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The Curious Case of the Minnesota Twins’ Mike Pelfrey Signing

While the Minnesota Twins are a homegrown team that relies heavily on players from their farm system to sustain success in the major leagues, reclamation projects are an important part of their team construction. Once-highly-touted prospects or players that have had some big league success and saw a dip in production with their former team for various reasons are often of interest to a team in a mid-sized city looking to get the most value out of their signings.   These players are relatively lo

Tom Schreier

Tom Schreier

WARNE: What are the Twins Doing With Two Strikes Offensively?

Watching Byron Buxton hit with two strikes on Sunday led me to wonder what the rest of the team is doing with their two-strike opportunities. Not just what kind of batting line they’re putting together — generally bad — but how often are they striking out when the count reaches two strikes?   For a little bit of context, the average American League batter is hitting .179/.247/.274 with two strikes, and has struck out 39.5 percent of the time coming into Monday’s action. It’s not terribly surpris

Brandon Warne

Brandon Warne

Rebuilding a Bullpen

The Twins bullpen has the poorest strike out rate in the majors. This is not a surprise and was projected when the 25 man roster was announced. The Twins may need to trade for bullpen help at the deadline. Before that happens, I hope they look at solutions internally.   The Twins need at most one LOOGY as opposed to the two they are using now.   These pitchers are possible internal solutions. The split rates are since 2011 unless otherwise specified. That allows a large enough sample in taking a

jorgenswest

jorgenswest

Maximilian

Um, what needs to be\should be done with Mad Max, he is rippin the snot out of the ball right now. 9 walks and only 3 K's his last ten games. Obviously seeing the ball really well. Time to move him up? Thoughts?

soofootinsfan37

soofootinsfan37

Grading Paul Molitor's Early Returns

We are now coming up quickly on the halfway point of the 2015 Major League Baseball season, and for the Twins this year, things have been notably different with Paul Molitor at the helm. Ron Gardenhire was given a tough deck of cards to play with the past few years, but Molitor has innovated early, and it's been a welcomed addition to the organization. After being named the next Twins skipper, many suggested that Minnesota was once again going with the easy internal option. Stick to the "Twins W

Ted Schwerzler

Ted Schwerzler

Twins Minor League Report (6/21): Bash Brothers

Happy Father’s Day across Twins Territory!!!   While Jake Arrieta was taking it to the Minnesota Twins lineup and Anthony Rizzo continued to bash their pitchers on Sunday Afternoon, three of the four full-season league affiliates were in action in the minors.   The organization went 2-2 on the day, but in the minors a come-from behind victory was sparked by a pair of bash-brothers in a single inning, and there were several standout bullpen performances.   Read on to find out about all the action

Steve Lein

Steve Lein

DSL Pitchers to Keep an Eye On

I've been a Twins fan my whole life. About 6 years ago I started paying more attention to the minor league system, and found myself getting excited about the potential of young guys. As I started to pay more attention, I found myself looking further down the pipeline to the Dominican Summer League stats to see who might be the next guys to show up on prospect lists. Of course information is pretty scarce on a majority of these players and scouting reports seems non-existent except for the higher

Pitz

Pitz

Replacing Santana

As Ervin Santana gets ready for his first start in Rochester, I wondered what the impact of his loss has been on the Twins thus far. Mike Pelfrey was his immediate replacement and he has certainly stepped up to the task. He has far outperformed what we might have expected from Santana. It isn't really fair to compare his performance to just Pelfrey though.   I looked at the performance of Pelfrey, May and Milone. All three had opportunities that may not have been available had Santana not let do

jorgenswest

jorgenswest

The Twins $55 Million Dollar Question

The calendar has already passed halfway through June and the 2015 Major League Baseball season is starting to take shape. Nearing the halfway point of the season, teams are starting to categorize themselves as contenders or pretenders. Right now, the Twins land somewhere in the middle, and while they may not be buyers at the trade deadline, they can improve from within. The biggest question though, is what they do with their $55 million dollar man. Over the winter, the Twins sought to address th

Ted Schwerzler

Ted Schwerzler

Terry Ryan Finds Himself Locked Out Of His AOL Account

SHTICKBALL   Thursday afternoon after the Minnesota Twins defeated the St. Louis Cardinals at Target Field, Twins GM Terry Ryan found himself having some technical difficulties. It seems Ryan’s America Online account had been compromised in some way, leading to rampant speculation.   Ryan claims that he was sure he was putting in the right password, and that he hadn’t recently changed it, or told anyone to change it. He also knew he was spelling his AOL username- BaseballGuy8791- correctly. Wh

Ben Remington

Ben Remington

Episode 135: Byron Buxton Debuts and Joe Mauer Rides Off Into the Future

You can download the new Talk to Contact (<a href="https://twitter.com/talktocontact">@TalkToContact</a>) episode via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-to-contact-podcast-about/id556784825?mt=2">iTunes</a> or by clicking <a href="http://talk2contact.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-18T18_15_34-07_00" target="_blank">here</a>, and if you want to add the show to your non-iTunes podcast player, <a href="http://talk2contact.podomatic.com/rss2.xml">

Paul Pleiss

Paul Pleiss

Twins Minor League Report (6/18): Max Kepler Triples Twice

The Twins walked-off the St. Louis Cardinals to split a four-game home-and-home series with the NL Central leaders.   RED WINGS REPORT Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders @ Rochester Box Score   Scranton (home of one of the world's finest paper companies) scored seven runs (ONLY ONE EARNED), all charged to Red Wings starter Jason Wheeler in the third inning of Thursday night's game in front of 4,431 fans at Frontie Field in Rochester, NY. Wheeler took the loss and dropped to 1-7 on the season, surv

