arby58

Rocco: "Carlos has been excellent. He's been a big part of our offense really coming alive," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "He's hitting balls hard. He's feeling good. He's shooting line drives all over." Which loss would you put on him - he definitely won yesterday's game.

Any assessment will be 'a bit premature.' Kepler was lousy last year the full first half and then was great. Who knew? That said, early in the season, people were ready to sell Santana for a bag of used batting practice balls, and he now is second on the team in HRs and RBIs. That is worth pointing out, no?

Rocco on Santana. https://www.mlb.com/twins/video/rocco-baldelli-on-the-series-win-over-the-blue-jays

Miranda didn't even start the year with the Twins. You're doing the 'hindsight 20-20' thing. Meanwhile, back in reality, Santana is a far better first baseman than Miranda will ever be - that's why the Twins are playing him at 3B. Santana won the game for the Twins today. He has pretty much won a couple others as well.

Second on the team in HRs, second in RBIs. Those are for the year, not a few games. As for Miranda, were you crystal balling it before the start of the year and suggesting they make him a full starter? Not many were - easy now, in hindsight. He also can't play the defense that Santana plays at 1B.

Fair enough, Doc, and you're right, he isn't going to lead the team in any offensive category. That said, today's game had the feel of one where the Twins were going to waste a great Ober start - and then it was 3-0. He won the game for the Twins today (give Ober an assist).

I liked the Santana signing, if nothing else because he was, for years, a Twins killer. At least he wouldn't be on another team doing that, right? I'm always amazed at the fan/critics who take the first 10, 20, 30 games and project that on a player for the entirety of a 162 game season. Santana has had a couple of important home run streaks for the Twins - where they were the impetus to winning several games. He now is tied for second on the team in home runs and is second in RBIs. So, those who laughed at my support for the signing - who is laughing now?

I don't disagree about Lewis' need to be out there all the time, but if you agree Miranda has earned playing time, where will it come? Santana is also slotted in against left-handed pitching at first and is a better defensive first baseman. The Twins are needing to keep Jeffers bat in the lineup, so he's taking the DH at bats. The only logical move that I see is Lewis moving to second against left handed hitters and putting Miranda at third - unless we think Miranda can play second base in those situations. He did play second base a fair amount in the minors.

With Miranda contributing and looking pretty solid, it gets you thinking: what do they do when Royce Lewis is ready to come back? They're both right handed hitters who seem best at 3B. Given that Jeffers is spending a lot of time at DH, it limits those options. It doesn't look like Santana is going anywhere, so 1B isn't really an option. Dare I say that maybe Lewis shifts over to 2B against left handed pitchers? I hate myself for even saying it, but . . .

They're finding ways to win. Santana hits a home run, Ryan goes seven, Correa gets two hits and scores two runs, and Kepler delivers a huge pinch hit. Nice to win without a contribution from Jeffers. That said, the bottom of the order when they go with the right-handed hitters was pretty anemic.

Baseball's salary structure is unique - they get absolutely 'killing it' value from Julien, Ober, Lewis (when healthy), SWR, etc., because of the early years pay scale. Thus, $10 million worth of value is different for veteran players when you are getting probably $10 million worth of value from a couple of those guys.

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).