Did the Twins Players-Only Meeting Save The Team From Itself?

Do as I say, not as I do.

Needed to be done!!! As fans we have to have demands and expectations for twins and ALL of our Minnesota teams!!! With that said it’s time for twins to get back to winning series/another long winning streak to get back into division race!!! As for wolves they need to get their s—t together after last night!!!(referees screwed them) state of Minnesota desperately needs a championship!!!

They are professional MLB players being paid millions of dollars to perform.  It should not take a team meeting to get them to play at their potential

I have felt like Duran isn't being able to call his own game and his comments proved that true. Catchers call the pitches as they should but great closers know their stuff, especially during the game and throw what is working. I probably wrong but I feel like Rocco overmanages all the time

 He is a 100% analytics guy and doesn't do a good job of managing situations based on the moment he relies completely on analytics,  which is great when it works but the great managers have an interesting feel for the game.

Meetings, schmeetings.  Just win baby.  Now that we had a players meeting only and won 2 straight games against a reeling Nationals team we can now print our playoff tickets lol.  Go Twins!

Glad Baldelli called them out - he's rarely offered any type of criticisms, so that statement was extremely unusual. Nice to see some fire from him and from the team. 

I think it's way too early to say if this meeting "saved" anything. The Nats are 21-27 and will be hanging with the Marlins in the NL East cellar most of the year. 

Overall you have to appreciate seeing some fire, which is something that's been lacking in the Baldelli era, regardless of whether a team is struggling or not. 

Find it worrying that the team needs multiple explicit reminders that they are professionals, and should act like it ...

55 minutes ago, MABB1959 said:

They are professional MLB players being paid millions of dollars to perform.  It should not take a team meeting to get them to play at their potential

Professionals across all organizations need to get together and talk things over; regardless of their pay.

I spent 25 years of my life coaching; basketball, football, volleyball, track, boys and girls, from junior high to junior college and learned a few things. Coaching isn't all about teaching skills, it's mostly "head" coaching. You have to get your players to believe in themselves, their teammates and you. If you can accomplish that you'll not only have a successful team, you'll also have a "fun" team; everyone (players and coaches) will enjoy coming to practice and learning new skills, game plans and strategies. They'll laugh and joke going through drills, they'll tease each other in a good-natured manner, they'll congratulate each other when they win and console each other when they loose.

Fun teams don't call team meetings.

Disgruntled teams do.

And that means they either don't believe in themselves, or their teammates, or their coach(es).

Which indicates a "head" coaching failure of some sort and a necessary trip Back to the Drawing Board.

Rocco is known as a players Manager. So it appears his feelings were hurt that a player spoke up!!

Rocco is not the type of Mgr. that is right for this team. Castro forgot how many outs there were and then took two horrible routes to miss balls. Tom Kelly would have sat him for a game or two. Not Rocco. He just shrugged and said Play-on! Same with the team leading the League in called third strikes. And missing cut-off men! Rocco just watches. Maybe sending someone to St Paul when they take 2-3 called 3rd strikes in a series would wake up the entire team!! Not Rocco. He just smiles and collects his paycheck!

23 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

Agree with your first paragraph, but now with the second.

I've also spent a good number of years coaching (not 25, but 10), all at the college level, and focused on the things you talked about. But I also remember a night when we got back from a meet after seriously underperforming. We sat in the bus for a while and had a chat that was a little out of character for me. I'm not a yeller, but I was definitely more direct with them than usual on some things. I also focused on the fact that we were a good team with a lot of potential, but hadn't come together yet. Thirty years later, I still remember the statement from one of my senior leaders, "If coach thinks we can do this, I think we should go for it." 

I went to clean uniforms (small college, so you do everything), and they continued to talk amongst themselves. I found out later that they spent some time together over the weekend. Turned the season around, and we ended up winning the conference championship. I can't say it was all from that night's meeting (after all, they had an outstanding coach, right? 🤣), but it was a key moment. A few years ago, I asked one of the athletes whether she remembered the night, and she did.

Point being, sometimes even a fun team needs a bit of a reset. None of us are privy to what happened Monday, but I'm impressed that they seem to have the right set of personalities on the team (in my opinion) for such a meeting to be significant. 

The bottom line, however, is that a meeting only lasts a short time, particularly in a long-season sport like baseball. They still need to build on any momentum it generated.

I think your experience verifies the point(s) I was trying to make. You, as the "head" coach went back to the drawing board (being more direct), the players then established they believed in you as their coach, then spent time together learning to believe in each other. But that wasn't the result of a player called team meeting that started the "rebirth". You did. So yes, your team did indeed have an outstanding coach.

The best athlete I ever coached, a young lady, All-State in two sports, State Champion in a third, went on to play Div 1 and currently coaches at the college level, recently told me her coaching motto “kids, don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care".  That, I believe is "head" coaching, getting on the same wave length. How that applies to dealing with professional athletes I have no idea. But you'd think there must be some sort of mutual trust factor involved, a "belief in each other" at some level.

But what do I know. I'm just an old fart still living in the past. Interesting topic though.

“Ultimately, Duran throws the pitch - I simply do not believe that the Twins will tell their best relief pitcher that he needs to throw the pitch the pitching coach/catcher call 'or else.' Or else what? I still think this is on Duran.“

Really?  After Duran has seen the way Alcalá has been treated?  Why would he think anything other than “or else”?

5 hours ago, Peter said:

Needed to be done!!! As fans we have to have demands and expectations for twins and ALL of our Minnesota teams!!! With that said it’s time for twins to get back to winning series/another long winning streak to get back into division race!!! As for wolves they need to get their s—t together after last night!!!(referees screwed them) state of Minnesota desperately needs a championship!!!

Agree that the state of Minnesota is in need of a championship but doubt it will come  the Twins this year. In a huge series vs the Guardians last weekend the Twins started a lineup with 4 players batting .205 and lower as well as 5 players with OBP under .300. It resulted in an 11-4 loss.

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I don't think the players meeting makes a difference at all, and it increasingly feels like the Twins have lost sight of the forest for the trees. Are the pitch calls coming from the bench? That's would be some next level micromanagement. 

Actually I think the pitches are being called from the dugout. You see the catchers looking in there and the other day Ryan was looking straight in there before every pitch.