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Would've been nice to have Sano's bat this inning. Nice of Dozier to work a walk

At least only Wade Davis stands in the way of a rally.

Having a lead sure feels good for ten minutes every now and then

From what I hear and read, there is nothing quiet about him. His teammates say he is outspoken, hilarious and beloved. Wish I could remember who said it, but I recall a player interview where they asked about clubhouse leaders and the interviewee said Escobar is the first guy to jump in and pick up his teammates (or something to that effect.) I think he flies under the radar a bit media-wise because he hasn't been a constant starter until now and the fact that English isn't his first language. I was so disappointed originally when he was 50% of the return for Liriano. Today, I LOVE the guy!

"When Nolasco is written about, "quality peripherals" invariably are mentioned. Fact is, Nolasco is not a "useful starter". He never seems to get the results the peripherals suggest he is capable of" Well stated. I'll go a step further. FIP, specifically, can be pretty misleading when used independently. Nolasco gets hit pretty well (opponents' .276/.320/.437) but FIP only accounts for home runs and walks, so all the singles, doubles, triples, successful bunts, sac flies, etc. are disregarded. He's a prime example of the limitation of this particular stat. Measured by FIP, he's a 3.80 pitcher, but in real baseball, he's a 4.50 pitcher. For some pitching styles, the peripherals do a nice job of predicting success/failure, but for Nolasco's entire career he's underperformed his peripherals. These measures clearly aren't a reliable guide for him.

True, but all that means is he has say in the matter. I expect he'd waive his no-trade as long as he's going to a contender. There seems to be a lot of mutual respect between him and Terry. I expect Torii will go wherever he wants to and the Twins would be glad to accept whatever return he brings and root for him until the end of the year. It wouldn't even mean he won't be back here next year.

I disagree on your Hunter conclusion. I think he is the most likely to be traded. He came to MN to play his age 40 year on a team that was not expected to contend. He had to come here with the anticipation he'd be traded to a contender. Had to. They were in the race at the non-waiver deadline, so he would not be traded. That sure looks different now. If they are sellers, he is the #1 most likely asset to go. He has value, experience- and isn't a long-term piece. 2nd, I sure hope they don't trade Arcia. His and Sano's are the highest upside bats to come through here since Morneau (Ortiz?...Killebrew?) He could be a .300 hitter with 40 hr when he puts it together. Trading him at his nadir would be foolish.

Fantastic post! I have been stuck on a terminally boring and endless conference call today. As it drags on and on, and doesn't involve me or my responsibilities, I habitually began reading TD articles. Whoa. Your post is a welcomed return to perspective. Any Twins decisions that I do not agree with will not ruin my day, week or year. I worry about some of our friends in here. Some seem to put the "postal worker meltdown" in "FAN."

Not exactly surprised to find peak levels of whine and negativity on this board today, but did anyone seriously think TR should take a big swing at the deadline??!?!?! This team surge came ahead of schedule. Public pressure required the GM do something. All I cared is that he didn't do anything short-sighted. He didn't. Acquired an established reliever with possibility of more runway than just 2015 while giving up low-level, non-elite, prospects. Chih Wei Hu throws a 90 MPH fastball. Remember him fondly the next time you are writing a diatribe about the Twins overvaluing soft-tossing, control pitchers.

Sorry for the thread hijack. I just couldn't ignore this again.

"That's my problem. The rotation with Pelfrey and Milone is not going to improve. You know what will make it improve? Trevor May." -Brock Every day I hear (or see) this idea repeated in various forms. "Trevor May was the best starter in the rotation for..." "His peripherals show that he's outperformed Pelfrey..." "His ERA is artificially inflated." This opinion is stated as fact over and over (esp on the radio) and it just rubs me raw because it contradicts all the statistical evidence. I have dug deep into the numbers comparing May and Pelfrey. Pelfrey has been more successful at limiting runs, logging quality starts and has consistently gone deeper into games. He has outperformed May by an admittedly slight margin in almost every category. May strikes out more batters, gives up more xbh and home runs. Pelfrey doesn't get the strike outs, but has induced 22 dps to May's 4. Also, Pelfrey is pitching almost identical to his career averages in both primary and peripheral stats. In short, there is more reason to believe he'll continue to perform at this level through 2015 than there s to believe May will. That means something if the Twins hope to have reliable starters to take the mound in a playoff series. If you want to punt on this year, he should be traded and you should accept the temporary downgrade in the rotation that should be expected by reinserting May so he can resume his development. That is a valid course to choose. It is not however, valid to assert that May has performed better than Pelfrey unless you simply wish to eliminate results and success from the equation.

I'm fine with acquiring no one as long as it means not losing Arcia. Kepler is still such a wild card. Always playing against older competition. "Almost untouchable" seems like a premature classification for a guy who's having his first real success. Hopefully, they'll wait to find out what he's going to be or get something for him before learning he isn't going to be anything. Trading Kepler would be a blind bet. I don't think anyone knows what he really is yet.

