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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.