jkcarew

The eskimo thing is hard to interpret. But I think we can all agree that Seth needs to leave Sano alone, and let him focus on hitting. Let's hope this is the turning point that we've been looking for with Miggy.

Lot of things working against the club right now with the injuries, struggles, weird schedule, etc...and now the very back end of the rotation getting exposed, followed by a trip to Yankee Stadium. There are points, even for contending teams, where it's good enough to simply avoid the catastrophic losing skid. Feels like that's where the club is right now. And so far, so good: six of the last seven starters faced by the Twins: Verlander, Keuchel, McCullers, Kluber, Carrasco, and Archer. Record: 3-3. Survive to thrive. Live to fight another day. It's a marathon. What am I forgetting?

Strange season so far, to say the least. But it's nice to be banking wins (and against some good opponents) when so many things are...not ideal.

This is a funny joke, but for those bringing up the rear when it comes to linguistic buenoness...we should set the record straight... EL NINO means 'storm'. and LA NINA means 'bad storm'.

I don't think it was so much a limit...or even the coach wanting to be cautious...as it was that Romero had already thrown 81 pitches, only 48 strikes, had walked his 3rd batter that inning, the score was 2-2, and the manager wanted to win the game. I have no problem with it. He'll come around...but in AAA, he is actually pitching against more polished hitters than several of those that he dominated in spring training games last month...and in much cooler weather (54 at first pitch last night).

I appreciate the post. I think the color barrier being wiped out represents probably the most dramatic and rapid transition from one era of baseball to another. Of course, in terms of the larger social picture in this country, it was even more impactful than it was for baseball. But having said that, baseball always evolves. If the point is that Babe Ruth wouldn't have had 714 home runs if he had had to bat against the best black pitchers of his era...or that Ted Williams wouldn't have hit 406 in 1941 is he had had to face the best of his era...then I think that's a reasonable argument. If, on the other hand, the argument is that Babe Ruth or Ted Williams would not have been among the very best players of their era or any other era, then I would disagree. After all, during the color-barrier era, African Americans represented 10% of the population. What the great players of Ruth's and (early) Williams' eras accomplished, they accomplished against the very best from a pool of 90% of the population...virtually without any of the siphoning of elite athletes to other sports that started in the 50's and accelerated from there. So, I prefer to view the color-barrier era in terms of the tragedy and travesty for the black players, not as an invalidation or marginalization of what the great white or native players accomplished. The tragedy is that from the 10% that were excluded, there were undoubtedly players that should have been placed right along side the Ruth's and the Williams' of those eras...maybe even above them. Thankfully, MLB has at least gone to some effort to recognize who those players were....players like Josh Gibson, who may have been, for a 10-year period starting in the early 30's, the greatest player alive...or that ever lived. But baseball always evolves, and it's always extremely problematic to compare numbers across eras. Would Hank Aaron have ended up with 755 home runs if he had taken +10% of his at-bats against Dominican relief pitchers throwing 97 mph? Probably not. (MLB started to open the door to Dominican players right around 1970.) Would Kershaw already have 2000 strike-outs if he had played in an era where putting the ball in play had value? Turned around: how many more strikeouts would Nolan Ryan have ended up with if he had started his career in 2010 instead of 1969? And so it goes. I don't think my thoughts contradict anything in the post. I enjoyed the post and found it interesting enough to share my thoughts.

Dick Allen, Woodie Held, Lance Johnson and Willy Garcia?

Big hitter, the Lama.

Last year Joe improved to the point where his wRC+ (116) was only slightly below league median for first-basemen (about 123). If this year Joe can get that to league median or slightly higher...across 600 PA, like last year...that could be very significant for the club. I agree that this type of output now seems realistic for Joe...or at least way more realistic than it would have seemed 12 months ago.

It's reasonable to expect that Kepler's launch angle would continue to improve as he improves, even without any change in swing/approach. Simply improved pitch recognition with experience is going to lead to him being on time more often...less getting ahead with his hands and rolling over. Given he's denied any changes to the plane of the swing, I'd say this is what we're seeing...simply being on time more often. Amazingly, he has only 5 PA against left-handed pitching through the first 10 games. In a perverse way, I want to see him face lefties more often...just to figure it out, which I think he will at some point.

I think the most significant early trend impacting the Twins is LAA's start.

Opponents are 23-12 against the league, and 4-6 against the Twins. Collectively they’ve shown resiliency, if not consistency.

