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At what point do changes with the FO/coaching staff get made? How much patience should we have with the status quo? This is a team that was expected to improve and contend this year. As a self admitted pessimist I always have low expectations, but this team has underperformed even my wildest nightmares. Obviously, this team will not lose every game and will improve, sample sizes are fairly small yet and won't continue to be sub-Buterean with RISP, but if this team continues on it's current traje
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CAAPDdLxLU As a woodworking hobbyist and a longtime baseball lover, Jim Anderson wanted a fun way to honor the birth of his first child. So, after seeing an ad for trophy bats in a mail order catalog, he decided to make one of his own. "My friend and I made this bat," he said. "We had no idea what we were doing but were both intrigued by the process of turning something out of wood." But something about the bat didn't look right. "I knew it would look weird i
April 11, 1961 The Twins played their first ever regular season game at Yankee Stadium. Harmon Killebrew collected the first hit in Twins history, leading off the 4th with a single to center. Twins pitcher Pedro Ramos and Whitey Ford were locked in a scoreless duel until Bob Allison led off the 7th with a home run, the first in Twins history. The Twins went on to win their first game 6-0 as Ramos pitched a complete game, 3-hit shutout versus the eventual 1961 World Series champs. Ramos held
Ricky Nolasco was on the mound for the Twins on Sunday afternoon and gave them arguably his best start in a Minnesota uniform, going seven innings and allowing just one run against the defending World Champions. Unfortunately for the visiting team, those pesky Royals wouldn’t go down without a fight. Glen Perkins blew his first save opportunity of the 2016 season and in extra innings an errant pickoff throw and wild pitch from Trevor May brought home the winning run. The Twins head north for the
http://image.cdnllnwnl.xosnetwork.com/pics33/1024/EP/EPDCWROFGWVLTTA.20150301055451.jpg Image courtesy of calbears.com Daulton Jefferies is a 6 foot, 180 pound right handed pitcher out of California who was drafted by the Marlins in the 39th round of the 2013 draft, although he made a good decision by not signing. Jefferies has a very good fastball he can comfortably add and subtract from anywhere between 90 and 95, has an above average slider with wipeout potential, and a developing changeup
Earlier I wrote about the Minnesota Twins new shift in thinking. After watching the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros throw strikeout cares to the wind, it appears that's what Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan are deciding to give a go. Utilizing a lineup built with swing and miss hitters, it's going to be boom or bust many nights this season. What we have seen thus far, is way too much of the latter. Rather than break down everything into much more minute detail, I'd urge you to peruse the linked art
The 2016 Minnesota Twins baseball season is plenty fresh. Just a handful of games in, and the season has produced some already fantastic finishes. For the Twins though, those finishes have come as onlookers around the league, and there's one narrative that's most glaring when looking internally. What do we make of all of the strikeouts? It was pretty apparent from the get go that this collection of players Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan had assembled were going to strike out. The lineup featured
Perhaps no Twin better typified the mid-2000s teams than Nick Punto. The nibbliest of the piranhas, Punto played every defensive position over the course of his career except pitcher and catcher, and played most of them better than the average major leaguer. In fact, he had nearly 4000 chances to make a defensive play, and made just 84 errors. Defensive stats have evolved substantially since Punto came into the league, but they’re all fairly unanimous in showing that Punto was a positive asset d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCJJTFeKXSo Play-by-play guys and color commentators have an important job. For many, they are the trusted source of information when watching a baseball game on TV, or listening on the radio. It's only natural that you'd expect the things they say to be true. But occasionally they get it wrong. And sometimes, they get it really wrong. When Jim Anderson, founder of MAX Bats, heard Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven opine against the use of maple bats during one o
One of the fascinating aspects of ranking farm systems of every organization across baseball is that, to some level, it's kind of subjective. There's a general understanding on the level of Cubs-good-Padres-bad, but what's the real difference between each team? How do you mark the difference in system quality between, for example, Minnesota and Cleveland? Part of the challenge in finding that differentiation is that there is no single consensus on how prospects themselves are evaluated. Jonath
The 2016 Major League Baseball season is upon us, and it's still very, very new. What that means is that any analysis at this point is dealing with extremely small sample sizes. For the Twins though, it's pretty apparent there's a new approach at the plate, and the way in which offense is going to be generated. Through the first few games, some things have worked, and others haven't. Having began the season in Baltimore, the Twins were afforded the benefit of playing in a hitter's park against
