Rocco

[Irishman]

I concur with you 100%.  

[Richie the Rally Goat]

15 hours ago, TopTwinsFan said:

Consistently and again tonight at the Royals, Roccos lineups are indicitive of somone who doesnt understand human nature and who overthinks his lineups on a daily basis. Santana batting first makes no sense no matter how much you stare at statistics. Then batting someone who should be in the minor leagues fifth with Farmer. Rocco thinks its super smart because later in the 7th he can pinch hit a lefty in that spot. He isnt smart enough to understand it will mean an automatic out every time Far.mer bats. Of course, in the first Farmer bats with two on and two out and is an easy out (as always).

This lineup bugged me from the moment I saw it, as usual with Roccos lineups, Batting Luplow, Larnach, Jeffers or Santana first. So wish we had a manager who really knew what he was doing. Hes good in some areas but ridiculously bad in this area. 

Dont even get me started on his talk about being aggressive at the plate, no one who has ever played baseball stands at the plate and doesnt want to swing. But again, he has no understanding of human psychology. Mauer understood this, being aggressive at the plate is just another way of saying you are going to have a short at bat and increase your chances of swinging at a pitchers pitch.

Sadly, great managers are needed to win a World Series and Rocco is no great manager. Even after years of managing he doesnt learn or get better in this area. I just sadly dont think he is intelligent enough.

 

I have historically been a Rocco bobo, but over the last two seasons, the pinch hitting decisions have worn on me… Rocco gets himself painted into a corner by opposing managers relief choices. Is he the best manager in the league? Clearly no. Is he the worst? Again no, he’s somewhere in the middle.
 

Managers are like umpires, when they do their job well, no one notices.
 

i can’t argue that you don’t like the lineup. You are certainly entitled to your opinions of the moves we see on the field.

i do however call BS on your last line. You can’t possibly know how smart Rocco is, or lay claim to understand Rocco’s EQ. You get to watch 2.5 hours per day of a 12 hour per day job (maybe more).

Even Sonny Gray who regularly openly complained about getting pulled for a reliever credited Rocco for his managerial skill.

Rocco’s not a tactician, that doesn’t make him a bad manager. It might be an indictment on Jayce Tingler…

[RpR]

You are getting, in my opinion, the same style of management you get when the manager is a friend of the players first, not a boss who tells players what to do whether they like it or not.

Same thing that made Gardenhire less successful than he could have been.

Tom Kelly with this team would have better results.

Billy Martin would have Margot out there taking endless fielding practice.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 9/5/2024 at 11:44 AM, Jocko87 said:

But other than that, how was the play Mrs Lincoln?

What would be the good traits to balance all that out? Something has actually been working. 

Right. A manager manages more than just the 9 inning game.

[Jocko87]

OK, someone fess up to changing the title.

And when you fess up, add your bonifidies that qualify you to make such pronouncements from distance. 

The qualification to say someone you have probably never met has "no idea how to understand human beings" actually doesn't exist but I'd be curious to see what you came up with. 

[tony&rodney]

Why am I continually astounded by judgments made against Rocco Baldelli from people who have no idea .....

Seemed fair to stop there. 

[Squirrel]

14 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

OK, someone fess up to changing the title.

And when you fess up, add your bonifidies that qualify you to make such pronouncements from distance. 

The qualification to say someone you have probably never met has "no idea how to understand human beings" actually doesn't exist but I'd be curious to see what you came up with. 

Truly child-like behavior.

No one changed the topic title. Another thread was started to complain about Rocco’s lineups and Richie merged the topics. When you merge topics, you can choose which title it will take, Richie chose the new topic title. It was no one being immature. I changed it back to the original just now so others like yourself won’t be confused.

[TopTwinsFan]

On 9/5/2024 at 10:39 AM, Jocko87 said:

Call me crazy, and I'm not here to cape up for Rocco, but if he had a Witt or Judge he would be doing that same thing.

I dont think he would, he would move him around consistently in lineup to unsettle hime and Witt would not be quite as good as he is with good management.

[TopTwinsFan]

Castro is a a switch hitter and hits for a higher average when batting first but Rocco is not intelligent enough to understand he should bat first everyday.

Julien may not quite be ready for the lead off role but he is another candidate to be the daily lead off hitter (at least vs rightys) but again Rocco is not intelligent enough.

Bat Luplow or Santana or Margot or Jeffers first. If you watch enough baseball you know this is just....well dumb.

[TopTwinsFan]

On 9/5/2024 at 11:50 AM, karcherd said:

Since 2020 Rocco is at .500 and one playoff series win.  Not terrible but after 5 years I would hope to have a better record to build off of 2019.  So what is he doing that is so great, he has been basically been an average manager the last 4 years.

