Pirates 4, Twins 0: Time For A Rowdy Player's-Only Meeting?

[DJL44]

10 hours ago, RpR said:

In the last 7 games Margot has 4 hits and is batting ,267; in the last 7 games Kirilloff has 3 hits and is batting .200, both have .333 slugging average so, you Margot hate explosion is really rather silly.

The problem isn't Margot vs Kirilloff. It's that either of them are on the roster in the first place.

[JD-TWINS]

47 minutes ago, Patzky said:

I'm more worried about the Kepler Jeffers Buxton and Lewis slumps than that of a backup outfielder.

Lewis slump??? …….he’s played 3-4 games since back - right? …..,,couple HR’s. Gotta be at least 4 or 5 others to worry about prior to Royce…..he can’t hit a HR or get two hits most days, it’s baseball.

[Old Crow]

12 hours ago, darwin22 said:

I know many other hitters to place blame on, but the last 10 games for Kepler should put to rest ANY TALK of bringing him back next year:

AB: 37

H:    4

AVG: .108

SLG PCT:  .135

K:  13

BB:  1

At 1/10 the cost, Wallner can put up those numbers.

This team is what it is. Not good and not getting better anytime in the near future.

Wallner still has that big loopy swing and Kep defensively is much better.

[FargoFanMan]

8 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Showing up & getting 3 outs and keeping the game within a run instead of sheepishly having to be relieved in the 9th would also light a fire under the team. Duran didn’t lose the game - I get it - he sure as hell didn’t contribute very much either. It comes down to EVERYONE doing their jobs…….maybe Lewis & CC are performing at reasonable levels along with Miranda & Castro. Who else does the Manager pencil in or pinch hit other than the other 9, non-performers, on the roster?

Who is playing well offensively? …..is it where they are in the line-up? how much rest they have? …….it is not a Managerial issue.

They have 60% of the schedule left…..currently above .500 and in or on edge of playoffs - not really a reason to make any big moves.

Agree it is not a managerial issue. Rocco plays the left right matchup no matter what. He needs the personnel to make those matchups. I agree it’s early in the season yet.  Three major things are in play compared to last season though. Cleveland and Kansas City are the first two. The last thing is thinking the last half of 2023 will happen again. Last year Cleveland sank and the twins flourished. I don’t see that window being the same as last year as Cleveland is much better and Kansas City is gonna be the pest that keeps the twins from catching them. To catch Cleveland the twins are gonna have to play much better than last year and this roster has a few warts that need to be addressed sooner rather than later for that to work. 

[JD-TWINS]

Just now, FargoFanMan said:

Agree it is not a managerial issue. Rocco plays the left right matchup no matter what. He needs the personnel to make those matchups. I agree it’s early in the season yet.  Three major things are in play compared to last season though. Cleveland and Kansas City are the first two. The last thing is thinking the last half of 2023 will happen again. Last year Cleveland sank and the twins flourished. I don’t see that window being the same as last year as Cleveland is much better and Kansas City is gonna be the pest that keeps the twins from catching them. To catch Cleveland the twins are gonna have to play much better than last year and this roster has a few warts that need to be addressed sooner rather than later for that to work. 

Agreed, obviously. …….the fixes though, to me, are in house with player performance. Wallner - Julien - Lee - Buxton - Kepler - Jeffers - Kirilloff - Santana need to level off as a group (nobody is constantly performing well, understood) 

Larnach - Castro - CC - Miranda - Lewis seem to be playing with some level of success and a reasonable level of consistency.

Farmer - Margot - Vazquez are depth guys that are going to be up & down depending upon the situation……,,gotta live with that.

[hitterscount]

I just cannot understand how anyone can defend Baldelli. The team has disappointed for three years, he mismanages the lineup, pitching, refuses to play small ball when the team is in their offensive offensive scoring droughts, constantly pushes the wrong buttons. They play like admiring grade schoolers when facing the Yankees and Guardians. It is beyond disappointing.

