need a replacement in right or left and decide to call your 4th outfielder (be he Grossman or Santana) a 4th outfielder.

Wonder what scares people about Santana. No one grabbed him before the trading deadline. Yes, he might have cost 3-4 solid prospects. But most teams CAN afford that, if they know what they have in their non-broken down system. His pitching this season has been exceptional. He is cost effective for two more seasons with an option. He would still be a tradeable asset next season (or during the offseason) depending on continued production. The Twins asking too much (shades of the other Santana). There is nothing wrong with keeping Ervin. He is a solid pitcher, takes you late into the games, doesn't seem to be crying about being on the losing end of some tough decisions (yet). He has about six solid starts left. Would he be better than the 4th or 5th guy on ANY of the contending teams? If he is better than the 4th, then you aren't really blocking a future prospect, yet. And nothing happening with Suzuki? Pity. They haven't been playing him as much, and I would like to see Murphy just play in September because...it probably won't matter much as the Twins spiral towards 100 and he, at least, has to learn to catch some of the arms that will remain next year.

What do we do with Walker. Has he been passed by Palka? Does he have value as an add-on for a trade? You can waiver him out. Like Arcia, someone will grab him, even if he just becomes, say, the next Michael Restovich. I start to think that Palka and Walker may be the same decision the Twins had to make in the past with, say, Cuddyer and Restovich. Yes, there is no position for Walker in September, yet he won't go to the fall league (been there, done that). There is actually no position for Walker or Palka in Minnesota next season (baring some trades). Both will start at Rochester next season and one or the other MIGHT be up here in 2018 as the fourth outfielder, bench guy with a chance for a fulltime job in 2019. But I say give Walker a taste to he works extra hard off-season and next year at AAA knowing the major league dream is just around the corner.

But the Twins did go out and got better-than-average starting pitchers. Starting with Correia and continuing thru Pelfrey, Santana, Hughes, Nolasco. We, as fans, clamored that the Twins needed to spend money on PROVEN talent -- not just keep it in stockholder accounts. The pain was they we overpaid. We gave Pelfrey more years that necessary. We did the same with Hughes. The team, committed to being competitive, did what it took to get fan interest away from them stockpiling dollars from the cash cow of Target Field to actually putting some dollars on the field. That the powers-that-be are afraid to gamble $100 million or more, going back to the days of Hunter's contract demand and what it would've cost to retain Santana, is the kink. Who could've predicted that the majority of these paydays to guys who came here because of their payday would so totally go south for the Twins that they would be in a similar boat if they had fielded a staff of cheaper alternatives and One Big Stud. And we were competitive last year because...so many flukes.The top teams were heads-and-tails above everyone in their divisions, and pretty much all the other teams crashed and burned. Coming up from behind, we didn't crash because you couldn't be any lower than you were the year before. The sad point is that unless some guys perform brilliantly in the Fall League, we have this great crop of candidates: Gonsalves, SMejia, Stewart, Cederoth, Jay, maybe Wheeler, Romero, Slegers, Hurlbut, Jorge, LeBlanc, possibly fillers like Greenwood, Bencomo and the still young (25) Duffey. But NOT ONE of these guys is going to throw 150 innings this year and asking any of them to do 200 next year may be impossible. Yes, at this point, it would've been nice to see 2 or 3 besides Berrios get a call to the majors instead of whom we are throwing out there, even if we went with a 6-man rotation in September, and if the 40-man spots existed (yes, the dreaded 40-man, don't add anyone before their time...right now management is probably wishing they hadn't added Berrios until the need this November). It's thinking ahead, but I actually do wonder if the Twins suddenly saw the weaknesses in their drafting ways and were hoping that the BIG signings would carry them thru to 2018 and into 2019 with patchwork from other free agent starters while the offense carried the team. It all boils down to the disaster that became Meyer and May, two guys the Twins traded to be starters, that haven't become starters, and you can readily assume that if Meyer was still with the Twins and if May is converted, neither would be able to give us 150 innings in 2017, which shows you the time that was wasted doing whatever with these two talents. Yet we don't want to part with our prospect talent sooner rather than later, and although the checkbook is open to spend, anyone can spend money, but what you get in return for the money is the true value. And sometimes you overspend for quality because it is quality and maybe you have to hire one less assistant general manager or a couple less ushers and ticket people as your payroll goes beyond that 55% hogwash of your cash cow Target Field, now being replaced in the public eye by the Vikings boat full of human-interest cash machine.

