Gleeman & The Geek: Total System Failure 2.0?

[John Bonnes]

Aaron and John talk about the historic ineptitude of the Twins' bullpen, injuries knocking out Byron Buxton and Alex Kirilloff, calling up Trevor Larnach ahead of schedule, and what the future holds for Miguel Sano in Minnesota. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. 

 

 

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[Dodecahedron]

There are common threads between the year to date and the old "Total System Failure."

1. A group of "power hitters" that suddenly can't hit at all.
2. A bullpen that cannot finish games.
3. Slow-reacting coaches sticking to their bad approaches.
4. A couple of good players playing really well, seemingly in their own bubbles,
5. Bad defense late in games.
6. Free agent pitching add-ons that did not work out.
7. A poor game manager.  Baldelli is a good guy and he's probably a good coach.  At this point, he does not appear to be a good game manager. 
8. Tyler Duffey sucking.

Key difference from 2016:  This team has a promising starting pitching staff.  Shoemaker won't be starting for long, and Maeda won't be this bad for long (though Maeda may not be "great" this year, he should at least move to the middle).

Reasons for optimism:  The 2016 team had a couple of players in the bullpen who finished strong.  Some of these guys in the pen, or maybe some new guys, might finish OK.  Outside of the bullpen, overall this group of players is better than the 2016 group.