I have to look no farther then to the team immediately to our East. Living in Wisconsin I end up watching plenty of Brewer games. The entire approach, from batting to handling the bullpen, is a night and day difference. Advancing runners, stealing, solid defense, bullpen roles identified... First year coack Pat Murphy is head and shoulders a better manager then our guy...  and the players like and respect him while having fun. I could argue the Twins have better talent across the board, yet look like sh** way to often for way to long of stretches. So you cannot convince me the manager doesn't make a huge difference in players approaches and attitudes.

[rv78]

Blame ownership, not Baldelli. Blame the FO, not Baldelli. Blame the players, not Baldelli. Really? I don't understand the love for a Manager that doesn't play his best players everyday, rests players based on a schedule and not how they feel, uses a platoon system that doesn't work, won't play small ball when needed, pinch hits players too early in games with players that can't hit, These are just a few things he does, almost daily.

Reality is...... this team is a mess. From ownership down to the players. EVERYONE is to blame. Ownership won't spend money to improve. The FO doesn't know how to evaluate players or they wouldn't bring in injured pitchers or washed up veterans. Baldelli can't manage a player without a spreadsheet and only knows how to manage a game the same way every day regardless of what is taking place right before his eyes on the field. The players play with no conviction or confidence because they have a manager who doesn't believe in them to perform outside of the numbers on his paper. The core veterans that should carry the team, can't. Correa, Buxton, and Kepler aren't that good. Too streaky and inconsistant as hitters. The bench players like Margot, Farmer, Santana, yes are bad but they shouldn't be relied on to carry the team or they wouldn't be "bench" players to start with. Yet somehow, Baldelli finds reason to play them as much as possible. 2019 was a fun year, but it gave this regime from ownership down to the last player on the bench swinging for the fences a bad idea on how to win games. They went whole hog, face first into the HR theory and the offense has been terrible ever since. When you implore a strategy or philosophy that you expect everyone to follow, and it doesn't fit their skill set, you will fail or at the very least, get very inconsistant results.... which is exactly what is happening.

[TopGunn#22]

It's pretty hard to defend the indefensible with the way the Twins are playing.  The blame can be spread everywhere, because from ownership and their salary cutting mandates to a manager who lives by the spreadsheet but rarely displays an awareness or sense of the game taking place on the field in front of him to under-performing players galore this is a team that is losing fans for this season as each day passes.  Even us hard-core baseball fans are finding this "product" difficult to watch.  

[hitterscount]

11 minutes ago, rv78 said:

Blame ownership, not Baldelli. Blame the FO, not Baldelli. Blame the players, not Baldelli. Really? I don't understand the love for a Manager that doesn't play his best players everyday, rests players based on a schedule and not how they feel, uses a platoon system that doesn't work, won't play small ball when needed, pinch hits players too early in games with players that can't hit, These are just a few things he does, almost daily.

Reality is...... this team is a mess. From ownership down to the players. EVERYONE is to blame. Ownership won't spend money to improve. The FO doesn't know how to evaluate players or they wouldn't bring in injured pitchers or washed up veterans. Baldelli can't manage a player without a spreadsheet and only knows how to manage a game the same way every day regardless of what is taking place right before his eyes on the field. The players play with no conviction or confidence because they have a manager who doesn't believe in them to perform outside of the numbers on his paper. The core veterans that should carry the team, can't. Correa, Buxton, and Kepler aren't that good. Too streaky and inconsistant as hitters. The bench players like Margot, Farmer, Santana, yes are bad but they shouldn't be relied on to carry the team or they wouldn't be "bench" players to start with. Yet somehow, Baldelli finds reason to play them as much as possible. 2019 was a fun year, but it gave this regime from ownership down to the last player on the bench swinging for the fences a bad idea on how to win games. They went whole hog, face first into the HR theory and the offense has been terrible ever since. When you implore a strategy or philosophy that you expect everyone to follow, and it doesn't fit their skill set, you will fail or at the very least, get very inconsistant results.... which is exactly what is happening.

 I believe you need to remove Baldelli, like yesterday, to get an understanding if the whole thing needs to be blown up. I honestly believe there is talent and Rocco's approach has ruined the season. His rigid approach and I'm smarter than anyone else needs to go. It would be helpful to see if a different manager could get more out of this lineup.

