ewen21

I'm sorry, but one guy isn't going to turn this around. There is a problem with the culture that needs to be addressed.

To anyone who feels we need to sign a guy to a monster contract you don’t distinguish between what the Twins are and what the Dodgers and Yankees are. The Yankees and Dodgers make so much money they can afford to pay the luxury tax. They can sign guys to horrible contracts like Ellsbury and Stanton and not miss a beat. The Twins do not operate on the same plane. Also, to use the argument that franchises sell at a profit ALL THE TIME in no way erases the fact that owners are the ones taking the risk. We never know what can happen. Furthermore, the average player salary has increased over seven times the amount it was in 1999. How long is this supposed to go on? At what point is there saturation? To act as if this will last forever and ever ignores logic. The owners take the risks and players have monstrous guaranteed contracts. They don't need advocates. They have their own union and it is the most powerful union in baseball. The structure currently existing in baseball is extremely favorable to players making all the money they want. The richest teams will do the best in this structure because midmarket teams and small market teams cannot absorb a $240 million dollar mistake.

When has a guy done what Verlander has aside from Roger Clemens? Verlander is like a one in 5,000 example

IF he returns to form is wishful thinking with all those innings on that arm. If anything the last two seasons was an uptick over what is more likely to happen with him over the life of a five year deal. He has a splashy name, and sadly, a lot of Twins fans seem to want to make that fA splash. Whether it makes sense or not some folks appear to be of the midset that this team had better spend money and nothing else would appease them. It really is a drag, in my opinion.

AMEN to that. Can't the players accept 5% less in order to give minor league players a living wage? The average player salary has increased by seven and a half times over the last twenty years. They can't afford to give a small pece of the pie to their bretheren? It is actually shameful that the player's union does nothing about this.

Yeah well the owner create the structure the players get to play in and they are the risk takers, not the players. The players get guaranteed money and make millions of dollars. They can sign a contract, get guaranteed millions and be a dog like Chris Davis. You advocate for the players way too much, Mike. In what other world do employees get the kinds of pay increases they have enjoyed over the last 25 years? They have the strongest union in America and you (a fan) is going to advocate for them? Ridiculous. The players make enough. If anything should be done about sports franchises a larger percentage of revenue should be taken off the top and be given public works projects. There is no legitimate explanation for where salaries have gone AND the way middle class families have been priced out of games ...

I agree with this assessment (although you may not agree with what I am going to say). Very rarely does a player who signs the big splashy contracts lives up to his billing. Giving Cole 8 years insane for the Twins. INSANE. To allocate that much money for one guy as a mid-market team just never works. It is suicide What we need to do is find the guy who is 25/26 that has a shot at being what Cole became when he got to Houston (or something resembling an ace). To get a guy like that we need to trade prospects and a major leaguer most people don't even want to trade. Besides, the idea of these FA pitchers getting us to the promised land is a bunch of fairy dust to me. We scored seven stinking runs in three games in October. We have not hit in the playoffs the last four times we went. Even if we had three HOFers starting those games and we still might not have even won a series with the way we have hit each time we have made itr. What needs to happen is we need to start drafting and developing starting pitching and as a franchise we have been one of the worst in that area. People really need to wake up to the fact that these FA pitchers in the market this winter are not coming here. Had we gotten someplace in the post season I would be a lot more bent on bringing one in, but I can't be that way now. Not after another three-and-out. Being that team who lies down like lambs in the postseason doesn't make us attractive to any top quality FA arm. It would be best to just move on from this pipe dream about Cole and realize even if we had him we still might not have made it out of the first round. We need more than one guy can give us.

Is Stu your pen name or can’t he speak for himself?

This is an entirely reasonable synopsis and certainly doesn’t deserve to be mocked

Is this a subtle way to say past criticisms of Mauer were irrational?

I purposely mentioned ERIC THAMES to remove any bias you may have imagined.

On those grounds alone, why should we be interested? I also did not think the analysis "lumped Asian players together", but rather he gave us what he knew about him. How can anyone insist we go after this guy based off what you said? We also know that Eric Thames put up Lou Gehrig -like numbers in the KBO. He already told you about Byung Ho. I see no compelling reason to waste a second on this player.

No Dukes of Hazard lunch boxes or rebel flags either.

Bumgarner is not a high impact guy. He is a guy who peaked early and has lots of miles on the arm. I would pass on him. If he thinks he should get 100 million then screw him.

I take a big STEAMER on their projections for Wheeler just as I did with Darvish. Neither guy is durable, both missed extended periods of time. That is all Mike. I am not at all disappointed that we didn't sign this guy. I have seen him pitch a whole lot more than you have and while he is pretty good he is not THAT good

I will take that bet.

If the past doesn't matter then why not sign Buxton to a 7 year 200 million dollar contract because of all of his potential? I don't use those systems and I would advise any team not to assume they have more value than fangraphs money.

