Doomtints

Sears did some great stuff. In the minors.

I'm not a Molitor fan but keeping him was the logical decision if you put yourself in the boss's shoes. However, 3 years seems long to me.

Sure, but ask yourself this. Is this really the best offense in baseball? Sure, it might be, but most likely it isn't. And in any case, usually being #1 is fleeting at best.

Unfortunately, SABR's wonky SDI ranking is 25% of the gold glove "vote" and they have him pegged as the 5th best 1B in the AL. Buxton is the only guaranteed gold glove on the team. But yes, Buxton, Mauer, Dozier all had good defensive years, even if some metrics don't pick it up.

Good point. Buxton had some of his craziest catches with Santana on the mound. I don't know if Santana was better or not back then, but he certainly benefited from better defense in 2017.

This would be an offensive way to evaluate an employee and would be a psychotic way to act. "Yeah, you did everything we asked and more. But tomorrow is a new day. Tell me right now why you won't suck balls as an employee starting tomorrow, even though you have been great so far? I'll tell you what, I'll take a leap of faith. 1.5% raise. Sign right here. There you go, thanks. Now get pour me some coffee and get out of my office!"

Balls are usually hit to third very hard, though yes he would have to hustle a bit too. I think he could do it.

As if any of us were qualified to read a medical report.....

Here is how a boss would evaluate an employee. Accomplishments v. Failures. Accomplishments for Molitor in 2017: Everything improved on the bottom line. Better hitting, better pitching, more wins. Made the playoffs. Played well against the division and better than usual against the AL East, a longtime stick in the craw with the franchise. Failures: "Bunts a lot" and struggles with knowing the right time to pull a pitcher. Notice the accomplishments column contains strategies and the failures column includes tactics. Tactics can be changed, and if the strategies were met some tactics are forgiven. The only way Molitor is gone is if: 1) He doesn't get along with somebody important (unlikely - esp. considering the big boss loves him) 2) He doesn't want to stay (unlikely for several reasons) 3) The two sides don't agree on terms (also unlikely) 4) The new front office wants to toss the job to a friend (unlikely given the risk -- what if the replacement is worse? How would that look to the owner and to the fans?) Gardenhire was blessed with Rincon, Romero, Nathan, etc., in the pen. If Molitor gets some lights out relievers who he can toss in the game without much thought, Molitor suddenly looks much better. That fixes one tactic right there.

This isn't how it's done generally in baseball or other sports. Barring something catastrophic, the first course is always going to be to let the body try to heal itself.

Dozier could move over to 3rd.

It's too early to go all-in. The Twins are still rebuilding the pitching staff and the Twins already spend more on pitching than they do for position players. They should continue rebuilding the pitching (or start, really, since they did little to nothing last offseason to address the problem), and go "all in" at the trade deadline if the magic is happening. The worthwhile pitchers tend to move at the trade deadline anyway.

I would think the Twins could at least be at league average for payroll for the immediate future. This is $136M this year and should inch up next year.

This workbook misses the $1M that will go to Nolasco next yr. Not a huge deal, I suppose.

That's not at all what was said. He was using a metaphor. Twins of the 2000s+: Underdogs (payroll/contraction/small market), play a gentlemanly game of baseball, "Minnesota Nice." Yankees: High budget superheroes (or villians if you want) who can make magic happen at will. No qualms about stealing signs, barreling over people, beaning people. Anything for a win. I don't remember the term "Minnesota Nice" being thrown around when Puckett and Hrbek were the faces of the franchise. Ask a Braves fan about how polite Hrbek was during gametime. The Red Sox started to turn things around when they decided to stop playing baseball as if it were tea time, pinkies in the air and all. The Twins got more aggressive this year and good things happened immediately!

Good stuff.

The Twins were the "best of the worst" which isn't as bad as it sounds. Playoff berth or not, the Twins had a successful year. Next year won't be as easy. There won't be ten mediocre-at-best teams in the AL for long, though the Twins are well-positioned to have an edge over most of the division for years to come.

The Twins were the best hitting team in baseball in the second half. There is only one direction to go when you are #1. There will be regression from most of the position players, how much is the question. As far as specific players are concerned, the same people who said Rosario would regress in 2017 will say it for 2018. I can skip all threads on Rosario topic as they will be strictly reruns. Santana is due to continue the decline that started near the end of the season. Duffey and May are not likely to be good players again, not that either were good for very long. Adrianza, Escobar, and Grossman are due to go back to their career norms. Grossman is overdue, if he continues to perform we have to admit he's a key asset. Of the young guys, the juries are still out on Kepler and Polanco. Both will probably have cold bats for long stretches. It's not fair to call either case "regression" as they are still learning.

Statistically, a baserunner bunted over to 2nd is more likely to score. Molitor is using analytics. Those who don't like watching bunts on their TV and vent about it here are not using analytics. So what would the front office be saying to Molitor in this instance? Be more popular with the kids at home, or keep using analytics? The number of managers and front offices in major and minor league baseball who don't like statistics or analytics is at or near zero. When Ryan was quoted saying otherwise, he was really saying that what you see on Fangraphs is mostly useless data. He wasn't wrong about that. The Twins were always collecting statistical data and using it to make decisions. Even Griffith was into it. Sure, in the past what was looked at was often wrong or irrelevant, but the same is true today.

Lots of short term options due to age, not generally what the Twins look for in pitching. My hope is they get Kintzler back and 2-3 other guys.

Not enough here. None worth getting will fall to the Twins.

If the three of them tank (which I do not think will happen), they do not have a great lineup anymore.

I was responding to the comment saying "no one wants to hurt anybody." Granite would not have "broken a rule" either, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

See what the OP wrote, though. Did you see it when a Yankee took out another rookie (Nishioka) at 2nd, killing any chance he had of a career in the US? I'm sure you saw the other collisions at 2nd in the era in question. Doubles is correct. The quote accurately defines the Twins-Yankees relationship over the years.

Plain vanilla rookie mistake. This isn't on Granite, this is on Molitor. There was no point in having Granite on the roster for the game.