But wasn't the Tom Kelly Twins Way based on learning and performing the fundamentals? You catch the ball, you throw the ball. You pitch the ball, you let the batter hit it and the plays are made. You learn how to watch the pitchers and work the count. That's the base for fundamental baseball. When you draft a pitcher, they have some of the stuff, but usually learn how to change speeds on a moments notice and add a third and/or fourth pitch that will take them from a bullpen job to a starter job...consistently. And the realm of pitching seems to have become so specialized that a starter barely has to go through the order more than three times, although this season the Twins relievers seem to have trouble going through an order once (pitching two or three innings). As a batter, you need to work on working that count. Spotting your pitch, but also the ability to occasionally put the ball in play one way or the other, show some speed on the bases, and work on strengthening your strength in the field, be it left/right movement and the ability to throw hard, long, short or not at all (and then you DH). Sometimes it is as little as shortening up on the bat, or just swinging away, but you have to be able to adjust to situations at the major league level. It is often more than just trying to get a hit. You put together an offense that compliments each other. You make the pitcher afraid of the following batter by putting someone different ahead (not just the left right left right thing so many used to do). You put your guys in the front of the order who will get on base more often in their five at bats in a game and have the one's you don't trust further down the order. You develop a bench so you can pinch hit, pinch run, and still put a guy on the field, and maybe still have a pinch hitter again. How did they do it when the pitcher batted ALL the time (some teams even ahd pitchers capable of being a pinch-hitter). But it all boils down to fundamentals to play the game. But it also boils down to natural talent to win games and be a contender. And the talent is always there. If you would take the worst player from the roster of every major league team right now, they would still probably perform, as a team, competitively better than any AA team, and probably be in contention for the pennant drive in the AAA league, that is how good you have to be to play major league ball. The Twins, sadly, had a recognizable total system breakdown. Call it antiquated management and scouting, a mindset that they just want to put a competitive team on the field (like this year, and rumors of them saying they want to be "competitive" next year....no....you are either building a team that will be competitive period, or you are saying "we are going towards winning it all this year" which cannot JUST be said but has to be abcked up by past and promised performance on the field. The Twins fall in love with their organization and their Twins Way brand and the love of putting on a show that looks like baseball, plays like baseball, but is it baseball. They scout and sign guys who seem nice and need some tweaking, but how good are the tweakers. They seem to move guys slowly thru the system (right now, the 40-man roster has a guy at A+, two at AA that should've been to AAA, and one at AAA that needs to repeat AAA before given consideration for the majors.....these are guys the Twins feared to lose to Rule 5 last year? But in their own way, they now have to keep the guys who possibly risk losing them if put thru waivers...to another team who just might send them thru waivers and get to keep them...or lose them...either way, is it a loss. You even look at the present, coming off of five years of major league drafts, and who do you have AAA level to call up, or even consider adding to the 40-man? Name them. The prospects not already on the roster compared to the crap that you signed to throw against the wall to see if they can stick and help out for a moment. That's is fine to do that. Before the BIG DRAFT the minors were full of experienced players that sometimes played a decade in the minors looking for that once chance to get to the majors (now we have the indy leagues). There is something wrong when you down have Melotakis, Landa, Jones playing at AAA, all guys on 40-man rosters this year. Ready to make a play in spring training. Is the problem in the minors the longevity of the managerial and coaching staffs, the coordinators (Rassmusen and Perlozo), all the consultants we have (Oliva, Hrbek, Blyleven, Carew, Laudner, Smalley, Kelly, Gardy). And to sum up, yes, The Twins Way was fundamental baseball....which we were praised for over decades but looking at the team this year...the fundamentals are not there. Lots of strikeouts. No innings from the pitchers. Fielding that is a disaster (we yell about Sano, Polanco is making his share of errors, Kepler just made another one). Total System Failure!

So true. If the process doesn't work out, then the Twins have a lot of empty seats. But, hey, that 45% of their revenue that they don't spend on 40-man salaries has to be spent somewhere.

Was over at the State Fair grounds visiting the pitiful Twins booth where staffers are sitting behind table devoid of people who want to buy short-season passes and such. They have a nice little playing field buried in the back that kids are having fun playing a bit of wiffle ball. Not sure if even Tony Oliva is showing up for his customary player appearances. Happily, they don't have televised games in the booth and the radio station next door is anything but Twins oriented. But, hey, a guy is selling a great book on Twins history. What I want to see, besides all the former player jerseys and other promotional items going for some bucks back to the Twins, is maybe an auction of those players the Twins don't really need. Okay, Minnesota Twins, some million plus people from across the state (and even Midwest) come to the Fair. I saw "Play Ball" was handing out plastic bats and a ball. TC does appear in the parade (I think). But pretty pitiful when you are basically using the fair as a garage sale of unwanted merchandise. You need to add a unique food vendor. You need to have alumni appearances. You need a big screen television showing Twins games (bad or good). You need people handing out pieces of cardboard with website links, the schedule, something, anything to excite fans. You find some performance art group to do baseball skits. You make it a showcase of activity...not just a place to sell off merchandise (and you are still making a good buck on junk). Heck, have your disabled list players down there signing autographs for the kids. Do something!