If I am a fan and my team wastes money on bad contracts then are hamstrung by them later that is a problem. Zach Wheeler is a question mark to me. With his injury history how in the world is he going to be effective over the life of that contract? Simply put he is Darvish 2.0, in my opinion. I can totally see him struggling early and getting BOOed off the mound

Why should he get more than that? Here is a guy who turns 30 this spring with a career WAR of 10.1

I don’t like the comic pieces where a fictional fan is created and made to look ignorant. What is that supposed to mean? The vibe usually seems to be fans that don’t write articles or have administrative clearance or aren’t Twins Daily posters are intellectually inferior. Not sure what’s funny there.

I agree with you on the satire pieces. The one on Gibson seemed to be more of a mockery of a certain type of person than anything else. Not my brand of humor to be honest with you. As far as this place being anti-Twins I cannot agree.

Good lord. Why are you doing this? Why can't this be done through a PM?? Why air a beef like that? Just so we can be clear on what seems to be your main premise: Criticism does not = ANTI-TWINS AGENDA What exactly are you searching for here? Are we only to discuss topics related to this team that aren't going to include criticism or hopes for change? We had a great year, but we are the sports franchise that could very well set the record for most post season losses in a row. All things considered, things could be a whole lot worse. Start threads if you want to further what you see as being best for this site. However, the world doesn't exist in a vacuum and not everyone is going to agree on everything. If that is what you are looking for then you are going be searching for a great long while.

I worked in the dean's office when I was in grad school and one of the dean's was from Winnipeg. I was playing the Guess Who at my desk late one night and he told me all about Chad Allan and the Expressions and that they had some real "hoot-nannies" Love the Guess Who, Creedence and the Rascals. Lots of great songs there

Let's be real here....Buxton wasn't going to do any damage in that series vs. NY if his history means anything. He has a .121 lifetime average vs. the Yankees and 16 strikeouts in 33 at bats. The guy seems to tense up against them just as he does when a new year starts. Not sure what it is, but pressure seems to make him worse. I think we are barking up the wrong tree if we are going to cite missing Buxton was a big blow in the playoffs. We don't know if he will have a chance to make that play 90% of major league outfielders cannot make during a short series. He might make two or three plays a game and they might be routine plays any ML centerfielder can make. That is far more likely than what some people seem to enjoy imagining: him running around making play after play saving runs left and right. That is a fantasy. The truth is there are some very small zones on the field where he can have a chance to make an exceptional play and balls only get hit there every so often. We do know that his spot in the order will come up every two or three innings and that he can be an awfully easy out when he starts gripping the bat too tightly. It is hard for me to envision him in any other light in that situation. Missing Buxton is not worth mentioning if you ask me. We needed to have competent starting pitching and our offense needed to hit. THAT is what needed to happen and we had neither. At this point, it is very disheartening for this Twins fan to see that the psychological hold the Yankees have on us as great as it has ever been. Whatever it is that makes this happen needs to be uncovered because until we get over that we will continue to get swept out of the playoffs by them. I honestly believe something is broken in the culture where the mindset seems to be "it would sure be nice to beat this guys, but if we don't it is OK because we won the division" It was blatantly apparent when Michael Cuddyer dubbed 2010 as a successful season after the last 3-and-out and it was underscored again by Rocco. More than anything THAT needs to die and Baldelli did nothing to bury it. As a matter of fact, he reinforced the mindset once the playoffs ended. I cannot imagine what baseball would be like if we played in the same division with them. They have a hold over us that is hard to take and we need to start discussing it with more candor, in my opinion. Maybe we need to take a page from Tampa and start fighting them. Tampa threw down with both the Yankees and the Red Sox and while I can't say that changed their fortune it is hard to deny it had a psychological impact. Seems like ever since then they viewed the Yankees like rivals instead of being starstruck by them

