Guardians 5, Twins 4: Twins Waste Chances, Create Too Few, Cleveland Finds Chances Everywhere

[DJL44]

9 hours ago, S Bart said:

Nobody has commented on this topic. KC seems to be faltering this month also (lost last 4 games). They are in the 2nd wild card spot and only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Twins (3rd playoff spot) and 2 ahead of Detroit.

It would be nuts if Kansas City collapsed faster than the Twins.

[Riverbrian]

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

It would be nuts if Kansas City collapsed faster than the Twins.

It's baseball. It's non-linear. What we as fans perceive as fat margins are actually razor thin. Hot and Cold Streaks stop and start on a dime without warning. 

Today is a new day... Everything that happened prior to today is history and has no bearing on tomorrow. 

It's why Baseball is the most beautiful sport and why I love it so.  

 

[NYCTK]

5 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

So you would be in favor of simply handing the World Series trophy to whichever team finishes with the best regular season record?  That way we ensure the "best" team always wins.

Now that I think of it, that's probably not ok either.  We should crown the World Series champion at the end of the offseason, and not let the silly metric of who wins the game on the field determine who the best team is.

Not exactly because as we know there's no possible chance at a balanced schedule. I was pretty OK with that temporary span we had a second WC team, because a one game playoff is exciting and the first WC was still first loser in their own division and thought it was a pretty fair compromise while actually making it slightly better for the best team in each league. 

Now? Getting into the playoffs isn't even special. You wanna hang a 2024 Wild Card banner if they do get in? 

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

What benefit is it to us for the Twins to make the playoffs? What benefit is it to the players? What benefit is it to the sport? 

All sorts of benefits to the players to get experience in playoff games. All sorts of opportunities for them to shine on a big stage. Playoff baseball is fun. Why do you hate fun?

[Cap'n Piranha]

The 5 worst teams in baseball by record are the White Sox, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Marlins; none of them have hit the 70 win mark, and every other team (save the Nationals) has.  Of those teams, only the A's are likely to hit 70 wins.

The Twins are 25-4 against those 5 teams (they haven't played Miami yet), meaning they are 55-68 against everyone else, which is to say this is not a good team that has been masquerading as one.  Back in April we all thought this was not a good team, and I'd like to ask my good friend Denny (RIP) to share his opinion on the Twins

[Cap'n Piranha]

3 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

Not exactly because as we know there's no possible chance at a balanced schedule. I was pretty OK with that temporary span we had a second WC team, because a one game playoff is exciting and the first WC was still first loser in their own division and thought it was a pretty fair compromise while actually making it slightly better for the best team in each league. 

Now? Getting into the playoffs isn't even special. You wanna hang a 2024 Wild Card banner if they do get in? 

Why does a balanced schedule matter if the games on the field don't matter?  A one game playoff is exciting, even though it dramatically increases the odds that the "better" team doesn't advance?  Are you also not a fan of the NCAA basketball tournament, since they let in too many undeserving teams?

I wouldn't hang a 2024 WC banner, but I also wouldn't hang a 2023 Division banner.  I care about a pennant and nothing less, but I still think an expanded playoff is the best way to do that in a sport where interest is driven by local teams, not the totality of the league.

[Riverbrian]

6 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

The 5 worst teams in baseball by record are the White Sox, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Marlins; none of them have hit the 70 win mark, and every other team (save the Nationals) has.  Of those teams, only the A's are likely to hit 70 wins.

The Twins are 25-4 against those 5 teams (they haven't played Miami yet), meaning they are 55-68 against everyone else, which is to say this is not a good team that has been masquerading as one.  Back in April we all thought this was not a good team, and I'd like to ask my good friend Denny (RIP) to share his opinion on the Twins

Yeah but... doesn't it also mean that the teams we are 55-68 against have a worse record against those 5 teams.

Doesn't that also say something? 

[DJL44]

37 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

a good organization will figure it out by the end of the season and either limit the number of guys like that in the pen, or at the least limit the number of high impact innings those arms will get. 

Pitchers get injured often and you only get a 40-man roster to start the season. Most organizations are scrambling to find warm bodies to fill the 14th spot on the pitching staff at the end of the season.

[NYCTK]

16 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Your second paragraph contradicts your first.  

You're right. Sloppy on my part. I mean to say that we don't have a right to spend their money. But we absolutely have a right to criticize how they do. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, NYCTK said:

What benefit is it to us for the Twins to make the playoffs? What benefit is it to the players? What benefit is it to the sport? 

I would think the benefit of more Twins games to you as a Twins fan would be...ya know...more Twins games...

[Cap'n Piranha]

3 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

Yeah but... doesn't it also mean that the teams we are 55-68 against have a worse record against those 5 teams.

Doesn't that also say something? 

That is true.

