Physics Guy

I always thought Bailey was sneaky hot.

Speaking of posts, how many to get promoted from AAA? I might need to make a few more game threads to make the Bigs.

Talk about getting the babes, Hogan was a player. In real life also.

Clearly Mary Ann

Not sure I would have used Ramirez there. That was not pretty by Napoli, but it got the job done. I wish Doumitt wasn't so slow.

Forgot about you west-siders.

Now we are talking!

Damn, it's getting a little late for you "young" guys, isn't it? I get the references, but only watched the re-runs when I was a kid.

Ouch! I chuckled out loud on that one.

Nice call.

Haven't been on the game thread for awhile. 20 pages and still going. Is that typical?

Forgot about Gardy and using up the backup C.

Why do they keep bringing up putting Escobar in the OF? Pretty sure he's pinch-running and going in for Florimon at SS. I'm a little surprised Ramirez didn't go into LF.

Bad call

And he guns another down tonight. What a stupid baserunning mistake by Ciriaco.

Yeah baby!

The Twins broadcasters brought up the Sabathia trade on Sunday and I thought of this thread. They traded Sabathia for Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Zach Jackson and Rob Bryson. Being as they ended up with a starter in the OF, they clearly did better than the Twins. They also traded away only three months of Sabathia. Gomez appears to be better than Brantley, so maybe the trade wasn't as bad as we think it was, if we had stuck with Gomez. Granted, that would have been an extreme exercise in patience.

You may be right. At least he is keeping the hope alive with .300+ BA over the past 10. If need be, maybe Plouffe slides to RF and we find a DH/1B who can pop 20+. I think we realistically should be able to hit more HR that we have in the recent past.

Anybody else find it interesting that the Twins picked Buxton as their hitter of the month instead of Sano? It's hard to argue either way, but I just found it interesting.

Agreed. I thought I was clear about that in my post. As far as Benson is concerned, I would think he is a non-prospect if he is not up by then.

Just to be clear about those stats: OBP/SLG/OPS Question for the group: When the term "triple slash" is used, isn't it usually AVG/OBP/SLG? Not trying to be critical, just a question for future clarification. On a related note, Beresford and Richardson are near the leaders in AVG and OBP in the Eastern League.

Other than the fact that the Twins are only a .500 team, there is nothing that sucks about being a Twins fan right now. They are much more competitive than last year and their minor league teams are on a roll. My biggest concern is that too many of their best players are at High A and Low A. I wish they had a couple more at AA or higher. The promising part is that several of their top prospects at AA and AAA are pitchers: Gibson, Meyer and May. Their top hitters in A ball also look like they could ascend at a quicker rate than past prospects. It's much easier being a Twins fan today than it was at this point last year. I'm holding out hope that Ryan will pull off a trade for a veteran pitcher that would be be cost controlled and they could spend money on to resign later, someone like Shields. I think this scenario is much more likely than signing a FA to big money. Ryan seems much more likely to spend money on guys that have been with the organization.

I agree with Brock's earlier assessment that the Twins' should be able to provide plenty of power. By the end of 2014, the Twins lineup could look like this (with potential 2015 HR totals): C - Mauer 10 1B - Parmelee 20-25 2B - Dozier - 5-10 3B - Sano - 30+ SS - ???? LF - Arcia - 20-25 CF - Hicks - 10-15 RF - Benson - 20 DH - Plouffe - 20-25 When was the last time they had 5 guys with 20+ HR potential? I realize this is an optimistic assessment, but there are other options to fill some of those gaps. They also will have money to spend for a guy or two. I also agree that SP is their number one goal for spending. One avenue I would like Ryan to pursue is trading for a solid veteran SP from somebody that is looking to do a salary dump. If the Twins continue showing signs of turning it around this season, they also have a better chance of luring a FA starter. I have my doubts that TR will go after the top shelf, but who knows.

I tend to agree with this. As many have stated here, this is most likely a situation where Gardy's frustration with Plouffe has boiled over. My feeling is that Plouffe misinterpreted the signs to Arcia, which can happen. He is still relatively new to the position so everything isn't automatic for him. I still think he can be an average 3B, but he needs to start showing that he cares more about the defensive part of the game. All that said, I still don't care for the way Gardy is dealing with this. It is their responsibility to prepare their players, especially one that is learning the position at the MLB level. Most of this is on Plouffe, but Gardy and his staff have some responsibility. When was the last time you heard Gardy say something like, "Plouffe was out of position there. I think he misread the signals from the coaches. We need to do a better job of making sure guys are in the right places." Acknowledge he made a mistake, but have some accountability also. If Plouffe really is screwing up enough that he feels he needs to call him out, I would rather he just sits his sorry butt on the bench.

Yes and it's perfectly within our right to question the coaching staff. Why should we not complain if a coach isn't doing exactly what he is paid to do? As I stated earlier, this is Plouffe's fault also. Let's not kid ourselves and think the staff has nothing to do with this. It does not take 5 coaches to position one player. To be clear, I am not stating that the coaches didn't attempt to move Plouffe. If they did try to position him and Plouffe later moved, then it is all on him. Did anybody say the ship was sinking?