Born April 1966 in upstate NY. My dad grew up in the Bronx so he was a dyed in the wool Yankee fan (who also had a soft spot for the Green Bay Packers). I could not really get into the Yankees and my dad did not mind that. I could not relate to all the old folklore. It all seemed dated and black and white. Like they were ghosts. BY the time I was born the Yankees run was over and when I was old enough to become aware of baseball it was my brother who had the bigger influence on what team I would support. He was born 15 months before me (Christmas 1964) and he became a Met fan in about 1972. That was about when I was collecting baseball cards and following baseball. MY dad took my brother and I the old Yankee Stadium that actually closed after the 1973 season. We took the two hour ride down there a few times over the course of the 1972 and 1973 season. The first game we saw there was against Detroit in May of 1972. The significant thing that happened in that game was that Billy Martin ran onto the field (he was coach of the Tigers then), picked up a number of fly balls that had not been shagged and tossed these arcing rainbows into the stands while the organist played some calliopie music. He probably threw about four or five balls into the stands but the crowd cheered him loudly as he ran off the field. The whole thing was a little confusing because he was on the other team. I will never forget that. I got to see Al Kaline. My dad took us to Shea in 1972 also and we saw the Phillies. I remember Rusty Staub and Bob Boone having some words around home plate because I think Rusty had his tower buzzed. I remember the crowd screaming BOBBBB BOOOOOOONE!!! (like that Vavoooom! character from whatever cartoon). I also remember some scrub on the Mets named Dave Schneck hitting a triple in this game. By 1973 I was into the Mets because my brother was and so were the older kids on my street. I lived in a small town between the city and Albany and my dad took us to several Mets games with the help of coupons cut out from milk cartons offered by Dairylea milk. I got to see Henry Aaron, Willy Mays. Willie McCovey, Jimmy Wynn (a favorite of mine), the starts on the Reds and others. My dad and my uncle also took my brother, myself and our cousin John (born February 1966) to see the Yankees play he Angels in a night game that season (and I got to see Frank Robinson). Roy White hit a home run both lefty and righty in that game and he robbed Bob Oliver of a home run by jumping into the stands. I still talk about that with my brother and with my dad up until his death in November 2000. The wall was only a few feet high in the left field corner at the old OLD Yankee Stadium. How else could Roy White have landed in the crowd sprawled out on his back? I am very glad I can say I was at the OLD Yankee Stadium and I cherish those memories. So as a youngster I was a Mets fan. I also played in a couple of baseball leagues and collected baseball cards. We lived down the road from a school and in my small neighborhood made up of about five or six streets surrounding this elementary school there were enough kids to play four on four pickup games at the school. A lot of times it was only three or four of us but we'd take batting practice for hours if enough kids didn't show up (and that was a lot of the time). We would also play in the woods near the school and adventure. We would sometimes pick blackberries, (in later years we'd build forts, start campfires and have cases of beer in those woods) and in the winter we would play hockey on this small pond that was near a field next to an old abandoned apple orchard. No one had fences, dogs chased cars, and we played in the street since my road wasn't what you would call a thoroughfare. We would watch baseball, too. In 1973 I was so upset when the Mets lost to the A's I cried. When Wayne Garrett popped out to end game in a 5-2 loss. That was where it started and I remained a Mets fan all the way up until the time of the last strike. To be perfectly up front, I always had a soft spot for the Twins. I loved the uniform and I liked Metropolitan Stadium. The path from the batter's box to home plate said TWINS. I thought that was so cool. My brother and I still laugh about how Bob Casey would say "First base! Jim! Holt!". I guess my dad was watching the Yankees and we caught that. Rod Carew might have been my favorite player as a kid. I had Baseball Digest and Sports Illustrated and was a paper boy who devoured the box scores in the late 70s so I followed both him and George Brett. When Rodney went through all that BS with Cal Griffith and was traded I was actually sympathetic toward the Twins. Coincidentally, it also happened that my pony league team in 1979 was called the Twins. That was the year Roy Smalley kicked butt in the first half. I read in Baseball Digest that he went on a Nautilus program durig the off season and right at about that time a gym opened in my town. It had racquetball courts and weights and that was when I started with weights. Because of Roy Smalley. Fast forward to the two WS runs: We played STL and ATL. As a Mets fan I could not stand those two teams since we had so much trouble with them. I was into the Twins BIG TIME during those WS runs, but I did not have the wherewithal to follow them during the season. The baseball strike KILLED baseball for me. At that time in my life I was searching for stability, barely getting by and probably doing things I should not have been doing. I turned away from baseball and focused my energy on the NHL. I went to about 10 Ranger games (the train ride to the city with friends was part of the allure), but I also went to several Hartford Whaler games (listen to Brass Bonanza and tell me if that isn't the best fight song in sports). I guess I got into baseball again when the Mets got Mike Piazza. Even so, I was not really over the top. By that time I was starting my teaching career and I discovered my dad had cancer. The summer of 2000 was the summer where I took care of my dad. He had inoperable brain cancer. He wanted to watch the Yankees whenever he could and I would watch with him. We went from golfing together in early June (I knew something was not right) to him being diagnosed with glio blastoma in early July. Being a teacher I was off during the summer and I took care of my dad. My parents live only 15 minutes away so I was there literally twice a day. So I got back into baseball that summer and I got into the Twins thanks to the internet. By the summer of that 2000 season I was posting daily on the ESPN message board and conversing with a guy known as "Rocketpig" and that whole thing was a nice respite from the terrible feeling I had knowing I was losing my dad just after his 60th birthday. If ever a guy got screwed it was him. He grew up in terrible conditions in the Bronx in a family of 10. He worked all his life and was set to retire early....I am still mad about that today. He was the one who fostered my love of baseball. My dad died that November and I think his death and that summer of watching baseball with him made me the fan I was before the strike. I also reasoned that the Twins were the team with the lowest payroll and I could follow them. This is when I started going to Yankee Stadium to see the Twins play. I also used gameday to follow them and if they played in Cleveland or Toronto at night I could get the games very clearly on my car radio (not sure why I can barely get Boston and get Cleveland so clearly). I moved in September of that year to be closer to my school and as it turned out the condo I bought was next to a sports bar that had satellite coverage of lots of games. A guy named Dennis who worked there was a Twins fan and I went there to watch the final games of the season. By 2002, I was an everyday watcher thanks to MLB. That was one heck of a season, but in 2003 I purchased a flat screen to go along with my MLB package. I had accumulated a bunch of Twins apparel and honestly I have been a fanatic for this team since the end of the 2000 season.