nicksaviking

I agree, that's why I wouldn't bother with any of these mid-season asking prices and would wait until the off season when the selling teams have to also compete with free agents who cost zero prospects.

Of the names bandied around, only Chris Archer really interests me. Nearly everyone else looks like injury or regression candidates. If this team is trading away top prospects, I'd rather they go big and get a guy who would be #1 with a bullet, not a Gray or Straily or Quintana who have big question marks. So I'd wait until the off season because I doubt there's an package the Rays would accept for Archer that didn't either include Sano or Berrios.

Interesting they are calling it Stranger Things 2. Like it's a sequel, not a new season. Until recently, sequels have historically been panned and the 1980's might have been the worst offender when it comes to terrible sequels due to all the bad slasher films. I wonder if they are intentionally playing up that angle to set and then (hopefully) break expectations. The first season wasn't really self-aware though, so I hope the second doesn't come off like it is.

I love Buxton's speed but Glynn's read was fantastic, and he's had quite a few unorthodox reads this year. He's a fantastic 3rd base coach. Being comfortable with the unconventional makes me think he could be a good MLB manager. Somewhere.

I'd rather buy them in the off season if this team just cannot develop their own. Even the most expensive of relievers is still affordable to the Twins. Can't say that about the best starting pitchers or position players. Relievers are so combustible I'd not want to trade off top 5 organizational talent for a guy just as likely to bust as to contribute. I'm about as far away from trusting a pitcher coming from San Diego as I am from trusting one straight out of Junior College.

Camera work at Kaufman is sometimes like watching an old VHS. Really, there was no better angle or zoom function to check the Dozier foul ball? At least they fixed the outfield camera that would get drenched by the waterfall every time there was a gust of wind.

To me, it kind of sounds like the Twins are trying stop-gap measures to make him as serviceable as possible this summer. Perhaps there are plans for wholesale swing changes in the offseason. I can understand how they'd maybe change his feet now hoping at the very least it improves contact and cuts back some on the strikeouts but they may not want to go into any kind of large overhaul in-season.

I don't want to take away from the effort and hard work put in by the veteran leaders, but this has to be true. And I can see how guys who may not be graced with superior athletic abilities tend to be better leaders, simply because they DO have to work harder and they DO have to have more attention to fundamentals, and obviously those are the examples most teams want to present to the younger guys. But when it comes to the point that the leadership skills are buoying a career because the on field production isn't there, then you've become a coach with a mitt and I don't think a 25-man roster can support that.

I don't agree with needing veterans to be leaders, but I understand the thought. What I don't understand is why veteran leadership for this team is only coming from guys who have been dangerously close to being a DFA candidate from the moment they were signed. Surely there are some veteran leaders that would have been able to provide a better chance of on-field contributions.

Why do Hildenberger, Busentiz or any other pitcher have to prove reliable to before they release Breslow or Belisle? Both of them have proven to be unreliable. When your safety net is no better or even worse than what's on the weekly waiver wire, you don't really have much to lose.

I'd also pick Romero and then let him learn in the pen if like most other pitchers, he isn't quite ready for the big stage. But I have a hard time seeing any of these guys jumping Aaron Slegers in the pecking order. Slegers has been the team's prototypical college-drafted good soldier. Unspectacular and probably does not have the stuff to be a MLB starter, he still shows good command and is of a more traditional age and level of Twins call ups.

Not to mention that even though people seem to like him for his groundball tendencies, his GB% is actually at a career low in 2017. Relievers can go belly up without notice and without much reason. Still need them however.

I always disagreed with Crash, I want my pitchers merciless and tyrannical. I'm cool with Mussolini on the mound.

Melotakis makes so little sense, he seems to have some value. He seems like a legit fit for this bullpen right now. Any chance the Twins have a trade in place but needed to make the move now to get guys called up?

Just looking at scouting reports, Carlson certainly would have interested me. But with how our teams and fans cling to our local guys, I've actually started to go the other way on them. I'd rather the Twins get guys they can be completely objective about. There are always questions about whether there are off field benefits when decisions are made about local guys. Not that the team would necessarily act on ulterior motives.

I meant to post here that I'm open to a Rosario replacement as soon as a clearly superior option presents itself, and to point out that Rosario falls to 17th if sorted by WAR on your list. But then I noticed a bit of a trend with those players; of those guys ahead of him, only Michael Conforto is younger. With the rest, there are a lot of guys in their late 20's and some into their 30's on that list and almost all of them toiled for a few years and were late bloomers, coming into their own at or after Rosario's age. Aaron Hicks, Marcell Ozuna, Aaron Alther, Cameron Maybin, Khris Davis, Adam Duvall, Michael Brantley, Melky Cabrera, Eduardo Nunez, Hernan Perez and Alex Gordon. It's like a who's-who of guys who were relatively well regarded prospects but took several years for it to click. Also, nearly every guy on that list is a negative defensively. There also isn't any real superstars in LF anymore.

I'll surely hope that Granite, Palka or someone else can provide an upgrade over Rosario at some point, perhaps even soon. But isn't the premise of Rosario and his leash about seeing improvement? His slash lines this year: April/March: .294/.366/.660 May: ..310/.500/.810 June: .344/.536/.880 Isn't he doing what we are asking for? I mean aside from the errant throw.

I'd take Feliz, he's basically free. His velocity and most of his peripherals are the same. It looks to me like his biggest change is he's giving up more flyballs this year than he did with Pittsburgh, which obviously didn't translate well in homer friendly Miller Park. His flyball rate is still in line with what he was doing in Texas though. Since he's so inexpensive I'd gladly give him a shot and see if his issues were due to bad luck and his home park.

Does anyone else feel kind of dirty accepting this win?

Sano might have rifled one like that to Mauer a time or two.

25 or 6 to 4.

I think you're mixing up their pitch count and their ERA.

This analogy is completely unfair to professional dart throwers.

Between bull riding and replays of poker tournaments, FSN does have leverage with their extrodinary content available to them!

I was really close to congratulating HOC for departing from the format of the last two seasons which was basically just a long lead up to elections. It looked like that was going to be another drawn out election process once again but then it surprised me and got through it in just a couple of episodes followed by multiple historically rare constitutional explorations of what could happen in our government. It seemed interesting even if quite implausible. But then they took the implausibility to a new level with the last couple episodes. The reveal of the final scheme just made no damn sense. I watch OitNB with my wife because it's one of the few shows we watch together anymore. This season's premise is different which is good. Still, it falls victim just as so many shows before it of softening the edges of previously unlikable characters. Racists are now not racist, bratty rich girls are now not bratty, oblivious and dumb characters gain societal insight, violent characters are now cuddly teddy bears. It's OK to have characters the audience doesn't like or identify with, not everyone has to transform for the better.