Blue Jays 3, Twins 0: Time to Do Something Else

[Squirrel]

7 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Sending Wallner down at this moment sends a terrible signal to every minor leaguer in the organization.

I’d rather have Wallner but it don’t think it sends a negative message, imo. I’m hoping Kepler is gone in a month or so, though. 

[TwinkieFan4life]

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Apparently Rocco is a great leader / motivator of starting pitchers but can't motivate position players.  Apparently getting paid $33M/year does not inspire performance.  Is lack of motivation what influences Buxton to swing at pitches with absolutely no chance of being a strike?

By this logic, why pay a manager at all?  Just have a computer call the shots based on odds and call it a day.

[Major League Ready]

21 minutes ago, TwinkieFan4life said:

By this logic, why pay a manager at all?  Just have a computer call the shots based on odds and call it a day.

I agree they matter.  However, fans see what they want to see.  The point was suggesting the uninspired play of the position play is poor leadership and let's just ignore the great effort from SPs is not exactly consistent.  The two biggest culprits of poor play are Correa and Buxton.  They are seasoned players who are supposed to be leaders themselves.  Not to mention most posters here were adamant the Twins resign both players.  There was a lot of "if they don't sign" these players they are not serious about winning.  We sure ignore whatever gets in the way of complaining.

We have a meager understanding of Rocco's leadership.  From what players and former players convey, he appears to be a pretty good leader but we have little in terms of actual knowledge.  Evaluating leadership requires a close-up evaluation of actions and interactions over a period of time.  Ranting here about leadership is naive.

BTW .... teams pay $8M per win in free agency.  If a manager made that much difference you would have managers getting paid $30M/year.

[ashbury]

12 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

How does Matt Wallner have a negative 0.159 WPA, when he went 2 for 2 plus 2 walks????????????  If this is correct, then I don't have much use for WPA.

As I suspected, this morning b-r.com shows a positive .169 for Wallner in yesterday's game.  The only Twin above zero, in fact.  I don't know whether there's a different methodology in play, to account for the digit 5 versus 6, but yesterday's number was likely a transcription error with the minus sign.

[TwinsDr2021]

16 hours ago, TwinkieFan4life said:

I can't believe my mind is going here already, and I realize it is unreasonable, but if we continue this way through June do we consider being sellers?

We would be maybe 4 or more games below 500.  We could shop Gallo, Gray, Polanco, Kepler, even Buck if someone is willing to dream on him and give us an offer.  If Maeda and Thielbar prove their health they could be added to the list.  We could let the younger players play (Lee) and add talent around them.

I know this is a depressing thought, but for me less depressing than continuing to invest resources in this lifeless team.

By all means lets give this FO another chance to rebuild, I a mean 7 years can't possibly enough time evaluate this FO.

[John Belinski]

Sending Wallner down just did not make any sense when he has been on base 8 times in a row. If the Twins had a good front office they would have found a way to keep him playing. Why not IR Gallo who has an injury and is not hitting?  It seems odd that fans have some ideas, but the front office doesn't.

[David Maro]

Gallo goes 0-4 with a walk Saturday with 4 strike outs. Gets rewarded to play 1st again on Sunday. A real manager would say that you need to sit today. But we don't have a real manager. He wouldn't know situational baseball if it jumped up and bite him. There is no hit and run plays,no hit behind the runner. But of course let's swing for the fences every at bat. Berrios walks 5 batters and can't score even 1 run,this is laughable but not as bad as Friday. Of course we all saw that,9 walks and 1 run. Bringing Lewis up and Kepler back will not change anything as long as this manager and coaching staff are there. One other thing Correa needs to stop talking and start doing what he's being paid to do.

[Eris]

2 hours ago, Squirrel said:

I’d rather have Wallner but it don’t think it sends a negative message, imo. I’m hoping Kepler is gone in a month or so, though. 

I am seldom bothered by roster moves. I find sending Wallner down to somewhat troubling. At a time when the Twins are reaching new lows in offensive ineptitude and leading the league in SO, they send down the one batter who has out performed every one else on the team since recalled on May 23. Since then, Wallner has had 0 SO, walked 2 times, has a WRC+ of 371, OPS OF 1.714, WPA+ = .67, WPA- = 0.04. (Data is from Fangraphs)
 

While I don’t expect Wallner to maintain this pace, it would have been relatively easy to find roster space for Wallner for the Houston series. For example put Gallo on the IL because of his leg injury. Taylor may also benefit from being on the IL because of his back. With Kepler coming back, Wallner could DH the Houston series while giving Buxton sometime to clear his head. 

[shabbos1]

42 minutes ago, David Maro said:

Gallo goes 0-4 with a walk Saturday with 4 strike outs. Gets rewarded to play 1st again on Sunday. A real manager would say that you need to sit today. But we don't have a real manager. He wouldn't know situational baseball if it jumped up and bite him. There is no hit and run plays,no hit behind the runner. But of course let's swing for the fences every at bat. Berrios walks 5 batters and can't score even 1 run,this is laughable but not as bad as Friday. Of course we all saw that,9 walks and 1 run. Bringing Lewis up and Kepler back will not change anything as long as this manager and coaching staff are there. One other thing Correa needs to stop talking and start doing what he's being paid to do.

