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Has anyone noticed that the only people really advocating for Hunter's return are people who know next to nothing about baseball. That is one thing i have noticed about twins fans, they almost care more about indvidual players than the team as a whole. Anyone who has looked at Torii's stats knows that he only plays well when he is playing for a new contract. This whole fan favorite thing is getting out of control. When i worked for the twins i got yelled at by numerous "fans" when the twins traded Doug M to clear up space for some lug named Morneau. How did that work out? Aside from letting go of Dortiz, which i don't recall anyone really complaining about, the twins don't let players go if they can't replace them. Guardado and AJ were both all-stars but we barely skipped a beat after they left. Guzman left, we could have put a couch at short and it would have been just as good. Especially for 15mil or whatever he got. People are now talking about cuddyer. He is going to get a big raise this year despite the fact he took a step backwards after 2006. I'll let that slide since pretty much everyone except for Contract Year Torii took a step back. The "fans" love cuddyer, but if he demands a big contract and shows no signs of returning to his 20 homer/100 RBI numbers, we shouldn't overpay him just because the ladies like him. Everyone always talks about doing things the twins way in terms of players. Keeping players just because they sell jerseys is not doing things the twins way in terms of front office. In summary- I have yet to see a good argument in favor of keeping Torii. His giving the twins lots of good years and doing things in the community is a terrible reason to pay him 75 mil over 4 years or whatever he will get. The twins have the pieces (prospects, extra payroll, etc) to replace him either through free agency or a trade. I like cuddyer much better than hunter and am confident he will rebound from his disappointing but not downright terrible 2007 season. He is a great clubhouse leader, great defender and he will rebound at the plate next year. I am convinced he was down because everyone was down. He might be the kind of player we should try to lock up for a reasonable contract, and not keep him around for the wrong reasons.
Authors:
RobertShort
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You're right on the money, Robert, as usual.
"The Twins Way" has been misconstrued by a lot of fans and analysts. It's not about "keeping our guys" or "doing things the right way," or anything like that. It's about paying for future performance, not for past performance. The Twins Way says it doesn't matter what Torii's stats are so far, when determining what to pay him; it only matters what he's going to do for us during the new contract. And for the price, it's doubtful that even his past performance is a good value for the Twins ... and that discounts the fact that there's no way his future performance will match his past. The Twins Way states we ditch Hunter (actually we should have traded him before free agency, just as we should have done for Silva, and should now do for Santana and Nathan).
Now I'm not saying we should trade everyone and be in a constant state of "blow it up and start over." But that's the Twins Way. What if we'd kept AJ for one last year and then let him walk to the White Sox in free agency? We wouldn't have had to suffer through Henry Blanco at catcher for a season until Mauer was ready ... but we wouldn't have Nathan, Boof, or Liriano. Recently the Twins management has misplaced their balls, and are more willing to kowtow to the demands of the loud (uneducated) fans who say "DON'T TRADE MY FAVORITE PLAYER!!!" instead of the other loud (uneducated) fans who say "TRADE EVERYONE ON THE TEAM, THEY ALL SUCK!!!!" Frankly, they shouldn't care what we think; they don't pay us to advise them about baseball. We pay them to give us baseball. And they're supposed to be the ones who know what they're doing.
The point is, that for the last couple of years, the Twins have seemed afraid to do anything that might rock the boat. And all they have to do to realize that rocking the boat isn't as bad as they think it's going to be (and often helps) is to look at their past before the last couple of years. Dropping Dougie. Sending AJ packing. The fans didn't like those, but they were good decisions. Dropping Dortiz ... the fans DID like that move, and it turned out to be the dumbest thing any team's done since the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth. Oh yeah. Keep listening to what the fans think. It's a GREAT idea. (Note that I was one of the many idiots who was glad to see Dortiz go, so "we could finally get a real DH.")
I also liked the move to let Dortiz go. To be honest he would never have matched his boston numbers because of our park, our lineup and our coaching staff. It is what it is. I also saw a headline on espn.com (unfortunately, it was Insider material) that said the Twins have been talking to the Cards about scott rolen.
Not sure how i feel about this. Rolen does play gold golve defense, and in the past has been great at the plate. However he is not aging well. He has missed considerable time with a shoulder problem recently. If we can get him for pennies on the dollar, i say go for it. But if it requires us to give up a lot don't do it. If he rebounds to his form circa 2005 or so he would be a great asset for a few years. I'd have to do more research but i'm wary unless its a firesale move by the cards.
Rolen's a guy I'd be willing to take a flier on ... but he's definitely not worth giving up anything of real value for. A low end prospect at best. He could stand in at 3B until one of our guys in the minors decides to start being good at baseball.
I can now actually back up my comments about Torii Hunter. 56% of fans this the number 1 offseason priority is to resign hunter. This is according to the online poll on twinsbaseball.com That is actually lower than i would have expected, but its still too high.
56% of Twins fans don't know enough about what it takes to field a baseball team.