Don Walcott

As a fan, I want to see the best players playing. Buxton is among our best players, and he is, if not the most entertaining, among the three or four most entertaining players to watch. I also want to see the players get paid fairly, and it doesn't bother me at all that Buxton will get a better deal on an extension if the Twins don't jerk him around for the rest of the year.

Not one poster here has said it's a human right to reach arbitration. However, the Twins and Buxton are in a contractual relationship. If one party to a contract does something to prevent the other party from reaping the benefits of the agreement, it's a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. You may believe Buxton doesn't deserve to be called up based on performance. That's fine, and that's a legitimate reason to not call him up. I disagree. I believe Buxton deserves to be called up, and that not calling him up would be a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. It would be dishonest and unethical, in my opinion. And I don't want the organization I root for to conduct its business in that way. I felt this way when the Cubs held back Bryant as well, and I expect he and Mr. Boras won't be giving any loyalty discounts when the Cubs seek to extend him.

That hasn’t happened. So there’s no analogy there. And I would think Buxton walking is more likely if the Twins aren’t honest with him. It is a business. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to be dishonest. In fact most people in business act ethically. It’s generally better for business.

I didn’t say anything about financial hardship. He’s earning his money honestly, and not calling him up to keep him another year away from free agency would not be honest. It’s bad form, and the Twins should be better than that.

Buxton was a key component of a playoff team last year. He was (and probably still is) among the best, if not the best, fielders in the game. He showed last year that he can hit as well. If the Twins are going to contend for a playoff spot next year, we are going to need him in center field. We'll also need him to hit well and get on the base paths. Sitting him down for the rest of the year isn't going to help him prepare for 2019. He should be playing as much as possible. Also, as far as the service time thing goes, he's potentially our star player for the next several years. Treat him like it. When it comes time to talk extension with him, he'll be a lot more receptive. Are there players in Rochester, objectively, who deserve to be called up more than him? I don't think so. If he deserves to be called up, not calling him up would be bad faith. I'm not sure why anyone is okay with harming him and his family financially by sitting him the rest of the year. Sure, it's a business, but people who run their businesses by unfairly harming other people end up harming themselves by losing good relationships and creating a bad reputation for themselves. It may seem clever now, but I hope the Twins are thinking long term about their organization, its employees and their culture..

Right now, the Cubs and Dodgers each have approximately 200 more plate appearances than the Twins. So that number is decreased a bit. The Cubs have about 100 more ABs and the Dodgers have about 50 more ABs.

Yes.

So now it's the Dodgers? Okay, the Dodgers have 14 guys with 101+ ABs. The Twins have 14 guys with 99+ ABs. The Dodgers have 15 guys with 90+ ABs The Twins have 16 guys with 90+ ABs The Dodgers have 3 guys with 400+ ABs The Twins have 3 guys with 400+ ABs Not much difference in the number of players and how often they were used. The obvious big difference is that the Dodgers have better players. And just for good measure: The Cubs have 4 guys with 400+ ABs and only 13 guys with 90+ ABs. Looks like Maddon is riding his main guys pretty hard, no? Does this make Maddon Old School? Does this make Molitor and Roberts New School? Ask yourself honestly, would Maddon or Roberts do better with the Twins this year than Molitor?

The counterexample is in St. Louis, where Matt Carpenter could easily have been benched. I picked him up off waivers in a 16-team league. He was that bad into mid-May. Now, he's an MVP candidate because they stuck with him. Sometimes you have to have faith that a good player going through a slump will come out of it. However, I get your point that there are some times when you need to sit a guy who's going through a slump because he's hurting the team. It's tough to criticize Molitor for sticking with Dozier, since we've all seen him go through extended slumps, and then go on a tear out of nowhere. Buxton shouldn't have been playing with his bad toe, but given his value defensively, it's hard to justify sitting him on the bench if he's on the roster. I don't know enough about Morrison's history to know whether sticking with him made any sense. He was kind of a tease. In May, he made it look like he was coming out of his slump, only to go back into it. This is a very difficult area for a manager. You can only know what's the right choice in retrospect, and by then it's too late if you made the wrong choice. Like many things, I also don't believe there's an old school/new school approach either. It's not like Maddon's immediate reaction is always to replace a guy. In 2016, he stuck with Jason Heyward through the entire season during which Heyward posted a .631 OPS, good for an OPS+ of 68. Heyward tortured Cubs fans with 592 plate appearances that year. Anthony Rizzo struggled early in 2017, and instead of benching him, Maddon stuck with him and moved him around in the batting order. So I don't think this line of criticism for Molitor is an easy one to defend this year, when he had a handful of guys that could have been benched for their performance, some of whom have proven track records, and some of whom are key players to this team. And I definitely don't think that you can or should categorize Molitor as "Old School" (and therefore wrong about everything) based on him not benching players who were slumping.

