Doomtints

Levine looks like a good steal for the Twins along the lines of the Mike Zimmer steal by the Vikings. He looks to me like he should have been a GM a long time ago. The Twins seem to be on the right path.

Cubs: - Top tier manager - Hard working front office staff that get along with one another and have specialized roles - Lots of youth (some home grown, some not) - A nice share of upper tier free agent signings Isn't this the model every GM not named Terry Ryan has talked about forever?

Seems like the Twins are hoping to follow the Indians blueprint rather than the Cubs blueprint. Maybe that's smart to build from a template from another AL team. Both clubs hired high profile, top tier, and expensive managers, by the way.

First let me say that Law is a very smart guy and worthy of respect. But this does not mean he is the biblical source for information on minor league players. Would I trust Twins-specific writers to give the best information on Twins players? Absolutely. Law, is, first and foremost, a writer. And he is a very good writer. However, the common notion that Law watches a lot of games in person is a myth. The idea that he travels and watches players play is a myth. He has access to a lot of film at ESPN, sure. In 2007, he was denied access to the Baseball Writers Association because he does not attend enough games in person. (They later reversed this decision based on the volume of his writing and his respect among fans and other writers). Remember he has also turned down legitimate scouting job offers where he would actually have to travel and see players and make personnel decisions. He has a good gig now where he can watch film. He certainly has a huge audience which he does not want to lose. But remember that the films he watches are likely edited to show players at their finest before he gets his eyeballs on them. He simply cannot be trusted as a primary source since he isn't a primary source. Law's strength is that he has access to watch film of such a huge number of minor league players, and those he can't see he can talk to scouts about. He's a journalist on the inside and has written about nearly everybody. He provides a lot of value and is the top secondary source out there.

Don't forget the great prospect handbooks published by the original poster and others. I put more stock in what the crew here publishes than I do anything else when it comes to the minor league players. If Polanco solidifies himself at SS at any point in the next two years, make no mistake about it: Gordon will be blocked if this is all he can play. Sure, the Twins way was to not make that a consideration (Sano never learned another position in the minors, nor did Polanco) but the next group isn't likely to be so rigid and show such a lack of foresight. I had completely forgotten that Dozier started out his major league career at SS. And it looks like he was essentially the same player at SS that he is at 2B. So much for all the stuff that is written about how he could never play SS....

Dozier has more than enough arm strength. He has to be within the top 3 guys on the team as far as upper body strength is concerned. If there's an issue with moving him -- and I don't know if there is one -- it would be with his throwing accuracy and speed. At worst he would be another Sano over there, and I doubt he would be that bad.

This is hands down the best community-driven Twins site on the web. The Vikings side could use more activity and it will grow with time. The Wild and Wolves are a bit past my days in Minnesota so I don't follow them, but there is no reason this can't be the place for fans of both. One question. Though users can use their Twins Daily accounts on the other sites, there is still a bit of a registration hoopla one has to do in order to post on sites you didn't initially sign up on. Why not make this completely seamless? You register for one, you can post anywhere. One registration and you are automatically a member of everything on the site. I will certainly be blogging for the Twins and possibly the Vikings in the future. Great thanks to Seth and all the others who made this place an open community where everyone can contribute and express their opinions. I was once a regular on 'another' Twins forum where the comments can get a bit disrespectful. I assumed this was because the site was lightly moderated and simply accepted it as a place where people could freely express themselves. After some time I learned that the people who were disrespectful were all of the moderators. At that point I realized it wasn't a place where people can express themselves at all, but it was a place where the moderators were bullying people. Once I figured that out I left and never came back. Twins Daily is a site where I know this would never happen.

Just give him a bat and a glove in in the middle infield and all star games will follow.

Cool story. I was in the process of moving out of Minnesota during the playoffs. For the Detroit series we were still in MN. For the first half of the WS we were looking for a home in our new state. We were back in town for the final win. I left the state as a living resident for good the day after Thanksgiving. Fun times, and this was the perfect conclusion to living in Minnesota as a big Twins fan.

No, that's my interpretation from watching the game a couple of months ago. Viola let 2 runs go in the 2nd inning and after that the Cardinals were shut out. But watch the game instead of listening to the announcers -- that was a defensive stop and not Viola being dominant. When I re-watched the game for the first time I was truly impressed by the defense on that team. I don't want to digress this topic too much. We can carry on this conversation elsewhere.

I strongly recommend that everyone watches Game 7 of the 87 World Series. It's a great game. it is available to watch on youtube and occasionally on mlb.com. During the game, the broadcasters kept putting up data on the screen to back up their repeated assertions that the Twins were going to lose. The ace Frank Viola was pitching, but he had nothing. He was out of gas and had poor control. The position players figured this out early on and played the best defensive game of their careers. Like Puckett said, "We just decided we weren't going to lose."

