arby58

It probably also helps Jeffers offense that he doesn't have to spend so much time behind the plate. Catching is grueling work, and your hands (which are pretty important for hitting) take a beating. That Joe Mauer was able to catch for a decade and put up the offensive numbers he did is not normal for a catcher.

Duran was a 20-year old starting pitcher in A-ball when the Twins acquired him, and Alcala was in A+ ball - to me, that is home grown, as it is a long way from A ball to the majors. SWR was a 20-year old pitcher in AA ball, but he had not had much success there when the Twins acquired him, and it's only three years later that he is having some success at the MLB level - pretty close to home grown as well. Really, though, it doesn't matter - it is identifying players that can make it as pitchers in the major leagues, whether through trades or development. Stewart is another example of finding a needle in a haystack. It's sort of how Tampa Bay does things - see Zack Littell this year (there's a blast from the Twins past).

A person who has to repeat their own argument isn't going to win many debates. My complaint with your perspective is it puts far too much emphasis on rank order of teams and not on outcomes. The Tigers have scored 149 runs in 37 games and the Mariners 138 in 37 games. That equates to 4.0 and 3.7 runs per game - hardly anemia compared to the 0 and 1 runs they scored in their outings against Richardson. Feel free to repeat yourself again if it will make you feel better.

In 3 games against the Twins, Seattle has scored 14 runs (4.7 runs a game) - Richardson was charged with none of them. In 7 games against the Twins, Detroit has scored 32 runs (also 4.7 runs a game), and Richardson was charged with 1 of them. You can play with cumulative statistics all you want, but those teams have had plenty of offense against the Twins - except practically none with Richardson is pitching.

Both Detroit and Seattle have winning records, and both have scored plenty of runs in games with the Twins, so I'm not entirely buying this point (granted, Chicago is a different story). BTW, in two starts in St. Paul, Varland has pitched pretty well - 12 IP, 1 earned run, 13 Ks, 1 walk, 0.67 WHIP. There is certainly hope that he will be back and a competitive starter for the Twins.

Some replies to criticisms: `1. 'Just get rid of wins' or 'wins are a dumb statistic anyway.' Given the fact that it is the first statistic generally cited for a pitcher, I'm not moved by those who just don't care about it or think getting rid of it is the answer. Way too much use of it throughout baseball history - it isn't going away. 2. 'It will create statistical problems.' First, official statistics have changed over time. The save was added in 1969, the blown save in 1988. It didn't seem to make statisticians' heads explode - the game's history is all stored electronically anyway, and you're talking about lines of code. Or don't - it's unlikely to have much effect in past history, since most pitchers pitched longer (and sometimes even had complete games). 3. 'Too much official scorer discretion.' First, they already have significant discretion on official statistics - hit or error. Second, the rule can be written so there is no real discretion. For example: 'In a situation where a relief pitcher enters the game with his team ahead, if that pitcher loses the lead, completes the inning, his team takes the lead and the relief pitcher is removed from the game before pitching to any additional batters, if his team wins the game, he is not eligible to be the winning pitcher. In this case, if the pitcher he replaced pitched at least 5 innings and completed the inning he last pitched, the pitcher he replaced will be credited with the win.' This removes any discretion, it requires the starting pitcher (or any pitcher who pitched at least five innings) to complete the prior inning - this takes away the situation where the relief pitcher may have inherited a bad situation - and it only applies if the relief pitcher does not pitch further in the game. If the relief pitcher goes back out and retires batters, you could argue that he has contributed to the victory - pretty hard to do so when (in the case of Jax) he blows the lead. It would be even worse if that pitcher gave up several runs and his team was actually behind. Talk about an undeserved win (but possible under today's rules).

I understand that is the current rule - I'm suggesting this is exactly the situation where it is wrong and should be changed.

Tonight, Simeon Woods Richardson threw a brilliant game - 6 innings pitched, no runs scored, 1 hit, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts. He left, Griffin Jax came in and made a mess of it. Fortunately, he got out of a bases loaded no outs jam with only 1 run scored against him. Of course, the Twins then scored a run that held up, and two other relievers did what Jax could not do - hold the lead. Jax gets the win . . . what? This should be one of those situations where the scorer should either let the prior pitcher get the win or one of the pitchers that held the lead get the win. No way that Jax should get credit in this game for a win.

I had a grad school instructor whose favorite saying was 'if you're riding a dead horse, the best course of action is to dismount.'

Same with me on the Athletic. I also tend to be a 'glass is half full' kind of person - but I also don't want to be Pollyannaish either. I don't mind the critical, as long as there is some 'critical thinking' attached to it.

Rather than grabbing a few factoids, a more global approach would be to use the BEA's regional price parity statistics. You can find them here: https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area San Diego's regional price parity is 114.511, meaning the cost of all items tracked by the BEA (which are personal consumption expenditures, or PCE) is 114.511 - it is 14.5 percent more expensive than the U.S. average. Miami is no picnic either - its regional price parity is 111.512 - 11.5 percent higher than the national average. So the difference is about 3 percent - hardly something to get Luis concerned about.

It really shouldn't. Even a team that loses 100 games in a year wins over 38 percent of their games. So, even if you played 100 loss teams through the entirety of the 12 games, they would be expected to win between 3-4. Then, of course, add the fact that Boston is probably going to have a winning record this year and most definitely is not going to lose 100 games - winning 12 in a row is remarkable.

