silverslugger

The only thing you've proven to me is that we must play the Yankees a lot in April...and...October 🤣

I think I fit all of those criteria? I wear blue jeans and my old 1980's Twins jersey with the name Hrbek on the back. Of course, the b has fallen off so I just put an S in the front with a black magic marker in honor of one of my favorite movies. I drive my own car to work, a 1997 Ford Escort I inherited from my grandmother. Matter of fact, I work weekend nights filling the beer freezer at the local convenience store. I figure it's the best way I can give back to the community and make a few bucks at the same time. And, oh yeah, I pay taxes on that money. My kids ride the yellow bus and go to public school at least twice a week! I admit, I've never been to an actual Twins game, but I do take the kids to the beer league softball games in my neighborhood in the summer so they can shag the foul balls and home runs for the guys. Of course, all the guys know me from my job. Oh well, enough about me. I sure hope the Pollock's don't sell this team, they've been so good to this community over the years. I even had someone once call me wanting to know if I wanted to put some money in their bank. They told me how much more money there'd be in something called a savings account at the end of the year. Guess I'd never thought of that before. I wanted to put $5 bucks in there, but the fella on the other end said that wasn't quite enough. I thought about it for a long time, but could never figure out why?

As someone who spent the better part of my childhood in the Great White North, I have only one word to say about this...Uff Da! Okay, perhaps more. Why does it seem the longer he's around the more Derek Falvey runs the club just like Terry Ryan. Gotta Love us some washed up veterans.

Well, we are talking about Rocco's ability to in-game manage, or lack thereof. Why does this seem so obvious to all of us and so, not obvious, to the front office? I guess we should just stick to the subject, but don't even get me started on the lack of fundamentals this team has shown since Rocco's arrival.

But you were analytical before analytics were a thing! When you played your "seasons" back in the day you and I were both stats-nerds. Is it just Falvey you don't trust? Or, is it more Rocco with the way he makes daily decisions?

I think you forgot to mention that if one chooses the Gaetti package they will receive an 8 and a half by eleven paper certificate proclaiming themselves to be the Pied Piper of baseball for taken on the rat and a one day only membership to the Rat Pack. Ahhh, rats! JK!

Born in '65, moved to the Twin Cities and lived there from '67 to '70. The family moved away and moved back to Mankato from '75 to '79 and then spent my high school years in North Dakota. Grew up with the Rod Carew '70s era of the Twins (He was my hero). I've lived through the disappointment of Calvin G trading away players to stash a buck, the Glory of '87 and '91, the down years that followed in the 90's, The Gardy/Torii/Mauer/Morneau renaissance, the pale darkness of Ryan's later years, and now the analytics-nuts years of Falvine. That's a lot! I've been to many games over the years, just one since Covid 2020. Two things quickly. #1, the notion that you can define a fan-base in baseball based on social media postings is absurd. The people who actually post on social media are the 10% "most crazy about baseball" fans. Not the casual I'll go to the park when they're winning fans or the casual I'll go to the park for the festivities fans. Those fans are driven solely by winning, promotion, and popularity. Those fans are not on social media and drive 90% of ticket sales. The fans on here BOTH Love and Hate the Twins the most. #2, you really do have to understand that U.S. midwestern culture is quite different from cultures that worship other sports such as soccer or rugby or cricket in other counties. America came closer to "worshipping" baseball from the 19 teens to the 1950's, not so much now. #3 because I can't count. Baseball ownership in the Midwest continually jabs the fans, especially in Iowa where I live. Here in Iowa, we are blacked out from the Twins, Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, AND Royals. That's insanity!

I don't disagree that Milwaukee and St. Louis may be better baseball towns, but there are some very basic reasons why which starts with competition. There's only one other pro sport of significance in each town. In St. Louis, it's the Blues, in Milwaukee, it's the Bucks. The Twins compete with the NFL (Neither of these teams do directly), the NBA, The NHL, and have a Major University with NCAA sports in town as well. That's a lot more direct competition than either of the others. Also, very few teams have the history of St. Louis Cardinal baseball.

I'm completely flummoxed as a fan. Evidence A: I HATE the way ownership has handled the last twelve months. The TV deal fiasco has been both a PR and logistics nightmare, and how much can ownership or the front office really do about it? Whatever they have or haven't done, well, see above. Evidence B: I love what Falvine have done to build the farm system and find diamonds in the rough pitching-wise for the organization. I HATE what they've done at the trade deadline and in bringing in players with extremely questionable medicals. Are they a great front office? Or merely average? Are their hands tied by ownership? Or is most of this by their own doing? Evidence C: Rocco is seen as a player-friendly manager who manages games so that players stay fresh. We're never fresh in September/October when it counts. Our defense is usually putrid and our offense goes into extreme funks for extended periods of time. Players certainly don't seem to be held accountable. And, so here we are, good but not great and always falling apart in the end.

words, WoRdS, WORDS! I need Performance!

