bean5302

I won't call them "idiots" but I think their philosophy/strategy is very poor.

No idea on that. He's pitched 42 and 52 pitches in consecutive starts against Low-A competition. Not sure why they didn't move him up sooner if he felt good. Maybe they're concerned his groin could act up after a couple innings and they don't want to risk having to pull him super early in a start with the current bullpen possibly still struggling to recover from the double-header. I'm not sold on Ober being a starter anymore anyway. I don't think he's durable enough.

Offf... great article with a painful reality. No team is as bad as the Twins have played against good teams. That's a big problem. Statistically, it's not possible for Minnesota to play like this on talent alone, which means the issue is probably less with the players and more with management and philosophy.

Wanna pay double for your tickets? LOL. Seriously, though. MLB did shorten commercials a couple years ago already. Players still take 2 minutes to shift from batting to fielding. A left fielder would be a good example. If they leave the inning at 3rd base, jog back into the dugout, swap out their helmet and gloves for a fielding card, glove and hat, grab a drink of water and run back out to left field. That takes a couple minutes. If they have to make an emergency bathroom run, a little more. So all you'd see are the broadcasters talking about the game and no action anyway.

Considering the Twins were offering tickets without fees, tickets directly through the Twins are cheaper than Stubhub

The MLBPA just automatically opposes everything owners propose as a matter of principle. The owners could propose saving a beached whale and the MLBPA would sign a petition to block it...

It does not surprise me that MLB owners are on board with MiLB organizing. As I argued in the H2H debate, it will sow dissention in the player ranks and create a more difficult bargaining position for players. In addition, the unionizing will block a lot of the avenues for legal pursuits which have cost MLB a lot of money recently and give MLB the opportunity to more forcefully control things like signing bonuses vs. "slot" bonuses, etc. Honestly, with MLB's special exemption, having all the players in a union just streamlines administrative burdens.

Glad the Twins won! Funny the article mentioned all the negativity towards Correa recently. I was thinking I might come in here and point out how the comments were undoubtedly missing the trash talking of Correa haha. Anyway, seems like he's right on track for a 4+ fWAR season and he's already at 4.0 bWAR.

https://fanbuzz.com/mlb/pedro-florimon-philadelphia-phillies-ankle-injury-video/ This is why. At 2B and 3B, you can't overrun the base, but at 1B, you can. Too many injuries stepping on the edge of the bag or getting tangled up in the 1B's foot/leg. I suppose MLB could have just increased the size of the 1B. But, whatever.

I agree with @DJL44. I know quite a few people in or connected to the service industry including a close friend who bartends at Target Field. There's no staffing. Delaware North has a hard core training/intro video about all the rules, etc, but it goes totally un-enforced because they simply can't afford to lose staff. It's also, undoubtedly impacted by being a "cashless" ballpark. I suppose there would be some hesitation to pass people's (always been horribly, disgustingly filthy) money down to a vendor at the aisle and have them pass change and food/beverages back. Wifi transactions are less stable and don't get me started on TwinsPay... so having vendors with only card readers might have been a logistics issue, but requiring vendors to pass their scanning devices through the stands for TwinsPay phone transactions would definitely present problems. I do miss vendors in the stands and it's been commented on by many random folks (especially out of towners) in the seats next to mine when I'm at the game.

I think Ryan is exactly what I expected him to be. A solid #4-5 guy with a ceiling (unlikely to reach it) as a #3. Ryan's offspeed and breaking pitches are pretty limited and that was known when the Twins acquired him. He's a solid back end starter right now.

It seems like people kinda need to hear this, but MLB is not eliminating the shift. A 3B can still stand where the SS normally stands. A SS can still stand just a tick to the far side of 2B. The shift is still acceptable. The super extreme version of the shift cannot be used.

Yeah, all the acronyms and abbreviations can seem pretty ridiculous. Different sites use different factors. It's honestly a big pain to learn them. wOBA = weighted on base average. It's basically a stat designed to combine everything a player does offensively into on base percentage equivalent. .300 stinks, .325 is okay, .350 is good, .375 is great .400 is elite. Something like that. xwOBA = the expected wOBA a player should have based on batted balls. Essentially, how hard and far balls were hit. It tries to take out the "balls with eyes" factor. wRC+ = weighted runs created plus, which is basically a really complicated, and slightly more accurate version of the much older and still usually very good OPS (on base + slugging percentage), but wRC+ is adjusted for park factors. It's just a rating which compares total expected offensive output relative to other batters where 100 is league average.

Being built for October means starting pitching to me. While I think Gray has proven he's a good pitcher this year, there has to be a threat the best starter on the team could corner an opponent against a wall by tossing 7 or 8 great innings, leaving only the elite bullpen to close out the win. Even if Gray had an immaculate game with 18 strikeout on 48 pitches going, Baldelli would pull him at the end of 6.0 innings in favor of Emilio Pagan instead of letting Gray face the order a 3rd time.

Won't it be great if Varland pitches really well down the stretch and the Twins make the playoffs just to watch Varland get the axe because Falvey didn't want to burn an option?

