Mea culpa

[TopTwinsFan]

10 years ago I was tired of the Twins not getting further in the playoffs and proclaimed it was time for a new manager. I always said Gardenhire was a good manager but not a great one.

I wish nearly every day for a good manager now.

Watching the Twins run by Baldelli is like getting into a car with a bad driver ever day. 

You are constantly wondering why you are doing this. And how to make it stop.

[Mike Sixel]

It's the roster. 

[LastOnePicked]

Might have been much better for the Twins to choose Torey Lovullo, eh? Another FO mistake.

[lecroy24fan]

Honestly with this FO I don't think the manager would have mattered.

[nicksaviking]

Yeah, I’m a bit tired of the Baldelli complaints. I could care less if he’s replaced, heck, I hope he is, but he wouldn’t have gotten an extension if wasn’t doing exactly what his bosses wanted him to do.

[Craig Arko]

On 6/28/2023 at 5:33 PM, TopTwinsFan said:

10 years ago I was tired of the Twins not getting further in the playoffs and proclaimed it was time for a new manager. I always said Gardenhire was a good manager but not a great one.

I wish nearly every day for a good manager now.

Watching the Twins run by Baldelli is like getting into a car with a bad driver ever day. 

You are constantly wondering why you are doing this. And how to make it stop.

I don’t think it’s your fault.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 6/28/2023 at 5:33 PM, TopTwinsFan said:

10 years ago I was tired of the Twins not getting further in the playoffs and proclaimed it was time for a new manager. I always said Gardenhire was a good manager but not a great one.

I wish nearly every day for a good manager now.

Watching the Twins run by Baldelli is like getting into a car with a bad driver ever day. 

You are constantly wondering why you are doing this. And how to make it stop.

When you watch the Twins, do you find yourself stomping on the imaginary drivers ed. brake?

I think of traffic

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

16 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

(John Cusack)

[ICTwin25]

Front Office and Rocco both deserve blame. I don't think Rocco knows how to manage in game pitching. What's confusing to me is the steep decline in hitting from 2019. 2019 had splits of .270/.338/.832 and this year the team is currently hitting .231/.308/.706. 

This year, at bats all feel like it's all or nothing. Almost all of Buxton's and Gallo's RBI's are from homeruns. Are the coaches ruining hitter's approaches and swings? Is losing Shelton proving to be more of an impact that we thought? I just don't get it and it's frustrating considering they have a great group of starting pitching.

[Squirrel]

5 minutes ago, ICTwin25 said:

Front Office and Rocco both deserve blame. I don't think Rocco knows how to manage in game pitching. What's confusing to me is the steep decline in hitting from 2019. 2019 had splits of .270/.338/.832 and this year the team is currently hitting .231/.308/.706. 

This year, at bats all feel like it's all or nothing. Almost all of Buxton's and Gallo's RBI's are from homeruns. Are the coaches ruining hitter's approaches and swings? Is losing Shelton proving to be more of an impact that we thought? I just don't get it and it's frustrating considering they have a great group of starting pitching.

How much blame do you assess to each area? For me, the most blame should go to the FO. Rocco is their hire, the roster is their hire, the coaches are their hires. Then the next is the players themselves. They are professionals. Coaches at this stage can help tweak, but it is still up to them to execute and they should know how at this level. If they can't? The FO needs to make adjustments to their roster. And here we are, back to the FO. The manager and coaches are easy pickings because they are the most visible and easiest to blame. While I don't think Rocco is the best, I don't think he's the worst; he's just kind of, eh. But, again, FO hire, and there is only one Francona. If it weren't Rocco, it would be another manager doing as the FO wishes. It's the FO. imho.

[gunnarthor]

It's a bit of all three. Obviously, some players are not playing up to expectations but the FO put together this ill-fitting Frankenstein of a team so they get blame too. And Rocco may have been dealt a bad hand but he hasn't shown any ability to fix things on his own, either. 

[Squirrel]

3 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

It's a bit of all three. Obviously, some players are not playing up to expectations but the FO put together this ill-fitting Frankenstein of a team so they get blame too. And Rocco may have been dealt a bad hand but he hasn't shown any ability to fix things on his own, either. 

I agree that all have their hand in it ... but I still think most falls to the FO, with the players 2nd. I'm not saying that the manager and coaching staff are devoid of responsibility, but ... it's the FO that put all of this together from hiring the manager, coaches and players ... they should bear the biggest brunt of it, imo. And the players need to execute because the bottom line is to win. I've long been in the camp that I don't think the manager affect outcome significantly, so it's difficult for me to assess them all equally. The FO put this together, it's mostly on them.