Eric R Pleiss

Eric R Pleiss

Doe's Doing It Well for the Kernels

Brett Doe didn’t make the trip north to Cedar Rapids out of spring training with his friends and teammates when they broke camp to start the 2015 season, a fact that was, “pretty disheartening,” Doe said in an interview over the past weekend.   "When I first heard it, it was pretty tough," Doe admitted. "I played with most of these guys down in E’town and they’re definitely the guys that I wanted to spend the year playing with."   Doe didn't allow himself to dwell long on that disheartened feeli

Steven Buhr

Steven Buhr

The Beauty And Brokenness Of Interleague Play

The Minnesota Twins are in the midst of interleague play for the second time this season. Instead of cramming all of the fun into a designated week or two over the summer, Major League Baseball reconstructed the scheduled to allow American and National League teams to clash throughout the season. As Minnesota has now traveled and hosted National League teams, we have seen both the beauty and brokenness of the tradition.   As the Twins traveled to Pittsburgh in May, both Ricky Nolasco and Mike Pe

Ted Schwerzler

Ted Schwerzler

REVIEW: 'Tony Oliva' by Thom Henninger

For baseball fans across the Upper Midwest, Tony Oliva has become one of the most well known personalities. His infectious smile and broken English endeared him to any smiling face with a hand to shake and a baseball to sign. Tony O has become a legend but it's amazing to think of how close he was to never having a baseball career.   These trials and tribulations form the backdrop of the recent book release, Tony Oliva: The Life and Times of a Minnesota Twins Legend by Thom Henninger. Oliva, a C

Cody Christie

Cody Christie

Continue the rebuilding process, or attempt to compete this year? Or can we do both?

There have been dozens of threads on TD over the last 10 days about whether the twins should be buyers or sellers. Whether they should make a trade to attempt a push towards October this year, or maintain the long-term trajectory and hold to the rebuilding strategy the FO seems to be holding to. My question and thought is, is there a possibility we could do both? I've seen people calling for catching help, and I've seen people calling for bullpen help. Those seem to be the two main positions of

ttreadway

ttreadway

So Many Decisions, Part III

The outfield and DH positions on the Twins presents many options and decisions will have to be made. The opening day outfield of Hunter, Schafer, and Arcia has been revamped to Hunter, Buxton, and Rosario. DH Kennys Vargas was demoted and has returned, but his status and his future are uncertain. Hunter started slowly this year, had a fine month of May and, with most of the team, fallen off in June. Torii has provided good offense, satisfactory defense and a whole bunch of personality. He's unde

stringer bell

stringer bell

A Look at Positional Needs and Concerns

The Minnesota Twins have certainly been a pleasant surprise to their fans thus far, but it seems as though the season is catching up to them. A team that was hotter than a firecracker during the month of May is now seeing a sink back down to earth. While it would be exciting to see this team break out of their funk and stay in the race for the pennant down the stretch, I have difficulties in foreseeing it happening, and for several reasons. Furthermore, I have a few concerns for the organization

jtkoupal

jtkoupal

Time For Twins To Let It Sano

The Minnesota Twins have played through their first third of the 2015 Major League Baseball season. As they came out of the gates slow, surprises started to take place throughout the month of May. After sitting alone atop the American League and AL Central, the calendar then turned to June. Since then, the summer has been anything but pleasant for the Twins. In June (as of this writing), the Twins are 4-11. In those 11 losses, the Twins have scored more than two runs just three times (with one o

Ted Schwerzler

Ted Schwerzler

Introducing Twins' 1st Round Pick: Tyler Jay

Tyler Jay is a left-handed pitcher from the University of Illinois and was taken with the 6th overall pick of the 2015 First-Year Player Draft by the Minnesota Twins. Born on April 19th, 1994, Jay is currently 6'1" and 180 lbs. He was lightly recruited in 2012 when he pitched for Lemont High School in suburban Illinois, but he was not drafted and went on to pitch for the University of Illinois, who he committed to because they were the only school willing to let him continue to pitch; most other

formerly33

formerly33

So Many Decisions, Part II

There are a lot of decision to make with the Twins' position players. About the only completely sure thing is that Brian Dozier will be in the lineup every day. There are options for the Twins and the team has a manager without a long track record, so we don't know which direction he will go on many of the choices to be made. The merry month of May saw an extremely productive offense combined with improved defense from the position players. So far, June has shown a lot of the reverse of that

stringer bell

stringer bell

The Byron Buxton You've Waited For, Maybe

Byron Buxton has now played his first major league game, he's recorded his first major league hit, and he's all but delivered on the enormous amount of hype that has followed him since being selected in the 2012 Major League Baseball Draft. Needing seven at bats over the course of two games to record his first hit, we can now begin to wonder what the first tour of duty may look like for the Twins phenom. The expectations are high, but where does reality lie? As a minor league hitter, Buxton owns

Ted Schwerzler

Ted Schwerzler

WARNE: Where Do The Twins Go From Here?

The Twins snapped a five-game losing streak with a 4-3 in over the Rangers on Sunday. The club is now 4-9 in June and has sunk to 34-28, 1.5 games behind the Royals who were incidentally rained out in St. Louis on Sunday — the exact place the Twins open a series Monday.   But “sunk” and six games over .500 doesn’t really make sense in the grand scheme of things.   After all, wasn’t this a team that was supposed to lose 90 again, or thereabouts? And while even the latest updated projections have

Brandon Warne

Brandon Warne

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