MidwestTwinsFan15

Thanks for catching that gross error - I must be ready for the weekend.

Unrelated to this specific post - but Wade Davis getting 3 years and $52 Million from the Rockies. That's big time money for a reliever

This post is inspired by the comment sections of both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St Paul Pioneer Press. I enjoy spending my time scrolling through these sections to see how the small amount of internet trolls are getting people worked up. After reading through these newspaper sections, it is a relief to come over to Twins Daily and read from well-informed and realistic fan base. With that being said - no matter who is making the baseball personnel decisions; Thad Levine or Derek Falvey, they work for one individual...Jim Pohlad. Must we all forget this? Levine and Falvey work within the constraints that Pohlad gives to these decision makers. Because we don't see and hear the owner, like a Jerry Jones or George Steinbrenner (Thank the lord), I believe some people forget he doesn't have influence within the organization. But his influence is strictly financial. Side note, wonder what influence he has on the new story about Mr Sano that was released yesterday. This transitions into my next thought. My favorite comment via the newspaper sports section comes to the sound of "If us fans don't show up to the stadium, that will show the Pohland family we aren't happy with the product on the field and then they will have to change/listen to us." (This was definitely prevalent between 2011 and 2014 when we were averaging less that 70 wins a season) It is a good theory but as other organizations show us, this theory has no legs to it. Look at Tampa Bay, Oakland and Miami. Beyond the now departed Stanton, what specific players drive fans to the ballpark? These teams are basically playing with Quad A players. This is funny since I literally wrote about the Twins and their "Moneyball" strategy not just a few days ago. One single player, for the majority, doesn't bring fans to the game - unless there is a record being chased/broken (Sosa, McGwire, Bonds). The true purpose of this post - is to ask that question: How could the fans truly affect change with an ownership group? Some seasons/decades can be pretty tough to endure and watch (Sorry Seattle, the franchise who hasn't been to the playoffs since their AL record 116 win season in 2001). Pretty tough question to toss out there but the answer is, we can't. The average fan cannot affect change with an ownership group that owns a major league baseball team. I believe Derek Jeter and the Miami Marlins showed their cards into why the average fan has no real voice. Do some research and see who Derek Jeter invited to his Town Hall Style Meeting. They were handpicked, high level season ticket holders. They are the movers and shakers, the money people, the top 1%. These are the sponsorship owners that contribute more capital to an organization than the average fan could ever imagine. The best customer is a repeat customer - continue to get sponsorship's and season tickets holders to renew annually and the franchise will continue to move forward, season after season. Once renewals stop being renewed, then change can begin. Ownership and FO will have to begin looking at the reasoning behind these non-renewals. I believe this is an interesting post - I hope it inspires discussion and conversations, especially for points that I have missed and or may been way off on. To the average fan - continue to go to the ballpark and enjoy this great game - win or lose.

Some really good stuff you brought up. I agree with your thoughts on Pitching. I think the Twins have some younger pitchers that have some high promise, just nothing close enough to the ML yet. The Twins have been a woefully thin in the catching ranks for years - that will take some time to continue to build up. I'm with you - wish I had additional time to do research on Front Office Talent Evaluating Philosophies (Stats and Financial Resources not being considered). It will take some time to see what the FO has fully envisioned upon taking over.

You are 100% correct - the roster I put together is not WS worthy. It kind of falls into my point and your point, that until the FO makes some bolder moves - the Twins will continue try and find lightning in the bottle. The old regime is gone for a reason, lets hope the current FO can convince our best buddy (Pohlad) to open up the bank a bit and put their own personal marking this franchise.

Agree with McKay from Louisville - wasn't a fan of him. Leach has some big potential, excited to watch him. Enlow has some growing to do, physically, which could make his ceiling climb higher.

I don't believe it would be a total loss to miss out on Darvish - I'm a huge pitching guy and believe the Twins need a big name, front-line starter...but at what cost should it cost the organization? Do we over pay for a guy like Darvish, who has had health issues in the past? Is that what the fans are hoping for? The sediment in that 2019 is the year we are building for. The 2018 Free Agent Class is shaping up to be quite nice. Names like Kershaw and Price can opt out of their current contracts. Secondary names like Eovaldi, Harvey, Corbin, Gonzalez, Keuchel and Ryu could all be quality options that could cost the Twins both less years and dollars than Darvish would cost us. The best way the Twins will be able to add a quality, controllable pitcher is via Trade. Nick Gordon should and would be the centerpiece of that trade, in my opinion. Lets make that happen. Trade some of our unproven commodities to help the big club.