I agree with Cave being a decent 4th outfielder who can play center field in a pinch. However, if Lamarre and Cave were considered viable options, why did they have Buxton play through it? It just seemed like they were having him play because they had no other choice. I believe it hurt the team, and hurt Buxton to do that. Part of having a Plan B is that you use it when Plan A isn't working or isn't available.

I do not agree that the FO handled Buxton correctly. He had a broken toe! Why send him out there with a broken toe? Buxton was not helped out by this. And the fact that we hadn't prepared for a contingency of not having him in the lineup and patrolling center field made things worse. I agree with the mid-season handling of Sano, but it was too late. He didn't have a proper off-season due to having a rod put into his leg, and he shouldn't have been trotted out in the beginning of the season. I don't agree with keeping Grossman on the roster. I don't agree with signing Belisle. I'm hopeful that the long-term plan is coming together, and I'm hoping for some major signings this off-season.

Okay, here's just one example in the comparison of Maddon v. Molitor: 1. At the end of the 2017 season, Molitor would not have used Lackey as a relief pitcher in the last game of the regular season, which the Cubs lost because of Lackey. 2. Then, in the first game of the playoffs, Molitor would not have gone to Lackey at the end of the game for 1.2 innings and 27 pitches. 3. Then, even if he had done either or both of the previous two things (that he wouldn't have done), he definitely would not have put Lackey in at the end of Game 2 to blow the game for the Cubs. Therefore, Molitor is better at managing his bullpen than Maddon. P.S. There are other great examples of Maddon being terrible at managing his bullpen from the 2016 WS.

To be fair, much of the criticism and praise for Molitor is based on speculation. It's only a logical progression to start posing hypothetical scenarios where he would do well or not do well.

FIrst of all, "even if" is very clear. Second, my position in that post, and every other, is that the FO is responsible regardless of what the manager may have recommended. It's their job. There's a reason they employ analytics people, and it's not so that they can make decisions based on what the manager tells them. The manager cannot be expected to be the analytics department and the scouting department. It was their responsibility to determine whether to stick with Grossman or look for an alternative. Personally, I think they found an alternative in Cave, but just not before the season started with Buxton as a fixture in center. If Buxton sticks at center next year, we have Cave and/or Austin and likely no Grossman. You may believe that Molitor is responsible for these decisions. I don't know, you may be right. But I'm saying again, even if that's the case, I blame the FO. That's their job, their responsibility, and there's no sharing blame here.

This back and forth started with Riverbrian quoting me when I suggested that the FO "stuck" Molitor with Grossman, and that having Grossman on the roster has limited Molitor's options. I don't think it's reasonable to even get a vibe that I was okay with Molitor advocating for Grossman. The words I typed would indicate almost the opposite of that.

If I have a legal assistant or paralegal or associate attorney working with me on a case, I like to have their input and I listen to their opinions. If I base a strategic decision on their advice and it doesn't work, I don't blame them, I blame myself. I'm not sure why people imply that Molitor had anything to do with keeping Grossman and bringing back Belisle. But even assuming that was the case, I don't blame Molitor, I blame the FO. And for all we know, Molitor was entirely against signing Logan Morrison, and nobody listened to him . . . .

I don't recall saying anything about Molitor's use of Grossman as opposed to Morrison and Buxton. In an attempt to be clear, all I said was that it wasn't Molitor's fault that he has Grossman on the team, and that having Grossman in and of itself is very limiting to a manager. And just in case that point is not clear, it's because Grossman is very limited defensively and doesn't make up for his defensive limitations with anything special offensively.

I didn't say I would be okay with Molitor advocating for Grossman. But, assuming he did, the advocacy would have had to have been at Clarence Darrow levels for me to excuse the FO for making that decision because of Molitor's advocacy. We don't actually know who advocated for Grossman, but as Jimmer said, we do know for sure that the FO kept him on the team. And they didn't have to keep him if they didn't want him. Molitor, on the other hand, doesn't have that authority, nor that responsibility. Of course, if you want to make roster construction Molitor's fault in addition to managerial responsibilities, then there's no argument that he's been terrible. I choose not to criticize Molitor for GM responsibilities unless and until they give him a new job title.

If the FO sat in a room with Molitor all offseason and decided against going after a free agent to replace Grossman on the roster because Molitor advocated for him, I’m very disappointed in the FO.

