Twodogs

A lot of these names have been used. The Big Cat?? (Andres Gallaraga)

Wow, I havent see you in awhile Kevin. Anyway I think I'd bring up Vargas also, he has had stretches where he looked really good. I'd like to see the Twins give him an opportunity to get some regular at bats at DH and spelling Mauer over at 1B. Problem is that Grossman has been hitting really well in the DH spot, but how long will that last? As far as dropping someone, probably Tonkin. If Vargas is DHing more often then Grossman can get on the field more in the OF, that in essence would keep Santana off the field except for emergency situations. Just my thoughts Obviously, Park is available if this scenario doesn't work out. Park has more long term value. So in a couple of years from now when Mauer is done. If Vargas hits well then Park would eventually be 1B and Vargas DH. That is obviously only if Vargas and Park do well. We will have to wait and see.

"Straight ball hit very much, curve ball bats are afraid."

If I had to guess, I'd say Mauer isn't seeing the ball as good as he normally does, I think that might be why all of the weird bunt attempts. The next thing that I just personally feel is that with all of the pitches that Mauer takes that he would be an ideal leadoff hitter, most of the good ones take a crap load of pitches. Last I think Mauer may, with his approach, his skill set did much better when there were proven players in and around his spot in the order. So if you have a Morneau in his prime, Cuddyer in his prime, Kubel with his 20 Hr power and Hunter in his prime; pitchers often probably just gave in to Mauer thinking that he might do less damage than Morneau et al. Right now the Twins lineup is still in its proving ground. Pitchers are not giving into Mauer because they are having success striking out Buxton, Rosario, etc.... These are just my observations and could be way off. But if Sano starts to crush the ball on a regular basis, and Kepler, Buxton, Rosario, Polanco etc.... all start to put real good runs together I think Mauer might end up doing significantly better also.

Hey if the Twins have a couple of rain delays and restarts maybe the 13 pitcher staff will actually come in handy for once??

Just staked to a 6 - 2 lead and then he walks someone??

I think that if this year's version of Phil Hughes was pitching last year he would be getting killed with outfielders such as Arcia, Sano and Santana playing on a regular basis. It just seems to me that Buxton, Kepler and Rosario are not hitting like everyone would like them to be at this point in time, but they sure make our pitchers look better.

I learned how to hit when I played that video game of the Polar Bear hitting the fish that shoot up out of the hole in the ice. I always noticed that if I got too far on top of the fish, it hit the ground and only slid about 50 feet. When I got too far under the fish it would go really really high but only go about 100 feet. When I hit it just right, it would would go a long ways, and if I did that enough times I'd get a gold fish to hit!!!

After I graduated from college, I moved out to California and started teaching. After grading a few papers here and there I started to look on ESPN to see how the Twins were looking, etc.... That is when I ran into the ESPN boards, Elysian fields?? Anyway, I quickly got hooked on those boards and generally did not, too often, take the bait from guys like Dankind or Henry Blanco. But on occasion I did; I would remember making a post and then as soon as I got home I'd have to get back on to see what one of those dudes had to say then I'd once again have to run some more smack talk right back at them. I also fondly remember the Sl ts rule thread. That thread was used often times as a rally thread during the games. I remember the alleged knife wielding Luis Rivas and Christian Guzman threads. I just remember coming on the site and as a result I would leave laughing my ass off. Also, most of this was going on in and around when the Twins were being threatened with "Contraction" and all of that stuff. I still remember the day I got an email from Brock about BYTO, I was a little bit indifferent about it when I got that email, at that point I was now married, coaching my own high school team and just didn't have as much time to spend reading and typing in stuff. However, I did participate in BYTO, just not as much due to other life activities. I really enjoyed finding comments in the paper by Gardenhire about someone busting his butt or battling out there, he wouldn't use the battle his tail off comment anymore because even he knew we were watching Now with Twins Daily, ehh I don't know. I have a 1st grader and a 3 year old now so I'm just kind of indifferent about it. I come on here quite frequently, but I rarely post and anytime I try to be funny at all I get my post deleted, for some reason. Oh well, i guess I must offend people, so as a result, I come on and read stuff occasionally and rarely post, and it seems like 75% of the content is in someway negativity about the Twins. I know up and coming writers all feel like they need to break the next big story or they need to make everyone feel like they know best or that everything is the next big disaster like the sky is falling and such. That is just what I feel like I get, when I tune into Twins Daily now. Back in the day, it always seemed to be a lot lighter and more positive about the Twins even though most of us were extremely crude about the way we went about it. So I make the occasional post, but I am no longer itching to see what is being said anymore, it's kind of like I can take it or leave it, but that wasn't the case back in the day. The word filters were awesome!!! I do miss the comradery of BYTO

Justin Morneau is the reason my 1st grade son is a twins fan.

Instead of hoping for a miracle elixir, I would like Joe to take an off season strengthening program seriously. Just doesn't seem like he has gotten any stronger in all of his years, and I can understand being behind the plate and remaining agile and all of that, but he now stands over by 1B, I think maybe getting stronger would help him a lot.

Like some car dealer tells you that this offer will last only for a limited time, as soon as I hear that, I walk out the door. You don't trade him for garbage just because you think that is what you are supposed to do. Just like that car dealer, if I keep looking, there are always different cars for sale, I definitely don't need some specific model at some specific price that will only last until 3pm today, F that guy, I will find a better deal if I keep looking. If you are one of those guys that get suckered into one of those lines then you will find yourself driving around in undervalued cars most of your life. Also, the last few years it seems like the Twins have made lots of fairly big moves in the off-season, or at least medium sized moves and where has that gotten them?? Maybe see how these kids improve their game over the first half of the year? See where they can go if they just get to play. I know a big giant deficiency is at relief pitcher and the Twins don't have the best defense. But see where it goes, now if someone blows our socks off, because they need a 2nd baseman because maybe their guy gets injured in spring training then go for it. But don't sell low because someone tells you that you are running out of time.

