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Just read Bleacher reports grading for all the teams at this point in the year. Obviously after the trading period. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2789031-mlb-report-card-grades-for-all-30-teams-entering-august?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=mlb#slide4 "Minnesota Twins (49-57) If we pretended 2017 never happened, this season might feel like a moral victory for the Minnesota Twins. In 2016, Minnesota lost 103 games. In light of that, a sub-.500 second-place standing wouldn't sting too badly. The Twins vaulted past expectations in 2017, however, and grabbed the AL's second wild-card spot. As such, it's tough to view their injury-marred, regression-filled 2018 showing as anything less than a crash-to-Earth splash of ice-cold water. Grade: D" I tried to think about this as I do with my graduate courses - although those students are much easier to grade. So how do I think about a grade for the team - which is the entire team - players, Front Office, Management. Of course a world series position would make it easy to give them an A. But they need not have gone that far - they could have matched or just increased on last years performance and we would have had at least an A-. But they didn't. So what is next? In the B range we could have forgiven them for some set backs that they could not have anticipated - injuries, suspensions and if they came close to last year, if they had gotten to 500 it could be a B. If they had filled holes, had the players showing advances and given us a sense that things were in place if the missing returned I could have gone B. But they did not. It is hard to see that we are not suffering more than other teams, but the fact is other teams, good teams overcome the loss of Yu Darvish, Justin Turner, Aaron Judge...and they keep playing and keep winning. If the Front Office gave us a really good player out of Odorizzi, Lynn, Morrison, Rodney, Reed, Duke, Motter, LaMarre who looked like a piece to give us a shot at a run next year we could say that would be a C despite the record. But they did not. Maybe Cave will rise to be a super star. Or if all the players hit their marks from last year - Kepler, Buxton, Sano, Dozier we could feel pretty good, but Polanco and Rosario and Escobar and Berrios were the shining stars and the others fell far short. If we had a third catcher with some talent and promise for when Castro went down I would feel better, or if the manager did not fall in love with a hitless 35 year old back up catcher and play him more than the young guy who can hit and has promise I would like it. Or if we were not bringing out a 38 year old relief pitcher who averages a run an inning pitcher it would give me more confidence. In fact, if I were not seeing the fact that he does not let inherited runners score (very much) it would be fine, but the fact that he likes to let his own batters score does not help the team win. If the manager did not fall in love with the hot bullpen pitcher the way the NHL falls in love with the hot goal tender I would like it too. A pitcher cannot throw every night - alternate their appearances Paul. So put all this together and I am afraid there is no C here. I am afraid that I agree with Bleacher Report. This is a D. A "D" means that we all made it through the motions. We put a team on the field every day. Occasionally a good play or a good hit or a well pitched game will give us great joy, but too often we drift away before the game is over, we start to read about the other sports, maybe check out for a few days. In fact the D is a reflection of the fact that the trade deadline was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the summer game and now that it is over I guess I need to shift to the September call ups, although I would enjoy them more if we DFA'd deadwood and starting calling them up now. Okay, what would be an F? If in this Central Division we did not finish second in the standings. That would be an F.