1) Wrong. Magill pitched 12 times in his first 30 days with the team. Then, in June, he got pounded as a long reliever, which probably led to him not pitching much in the beginning of July. He's pitched 10 times in a more traditional role in the last 31 days. This is a complaint that only seems valid because it's repeated so many times. 2) I honestly have no idea whether Molitor takes responsibility for his decisions, and I never said anything to imply that he was or was not taking responsibility. But if the decision he has to make is whether to put Belisle or Magill into a tie game in the 10th at Fenway, he's been set up to fail. There have been a lot of times this year when it seems there is no good option in the bullpen, which makes it easy for critics to claim that he made the wrong decision after the fact. And if he's not listening to his bullpen coach and pitching coach about who is ready to pitch at any given time, and just making decisions on his own, then that would be problematic.

I understand your point. But assuming Molitor was stuck with Grossman by the FO, he has to play him, partly because that’s the directive from the FO, and partly because he has limited options. (Partly because having Grossman on the roster is, in itself, limiting.)

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

I think the one phrase you critiqued is at least close to accurate, if not accurate. I wasn't attempting to defend Molitor's use of the bullpen completely. I have been and continue to be critical of his use of the bullpen. However, I do believe the FO also has some responsibility for giving Molitor the players he needs to have a good bullpen. You point out how much Magill was used. That's one guy, and you have no idea whether he would have gotten the job done whenever you wanted him to pitch. You also don't know to what extent our relievers pitched poorly or got hurt as a result of being overused. What we do know is that the talent in the bullpen was never very good, and that's not Molitor's fault. We also know that we did not have someone like Big Erv to eat up innings as a starter, and our starters have not been going very deep into games, which has required a lot more innings from the bullpen. That also is not Molitor's fault. And at least one post here opines that Molitor hasn't pulled starters quickly enough, which would have required even more innings from the bullpen. And to the extent he had people to consult about it, they were the FO's guys. If neither the pitching coach nor the bullpen coach ever voiced an opinion about the overuse of relievers (assuming that was actually the case), that's a coaching staff problem as well. There is blame to spread around, and Molitor isn't the only person to blame for the use of the bullpen.

Has Molitor had a say in his coaching staff? It seems like the FO has been choosing his staff for him. In which case, the FO should probably bear more responsibility for some of the sloppy play we've seen and some of the failure to develop players. I'd also defend Molitor's lineup decisions and bullpen usage by pointing out that he is using what the FO makes available to him. I'm not sure how much input he has into who is on the 25-man, but for position players, the options have been severely limited this year. The bullpen talent has also been limited, and he no longer has Pressly, Duke and Rodney. I doubt he's responsible for Belisle being on the team, and he tried his best to not use him in high leverage situations. However, in Boston when we traded Pressly right before the game, it gave Molitor very little to work with, and Belisle was needed. I blame that one on the FO. I do think that managers can have a big impact on the success of the club. I would point to Bud Black taking over in Colorado as a great example of this. I also agree that it's hard to quantify the manager's impact without a lot more access than any of us has to the team and the decision-making processes. I wouldn't be upset with Molitor coming back next year. Continuity could be a good thing. He knows this team, and they know him. He knows our division rivals very well by now. He's implemented shifting, and appears to have an open mind to doing things differently. So if he works well with the FO, they might be better off keeping him than upsetting the apple cart before next season. However, it could be that the FO thinks that change is what is best and what is needed. If they make that change, there will be a lot of pressure on the new manager to produce better results. The new manager may want his own coaching staff as well. The pressure to succeed could be a good thing, especially because there will be even more pressure on the FO to set up the team for success. I'm fine with either option, and trust that the FO is in a better position to make this call than any of us. However, my patience with the FO will wear thin if we don't make some major signings this off-season, with a ton of room in the budget. Whoever we have as a manager next year will perform much better with better players at their disposal. And if the FAs don't work, we can dump salaries before the trade deadline and bolster the farm system, like we did this year. Ultimately, given the unexpected crap he's had to deal with this year, and how the team seems to be playing better after the trade deadline, I'd give Molitor a B.

I was actually pointing out that Odorizzi makes a lot of non-competitive pitches that cannot be framed as a strike. But I appreciate and am a bit surprised by the zone %. Overall, the statistics are very close between Garver and Wilson catching, even though Garver doesn't get the benefit of catching Berrios and Gibson as much, while he's caught the vast majority of Lynn's and Odorizzi's games. ERA is 4.42 with Garver and 4.16 with Wilson. OPS is .756 pitching to Garver and .735 pitching to Wilson. I suspect those numbers would be fairly well flipped if Garver caught Berrios and Gibson more and Wilson had caught Lynn and Odorizzi more. Garver's numbers are also artificially jacked up by catching all of Santana's starts this year -- 8.03 ERA and 1.038 OPS in 5 games. And while the splits for the individual pitchers are a small sample size, only Berrios and Odorizzi (who has only been caught twice by Wilson) do better with Wilson behind the plate. Gibson has done far better in his 7 starts with Garver than in his 16 with Wilson. So I think it's not clear that having Wilson catch is better for the pitchers than having Garver catch, and there's a good argument for the opposite.