So, does that mean DEAN gets sent down today. I mean, you give him another shot. And what's with Tonkin. Is he not telling us of some hidden injury, perhaps. But never fear -- Boshers and Milone will be coming of the DL!

It's not the organizational meetings that is the Big IF on the horizon, it is the end of the World Series and then the Winter Meetings. Something has to be in place by then. If you are looking for a Director of Baseball Operations/President, then you are looking for a GM, probably two assistant GM's, a Director of Player Personal, a Director of Scouting and a Director of Minor League Operations, not to mention a Field Manager and then his coaching staff. That's an awful lot of jobs that could have major turnover in the organization on the side of baseball operations, and the trickle down could also come to all the minor league coordinator, manager and coaching positions, too. Whew!

I still don't understand totally why they couldn't get anything for Suzuki and Plouffe last year, and also this year. Okay, maybe I can. Cost vs. production. They are overpaid. They are not essentials. There are other comparable players in the whole world of baseball. Sadly, the Twins somehow have a roster of players that are replaceable at little or no cost, except that the Twins have put them on payroll at a cost that is not appealing to anotehr team (except for Dozier, and anyone that is a rookie).

Okay. The Twins are sitting at one free 40-man spot. They can add Park to the 25-man September 1 and then put him on the 60-day, freeing up a second spot. Those two spots should go to Beresford and Wheeler. Wheeler, because we do have to see if he is better than Dean and Albers. Beresford, to reward him for his service to the team and the possibility that you can resign him for depth come 2017. Of course, Buxton will return. Murphy will get a call. Vargas will be back up. Those are givens. Berrios and Duffey will return. I would also like to see Walker brought up to sit on the bench and get the "major league experience" to see if it hungers him for the of-season. Unless the Twins get rid of Suzuki (which will happen before September 1st to Cleveland, we won't see Garver. I almost expect that the Twins will send him to Arizona to work exclusively as a catcher before adding him to the 40-man in the offseason. No need to add Stewart, Gonsalves, Palka or others at this point, although the current roster does have lots of deadwood - Albers, Dufffey, Dean, Milone, Bosher, possibly O'Rourke. There is no need to keep Centeno on the 40-man. Of course, if you add Beresford and Wheeler to go with Wimmers, and none produce accordingly, you don't have ti keep them, either. You have Plouffe and Santiago on the bubble -- both of whom may be left to the new GM for decision-making but both overpaid in their final arbitration year. Better to cut them loose now, and then able to resign them in the off-season when another team passes on them - or so I think. But what do I really know. I would explore doing something, anything, with Park. He has potential to hit a lot of homes runs, but creates a logjam until Mauer disappears in two years...and you need to play Park for what, three years? I would rather find time in the DH for Palka, Walker, Sano, Vargas or even Mauer. I like Plouffe. Always have, always will. But I jsut don't see committing the funds to keep him. We have an outfield. We have alternatives at third base. We can't play him at first or DH with the current mess. And he might cost upwards of $9-10 million.

Turner would be a good major league ready catcher if he catches a few more prospects that will be in the majors. He should be at Rochester next season. You can use him if you have someone else catching 90-100 games. Same with Mitch. With his time behind the plate, he is just a parttime catcher at this point and needs to learn to handle the major league staff, which may not be so hard in the immediate future as many of his minor league cohorts will be major league guys. If Suzuki leaves, I would like to see Garver and Murphy continue to handle the catching duties, only now in Minnesota. Centeno is fine, but I would not keep a 40-man spot reserved for him. You may keep him into the winter in case you need a free agent spot, but you could probably resign him as a minor league option. But there is NO room for Garver to be a DH or play 1B. And please don't have him play the outfield. He doesn't need to be...Chris Herrmannnnnnn!