His team has been .500. We will never know what achievements the team may have had with a good manager. 

When the Twins current sucky streak started, the day that Alcala blew a 4 run lead, you could see the pitching coach begging Rocco to take him out while before the game was blown as Alcala had already given up 3 or 4 runs. Rocco would not (he has no idea how to handle players in this situation and I mean no idea). Alcala gave up a couple more runs before Roccos finally allowed him to be taken out. The Twins lost that game, have been below .500 since then and Alcala has not been the same since.

We will never know how the Twins would react if a good manager had taken him out when Maki wanted to. Perhaps the Twins dont go into a major skid for two weeks. We will never know, we are stuck with Rocco ball.

[TopTwinsFan]

On 9/6/2024 at 9:14 AM, C-Gangster said:

Yes i would because that would be our ownership's fault.

We are stuck with the owners. They dont have to keep Rocco. Sure hope whenever that day is they choose a true baseball man as the manager. Someone who is intelligent and understands human emotions. Two qualities Rocco doesnt have.

[TopTwinsFan]

46 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Why am I continually astounded by judgments made against Rocco Baldelli from people who have no idea .....

Seemed fair to stop there. 

Some people actually want to win more than the Central Division title and arent afraid to call out The Manager for being sub par. 

Another option.

Wishing daily for a manager who will help us win games, not help us lose them despite upsetting several Twins fans who would defend him no matter how much he hurts the team.

[tony&rodney]

34 minutes ago, TopTwinsFan said:

Some people actually want to win more than the Central Division title and arent afraid to call out The Manager for being sub par. 

Another option.

Wishing daily for a manager who will help us win games, not help us lose them despite upsetting several Twins fans who would defend him no matter how much he hurts the team.

Oh, I am not a fan of Rocco Baldelli but I believe he actually knows more about his players, options, and baseball than I do. That, and I may be a minority here, but I also believe that the players are responsible for the wins and losses.

[TopTwinsFan]

1 minute ago, tony&rodney said:

Oh, I am not a fan of Rocco Baldelli but I believe he actually knows more about his players, options, and baseball than I do. That, and I may be a minority here, but I also believe that the players are responsible for the wins and losses.

The players are far, far more important in the win-loss column. I simply wish we had a manager who did a significantly better job setting the Twins up for success.

[tony&rodney]

Just now, TopTwinsFan said:

The players are far, far more important in the win-loss column. I simply wish we had a manager who did a significantly better job setting the Twins up for success.

The Twins had Molitor but Falvey wanted Baldelli. Nothing wrong with wishing for success. I just wish and hope that the Twins woke up this morning with the realization that they are in a great spot with their record and find the energy and spirit to drive themsleves and each other forward through the remainder of the season.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, Jocko87 said:

OK, someone fess up to changing the title.

And when you fess up, add your bonifidies that qualify you to make such pronouncements from distance. 

The qualification to say someone you have probably never met has "no idea how to understand human beings" actually doesn't exist but I'd be curious to see what you came up with. 

Truly child-like behavior.

I merged two identical threads, the merge didn’t work as planned…

it never does

[Squirrel]

Stop making your posts personal towards anyone. This is a discussion forum and we disagree. No one is right or wrong, so stop with the personal comments.

[TopTwinsFan]

In an important game after defying all odds and coming up with a common sense lineup that produced a couple of runs, Rocco found a new and reliable way to craft a loss tonight on national television. Take dominant Ober out after 83 pitches and replace him with our closer who hates being put into non-save save situations. Then light the match and watch the game (fairly predictively) go up in flames.

Managers do matter. Rocco crafted this loss.

He is in over his head and will NEVER win us a Championship.

In the playoffs you need to get the most out of your players. 

Rocco's game management does the opposite.

 

[TopTwinsFan]

Feel like Rocco pulled my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Cant imagine how much it must hurt Ober and the guys. Royals were thrilled to get the win (with Rocco's help).

 

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

Good managers put their teams in position to win.

Rocco doesn't do that.

[howeda7]

Fire Rocco and his spreadsheet overlords. 

[Irishman]

17 hours ago, TopTwinsFan said:

We are stuck with the owners. They dont have to keep Rocco. Sure hope whenever that day is they choose a true baseball man as the manager. Someone who is intelligent and understands human emotions. Two qualities Rocco doesnt have.

i concur.   I am so frustrated with Rocco.  I was shocked that Ober was taken out after 7th inning. He was dominant in that game.  Rocco's decisions baffle me.   Someone needs to steal Rocco's analytical notebook.  

[akmanak]

He can't manage a bullpen and has a really difficult time putting together lineups that make sense., buttttttttttttt this isn't the reason this team is not being able to compete on a daily basis, that reason goes to the owners who continue to show that the ONLY thing they care about is money and not baseball.

