Doomtints

Ervin said the same thing Johan said at about this point in his last season here.

Getting 41 WAR from a dozen players is NOT the same as getting 41 WAR from one player.

Weren't they treading water before the trades too?

I would definitely prefer Kepler over Sano at first. I don't see Sano stretching out to grab an off target throw while keeping his foot on the bag.

I can't see any reason to bring Mauer back next year, which isn't to say it won't happen. I don't like any of the internal options mentioned either. Sano or Kepler? We already have their bats in the lineup, and I question any of them would be good at first. Escobar? Maybe, but he's going to get more money this offseason than the Twins want to give. Getting Dozier back is more likely. The Twins should stop dinking around and give Vargas the true shot at 1B he has earned. As for the "clutch" discussion ... the "clutch" metrics that exist are just as reliable as any of the defensive metrics. There's no reason not to trust them for what they are, which is to say they are something better than nothing. All I can say about Mauer being "clutch" is a saw with my own eyes Mauer getting an albeit mediocre (but well fought for) base hit in the 9th inning to break up a no-hitter against the Twins once. That's not clutch to win a game, sure, but it's clutch. Before the age of Statcast, people thought Mauer could hit the ball anywhere at any time. Statcast showed his tendencies that had previously baffled baseball and made him predictable to defenses and pitchers. People got a particularly hard look at Mauer since Target Field was one of the first stadiums to have Statcast technology installed.

But before the big deal was 100 losses, then 90 losses? It's hard to figure out how to talk to you when you just throw random stuff out there.

It wasn't this bad. The Twins traded at the trade deadline. Were you expecting that to not affect them? The record for the rest of the season doesn't matter.

I wasn't. He's a good pitcher.

Anyway, this loss is on the manager and not Belisle. There was zero reason to keep Gibson in there in the 4th. He was cooked. Sticking Belisle in later was probably the right move. Why waste a good reliever in a losing effort? Rosario and Mauer were both pulled late in the game too. Molitor just wanted to finish the game and not risk anybody important.

Belisle won't be cut. *Cue cooked up story about his arm hurting followed by him hitting the DL.*

If Doug Mientkiewicz got traded by Boston to the Mets for a bucket of balls, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Morrison is going anywhere.

They didn't overthink it. They thought they had a solid baseline and added pieces to beat Cleveland. They didn't realize -- much like most of you didn't realize -- that last year was a down year for the AL. The Twins were going to need to improve across the board just to finish with the same record as last year. The Twins failed because they became too one-dimensional. This isn't that big of a deal. It doesn't matter that they tried and failed. They will be finishing the year with more assets than they started with and the AL Central will still suck next year.

Heck, I just wanna know which scouts gave the players these ratings. Alex Meyer is currently projected as a 40, and that's still probably too high. When you are reading obtuse stuff like Alex Meyer is the next Randy Johnson and Byron Buxton is the next Mike Trout, you know something is off. When quoting prospect ratings in the future, it might be a good idea to list who the scouts were.

When the Twins were running ~.400 teams out there, people around here were overly positive. Now that the Twins are a ~.500 team, the prevailing conversation is overly negative? What will happen if the Twins are ever a ~.600 team?

Very silly thing to be angry about.

This is rich after all the ragging I have done on this team around here. You guys gotta let things play out before you start panicking. This isn't Terry Ryan's team anymore.

This conversation also isn't about how old and smart the people are around here.

This conversation, pray tell, isn't about Belisle.

Who was praising them?

I would have been all over Arrieta with no hesitation. The Twins could have pulled off the contract he got, too.

It was? There isn't a snowball's chance in hell I would sign Darvish if I were GM. I said all along he is too injury prone. Look at how many innings he has logged for the Cubs so far this year. The Cubs have a good roster and can overpay for a guy like Darvish and still win games. The Twins are do not have that kind of depth. Giving Darvish what he wanted would have sunk this team for a long time. The Cubs are stuck with him until 2023!

Accept for the sake of argument for just one moment that the Twins might know more about these players than we do. Let this play out before throwing your computers out the window.

The FO did a good job. And even better, now they can get a head start on next year.

There were a lot of mistakes made talent-wise. Letting Santana go was the biggest error. In retrospect, would you pick Santana + Hunter or Mauer? Twins fans really have a problem with overvaluing catchers.

It would not be surprising if the Twins have a tough stretch after trading so many players. Do not be discouraged if they take a bit of a dive for the next few weeks. Don't expect them to finish in second place. Let's see how they play closer to the end of the season when things have sunken in.