Doomtints

I'm not sure it has anything to do with the modern era. Darvish has already played at Target Field. He knows what it is, and he has seen the Twin Cities as a travelling member of a team more than once. We are assuming the only thing the Twins brass have to talk about is, "Look how great Minnesota is!" I'm betting this rarely if ever comes up with any team.

This isn't Normandin's first rodeo. Heck, it's not ours either. I think we know the Darvish thing isn't serious. Maybe it will be serious later, maybe not. But right now the Twins and Darvish are not even on Square 1.

That's not guaranteed. It took Arrieta a few months to get going last year so the Cubs could still be looking for another ace. There was even talk of moving Arrieta to the bullpen last June! Plus, they don't want Darvish to go to a rival like the Dodgers (again) or the Cardinals. The Cubs have bottomless pockets and want to one-up the Dodgers and keep ahead of the Cardinals.

This is what we thought last year too. I'm not putting myself through that a second time. If they make a move, great, but I'm not getting my hopes up about anything happening.

Usually I would be a skeptic of a small sample size change, i.e., being a bad defender for a year. But dang, Rosario was bad last year, and a drop off this steep is a concern. He does not hit anywhere near well enough to defend this poorly. There is no question the Twins are going to have him work on his defense next year. If he can be an average defender again and keep improving offensively, he's a 3+ bWAR guy.

How many years have we been waiting for "one bold move"? Eh, I'm going to bed.

We'll see. He is *so bad* v. lefties, it has to get better. If he can maintain the other parts of his game and figure out how to do something against lefties (either hitting for power, average, or both), he'll be fine. I'm betting Mauer would be a great asset to help Kepler figure this out, if anyone important is reading this.

True, but unfortunately he was out of options. The Twins F.O. at the time kept him in the low minors for a very long time, longer than it looked necessary by his numbers.

Vargas runs up the count. His most common at bat has a 2-2 count, with 1-2 and 3-2 being next up. This is good. He needs to hit better when at 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 however. With any other count he is Dangerous with a capital D. More experience should fix that.

It's common for young players to have to adjust to MLB-level lefties. But Kepler is off the charts on the bad side when it comes to his performance v. lefties. Being this bad is probably an aberration that can be corrected, but he needs a hell of a lot of practice. I'm guessing he isn't seeing the ball well if at all.

Q: What Happens if the Twins Can't Sign Yu Darvish? A: The sun will no longer rise.

Wasn't, "Calm down, Buckwheat!" one of the phrases used in 1987? Did anyone use it on you then?

I feel like the only time the Twins had any contracts that limited what they could do was under Terry Ryan's second tenure, when he sold the outfield for prospects and then blocked the prospects with mediocre pitchers on long contracts. What I'm getting at is ... as Twins fans we shouldn't worry about ridiculous $ contracts. Contracts that were too long were a problem, sure, but that's only if your philosophy as a GM is "sign and forget" rather than to keep watching and keep working! If you only want a guy for 3 years but he demands 6, sign himto a 6 year contract. If he is still serviceable in 3 years, trade him and let someone else have the tail end of the contract. Even if the trade is for long term prospects, hopefully you did this more than once so you have other competent pitchers, right? If he is winning Cy Youngs for you in year 3, celebrate and keep him longer..... GMs who worry about contract length aren't what I would call geniuses. Just keep the trading leverage if a guy demands a long contract. If Nolasco can be dumped, anyone can be dumped. The only true risk is if someone blows his arm out, but people in the DL don't block anybody......

My gut feeling with Kepler is he won't get much better with his bat, so he had better stay dependable on defense. His bat has enough pop to where he can have a good career in the MLB as long as he can defend. I like him, but I don't see him as a top asset, especially not above Dozier. He will have plenty of time to prove me wrong, not that "he should have a good career" is actually a negative (he's just not a star). Teams need guys like Kepler as their #3 outfielder, assuming he remains a decent defender. On some teams he could masquerade as a #2 for a long time....

Without some nicer pitching, regression will be the theme. This was a down year for the AL, next year won't be so generous. This isn't necessarily a negative. The Twins offense will still be nice. They should still sufficiently beat up on the division. And, maybe, with some regression the FO won't be so slow to address the pitching next year. One has to think that Cleveland is the team to beat, and the reason they are the team to beat is their pitching. The offense is nice but it alone won't get this team to the WS or probably even the playoffs.

I'm nominated for "Nicest Smile."

This team can beat anybody in the NFC. Let's see if they pull it off. I don't think the Vikes match up well with the Steelers, but I think they can handle New England or anyone else in the AFC. This is all hypothetical at this point, they have a long way to go.

What bothered me about watching the game yesterday was once the win was assured, the defense looked exactly like the 98 Vikings in that they clearly weren't putting out their best effort. If they do this again against a GOOD team (i.e., in the playoffs), they will lose.

2017 set this country back and 2018 will probably be more of the same, but I have hopes for 2019 and beyond. Personally I just want to be fully recovered from my pulmonary embolism. I had what I thought was bronchitis but it just never went away, so from July through November I didn't feel well. In early November it got much worse (as in very painful in my back and front, on the right side) and we found out what it was. I'm too young to have such a thing normally, which is why it took so long for it to wear me down. Let me tell ya, PEs are bad news. I felt like I was 75 years old for about six weeks. The actual pain was only for a couple of days, but after that I was WIPED after walking just a couple of feet. Even doing the motion to sit down after standing was exhausting. I'm mostly recovered now, but I sometimes get unexpected reminders from my body that am overdoing it. The PE is unexplained, so I'm going with 2017 broke my heart.

Busenitz was a nice surprise.

I like Santana a lot, but I think this is finally the year he starts to show his age. The Twins have to think about the future.

Sigh.

Capps and Pavano were always on 1 or 2 year contracts, but Hughes, Nolasco, etc., were handled strangely. The Twins were desperate for any good pitcher to come and stick around. Reports at the time said the Twins had to overpay to get pitchers to want to come to the team. This should have made the front office realize that they needed to replace the managers, and maybe even retire themselves, before trying anything else.

If you frequent Twitter, you know why it was done there. Twitter is where the #metoo movement has been centered.

She isn't suing him or pressing charges.