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Tomorrow was scheduled to be Major League Baseball's Opening Day for the 2020 season. Jose Berrios was to toe the rubber against the Oakland Athletics in California. Thanks to COVID-19 none of that will happen, but I'm determined to live out the season we were promised. Eventually, things will return to normal. As with any bit of adversity, finding a way to rise above and conquer will present the ultimate prize. Until we reach a period in which baseball returns to the real-life diamond, it's M
According to my mother, my first word was “go.” I’m not sure I buy it, but if it’s true it certainly explains my predilection for travel. My first MLB game was in 1987 and after moving to Minnesota in 1998, I fell in love with the game. It was almost inevitable my love of baseball and travel would intersect, although I’m not sure when I started intentionally marking off stadiums. Before the season was suspended from the virus, I’d planned to close out seeing all 30 active stadiums in September 2
Here's an excerpt from an article originating from Zone Coverage. Please click through here to support the content. A couple of offseasons ago, we ran a series similar to what we're doing here, entitled "Minnesota Twins 40-Man Report Cards." The only key difference to be aware of is since it's happening now instead of during the offseason, we're going to make it forward-looking -- that is, with the current 40-man roster as constructed, looking back on their 2019 season. So in some cases -- s
UCL Reconstruction Surgery Heezy1323 I recently posted a blog about Chris Sale and the news that he was set to undergo UCL reconstruction. That post covered some questions surrounding the diagnosis and decision-making that occurs when players/teams are faced with this dilemma. That post got a little lengthy, and I chose not to delve into the surgery itself, as I felt that may be better presented as a separate entry. My intention with this post is to discuss some of the different techniques t
We’re pushing towards what should have been Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Despite the amount of waiting through the winter, COVID-19 has served up other plans and we won’t hit the mark. In what could be a lost season, what impact is there on certain Twins players? Having casually watched some of the news and hearing this situation equated to one of wartime, I gravitated to players who previously missed big league time by serving in the military. Obviously, we haven’t had a war necessita
Chris Sale Tommy John Q&A Heezy 1323 It has been reported that Chris Sale of the Boston Red Sox will undergo UCL reconstruction surgery, also known as Tommy John surgery. Sale has not pitched in a live game since August 13, 2019. He then went on the Injured List on August 17 and did not return for the remainder of the 2019 campaign. He was reportedly seen at that time by several of the best-known US surgeons who care for pitchers and a decision was made to hold off on surgery, and instead
We are just days into this global pandemic and so far, COVID-19 has taken a multitude of normalcy away from our daily lives. Forced to reconsider how we’ll operate in the weeks ahead; we no longer have baseball (and sports as a whole) to view. While that’s disappointing, it is in these passions that people have long since become a unified community. Major League Baseball shelved operations in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues last week. We now have seen teams disperse, with players returning h
As a Twins fan, I have seen several different approaches to drafting and developing pitching. We saw the pitch to contact philosophy at work for a long time. We saw the ill-fated drafting college fireball relievers and trying to develop them as starters, which failed (although we did get a nice relief pitcher in Tyler Duffey out of it). However, the current philosophy seems to be drafting college pitchers who have good peripheral numbers, high spin rates, or some other trait that separates th
One of the most interesting thing I have found in researching the virus and the Spanish Flu is this article on the affect of social distancing? https://qz.com/1816060/a-chart-of-the-1918-spanish-flu-shows-why-social-distancing-works/ For baseball fans who like to look at charts and graphs this is a really good study of St Louis and Philadelphia during the 1918 epidemic. "The extreme measures—now known as social distancing, which is being called for by global health agencies to mitigate the s
Pranks are part of baseball culture which helps make the sport more enjoyable. I really liked this article about how the Grapefruit League supposingly got its name. I always enjoy a clean prank & thought that maybe if anyone hasn`t seen this article should read it to uplift your spirits. https://www.mlb.com/news/wilbert-robinson-caught-grapefruit-from-a-plane?partnerId=zh-20200314-156906-47943&query_id=1026&bt_ee=0AJOWHOkIP8cUt6DanJjHpkdRTWGpW9f7XRQujUm2BcCowmweU%2B49BppEGE0BOKO&am
In 1918 Spanish Flu became the last act in the horrible loss of life that had been WWI, "By the time it had spread across the United States, the deadly event had killed an estimated 675,000 Americans." If you wonder why the world is reacting so vigorously to Corona think about this from MLB.Com history - "In just 15 months Spanish flu killed, according to best estimates today, between 50 million and 100 million worldwide. It infected an estimated 500 million people around the world, about a th