On Tuesday, I checked the 25-man rosters of all 30 MLB teams, checking not for quality, but quantity - of players by positions. While this may not be the opening day roster, it was probably close. Of the 30 teams: • Most had 12 pitchers. Two teams - the Athletics and the Mets had 11 pitchers. the Mets actually only had 24 players on the 25-man roster. The Cubs, Giants and Indians had 13 pitchers. All others had 12. • Four of the AL teams – Athletics, Red Sox, Royals and Tigers had a player named
The 2015 Minnesota Twins returned to relevance for the first time since the 2010 Major League Baseball season. After a rocky first few games, a spring run put Paul Molitor's club in a great position down the stretch. Not being eliminated from playoff contention until the final weekend hampered Minnesota from exploring some less entrenched options, but no one was a by-product of that reality more than Michael Tonkin. Last season, the Twins jumped down a rabbit hole that has now begun to come fu
The Minnesota Twins and their full season minor league affiliates announced those affiliates’ initial rosters on Sunday and Monday this week and the one thing that stood out about almost every roster was the number of players returning to the same level where they finished their respective 2015 campaigns. The Cedar Rapids Kernels initial roster, for example, includes 16 players that also wore Kernels uniforms last season and many of them performed quite well in the Class A Midwest League – wel
As the 2016 Major League Baseball season kicked off, there were plenty of different narratives for this version of the Minnesota Twins. Questions about the bullpen and youth were present, but there was one position that was absolutely cemented in. Paul Molitor had no doubts about who his shortstop was going to be this season, Eduardo Escobar had taken care of those questions. Prior to the 2015 season, Escobar was locked into a competition with Danny Santana as to who would take over as the T
The Cedar Rapids Kernels organized two public events to give fans and media opportunities to meet the 2016 crop of ballplayers and coaching staff this week. The team arrived on Monday and were greeted at Veterans Stadium by fans and staff as their bus from the airport pulled into the players' parking lot. On Tuesday, the annual Meet the Kernels Night gave media an opportunity to talk to manager Jake Mauer and his coaches, as well as a trio of ballplayers, while other players mingled with fan
Waiting months for Opening Day to come, only to have it pass as the nine innings unfold, should help remind us as baseball fans to keep things in perspective. I wrote recently about the importance of Opening Day, and the relative lack thereof. It's a celebration of what is to come, but as a baseball fan, we are locked in for the long haul over the next seven months. There were a couple of key things that can be drawn from what the Twins underwent to open their season however. Over the course o
Ricky Nolasco hasn’t made many friends in Twins Territory over the past few seasons. Have you forgotten some of the reasons why? Well for starters; this, and lets not forget this gem to start to season. Not to mention Ricky has been underwhelming during his run with the Twins. The Twins knew what they were getting when they signed Nolasco: an average pitcher with strikeout potential. Over the first two seasons of his four-year deal with Minnesota, Nolasco has pitched 196 1/3 innings. That woul
For the 2016 Minnesota Twins, that’s the big question. Will they contend in 2016? After winning 83 games in 2015 and surprising pretty much everyone, except maybe themselves, by being in the hunt for the playoffs until the final series of the season, can the Minnesota Twins build off of that and make it to the postseason dance in 2016? We do know they enjoy dancing! The Twins competed in 2015. First year Manager Paul Molitor was a big part of that. He got his players to believe they could comp
Yesterday, Craig Calcaterra wrote an incredible piece over at NBC's Hardball Talk in regards to Opening Day and the celebration that it is. I urge you to read it, the perspective is truly necessary. The basis of the piece is that while Opening Day is no doubt a celebration, it's importance is sometimes overstated. That leads us to here, and what lies ahead. Don't get me wrong, Opening Day is a party, and it should be. We've made it. No longer are we spending days speculating about what moves t
http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w413/mjohnso9/20160320_155536_zpshtz95lga.jpg 4/3/82: The Twins beat the Phillies 5-0 in an exhibition game, the first Major League game played at the Metrodome. Pete Rose collected the new stadium’s first hit, and Bloomington-native Kent Hrbek hit the Dome’s first two home runs. 4/4/90: The Twins traded future-KARE 11 anchor, Mike Pomeranz, to Pittsburgh in exchange for Junior Ortiz and a minor league pitcher. Ortiz, who wore #0, is best-remembered as Sco
A season ago, the Minnesota Twins were among the worst in the major leagues when it comes to bullpens. They didn't strike anyone out, the group struggled to hold leads, and they were generally overtaxed having to work long games pitching from behind. Although many of the arms didn't have full seasons of inefficiency, it was generally a tale of two halves for a good portion of them. No one experienced that narrative more than Glen Perkins. Making a third straight trip to the All Star Game, Perk
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.
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hello Seth......you'll wanna correct the date in headline of today's minor league report. :-) Brad· 0 replies
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.· 1 reply