[farmerguychris]

I feel blame goes in this order: 

1 - Players. These are professionals who got to the top level in the world with their talents.  They shouldn't need a ton of coaching by this point in their careers - just some tweeks.

2 - The F.O,  They assembled the roster they wanted.  They wanted to keep Pagan, and they signed the players who are slumping.  Maybe their scouting skills aren't as good as they think they are.

3 - The coaches - These guys were hired (yes, by Rocco) to help with the above mentioned 'tweeks' to the professional players.  They need to be able to communicate in a way each player understands, which may be different player to player.  However, again, at this level they are working with pros who have the talent to succeed at this level already and generally have a track record to prove that statement.

4- Rocco.  I know a lot of casual Twins fans don't like his demeanor.  He's too calm, that he doesn't show any fire like Gardy used to.  I admit, I liked the fire Gardy shows - but does being a red-ass lead to more victories?  Rocco can only play the players the FO gives him.  Rocco can only keep low leverage relievers out of high leverage situations so often when he only has 3 decent relievers and nearly every game has high leverage situations because our professional hitters can't hit.  Rocco doesn't influence that Buxton isn't playing in the field - this decision came from doctors and the F.O.  Rocco doesn't make any medical decisions (he only went to high school, do you think they'll let him give medical opinions)?  Maybe I'm a bit of a Rocco apologist, but we shouldn't hold him accountable for decisions he simply does not make and too frequently I see posts here that blame him for choices he doesn't have any influence over.

[Major League Ready]

On 6/28/2023 at 5:34 PM, Mike Sixel said:

It's the roster. 

Isn't it a little more than "the roster".  Are Correa, Buxton, and Polanco bad players or are they playing badly or hurt?  How about Kirilloff?  He has been bad for a month.  (wRC+ of 69).  Is he a bad roster choice?    

[nicksaviking]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Isn't it a little more than "the roster".  Are Correa, Buxton, and Polanco bad players or are they playing badly or hurt?  How about Kirilloff?  He has been bad for a month.  (wRC+ of 69).  Is he a bad roster choice?    

Injury or not, Correa, Buxton and Polanco historically are streaky hitters. Gallo and Vazquez are also streaky. Kepler's not streaky because he's pretty consistently bad always. A roster full of streaky hitters probably wasn't a great idea. 

I do put most of this on the front office. Thad Levine in particular, because unless they're going to disclose otherwise, he is the GM and assumedly the guy making the trade, free agent and roster decisions. I know everyone likes to lump Levine and Falvey together but if Falvey was the architect and in charge of modernizing the organization and creating personnel hierarchies and whatnot, he's done a decent job. If he too has a heavy hand in player evaluations, then he's missed the mark too. But I really dislike counting the two people as one like they're Laverne and Shirley. 

Wow, just realized while I was typing how phonetically close those duos names are. Can we get a photoshop please:

[Squirrel]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Isn't it a little more than "the roster".  Are Correa, Buxton, and Polanco bad players or are they playing badly or hurt?  How about Kirilloff?  He has been bad for a month.  (wRC+ of 69).  Is he a bad roster choice?    

I’m not exactly sure what the best solution is, and don’t want purely reactive solutions, but shouldn’t the FO be making some adjustments at this point? If Buxton and Correa are badly hurt, put them on the IL. Or send down AK for a bit. Or DFA/trade Kepler and/or Gallo. Continuing on at this point, doing nothing, making zero adjustments would be the last choice for me. I was fine at the top of the season seeing if Kepler and Gallo could still find something, and using Bux as a DH only, but we are at or nearly at the halfway point. It’s time to adjust the roster and not do nothing.

[Major League Ready]

13 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

I’m not exactly sure what the best solution is, and don’t want purely reactive solutions, but shouldn’t the FO be making some adjustments at this point? If Buxton and Correa are badly hurt, put them on the IL. Or send down AK for a bit. Or DFA/trade Kepler and/or Gallo. Continuing on at this point, doing nothing, making zero adjustments would be the last choice for me. I was fine at the top of the season seeing if Kepler and Gallo could still find something, and using Bux as a DH only, but we are at or nearly at the halfway point. It’s time to adjust the roster and not do nothing.