A couple of years ago everyone was all excited about Danny Santana? Who is to say that Polanco will continue to do the things we saw for about a month last year?? I think it is always very risky to trade something that you know for sure for something that you don't know for sure. Dozier has been pretty consistent over the last 3 years or so. I think the Twins would be getting ahead of themselves if they feel like they can just plug someone in for him. Now a top flight starter, I'd do that, but not many teams are going to do that for the Twins. Top flight starters are just too valuable.

Gardy, is that you???

I wonder if the Angels would consider taking Santiago back for Nolasco and Meyer??

Just curious, is there anyone out there that could be that difference maker that the Twins could just go out and buy?? A new GM may get a little bit of early latitude with the owners to make the team good more quickly?? Just curious as to who will be available??

Viola had a couple of poor years before he really got it going.

You need to be good at 2 of the 3 facets (pitching, hitting or defense) to have a decent season and a shot at winning something. Right now the Twins have a shot at being good at one of them, hitting. They will need to get lucky to be good at one of the other ones. there isnt any quick fix to it, except to go out and get a really good pitcher or two.

I have always been one that would like to see the Twins employ a speed and defense approach, but their current personnel doesn't really allow for that at any point in the near future. But I would like to see how their defensive numbers looked for the first few months as opposed to the middle of the summer?? Recently, there have been so many different guys plugged in all over the place that I don't think the last few weeks should really be included. But I would like to see what the numbers looked like when the Twins had the likes of Sano and Arcia running around out in the OF and Nunez as an everyday guy in the INF and compare that to June July and August's numbers defensively?? I would just like to see if there was any improvement with the younger guys running around out there??

The normal everyday lineup should be something like this for the Twins to fully exploit their offensive numbers next year Name Current OBP Polanco ss .335 Mauer 1B .363 Dozier 2B .345 .905OPS, way out of the norm for him, but he has proven to be good. Sano 3B .325 .797OPS Vargas DH .355 .859OPS Kepler RF .309 Rosario LF .295 Buxton CF .272 I would love to see Buxton with his speed at the leadoff position someday Catcher Current Suzuki with his ax bat and farting dust is at .302 OBP Murphy is at .181 OBP so who knows what to do about catcher

This might be a good comparison!! I mean what did the Twins eventually do?? They brought in Bert Blyleven who won a World Series with Pittsburgh and had currently been in Cleveland. They paired him up with Frank Viola and wahla they were a contender. I've been really down on Berrios lately and when I went back and looked at Viola, he went 4 - 10 in 22 starts his rookie season and then turned around and went 7 - 15 in 34 starts in his second season. So I could be jumping the gun on Berrios not having Ace potential anymore. But it is frustrating!!

It appears that Berrios is not going to be what everyone thought he was going to be?? When you look at other talented young pitchers, Fernandez comes to mind, those guys seem to be able to get people out at a young age, because their stuff works both in the minors and in the majors. Berrios probably will be good, but probably has shown enough to see that he isn't going to be the ACE. Twins will need to trade for a legit frontline ACE to head their rotation for the next 4 - 5 years and have guys like Berrios, May, Duffy, Hughes, Santana, Santiago, etc.... fight it out for 2 through 5 in the rotation. They have a young nucleous of Sano, Kepler, Buxton, Polanco, Rosario, Vargas, Dozier to score enough runs, to be successful they just don't have that shut down pitcher that can stop losing streaks and be the guy who wins playoff games if they ever get there.

I wonder how many people think that maybe Polanco was being played at 2B this year because of the next future SS down in the minors?? Maybe they put him at 2B because they were assuming that there was another guy who is SS of the future. But now that they see that Polanco seems to be able to hit at the MLB level they might be reconsidering?? Because in the end, they really don't know if the other SS prospect will be able to hit at all.

I remember when Tom Kelly referred to David Ortiz swing as a slow pitch softball swing. I guess you have to see if it works or not before you start changing things.

No way would I trade Dozier, I mean all of the other teams are going to be circling the twins like Sharks off the coast of South Africa. Bottom line is that the Twins right now have no tradeable pieces. They need a legit Ace, one that I can think of that a team might part with would be Sale in Chicago due to issues with the team this year, other than that, nothing. The Twins will get nothing for guys like Plouffe, Suzuki, and probably not much for Dozier either, due to the fact that they are known quantities. Even Joe Mauer, yeah I know he will not allow himself to be traded, be even as much as he has done for the Twins over the past 15 years, he is no different of a player than James Loney, worthless on the trade market. If the Twins want a legit Ace in a trade then they will have to trade someone before they are a known quantity, a couple of their highly prized AA players, as long as they have tons of upside, teams will take a chance on them. I'd say keep Dozier and Santana as they wont get anything for them and trade a couple of their highly touted farm kids, the guys on the roster are for the most part very young; Polanco, Sano, Kepler, Buxton, Rosario, even Dozier has a few really good years left, so the more great up and comers we have the more they get blocked, and the more the guys up at the bigs suffer from inconsistent PT, etc.... They need to use some of those highly touted prospects for one stud pitcher. Then Santana becomes a #2, and Santiago, Gibson, May, Berrios, Duffy fight it out for the final 3 spots I just feel that the Twins over the last couple of years have been over loaded with potential and not much production. Dozier has been productive. You don't trade him for a ? in production.