bean5302

Why? There's probably a 50/50 chance Lackey starts the year in AA. If he rakes and is doing well defensively (he's not a high school draft pick, he's an established high end college catcher), then a promotion to AAA could be coming as early as the beginning of June. If he continues to perform well at AAA, there's no reason he couldn't be in MLB before the end of the year. There's no good reason to promote Lackey if he's not producing and no good reason to hold him down for more than a couple hundred plate appearances at a level if he doesn't need to be there. Player development isn't baking a cake mix where you need to bake at 350* for 30-33 minutes...

Brooks Lee's production is unreal. His xwOBA is .276 (worst of his career) which should be good for like an OPS of like .625 or wRC+ 70. It's like Brooks Lee is intentionally aiming for the perfect shot for his home run balls to juuuuuuuuuuust barely clear the wall every time. Among qualified hitters, Lee's xwOBA is 135/141. I looked just a few weeks ago and there didn't appear to be any substantial change to Lee's approach. He doesn't walk, he doesn't barrel balls, he doesn't swing fast, he doesn't hit balls hard, he doesn't hit line drives, he just manages to get on base somehow. Maybe there's a hole in xwOBA nobody else has discovered.

I don't think the Pohlad family played switcheroo at all. I think Tom's the guy. I like most of what he's said. I like most of what he's done including absolutely loving how quickly he canned Falvey's ***. From running around delivering hot dogs and $20s to Trevor Plouffe to the happy hours on Fri/Sat to convincing the actual financial owners to open the checkbook at the trade deadline. Tom seems committed to doing what he can to get fans interested and to delivering an overall ball park and game day experience which is improved. Tom Pohlad is the controlling owner. He does not have full control over money. That's Jim, Bob and Bill, who are the REAL owners. That said, ownership feels different to me. I got my Royce Lewis jersey this year. I was unable to get my Correa jersey as a season ticket holder with club level seats a couple years ago. Those kinds of things make an impact. Maybe it has more to do with a weaker fan base? It doesn't matter because the experience was awesome. Killer jersey too. The game day experience is BETTER this year than last, even with lousy attendance, the game is better.

Culpepper has been really outstanding. He's a legitimate shortstop. He's got the arm and the speed to cover the position as an above average shortstop. The Twins haven't seen that in a very, very, very long time. There are areas he can improve, but I expect he's capable of handling the position at an average or above average level. He'll need to hone his plate discipline as he still chases way too much, but when a ball is in the zone, his contact skills are great. If he can adjust and learn some added discipline for pitches down low, his bat could hold at a solid. All in all, I think Culpepper is producing at close to what was his expected ceiling already from both sides. In the field and at the plate. It'll be fun to see if he's able to take another step forward as he adjusts.

While I'd prefer to have a catcher who doesn't automatically turn every BB or single in a double, the Falvinzoll Twins have always seemed to value defense differently behind the plate. I do like the fact Diaw has been very good in regard to passed balls, though without the Wild Pitch count, it's hard to evaluate his skills behind the plate in that regard. Despite the overwhelming support for him being a legit center fielder, I don't see anything to suggest he has the speed to excel there. Scouting reports suggest he's an average runner, and he's frequently getting caught when trying to steal backing that speed assessment up.

"I hate the entire Pohlad family, even their distant relatives, and I am committed to any conspiracy theory I can form to continue hating all of them." Fixed that for you.

The chances Kepler was impacted by cross contamination from eating red meat is exceedingly low. No company "contaminates their meat." The steroid is a tablet placed behind the cow's ear. The steroid used in cattle is also totally banned in the E.U. where Kepler has typically spent a fair bit of his offseason. The bottom line is he almost certainly doped. He got caught, he got punished. End of story.

@Saxophone Joe posted about this topic Tuesday (4 days ago) in the forums. I chalk it up to Torii Hunter, foot in mouth champion.