It's hard to hit-and-run when most of the hitters can't hit.  Same goes for the baserunning aspect of it.

[saviking]

I really like how selective our younger players are at the plate. Guys like Wallner, Julien and Krilloff have more discipline at the plate than Buxton and even Correa. Larnach needs a little more patience but I'm betting Lewis and Lee will have patience. Miranda's problem is he has no patience at the plate at all. He needs to get that fixed if he plans on making it. 

[Squirrel]

3 minutes ago, Eris said:

I am seldom bothered by roster moves. I find sending Wallner down to somewhat troubling. At a time when the Twins are reaching new lows in offensive ineptitude and leading the league in SO, they send down the one batter who has out performed every one else on the team since recalled on May 23. Since then, Wallner has had 0 SO, walked 2 times, has a WRC+ of 371, OPS OF 1.714, WPA+ = .67, WPA- = 0.04. (Data is from Fangraphs)
 

While I don’t expect Wallner to maintain this pace, it would have been relatively easy to find roster space for Wallner for the Houston series. For example put Gallo on the IL because of his leg injury. Taylor may also benefit from being on the IL because of his back. With Kepler coming back, Wallner could DH the Houston series while giving Buxton sometime to clear his head. 

That's why I said, I'd rather have Wallner, for all you stated. I'd rather him up and hitting, because we need hitting. But, this is also the game. Players go up and down. While not what I would have done, it's not out of the realm of 'ordinary', and I don't think it sends a negative message to prospects as the poster I quoted stated. 

[Squirrel]

6 minutes ago, saviking said:

I really like how selective our younger players are at the plate. Guys like Wallner, Julien and Krilloff have more discipline at the plate than Buxton and even Correa. Larnach needs a little more patience but I'm betting Lewis and Lee will have patience. Miranda's problem is he has no patience at the plate at all. He needs to get that fixed if he plans on making it. 

At this point, I'm more concerned that Miranda was a 'blip'. He didn't show a lot early on, then had a monster year in AAA, then a good rookie year for us last year. Now? I wonder if he was a blip. Hope not. But there is that possibility.

[2wins87]

I was curious if that 2 RBI pop fly hit would show up in Willi Castro's statcast page since it seemed like he got a bad jump and let up a little early.

Sure enough it is there today. 5.4 seconds of hang time, 91 feet needed, 90% catch probability. So yes, most true centerfielders would make that play. It's just interesting how only watching the end of the play it looked like there was no way he could have gotten there. But going back to the beginning where he had a bad read off the bat and slow jump it was actually a play that should be made most of the time.

Anyway, not to rip on Castro who probably shouldn't be relied on to be a center fielder very much. It was once again the offense as much as anything that sunk them, and Castro was just one part of that yesterday,  though he certainly didn't have a good day in the field either.

[USAFChief]

15 minutes ago, 2wins87 said:

I was curious if that 2 RBI pop fly hit would show up in Willi Castro's statcast page since it seemed like he got a bad jump and let up a little early.

Sure enough it is there today. 5.4 seconds of hang time, 91 feet needed, 90% catch probability. So yes, most true centerfielders would make that play. It's just interesting how only watching the end of the play it looked like there was no way he could have gotten there. But going back to the beginning where he had a bad read off the bat and slow jump it was actually a play that should be made most of the time.

Anyway, not to rip on Castro who probably shouldn't be relied on to be a center fielder very much. It was once again the offense as much as anything that sunk them, and Castro was just one part of that yesterday,  though he certainly didn't have a good day in the field either.

I said the same in the game thread. Every team in MLB has a CFer who catches that pop fly, with ease. 

Except us, who have Willi Castro in CF.

[Swing Batter-Batter]

19 hours ago, dberthia said:

"Devoid of emotion and heart" is as good of a description as any. Nobody looks like they even want to be on the field. Buxton is completely lost and seems like he just wants to get back to his spot on the bench with as little effort as possible. Today was the first game I've watched in a while, and I won't be putting myself through this again unless they can find some kind of spark. Life is too short to devote any mental or emotional energy to this team. If they don't care, why on earth should we?

I had similar thoughts about how the players look. It came across to me like they were 15 games out with 10 left to play and just mailing it in.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

3 hours ago, ashbury said:

As I suspected, this morning b-r.com shows a positive .169 for Wallner in yesterday's game.  The only Twin above zero, in fact.  I don't know whether there's a different methodology in play, to account for the digit 5 versus 6, but yesterday's number was likely a transcription error with the minus sign.

Thank you Ashbury. I feel better now. 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Just now, Swing Batter-Batter said:

I had similar thoughts about how the players look. It came across to me like they were 15 games out with 10 left to play and just mailing it in.

Similar thoughts here too.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

6 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Keep in mind he had to use his rifle arm because he misplayed a catchable ball. It worked out, because he has that arm. But we need his bat. I said in another thread about that same play. I’d rather have the bat and sacrifice a bit of the defense. I’m disappointed for Wallner, though, but he’d be sitting on a bench most days. I’m hoping that someone gets traded soon.

You are spot on about Wallner  misplaying that ball. A trade may  get rid of some player who has shown  lackadaisical effort and also shake some of the remaining Twins players up.