Offense Being Led Down Path Of Historic Ineptitude

That Dozier AB killed me too. I was at the game, so I didn't have the TV view, but this should be about right.

 

Whatever you think of the decision to bunt here, matters not.

 

First pitch he squared to bunt and pulled back. OK

Second pitch he missed on a bunt attempt. MISSED. Not a foul. Just a whiff. He clearly had no interest in bunting even though he was getting the sign to do so.

Third pitch. No bunt attempt. The manager must have seen the sadness in Dozier's eyes and called off the bunt. Jesus. 

Eventually pulls a grounder right down the line for an easy DP (maybe could have had a triple play)

 

Not only do today's player STINK at bunting. They have absolutely no desire to do so. Take a couple pitches... foul off a bunt or two.... and magically, they get to do what they want, and swing away.

How are the players not an option? The manager and FO can't take AB's for them, pitch for them, field for them or run the bases for them. They are paid professional that should be accountable for their actions on and off the field. A manager and FO are paid less than a reserve infielder, so laying all the blame on them seems to miss the point.

Because either

A) They don't have the talent, in which case the FO is to blame for assembling the team.

Or

They are not playing up to their talent level. This is on the field staff for not coaching them up to their ability.

Explain to me why teams hire coaches if they don't have an effect on players?

Who is more responsible for your work, your boss or you? I believe individual's have a lot more responsibility than you do. Look at Dozier comments today, if he can't see that he has a problem, no amount of coaching is going to change him. And I think every team would consider him a major league player. One year ago, he was an all star.

So lets say we have some companies that go out and sign or train top notch employees  Their training programs are top notch. They have great mentorship programs and innovative thinking.  Their department heads are top notch.

Then we have competing companies and those other companies have less talented employees who aren't trained as well and don't have good mentorship programs and who have bosses that aren't innovative and so on.

Do the second group of employees get all the blame when the companies they work for go under, or is there an underlying problem?

Who is more responsible for your work, your boss or you? I believe individual's have a lot more responsibility than you do. Look at Dozier comments today, if he can't see that he has a problem, no amount of coaching is going to change him. And I think every team would consider him a major league player. One year ago, he was an all star.

Dozier is one player.

When the whole team is under performing, that can't be just coincidence.

In your example, if I'm a bad apple at my job, yeah it's my fault. If everyone in my department is consistently failing, it's my manager who is going to be out of a job.

So you believe Dozier problem is lack of mentoring? And people still question Hunter 's value to the team last year. Nobody gets all the blame, but to say the players don't have responsibility is a joke.

And few doubt Hunter had some effect.  How much is the question and how much was taken away by his poor play is also a question.

Mentoring doesn't have to be by a player and players do obviously take blame. But you asked who was more responsible.

Total System Failure, for sure, but Ryan put this team together and it was obvious this team wasn't going to be good going into the season.  They shouldn't be THIS bad, but they'd still be bad even they were playing somewhat better and that's the point.

there comes a point where the manager gets blamed and replaced. The hitting coach. The pitching coach. Minor league coaches.

All of those happened and we still suck. players deserve some blame too. But nothing is working right now so aim towards the top.

 

And few doubt Hunter had some effect. How much is the question and how much was taken away by his poor play is also a question.

 

Mentoring doesn't have to be by a player and players do obviously take blame. But you asked who was more responsible.

 

Total System Failure, for sure, but Ryan put this team together and it was obvious this team wasn't going to be good going into the season. They shouldn't be THIS bad, but they'd still be bad even they were playing somewhat better and that's the point.[/quot

 

Based on the prediction on this site and by most in the media, I don't think it was obvious that this team wasn't going to be good. I'm sure we can look back and see most had high expectations for this team.

I think if you look at a lot of sites that look a lot deeper you'll find otherwise- Dave Cameron from Fangraphs, for example, said in a chat before the season started that he expected the Twins to be the worst team in the AL.

 

ZiPS predicted them very low. Many places predicted them to have a worse record than last year.

 

Of course, places that do surface like predictions said things like they are young and had 83 wins last year means they'll be better this year. In fact, Pohlad said recently that is what he thought and still claims there was no fault in that thinking. He thought that was sound logic. I had them at 78 wins myself. Turns out I was too optimistic myself.

If you want to add our relative runs scored and runs allowed percentages, 2016 represents by far our worst combined season in franchise history at 44.3, which is rather historic.  Obviously that should normalize a bit by season 's end, as our previous worst was 2011 at 28.9, followed by 2013 at 27.5.

I'm afraid we've entered a New Normal era.