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Since returning from the disabled list, Joe Mauer has been quietly reassembling himself, like a hitting terminator emerging from the blazing hell fires of suckitude, back into the consistent--if robotic--man we all know and respect. http://www.jamescamerononline.com/terminator221301.png Mauer mid-rehab stint While the hitting was something we all thought could return, we're glad to see that Mauer's defense has also been less terrible than in the past. We like to imagine that the reason for this
I hope you'll allow me this non-baseball topic on my blog today. We had our last "first-day-of-school" picture today with both kids, as The Chatty Chatty Princess starts her senior year and The Boy has his first day in high school. It brought to mind TCCP's first day of kindergarten, a day I missed, but documented twelve years ago on my new "TwinsGeek.com" blog with this story: ------------------------------ He didn't feel the gush that everyone said he would feel the first time he he
As the rebuild progresses and our prospects approach readiness, there are a few moves that must be made throughout the organization. Front Office: FIRE GM Terry Ryan: Terry Ryan is an intelligent GM, but a change at the position is needed for a couple of reasons. We need someone who can better recognize talent and we need someone who doesn't have a friendship with Manager Ron Gardenhire. Perhaps others need to be shown the door as well. Coaching Staff: FIRE Tom Brunansky, Rick Anderson, and
Things are starting to wind down in the minor league season and this means plenty of very important games for Twins' affiliates. The Kernels entered Sunday with a chance to clinch and the Red Wings are right in the middle of the wild card hunt. This means every at-bat and every pitch are very important. The same can't be said for the MLB version of the Twins. They are out of the playoff chase but they can still upset a few teams along the way. After pounding the Detroit Tigers in the first two
How many of you saw Trevor May slamming his glove down last night, and his other childish displays of anger? Cmon dude, thats little league stuff! No you werent awarded Pitcher of the World tonight, but I hate to say this given your childish reaction, but you pitched a pretty good game against a terrific team. Face it, rookies dont come up and dominate, ask Gibson who struggled mightily last year and was sent back. down. I hope to never see that disgusting display from you again and I
Pitching wins World Series'. That is a simple fact about the game of baseball; pitching is key. Take a quick look at our Minnesota Twins over the last three years. Hmm, terrible pitching and a terrible team. Coincidence? Well...no. If a team wants to make it to the post-season, they need pitching. If a team wants to make a run at a title, they need an ace. The problem isn't finding your ace as much as it is keeping them an ace. Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball and has been for
The other day, I was watching Moneyball, one of my favorite films. My favorite scene is when Billy Beane is in the room with a bunch of scouts saying the team should sign a bunch of questionable players. His response, as I'm sure most of you know, to all the criticisms he receives is "He gets on base." This got me thinking, how important is it to get on base? Using Fangraphs, I collected a bunch of data from last season, focusing on the team as a whole rather than individual stats. My goal was
The Minnesota Twins pounded the Detroit Tigers on Friday night TWENTY to six, courtesy of twenty hits including nine for extra bases and four home runs. Eduardo Escobar was a double short of the cycle (which makes no sense…) and 5-6, Kennys Vargas had two doubles, and Oswaldo Arcia smashed his fourth home run (did it hit the Target Center?!) in his last six games. Danny Santana and Trevor Plouffe (back-to-back after Arcia’s vs. Detroit infielder Andrew Romine) also went bombing. Good stuff.
http://i.imgur.com/jGI3TS3.jpg Sorry for the delay and poor quality of the image. I'm out of town and away from my computer so I tabulated it old school tonight. Not going to be a lot of insight from me, hoping to hear some more from you guys. Quick thoughts. First time covering Milone, and noticing he primarily stuck with the 4 seam and change tonight. Detroit was very aggressive. 22 balls in play, 16 foul balls and 7 swinging strikes makes 45 balls that were offered at. Throw in 37 balls,
E-Twins headline Appy League All-Stars Top player, pitcher, manager hail from first-place Elizabethton We win the triple crown with Max Murphy being Player of the Year (though he hasn't played there in a month), Felix Jorge being Pitcher of the Year, and Ray Smith winning Manager of the Year. Plus, Nick Gordon makes all-star team as infielder. http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140822&content_id=90863706&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milb
On a previous lunch hour, between bites of an All-P sandwich* I was wondering if there was a useable correlation between the number of All-Stars teams have and an expected number of wins. I thought if a team had a lot of all-stars and lower-than expected the wins, it might suggest a lackluster managing job. Higher than average wins per all-star, good managing. It turns out there actually is a very strong step up in average winning percentage for each incremental All-Star a team has. Roughly th
This is the second in a series of posts looking at different parts of the Twins roster as the season winds down. Clearly, there have been some rough moments at the end of the last few seasons. The moto of those years might have been "Wake Me Up When September Ends" but the hope is that this year will be a little different. Overall, there seems to be a little hope on the horizon. That hope might mean you won't want to sleep through this September. Earlier in the week, I looked at how this year'