Okay, you have Eddie, Allen, Bert and Santana talking to Berrios and throwing things at him. But what is the fix. What is he NOT doing that he continues to do in the minors. He will get better, but how... EVERYONE, TREVOR MAY will not start a game in 2016. He barely pitches an inning as is. If the Twins wanted him to start, he needed to be used as a Swarzak-type, in long relief, and then groomed back up to 80-100 pitches when he was in minor league rehab. It is even doubtful NOW that he would be a starter out of spring training, unless he starts in winter ball somewhere. We hopefully get to see 30-days of Wimmers and he knows it is sink or swim with him and the Twins, period. There is no going back down and working on stuff...the depth for the bullpen MAY be too deep and have passed him by come mid-2017. It would also be nice to see 4-5-6 starts from Wheeler to see if he can perform as well as Santiago currently is performing or Milone has performed. Yes, it is fine to give major league money to Dean and Albers and maybe they will resign as minor league free agents with the Twins in 2017 if we need the depth at Rochester. Heaven forbid if either are kept on the 40-man, and Duffey may also have worn out his welcome for such a spot, too. Unless Duffey goes to the pen and shows he is lights-out curve ball in 2-3 inning stints out of the bullpen. Hey, he might've been our ONLY pitcher with a chance to win 10 games this year. Imagine a 162-game season without a 10-game winner on the starting staff. When has that last happened? I'm sorry. I'm confused about Plouffe, the no takers for Suzuki, the end of Park for the season. Mauer is hobbling. The line-up still changes. Danny Santana starts. Does Sano need to be called out again. Does anyone really care? How many tickets will be really cheap on StubHub in September as the Twins reach for a 100-loss season.

Well, Albers and Dean. Sigh. Too bad Logan Darnell is again, injured, at month's end. Otherwise..... Sadly, I would rather see Wheeler and Mejia get the call. I expect both of those guys to contribute something in 2017. Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Albers or Dean. Good for them. But..... I guess two starts for Berrios to work on whatever it was Blyleven/Santana/ Allen/Guardado discussed with him. Would like to see Duffey work out of the pen and come back as a long man (why do we only egt an inning out of our relief pitchers...isn't Rogers AND someone long guys, or should be long guys, in games we are losing). I'm watching StubHub for CHEAP September seats for Twins games as they play their final 36, needing 22 loses to hit 100.

Yes, Duffey may be teh second coming of Scott Diamond. If he must start, send him down. But I would rather look at him as a long relief, middle innings guy and see if he works there. For the now, though, send him down and let us look at Wheeler. Same with Dean. NOT in the future plans. We NEED to look at Wimmers and make a short-term decision. Why not add him and Wheeler to the 40-man NOW and bring them both up to pitch more than less. Duffey has made himself a non-roster guy with his recent work. The potential is there, but do you need to keep him on the roster above and beyond a minor league invite. Of course, you may lose him, but what is the downside to that.

I still struggle to see where he will fit into Twins plans. Of course, that is up to the next general manager. We have Palka and Walker in the wings. We need to keep Vargas around or lose him. We can always claim Arcia the next time he goes thru waivers. We might be able to talk Ortiz out of retirement. We will resign Plouffe and move Sano to DH fulltime. Okay, problem solved. Let's move lots of bodies elsewhere. I wonder what will happen to that Twins commercial featuring Park that they filmed earlier this summer.

You have to know that ANY prospects promoted will have some rough times up here. That is what the coaches and the manager are around for, to make sure they do work out or...goodbye. Not every player is a rookie-of-the-year superstar in year one, or even year two. We do have arms like Gonsalves and Stewart and Jay and Cederoth and someday Jorge and Thorpe. Plus guys like Wheeler who can't be any worse than Dean/Duffey/Milone. But we won't know until they get a shot. And May will be a partial starter because he needs to stretch out and get his routine back together. What we have learned is that we shouldn't spend $150 million on three middle-of-the-order guys longterm.

College is all about baseball. Going for the extra bases.

