dakotanative

I find it quite interesting that the All Stars from both leagues had high praise for how nice the Minnesota fans were and they are. Over the years I have lived in 13 states and three foreign countries and my time living in the Twins Cities ranks up there as the finest living experience for both myself and my family. However, how does one reconcile Minnesota Nice with Minnesota or Upper Midwest pessimism? On the many team sites representing Minnesota sports teams one sees a continual refrain of: Twins suck; Gophers suck; T-wolves suck; Wild sucks; Vikings suck. Its like watching the movie "The Music Man" and the contrariness of Iowa. Look, I am from Minot North Dakota and I know how the environment can impact one's outlook, but I am not of the opinion that these teams suck all the time. Now the T-wolves under Kahn did suck or at least their leadership did (had to root for the poor players), but Saunders is a pro and not a newspaper reporter. The Vikings under their former committee leadership team with Childress driving the boat were hard to live with and I will always be grateful to Farve for basically telling Childress to stick where the sun don't shine. So how do I feel about the Twins? While they won 3 out of 4 years under Smith, he gutted the foundation of the team. The fans, as a whole, loved the winning and ignored the rot setting in. Today Ryan has replaced the rot, restored the foundation and is now putting up the building's structure. He is doing a fantastic job. Now that statement will get numerous cat-calls, but when one looks at his track record what he is doing should not surprise us. Calls to gut the team and play all prospects is not wise. You have to grow your talent and promote it when it is ready. Do it too soon and your odds of failure go up substantially. Look at what Billy Beane is doing by resurrecting older prospects who were promoted too soon, failed and then thrown out on the trash heap. The 1982 Twins were horrible and wonderfully talented with Hrkek, Brunansky, Launder, Viloa, and soon to join Puckett. They were horrible because Griffith went cheap and dumped all of the veterans and saddled Twins fans with a good AA team. That team was poor until McPhail brought in some veterans to settle down the wild horses. Today we have seen our team improve its record by 7-8 games over last year. We are seeing greater team work and camaraderie. What a transformation Dozier has made and to think a year or two ago in the blogs it was Dozier this and Dozier that. If the Twins had dumped him as many in the blogs had wanted where would we be? The pitching has shown considerable improvement. They are sprinkling the team with prized prospects like Santana, Pinto, Gibson, Polanco, and Arcia. If it wasn't for injuries Sano would be on the team and Buxton a late season call up. Later this season we will see May and Meyers on the team and maybe Berrios and Vargas in September for a cup of coffee. I am doubtful if Rosario gets a September call up, but one never knows. Hicks is in the process of turning it around, not unlike old Twins favorite Torri Hunter who was up and down between the major and minors until he finally figured it out. In two years our outfield will probably be: Rosario, Hicks and Buxton and our starting staff will be Meyers, May, Gibson, Berrios, Nolasco (hate to say it but Nolasco will rebound and Stewart and Thorpe are too far away). Despite an occasional prospect failure, Ryan has done a super job in turning around the farm system and in setting up a future in which the Twins will be a dominate team for years to come.

Nice article and overview. You are right, his improvement needs to stand the test of time. We seen this show before where prized young players make a big splash and then struggle when the rest of the league adjusts. It is a game of adjustment and counter adjustment. Good thing is Parmelee is at the age when successful prospects make the necessary adjustments that propel their career to respectability. Man that would be nice if Parmelee, Plouffe, and even Colabello could finely reach the point of consistency where their hitting talent does their talking for them. The Twins lineup would produce some serious damage.

He is at that age where hitters start to figure things out. Years afo I read a quote from Tom Kelly where he stated that hitters start to hit their stride, or figure MLB pitchers, how they are pitching to you and realize their strengths and weaknesses, as hitters between 1500 to 2000 plate appearances. Well, Trevor is just shy of 1500 so I hope Kelly's statement is right. If so then we will be looking at our long term to solution to right field after Sano comes up. Good problem to have.

Nice article. I remember well the Soul Patrol and the League of Nations infield. One scout described the Twins infield as one having four shortstops. They could cover the ground. I always felt that Doug Meintkiewicz was the best fielding first baseman in all of baseball. His flops to the right field side save many an error for Koskie. However, I see Rosario taking Arcia's place in the outfield and Arcia being a DH. Eventually Polanco will be the second baseman with Santana at short. Rosario can flat out hit and needs to have a home as does Arcia. The outfield of Rosario, Buxton and Hicks will cover some serious ground and make out pitchers seem like all starts. On another note Mike Schmidt hit under .200 his first year in the majors and went on to have a great career. At this time I do not think Hicks is a Mike Schmidt. Well, I will not even entertain that thought, but if he is closer to Hunter, who also got off to a bad start, I will be happy. Regardless, over the years I have seen four waves of talent come forth from the Twins system. The first wave won two World Series Title, the third one and parts of the fourth won 6 division titles, but this latest wave is flat out the best in my 40 years as a Twins fan. I long to see them smack around the American League East and the fulfillment of my desires is just around the corner.

John - congratulations to you and the Twins Daily team. Day-in and day-out one of the first places I check for the latest Twins news and opinions is Twins Daily. Before there was Twins Daily we had Twins Geek, Seth Speaks, Puckett's Pond, Aaron Gleeman's blog, etc. There were a few community boards that help fill the Twins news and opinion void, but the group of dedicated Twins fans who, on a daily basis, had the courage to post their opinions, research, analysis, etc. on the web, I and thousands of others owe a debt of gratitude. Thank you for teaming together to get this done. I had read over a year ago some pundit's (maybe ESPN?) view that the Minnesota Twins had the finest group of bloggers supporting their team and that there was no one close. Need I say more.