I think it says that the Twins have played unsustainably great against the dregs of the league this year (that is, if we replayed those 29 games, I doubt they go 25-4 again.  Even going 20-9 would be on the improbable side).  As such, I'm saying the 2024 Twins are a mediocre to bad team masquerading as a good one because the vicissitudes of baseball smiled on them at a particularly opportune moment.

Like the 2022 Vikings that dramatically overachieved due to massive amounts of luck, and promptly fell apart the next season without that luck, the Twins are set up to similarly regress in 2025 in my opinion, absent some significant changes to some part of baseball ops (FO, on-field staff, roster).

[Cap'n Piranha]

6 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

You're right. Sloppy on my part. I mean to say that we don't have a right to spend their money. But we absolutely have a right to criticize how they do. 

Kudos to you on this post, there are a lot of people on the internets who will never admit fault, so I honestly and truly do applaud you for this.

I think we have diametrically opposite viewpoints on this subject, so rather than going back and forth for eternity, I'll just say it was fun debating with you, and hopefully we can continue to interact in the future.

[Doctor Gast]

The Twins played a good game & should have won the game. But IMO the decision of only having journeyman Irwin throw only 3 pitches & not multiple innings in the prior night's game & compounded with sending Alcala down, shorting us for last night's game. That was the difference maker.

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Everyone likes to point to franchise valuation as a reason the Pohlads are greedy.  Did you know that the growth in value you listed above is an annualized rate of return of 7.825%?  Seems pretty good until you realize that since 1984 the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown at an annualized rate of 9.204%.

Put another way, on the basis of asset growth, the Pohlads have lost money by owning the Twins (about $80M) compared to if Carl had just put his original $44M in a generic DJIA fund, which would today be worth $978M.

Now obviously, the Pohlads have made operating profit on the Twins which surely outweighs that $80M (that is, if you added the franchise value to the post-tax profits for the last 40 years, it's surely a larger number than $978M).  However, this actually proves the point--if the Pohlads aren't making money on the Twins every year, they're actually losing money via opportunity cost.  I personally don't think anyone has the right to tell anyone else that they should lose money.

Both of you might be interested to learn Forbes ACTUAL current estimate of the Twins Franchise value:

$1.48B

One point four eight Billion dollars.

Not sure where other figures come from, but it's not Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/lists/mlb-valuations/

 

Now how does the Pohlad family's "annualized return" look?

 

[Swing Batter-Batter]

12 hours ago, jaimedude said:

How  many more times will we see Twins experiment with leverage situations and inexperienced relievers? Bullpen has been a flat tire and led to many gutt wrenching losses. Twins front office and ownership will have a lot of explaining to do this off-season. When fans could see bullpen was a weakness and have Bern calling it out all year, your organization has issues. 

I wouldn't count on the front office and ownership explaining anything in the offseason, with the exception of how big the payroll cut will be for next season.

 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

12 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Bottom six in the lineup: 0-24.

 

 

 

ouch

[TwinsAce]

46 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Blewett vs Tonkin is rearranging deck chairs while the Titanic sinks.

A few other deck chairs: Alcala (I didn't trust him after watching him blow game after game lately), Thielbar (as much as I wish he was still in peak form), Varland, Winder, Irvin, etc. 

Tough to manage when you only have 2 arms you trust and another that in theory you should trust (Duran).  If the offense showed up and actually scored more than 4 runs, we might have fresher arms at the back end of the bullpen for games like this.

[LambchoP]

Our pen is a joke. We dumped Alcala for Irvin so that we could get "length" out of him. He's faced one batter? Alcala looked great his last time out pitching two innings. If we're not going to use Irvin as a multi inning guy why the heck did we bring him in?! Bigger problem is our lineup. It is infuriating that every day Rocco sits Lewis Buxton or Correa. The last two have looked great so far, and totally healthy since they came off the IL. They're our best players, if we want to make the playoffs then they need to be out there playing everyday! I get that ownership screwed the team and Rocco can only manage with what he's got, but he sure does a poor job of it. Constantly pinch hitting Margot and refusing to use anyone else is getting ridiculous....

[Swing Batter-Batter]

12 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Detroit is a 1/2 game back now. It will be completely unacceptable if they blow a 90 something percent chance at making the playoffs 3 weeks ago to missing the playoffs. 

It is already unacceptable. That said, I absolutely expect the Twins to finish at least 2 games behind Detroit. The Tigers have momentum and something to look forward to. The Twins are mentally down and looking in the rearview mirror.

[USAFChief]

40 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

WRONG! A smart manager would find a way to have Pablo, Ober, Jax, and Duran throw every inning from here until the end of their World Series run.

I think every reasonable fan knows Rocco doesn't have a deep bullpen.

That makes it MORE important he use his assets wisely. 

I think it's entirely reasonable to question his staff usage.

