ewen21

Leave me off that list. I also wouldn't want Bryce Harper. There is something about both of these players that cannot allow me to root for them. Machado and Harper both have had their share of silly outbursts on the field along with displays of ignorance and arrogance in interviews and interactions with other players around the league. Sometimes it is actually good to blow a gasket, but Machado completely lost his mind in that series against the A's several years ago. Call that petty on my part or whatever, but baseball isn't all about numbers with me. Machado and Harper are the kinds of guys one associates with modern day baseball and where it is heading. Both players ooze the vibe of "pay me now" and if anyone thought the Darvish stuff over this offseason was ridiculous wait until you see what Machado and Harper are going to try to do this off season. Nope. I do not want either of those guys on the team I root for. So many other stars to choose from. I prefer to point to guys like Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge or Kris Bryant...etc It doesn't come down to numbers every single time with me. Call me crazy, I guess

I have heard some people refer to him as "the face of the franchise" and his "leadership" has been referenced in many different places. First of all, I would much rather have a team with no one designated as the "face of" or the "voice of". I would much prefer a team without those kind of labels. Dozier has been with this team the longest (aside from Mauer) and that is I guess the reason why. I don't know what makes his face THE FACE. He's a smiley faced white guy, I suppose. To me Escobar is more of a leader. I would rather have him up in a clutch situation. Not sure how a guy can be called a leader when the fact is said player was a member of cellar dweller teams for most of his career. He also runs hot and cold to the extreme. And he hits plenty of home runs but feels he needs to bat leadoff although his on base percentage isn't particularly good. I also recall at the beginning of the 2016 season he was moping and caught not hustling on a number of occasions. Then when the team was completely out of it his bat came alive. The last thing I want to hear is stuff about how "he's good in the clubhouse" or that missing him will create a "leadership void". We have to get over these kinds of slogans and catchphrases as a fanbase. Folks get attached to players like Dozier and Cuddyer because they are smiley faced guys who can hold court with the press and they get labeled "voice of the Twins" and "Face of the franchise" by a segment of the fanbase. I think that kind of thing is not only misguided and contrived, but it is also bad for the organization All of that aside, it really doesn't make sense giving Dozier a multi-year deal. We just cannot take that risk. He will be 32 next season and we will be paying him for what he did as opposed to what he will likely be. We also have younger players who can be reasonable replacements right away. I suppose we will miss Dozier's home runs, but even that comes with a catch--as we all know. How many low leverage solo shots can a guy hit?

Simply step away because the risks don't justify the reward of "having fun playing baseball". This goes far beyond baseball. He has a young family and I would not want my brother or my best friend playing given the same circumstances. I sure hope Joe gets some sound advice.

Songs from 1980 seems to work here

Something crazy is happening here

I was hoping for this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXGUD7SlAjw Saw the Twins beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium in 1980 and this song was all over the radio at that time. Ken Landreux laced a single up the middle to put us ahead in extra innings. It was around this time of year, I think it was my birthday or damn near it

I surely hope this is not true

Ehrie

Who is going to be our big toe?

I call him Slayer

He might be shampooed and showered by now

Hicks has a career .232 BA and a career OPS under .700 Span was never this bad as a hitter. As a matter of fact, in his first two seasons he hit .294 and .311 with an OPS above .800 in both seasons. Gomez had some success with Milwaukee, but since then he has been putrid. Not sure how these names apply other than they are all CF. Buxton has some horrendous career numbers from April through June. That is, 91 for 497, which equals a .183 batting average. Optimism is nice, but at some point it loses out to reality. Will he turn it around? I honestly don't know. I guess we will find out, but it is most certainly painful to watch him hit right now. About as bad as anything I have seen AND when you consider all the hype and accolades this is almost unheard of. NOt sure what other teams would "give up" for him at this point.

Relax. No need to get angry.

There is a fine line between negativity and commenting honestly about poor performance

Long and lean. Looks like a shortstop

I can't say Odorizzi has been brilliant. He seems to have an aversion to the number 6

i think it sends a terrible message to not demote these two if they can't turn it around real soon. To not only Sano and Buxton, but to all young players in the system

Honestly, how much of a leash? They get all year so Sano can K 259 times and Buxton can hit .175?? Giving them an unlimited leash to fail says the accountability doesn't apply to these two players.

One last thing before I call it a day here. I have never seen the Twins give a player so much of a support system as Buxton has been given. They have pretty much allowed him to go out there and prove himself and has been given undless support from all corners of the organization. How much longer can this continue? Is he so special that accountability doesn't apply?

Maybe so many people suggest it because it is well overdue? I say send him to Rochester with the assignment that he DH for a week straight. NO glove necessary, just concentrate on hitting. Then have Hunter drop by and have a heart to heart with about changes/adjustments he needs to make in the field in order to survive. The idea that he should be allowed an unlimited amount of at bats when he still has options left and is just 24 makes no sense to me. If it means calling up Cave then so be it. For the purposes of accountability AND putting a better lineup out there Buxton's play has painted us into a corner. How much worse does he need to be?

If I did that I apologize.... I have read your posts and you seem like a good guy. The point I wanted to make is that Buxton's defense isn't countering his putrid offense by a longshot. The sum of his game right now isn't even an average player, even with the defense. He has a negative WAR which pretty much squares up with the eye test, at least in my opinion. For some reason I was concerned about Buxton coming into the season. He is still a bundle of nerves. He started off exactly how I hoped he wouldn't.

Wanna know how many defensive runs saved Buxton has this year? ONE. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=cf&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=200&type=1&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=10,d Just from the eye test, I didn't feel he was making as big an impact as he was last year. I go check it...lo and behold the numbers back it up. I am jogging through my memory trying to remember his truly great catches this year and the truth is that don't come up a whole lot. There is a lot of sensationalism when it comes to his defense. He can cover lots of ground, but he is becoming his own worst enemy.

Sorry, no. The numbers just do not support all the talk about how his marvelous defense saves this team boatloads of runs. He made about as big a contribution as one can make in the outfield last year with his glove. However, he might go (and has gone) weeks without making an upper-echelon catch. Last year for Buxton was a rather uncommon season for an outfielder to have defensively posting an amazing 24 defensive runs saved. We can brag on that and say he was the best defender in all of baseball, but the fact is his defensive wizardry amounted to 24 runs saved according to that metric. Mike Trout was probably the best offensive player with 181 runs created (according to wRC+). Allow that to sink in for a moment and then please acknowledge the difference. Still not convinced offense is a much bigger part of the game than defense at the major league level? The spread between Buxton's 24 defensive runs saved and the worst qualifying CF (Denard Span at -27) is 51 runs. The spread between Trout's 181 offensive runs created and the worst qualifier (Rougned Odor at 61) is 120 runs. As far as Buxton's bat goes, we had reason to feel better going into this season after how he closed out last year. However, I cannot say with any confidence that he CAN hit. What does that even mean? He hit last year for about 200 at bats. Does that sample offer more proof than the 800 other at bats he has had as a major leaguer? That counts only as much as any other consecutive 200 at bats someone can punch up. Miguel Dilone hit .341 over a full season in 1980, but couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat of the rest of his career. Do we say "he can hit" just on the strength of that? I am going to try to tone it down with the Buxton talk for a while. He is a very frustrating player to watch right now. I don't want to hear about the value his glove brings today. It's been so blown up for so long that he is starting to think he is Superman in the outfield. I don't see no S on his chest. Sorry. He literally had no chance with that ball last night. He was almost like a dog chasing a car on that one. It was cringe-worthy, in my opinion. I am almost ready to say send him to Rochester for a while and make him DH exclusively for the first 10 games.