I personally was hoping we would draft Kyle Wright from Vanderbilt - quick rising pitcher that could've the big club soon. Royce Lewis has looked promising so far, hopefully that continues.

Yes - I saw this the other day as well. Absolutely hate it. Basically everything in the Eastern Time Zone and the payrolls we would have to compete against would be ridiculous. If the Twins were to be put into this proposed division, we would be the doormats, in my opinion.

With the Minnesota Twins currently in the middle of the off-season and getting prepared for Pitchers and Catchers to report to Fort Myers, FL in 49 Days. I wanted to jump ahead to the highly anticipated 2018 Free Agent Class. It appears that the 2017 has been underwhelming for most with the consensus that the Twins seem to be preparing to "Make Their Run" in 2019. The Twins Free Agents will include Joe Mauer ($23 Mil), Brian Dozier ($9 Mil), Eduardo Escobar ($2.5 Mil), Fernando Rodney ($4.5 Mil w/ club option for 2019). These four players will represent roughly $39 Mil possibly coming off the books for the organization. Not taking into consideration players the Twins are looking to possibly extend contracts with (Buxton, Sano, Berrios). Lets dive into what the 2019 Minnesota Twins could look like (or what I would like the 2019 Twins to look like). Note that I don't believe we should re-sign any of our free agents to-be (Dozier, Escobar & Mauer) or exercise our club options (Rodney). Starting Pitchers: 1. Ervin Santana 2. Jose Berrios 3. Stephan Gonsalves 4. Fernando Romero 5. Micheal Pineda Relief Pitchers: 1. J.T. Chargois 2. Aaron Slegers 3. Tyler Jay 4. Trevor Hildenberger 5. Taylor Rogers 6. Trevor May 7. Felix Jorge 8. Adalberto Mejia Infielders: 1. Miguel Sano (DH) 2. Nick Gordon (SS) 3. Jorge Polanco (2B) 4. Jose Iglesias or Josh Donaldson (3B, Free Agent Signee) 5. Matt Adams or Justin Smoak (1B, Free Agent Signee) 6. Outfielders: 1. Byron Buxton 2. Max Kepler 3. Eddie Rosario 4. Zack Granite Catchers: 1. Jason Castro 2. Mitch Garver Note that I have left our starting pitching staff as status-quo until the FO shows the masses that they will throw some coin at a Front Line Starter. I believe with the money coming off the books after the 2018 season, that the financial resources should be there for us to get one. Sano is destined to be a full time DH (due to his size and to keep him healthy). I like Garver's versatility in the field while Castro is still under contract. I think we need to get after a LHH First Basemen, possibly Matt Adams or Justin Smoak. With Sano moving to full-time DH, we would need to acquire a 3rd basemen I like Jose Iglesias for this. We would still need to get a UTL IF/OF type player for the back end of the bench - this could be filled by a variety of players, internal or external. I would also consider Josh Donaldson at 3B - he would cost us a bit more money but would add some significant power to the line-up. I gathered below 16 Position Players and 16 Pitchers that will be Free Agents after the 2018 season. Some are way out of our financial league with some that are older but still productive - who catches your eye as possibly realistic Twins targets for upgrades to our line-up and pitching staff? Position Players: 1. Bryce Harper - 2019 Age, 26 2. Manny Machado - 2019 Age, 26 3. Josh Donaldson - 2019 Age, 32 4. Charlie Blackmon - 2019 Age, 32 5. Elvis Andrus - 2019 Age, 30 (Opt Out) 6. Brian Dozier - 2019 Age, 32 7. AJ Pollock - 2019 Age, 31 8. Andrew McCutchen - 2019 Age, 32 9. Joe Mauer - 2019 Age, 36 10. Adam Jones - 2019 Age, 33 11. Wilson Ramos - 2019 Age, 31 12. Justin Smoak - 2019 Age, 32 13. Matt Adams - 2019 Age, 30 14. Jose Iglesias - 2019 Age, 29 15. Jason Heyward - 2019 Age, 29 (Opt Out) 16. Yasmany Tomas - 2019 Age, 28 (Opt Out) Pitchers: 1. David Price - 2019 Age, 33 (Opt Out) 2. Andrew Miller - 2019 Age, 34 3. Craig Kimbrel - 2019 Age, 31 4. Gio Gonzalez - 2019 Age, 33 5. Zach Britton - 2019 Age, 31 6. Patrick Corbin, 2019 Age, 30 7. Drew Pomeranz - 2019 Age, 30 8. Clayton Kerhaw - 2019 Age, 31 (Opt Out) 9. Matt Harvey - 2019 Age, 30 10. Nathan Eovaldi - 2019 Age, 29 11. Dallas Keuchel - 2019 Age, 31 12. Garrett Richards - 2019 Age, 31 13. Matt Moore - 2019 Age, 30 14. Hyun-Jin Ryu - 2019 Age, 32 15. Joe Kelly - 2019 Age, 31 16. David Robertson - 2019 Age, 34

Makes some good sense. Doesn't make the playoffs smaller. Totally like the idea of having of the Wild Cards in a one game play-off putting a nice incentive to win the division outright and having some good meaning to it.