No, it's worse than that. He's thrown out 10 of 133 this year. Better to not even try to catch attempted base stealers. Too high a likelihood the ball winds up in the outfield and the runner scores... Cedar Rapids = 6 CS, 58 successful (6/64) Wichita = 4 CS, 65 successful (4/69)

Honestly, I'm considering buying season tickets for next year provided it looks like there will be a season. The fees to attend games this year are brutal, and the reseller market has strongly adjusted to availability. I had seasons in 2022, 2023 and 2024. LF Bleachers and Club Level. I've noticed there are very few tickets available through resellers this year because no season ticket holders exist. That's really messed with the market (in season ticket holder's favor). For 2022-2023, in Left Field Bleachers, my tickets were $25-30/game. Anywhere from $1,000-$1,200 for a 20 game package with all fees. This year, if I want to buy through the box office, those seats are seemingly $33.00-$38.00 + $5.75 in fees. Reseller market, with fees are typically similar. For 2024, in Club Level, my tickets (40 game required) were $60/game. $4,800 + $100.00 fee. I didn't want a 40 game package so I was forced to sell my extra games. I took a brutal bath on tickets. I was selling as low as $18/ea for seats with face value of $72+ These seats cannot be purchased through the box office. They're exclusive to season ticket holders for some reason nobody will ever be able to explain beyond stupid management. Why artificially limit your sales? Anyway, it's rare to see tickets in Club Level this year at under $60/ea with fees. Still a loss, but it's no sub $40 all-in price like I was seeing. It seems like the best deal might be a flex plan. That allows the buyer to purchase based on total seats. You don't have a set "seat" assigned to you, you can freely use as many of your tickets for a single game as you choose. An 80 game flex plan would mean you could take 79 friends to one game (probably some limits, but you get the idea). I like baseball. I like going to baseball games, though terrible attendance robs a lot of ambiance. I don't spend my whole life trying to hurt others at the cost of my own happiness.

Buxton has shown how good he is while hurt. Since the All Star Break. .172/.274/.203 OPS .475 wRC+ 38 as a DH or while likely being a liability in CF. The odds of the Twins making the playoffs are 25:1 right now by an optimistic Fangraphs projection model. Time to move Buxton to the 60-day IL.

Tinney won the Rawlings ABCA Gold Glove for best defensive college catcher last year. The Twins think they can improve Tinney's transition skills. I haven't seen anything "negative" about Tinney, but the unfounded rumor you're spreading remains. Tinney's been praised for a strong arm, pitch calling and framing in multiple articles. Seems like, around Twins territory, it's important to trash him in order to keep Lackey looking better. https://www.abca.org/ABCA/ABCA/Awards/Gold_Glove/2026.aspx

Wasn't mid-September always expected?

Does it make sense for him to **** on a major fanbase of his to and damage his relationship with an organization likely to be a potential landing spot for future roles in which Torii has expressed interest? Not really. That's why I chalk it up to Torii's long history of foot in mouth rather than an intentionally stupid move. Side note, mildly annoying TD uses British English as spell check. (organization vs. organisation) (realize vs realise). We're in the U.S. the "z" is proper.

I think there's a chance Lackey makes it to the Twins mid year next year, but that's only if everything goes right. Based on SSSS, it looks like he's going to need to make some adjustments. While he's not whiffing on pitches at only 8% swinging strike rate, he's been very passive, caught flat footed for a called strike 27% of the time. That's up there with Julien numbers. Contact rates in this tiny sample size are also mixed. 30% line drives is great, but 54% pop up on fly balls is 5x higher than desirable. That said, MiLB batted ball data can be pretty sketch. That said, Lackey's a high 1st round college draft pick, and the expectation is he'll move quickly.

Actually, it was a series of normal google searches combined with embedded gemini results which I reviewed quickly. But, yeah. the obviously formatted response is A.I. generated.

Definitely wish him the best of luck on continuing the dream. He was one of the few who made the big show, and he even got a little playing time. Nobody can take that away from him.

There's always a special clique of users who follow people around the board searching for posts they can "react" to as a form of sanctioned taunting for weeks or months on end. While folks may not get the "notification" if their post is quoted or reacted to by the /ignored user, the reaction is right there front and center. If there's somebody I consider to be a troll, I can just /ignore when they waste my time. Not everybody is so inclined. Owners/administrators/moderators have a ban hammer at your disposal. Your users do not.

