nicksaviking

What the hell are you guys still doing here, I thought we closed up shop for the night? Last call was an hour ago.

I'd rotate Polanco between 3B/SS/2B and give Sano some looks at 1B. The team has already screwed the pooch defensively this year, the new GM is going to have a few things to fix anyway, so I really wouldn't care if Polanco played SS exclusively. However, Eduardo Escobar has already started his traditional 2nd half surge with a .785 OPS since June, so I'd like to keep him in the lineup.

How about instead of comparing the teams, a comparison of the draft position is made? So if the Twins drafted 10th and selected a HS kid, that pick is compared in WAR to the next 10-20 HS kids taken and the same is done separately for the college guys. Then WAR is added for each team and divided by the number of draft picks, then we'd have WAR per player and only for guys the Twins had a shot at drafting.

They could limit his innings in the pen if the team also trades fellow lefty Abad. It's not something Ryan would have done, but Ryan's not in charge any more either. Not saying they should do it, or even that I care to see him this year, but they could be creative if they want him to audition for 2017 which might be smart considering he's the closest lefty in the system who may be ready for the opening day rotation. Assuming (hoping) Milone is no longer an option and Rogers remains in the pen.

I like it, a young controllable lefty with some promise. The Twins have gotten a pretty good return for Scott Tyler and Travis Boyer! They got Luis Castillo who got Drew Buetera (and Dustin Martin) who got Miguel Sulbaran who got Nunez who now got Mejia. Not bad starting with a 20th round draft choice in 1999!

I can feel it, the anxiety around here is building, people are dying for some trade news. When the Twins were good they were loathe to part with young players to improve the club, when the club was bad they were so bad that they didn't have anything worth trading. Now we sit here with perhaps not exciting, but certainly plentiful trade chips. There have been rumblings about Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco, Tommy Milone, Eduardo Nunez, Eduardo Escobar, Kurt Suzuki, Brian Dozier and Kyle Gibson along with what seems like the entire bullpen. I'm itching for a trade, everyone's itching for a trade, but should we actually scratch it? The Twins just hired a search firm to find them a new GM at minimum and perhaps a whole new organizational structure as many of us have been hoping for. While recognizing that he is a stand-up guy, removing Terry Ryan from his GM post received nearly unanimous approval here at Twins Daily, nearly as unanimous is the belief that the next man or woman calling the shots should not come from within the current organization, including interim GM Rob Anthony. Aside from Kurt Suzuki, every player on the roster is controllable beyond this year. I'm not saying the current folks in charge are not capable, but if the consensus is that someone new should be in charge, should we really be hoping for a huge roster overhaul now? Wouldn't conventional wisdom suggest that we wait for the permanent man or woman make those calls this off-season? These are my thoughts while I read Twins Daily the last few days as there is a clear tension regarding the trade deadline. I have cravings for a trade, however logic says to wait. But hold on, but does logic really say to wait? Because I also want Jose Berrios, JT Chargois and Jorge Polanco up ASAP, they have been down in the minors much longer than they reasonably should. I care about getting them up and running and hopefully ready to contribute positively by 2017 more than I care about which mid-level prospects come back in a trade. That means getting them at minimum an extra month of MLB playing time. Therefore, aside from trading Suzuki who will be a free agent anyway, I prefer Anthony to move just enough guys to clear room on the 25-man for those three youngsters above. If I had my druthers, I'd trade Nunez as his value will likely never be higher and his spot presents a clear path for Polanco. Assuming Nolasco and Milone cannot be traded, I may just prefer cutting ties with both come August 2nd to open spots for Chargois and Berrios, moving Trevor May back to the rotation. So my bottom line is, I would prefer Rob Anthony make only a couple of trades for the sole and explicit purpose of making room for the younger players who are ready now. I would prefer to let the next person in charge make all remaining necessary moves.

Welcome to the site. Feel free to contribute your thoughts and ideas anytime, though I'd never encourage texting and mowing so keep all your toes and be careful out there.

****Moderator Note**** Comments aimed at the content of the podcast still need to follow posting guidelines. Personal attacks are still unacceptable. Clearly this is a hot button topic but there is always room for debate. God forbid only 95% of fellow posters agree on something. We can all still be fans without complete consensus.

Snipe John Mozeliak for President of Baseball Operations, and Ill trust his judgement on the guys under him.

I agree. St Peter is just fine for PR, promotions, community outreach etc. I still don't feel comfortable with him heavily involved in this GM call. If I'm Pohlad and I'm serious about getting the best candidate, I call the commissioner and the owners of the high revenue clubs and tell them that if they don't want me being a revenue sharing sieve, they need to lend a layman like me a hand. If there is no search firm, and the call all falls to St Peter and Pohlad, they'll deserve all the criticism about how the decision was about money, not winning, that will certainly ensue. Even if it's not true.

