Nine of twelve

The Rod Stewart version of any song is always the worst one.

That's acceptable for a veteran pitcher on March 5.

Here's what I have read from various sources at various times: 1. The most recent CBA calls for more days off during the course of the season. This necessitated the earliest opening day ever. 2. The presence of the NCAA men's basketball Final Four in Minneapolis means the Twins need to be away during the second, third and fourth series of the season. 2a. MLB knows it's not fair to have a team open with four straight road series. 3. It's not fair to have warm weather teams open at home every year. 4. No other MLB stadium is better equipped than Target Field to handle cold weather games. That still doesn't necessarily make it a great idea, but that's why it is going to happen.

That would be great, but it would take a very good and unlikely set of circumstances to actually occur. With all the days off in the early season there's no reason to push a starter much beyond 80-90 pitches.

I don't know much about advanced stats, but I wonder if there's something called "wild pitches prevented percentage" or something similar. Track all pitches that were more than some arbitrary distance outside the strike zone (including any pitch in the dirt) with runners on base or with two strikes on the batter and find out what percentage of those pitches did not become wild pitches. HBP would not be included.

1974: Lew Ford? Must be a typo or editing error.

Wish I could have been at that game. One of my favorite spring training stories. For those not aware, it must have been spring of 2004. Doug Mientkiewicz got a walk or a single sometime around the 6th inning and LeCroy immediately lobbied hard with Gardy to go in as a pinch runner and Gardy said, sure, what the heck. Mientkiewicz said something to the effect that it was the longest two and a half minutes of his life waiting for LeCroy to get from the dugout to first base.

I'm posting just after Channing1964, and I'll echo those sentiments but I'm not quite so over-the-top. I think advanced statisical analysis is valid and worthwhile, but I think some of us get a bit too involved with that. On a 25-player roster a player like this is invaluable. He is able to play many positions satisfactorily and his batting skills are above average. And a switch-hitter no less. I think there's no doubt that our team has significantly improved with this signing.

Haven't read 8 (8!) pages of comments yet, but thankfully I think this marks the end of the Adrianza era. At the very least now we don't have to listen to Gladden and Blyleven continually mispronounce Adrianza.

Marwin Gardens, anyone?

I haven't gotten through the whole thread yet as I type this, but I think another factor that affects game length and, to some extent, pace of play is that there are many, many more batters working the count in today's game. Batters are much more willing to take a pitch they know is a strike if they don't think they can do anything with it. I certainly do NOT advocate any changes to the rules to change this, BTW. It is just one of the ways in which the game has evolved.

I wish I had noticed this thread sooner. Now I have to slog through 7 pages of comments, but before I do that I'll weigh in. Three batter minimum: Never! Universal DH: Makes sense to me, although I would propose this for fans who insist on two different sets of rules: The visiting team gets to make one roster move with no constraints before every interleague series. If they want to sign a free agent for three days they can do it. If they want to promote a minor leaguer with no loss of options they can do it. This would make it more fair for a team that assembles a roster based on one set of rules but has to play some games under a different set of rules. 20-second pitch clock (and similar batter clock): Yes, but ONLY with the bases empty. Mound visits: I think six is fine and I could live with five. But there needs to be reasonable allowance for strategizing and going down to four could get in the way of that. Roster size: An increase to 26 is overdue. Regarding the September limit, it certainly doesn't have to be 40. I think it's reasonable to give managers the opportunity to rest regulars and look at prospects, so maybe 30 or so. Anti-tanking: The owner of any baseball team that tanks games to move up a spot or two in the draft should fire their GM and manager. Selection order in the baseball draft is just not that critical with the rare exception of the case where one prospective draftee is light years beyond the others.

I've never really been much of a collector of any collectible items, but one of the things that really got me interested in following baseball was cutting out and saving the cards that were on the back of Post cereal boxes in the early '60's.