The Minnesota Twins resumed their winning ways and came up with a 4-1 victory against one of the hottest pitchers in baseball. The Twins ended a 20-inning scoreless drought when Kennys Vargas homered to give the Twins a 1-0 lead in the forth off of Corey Kluber. The Twins picked up a couple more runs against Kluber and thanks to a magnificent performance from Phil Hughes the Twins cruised to victory. Red Wings Report Rochester 1, Syracuse 1, Suspended - Rain Box The game in Syracuse was
Angels just lost their Ace, What would they give up for Hughes? I m guessing you could get a Starter, and two prospects...If you are blown away..you have to take it...I know, I know..Hughes and Contract etc..but We could replace Hughes or close to it..AND add...two quality prospects how do you not take that? Same with Dozier...we are looking pretty good in the infield at the moment...escobar to 2nd...If you got two top prospects for Dozier, would you move him? I would While thinking about
Last Fall, when the season was over, I began a series of three blogs saying there was no more room in the Inn as players were getting jettisoned and prospects were pushing out the AAA filler in Rochester and at the MLB level. As this year enters the last couple of weeks for the minors and approaches the waiver deadline, it is amazing to consider the sheer volume of names no longer with the Twins or Red Wings. SO, Looking back in retrospect over this past year, here are names no longer with the o
http://i.imgur.com/nf87QCd.jpg Phil Hughes pitched a great game. Amazing command, throwing a 71-26 ratio on balls to strikes and some nice swinging strike numbers. One thing of note (though it's actually not on this image, and might start becoming part of it in the future) is that Cleveland had 32 foul balls, 3 of which were foul tips. In the top of the 3rd, Zach Walters fouled off 7 pitches in one at bat alone! There are two ways that you can look at a stat like that: According to Brooksbaseb
This week on the podcast we are joined by the great Rob Neyer (https://twitter.com/robneyer (@robneyer), http://robneyer.com/, http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside) a real baseball writing celebrity. Also on this episode is Eric's potty mouth. You've been warned.You can download the new Talk to Contact ( @TalkToContact) episode via iTunes or by clicking here. We discuss why we hate the teams we hate and then jump into all of the Twins news from the last week. Most of it involves p
http://i.imgur.com/eB9pmdG.jpg Mixed bag tonight from Nolasco. Nolasco's Fastball velocity seemed all over the place. He started the first two innings around 91-92 mph with both his 4 and 2 seam, but at the end of the first he touched 93 with back to back 2 seams. Then, in the third inning his velocity dipped down, registering 89-90 (thouched 92 with his last 2 seam of the inning). Then for the rest of the game he seemed hovered at 91-92, while a few 89, 90 and 93 mixed in. The Indians ca
http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/19/ad/da/paulpleiss/1400x1400_9864053.jpg This week on the podcast we are joined by the great Rob Neyer (https://twitter.com/robneyer (@robneyer), http://robneyer.com/, http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside) a real baseball writing celebrity. Also on this episode is Eric's potty mouth. You've been warned.We discuss why we hate the teams we hate and then jump into all of the Twins news from the last week. Most of it involves pitchers, and most of those pit
Kyle Gibson's pitch breakdown from Tuesday's 7-5 loss against the Cleveland Indians. Gibson pitched 5.1 innings, allowing 5R/ER on 8 hits, 1 BB and 4 SOs. http://i.imgur.com/7qDVdRG.jpg In his post game interview, Gibson said his fastball command was in and out, and his slider was his worst pitch, and the numbers pretty much reflect this. His slider was effective at getting swings and misses, but 3 of the 8 hits he allowed were on the slider, while the other 5 were on fastballs. His changeup
Tuesday night's Cedar Rapids Kernels come-from-behind win over the Quad Cities River Bandits was bittersweet. On the one hand, they tallied three runs in the home half of the eighth inning and put away the Bandits for their eighth straight win. They swept three games in Beloit last week, three more from Peoria in Cedar Rapids over the weekend, and now the first two games of their series with the Bandits. The team also played to near-capacity home crowds on Friday and Saturday night. On the o
The big story of the night was star pitching prospect Kohl Stewart being pulled very early in his start by the Cedar Rapids training staff. His fastball usually sits in the mid-90s but he was topping out anywhere from 88-90 mph. The Twins have come out and said they removed him for precautionary reasons. With not many games left in the minor league season, it would be surprising to see Stewart on the mound again in 2014. With Stewart out of the game early, would the Kernels be able to continue
The big story of the night was star pitching prospect Kohl Stewart being pulled very early in his start by the Cedar Rapids training staff. His fastball usually sits in the mid-90s but he was topping out anywhere from 88-90 mph. The Twins have come out and said they removed him for precautionary reasons. With not many games left in the minor league season, it would be surprising to see Stewart on the mound again in 2014. With Stewart out of the game early, would the Kernels be able to continue
On Saturday, Tait went 2-for-4 with a walk and his 17th double. The 19-year-old is hitting .219 with 17 doubles and 15 home runs at High-A Cedar Rapids.
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