Article: With Hope of Contention Gone, What's Next?

[nclahammer]

 

I just want to step back a second from the assumption that the season is over, and the games are meaningless, once we are out of the playoff hunt. You know what? They are all meaningless! It's a game! And games are for fun!

 

You don't have to win the World Series to enjoy baseball. It's also fun to win GAMES! Every game counts!

 

If the Twins' young hitters rebounded in the second half, and we won more games than we lost the rest of the way out, I would not say, who cares, it's too late, these games give me no joy because we are too far out of it for them to mean anything. I would go, yeah! We are winning again, and I like it! I'd have happy thoughts, like, I knew it! This team isn't as bad as looked. The awesome young core is back! Maybe we are not as far off as we thought! Maybe we were right all along -- this team could make some noise, once people get back from injuries, and live up to their potential! What would be bad about that???

 

No question, it was much more fun last year when those games were part of a pennant race.  The chance to knock the Yankees out of the playoffs gave them ten times more awesomeness. 

 

But was last year a failure because we flopped in the playoffs? It sucked, but we had a good ride! Remember how astonishing it was to have all our players hitting at once? 

 

That's why it was so hard this year when it stopped (except for the Eds). It would be a huge relief to me to see that wasn't a flash in a pan, and all that hitting talent is still there, waiting to explode!

 

Personally I would be thrilled to watch Buxton, Sano, Kepler, and Polanco tear it up in the second half again, even in "meaningless games."

 

Which is not to say, don't ditch the veterans who won't be here next year anyway, they are just clogging the way for the young people from reaching their potential. Is Litell, Mejia, Slegers, or Gonsalves more likely to make it into a playoff rotation? Maybe now is the time to find out! (As long as you don't short-circuit the development needed to reach their potential, of course.)

 

But Belisle and LoMo wouldn't be missed. Same for the good rentals, like Lynn, Rodney, Duke -- I have no sentimental attachment to them, so by all means, trade them for someone who might help next year, and see what the AAA guys got. 

 

But unless we got something of real, significant value for Dozier and Escobar, I'd rather see them play out the string, and maybe help the team  have a second half worthy of our pre-season expectations. Wouldn't it be fun to finally see that lineup of Mauer, Dozier, Polanco, Rosario, Escobar, Buxton, and Sano firing on all cylindars?

 

I agree there's no point watching old guys who won't be here next year win an occasional game. But trading off every veteran for pennies on the dollar, and slogging through a depressing second half with AAAA players, would not be fun either. I'd still like to see a good team, based on a core of players we can imagine growing into a contender. So if keeping a half dozen veterans around puts them over .500 in the second half, I'm fine with that, too.

 

I'm just saying, every win between now and October is a real, live win, a genuine victory. You have every right to celebrate winning GAMES, not just championships. Let's not lose sight of that. I'm all for dreaming about the potential of a glorious future, too--that's part of what makes little successes fun. I just don't think we should devalue good things that happen this year because we won't also win a championship. Take what you can get. The first half sucked -- but maybe the second half won't!

 

[nclahammer]

I think we need to put the white surrender flags away and see what this team can do with its full line-up that includes Buxton, Sano, and Santana.  I'm looking forward to enjoying the rest of the season, playoffs or not.

[ashbury]

Since I don't think there is any chance of Molitor being fired, the following is conceptual at best. Knowing it will be almost impossible for Falvine to fire Molitor anyway, I would tell him that here's the deal: We are in analytical mode. We will supply the roster with The players we want analyzed. You will play them. Do that and your won lost record is irrelevant. Don't do it, and we will move heaven and earth to see you to the door. Again, my first, second and third choice is to see him simply gone. Preferably before the ASG. But that ain't gonna happen folks.

I don't feel like Molitor is a bad manager, but I do agree that he seems to be single-minded about making lineup decisions as though it's September in a pennant chase, even when it's April and May, and even when the course of the season by June or July tells us that post-season contention is not possible. Starting Bobby Wilson is evidence of that - even if you disagree with him as to whether Wilson gives the team a better chance to win this particular day's game than Garver or Astudillo, his choice gives a view of Molitor's relative weighting of today versus tomorrow and beyond.

 

With his multi-year contract, you would think he wouldn't need assurance that the W-L record going forward from here won't be held against him as evidence he didn't try. But I think his boss, Levine, needs to tell him in clear terms how he'll be judged for the rest of the season, namely for teaching and for player evaluation, and let Molitor then manage accordingly.

 

I wouldn't have thought this would even need to be debated, but apparently it is. I think I've seen it said that one of Molitor's positive attributes is that he's humble, but maybe the flip side of that is a little bit of insecurity. Odd, if so, for a Hall of Famer, but people are who they are. It's conceivable that a "never good enough" attitude drove him to his success, yet may hold him back here.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Yeah DFA Brian Wilson, we don’t need his good, good, good....good vibrations when we’re this down in the dumps.

 

DFA Bobby Wilson while your at it, he can’t hit fer crap!

God Only Knows why Bobby Wilson is still on the roster.

 

Wouldn't It Be Nice if we tried Astudillo at catcher?

[blindeke]

great list of suggestions