I write this blog entry when I was expecting to do other things. I am in Fort Myers in 80 degree weather with just a hint of a breeze on a nice Thursday afternoon. What could be wrong? Well, actually, plenty. My significant other and I made plans for the rest of winter sometime in January. Because we had made an extended trip of the Christmas/New Year holidays and because we were planning a family gathering for the summer, we decided to stay in Minnesota for the rest of January and I decided I
Today in Fort Myers there was a big-league game as well as some minor league intrasquad action. Across the entire landscape though, it was the fallout of Coronavirus that was being felt. Major League implications were now in place, and minor league changes had come as well. With the Governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, placing a ban on public gatherings in an attempt to cease the spread of COVID-19 the Minnesota Twins had officially felt their first 2020 impact. Scheduled to play the Seattle Ma
I always know that baseball season is quickly approaching when I see all of the prospect lists coming out. It is always entertaining to read differing opinions about the same guy. At the end of the day, prospect lists are always a crapshoot. That being said, they can still be entertaining and informative, especially if the person conducting the list is plugged in with scouts who have seen the player or have seen the player live. Unfortunately, this is not one of those prospect lists. I have seen
There are not many question marks on the Minnesota Twins 26-man roster coming into the 2020 season. Jake Cave and Willians Astudillo are in contention for the final bench spot, and the rotation has turned into a two-man race. How do Randy Dobnak and Jhoulys Chacin stack up? Coming into the spring there’s no denying the Twins hope was to have the veteran Chacin make this decision easy. Forget that Dobnak was the game two starter during the 2019 ALDS in Yankees Stadium, he’s a guy that showed up
It has been over a month since we checked in on the MLB “Futures” at the William Hill and Elite sportsbooks and with spring training now well underway, it seems like a good time to see how the betting odds for the Twins (and others) are looking. Of course, even if I see something really interesting, it won’t do me any good right now since I’m in Florida at least through the end of the month and the Sunshine State has not legalized sports betting, yet. So, while I can look up odds at the two bo
In the spring of 2018 the Twins traded Luis Gil for Jake Cave. At the time of the trade Luis Gil had been in the Twin organization since 2015. He had thrown 65 innings over those three years with 73 strike outs and 46 walks. He did not pitch due to a shoulder injury in 2016 and had yet to pitch in rookie ball. He did not make Seth Stoh's 2018 prospect handbook. He did have a big fastball. In July of that season the Twins traded Fernando Rodney for Dakota Chalmers. Chalmers was injured at the t
Looks like Judge Dredd has a rib fracture. Sounds really, really painful honestly. https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/aaron-judge-rib-injury-1.42537174
I’m doing this a bit earlier than normal this year, and that could wind up being a silly decision depending on injuries and how Spring Training plays out. Regardless, we aren’t sitting on a slew of unsigned talent in early March, and I’m confident with the look of many big-league squads going into 2020 at this point. Let’s hand out some hardware. The Washington Nationals will head into the season looking to defend their World Series trophy. That hasn’t been successfully accomplished in 20 year
I just read the ESPN prospect ratings by Kiley McDaniels and is was an interesting look from a new perspective. Riley came over from FanGraphs and he has a different style than Law and others I have read. What interests me is the Twins prospects ratings, of course, and he challenged some ideas. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/28820713/kiley-mcdaniel-top-100-prospects-2020 First of all he has Royce Lewis rated the highest at number 15 - a surprisingly high rating in my mind, but he
Like many diehard fans, it is easy to get immersed in the potential of young prospects. It can be more intoxicating when those prospects are taken first overall in the draft. Royce Lewis is a fantastic prospect with the potential to be one of the best players in the game. The speed, the power, the makeup; it is easy to see why he is viewed as one of the top prospects in the game. However, I have always thought that Royce Lewis is the second-best prospect in the Twins system. Recently, Ke
Add Judge to the list of Yankees out for Opening Day. At what point do they start to wonder what they're paying the Strength and Conditioning staff for? I can see an injury or two but this is now almost 2 years of one guy dropping after another. https://www.amny.com/sports/cashman-yankees-aaron-judge-doubtful-for-opening-day/
Despite an opportunity to hit the open market after the 2019 season, Jake Odorizzi returned to the Twins on a $17.8 million qualifying offer. It ended up being below market value and could be even more of a coup if Odorizzi continues trending towards the impact arm this rotation covets. One of the best moves the new regime has made since taking over was flipping middle infield prospect Jermaine Palacios to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for Odo. Palacios is 23 years old, still at Double-A, and
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
