Squirrel

I chose Rally Monkey ... with proud uncertainty. I really never know how this works. I don't know how things are on the 'inside.' I'm privy to nothing, so I can't say how I would answer in regards to someone's life. I wonder, though, with one Pohlad stepping down, and the next stepping up, if that will have any factor at all. <shrug>

To me, this was a spend money to spend money move. And I don’t really get it.

It's possible I have difficulties understanding what you are saying because you aren't saying it well, but before we get into a debate questioning one another's intelligence, let's not ... it's against site rules. We will just disagree.

Yes ... they can't. I know they can't. It would be unprofessional. Still, I'm left ... just sad.

If the twins offered 10/360 it would have been competitive. 10/285 was not. It’s not about the years

Oh, come on ... and quite a bit short on the money. Seriously. And Correa is a better SS. It wasn't the years, it was the total dollar amount

Perhaps I’ve just cherry-picked your thoughtful response to this situation, but I keep coming back to these two points. They knew they had to keep it close, yet they were no where near close. And they knew Boras, where the highest bid wins (most of the time), yet we were so far from it. I get the disciplined part, too. But they were just so far off the mark. And yet we outsiders had a better sense of what it would take. Many here wouldn’t have gone that high, some would, but we all had a better sense than 285/10. We saw what other SS were paid both this and last off season. I have a difficult time accepting this is just a disciplined approach. I don’t doubt their sincerity in wanting to do a good job. I understand how it feels when outsiders judge your work when they have little to no understanding of what you do and how it all works. But how could they seriously not know they were so far off the mark? This leaves me, the fan, defeated and wondering if we will ever have a winning team again. We are left with development and trade as a means to an end, and it will never be enough in this environment. We may get lucky and one year just have that ‘special’ team, when it all just clicks, but that is too much hope. I’ll keep watching, sort of, but winning matters in the end. And disciplined is just not going to win.

Allows us to compete? I'll call it competing when we get through a round or two of the playoffs. Until then, it is not competing. And box office revenues will decline with waning interest in the team

As Mike said we'll never know ... but at least it would have been seriously trying and competitive. If you are going to talk the talk, then walk the walk ... the FO talks a good game, never backs it up, though

This this this!

It was an accidental post ... this was the response: "Hi friends. Earlier we briefly published (and quickly deleted) a story suggesting Luis Arraez had been traded to Miami. You probably didn't see it, but we still wanted to quickly explain and apologize. Our site policy is to write article "shells" for rumors we feel have legs, so we can quickly update and publish when news breaks to let people start discussing right away. In this case, when the Christian Vázquez signing broke, we accidentally published the wrong story, then corrected the error. The Arraez/Marlins rumors aren't exactly a secret, but we have no reason to believe such a trade is imminent or set to happen at all. Again, we apologize for the miscue and will make sure it doesn't happen again. Thank you!"

Proven and consistent winning team, I should have said ... :)

I'm not advocating to spend just to spend. I'm advocating to spend when it warrants it and I felt this warranted it. And we could afford it. We can't buy every player that comes available, that would be ridiculous and not what I'm saying, at all. I still believe in development and trades, too. But this one time we could have done it and it would have meant a huge difference in the team, to the fans. And then to find out the final offer was 285? I mean, what was the point of that? That was just egregious, imo, and they should have just walked away at the time of the opt out and gone a different direction. Instead, we have no meaningful FA activity yet again. None. We need to partake in all aspects of the game or just be mediocre and lose. And the team, as it stands right now, is worse than last year, waiting for prospects to fill the void ... which we've done many, many times for the same results ... never getting there. We could have afforded this one signing. If I'm anyone on this team, I'm asking for a trade because there is no winning with this philosophy ... and many fans fall in step and think we can't ever do these things because we can't afford it ... woe is the small-mid-market team. We paid for a stadium with the promise of being able to spend more ... and yet we've all been talked into believing that oh, no, we really can't. We can. As for salary caps, I'm fine with that ... as long as teams also have a minimum payroll, which is well more than Pittsburgh and Tampa ever spend, and there is better revenue sharing. Imposing a salary cap only works to increase profits to owners with less incentive to spend on the team.

Or as Brock suggested, share the media revenue

I don't know what this sentence is trying to say ... sorry ... I don't understand

The Twins could have offered 360/10. Heck, if 10 yrs is too scary, offer $360/9 or 7. They could have offered what it would have taken. It would not have hamstrung us. To think it would have means the propaganda we’ve been dished all these years has worked. We will never win another World Series like this. Either the owners need to fix how business is done or they need to pony up to win. If you can’t do the latter, fans will continue to flock away from the sport because teams can’t win without the balance of talent.

A proven winning team.

As I said, I don't disagree. I've been pretty consistent in saying the same thing. But we are where we are now. We don't have Correa.

That was my point. We can't keep playing for the future, but without having signed Correa, that's what we are left with. And there were many on these boards opposed to signing Correa because we have Lewis and Lee. You can see many of my responses to that.

They could have landed Correa by matching the money. I'm not sure the years mattered, although I wouldn't want a 13 yr contract. Then again, that could be rectified, too, in the end.

Not really, imo. But we will see. I mean, there are a lot of people on these boards that don't want them to spend big bucks because Lewis and Lee are going to be superstars, so, we play the game, once again, of waiting for the future to arrive

Whoa ... my small little table of collectibles couldn't handle that ...

Yes, yes, yes and YES!!!! Did I say yes? Yes! Yes!

Huh ... and what of the owners? The advertisers? This shouldn't all be lumped on one group. Professional sports involves gross amounts of money. ALL the owners roll in it, way more than the players, and some are worse than others at hoarding the wealth not caring one iota about the team or its fans. I don't blame the players for wanting a big cut of that, but I do wish that there was more parity all around ... between owners and teams and between players. I'm glad I'm not a Pittsburgh fan ... or I wouldn't be anymore.