ewen21

How do you glean that from what I said? That is a heck of leap to take if that is what you read in my words. I said IF he gets injured. Simply put, it is within the realm of possibilities and when we are talking about a major FA pitcher signing it is something to think about. I also read NOTHING into the offer beyond that is all they thought he was worth and I don't think he is even worth that. I think I have made that pretty clear throughout the discussion about him.

Will you come forward and say.... "Geez. Maybe I was wrong about Darvish" If he ends up injured or having a subpar 2018 season? They are paying him for the first two or three seasons by your rationale. If he craps the bed early then will you admit you made too big a deal about this? NOt saying I need you to do that, but you certainly are making a big deal about a player that never EVER is going to play for this team.

Monty Hall. Very compelling stuff guys

I get what you are saying and I am not making excuses, but the bats didn't give us a chance either. Johan needed to shut the Yankees out for us to win our last playoff game. We only scored two runs that game. As big an issue has been the pen, in my opinion. I guess I REALLY want to see us raise our own pitchers for once. It has been frustrating watching the litany of starting pitcher FA signings we have made. SOmeone like Cobb or Lynn would be a couple of clicks above the Ponsons, Marquis, Corrieas, etc.....etc....we have signed in the past.

The term "ace" in baseball doesn't have a definition, but I define an ace as a guy who can take the ball and give you seven or eight solid innings a whole bunch of times. An ace tends to take you to the set up guy then the closer quite often, so a true ace, in my opinion, is rare. Some guys have good stuff, but labor a lot. That isn't an ace to me.

I get it, but we have not hit in the postseason 2010 7 runs in 3 games 2009 7 runs in 3 games 2006 7 runs in 3 games Those are the facts, ugly as they are. Ace or not, we ain't winning if we don't do some hitting in these pressure games and the fact is we have not. Scoring just over 2 runs a game isn't winning you anything. YES, it would be nice to have an "elite pitcher" but can we for once raise some decent starting pitching? Other organizations do it and those tend to be the teams that go places.

"An ace" pitches every five days. There are only about five or six true aces in the league and Darvish sure as heck isn't one of them. Neither is Archer and I don't think Arrietta is now. He said a "balanced rotation" I would rather have that than an ace and a couple of question marks at the bottom of the rotation. I believe that is what he meant.

There is a market correction that seems to have begun. The experts and analysts did not see it coming, just as with the stock exchange, these things sometimes happen without the experts (or anyone else) seeing it. SO the experts forecasted a higher payout to Darvish and likely all the other FAs who are sitting on the sidelines. What does that say about forecasts? They aren't always the reality. Time to move on from this. I am thinking Falvey and Levine have and now they REALLY need to knuckle down.

They would have jacked us up to get him. The only way we could have gotten Darvish is to make an offer outside of what the Cubs would consider. We would have needed to go considerably higher. Don't know why people insist on going hypothetical when we are talking about THIS SITUATION. Clearly, Darvish had his sights set on certain markets and ours was not one of them.

Being a daily watcher of this team, I can look at the numbers with a more discerning eye. YOu know as well as I do that a majority of doubles were seven iron punch shots chipped into the left field corner so that made his ISO look a little better. We clearly don't agree. I think he took a huge step backward in 2011 and really never was the same after that.

I don't agree. He had already begun roll over everything he pulled on the ground by then. His BABIP was unrealistically high and he was coming to the end of his catching days, injury or not. As soon as 2011 happened, Mauer became a slap hitter. He became addicted to hitting the ball to left field and all but stopped turning on the baseball. What followed in advanced scouting really did him in and he had been resistant to change, until finally he started trying to drive the ball into right and right center more as this last year advanced. My biggest beef with Joe is it never appeared that he worked to improve strength and conditioning during the winter. Never really looked to me that he was strong going into a season.

For the record, I think Mauer's decline began in 2011. He had a minor procedure on his knee (Russell Martin had the same one that offseason and had an AS season), but he prescribed "rest" for himself. I really think that Mauer did himself a disservice that offseason. He came into camp in 2011 looking like he hadn't done a thing and he really paid for it because he could not whip himself into shape after being on the couch for a few months. I think 2011 was devastating to Mauer's psyche and I think much of it was due to his own inaction, But whatever. Not sure why this is being discussed now. It's all water under the bridge

, When I said, "we need to outbid the entire market" I am saying, not by a dollar, but by A LOT. It isn't only because we are Minnesota. It is also because we have established a terrible track record in the playoffs. Had we been competitive in the playoffs and actually gotten to a WS in one of those post seasons, who knows?

You're basically admitting that no matter what you cannot be wrong on this topic. It is simply impossible. That is the kind of arrogance I like! You're a good dude, Riverbrain!

You're what exactly? That Darvish would have signed with us if we offered him 4 million more than Chicago? No, I do not believe that is true.

No, I believe it's pretty elementary. Darvish wasn't as interested to work in Minnesota than he was in Chicago. To lure him here, we would have needed to sweeten the pot a lot more. Chicago would not have needed to make a bid any bigger than the one they had to land him and ours would have needed to be considerably bigger than theirs. I am not really even trying to convince you. I am just telling you it is pretty basic stuff whether you can accept it or not.

If Darvish crashes and burns this year are you STILL going to say the Twins failed?

My point is, we could have outbid them and still lost. We would have needed to go considerably higher.

Chicago is almost like LA was several years ago. They won their Championship so they are going to be willing to take these kinds of risks no matter how impractical, and this one is rather impractical. I will watch with great interest how Yu Darvish performs these next few years. I don't make many proclamations like this, but I am stunned with what I have read here the last couple of weeks on Darvish. My GOD is he overrated. It also seems as though no one can see or accept his near-imminent erosion of skills

So, we could have added 1 million to the Cubs offer and we would have won out. Sheesh.

You aren't understanding my point. Want me to explain it again?

What offer would Darvish had accepted from the Twins?

One very basic fact the "get Darvish at all costs" crowd has not understood/acknowledged since jump street is that we would have needed to outbid the entire market to get him. Whatever we would have offered would have been outdone or equaled by team more to his liking. We would have had to have separated ourselves from the pack with an outrageous offer in order to entice him to come. For him to sign with us we would have needed to thrown out plenty more than what he got. Not a couple of million more, like 20 or 25 million more. I would like to understand the rationale behind that for THIS player. What is it about THIS player?? Does he poop gold doubloons? Someone please make me understand how a pitcher with 52 wins, who ends the season as a 32 year old and flopped horribly in the World Series makes our team better?

So they were supposed to outbid the entire market for THIS PLAYER for the first time ever? No thanks. Again, why THIS player? Haven't seen the fan base this bent out of shape for not signing a FA. What gives?

I am sorry, but I don't see where Darvish is more durable than Lynn or Cobb. Darvish is a little older than both and has a lot more pitches on that arm than the other two http://mopupduty.com/yu-darvish-final-pitch-count-1231/