Personally think that agents play a big part into delivering this information/rumors to the media to drive additional interest in their respective player(s). Scott Boras take this and runs with it to drive up the contract discussions. When more teams are interested - players value goes up!

Thanks for the catch on the error! And yes, all sorts of possibilities could come into play.

This was an article/idea that I wrote back originally back in 2013. I've updated it to include the changes MLB have already implemented, like removing the significance of the All-Star in the World Series Home Field Advantage. Back in 2013, I had been listening to the baseball commentators, reading ESPN, SI and MLB.com about the uneven schedules pertaining to having inter-league play everyday and how people don't seem to like it. Personally, I am not a fan of the inter-league play and would prefer having a balanced schedule between the leagues. Here is my proposed adjustment to the current league structure: I'm a big fan of having the pitcher hit for themselves (it makes the managers actually manage the game) but lets get real, it's time for the universal DH in both leagues. Here is my realignment of the divisions: 6 divisions of 5 teams is moved to 4 divisions of 8 teams. The alignment of teams would increase geographic rivalries (to a certain extent), hopefully making travel to opposing ballparks more appealing, increase attendance, decrease team travel and increasing bottom lines (since this is what the owners want in the end). The Divisions: "American League" North: Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians and Colorado Rockies West: San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, LA Dodgers, Anaheim Angels, Oakland A's, Arizona Diamondbacks, Seattle Mariners, and Vancouver BC (Proposed new team) "National League" South: Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, San Juan, Puerto Rico (Tampa Bay moves), and San Antonio, TX (Proposed new team) East: Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Toronto Blue Jays This alignment also expands the coverage of baseball more into Canada, which has a big baseball following, along with adding a team in Puerto Rico, a baseball rich area. I chose San Juan, Vancouver and San Antonio because of the the size of their markets and location need within the proposed league. These locations are all currently larger than the following MLB Markets: Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. The Playoffs: Playoffs would include the Top 2 teams from each division. The #1 (home) team (North) would play the opposing divisions #2 (away) team (West) and visa versa in a 5-game series (this would be the current "Wild Card Round"). The winners of their respective series would move onto the "AL or NL Championship Series Round." This series would include a 7-game series with teams playing for the American or National League Pennant along with a trip to the World Series. The World Series would remain the same, a 7-game series, as it currently is stands. With the team with the best overall regular season record determining the home-field advantage. This would be a big shake up to the current format of baseball but I believe this would have its advantages that fans, players and owners would enjoy. I understand that it currently eliminates the 2nd wild card team but lets not water down the playoffs with additional teams. In regards on how this proposed realignment would affect the Twins, I would say that it would not be in the best interest for them. Soley based on the 2017 results, this is where the Twins would have ended up to finish the season...not in the playoffs: Cleveland Indians - 102 Wins Chicago Cubs - 92 Wins Colorado Rockies - 87 Wins Milwaukee Brewers - 86 Wins Minnesota Twins - 85 Wins Cincinnati Reds - 68 Wins Chicago White Sox - 67 Wins Detroit Tigers - 64 Wins When we look at the payrolls for each of these organizations (Numbers from 2017 Opening Day) - we continue to fall towards the middle of the pack. Interesting to note that the team with the largest payroll also had the worst record in 2017. If the Twins were to raise their annual payroll to about $125 Million - would that help us climb this proposed standing? Detroit Tigers - $199 Million Chicago Cubs - $172 Million Colorado Rockies - $130 Million Cleveland Indians - $124 Million Minnesota Twins - $108 Million Chicago White Sox - $99 Million Cincinnati Reds - $93 Million Milwaukee Brewers - $63 Million The idea was to create discussion and have a little fun with hypotheticals. Would be interesting to see how the addition of the DH to the former national league teams would affect their overall record and if that would be a positive or negative to the Twins playoff hopes. Any thoughts or ideas to add?

I do like the Duke signing - it is a low cost with big upside move. Even if it doesn't work out for the Twins, he at the least will turn into a stop-gap for when Tyler Jay should be ready by mid-season.