You're accusing me of being outdated? The irony... It's been well documented over the past 10-15 years that innings limits don't do anything for MLB pitchers. In fact, study after study after study has concluded the same thing, and there's been a ton of research into this in recent years. There was some correlation on pitching deeper into a single game because of the effect of needing to stretch back out, but apparently, that's been largely eliminated by a change in approach in the dugout to help pitchers stay loosened up. Pitch counts in a single game which exceed 100-110 pitches due to fatigue while being close to max effort. In regard to building his arm up responsibly, it's to keep throwing pitches and getting used to the workload now so he doesn't have conditioning and fatigue problems in later seasons. Professional (MLB) Research Lack of Correlation: An analysis of professional starting pitchers found no statistical association between cumulative innings pitched, total starts, or pitch counts and being placed on the disabled list (DL) for musculoskeletal reasons. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29861301/ https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/inning-limits-dont-prevent-mlb-pitching-injuries https://www.mlb.com/news/180-innings-is-no-magic-number-for-harvey/c-150272958 The Velocity and Style Shift: Modern professional injuries are increasingly linked to max-effort throwing, chasing velocity, and a "reliever's mentality" where starters throw at peak intensity rather than pacing themselves over longer outings. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43026688/mlb-study-identifies-factors-rise-pitching-injuries Unintended Consequences: Some studies suggest that strict minor league innings limits may actually leave pitchers poorly conditioned or unprepared for the extreme workloads and pacing required in the major leagues. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43026688/mlb-study-identifies-factors-rise-pitching-injuries

He's at 122.2 innings right now (have to remember the 18.2 innings from AAA before he unexpectedly was forced into the MLB rotation). 154.1 - Taj Bradley 146.1 - Zebby Matthews 128.2 - Joe Ryan 122.2 - Connor Preilipp 121.2 - Bailey Ober

Speaking of moderation. I'd like "ignore" to function a lot more like "block" where users cannot interact with me or the content I share (i.e. cannot react to my posts, perhaps can't see them)

Historically, Twins can't miss prospects shuffle through the minors before they hit a wall in AA or AAA. The Twins gives them 17 plate appearances at AAA, forgets they didn't construct a roster correctly, then call the prospect up and roll a pair of dice. If the dice roll is 10 or higher, the prospect is untouchable no matter how inept they look they'll get infinite playing time. If the roll is 9 or lower, the prospect will get 2 weeks at a time to produce and be demoted if they don't.

We'll need them (pitchers) the way this front office constructs rosters. Oh, we'll need the left handed outfielders, too, but only if they're defensively inadequate.

If Prielipp pitches another 4 games this year, that'll still put him under 140 innings for the full season including AAA. Considering Prielipp will pitch in 28 games at that rate and average (at this pace 83 pitches). Prielipp could have gone deeper into games based on pitch counts. I'm not sure what limiting a player means around here, but Prielipp isn't of any value to the team throwing a ceremonial first pitch in game 1 and shutting him down for the year afterwards while we can all post "preeeeeccccccious" in the forums and debate endlessly about how amazing our prospects are all going to be just as soon as we play them. Annual innings limits have no correlation with injury. They do not help.

Reasonable Question: If the message to the fans was this team was going to be competitive and be aiming for a World Series, why aren't they in that position? Tom Pohlad: Not his fault for relaying his expectations the Twins would be competitive. He set the expectation on the front office, and fired Falvey almost immediately when the incompetent former head of a front office defecated the bed immediately on how he was going to accomplish the expected goal. That said, we don't know how much salary Pohlad was willing to take on, but sure seems like the Twins went el cheapo on Gausman. No reason the team shouldn't have aimed WAY higher than Dean Kremer. Also, ownership was clearly averse to investing in the team pre-season where Pohlad later realized a $100MM payroll was not going to get it done. Jeremy Zoll: Yep. The vast majority of this falls on Zoll. Given a goal and a budget, he continued the bed defecation Falvey started. The same pattern as always. A total lack of decisiveness or willing to do what needed to be done. A total lack of ability to construct a roster which makes sense or make tough decisions. Overly risk averse. He was given the keys and did his best impression of Derek Falvey instead of differentiating himself. Players: I think the team is right about within projection models based on the roster. They haven't outperformed or underperformed as a whole. Bad roster = bad results.