Removing Ober at 70-some pitches. "getting Duran some work" in a blowout, which has happened at least twice that I recall. Duran in the 8th (again!) and trying for 2 innings the night before. Letting Alcala blow a FIVE run lead. 

On and on.

It's easy to mock others. 

Now try actually defending. 

[TwinsAce]

25 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

That is true.

I think it says that the Twins have played unsustainably great against the dregs of the league this year (that is, if we replayed those 29 games, I doubt they go 25-4 again.  Even going 20-9 would be on the improbable side).  As such, I'm saying the 2024 Twins are a mediocre to bad team masquerading as a good one because the vicissitudes of baseball smiled on them at a particularly opportune moment.

Like the 2022 Vikings that dramatically overachieved due to massive amounts of luck, and promptly fell apart the next season without that luck, the Twins are set up to similarly regress in 2025 in my opinion, absent some significant changes to some part of baseball ops (FO, on-field staff, roster).

The Twins have been weird this year.  They have beaten up the really bad teams, they have stunk against the best teams, and then they somehow hold tie-breakers over most of the teams around them in the playoff race.  (Which arguably is a good sign!)

IF Royce Lewis was hitting, Ryan was pitching, and one of our bullpen arms (Topa or Stewart) came back, I think this team had a decent chance to make a run in the playoffs.  Hard to see it now without Lopez, Ober, Jax, Correa, or Wallner carrying the team if we make the wild card spot.

[Riverbrian]

13 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

That is true.

I think it says that the Twins have played unsustainably great against the dregs of the league this year (that is, if we replayed those 29 games, I doubt they go 25-4 again.  Even going 20-9 would be on the improbable side).  As such, I'm saying the 2024 Twins are a mediocre to bad team masquerading as a good one because the vicissitudes of baseball smiled on them at a particularly opportune moment.

Like the 2022 Vikings that dramatically overachieved due to massive amounts of luck, and promptly fell apart the next season without that luck, the Twins are set up to similarly regress in 2025 in my opinion, absent some significant changes to some part of baseball ops (FO, on-field staff, roster).

You made me look up the word "vicissitudes". I'm not sure that I have the talent to use that in a sentence. 

Luck has always been a component of the game of baseball. Timing is another large part of it and the timing is multiple pendulums swinging back in forth. You can't control when your opponent is hot or cold and the timing of when you face them is going to make a difference. 

Ultimately... to declare that this team or any team is mediocre to bad is subjective. I'll only say that every team has the talent to masquerade as a good one or bad one. What are the Orioles masquerading as right now?  

If you are right... Let's hope the Twins put the mask on today and wear it throughout the playoffs. 

 

 

[NYCTK]

4 minutes ago, TwinsAce said:

The Twins have been weird this year.  They have beaten up the really bad teams, they have stunk against the best teams, and then they somehow hold tie-breakers over most of the teams around them in the playoff race.  (Which arguably is a good sign!)

...and further indication that none of those teams are actually worthy of being in the playoffs....

[chpettit19]

25 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I think every reasonable fan knows Rocco doesn't have a deep bullpen.

That makes it MORE important he use his assets wisely. 

I think it's entirely reasonable to question his staff usage.

Removing Ober at 70-some pitches. "getting Duran some work" in a blowout, which has happened at least twice that I recall. Duran in the 8th (again!) and trying for 2 innings the night before. Letting Alcala blow a FIVE run lead. 

On and on.

It's easy to mock others. 

Now try actually defending. 

What of that did he do during the game that this thread is about?

[David Maro]

Where's Topa!! To all of you who say more pitching,how about all the pitchers on the IL. This whole collapse is on Falvey with him bringing in pitchers with dead arms. And Topa sitting the whole season with a bad knee. If it would of been dealt with in the spring he would have been available by now.

As for as last night why a rookie in the 10th. Why not Irvin,he threw 3 pitches the night before. Rocco said he would and could be used in many different situations. This game was just one more game given away at a time when you can't do that.

[USAFChief]

2 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

What of that did he do during the game that this thread is about?

 

What part of "use Lopez, Ober, Duran and Jax through the WS" is about last night's game?

 

[Craig Arko]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

It would be nuts if Kansas City collapsed faster than the Twins.

It’s a weird, weird, weird, world.

[TwinsAce]

27 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

...and further indication that none of those teams are actually worthy of being in the playoffs....

I won't be able to change your mind.  To me, I would much rather watch the current version of the playoffs vs. the playoffs of the 60s-80s or even 90s-00s.  It keeps more teams in it and seems to give more opportunities to mid-market teams that have developing teams throughout the year.

[cHawk]

This team so often looks like they don’t know how to win.

[jkcarew]

I wouldn’t have gone with Henriquez, but I don’t get the pining for Alcala. He’s been awful…not shakey…awful…for some time now.