 

If we had a multiple players that are A+ players and we lost easy games like we have I would be more inclined to replace him, but we don't. We have a cheap tossed together team , with aging,  injury prone players and sub par pitching .  

[ewen21]

On 9/5/2024 at 10:01 AM, USAFChief said:

So easy to smugly dismiss the idea, but no actual defense of the manager.

To the OP: preach, 

The Twins need a MLB manager. This has been pretty evident for a couple years now.

 

 

I agree with you on the dismissiveness and smugness.  I think it’s stupid, lazy and pretty unfunny.  Do they think they’re smart and clever?

That said, I’m tired of people who whine about Rocco constantly as if he’s holding this organization back with his managing and almost never call out players.  Rocco is a figurehead for the GMs.  If they didn’t hire him they would have hired something very close to him.

I do not think we have a very good roster and I think the organization culture is a problem as well.  It used to be a manager could come in and change the culture, but I’m not sure if that’s possible these days.  Not the way baseball is being run by front offices all over baseball.

Let’s be honest, this team just isn’t that good.  Has anyone looked at a boxscore lately and seen the names?  Can we wake up a second and do that?  I am not second guessing when I say the GMs and most fans grossly overrated players like Buxton, Correa, Lewis and Lopez.  Kepler also has been grossly overrated for years.  He’s been pedestrian for a number of years aside from part of the second half last year.

How about what this organization has drafted, developed and raised?  Where are the starting pitchers coming through?  There is some promise now, but I’ve seen this rerun already.  Aside from Matt Garza who have we drafted raised in the last 30 years?

By all means eject Rocco into outer space.  Send his Ben & Jerry’s eating, Phish loving body to Jupiter for all I care.

….then what?

There are so many issues to address and it starts with the GMs if you ask me.  They are weak.  We might need a GM with some guts and with actual baseball experience as a player.  Someone who can make honest statements about some of the players who are literally destroying the organization 

 

[Irishman]

1 hour ago, akmanak said:

He can't manage a bullpen and has a really difficult time putting together lineups that make sense., buttttttttttttt this isn't the reason this team is not being able to compete on a daily basis, that reason goes to the owners who continue to show that the ONLY thing they care about is money and not baseball.

 

If we had a multiple players that are A+ players and we lost easy games like we have I would be more inclined to replace him, but we don't. We have a cheap tossed together team , with aging,  injury prone players and sub par pitching .  

Boycott Target field!!   I haven't been to Target field for 10 years.   I

[ewen21]

1 hour ago, akmanak said:

He can't manage a bullpen and has a really difficult time putting together lineups that make sense., buttttttttttttt this isn't the reason this team is not being able to compete on a daily basis, that reason goes to the owners who continue to show that the ONLY thing they care about is money and not baseball.

 

If we had a multiple players that are A+ players and we lost easy games like we have I would be more inclined to replace him, but we don't. We have a cheap tossed together team , with aging,  injury prone players and sub par pitching .  

I agree with you for the most part, but it could be solved without even changing ownership (which isn’t possible).  We need a new GM.  It’s been ten years and it’s time.  This isn’t a small market team.  It’s mid market and there is more than enough payroll room for field a much better team.

We’ve latched onto the wrong group of guys and that has nothing to do with Rocco.  Rocco never should have been hired in the first place.  I agree with you about the talent.  We just don’t have it

[ewen21]

1 minute ago, Irishman said:

Boycott Target field!!   I haven't been to Target field for 10 years.   I

Well you’re my Irish twin.  I’ve not gone since 2013.

[Brock Beauchamp]

If you're blaming the manager for using his best relievers to close out a game and try to win, your problem isn't with the manager, it's with the roster.

[ewen21]

9 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Fire Rocco and his spreadsheet overlords. 

I’m mystified as to how Falvey and Levine get literally no mention.  I give them full marks for making moves and taking chances the likes of Terry Ryan would never make.

HOWEVER…they need to go

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

If you're blaming the manager for using his best relievers to close out a game and try to win, your problem isn't with the manager, it's with the roster.

No, the roster provided a 2 run lead with a starter who had 83 pitches, given up 1 hit, and had retired 15 consecutive. He's cruising. Looked as good in the 7th as the 1st. No loss of velo or location. No long, stressful innings.

And...We agree the bullpen isn't overflowing with good options. So maybe try not to use your 2 best options when there's a very good possibility you don't have to?

If, for some unfathomable reason, that situation required removal, the roster gave him perhaps the league's best setup guy and a closer who was 20 for 22, including near perfect the last 4 tries...all 9th inning saves.

But none of that mattered to the manager. 

A little honest evaluation would be refreshing.