clone52

Hell, his 2014 and 2015 numbers were better than most a good chunk of the Twins 2015. You can't tell me if he was back to his 2014-2105, he wouldn't have some value in the middle of a bullpen (not the closer).

Thanks for cutting off the part of my post that said there was a tiny chance of that happening.

Forever? You mean, he can't even come back for an Old Timers game? Man, you're harsh.

If he could get completely healthy and back to his old stuff, every Twins fan would want him back. It just that there is a tiny chance that happens.

Hughes is healthy (hopefully) Santiago might produce better results than Ricky Nolasco Gibson had a bad year and should revert to the mean Young players should improve (Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Rosario, Polanco) None of these are gaurenteed, but they are reasons for hope.

Berrios and Chargois will be called up eventually. The logic to send Berrios down made sense. Need more innings. The logic on Chargois is debateable. On the one hand, you could just let him pitch in the majors. On the other, you might run the risk of ruining him if he gets devoured. What if he was having command problems with one of his pitches and just needed to work through it. A few weeks in the minors makes sense.

Not necessarily. It sounds like Gimenez can play OF our 1B, so in theory, he could be the platoon with Mauer. He's got much better splits againts lefties.

You think Park would have hit .310 the rest of the season? That would have been a hell of a turnaround.

Mauer doesn't have to play every day. Kepler or even Sano probably gives him days off. This is all probably short term. They won't keep 13 pitchers for that long and its entirely possible that Santana gets released at some point.

Could be. I hadn't really looked at Brock Stewart much, but he wouldn't be bad. Mid 90's fastball, more than a K per inning. Extremely good command.

Yeah, but he could choose the Reds. If the Dodgers were offering double the money of the Reds, he'd never choose the reds.

Reading up a bit more on it, it sounds like this was middle ground. The owners wanted an International Draft and ended up with this instead.

I'm not really talking about the old guys. I'm moreso talking about the guys getting their first contract after arbitration. I could be completely wrong. Maybe the MLBPA really wants the owners to spend a boatload of money on international players.

And the big money going to stars with their second contract is far, far better than it going to unproven rookies. At their second contract, the player is a veteran and has proven he belongs. NFL players don't bemoan that Von Miller got a huge contract, he deserves it. Its stupid when guys like Jamarcus Russell, Darius Heyward-Bey and Vince Young get rediculous rookie contracts.

Umm, being able to cut a player earlier is helpful to the veterans. Sure, you can still cut veterans early, but you don't have a Top 10 draft bust eating up a significant portion of your salary cap.

If the Twins really want De Leon, Alvarez and Lux, but the Dodgers want to be De Leon, Alvaraz and some AAAA guy who will never be a key major league player, then maybe the Twins could throw in a guy like Jermaine Palacios to sweeten the pot.

I don't see how the international spending cap is a capitulation by the MLBPA. Why would current players want teams to spend ridiculous amounts of money on unproven players. It seems to me like the MLBPA would rather that money go to current players, or player development or whatever. In the NFL, wasn't the player's association in favor of limiting the value of rookie contracts so those rookies didn't take up all the cap space and reduce available salaries for veterans? Seems like the same logic would apply here.

Its just jealousy. We all would love to have inside sources. You've been very open about how you got this information and you've also been honest about how you aren't always right. Kind of dumb for people to blast you about it.

Rioting would be stupid. Maybe the Twins wanted Haley all along and just made this deal to get the extra cash on top of it.

I would imagine there is cash or international signing pool dollars involved.

Ervin Santana by far. Younger, cheaper and you are not locked into his 2019 contract. Plus, Santana has more than 1 good year as a starter since 2010.

I don't think your offer comes even close to getting Sale. The White Sox are rebuilding. They might want Dozier just to trade him again, but otherwise, they wouldn't want him at all. My guess is any Twins offer would have to include Buxton and/or Sano along with Berrios.

You can waive players any time you want. You have to have people on teh 40 man by the deadline so they don't get picked.

Yes, it is on you. People are saying they can understand singing Napoli because of his leadership, not that it is imperative that they sign him or that it should be a huge priority. We just understand the thought process of signing him. You on the other hand are saying there is absolutely no possible reason for the Twins to sign Mike Napoli.

From the sounds of it, he kept the team loose in the locker room. His advice to any player may have pulled a player out of a slump sooner. Players could come to him for advice. Maybe pitchers were less nervous because of this. Maybe Hunter spoke up if he saw someone slacking off. Maybe younger players spent 5 extra minutes hitting off a tee or in the cage trying to take Hunter's advice. Maybe in 2016, the players thought "Hey, we made a jump in 2015, we're going to make another jump in 2016" and just thought it would happen by itself without the extra hard work. Maybe the players listened more to a 9 time gold glove winner, and multi year all star that they grew up idolizing as kids than they were to old coaches who played before their time. By the way, if any of this is true, it does not bode well for the coaching staff.