[rv78]

12 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

 I believe you need to remove Baldelli, like yesterday, to get an understanding if the whole thing needs to be blown up. I honestly believe there is talent and Rocco's approach has ruined the season. His rigid approach and I'm smarter than anyone else needs to go. It would be helpful to see if a different manager could get more out of this lineup.

That would be the ideal place to start, unfortuantely Rocco is tied at the hip to the FO so they'd just bring in Rocco 2.0 who would implore their same philosophy and management strategy. 

[Bodie]

14 hours ago, darwin22 said:

Absolutely embarrassing and pathetic.

I'd call it utterly unprofessional,  but tomato/tomatto...

 

[Bodie]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

The problem isn't Margot vs Kirilloff. It's that either of them are on the roster in the first place.

Margot hasn't earned a place on the WHITE SOX roster with his play.

Whatever he (supposedly) had for baseball talent in the past has eroded to the point his place is in independent ball...

[insagt1]

Twins offense is broken right now. And the pen is having issues. Maybe 3rd place and a possible WC is the best this crew can accomplish. Last 5 games pretty ugly for sure. Still time to right the ship but some real change needs to happen in their plate approach...collectively 

[David Maro]

Rocco is the puppet of the FO,the only thing not seen is the strings.You have to feel for SWR,he has pitched his butt off for weeks.This team is laughable and has zero chance of the playoffs.

[Bodie]

12 hours ago, RpR said:

Margot hate explosion.

In the last 7 games Margot has 4 hits and is batting ,267; in the last 7 games Kirilloff has 3 hits and is batting .200, both have .333 slugging average so, you Margot hate explosion is really rather silly.

This site will never allow an honest evaluation of Margot (too critical, "too mean" or insulting...) so we get yours!

Accepting him as even an occasional pinch hitter (his defense, supposedly an asset, is so bad that it should be a firable offense to put in any game as a defensive replacement) is beyond even laughable!

 

A Gallo-level error in breaking spring training with him on a roster at any level.

[Bodie]

8 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Deadass team run by a spreadsheet geek front office and manager and with totally disinterested ownership. They're really hard to root for sometimes. 

Trying to figure out the down vote on this comment.  

Maybe the facts are just too damned depressing!

[Bodie]

2 hours ago, Doctor Wu said:

You gotta hit the ball and score runs to win games. The Twins ain't doing that lately. Sure, some of Rocco's moves are head scratchers, but he didn't lose these games, The hitters need to wake up, pay more attention, or make the adjustments needed to put the ball in play ... but not double plays. Urrgghhh!!!

An analogy...

You have a dog, and every time you let him out of the house he bites the nearest stranger.  He got the UPS man today.   Yesterday he bit the local politician doing door to door campaigning.  The day before that he bit the FFA gal doing fundraising sales.

When that dog bites someone tomorrow- surprising no one - the fault lies with the person who is too stubborn to do what needs to be done.

[wabene]

1 hour ago, hitterscount said:

The team has disappointed for three years,

Stop reading here ^^

I mean seriously man, what the hell are you talking about? If you were disappointed last year, gotta be hunkered down in the championship or nothing bunker, eh?

[wabene]

Man SWR sure is looking good. Still only 23 for a couple of months. What an asset. 5 more years of team control through his age 28 season. I know patience is a scarce commodity around here, 😂, but this Berrios trade thinger might just work out well. Looks like Martin has to step up to keep pace with Simeon. Git it

[JD-TWINS]

30 minutes ago, Bodie said:

This site will never allow an honest evaluation of Margot (too critical, "too mean" or insulting...) so we get yours!

Accepting him as even an occasional pinch hitter (his defense, supposedly an asset, is so bad that it should be a firable offense to put in any game as a defensive replacement) is beyond even laughable!

 

A Gallo-level error in breaking spring training with him on a roster at any level.

Margot’s hitting .153 v. RH pitching ……. he’s hitting .276 v. LH pitching………he was brought in to play v. LH pitching.