If this were a football season, we'd be at the end of the 3rd quarter in the first game of the season. In basically a tied game. I'm not among those of you who are ready to take guys off the practice squad and play them in place of established players to start the 4th quarter of game one.

Not particularly. When careers come crashing down for 'older' pitchers, it's arm problems, not finger problems. Not that it couldn't happen with a finger, I guess. But until I hear something definitive that points to the finger somehow being 'done'...I'm relatively optimistic that he will be back and pitching decent-to-good by the end of May.

Ironic that Stewart no longer qualifies for the “Top Prospect Summary”, no? Good things come to those that wait?

With Kent Hrbek batting in the seventh, Gladden stole home off David Wells. It was the first of three times that Gladden would steal home in his career. He would do so again later in the 1988 season, and once more in 1989. He was caught trying to steal home five times in his career. Rod Carew stole home 17 times in his career. Paul Molitor stole home 10 times. Great stuff, Matt! I wish box scores, or records even, distinguished between straight steals of home vs back end of a double steal. The former is way more dramatic to watch and more difficult to execute successfully than the latter. (Could probably get it from the game logs, I suppose.) I would be willing to bet most of Gladden's and Molitor's were back ends of double steals. While most of Carew's were straight steals of home. I saw one. It was unbelievable to watch live at the park.

The folks that scheduled this game are perfectly fine with it being a night game. The schedulers being Fox Sports, of course

Joe will fall off this list by the end of the year, as he is 104 games played from having caught in less than 50% of his career games played. (At least I hope he falls off that list.) Nevertheless, 2000 hits is an accomplishment, to say the least. Tony O never got there. He will pass Carew this year if healthy, and still has a chance, if he continues beyond this year, to catch Kirby for most all time (Twins).

Kinda. Mostly, not enough games played. Joe got to 120 games caught only twice in his career...but in the DH era/league, he should have (without injuries, etc.) been able to make up for a better portion of the missed catching plate appearances. But he didn't. In his first 10 season in the majors, Joe averaged 44 games missed (games without an appearance) per season. If you throw out his first season (127 games missed), his next 10 seasons still average 36 missed games. Hard to rack up milestone (totals) numbers that way. Even his walks totals seem relatively pedestrian. Has only had as many as 90 in a season one time, which seems bizarre.

Taking it WAY to literally. The point is, in the baseball business, you can use the concept for creative ways to structure, or at least evaluate, deals.

I would say, in that case, the Twins need to consider being "significantly more aggressive" in their attempts to sign Dozier. That is relative to whatever the market is next off-season....and of course, it's the FO job to figure that out. I don't have a strong opinion on exactly where the market will end up next off-season. We'll see how much of a trend (or blip) this past off-season was.

I just think how far the Twins go in the attempt to retain Dozier has everything to do with the progress of the young talent. Both the middle infielders in the minors, and also the young talent on the big club. The Twins can compete for championships with average production from the 2nd base position...IF Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Rosario (at least one or two of them) take the next step offensively. If the FO is not confident with either of those propositions at the end of the year, I think they must consider getting pretty aggressive with Dozier.

I'm tracking. In most businesses, if I think an asset is going to provide X total value, I'd be happy to spread the cost of that asset beyond the asset's 'life'. I think part of the catch is, the seller always wants incremental/marginal (sometimes not so marginal) return for the extra years, arguing both in terms of incremental value (or possibility of) provided in the extra years and also the diminished future value of cash (basically, inflation). But the concept still is relevant, IMO, for how a FO evaluates a deal.

You said it yourself....Sano's opposite field home run was NOT in his swing and miss zone. He hit it the opposite way by total accident, just happened to slice it off the top of the bat. Other than that, agree with everything here. Neither is handling anything away...especially off-speed away. Buxton looks incapable of adjusting, and Sano looks unwilling. Not the start we wanted to see...and not like this pattern of attack wasn't predictable, especially in the case of Sano.

If an international player (at least Dominican, Venezuelan) has made it to AA, it usually means he's been in the organization 5-7 years. Someday, we will look back at this, and other features, of international signing rules and say "did this really happen?". Btw...Killebrew made 15 opening day line-ups for the franchise. It's just that the team was named the Washington Senators for the first two . His first opening day start for the Senators was in 1959, at the age of 22. He hit a home run. This was already his 6th year on the major league roster due to the 'bonus baby' rules in effect at the time. (Speaking of 'did this really happen?').