jud6312

No. Just no. Any team is worse once Mastro suits up for them.

They could do that, but that doesn't seem like something they like to do. The M.O. is to wait, wait some more, play shorthanded, wait, send him out there when he "feels ready" and then, either through, fatigue, injury or illness hits and you're pretty much unable to field a full roster, then you put him on the DL.

Plan? You, sir, you are the winner of the internet today! I think it's pretty obvious that TR made a plan back in the '90s - win the baseball matches - and he hasn't strayed from that plan in all these years

THIS!!! So much this. A young Kepler is going to give you the same, if not more, than an aging Murphy. He might not hit as much right away (although I do stress might), but he's better defensively and on the bases. Enough retreads. Lumps will be taken this season, let it be with the young guys. At least it's something to enjoy.

This series of moves isn't surprising, but I don't particularly care for some of the things that could have been set in place today: Duffey sticks around to make sure Santana can make his next start (which is probably a smart move) or he sticks around in case Milone implodes again and they decide it's time for him to go to the bullpen. If Ervin's good and Tommy doesn't go all Milone the second time through the order, Duffey back to AAA. I'm OK with the reasoning here.That empty spot on the 40-man roster and the lack of bats on the bench makes me believe that ever-aging Murphy and never worthwhile Mastroianni are being considered for bench duty on this team.I like that Meyer has been called up. I hate that he's been called up to pitch out of the pen. I think last year (a.k.a. the Lost Year) had just as much to do with comfort and a feeling of "what do I have to do to finally get my shot with this team?" as anything else. He regains his confidence as a starter and starts pitching really well again and he gets called up to pitch out of the pen. Why mess with what appears to be a good thing? I think TR has made his mind up that Meyer is a bullpen arm and that's the end of it.Not calling up Berrios has made my life 100 times more difficult. Now I'll have to hear countless friends complain about the Twins being cheap and his "service clock."2-man bench for tonight. Not that I expect they'll need more than that, but they've really handcuffed themselves for it being so early in the season.There's time to turn it around, but this is really starting to look like a trainwreck of a season.

This could be a reach, but has anyone thought that maybe Escobar is in the same vein as Nick Punto was ... not in a bad way. Punto, when serving in that utility role, battling for ABs and a starting job, played really well - or at least well enough to earn more playing time and eventually starting gigs. However, once those jobs were "handed" to him he struggled. It seemed like that fire to prove them all wrong was what drove him. Could we see a bit of regression, as someone suggested earlier, now that he's been "given" the job from Day 1? Escobar strikes me as the kind of guy that wants to prove everybody wrong and that just drives him more. That said, I hope it doesn't happen that way. I like Escobar and detested Punto. I'll be interested to see what "The Stick" can do with a full season ... see if there's something there full-time or if he's a super utility guy and they need to look at one of young guys long-term.

I knew it was a long shot all along, but I was really hoping to see Kepler open the season in the bigs. Hopefully Plouffe continues performing at a high enough level (and stops rolling over into double plays all the time) to make the Sano to RF move worthwhile. Would've preferred a roster with Sano, Kepler and piece(s) brought back in a Trevor trade, but I'm likely in the minority on that one.

Granted, this is a no-risk, high-reward scenario for the Twins, I really see no way it works out. He was an OK player on a pretty rapid demise due to constant injuries and age. And now he's older and a year+ removed from the game. However, I'm guessing he makes the team - it's such a TR thing to do. Then it comes down to what do we as fans want to see more. A) A Kubel-like performance that's so sad and pathetic that the experiment is short-lived and we'll all easily forget that it happened, or He gets hot to start the season and takes away playing time from a Kepler, Buxton or Vargas, or even worse they lose someone like Arcia or Santana because of it. I'm honestly rooting for the former ... after I root even harder for absolute spring training failure. If Sano weren't patrolling third instead of the OF, I might feel differently about Carlos making the team. But you can only have so many bat-only guys on the roster when you're dealing with a limited bench. They've preached patience and waiting for the prospects for many years now. And we've done that ... now it's time for them to see which of those prospects were worth waiting for.

Sauce is entertaining enough in the a.m. and even better when he drops the dumb guy shtick to do his Saturday show. However, should the guy who regularly refers to the Twins as a raging dumpster fire be emceeing an event for Twins fans?