1. There should be no red jerseys. Ever. Our team doesn't look like the Twins when wearing red. 2. The 1972-1986 uniforms belong with the disco era. In the past. Forever. 3. I agree that the current home uniforms are unremarkable to the point of boredom. Someone on this site once commented that they look like pajamas. 4. The players weekend jerseys don't really count as actual uniforms. And they certainly don't merit being considered as such. 5. I think we only need one home uniform and one road uniform. 6. I've never had a big favorite among the road uniforms. But whatever they wear should be gray and unique without being goofy. 7. Love the cream pinstripe look of the first home uniforms but the script is 6u++ ugly. Put the current Twins logo on the front and that's your permanent look.

I will quibble slightly with the premise of this discussion. Having four outfielders does not necessarily mean that one of them is the fourth outfielder. If four players cover three positions equally each of them will start 75% of the time. I think the way to look at this is to consider the four outfielders as a team within the team. We should have four outfielders who, collectively, provide us with the best variety of options. Among other things, since none of the best candidates is a switch hitter it would be best for two to bat right handed and two left. It would be great if at least three of them have fielding skills that enable them to play center field. And having an emergency fifth outfielder on the roster (Astudillo or possibly Cruz) would be a plus for rare occasions such as heat stroke at Wrigley Field.

I can't prove it, but I knew LaTroy was set for a big year going in to that season.

This.

I didn't know that. It would have been nice if it could have stayed there but it seems like the team is doing what is best.

We don't have a Rottweiler. We have a Flat Coated Retriever. He's an excellent watchdog but a terrible guard dog. He'd be overjoyed for a burglar to break in. He loves everyone.

All three offspring can carry it on, but regarding baseball it's very unlikely that the girls will make much of a contribution. In this day and age every MLB franchise would take any player who could contribute to its success regardless of genetic background, but people with two X chromosomes are very unlikely to succeed in baseball. It may not be fair but it's reality.

Ranked choice voting is the best. For EVERYTHING.

OK everyone, go back to 2016. Do you remember the three words that described the franchise that season? Total system failure. So Jim Pohlad and various consultants tore the old system down (which needed to be done) and decided to hand the rebuild to Falvey. And now Falvey and Levine have gotten to the point where their vision of a new system is starting to be implemented. And at this point it's still just a start. Of course, as expected, there are some detractors, mainly old school and impatient types. But keep in mind that this is baseball. It takes longer than 24 1/2 months for a new system to be put into operation, much less come to fruition. As for me, I choose to be optimistic about the new staff. I look at these hires as the cutting edge of the future of the game.

Maybe, or maybe not. For example, I don't think they ever saw Molitor as fitting their system, but they were forced by JP to accept him when they assumed their roles in 2016. Then the Twins squeaked into the postseason in 2017 and PM got the MOY award so the optics of letting him go then would have been detrimental to morale and public relations. It's only now, at the beginning of their third year, that they have been able to choose someone who more closely matches their vision of the person they want in one of the most important positions in the organization. And they can't just snap their fingers and have the best possible scouts and player development people in place. It's a large staff, it takes time to identify the people they want, and it takes time to actually hire those people, many of whom are currently employed with other organizations. And most of all, it takes time for prospects to mature into major league players. The highest levels of success will be attained only if a team correctly identifies which players to draft and trade for when they are very young, developing them well, and establishing a continuous pipeline of major-league-ready homegrown youngsters. Is 25 months enough time to do all that? My opinion is no.

Those of us of a certain age who were in the Twin Cities during the early TK era may remember a most excellent baseball writer for City Pages named Ann Bauleke. I'll always remember what she wrote about Brian Harper in 1991. Closely paraphrasing, she said that Brian Harper was a hitter who could catch. That's what Yogi Berra was. And there have been many of those players. The rarer breed was a catcher who could hit, like Johnny Bench or Ernie Lombardi. At his peak, Joe Mauer was the best catcher who was the best hitter. Ever. That alone would get my HOF vote.

There will always be math!