I understand what you're saying there and I agree with you 100%. This failure is on the front office, 100% if Baldelli is just essentially following absolute orders he disagrees with. It's on Baldelli to push back or quit if he disagrees with the philosophy. It's his career and this will be tied to him now. He either lacks confidence to stand up for what he believes or he believes in what appears to be a foolish philosophy. If there aren't absolute orders and if the plan isn't working, it's time to ratchet up the number of innings the starters pitch like every other team in baseball with better or worse rotations than the Twins. There is no good reason for 3 of our 4 main starters to rank in the bottom 6% of all starters in baseball in terms of pitches thrown per start when the bullpen can't handle the strain. Adapt or die.

One of the latest games I watched was absolutely painful to watch. I think it was 8/30 vs. Boston. Archer vs. Crawford. I got so frustrated I actually started counting the time between pitches for Archer and it was in the 35-40 second range between deliveries for a while early in the game. Crawford was no speed demon either. Pitch clock. Please, please, please.

The Twins rank 20th in home attendance average this year, ahead of several teams more likely to make the playoffs and 2nd in the AL Central behind the White Sox's 24.6k. Minnesota 22.6k Baltimore 17.7k Cleveland 17.2k Tampa Bay 14.0k The Twins were coming off a last place finish and a long lockout with almost no time to ramp up season ticket sales in a city which has been rocked by violence, crime and safety issues over the past 2 years. The deck was stacked against filling season ticket holder seats and it shows. Early year attendance was horrid. April = 17.5k May = 19.4k Jun = 24.9k Jul = 28.0k ---------------- Twins lose division lead. Aug = 24.2k (Competing with Vikings, State Fair, Renaissance Festival) All in all, the Twins seem to be holding their own in attendance. Winning is one part of the equation. The game day experience is what really matters. The Pohlads put forth a major commitment to winning this year with a payroll blowing their historical max out of the water at $140MM. Right in line with where the team should be on an annual basis.

Since I'm a season ticket holder, I'm going to show up. I'm also going to spend money on concessions, enjoy the ambiance and have fun with friends (if I can get them to go, haha). I go to the game to have fun, and it's fun going to the game regardless of whether or not the Twins win.

Yep. I think you missed the sarcasm, haha.

No, you should disown them if they DO get into Harvard. Who can afford that? LOL

A good manager should adapt and push back on the front office if the strategy is failing or quit at the end of the season. At this point, Baldelli not pushing back on the strategy and managing in a different manner shows he either believes in the failing philosophy or he lacks the confidence to push back. My guess is he truly believes in the philosophy which I don't.

Sanchez in August and September .222/.309/.403 wRC+ 107. Season wOBA .333 (average), xwOBA .355 (good) Historical his wOBA and xwOBA have been right in line with each other. Sanchez is above average with pitch framing this year +1 runs, but of course, Jeffers is better at that with +3 runs in fewer innings. Sanchez is well above average with controlling the run game at 33% caught stealing vs. 25% league average. It comes from Sanchez having a strong arm and fast pop time. Jeffers is well below average with controlling the run game at 17% caught stealing vs. 25% league average. His pop time is league average and his arm is weak. His weakness in the run game is well known and teams actively take advantage of his limitations. Sanchez goes approximately 23 innings between having a passed ball or wild pitch. Jeffers is better at 25 innings. Both are slightly better than league average, ranking 21st and 19th, respectively, of 42 catchers with 400+ innings this year. To put it bluntly, Sanchez is a solid defensive catcher this year with no obvious flaws in his catching game. He's universally better than average. His bat comes with a lot of power, but a lot of swing and miss, too. He's about a league average hitter. That said, he's a free agent after this year. I doubt Leon is better than Caleb Hamilton. Jeffers is the only legitimate MLB caliber catcher we have on the roster beyond this year, and I'm not sure he's a legitimate starter. So beyond this year, the Twins are in very rough shape. This year, the Twins need Sanchez to stay healthy and they'll be "okay."

The only chance Varland has to be a success story is if Falvey, Levine and Baldelli aren't with the organization anymore. No starting pitcher is ever going to be a "success story" with this front office running the show and destroying all the value they can along the way.

This article couldn't be further off. Other teams rely on pitches to determine starts, not TTO. The TTO concept being implemented in such a hard set fashion is seemingly unique to the Twins. The Twins set an all time MLB record for the longest time into the season for a pitcher to hit 100 innings. - That is not a trend or similar to other teams. It's an all time record (which makes it exceptional). Archer, Gray and Bundy all rank at or near the absolute bottom of MLB starters in terms of their average appearance length. 75% of all starters in MLB average at least 5.1 innings. Twins = 20% (Ryan = 5.1) 50% of all starters in MLB average at least 5.2 innings. Twins = 0% 25% of all starters in MLB average at least 6.0 innings. Twins = 0% Pitches per game? Same story. 75% of all starters in MLB average at least 85 pitches per start. Twins = 20% (Joe Ryan = 87) 50% of all starters in MLB average at least 90 pitches per start. Twins = 0% 25% of all starters in MLB average at least 94 pitches per start. Twins = 0% Percentile rank by pitches per start. Joe Ryan 35% (78/120) Sonny Gray 6% (113/120) Dylan Bundy 4% (115/120) Chris Archer 0% (120/120) The Twins are not part of a baseball trend. The Twins are unique. Other teams allow starters to keep pitching when they're effective. The Twins do not. The Twins pull pitchers who are pitching well because of the false pretense of a major drop off in performance related to TTO and the organization seems to be refusing to alter it's seemingly failed strategy.