jkcarew

My feeling would be that Buxton seems to start out about 2 for 50 with 25 K's in any scenario...might as well get it out of the way as fast as possible. Have to just give him the at-bats even though it's horrifically painful to watch. We're in year year 4 with both Buxton and Sano, and due to injuries and uneven performance, we're still in "need to find out" mode with both. Frustrating.

Well the Twins were 2-4 in the first 6 games without Sano, with half of those games against the likes of Cincinnati and the White Sox. But yeah. We’re a much better team when we replace Sano in the lineup with Ehire Adrianza.

Baddoo hasn't been swinging and missing as much as you might think. He is an extreme example of the approach that prefers going as deep as possible in the count...looking for specific pitches/mistakes. Results in a high rate of walks, and also strike-outs that may only involve one swinging strike, if that. His OBP is basically 400. So, lets not mess with him radically right now. I think as he continues to progress...basically learns where/when more aggressiveness pays off...we could have a good one with him. And then there's Rooker. While I don't think 23 is young for a AA player that's supposed to be considered a real prospect, I do think it's a huge adjustment to be hitting with the real bat against AA prospects only 11 months removed from SEC play. But forget the strike-outs and (lack of) walks...he's only hit 1 home run in his first 100 plate appearances. That seems really weird.

I don't mind the strike-outs that much. That doesn't mean that the game wouldn't be in a bit of a better spot if strike-out rates came down a bit. Or at least quite growing exponentially. But, I see the strike-outs as a symptom, not the disease. The disease is that players are getting to the major leagues with one-dimensional offensive tool-sets. It's as if there's a new rule somewhere that says you have to try to lift and drive the ball every swing you take? No, the rule is that all players must employ the same officially-sanctioned swing...always. No matter the pitcher, no matter the pitch, no matter the count, no matter the game situation, no matter the defense, no matter where I bat in the lineup...we're going to stand there and take our one-and-only perfect-plane swing looking to drive and lift the ball; that swing that has been coached to perfection since the age of 4...by a generation of coaches that have all read the same white paper on hitting (probably made worse by the fact that American coaches have now infiltrated...otherwise known as "organized" the central american youth ranks). Until such a point arrives in the evolution of baseball where bunting, putting the ball in play, hitting the other way, do not materially impact the winning/losing of games...even in 10% of at-bat scenarios..then, this is a problem.

My goals for the season have shifted from playoffs to simply wanting to see as many of the younger guys as possible pull it together and show progress...including some promotions for the prospects. Pretty much all of the young guys on the big club (except Kepler) have taken steps backward so far this season. Not good. Having said that...we're 3 1/2 games down with 139 to play. Stranger things have happened. Maybe Cleveland isn't going to be as good as we thought. But first, we just need to see a month of decent to good baseball.

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.