Right now, the Twins have a good core of young players, and there is quite a bit in the pipeline. When you've executed trades for 4/5ths of what appears to be a solid rotation (plus your closer), it's hard to argue about trades in the aggregate (yes, there are always ones that don't work out as well). It's interesting that the three ahead of them in the AL have not win a World Series since the Twins last won one in 1991. Granted, the Rays have been there twice and the Guardians/Indians three times. To me, Baltimore gets credit for having absolutely horrible teams for many years and loading up on high-end draft choices. The same has been said about the Astros, and some changes to the way the draft is conducted can be traced back to CBA changes pushed by the players because of that strategy.

I'm curious what records you think he is chasing? Granted, he is one of only two players to win batting titles in both the AL and NL, and he was the first player to do that in back-to-back years. Other than that, he only has 688 hits,, so it's unlikely he will even get to 3,000. Ty Cobb won 12 batting titles (next most was Tony Guinn with 8), so that record's safe. Rogers Hornsby won six consecutive batting titles so that record is probably safe (Arraez is hitting .298 so far this season).

The Marlins go through these peaks and valleys all the time (granted, lately it is more valleys). That said, they did win World Series in 1997 and 2003.

I'm sure Luis can afford a good tax advisor. He doesn't have to establish permanent residence in California. He can maintain permanent residence in Florida, for example (which lots of athletes do), which can be the location for any non-MLB earnings and pay California income taxes for time in that state (81 home games, some days off during the season). I'm not sure how MLB contracts work in terms of payment for Spring Training, but the Padres do spring training in Arizona, which has a fairly low (2.5%) flat income tax. BTW, he will also pay non-resident income taxes in lots of other states where he plays (including Minnesota when the Marlins play the Twins at Target Field in September). Yes, he will pay more in taxes, but he is already paying California taxes when Miami travels to play the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, and Giants. He is paying high New York income taxes when they travel to play the Mets and Yankees, He is also paying state AND local income taxes when they play at the Cardinals, Giants, Guardians, Orioles, Reds, Royals, Mets, Yankees, etc. BTW, the California top state income tax rate is 13.3%.

It's really four prospects, as Go is playing at AA after a brutal spring training (0-2, 12.80 ERA in 6 appearances). Still, it's three other pretty highly ranked prospects. For comparison, the Twins Daily Twins' 6, 9, and 13th ranked prospects are David Festa, Charlee Soto, and Ka'lai Rosario.

He also got Duran as part of the Escobar trade, Ryan for a few months of Nelson Cruz, and also did a successful reclamation project on Thielbar. SI in 2023 named the Ryan deal the best trade of the 2017-2023 era, and the Duran deal also in the top 10.

This reminds me of the farmers in my family who 50 percent of the time complain that there isn't enough rain and complain the other 50 percent of the time that there is too much rain.

Are you by chance related to Jorge? Just using OPS, Polanco's high water mark for the year so far was .694 on April 15th. Since then, game by game, it pretty much steadily declined: .681, .643, .634, .626, .612, .612, .621, .594, .588, .582, .579, .577 on April 29. Yes, he had a HR the next game, to jump it up to .604, and after his most recent game it is .613 - but this trend line is hardly what I would call 'starting to heat up' (unless you think a two game heater is statistically significant).

Speaking of trading Polanco - Jorge is currently hitting .181, has an OPS+ OF 83, and a WAR of -0.2. I wonder if the Seattle discussion board commentators are complaining about the trade?

Last year, a lot of commentators would have axed Max Kepler at just about any point before the All Star break - he was hitting under .200 as late as June 28th. Then he turned into one of the Twins most productive players in the second half. This year, the 'black hole' that is Santana had a stretch of 4 HRs in 5 games, which helped fuel their current 10-game winning streak. Recently, Farmer has come up with some clutch hits, and Kepler, after returning from an injury, has had game winning RBIs in consecutive games. It's a long season, and these claims that the Twins 'won't let go' because they then have to 'own' their mistakes glosses over the Keplers of the second half of the 2023 MLB season. The Twins front office and managers/coaches see these players every day, including batting practice and other situations the casual fan does not. I'm far more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Recency bias. Larnach only played 10 games in the month. Player of the week, sure, but Julien played 29 games, hit 7 HR, and also played solid defense. No way Larnach's 10 game performance outweighs Julien's for the entire month.

In general, sure, but the idea of using your best reliever in a high leverage situation in, say, the 8th rather than 9th inning makes sense to me. If, say, the 1-4 hitters are coming up in the 8th and you're nursing a one-run lead, bring in Duran in the 8th. If their best four hitters score 2-3 runs in the 8th, Duran will probably not get a chance to impact that game.

It's interesting to note that starts 5 and 6 for Pablo last year were messy as well - 5 earned runs in 4 innings pitched in start 5 and 6 earned runs in 6 innings pitched in start 6. No doubt it's a coincidence, but he bounced back nicely after that with a couple of quality starts. Even so, his 9th start was a dud against the Dodgers (not the only pitcher to have that happen against them), where he gave up 5 earned runs in 4 2/3rds of an inning. Every pitcher will have his rough patches.