I am right there with you.  My guess is that they felt their best chance for sustainable success was to get the players they already have on the roster going.  That was reasonable but it's not working.  Gallo is a free agent at years end and he has become a black hole.  Wallner is hopefully a long-term solution.  Let's find out.  Kepler is gone next year too.  Same deal.

Correa / Buxton / Lewis / Kirilloff / Vasquez and Jeffers are not going anywhere.  That leaves very few other possibilities.  Putting Buxton on the IL and replacing him with Williams just seems desperate, right?

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, Major League Ready said:

I am right there with you.  My guess is that they felt their best chance for sustainable success was to get the players they already have on the roster going.  That was reasonable but it's not working.  Gallo is a free agent at years end and he has become a black hole.  Wallner is hopefully a long-term solution.  Let's find out.  Kepler is gone next year too.  Same deal.

Correa / Buxton / Lewis / Kirilloff / Vasquez and Jeffers are not going anywhere.  That leaves very few other possibilities.  Putting Buxton on the IL and replacing him with Williams just seems desperate, right?

I'm desperate, though I'd consider even MORE drastic things, like Kiersey or Celestino (not really) in CF over MAT.....

I'd IL Buxton until he can play the field. Put Julien at 2B, and Carmago at DH / C. 

[chpettit19]

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Isn't it a little more than "the roster".  Are Correa, Buxton, and Polanco bad players or are they playing badly or hurt?  How about Kirilloff?  He has been bad for a month.  (wRC+ of 69).  Is he a bad roster choice?    

A lot of this, to me, comes down to what they knew, or should have known, about the health of Buxton, Polanco, and Kirilloff coming into the year. Were they surprised when Buxton and Polanco showed up and couldn't play? If not (and it feels hard to say they shouldn't have known about their best player's health), then I do chalk it up to "the roster," since they should've been prepared better than MAT as an everyday CFer, and late signing Solano paired with no glove Julien at 2B.

They definitely shouldn't have been banking on Kirilloff being any sort of everyday player after his surgery. Hope for it, but don't bank on it. And pairing that with a hoped for return to glory for Gallo wasn't really fixing that hole at all. They banked on too many "ifs" turning out in their favor. I think that was a pretty steady drum beat from the folks around TD forums, too. This offense could be good if, if, if, if. They put all their eggs in the Correa plus a bunch of ifs basket, and it's bit them. This may be pretty close to worst case scenario, but it was always a possibility. Especially because some of their ifs were pretty darn long shots (Kepler magically turning into a better hitter, for example). 

Correa being bad for this long isn't something I think anyone would've reasonably predicted. But the rest aren't total shocks.

[chpettit19]

On 6/28/2023 at 6:10 PM, LastOnePicked said:

Might have been much better for the Twins to choose Torey Lovullo, eh? Another FO mistake.

Maybe? He lost 110 games 2 years ago. I'd rather have the Arizona FO, though, that's for sure. Are the Twins attempting to get more athletic by bringing in Castro and MAT types? Eh, maybe. Because they balance it with Farmer and Solano types. I don't know if Lovullo is any better than Rocco, but I do know Arizona running out a whole bunch of athletes is way better than the Twins.

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Putting Buxton on the IL and replacing him with Williams just seems desperate, right?

I don't think so. If this was a new-ish condition, yeah, okay. But this has been going on for a while now, and he hasn't 'been right' for a while now. I don't think it seems desperate, I think it seems that it's finally about time. And I think you mean Wallner, no?

[ICTwin25]

4 hours ago, Squirrel said:

I agree that all have their hand in it ... but I still think most falls to the FO, with the players 2nd. I'm not saying that the manager and coaching staff are devoid of responsibility, but ... it's the FO that put all of this together from hiring the manager, coaches and players ... they should bear the biggest brunt of it, imo. And the players need to execute because the bottom line is to win. I've long been in the camp that I don't think the manager affect outcome significantly, so it's difficult for me to assess them all equally. The FO put this together, it's mostly on them.

The FO has made a lot of mistakes as of late. Keeping Pagan is laughable, especially when most people said during the offseason that bullpen was a huge need. Where I give them credit is addressing the rotation, something that held them back in 2019. Traded for Gray, Ryan, and Kenta (Great in 2020). The reason I lean towards the coaches is so many batters are having almost career low numbers. Miranda had a huge sophomore slump, Correa isn't showing any signs of getting to his norm, Vazquez hasn't been this bad since 2018, and both Kepler and Gallo are hitting under .200. To me, that's way too many players underperforming so putting the blame on the players feels like a stretch. They're the million dollar professionals but when that many continue to struggle, it feels like it's something more.

