sdangus

The use of the disabled list to limit the time players need to stay on the 40 man roster should be a highly frowned upon practice, if it is not legitimate. These 2 Twins prospects have already missed the last 2 seasons of their careers, so being stashed on a roster or heaven forbid bogged down on a disabled list will be crippling to their careers.

I don't think Cruz's bat was as consistant at the end of the season. Was it an injury issue or time catching up? And that was just on a short season. Would a long season look even worse as the season wears on? Pitchers also seemed to start throwing him more sliders and at times he looked kind of helpless against them. Is the aging process causing him to cheat a little on the fastballs and leaving him more vulnerable to the sliders. I don't claim to be an expert on any of that, just throwing out those possibilities and wondering if the Twins see the same things. That would definitely cause them to rule out a 2 year contract.

I think it might all be about the fact that he wouldn't sign a contract in front of the deadline and the Twins didn't want to take a chance on his salary. Given that, I think it might also be about flexibility. If they do sign someone in free agency as the closer, and do sign a starter or 2 to bring in as well, there is going to be a lot of potential pitchers pushed into bullpen duty. Thorpe is out of options. Romero, should he work himself into the picture, is out of options. Dobnak probably deserves a roster spot. Alcala seems like he belongs. Stashak seems like he might belong. And there needs to be opportunities for guys like Colina, Chalmers, and probably Duran. Smeltzer is still around as well. I know that a lot of these guys are not proven commodities, but they need opportunities to prove it. And if the front office choses to take advantage of the vast amount of relievers available on the open market, it gets even tighter.

How about 6 years for $80 million. I see salaries of 8, 10, 12, 14,16,18 and an $2 M buyout on a $20 salary for the 7th year.

The thing is, if there is no DH in the NL, then Cruz is on the bench for interleague games, which cuts into his overall worth.

I can't see the Twins spending big bucks when there's no guarantee a season will even happen. I think they would have to spend a lot of prospect capital to get a starting pitcher that would make a difference. I would like to keep our prospects that may be the future of this team for a long time to come. Maybe next year at this time we will be talking about adding supplemental players that can compliment those new stars. Just my thoughts.

I think if the Twins believe they are not going to be able to sign Cruz, they are more likely to cut a pre-arbitration deal with Rosario. I doubt the Twins will let it go to the uncertainty of arbitration.

I think if you ran the same analysis on any major league team, you would find the same hit and miss track record on their high picks. By only picking out the failures, you fail to see the picks that turned out to be quite good, given where they were picked and what the other options were around them.Scott Baker, Denard Span, Ben Revere, Aaron Hicks, Kyle Gibson(if he hadn't been picked in front of Mike Trout). And you have to consider that a great number of the picks failure was due to health reasons I saw Matt Bashore mentioned here. He, too, could not stay healthy and was eventually released. But years later, I saw him pitch for either the Sioux Falls Canaries or the team they were playing that night. He was fabulous. And not long after the Yankees signed him to a new minor league deal. He pitched quite well for them in 2012, then he was gone again. Probably injured again. As someone else said, this is a lot of times a shot in the dark. Mookie Betts was definitely a shot in the dark. And many others as well. I personally would have picked someone other than Nick Gordon or Tyler Jay. But people with far more expertise than I made those picks. And of course, they too have been felled by the injury bug.

I think Javier or Rijo could be gone if not protected.

After further researching this, I see that he is still showing as restricted list on his MLB page. However, before they could bring him to spring training they would have to dedicate a 40 man spot to him. I doubt they will do that at this point.

He's not on the 40 man roster, so I don't think options even matter. I wouold assume the Twins released him some time during the season.

The DH was not used to change the behavior of the people playing the game. That is what I am opposed to, the use of rules to force players and coaches to conform to a particular way of playing the game, instead of letting the game dictate the actions they will take.

My point is that changing the rules every time the prevailing winds change, just to try to artificially change the way the game is played will end up leading to endless rule changes, because the players and decision makers will find new ways to gain an edge. Most of these things that players or managers or general managers do to gain an edge will only last until the rest of the league catches up, and then it will be on to the next gimmick to try to gain an edge. Trying to change the rules of the game will just lead to another attempt to gain an edge, which then would lead to another rule change, etc and on and on. Defensive shifts will go by the wayside to some degree as players and coaches find ways to take advantage of them. Endless pitching changes would eventually go away even without 3 batter minimums, as managers devise ways to play around them.

I think it is a good way to ruin baseball when some guys that are only interested in forcing the game to be 3 minutes shorter try to make rules that decide the strategy of the game artificially. Strategies in the game come and go. If you are going to try to dictate the strategy in the game by changing the rules, it will become a never ending mess. I say nix the 3 batter rule as well.

Is this a joke? If not, give me a break. If the media can't do their job without carrying out personal vendettas, they need to find a different job. Whaaaaa. Whaaaaa. Whaaaa.

The Twins kept Ryne Harper and traded Anerson to the Marlins for a C-level 3B.

I still remember his MLB debut. Guess that makes me kind of old. But Bert has been one of my favorites since day one. Maybe his time has run out, but I never stopped enjoying him on the air.

I agree with someone earlier that said his location doesn't seem to be good right now, but what I am noticing, at least the last few times out, is that his pitches don't seem to have the same zip on them that they used to. His slider looks more like a slurvy curveball and he leaves it over the plate too much, and it seems to me like he is using it more and the fastball less. He also seems to have less confidence.

Who's spot is Ildemaro Vargas going to take? Is Luis Arraez in danger of being sent down?

Sell them one. Or better yet, give them one. Best advertisement ever.

I think in the off season the suspended list doesn't remove them from the 40-man.

If you check out the Twins 40-man roster you will see that there are 42 names there because even though Bailey and Hill are listed there, I have never seen where they were officially announced or where anybody was removed from the roster to accommodate them. At the time they were reportedly signed, the Twins only had one empty spot, the same spot that was still open when Donaldson was signed. Bottom line is, the Twins still need to remove 2 guys to make Bailey and Hill official.

Which means they have 2 players to remove before Bailey and Hill can be announced.

Because the signings of Bailey and Hill have still not been made official, I think they have an open spot on the 40-man.

I think they lose their competitive round B pick (their 3rd pick in the draft) and nothing else.