I think Pohlad saved 2017 ticket sales as best he could by firing management. There will be a buy in period where many fans will be willing to give the new team a chance, even if Dozier is wildly popular (is he?) and gets traded.

There isn't much of a story here. Vargas skipped AAA and performed better than anyone expected. Then he stumbled, which also should have been expected. He then got better, which, again, should not have surprised anybody because almost every young player struggles at some point within their first 365 days. Even moreso for a guy who skips a level. As others have said, he just needs more at bats. The Twins made an error by having Vargas in the organization and then signing Park. One of them has to go. It would be a shame if the Twins developed Vargas -- the "Twins Way" -- and then blocked him and ultimately send him packing. The Twins would probably get more for Vargas in a trade than they would for Park. This doesn't mean getting rid of Vargas is the right way to go.

I don't think you are likely to find anyone around here saying the opposite, that they hope Flavey makes stupid moves.

Ryan has been signing free agents late. In other words, he's waiting until after all the good free agents are gone and signing whoever is left over. Though these signings qualify as stamps on Ryan's "I Signed A Free Agent" card, it does not qualify as trying to fix the team via free agency.

Eh. Ryan was afraid of getting into bidding wars so he only picked up free agents who were available after all of the good free agents were gone. Santana worked out. The other results were predictable. The Twins should absolutely target free agents if they think they will help. But they should *really* target them and not just pick from the leftovers.

If the right long term fixes are not available, by all means sign short term fixes in the meantime. The Twins can then look for long term fixes next year. The Twins should be done with "Giving up because the talent isn't there yet." Every inspirational speaker will tell you that the stars never align perfectly for anything. At some point you gotta just go for it if you ever want to succeed. Otherwise you sit around like Ryan did waiting for the perfect year to appear. That's ludicrous. The Cubs are the only "perfect team" I have seen since the 2001 Mariners -- who as you may remember fell in spite of being nearly perfect. Yes, that's right, an imperfect team knocked out one of the better teams you probably ever saw. There is certainly nothing guaranteed for the Cubs this year, either.

I don't know how creative they need to be. Trading, free agency, coaching, promoting, cutting. All teams gotta do the same thing. Ryan was trying hard with the coaching, I believe, as he was very active with the minors. The rest of the list? Not so much. Conceptually, they just need to start acting like the other teams in the sport. Ryan acted like he "knows better" than other teams in spite of never winning a championship. If he had ever won anything I could see his attitude. But the Twins were bottom feeders for most of his tenure and he had little to back up his way of pretending he could do things in a better way. Sure, Ryan's cheapness broke up the 00s playoff teams faster than you can say, "Seems like a bad move, Terry" but the teams kept on winning in spite of the rapid turnover thanks to a few key guys sticking around. We have to tip our hats to Ryan for that. But that's all the kudos he deserves. Just getting a guy in who is willing to do what needs to be done is a gigantic step forward. For Twins fans this might seem creative, I guess, since we're used to management doing the minimum.

It's utterly insane that the Mets worked him like they did in 2012 when he sat out a full year in 2011 after shoulder surgery, especially for a team that was in no way going to make the playoffs. I think Terry Collins learned from that because the Mets have been treating pitchers better since. Before then, Collins ran a few of his aces to 230+ innings. Since then, the peaks have been around 200 innings. If Santana had gone to any other team (or stayed in MN), he probably would have played longer. Sure, he may not have had a no hitter. But I bet he would trade one for the other if given the choice.

Yes, Dozier is the Twins team MVP. No question. Good for him.

It's "Most Improved Player."

I can see why he would be a #3, because there are really only two guys to pick from this year. I imagine the only reason Nunez was not on some lists is because he is no longer on the team. However, it seems like a couple of guys threw darts at a lineup card to determine their picks. That's OK, that's about all this year has been worth.

Unfortunately, most of the guys on this list had one good month. So yeah, you're right.

I can see the love for Dozier but his run at the end of the season is unsustainable. He deserves a team MVP award (probably), however. I think it has to be Nunez, who made the best of getting regular playing time due to the rest of the team being terrible. Apparently he played too well to keep around. Shucks. The rest of the players that got votes can be completely ignored for the purpose of this discussion, but it looks like everyone had to produce 3 candidates so I understand why they ended up here.

Yes, this is the worst team in Twins history. The 1982 Twins had a terrible May when they only won three games (3-26). By the end of the year they were playing near .500 ball: July: 14-13 August: 13-15 September: 12-16 This year's Twins started bad, played well in the middle (for a mere 6 weeks), and then collapsed. We are not seeing an improvement with this team. The 1982 Twins had a terrible bullpen and a terrible manager. This team has both of those plus a terrible starting rotation.