gunnarthor

There is no reason for Buxton to sign such a team friendly deal.

I wonder if that's just cyclical or a new trend. 15 this year and 15 last year but 28 in 2015 and well over 30 in 2014 and 2013. I honestly don't know but would guess it's just more random than anything. Right now teams might be overly reliant on bullpen + a shortage of good pitchers = less starting pitcher innings. But those things can change. I think on the Twins staff Santana, Berrios (185 innings this year) and even Gibson (195 innings in 2015) could throw 200 innings in a season in a good year so we'll see.

I'm pretty sure the science of PED use has only continued to grow. Seeing how much PEDs are affecting other sports, I think it would be naive to think baseball isn't in a similar position. I'd bet that at somewhere around half the players are taking some sort of illegal PED now.

The A's?

Pretty sure 25ip in the post-season isn't a big enough sample size to mean anything. I'd love to have 5 starting pitchers who could throw 200+ innings and put up 4.5 WAR. I'd happily take my chances with that rotation.

There's another stat, WPA, that's supposed to measure how a player helped in their opportunities. It's not a predictive stat or a rate stat, it just measures (do varying degrees of accuracy) how a player influenced a game/season. By that stat, Ervin still wins.

Sure they could. They'd probably win several. It's funny. Anytime a Twins pitcher doesn't do well in the playoffs it's because he doesn't strike out enough guys (even though our soft tossing guys did pretty well) and when other teams strike out pitchers get blown out, it's not a problem. Twins need good pitchers. Good pitchers come in many different forms. Sure, the best pitchers tend to be strike out pitchers but that doesn't mean only strike out pitchers are good. And strike out pitchers are expensive. I'm not saying we should ignore that, of course. But if we could get a Dallas Kuechel or two, that'd be just fine.

I think we have to be careful with pitchers. Outside of the Roid era, most pitchers (not all) are usually done around 32. Obviously, there are exceptions and PED use is still happening but pitchers fall off a cliff faster than most realize. Lynn might be worth 3 WAR next year, 2 the following year and worth nothing over the rest of it. I think I'd rather trade for a younger pitcher or maybe take someone like Vargas on a one year deal while we wait for Gonsalves and Romero to come in. That said, I'm sure I'll be the first cheerleading Lynn's signing if it happens.

My hope is that the FO discussed some issues they had with his managing before he resigned. I think the fact that they fired Allen plus the addition of Pickler and Rowson last year means this FO is still going to push for better voices in the dugout.

Yep, those innings and complete games were big. Hopefully, Berrios has a bunch next year.

I'm opposed to the move and hope greatly that the Twins win the world series.

I think this is a mistake. Besides bunting, Molitor had a lot of problems. This should have been a time for the new FO to make a move but so far they have not done much at all. This should be a mark against them which are starting to add up.

Yeah, it's getting hit pretty hard. Over 20% in two days, or so. uff-da. Short sellers suck. If I had cash on hand, I'd probably buy some more at 90 but I don't.

He's still relatively cheap so I'd expect he'd be back in a reduced role. I think part time DH/OF/bench bat works for him. He gets on base which is a good thing. I think Sano is going to get a lot of games as the DH next year.

Yeah, I don't like that a short seller is causing the concern but I'm not completely sure their critiques aren't at least somewhat valid. But I'll hold for now.

Yeah, that pissed me off. I knew he was gonna hit a HR after he didn't get run up. But it is what it is. I remember a Vikings playoff game years ago - 1990? - where we were on the road at SF and driving. Wade Wilson threw a pass for a huge gain or maybe even a touchdown but the refs called it back saying Wilson was "in the grasp" of the defensive player, who was literally only holding his foot. It was an egregious call. And the Vikings ended up punting, SF scored and the entire game changed and I was positive that that call changed the entire game. I was probably wrong but I still remember it. So, anyway, the Yankees were the better team and that means that the little things have to go our way. When they don't, it's a lot harder to upset them.