[RickOShea]

On 6/28/2023 at 3:33 PM, TopTwinsFan said:

10 years ago I was tired of the Twins not getting further in the playoffs and proclaimed it was time for a new manager. I always said Gardenhire was a good manager but not a great one.

I wish nearly every day for a good manager now.

Watching the Twins run by Baldelli is like getting into a car with a bad driver ever day. 

You are constantly wondering why you are doing this. And how to make it stop.

I like your car driver analogy.  I think of the Twins and most other MLB teams as race cars.  Most cars are built to similar specs.  The difference usually lies in the drivers.  That's one of the reason race car teams have multiple drivers.  some drivers are just more adept at handling the left turn, straightaway speeds and the drafting from other cars.  MLB managers are the same.  some are more adept at various aspects of managing a team and handling players.  Sometimes, teams win despite the manager.  I think Baldelli's major success in 2019 was just that.  Multiple players had career years and things fell into  place.  As tough times have come upon us, he hasn't been able to correct the course.  Maybe he will, maybe he won't.  In today's competitive market for the sports dollar, teams don't have the same patience to accept mediocrity, except for maybe the Twins and a few others.

[Major League Ready]

22 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

I don't think so. If this was a new-ish condition, yeah, okay. But this has been going on for a while now, and he hasn't 'been right' for a while now. I don't think it seems desperate, I think it seems that it's finally about time. And I think you mean Wallner, no?

No.  I meant put Buxton on the IL and replace him at DH with Williams.  That seems desperate but that's not the way it would go given Polanco is expected back.  Julien would get the DH ABs.  I expect Gallo to be the first to go and Wallner taking his spot but will it be tomorrow or July 31st.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

I'm desperate, though I'd consider even MORE drastic things, like Kiersey or Celestino (not really) in CF over MAT.....

I'd IL Buxton until he can play the field. Put Julien at 2B, and Carmago at DH / C. 

I wouldn't mind the type of bold changes you list.  At least it would be interesting to watch for a while.  It's unwatchable right now.  

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

Correa being bad for this long isn't something I think anyone would've reasonably predicted. But the rest aren't total shocks.

Pin this for the inevitable "bad luck, uncontrollable circumstances," takes that'll be used to explain away/defend this season if this team continues heading in the current direction. 

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Pin this for the inevitable "bad luck, uncontrollable circumstances," takes that'll be used to explain away/defend this season if this team continues heading in the current direction. 

By whom? Even I'm calling for their heatd now, and I've spent the last few years defending them. 

[lecroy24fan]

14 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

By whom? Even I'm calling for their heatd now, and I've spent the last few years defending them. 

I've also come around on it.

[KirbyDome89]

On 6/30/2023 at 5:53 PM, Mike Sixel said:

By whom? Even I'm calling for their heatd now, and I've spent the last few years defending them. 

There are posters who are still defending Emilio Pagan...

[TopTwinsFan]

On 6/30/2023 at 9:54 AM, Squirrel said:

I agree that all have their hand in it ... but I still think most falls to the FO, with the players 2nd. I'm not saying that the manager and coaching staff are devoid of responsibility, but ... it's the FO that put all of this together from hiring the manager, coaches and players ... they should bear the biggest brunt of it, imo. And the players need to execute because the bottom line is to win. I've long been in the camp that I don't think the manager affect outcome significantly, so it's difficult for me to assess them all equally. The FO put this together, it's mostly on them.

As I have told you before, Rocco and his horrid management and culture of meh costs the team 8-9 wins per year. Managers are very important. They can change lineups (at least when they are not simply putting the computer generated lineup out there as incompetent Rocco does or did until they players asked for normal, manager (human ) made lineup. I think people that understand human emotions well understand Rocco us a horrendous manager and he does daily harm to our chances to have a fun club to watch. The fo is another story. I personally may give them another year or two. However anyone who has seen Falvey interviewed knows he has no skill at human interaction. It makes Rocco's complete lack of understanding sports psychology a huge weakness. 

Rocco is the main reason the Twins get the least out of their talent. They have scored 44 more runs than they have given up and are a .500 team. They are horrendous in close games.

Currently their expected win losss is 50-39 so I may underestimate how many games per year Baldiball cost the Twins.

Getting the least out of your teams talent=Baldiball. Nauseating.