Wallner was to be the every day left fielder - 70% of the time, minimum. He was so bad that nobody places any blame on his sorry performance because he’s been in AAA for so long.

If Kirilloff were hitting .260 plus, as was intended, Margot probably wouldn’t be pinch hitting for him.

Julien was supposed to hit 25 HR and hit .250 with a .350 OBP…..he disappeared after 4 weeks.

Jeffers has dropped 70 points in BA in 3.5 weeks. Buxton is Michael A.Taylor. Kepler is Kepler again. ………PLENTY of blame to go around other than Margot & Baldelli.

Players win & lose games - guys aren’t performing this week!

[hitterscount]

12 minutes ago, wabene said:

Stop reading here ^^

I mean seriously man, what the hell are you talking about? If you were disappointed last year, gotta be hunkered down in the championship or nothing bunker, eh?

Stop reading… seriously , do they make the playoffs in any other division? No… big part of that was “give away “ games and marginal managing decisions the first 3 -4 months of the season. Keep the Rocco glasses on… he is not a manager. 

[bean5302]

I'm advocating Baldelli be fired not for this specific game. It's the season. It's the pattern. It was the pattern last season as well. It's the fact I don't believe Baldelli gets the best from his team or players.

[Doctor Gast]

SWR, 97.2 mph WOW! He keeps getting better! He deserves better. I thought that the Twins would blow Carmen Mlodzinski  away from the start. They didn't & PIT's BP game got the best of the Twins. BP game is an option that the Twins should consider at times. IMO the most disappointing loss of the season. Are the Twins picking up old habits? Is FO telling Baldelli, "fans don't want wins they want HRs, stay with the "all or nothing" approach?"

[Craig Arko]

Dear moderators; any thoughts here?

[wabene]

26 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

Stop reading… seriously , do they make the playoffs in any other division? No… big part of that was “give away “ games and marginal managing decisions the first 3 -4 months of the season. Keep the Rocco glasses on… he is not a manager. 

At this point I'm neutral on Baldelli and whoever else is part of the team that comes up with some of these lineups. I do approve of how the pitching staff as a whole is handled.

However I was happy watching this team down the stretch and in the playoffs last year. That was fun, right? You enjoyed that?  They can only win the division they are in, correct? Lots of people are angry because they didn't sign Sonny Gray, in this thread there is a comment that we need a leader like him. Someone to throw chairs? You know they just might  have taken down the Astros if Sonny had shown up on his day to pitch. I think that illustrates that it takes a whole team to win. If you are going to be unrealistic and just blame one person, that's when I will stop reading your content. To say they have disappointed the last 3 years is incorrect based on preseason prognostications. Complain all you want, but be accurate or you might not be taken seriously. At least by me.

[DJL44]

44 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I'm advocating Baldelli be fired not for this specific game. It's the season. It's the pattern. It was the pattern last season as well. It's the fact I don't believe Baldelli gets the best from his team or players.

This is the best stretch of Twins pitching over multiple seasons I can remember. I don't think he can squeeze that much more performance out of the pitchers. The hitters are supposed to be better than this.

[bean5302]

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

This is the best stretch of Twins pitching over multiple seasons I can remember. I don't think he can squeeze that much more performance out of the pitchers. The hitters are supposed to be better than this.

Why are you bringing up pitching when the Twins scored 0 runs?

[wabene]

Just now, bean5302 said:

Why are you bringing up pitching when the Twins scored 0 runs?

I thought you wanted to look at the big picture, not just the last game.

51 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I'm advocating Baldelli be fired not for this specific game. It's the season. It's the pattern. It was the pattern last season as well. It's the fact I don't believe Baldelli gets the best from his team or players.

 

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

Dear moderators; any thoughts here?

They're busy crunching the numbers in their spreadsheets and will have a response for you in a couple of days. 😀

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, wabene said:

However I was happy watching this team down the stretch and in the playoffs last year. That was fun, right? You enjoyed that?

Here's a tip for people who didn't enjoy that. Stop watching and find a different hobby. If you can't even enjoy the good seasons you are better off finding something else to do.