I wanted to claim him of waivers for my neighborhood team but my internet was down.

More Arcia! More Cowbell! I think it is great to let him make progress on the mlb learning curve this year.

Parmelee is no sure thing, but between him, Arcia, and Colabello, one of them could step over to first and do the job okay next year. However, I believe Morneau has the highest upside on this team and he likely has little trade value. I still think he has some dominance left in his tank. I'd offer to extend him- 2 years @ $7mil/year. Twins have paid a premium to help him recover from injuries. I'd like to see them get some over-production at a reasonable price in return.

You made the mistake of linking to a Ben Revere "boyish grin" on a page that includes his career stats. I was reminded that Ben's weak batting line this year has caused his career batting average to plummet to .272, which is only 199 points higher than Hicks. I also accidentally saw that Revere has 1 triple this year which can either be viewed as 1 more extra base hit than Hicks, or infinity times the extra base hits that Hicks has produced. I don't want to compare them. I just want Hicks to start hitting and feeling good. I was hoping they'd open the season with Mastro in center and that Hicks would mash in AAA for a few weeks to get momentum before debuting, but that plan would not have worked with Mastro's injuries. For me, plan B is simple- Keep rooting for Hicks and (whenever that is tough to do) remember that Clete Thomas is probably next in line. Goooooooooooooooooooooooo Hicks!

Your posts are far and away my favorite on this site. I'm anxious to see 7-1! Jacque was a favorite of mine too. I refuse to reassess my old favorite players in the light of modern statistical findings/measures. One of my favorite Twins moments was Jacque leading off the 2002 season w/ a home run against KC. I just looked it up to find the year and saw all the other stuff I forgot about that game. Twins won 8-6. Jacque hit a second (3-run) homer and Ortiz, Buchanan, and Hunter all homered as well. Sadly, Radke pitched 4 1/3 innings of 5 run ball. I'm not going to look too close at his line as I don't wish to contradict your claim that he only threw 2 balls in his career. For me, that game alone was worth using Jacque at lead-off all season. After all, a lead-off hitter is only guaranteed one bases-empty-at-bat per game.

Your first 3 points are all the same point. In football, a good draft has a huge and immediate impct. There is no immediate impact in baseball. Success in baseball is generally the result of a long, slow build. The 2 sports attract different personalities at least partially for this reason. In football, everything is about now. In baseball, you have to balance timelines and momentums. I appreciate both sports, but am more impressed by a successful baseball team than a successful football team. To put it plainly, it is easier for a flawed football team to win 10 games than it is for a flawed baseball team to win 100.

It's sad when an antagonist dies, but even sadder when: "In a twist of irony, Bark's Lounge, after being accused of being a racist by unknown sources on an internet chat site, was murdered in Kagoshima, Japan by Yakuza hitmen hired by the Klu Klux Klan." Sure hope no one on an internet chat site accuses me of racism. Sobering. Goodnight, Bark's.

If this is what is available on the market, you have to pass. Convert Butera! I hope I'm wrong, but this sure looks like compounding the situation. Good for Correia?

Leeeewwwwwwww!

I was rooting against the Lee trade at the time. I didn't like the idea of getting rid of longer-term assets for a one-and-done guy. I get the World Series or Bust angle, but I don't subscribe to it. What makes baseball superior to all the other sports for me is that there are sooooooooo many games that every team, every year will give you good ones. A good season has value to me whether or not it ends the way I'd prefer. On the other hand, tradingtomorrow for today can easily turn into next-season-we're-bound-to-lose-so-you-may-as-well-stop-watching-and-miss-the-good-stuff-because-you'll-need-to-sort-through-so-much-garbage-to-find-it. Okay, so before that tangent, I was going to note another factor to take into consideration. If the Twins traded for Cliff Lee, they likely wouldn't have traded for Matt Capps. For me, that is a strong point in favor of trading for Lee.

It's like the end of Lost when you find out it actually was what you thought it was all along. Disappointing! Fun read, though

I still love Hunter and AJ. I only hate Knoblauch because he blew me off when I saw him at valleyfair as a kid- and then became a Yankee. I was glad they made the offer to Torii that they did. I thought it was fair. When he signed with Anaheim, I was equally glad they did not make that offer to him. If he had a career year every year of the deal, Anaheim wasn't going to get a good deal at that price. Happy for him! Happy for Denard! Well, at the time, I had really low expectations for Denard and was first hoping Jason Tyner would be a stopgap solution at center. I can recall thinking, "They have to choose either Hunter or Santana, because they can't keep both, but they can't succeed with neither." Those two became very, very rich men. Jason Tyner did not.

I had never known why Mack went to Japan when he did. He was still so good and no one else seemed to consider it until they couldn't find a job in MLB. I had wondered about that for years. I wasn't reading the sports page yet in 1994. Just yesterday, it was on my mind and I dug up the history and finally got my answer. If I'd waited one more day, you did the work for me! We were on some parallel something yesterday, man.