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Welcome, readers! In past years, I’ve taken control of a game thread once or twice a year and ran a Strat-O-Matic game in real time alongside the Twins game in real life. With the game threads headed in a different direction, I’ve thought about how I might deliver some Strat-O-Matic content to Twins Daily in a better-suited format. After some deliberation, I decided to start a blog here and see if this format will satisfy the masses. Just so you know, I work a 9 to 5 job Monday through Friday an
Prior to the 2018 Major League Baseball season the Minnesota Twins acquired Jake Odorizzi in exchange for Jermaine Palacios. At the time, Palacios was a second or third tier prospect that had some internal fanfare. Swapping him for a big-league starter was a no-brainer though. Jake’s first season with the Twins was mostly mediocre, but there was reason to believe he was better than the numbers. Across 32 starts a season ago Odorizzi owned a 4.49 ERA, 8.9 K/9, and a 3.8 BB/9. He dropped his hom
It's been exactly one week since the Twins last off day, an unplanned off day prompted by a wet field in Los Angeles, so now is a good time to assess what has gone right, and what has gone wrong for the team since then. The Good A 5-1 record since the last day off. Simply put the Twins have been mashing in that time with a convincing win over the Angels, a sweep against the White Sox, and a well-played 2 game split against one of the National League's best teams the Milwaukee Brewers. In those
When Garver is ready to return...when Cruz is ready to return...who gets sent down? Will it be Litttell and Arraez? Will it be two relievers, since the starters are doing so well and Arraez is such a good hitter and can play several IF positions? ? Will it be 2 position players since two position (DH and C) players will be returning? What do you think?
In part two of this series we will be looking at the 2010 MLB draft. This series is about looking at how the Twins did in the draft during the past decade, not a wine piece. We will see positives and negatives in the Twins’ draft prowess. Another intention of this piece is to simply show how hard it is to draft and develop MLB players. With the 21st pick in the 2010 draft the Minnesota Twins selected RHP Alex Wimmers out of the Ohio State University. Wimmer never lived up to expectations that
At some point, you have to know when to cut bait and move on. For Twins fans, that time has come for Dallas Keuchel. For the last 5 seasons, Keuchel has been the Astro’s homegrown ace. From his debut in 2012, Keuchel has slowly cemented himself as one of the best starting pitchers in the game. Save for a rocky 2016 and some early growing pains, Keuchel has been nothing but solid. Anchored by Keuchel and Justin Verlander, acquired from the Tigers in August of 2017, the Houston Astros have bee
This is an excerpt of a story which originates at Zone Coverage here. Please click through to read it in full. The Minnesota Twins have placed right-handed starting pitcher Michael Pineda on the disabled list with right knee tendinitis, and are purchasing the contract of 23-year-old lefty Devin Smelzter to take his place on the roster. Smeltzer will make his debut in a start against Milwaukee on Tuesday night at Target Field. The Player: Left-handed pitcher Devin Smeltzer The Situation:
Coming into the season the one real glaring area of weakness for the Minnesota Twins was their relief corps. Relying on unproven commodities like Matt Magill and Ryne Harper seemed lofty, and the high leverage arms came in the form of Blake Parker and Taylor Rogers. Fast forward to today and the pitching staff has performed admirably with the bullpen significantly surpassing fan expectations. If there’s a call to be made though, it may come from further down the ladder. Today the Twins promote
Last night the Minnesota Twins got their first taste of a game that truly resembled playoff baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers are certainly a playoff caliber team, maybe even National League Champion caliber, and showed it on a wet Memorial Day. The Twins struck first against the Brew Crew, scoring four 2-out runs in the 2nd on a Luis Arraez single and Byron Buxton Home Run. The Brewers would immediately respond by scoring 3 runs of their own on a double and 2 sacrifice flies. The Brewers would co
One of the first premiere products of the 2019 season, Topps Definitive Collection releases at hobby stores May 29th. The one pack box, containing eight cards, will set you back just over $1,000. While the price tag is certainly steep, the contents inside can absolutely match that shock value. Unfortunately for Minnesota Twins fans the checklist leaves a bit to be desire. There are no true base cards in this product. A base autograph relic set is where your “standard” cards fall, and it’s comp
A nice note from CNN: Say the name Bill Buckner, and what do you think of? Probably a baseball rolling under his glove and through his legs. And that's just not fair. Buckner, who died yesterday at age 69, was an elite hitter, winning a batting title with the Chicago Cubs in 1980 (hitting .324), and he was an All-Star in 1981. He managed to hang around the big leagues for 22 years, an accomplishment in itself. But he'll always be associated with that fielding error in the 1986 World Series tha
(Disclaimer; this article was written during the time the Twins had the lead. In the time they relenquished it, it approximately induced me into a cycle of imminent doom and hate for the Twins Baseball. Also, the comments on the pitching staff were written before a cheese puff decided to disguise himself as Taylor Rodgers) Lately, Jake Odorizzi has been making a legitimate case as new staff ace of the Twins staff. And to be a frank, so has every starter the Twins have thrown out their not n