I really have no clue what Krivsky does for this team, but he's been a GM before, I would have preferred him over Anthony as well.

I'm OK with a salary dump simply because the only players I still want on this team come next year don't make much. Plouffe, Santana, Perkins, Nolasco, Mauer, Hughes? Man, if Anthony had some kind of magic potion and was able to lose those last four, even I might be on board with giving him a real shot.

The GM has to come from outside. That being said, there really isn't anything Anthony can do now to prove he's the guy, and that is an unfair position the team put him in. The Twins could win out, yet Anthony should get no credit for it. The Twins could lose out and Anthony should get no blame. He reall only has two actions to make that may affect the onfield product at this time. 1. He can call up the young player, however that should be a given, Anthony can't be credited with doing something that every other sane GM for a losing team would do. 2. Anthony can trade the vets something else any sane GM would do. The quality of the return for the vets should not be made clear until long after the Twins new GM has been hired. So my fear is that Anthony won't call up the young guys and won't trade the vets because not doing so may give the team some paper wins, which leads to a bigger fear, that St Peter and Pohlad don't know enough about baseball to realize the record the rest of the way should have zero impact on the decision.

If the current Twins assistant GM was the combined spirit of Branch Rickey and Ed Barrow and said spirit had a double major in Statistical Analysis and Quntitative ESP, I still wouldn't want him. This team needs gutting and the smell of failure and stubbornness needs to be throughly exercised from the whole organization.

I'm surprised by the timing, not the decision. Pohlad has never been as media visible as he has been the last couple months, something was brewing. That being said, they likely just fired the most knowledgeable baseball mind in the system. I don't think Pohlad or St Peter could manage this firing or hiring themselves; who's pulling the strings? Was there internal insurrection by guys like Anthony and Krivsky? All the widely believed "country club" talk would imply no. Were other owners and/or the commissioners office whispering in Pohlad's ear unhappy about the fact that the Twins are already on the receiving end of revenue sharing despite the new stadium? I'd think it's more likely. If so, that's great for the team if the rest of the clubs are making a concerted effort to make the team better.

In a vacuum he would, but this team has a pretty big veteran conundrum to figure out. If someone had told us in February that the team was terrible, Milone would get DFA'd, Hughes would be out for the year and terrible, Nolasco/Gibson/Duffey were healthy and terrible and with ERAs over 5.00, May was still banished to the bullpen, Taylor Rogers was newly banished to the bullpen and Alex Meyer got lost during an African Safari, we'd say no way would Berrios be in Rochester at the All-Star break unless he was clinically dead. These logical expectations don't seem to work out as we'd logically expect them to.

Free Hidenberger! Hmmm, when vocalized that's more of a mouthful than I anticipated. And my co-workers are confused.

There you go again, saying the Twins need to rely more on analytics and less on the scouts

Jepsen's 2015 in TB wasn't particularly good. His K rate was plummeting and his walk rate, FIP and WHIP were all rising. He had one really nice year in LA and a couple pretty good ones. The Twins struck gold when he put on a career best performance for them last year, but he had no track record of that kind of pitching prior and he was on the wrong side of 30. At the time of the trade the Twins really should have had no illusions about what kind of pitcher he was and where his numbers were trending. I mean in isolation, if his ERA had matched his FIP of 4.19 along with the high 4.3 BB/9 and the poor-for-a-reliever 7.3K/9, wouldn't he look closer to a DFA candidate than a get-another-team's-top-15-prospect candidate?

The Twins are currently flush with middle infielders who can hit, why would the put one on the 25 who can't? Defense is secondary to offense for this club, and in this situation, I completely agree. No need to intentionally make a black hole where one isn't currently present. It seems everyone wants a defensive first SS, yet when the team gets one, the leash is about ten games before the complaining starts; see Florimon and Punto.

I guess my opinion is that Polanco has shown himself at least worth of a shot going on two years, and now they've basically wasted those two eval years and left themselves only one crack at it.

Agreed. I find it hard to believe this front office doesn't see the corner they are painting themselves into with Polanco. Also, even if Dozier profiles as a better overall player, Polanco's superior OBP potential may be more valuable to this team considering its current make-up.

Is 8 games enough to write off CF as a possibility? Minnesota needs one of those again.

Geez, shouldn't Kirilloff be in Rochester by now?

If there is going to be a regime change in the front office, I'm inclined to move as many vets as possible to clean the slate for the new guy so he can remake this team according to his vision. That being said, Santana is probably the type of good-not-great pitcher that would fit into just about any vision.