Champuckett

When was the last time this organization made a high risk high reward trade? 2003? 1989? We have had nothing for what feels like 15+ years now of low risk low reward trades and acquisitions. Come on guys, where is the fire, the passion.. the demand for this? Have things gotten so bad in Twins land, that we are really entertaining this as a "strategy"?

We were promised the era of Twins Glory would commence once Sano/Buxton had a few years under their belt back when things were going south from 2012-2014. So we had patience. We saw the coach go, then the GM. And had patience. We got a new GM and many of the same problems and some new problems arose. And we had patience. Here we are now, both of these "marquee" players are floundering, and we have seemingly made no progress towards the glory years we were promised. So we continue being patient. I guess that is what it means in 2018 to be a good Twins fan, just sit down, be patient, and just enjoy the fact we have baseball in this Midwestern state that was lucky to even avoid contraction! Yeah, just be thankful and appreciative. No criticism or concern necessary. The question I have is whether the problem is the lack of patience from Twins fans, the most often used attacking point against disgruntled Twins fans or is the problem the franchise and the MN sports media, that attacks and/or belittles the fans as they continue to wave a carrot on a stick in front of us for the last 7-8 years.

The great cushioning has commenced. You will see more of these articles as the team/fanbase/sportswriters slowly and as painlessly as possible, distance themselves from Mauer. If only they had been written 6-7 years ago.

Touch em all Brian Dozier! Touch em all!

Molitor is a family friend pick as the manager. He has name recognition as a famous baseball player, he is a hall of famer, he was born in Minnesota, he played as a Gopher, he played as a Minnesota Twin, he got his 3000th hit while in Twins uniform, and heck, he's a nice guy. These are the things that appeal to the owners and their family. He was not hired and then rehired because he was the best man to help turn us into a winning team. He was chosen because he fit their family friendly and name recognition priorities and the hope was, in addition, he would add a winning formula to the franchise as well. That did not happen, so here we are, and now we are increasingly becoming aware of the poor decision this was and continues to be.

I completely agree with the original post as far as Molitor being a decent man, I have talked with him at spring training when he was a spring training aid many years ago and he seemed like a respectable and humble man, considering he was such an incredible talent. But we aren't in the business here of letting nice guys have jobs so that everyone can feel good. So that runner ups in the previous nomination process for manager can then be awarded the job as soon as it becomes available. We are in the business of winning games and competing and I think the rehiring of him should at the very least have made some heads turn, especially as this season plays out. I think we got the gist of his abilities circa 2016 when the team had their worst ever full season in the history of the franchise. He never did much for Seattle (in fact they got worse once he arrived) when he was the batting coach either so there was nothing in his resume either to suggest he was the obvious pick for the job. We have seen nothing but underperfoming or at best inconsistent play month to month from most of the young core that were supposed to bring us the second coming of the Puckett years. We have at no point seen anything different from Gardenhire in terms of lighting a fire under the teams behind when it has been needed. I see him in the dugout making his decisions, and I feel underwhelmed every time and that natural humility and stoic nature he has does not translate well into getting players going, lighting fires, restoring confidence, etc. I can guarantee at least 50% of the people that follow this franchise very closely face palmed when learning Molitor was rehired last offseason. Many were hopeful we were going to be moving on from the constant state of mediocrity that existed in the later Gardy years and take a risk, go outside the organization, see what's out there. It still looks and feels like we are still not ready to take this approach.

This means we are sellers and will patch together a lineup/bullpen using whatever we can find to make it through the rest of the season while players are traded away. They did something similar last season and we were in a better position then, than we are now.

The inconsistency by both players means only one thing as far as I am concerned. Poor coaching. And it not only extends to those two, it extends to the entire team, the bullpen, the pitching starters, and the team as a whole since Gardy departed. We knew where we stood in the last few years of the previous manager, we were bad news, we were rebuilding. The current manager has given us hope at times, no doubt, and the rest of the time, we are playing like dirt. So we are left wondering what to do. It feels like we could be very good with some serious guidance and focus, but we play like we are quite mediocre and/or bad. Many of the solutions involving both of these players require consistency and intense dedication to that consistency, but it appears this is not what is happening to these players. If you want players to start playing more consistent, then they need to be hit over the head with tactics that implore and demand consistency and repetition. At the moment, this is failing to get through to these young guys, or it is not being taught or it is flat out being ignored by the players either due to respect not being given to the coaches and the manager or because the respect is not being demanded in the first place and therefore is unwarranted.

Good post, pretty much my thoughts exactly. I've been doing some digging comparing him to other OFers of comparable age throughout MLB history, and it's not looking good.

After many years of having the recurring problem of having a lack of starting rotation stability, bad bullpens, a lack of offseason successes, with Santana being pretty much the only consistent victory, the answer here was clear. Pitching, pitching, pitching. First selection: non-pitcher Second selection: non-pitcher Third selection: yay

Only one word can be used to describe this: Terrible.

I can feel the grain of TD land as I type each letter but screw it, here we go: One thing to consider that I haven't seen many people mention is that there is no guarantee Polanco maintains his rookie season offensive stats and/or his fielding continues to be a sore spot in his game. I'm sure I sound like Mr. Obvious with that statement, but if you haven't noticed the certainty when discussing this, that there is no doubt Polanco will pull through for us next year and in the future, then maybe some of this should be pointed out. We have seen both Danny Santana and Danny Valencia in recent years take a plunge in their 2nd season. You could make an argument for Sano as well. A big reason for trading Dozier since the most recent trade discussions began is "well, we have Polanco to be an adequate replacement for Dozier at 2B." That's a pretty large assumption and it is one of the most common arguments for both trading Dozier and for placing Polanco at 2B. If we do trade Dozier and Polanco does fill in his spot and he thrives at the position, awesome, everything worked out the way we were hoping. I'm sure that's a risk most here are willing to take and I wouldn't blame anyone for taking it, but we have to remember it is a risk and not a guarantee.

Dozier was an all-star last year. It was no surprise he hit a lot of HRs again, but hitting 40+ was clearly a surprise. He has had 3 decent seasons with good offensive stats coming into 2016. Our best player by far for the year was obviously Dozier, but most improved? I would give that to Nunez. Even though he left midway through the season, he was a terror against other teams for the first few months of the season. He had a high ba and would often steal 1-2 bases once he got on with an incredible 27 stolen bases in just 91 games (he lead the team this year in that stat 9 more than the runner up). He was never more than a gap filler in the lineup and an offensive+ utility infielder until this season where he locked down a starting job for the first time with the Twins. He clearly made the most of it.

Never forget.. the trees. Also Willingham devirginized the left field home run porch area and taught Dozier his methods. Dozier took full advantage and the rest is history.

It's good news that McLeod is considered "well positioned" after his interview. At a minimum I hope we get him as either PBO or GM. You never know how any of these people are going to work out and if their previous success will translate into future success with a different franchise in a different town. With that said, it's no revelation to state that he has a very impressive history and the strongest connections to successful front offices of anyone in the list. For whatever it is worth.. I would hope he could bring some of the previous magic he conjured with Epstein to a very desperate franchise in need of magic in order to be resurrected from the MLB grave.