wsnydes

This is a crucial time for this organization. Assuming the posting goes outside of the organization, it should attract some very talented applicants. With the talent in the farm system, this franchise is poised to go places with the right leadership in the FO and on the field. Hopefully the Polhad's take their time and consider their options carefully and thoroughly. Best wishes to Terry in the future, whatever it may bring.

Agreed. With the talent in the farm system, I would think it would be a very attractive position. Same with the manager's chair should it come to that.

Frankly, if I'm a player and get traded to a team playing meaningful games I'd be ecstatic. Any of the veterans that have been through all of the losing seasons have to be sick and tired of the treading of water. I'd think a contending team would even be rejuvenating to one's love of the game. The notion of having my feelings hurt because I was traded seems laughable.

I'd imagine the odds of Park getting moved are pretty slim. Not necessarily because of lack of interest, but because TR won't trade his loan big league offseason acquisition. Without throwing in something to sweeten the pot, acquiring starting pitching that would actually be worth trading for seems far fetched. Dozier might be the only big league piece that could acquire that sort of player in return.

Haha! You're probably right. That implies that he thinks that losing 90+ games a season over and over again is fair to them. Personally, as a fan, I find that very premise to be cruel and unusual punishment and against my Constitutional Rights.

This. This so much. Pick a direction and run with it. Not somewhere between two directions and waffling back and forth. The engine is redlining, but the gears aren't engaged, thus you're not going anywhere. If they wanted to make a playoff push last year, fine. Commit and make a couple of moves to seriously improve the roster. If that isn't in your comfort zone, sit tight and maybe unload a veteran or two to improve the roster.

As someone that didn't really want them to do anything, I didn't really get bent out of shape when they did. I understood the why. I DID get irritated that they didn't do more. If you're going to commit to making a run, you need to be fully committed. That didn't happen, IMO. That bothered me much more than the fact that they were doing anything at all. That goes back to my "stuck in neutral" comment earlier in this thread. That lone move just came off as half-a**ed and that bothers me infinitely more. One of the bigger knocks lately for me on TR is that he appears willing to simply appease the fan base instead of making solid moves to build a winner. Make sound baseball moves. Build a real winner and that will appease the fan base. That's what the fan base wants. People see through the half hearted stuff.

I believe that's why he gave you numbers from August 2nd to the end of the season compared to his career numbers. At least that is how I interpreted it.

I always enjoyed Perkin's use of Johnny Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down.

While very good, that's not even the best use of a Metallica song for entrance music. That distinction belongs to a certain closer that went by the moniker "The Sandman."

If I remember correctly, Capps at the time had very similar numbers to Jon Rauch. I remember saying to myself that they just traded for a guy they already had.

I don't really disagree with anything you say. I think you laid it out pretty nicely as well. I don't see the money being the issue so much because it hasn't hampered the team for signing other players. I think that it comes into play more with the leash they're given though. They're salaries seemed to dictate that they'd get more slack to the detriment of the team. Now, they're performing so poorly that their salary becomes a hindrance in trade discussions. I never liked the Pelfrey re-signing at all. Regarding Hunter, he took time away from a guy like Arcia who should have been playing more than he was. I realize his injury and atrocious AAA play make this mostly moot, but you can't see that happening during the offseason. I agree, I doubt we miss Hu at all.

This is where I was last year. With that in mind, adding a reliever that doesn't help you become a legitimate contender made no sense. I was hoping they'd be sneaky good this year, and then make that type of deal. I do understand why they did it for the reasons you stated, but I didn't feel that they were in a serious position to really make a deal of that sort worthwhile.

I think most people that were okay with it also expected more to be done. I was in the boat that didn't want them to do anything because I felt last year was a mirage. They needed to stay the course for the future rather than detour for the short term. Stick with the long term plan (ha!), don't budge because you've somehow managed to find yourself within shouting distance of a playoff spot. In the end, TR did what he's been doing for years. He was stuck in neutral. Not advancing enough to be worthwhile, yet not really going backwards. In the end, I wonder how many of those that were okay with the deal were okay with it when they realized that's all that was done. At that end, what was the point of the move at all?

I think the inverse of this is true as well. TR has also committed to players he shouldn't. Extending Suzuki, Hughes, and Pelfrey would be the primary examples. As much as I loved having Torii around again from a fans perspective, it made little baseball sense.

I think most that want Dozier traded would like to see it for reasons that aren't knocking Dozier at all, myself included. The very reasons you state are what makes him valuable on the trade market. He could bring a decent to nice return, which would help rebuild this team faster. There also happens to be a top prospect in waiting that the organization has pegged at 2B. Those are the same reasons that Span and Revere were traded, it just didn't work out with Hicks. The returns on those deals is still up for debate as well. IMO, those deals were good at the time and either still are or can be. The other factor in this is that the team has squandered Polanco's options. They don't know what he can do at the major league level. This scenario has shades of Arcia, which a great many posters don't want to see repeated, again myself included. In order for a team in the situation the Twins are in, trading valuable veterans to bring in young talent and free up space for their in-house prospects is what needs to be done in order to revitalize things. I'm of the opinion that Dozier won't be a primary piece when this team becomes a legitimate competitor again, so why not use him to better the franchise now and in the future?

They've been fun to watch the last couple of weeks. There have been one or two blips in there where you just shake your head, but overall they've been enjoyable to watch. It's good to see the youth be the main catalyst too. I don't really believe that they'll continue on that pace, but it does give me something to look forward to for the second half. Hopefully a couple of the veterans are dealt and the youth movement continues.

I agree completely. A lot had to go wrong to get to this point, no doubt. I think a lot of the mistakes the FO made only compounded things. Many of the early struggles are a direct result of constructing a puzzle where the pieces didn't fit together. Molitor isn't blameless either, but his job was made more difficult because it was nearly impossible to put together an optimal lineup with what he was provided.

Recently, we're learning what it's like when they're clicking a bit too. They're supplementing the lineup enough to keep things moving along with Kepler and the veterans. The fact that they're hitting a little is a big reason this lineup has put up a ton of runs in the last week or so.

I'd argue that a team hoping to break 50 wins shouldn't have any value for a early 30's aged pitcher still owed $34M. He'd have more value to them on the trade market. He won't have any value to anyone by the time a team in this situation would have interest in that same pitcher.

I assume that it's more common, relatively speaking, in the minors for a pitcher to start both legs of a double header, but when was the last time that's happened in the majors?

Wuss. Where's your sense of adventure?!

Never heard of a Sharknado I see.

Ha! Now that I know I couldn't do. Way too many people out there and I enjoy the changing of the seasons. I'll leave you to enjoy LA! I have a good friend that lived out there for 5 or 6 years before he came back. He couldn't do it any longer.