Cris E

I'm not a huge believer in Plouffe either, so if he has value I say we should send him out. His D is OK, his bat is blah, and we have A Guy coming up behind him soon enough that someone like Nunez can hold the fort. If you can find something interesting out there then Trevor Plouffe is not the kind of player that should stop you from making a trade.

A good two weeks plus a track record of decent power plus a short and cheap contract makes him a decent bet for a team eyeing a stretch run. He'll be worth something to someone: more than a low A scrub, less than a Top 20 talent.

Lots of people are only playing the cards we have in our hand right now. I think LF is wide open in this org and they could easily grab another bat the way they did with Willingham. Rosario has not been outstanding since he came back, Hicks may never hit, and with Mauer at 1B they need some place to hide the glove of a power bat.

Guerrier threw a ton of very good innings in a 4-5 year window and used up his arm. It's what happens to middle relief guys that experience some success. It was fun to see him come back, but he has no business soaking up innings on a team with Jared Burton already in place and youngsters to develop. That said, if you want to remember Matt's career fondly consider how anonymous and profoundly average he was when came to MN and how he blossomed. For guys like Duensing or Swarczak who failed as starters and who don't have the raw stuff to follow Perkins to the closer role he's got to be a role model. And in fact they are tipping their hats and saying exactly that: Matt was a pro and deserves to be remembered for a fine career.

Pressley was most likely picked because he can go multiple innings and the bullpen is gassed right now. Deduno picked up Correia Sunday, Swazcak started last night and Gibson is not solid heading into the weekend, so they need a guy who could go long in a pinch.

I don't mind a Wise Old Man at the end of the bench, but Burton was already sitting there when Guerrier sat down, and the other end of that bench was full of guys like Correia and Nolasco and Hughes. And Kubel wasn't going to offer much next to Mauer and Suzuki and Willingham either. The other point to make about these freely available minor league types is that a lot of their potential value comes from cashing them in (ie trading them) if they actually pan out. Morales and Suzuki are not here to get the Twins to the playoffs.

He's getting older, maybe he needs glasses. Seriously, I would not be surprised, but I also wonder if he's disproportionately affected by the new craze of video gme defensive alignments. He pulls grounds thru second and pushes flies over third with a methodical precision that has led to great success. But they're taking a lot of that away by playing LF on the line and SS at second base. Healthy or not, he's got to start spraying the ball around the field more.

All true. I expect two things to happen as a result: Pinto will sit on the bench and continue to rust, and eventually Suzuki will start breaking down and we'll have Pinto and Hermann full time for three weeks, after which point Suzuki will never return to this level of productivity. Recall that his explanation for this year's offensive bloom was that he'd spent the last few years over-played and hurt. But a lot of this goes back to the team's goal for 2014. Are they developing or winning? A development agenda puts Pinto behind the plate four days a week and doesn't expose him to Cy Young candidates. Win now rides the hot hand even if it burns out a guy with a history of not maintaining his best performance levels under heavy use.

Both Colabello and Parmalee said the same things when they returned from the wilderness as improved hitters (I know, but humor me for a moment): "I'm more aggressive now. I waited too much for great pitches that weren't showing up, but now I'm hitting the first thing that's hittable." CC said it in April and Parm said it a week ago and Hicks needs the same message today. Send him down to learn how to study pitchers, to learn to expect specific things, and to jump on hittable pitches. He's better than a lot of guys on this roster so they should pull him out (making it clear he's not going back until he's ready) and rebuild his approach and get him going in a better direction.

Once May or Pelfrey (or Johnson or whoever) is ready they should trade Correia to Texas for a CF or SS. Don't hold out for anything great, just shore up the roster a bit and free some room. His veteranhood was important when no pitchers were over the age of 25, but there are actual adults in the rotation this year and he is no longer required to hold the Pavano-Viola-Blyleven-Morris Endowed Chair Of Veteran Leadership.

This whole article should have been thrown out. 45? Gimme a break...

They were too worried about blocking Hicks/Buxton, too concerned about Willingham's feelings to not consider playing him more at DH and less in LF, and way too optimistic in assuming guys would stay healthy. As said above, the insurance policy for the happy path was not well conceived.

If anything I'd put Santana at SS while he's hot and let utilityman Escobar play CF while he's hot. Then when things need to change just send out Santana to learn SS at AAA.

What if Arcia is still not ready? Parmalee?

Fuld to the 7 day DL and Nunez on his way.

"What, a Fryer, Herrmann, Florimon bench doesnt do anything for you?" It would be kind of cool if they had Florimon start catching. Who else could claim a five C roster? I mean, if you want to be interesting then you gotta do more than buy a bad hat.

The Twins are doing a bad job solving the problem at SS, but I do cut them some slack in cases where there's a prospect coming that makes it hard to sign a real player to a real deal. What CF wants to come here knowing that Buxton is bearing down on his position? And even if that guy wanted the job do you want to sign that contract? They chose to use the time to find out who Hicks is rather than invest in a damaged Upton or bring back Span or whatever other notions were floated. It wasn't a bad idea; the bad idea in CF was not having a plan in case you didn't like who Hicks turned out to be, or in case there was an injury.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Why, in Rochester alone there are three outfielders on the roster: Chris Parmelee, Wilkin Ramierez and someone named Chris Rahl. And there are four, four!, in New Britain, one of whom is even hitting over .250. Seriously, it does seem a little strange that not a single one of them is listed as a CF. The only two guys appearing as such are Buxton and the awesomely named Zack Granite in Cedar Rapids. That Alex Presley cut is looking worse each day.