I don't see the Twins spending $100 millin on Ramps. He is not...Mauer in his prime, fer sure. That is a lot of bucks for someone who is coming off a career year. Sadly, the Twins will stick with Murphy, which still means Garver will be in the mix. I just have a hardtime paying Plouffe whatever he will get in arbitration, unless you plug him in as a jack-of-all trades. Keeping Plouffe means you don't need Vargas and you don't need Park. You have to pony up and make the decision longer term. You keep Plouffe for a year and lose him to free agency, or sign him for 2-3 years in the $25-30 million range. Then you let Vargas walk (or sell him to Japan) and possibly do the same with Park. I don't see much trade interest in either, unless packaged with a prospect or two for some minor league depth...which is not out of the question as the Twins may have a prospect or two they can't protect this year or next. Pa;la will need to be a 40-man add. But like Walker, who he is slowly passing, he will have to spend time in the minors, which means you still keep Grossman (who is cheap) as well as Santana on the off-season 40-man. Both players are on the fringe for the team, so IF you do sign a free agent, you have some wiggle room. Although the Twins making a $$$ free agent splash will probably not happen. At this point, Santiago is a lost cause, it seems. He would be another Mike Pelfrey if you resigned him thru arbitration, not knowing what you get and expensive, even if he does produce. I don't see him pitching to 15-7 with a three-something era next season. You essentially save some money that you aren't paying him or Pelfrey, and cutting ties with Meyer, who didn't look like he would be a starting option next season (hell, he only threw how many innings this year) and likely to be bypassed as a bullpen option, was probably a godsend. The question with moving May to the bullpen is the ability to throw innings. Will he be able to do 130, 150? How is that decision made. It is also a tough call on Duffey, who could join Dean and Albers in free agent land. If Duffey is, indeed, the longman out of the bullpen, let's start looking at that now, today. See how he is coming into a game in the 6th inning. It may mean more Dean and Albers and Santiago in the rotation this season (but let's look at Meija and Wheeler, too), but if you are looking at changing roles for next season, do some looksee now. The bullpen as a whole looks pretty weak, depending on the return of Perkins. You forgot about Pat Light, Ryan O'Rourke and possibly Alex Wimmers. Those names alone offer some competition to a group that will is pretty even in the competitive throwing field. Pretty much all these names will get a looksee in spring training: Jones, Hildenburger, Reed, Burdi, Bard, Gonsalves, Besenitz, Melotakis and maybe even Greenwood. Few of those are probably ready to come out throwing at the spring training in the majors, but expect ALL of them to have an impact sometime in 2017...although I don't know where on the 40-man all will be placed. The new general manager will have a task. We have Plouffe and Mauer blocking players, yet some of those players (Park and Vargas) really don't have a lot of worth. Even Walker, in the mix, is not someone you are getting lots of calls about. We have questionable fielding at 3rd and SS if we place Sano and Polanco there, yet who are our choices? Better them than, say, a Plouffe who could walk (and would his stock be high in mid-season, considering he will be a free agent, than this season or last). Do you like Polanco over Escobar? What to do with catcher? Spend money on Ramos, forcing shot/longterm decisions on Murphy, Garver, Turner down to Murray and Navaretto. If Park would return to Korea or somewhere, would you do it? What if Buxton still struggles...is Granite a future answer? And pitching, pitching, pitching. Going into 2016, I actually felt that if healthy, the Twins had a rotation that would get us into the 7th inning. How wrong was I. And even though the bullpen has showed some life and strong arms, they still haven't been put to the test in keeping the Twins ahead in games and working in a win-win situation. Yes, you have pressure everyday when playing in the majors, but it is different when a win counts compared to just trying to stay in the game...or finish the game. Would like to see you take a run at the Twins 40-man roster, as well as current members of Rochester/Chattanooga. Are they keepers or fluff. Look at each membere of the team and try to judge their worth in the major league marketplace. If there was an expansion draft, who would the Twins lose. Who on the team would a general manager actually call to discuss as a trade possibility. Who are placesetters for 2017. Out of all the players on the 40-man and the two upper levels of the minors, who COULD find a place on any 40-man roster for a different team in 2017 and should the Twins go there. Those are the pressing looksees of the new general manager. Working with what the Twins have that may be of modest or little value, figuring out the possibilities of immediate prospects, and looking at system depth out towards 2018/2019.

Considering all the names the Twins grabbed from free agency for pitchers since that wonderful 2012 season where we had Marquis, Diamond, Liriano, Deduno, Walters, Hendriks, DeVries, Vasquez and Blackburn (at his worst)...The Twins went and spent money on Hughes, Nolasco, Santana, Pelfrey, Correia and Stauffer. They traded for Worley, Kris Johnson, Milone, Santiago, Meyer, May, Mejia and Hernandez. You can name one hand the names that came from the Twins system in the past five years. We spent a lot of money on some talent. We traded little to get some names back (except we have ahd a shortage of real centerfielders since the trading spree of outfielders began).

Brunansky did some talk on the morning show on KSTP last week about players having multiple coaches and how you, the team coach, deals with all those other people offering advice. The easiest is that everyone's remarks are funneled thru one person. The second best is Bruno's approach, where he listens to the player's take on the advice, why they are listening, asks about their feelings about what they are doing, and then goes forth from there, discussing how we should actually tackle this problem and the advice. The player, first, ahs to recognize that something isn't working. They should feel it, or see it, at some point.

Vargas got caught in a numbers crunch. Arcia got caught in a numbers crunch. How many more players will be caught in this numbers crunch. Do the Twins know who they have, who they should be looking at, whom they should be trying to trade for...say, more future depth and numbers crunch then. At some point bad play plus losses means you go beyond Boshers and Santiago and Grossman and such and do give moe mileage to rookies, or even rookies further down the on ramp. What you have on the field now is not doing it!