Nine of twelve

It's unfortunate that Erickson's prime only really lasted two half-seasons.

I haven't looked into this, but one could also investigate times when the Twins are at KC and when the Saints are at Iowa, both of which are right on the way between Cedar Rapids and Wichita.

Remember that Polanco got a 5-game taste of the Majors at age 20. We don't know exactly what the team thinks about Lewis but I could see him getting some appearances this season. (He'll be 22 in June.)

With the possible exception of pitcher, left field is the least important position in terms of fielding.

According to this source Target Field has the fifth-smallest foul territory among current major league venues, tied with Citi Field. http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/Stadium_statistics.html

I concur with those who point out that it's not just home runs that will be affected. There should be a slight decrease in the rate of ground balls getting through the infield, which means more ground ball outs. This would be most significant for grounders near the base lines, especially the first base line, in that what previously would have been doubles could be turned into outs. I expect that outfielders will be positioned a few feet shallower this season. If this is the case I would think that the rate of singles that fall in front of outfielders wouldn't change much. There may be an increase in the rate of doubles hit over a fielder's head but a decrease in the rate of doubles on other balls hit to the outfield. This positioning change would also make it a bit easier for baserunners to be thrown out, so coaches and baserunners will need to adapt.

After so many years of post-season pain and disappointment we Twins fans deserve favorable treatment from the baseball gods. It would be right and good and proper if every player on the roster has a 90th-percentile season.

I've posted this before, but I'll repeat. In addition to being far above and beyond his contemporaries as a batter Babe Ruth was also an elite pitcher. In terms of batting, fielding, and base running Mays may have been better than Ruth. Maybe. But Ruth was inarguably the best all-around player in baseball history.

This is a good point, and I think it's probably true in general, but with free agents there are are additional factors that lead to those exceptions. There may be teams that make a bid or want to make a bid but aren't considered because the player doesn't want to play there. Teams adjust their analytics based on need, so multiple teams may have essentially the same assessment of a player but one team may make a higher bid than another. And there may be intangibles that affect a bid, such as a player wanting to play for a hometown team or for a particular manager.

I have come to feel the same way about the Dodgers as I do about the Yankees. It's not good for baseball to continue with a system that gives a small handful of teams an outsize spending advantage. The current revenue sharing/luxury tax system is not effective enough. The owners don't seem to grasp that individual teams are not free-standing entities. They need to look at MLB as a whole. For MLB to succeed it's necessary for each team to have approximately the same opportunity to succeed. This means more extensive revenue sharing. If each team had approximately the same wherewithal with which to operate there would be no need for salary caps or luxury taxes. Ultimately player salaries would become more equitable as well.

With all the left-handed outfield bats in the organization it would be poor management not to try to turn that surplus into different assets. My hope is that our scouting and player development departments have progressed to the point where we have empirical profiles regarding which players to trade and to trade for. I liked Wade but never pictured him as more than a role player. I hope both players involved do well for their new organizations.

Not saying, just asking: Are we better off with Colome than we would have been with May?

Well, the deed is done. I'm skeptical but I hope as much as anyone on this board that he has another great season. And I'm sure his last appearance in a Twins uniform will be this year.

I'm not going to advocate for any particular method of determining the World Champion. I'm just going to present some thoughts. At one end of the spectrum of possibilities is having only a regular season. Ideally there would be a symmetrical round-robin schedule. For example, each team plays 3 home games and 3 road games against each of the other 29 teams. The team that finishes with the best record wins. At the other end of the spectrum is having no regular season. There would be a tournament of some kind and the winner is World Champion. Between those two ends are so many options for having a regular season of some kind to set up a tournament of some kind that the number of ways to do it is nearly uncountable. If there is a tournament, whether a regular season has any bearing on it or not, the question then would be how to optimally structure it. For example, there are single-elimination tournaments. There are double-elimination tournaments, which are fairly common in baseball. And, with the complexity rising at each level, triple-elimination, quadruple-elimination, etc-elimination tournaments are possible. Within each type of tournament there are many possible ways to assign one bye or multiple byes to one team or multiple teams. There are also many ways to decide where the games will be played, who the home teams would be, etc. etc. etc. The number of ways to do this is nearly uncountable. With the nearly uncountable ways to determine a World Champion it's clear to me that whatever choice is made will be a highly arbitrary one, and that any option chosen will have many things wrong with it. So pick something that's not too complicated, accept that it's highly flawed, and just play baseball.

If we get the 2019 and 2020 Nelson Cruz I'm on board. I just have doubts that the 2021 Nelson Cruz will be the same player. Plus, it's time for the young-uns to show what they've got. I think we should thank him profusely for his contributions and wish him the all the best in his future endeavors. Except when he plays against us.

The Great Man, obviously.

Any proposed major trade with Cleveland will almost certainly not happen. A prime directive of trading within your division is to have no doubt that you are coming out ahead. And of course that means the other team would come out behind and therefore decline the offer.

Interesting. Now find a way to deservedly subtract some WAR from Bonds due to cheating. My guess is that it would turn out to be Williams in LF, Mays in CF, and Ruth in RF.

Not without PED's.

Very few players even came up to his knees. To wit: when Ruth retired after the 1935 season with 714 the man in second place, Lou Gehrig, had 378. If you consider only players who also had already retired, the second place player was Cy Williams, with 251.

I'm not.

I stand (mostly) corrected. He did play in 1952 (6 games) and 1953 (37 games) so it amounts to about another 1.7 seasons lost in those two years. And don't forget he was more than a home run hitter. He has the all-time highest OBP and his OPS was significantly higher than both Mays and Aaron.

By chance I attended at least 4 games that Smiley pitched in 1992. He was consistently dominant in those games. Career highs in IP and WHIP.

He performed very well for a utility player. But, as with all players, his birthdate keeps getting further away from today's date. I think the Twins are best served to find a younger player to fill this role.

Ay-ray