Diamond and Deduno were already pitching last year and couldn't have picked up an extra 30 starts. And bargain bin signings do work out if your goal is just filling holes in the short term. It's not a good way to fill long-term holes (like their current SS vacancy) but it's a fine way to manage the back of the rotation. But the real point is that they did spend $11m and they got 2 years of Pelfrey. That's about what you can get for $10-12m. It's a little high and the second year was probably a bad idea, but check out the list of free agent pitchers signed last winter (http://espn.go.com/mlb/freeagents/_/type/dollars/position/sp). There were a couple of slightly better options perhaps, but some of these guys had relationships to draw on, and in general you're not only dealing in salary, they want as many years as they can get. And then you have to convince them they can win in MN, that they might make some endorsement cash, and that you might keep them around longer than it takes for the kids to figure out AA and displace them. That makes it harder for 90 loss teams trying to go young. The trouble with signing a guy for this year to win games is that we have no place for the kids to play. We've already got Deduno blocked from the rotation by Pelfrey, and the day we decide Meyer or May is ready they're even further back in line. (Deduno might not be your idea of a kid to block or not block, but he's a better option than a new two year deal for Pelfrey. The rotation is still crammed with more guys than we needed to sign.) Money is pretty irrelevant compared with roster management.

But that's the thing: you're talking like there are these freely available AAA guys are going to show up and deliver hundreds of innings of average work. They don't exist: you either sign fringy guys like Pelfrey or Marquis or Livan or Liam H or the rest of the guys we sent out last year and accept that they are going to range from meh to argh, or else you go try to pick up real starters for real money. Casually saying "Garza for $12m" is not real. He's making $50m/4 yr plus a $13m vesting option. It's not a marginal difference. You're not just spending an extra $5m, you're signing a 30 year old with a serious and recent injury history to a four year deal. That's substantially different. They did go out and sign Hughes and Nolasco this season, which is better than a Garza deal because they're more likely to stay healthy. They didn't go get a SS because many of the options were bad, expensive or both. In retrospect they should have done more at that position a few years ago, or at least kept their eyes open for a quick win at some point, but this year the SS market wasn't good. Who knows, if Sano was healthy and hit the ground running maybe the plan was to trade Plouffe for a SS. Lots of plans don't see the light of day, but hoping for "above average production...for a marginal difference" is not realistic.

Escobar, Florimon and Nunez are your options. Dozier is playing well at 2b and they won't create a hole there to take a chance he fixes things at SS. So who's left in the org? - There was a thing someplace recently (citing sources is important!) that Polanco has 10 errors in 16 games this spring. - Rosario hasn't been on a field in half a year (and wasn't tremendous when he was playing 2b.) - Goodrum is still in Hi A. - Santana is the best of the bunch, and he's hitting below .240 in AAA, not walking and striking out in over a quarter of his PA. If you don't like Florimon you're going to go crazy watching Santana. You can make an argument that the SS position in the organization is similar to where starting pitching was in November and that they need a transfusion of outside talent for a year or two. I think Santana might be ready next year, but the point remains that during the 2011-2014 period the team took the field without a proper SS. That's a real problem. (EDIT: And we still have five months of 2014 left.) EDIT: Also, I skipped a lot of guys that aren't the future. Sue me. Berrisford and his ilk are a response to the problem I've described, not a solution.

I think a lot of teams have a lot more than $5m of dead wood each year. It's not much at all in a world with a $0.5m minimum salary and total budgets running over $75m. Think of it as two guys not meeting your expectations, and then look at the list of lottery tickets you named. Frankly those were all longshots, and if they worked out they'd have been huge bargains; 200 IP of league average starting pitching costs a lot more than $5m. If you think about it, saving the last 5-10% of your budget for gambles like those is not a bad way to manage your payroll. Marquis didn't work out here, but two months later he was awesome for San Diego. Livan wasn't league average but he did pile up a bunch of innings when we really didn't have much ready in Roch. Pelfrey and Correia did pretty well last year in the midst of a terrible season, sparing everyone more exposure to PJ Whatever and the rest of those guys. Kubel looks like he's got more left than he showed in March, so if he keeps it together he might be what the team needed to fill LF while Willingham is out (again.) No gambles in your lineup can only mean two things: the roster is perfect or you're sitting still when you could be trying things. A little dead wood is not bad, and in fact is a sign you're trying things.

The bunt the other day was a change in approach. That's Joe making a change and taking a free base, so if you're going to complain about *that* you just need to take a deep breath and admit to yourself that the root of the problem isn't with him. It could be frustration with the entire team, jealousy of his virile sideburns or simply that you like to complain, but be honest with yourself and admit he's playing pretty well and trying a few things. EDIT:"you" was some general comment on an earlier page, not a specific person.

Given the names on that list there are going to be plenty of times when at least a couple of them are dinged up or tired or flat out injured. This is not exactly a series of Ripkens and Gehrigs we're looking at.

Kent Hrbek, pepperoni and onion