Brusdar Graterol Shoulder Impingement Q&A Heezy1323 Heralded Twins prospect Brusdar Graterol was recently shut down and placed on the IL for ‘shoulder impingement’. This is concerning given how promising a start to the 2019 season Graterol has had and what it could mean for his future. So what is ‘shoulder impingement’? And when might it need surgery? Let’s see what we can figure out: [Disclaimer: I am not a team physician for the Twins. I have not treated or examined any Twins playe
With two months gone in the season, the Minnesota Twins big league club has the best record in baseball. In the minors, unfortunately, many big prospects are injured, some for a long period including Brusdar Graterol, Akil Baddoo, Stephen Gonsalves, Tyler Wells and Yunior Severino. However, there have been a number of bright spots in the minor league system. Many players have deservedly been already promoted this season. This list is for the players who should be moved up, and likely will be som
Happy Memorial Day, Twins Daily! I hope that you all are enjoying your long weekend and getting to spend some time with your families while we, as a nation, honor our fallen heroes. Memorial Day is a big day. It marks the beginning of when the MLB standings start to mean something. Now almost a third of the way into the season, there can be no more "small sample" excuses, no more "cold weather" excuses, and a slow start is more than just a slow start now. With all of that said, here is a look
Have you ever heard of the Kansas City Antelopes? They were a baseball team before the Cincinnati club that has been give credit for being the first baseball club. They played from the end of the Civil War into the 1870s. We might not have recognized the game – the pitchers tossed underhand, they wore no gloves, and a ball caught on the first bounce was considered an out. When the cowbells rang a run scored. Hurls tossed to strikers and bad fielding with bare hands caused many muffs. And there w
This article appears in full on Zone Coverage here. Please click through to read it. Power ranking things can be a fun exercise. It can be exhausting. But few things get people talking as much as seeing their favorite things — be it baseball teams, foods or pop culture phenomena — ranked in an orderly list. We’ve done this in this space before, but here’s how we’d power rank the current 25-man roster of the Minnesota Twins. Like most power rankings, a special formula is used with room fo
First let me say I realize that this article will probably disappoint most fans because I am going to list out all of the internal options the Twins have versus trading away prospects. One of the biggest reason I feel this way is that for all the groaning I read in the comments section about our bullpen, it has been really good for a vast majority of the time. Some of the fungible pieces that the Twins have rotated thru the bottom of the bullpen such as Austin Adams, Chase DeJong and Andrew Vas
Blogging about the Twins is something I have been wanting to do for a long time but life has just gotten in the way too much. Over the past five years or so I have been wanting to get into doing this but have never seen a good time to commit. I am finally at the point where I have time to start doing this and I’ve decided to just jump in. Over these past five years I have been preparing to do this by keeping a list of topics I would like to write about so I have a good inventory of subjects I am
On the day of this article being written, the Twins were rained out in Anaheim of all places and so my thirst for Twins content remained strong (evidently the field’s thirst for water was not, but that’s a joke for a different time). And so what else can I do except scroll through the usual suspects of baseball stat sites in order to find some weird and wacky stuff to write about. What did I find? Well, a lot of crazy stuff for sure, Joey Gallo’s BABIP for one, Ryan Pressly’s walk rate (or lack
This content originates at Zone Coverage here -- please click through to read it in its entirety. In the mid-1980s, MLB teams colluded to keep player contracts — both in terms of length and dollars — from getting out of control. And while we’d stop short of using the c-word to describe the last two offseasons, there are some stunningly similar situations playing out before our very eyes. Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel are both sitting at home twiddling their thumbs as teams now wait for th
Michael Pineda made a start for the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night in California against the Los Angeles Angels. He gave up a home run to Mike Trout during the second at bat of the game, the opposition was leading 3-0 entering the 3rd inning. That was your que to go and do a quick Twitter search, and it wouldn’t have been pretty. The reality is we’re seeing a shift in expectations. Entering play on May 22 the Twins pitching staff owned the 7th best fWAR in baseball. The 3.68 ERA of Minnesota
I recently moved to the Anaheim area and was lucky enough to be able to attend Tuesday evenings' game (5/21/19). I also was able to get to a Dodgers' game a few weeks ago against the Nationals. I've been watching the Twins all season on TV (the 5pm start and 8pm finish of the weekday games is glorious), and I am always confident that we are going to end up having a shot to win any game as long as we keep it within 2 or 3 runs because our lineup is beautiful (so deep). The Twins won handedly
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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