Good luck to the X twins

[harvey lee]

I see Franciso pitched one heck of a game for the Pirates to advance to the next round in the play offs.

Congrats to both Franciso L and Justin Morneau.

[gunner55]

+1,his slider sure looked nasty last night

[rundrave]

+1,his slider sure looked nasty last night

Remember guys, it's not Gardenhire's or Rick Anderson's fault because they haven't had anything to work with.

[brian6715]

Might as well mention that Micheal Cuddyer won the NL batting title this year, too.

[Musky Buck]

Gomez the MVP or more votes anyway if the Brewers would've had a better year and got in. Liriano sand bagged it here to get out, my gosh if Sydney Ponson could get a deal from us Liriano didn't have a worry in the world of landing on a team. It was good to see the Pittsburgh crowd all fired up, 20 years without the playoffs is wow, but can't feel to bad the Steelers and Penguins have had there share of parades. Definitely a fun team to watch.

[Kyhl]

I laughed last night seening Lariano. I tuned in after the game had started. Second batter that I saw him face and he beans him. I laughed and though, nothing has changed.

Then the announces mention that he didn't hit anyone all season. Hmmmm. So I had to watch more.

It was great to see Morneau in an organization that gives a D@6m!.

[greebs]

Definitely thinking I need to find a few other teams to start watching a bit since twins don't seem to be interested in winning and accountability. Pirates fans have definitely suffered long time and good to see them make playoffs. Hoping for Rays or Oakland in AL. Would have loved to seen someone from their coaching staff leading twins next year but guess hurt feelings more important to ownership than change from what isn't working.

[toughguy]

So good luck to 7 of the 8 teams left - 12 players in total.

[Musky Buck]

Delmon Young said hey don't forget about me last night, and he was the expendable one at one point in twins history. He always could turn a fastball around, except the year his mom passed in May he was a trainwreck that year but the following year he did solid damage for the twins. I think his level of caring certainly rides with if he's got a playoff chance or not. He has 9 jacks in 109 playoff at bats hitting .266 with a triple and 3 doubles, not bad. Not sure maybe 10 jacks unknown if last nights stats were entered.

[harvey lee]

Yes, for whatever reason, probably money, we have let go many a great player.

The thought of all those players the Twins dumped still in a Tiwns uni and we would still be in the game playing in October.

Oh well, Pohland is making money and I guess that is all that really matters.

[Musky Buck]

No doubt Harvey, almost at times seems we try to be Midwest nice too often, let Garza and Lohse walk, Delmon, so why in the didn't we sign Hunter and Cuddyer ? lol. We're a mess and no longer the piranha's, used to hear some copy the Twin's or A's, that is no longer.

[greebs]

Yes, for whatever reason, probably money, we have let go many a great player.

The thought of all those players the Twins dumped still in a Tiwns uni and we would still be in the game playing in October.

Oh well, Pohland is making money and I guess that is all that really matters.

There are a fair amount of them that didn't leave because of money. Some weren't the vanilla type players the current leaders like and others were basically let go because they were underperforming. Sadly there are several players who didn't do much as twins who are doing much better since they left team compared to very few who became much better players after becoming a Twin.

But hey Terry Ryan tells us he and gardy have a plan so no doubt this team will be one to reckon with in 2014.

[Cicada]

Do you think the Twins are the only team this happens to? Players either underperform, want more money than they were worth at the time, or didn't fit well into their organization and move on. Sometimes it is the change of scenery, sometimes they respond to a different coaching style, and sometimes they just matured.

Looking at some of the guys the Twins lost:

Francisco Liriano says the Twins forced him to try to establish his fastball and get ahead of the hitters. He wanted to throw his slider first. (He was no better for the White Sox than he was for the Twins.) Now he is having some success doing just that, the same way he did in his first year with the Twins. Remember how that worked out for him? Blew out his arm and missed the next year. Time will tell if he has grown stronger and can now handle the stress on his arm.

Michael Cuddyer's first year with the Rockies looked much like his years with the Twins. He has had a great year this year and hopefully gets recognized in the MVP voting, but this year has been an oddity for him. It would be great if he can put a few more years like this together, but he is 34 years old.

