GP830

In your opinion-- would you like that trade for the Twins or would that be an overpay?

Kepler+ Gordon for Cole + McCutchen. We get a veteran bat in RF, and a good young starter. They get younger and cheaper in the outfield, salary relief, and strong infield depth. ???

That's just good predictive reporting.

Agreed-- this should have been step 1-- his arm plays there, and we would've retained some of his athleticism at a defensively premium position.

Darvish Berrios Santana Gibson Mejia That's a seemingly serviceable ML rotation. If the Twins can pull of a coup for Darvish (who knows? Levine has a previous relationship with him, and we have a very promising young core), I'd be open to forgoing one of the secondary FA talents and continuing to focus the efforts on the bullpen. I don't remember where I saw it, but I saw an article this week that proposed that the Twin's young BP core were almost ready and that we really only need to add one more effective BP piece. Curtis Rogers Hildenberger Busenitz Moya May Holland???

Greg Holland elects FA. He'd be a good get.

Seems that way. It's possibly just conjecture by Bollinger. I wouldn't be against one of these guys being added so long it was in addition to some heavy artillery.

Agree, we need the Big One. Darvish Cueto Bumgarner Archer Etc.

According to Rhett Bollinger: Possible FA fits: Andrew Cashner, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, Jason Vargas

Wow. Kinda weird when you read this stuff after he's gone. As if from the grave...

I hadn't thought of that, but it's an interesting thought. A Young core with a player first manager who has ties to the organization.

And there is it.

Hah, yes!

I hope for the best for Jodi. No doubt. I'm really not impressed with Doug on this whole thing. As someone pointed out in another thread-- he handled being replaced by Morneau tactlessly. He handled the 2004 Game 7 final out ball tactlessly. And now this. I'm not convinced that Steil didn't offer up a minimal explanation and that wasn't enough for Dougie, so he's saying none was given. The dude has had excellent talent playing for him, and has won-- so he's been a bit lucky with that. He is historically old school in his approach-- something that goes against what we know of the new regime. Additionally, this organization has had a tough time for years developing guys to step right in to the ML-- which is an indictment on our Minor League corps. While I'm a little surprised it happened-- my gut is that he's the one who isn't acting professionally.

Brett Boone Luis Rodriguez Matt Macri Joe Crede Ruben Sierra Michael Ryan Josh Rabe Garrett Jones Terry Tiffee Brian Buscher

That's really well put. The mid 2000's teams never felt finished. I heard Dougie say on a podcast once that the current Twins are trying to build a juggernaut. You can't do that without filling holes with proficiency rather than replacement-level filler, which was the old way.

I say do it.

Bobby Valentine.

That oppo slam last night was super out of the norm for Lo Conner.

I hope it's external, just to mix things up and continue the new wave. Internally, I'd be happy with Dougie.

By george, I think we've just hacked baseball...

Not even as part of a package?

I could see these two new guys being included in a package to bring higher quality on the trade market.

I'm beginning to get a little suspicious of Buxton's situation. I anticipated he would be sent down for a spell following his DL stint, and come back with a leg kick and dominate the league for the last part of the season. But now migraines? This new brass hasn't been afraid to use the DL to their advantage, and I'm wondering if they're doing some creative shifting for Buck right now, for some unknown reason.

That's interesting, but I'm still optimistic on Buck turning it on eventually. I'd rather have a young, light hitting ball hawk CF, than an aging, past his prime SP. But maybe that's just me.