Man, that loss hurt more than I thought it would. But good season.

Twin fans deserve some karma. We got bounced year after year by PED loaded teams. We're due for a nice win that ****s over Yankee fans and to do that behind a pitcher with a PED suspension on his sheet would be perfect.

I'm pretty sure everyone here thinks the Twins will lose in the WC round. But would I rather have Kintzler closing out games in the post season than have Tyler Watson in the system? Yes. Just because we got *something* for Kintzler doesn't mean it was a good trade for us. Watson has some upside - I don't hate it, he's a good sized pitcher with real upside - but I'd rather have the MLer. Some of it is hindsight but I'm also concerned about how the FO got to this decision.

I'm pretty sure trying to compare the Yankees situation to the Twins will never work. There are far too many problems with that.

See, it's ok for fans to support it. That's fine. But we're not supposed to be as smart as the FO. It wasn't that the Twins bats "came alive." It was that the young solid core got experience and started to show the high octane offense that many here thought they'd have before the season started. We lost a couple close games out of the break to the Dodgers and also faced the Yankees and Astros. It was supposed to be our hardest stretch of the schedule. We were still very much in it with winning records against most of the teams we'd need to beat and enough games against the Royals to make it up. And other teams had major pitching issues. It wasn't just us and the Orioles. Kyle GIbson could arguably be the Angels best starter this year. They certainly don't have anyone to hang with Berrios and Santana. KC had a near historic bad offense but we were supposed to sell because they won 8 straight against Chi and Det? And it's not like they traded Kintzler for a top 100 prospect. When we traded him, the Twins were just as in the hunt for the second wild card as anyone else.

My concern is that they didn't know how to calculate the odds.

We have no idea how open Jim is to stretching the budget but quotes by Lavine and the fact that he hired Falvey are pretty strong indicators that our payroll will remain quite low.

Not having Kintzler might very well be the reason we stop moving. And I don't care that it's never happened before. The two team wild card is just a few years old now so that long history of the game doesn't really factor in. Baltimore was flawed, Tampa was flawed, KC was flawed We had winning records against the teams we had to pass. I want a FO who is smarter and not basing decisions on runs scored in April. We traded those two guys (and the Kintzler trade is the worse one) for people who are more likely than not to never make the majors and, if they do, most likely as a relief arm. There is some ceiling there, of course, but it wasn't a huge return.

I think the jury is still out on them but they don't deserve too much credit of this team other than they let the young guys play and (perhaps) muzzled Molitor enough to make sure it happened. Good - 1) The Draft. Absolutely loved their draft and I really wanted a pitcher at 1/1. They got a lot of talent, used their bonus money well and brought in a swarm of young exciting players. I was ballistic after Lewis was picked but should have waited. They did good. Whether or not bringing Boras into our locker room is a long term issue is something to worry about down the road. 2) New coaches - not sure how much Rowson and Pickler are the FO's pick but I assume a lot. Both have been good. 3) Castro - he was the best catcher on the FA market (it was a bad market) and showed that they had a plan to improve defensively and they went to it. Good for them. Bad - 1) Trade deadline. I disagree that they didn't surrender. If they could have swung Santana, they would have. But the key problem is that these guys didn't understand how good their team was. Sure, things like fangraphs supported their moves b/c run differential but I want our FO to be smarter than fangraphs. The trade pissed off fans and players and didn't bring much back. And if Belisle blows a big save in the post-season we'll be hearing about it for a long time. 2) Dougie - there was a entire thread on this but basically my problem is that it showed the FO still does not understand the Twins fans or its history. Minor issue as long as we're winning but a stupid mistake that was insulting to many. 3) Garver - For some reason, they never got Garver up here to give him a legit shot as a back up. Perplexing because Giminez isn't exactly Bob Uecker. I think this offseason will be the big test to understand how good these guys can be. Generally, baseball is cyclical so the Twins should be good for a while. But whether they can keep a window of opportunity open for nearly a decade remains to be seen.