Matt Garza's name keeps coming up. He was told by the Twins that he can't rely on his fastball in the major leagues. he went somewhere else and did just that and was very successful...for one year. Since, he has been with four teams in the last four years. Does everybody want him? Or, does nobody want him? Based on his inconsistency, I'd lean towards the latter.

Go back to David Ortiz. He was horrible with he Twins. Couldn't stay healthy on the turf, didn't like the fact that he was being coached to spread the ball around, and was a defensive liability. If I remember right, he was benched or sent home by Tom Kelly for failing to bring a glove on a road trip. I think it was in Kansas City. Sure, he became a super star for the Red Sox, but think about it, that stadium is designed for a left handed pull hitter with Pesky Pole. He was never going to be the player he is today with the Twins. The Twins probably did him a favor by getting rid of him or his career would have been over a few years more on turf.

Keep in mind that when you see these former players on SportsCenter, you usually see Cuddyer hitting a thousand, Liriano striking out every guy he faces, and Ortiz blasting something into the night. You don't see the 100 stikeouts that Cuddyer had, the hits that Liriano gives up, or the 7.5 out of ten times Ortiz fails. Same thing I've always said about Derek jeter. A Yankee hater, like myself,would think that he hits 40-50 home runs a year. SportsCenter will show every home run he hits at he beginning of the show, during the game higlights, and at the end of the show. Now he get three to one coverage and it feels like he hits a lot out, when in reality he hits about 20 per year.

Here endeth the lesson.

[brian6715]

The only lesson I got out of that was that our coaching staff (along with other teams) doesn't know how to work with what they have. The teams who do know how to coach their players have success (BoSox, Rockies, Pirates, Brewers, etc). Do you think Boston cares if Ortiz has a glove? Or do you think the Pirates care that Liriano relies on his slider? Do you think the Brewers care that Gomez has so much passion for the game that it explodes in the wrong ways sometimes? Doubtful.

So yes, our coaching sucks, you proved most of our points here, good lesson!

[Cicada]

I was going to leave Gomez out of the conversation. The guy is a out and out loser. You are mistaking passion for an immature idi0t. Did you see his ejection at the end of the season? Pure stupidity. By the way, doesn't he look like a prime candidate for a drug test? He looks a lot bigger since he left the Twins. Good friends with Braun? Boy, does he look well coached.

So, if only one team wins the World Series, then there are 29 poor coaching staffs and they all should be fired?

It isn't that the Twins have poor coaches, they have poor players. You can't coach someone to do something that they don't have the capacity to do. Heaven forbid the Twins coaching staff would ever get credit for giving those former players the experience and direction they needed to be successful.

"Here endeth the lesson." was a quote from the movie The Untouchables. Only threw that in because I knew I was getting long winded. We all know lessons are wasted on those not willing to learn.

[JBMasterAngler]

Clearly those players had the capacity to do something, and the twins' coaches couldn't figure that out.

[greebs]

The only lesson I got out of that was that our coaching staff (along with other teams) doesn't know how to work with what they have. The teams who do know how to coach their players have success (BoSox, Rockies, Pirates, Brewers, etc). Do you think Boston cares if Ortiz has a glove? Or do you think the Pirates care that Liriano relies on his slider? Do you think the Brewers care that Gomez has so much passion for the game that it explodes in the wrong ways sometimes? Doubtful.

So yes, our coaching sucks, you proved most of our points here, good lesson!

You clearly haven't bought into drinking the koolaid this team is wanting fans to drink. The post before yours is exactly what ownership and management want us to accept. They want fans to simply be content with the idea that we've always got the future to look forward to and that if they say all is well with the team and no mistakes have been made then we should be happy with that. And having those koolaid drinkers then chastise anyone who questions what and why this team is so awful is just an added bonus.

[blue_healer_guy]

you can call it kool-aid or the pohlad pocket pertectors. same thing.

[Musky Buck]

David Ortiz got it done once again, I remember clearly the twins brass feeling Matthew LeCroy was a better option at DH then Ortiz because he could spell our catchers some. We should've been building a team around Mr. Ortiz. Would've been a tremendous catch if Torii would've robbed that.