I was done with Rocco after watching the way he managed the 2019 playoffs. I've seen nothing to change that opinion since.

True, but they do have to play better than bad, or they might not be in at all...

From an ownership perspective, this is the bed they've made, now they've got to sleep in it. From a fan perspective, every event after the end of the final playoff game has been a disappointment, except the actual performance of the team. 12 games over at the break is meeting expectations on a team-wide level. I, for one, am not expecting any movement at the deadline except for psaossibly a minor piece here or there. Finally, the sadder perspective is the overall trajectory and health of the game itself. Mostly, from polarization of competitiveness, but that's a discussion for another day.

Another analogy would be the Iowa Hawkeyes in college football. As a Husker fan, it's maddening. They always have a recruiting season ranked in the 40's and always finish in the final 20 of the rankings. Their offense is horrendous, they win with staunch defense and special teams. They take players no good team recruited and turn them into NFL first round picks, especially at TE, DL, and OL. The meat and potatoes positions. Go Twins...and... Go Huskers! P.S. I might be a gophers fan if I didn't live in Nebraska in the early 70's in my formative years while they were winning Natty's.

Except for the fact that in this day and age the fans aren't coming back. I used to have DirecTV, I cut the cord, ummm satellite feed, and went to Hulu several years ago. They cut Hulu and I stopped watching. I'm from Des Moines, I typically went to one to two games a year. I haven't been there since pre-Covid. Now, I only read box scores and get my news here while watching the occasional highlight on the videos implanted in the articles. I used to play fantasy baseball and know all the players. I stopped doing that several years back and now know very few players outside of the Twins, and to a certain extent, the AL Central since they play each other so often. And as to earlier questions about the younger fan base (teens) and do they watch. I'm a 59 year-old high school teacher in an urban school. Almost NONE of the students care about baseball anymore. By popularity, it's by far Soccer #1, followed by the NFL and NBA. And let me tell you, even the NFL is a big drop off from soccer fandom. I don't see any baseball gear worn unless it's a designer hat worn as if it's straight off the shelf with no crease and the kid wouldn't have a clue if you asked him what team it was, he's wearing it for style, not fandom. Baseball is almost dead to the under 40 crowd and baseball doesn't have a clue how to change that.

Okay, so I have a DeLorean in my garage. After reading the article, I travelled back to '65, '87, and '91 just to enjoy some live baseball. Sure enough, this new minds-eye media philosophy goes all the way back to the Washington Senators. Their serious about this folks!

When you're shopping behind the store, in the garbage bin near the employee parking, well, you find yourself in the garbage bin.

A great idea though Stu. Perhaps we should all get second jobs and send the proceeds to the Pohlad family for the funding of the Twins payroll. Of course, they'll need a lot because none of use will be attending the games, we'll be too busy working our second jobs 🤑

Does Gabe create resume's? Asking for a friend.

Really, really rough break here for the young man. Who was our minor league TD hitter of the year? What position does he play?

It just seems to me that the real difference here is that Houston is full of batters who have been there, done that when it comes to the playoffs and aren't trying to do too much. That's why it was so important to win that first series and win, at least, a game here. Experience. Our young players look young out there. Also, in their big moments they have Alvarez, Altuve, and Abreu coming to the plate. Our big moments consist of Polanco (scrappy), Lewis (inexperienced), and Kepler (nice 2nd half, but very average mlb player). I'm not saying it's over by any means. Anything can happen. However, we need another Lopez-type to go with Lopez next year. That, plus giving the batters some more seasoning, could mean we are the next Houston.

I don't disagree. I just think the strike zone was maybe a bit more generous for the Houston pitchers, which matters. Overall, I'm not going to complain about the Twins efforts. There are three rookies in the starting lineup, a couple other second year players, and a second year starter, against a whole bunch of playoff experience on the other side.

I sure would like to see how many strikes outside the zone were given to Houston this game compared to Minnesota. That data should be available somewhere, right?

Buxton played a bit of CF in St. Paul a few weeks back. I haven't seen or heard anything since. Is he done for the season?

Concerning both the 2023 White Sox and the 2005 Vikings, I have but one thing to add...They are who we thought they were😉