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Bamboo Bat

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Everything posted by Bamboo Bat

  1. Bamboo Bat
    Yes, he's certainly been better, even good, since June 1st - no argument there. But as others have pointed out, he was terrible with the bat previous to that & in 2023, with a negative WAR in both years (so far) for the Twins. A lot of defensive stats don't pass the eye test, but he certainly is good with the glove & framing, he's earned that respect. But thinking 65 AB is a "good sample size" is just silly. It a month of baseball. Joey Gallo had a fine month of April in 2023 (7HR, 9BB, .339 OBP) that, mixed in with his defensive flexibility, gave some of hope he'd found something close to his 2021 form with a mixture of a great eye, power, & solid defense. But that April 2023 "good sample size"? Pretty sure we all know how that turned out. Trying to paint Vazquez in a shiningly good light is just not realistic. The Twins signed a guy they thought they'd net 1 - 2.5 WAR out of annually with a .260+ average & great defense. No sugar-coating: it hasn't worked out that way on one side of the ball, or even in that neighborhood of WAR, a few good weeks notwithstanding.
  2. Bamboo Bat
    Agree 100%. I was at the game last night & they ought to take the "L" off of Lopez' record & hang it around Rocco's neck. So many poor decisions, again. Without looking in detail, I suspect Rocco getting out-managed (which ain't hard) costs the team at least 5 wins a season. This was one of them.
  3. Bamboo Bat
    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Jackson is on the team right now.
  4. Bamboo Bat
    No & no & no thank you. The only one that moves the Twins needle northward at all might be Taylor Ward, & that's only if the front office admits they screwed up & jettison Margot to make room for him. But if he's going to bring multiple suitors, the price will be too high. Look at another team with pieces that can make a difference.
  5. Bamboo Bat
    Early? We're now just shy of seven solid months of watching Vazquez flail with the bat. You named a bunch of guys who might be in the lineup instead of Vazquez & yes, they're all struggling, but every single one has shown stretches of good hitting over the past year. That isn't the case for Vazquez. He's been a liability at the plate since he put on a Twins uniform. At this point he's a classic play twice-a-week backup.
  6. Bamboo Bat
    The clickbait title of this article is ridiculous. The body is more reasonable. Also saw that Larnach is coming up & considering how lost Wallner looks, it's the right decision.
  7. Bamboo Bat
    Cleveland just putting the bat on the ball with runners in scoring position. Something the Twins apparently are uninterested in. Frustrating to watch more of this.
  8. Bamboo Bat
    I don't buy this line of reasoning. At all. It was well known from the day after the World Series ended that the Twins were going to have to attempt to replace innings tossed by Gray & Maeda in 2023. Desclafani was 100% not anybody's first choice - including the front office, I'm sure - but to say "the front office didn't proactively target him" is splitting fine, fine, fine hairs. The front office was looking for a starter that wasn't going to cost much & that target ended up being Desclafani. I add this to the pile of injured pitchers the Twins took a bad chance on. But water under the bridge. Hopefully Varland & some of our young arms stockpiled in AAA can hold down the fort in '24.
  9. Bamboo Bat
    Not sure about the last 2-3 years, but here's a link to current MLB injuries. Looks like the Twins are about average (especially since Moran, Prielipp, & Winder were known to be out long-term early in spring training or even before the year started). MLB Injury Status - 2024 Season - ESPN
  10. Bamboo Bat
    I hope they're all back soon, but it's been a pretty common phrase to hear "TJ" thrown around for DeSclafani. He's been good when healthy in the past, but...
  11. Bamboo Bat
    Why in the world would you complain about that pitching line? Rich Hill when he came back from a known injury threw some good baseball (albeit short starts) for the Twins in 2020.
  12. Bamboo Bat
    For all the moaning about Duvall or MAT or any other free agent outfielder available, my thoughts immediately went to Martin. He's a kid with a lot more upside than Margot for 2024, but Margot has a track record of being a steady, mediocre MLB ballplayer. I guess that's what the front office is valuing at the moment. But it's another year of the kids being stashed in AAA without the opportunity to break camp with the big league club. I could understand if this was a big man they brought in. But IMHO he doesn't push the needle much from what Martin can likely contribute. I don't get it.
  13. Bamboo Bat
    Mostly just want to say I'll miss Polanco's steady bat. But the trade is probably win/win. Desca's last two full seasons have been good - his injury-shortened seasons, bad, so let's hope he's fit. Topa I like. Young, good prospect, I like. Lottery ticket, well, hope it works out! And the Mariners get a top-notch professional hitter who tries to stay healthy & whose defense is becoming more suspect. Pros & cons on both sides.
  14. Bamboo Bat
    Yes to Pomeranz. Seems like a worthy bullpen gamble. No from me to Odo & Keller. Odo hasn't had an ERA under 4.00 since 2019 & Keller has a WHIP north of 1.50 the past three years running. Laying aside the bad recent history, they'd be displacing a kid (theoretically) who could benefit from time in AAA & it would be one more washed-up veteran keeping a young guy from taking his shot at the MLB level. No thank you.
  15. Bamboo Bat
    Ah, my favorite time of year. Crisp air, cool nights, & Twins Daily turning into a long advertisement for Caretakers.
  16. Bamboo Bat
    Can't wait! I'll be on the couch at 3:30PM, work laptop next to me (not being used, of course). And please! I ardently wish everyone, including those at Twins Daily, would stop reminding us of the streak every fifteen minutes. I'll get enough of that from the national broadcast; odds are it'll be mentioned in the first breaths the announcers take.
  17. Bamboo Bat
    Beautifully played game. For anyone who is wondering, my pre-season criticism of the Castro signing isn't aging well. I prefer my crow medium, for anyone who needs to know. Oh, & where are all the Maeda haters? The season has been a constant drumbeat of "send him to the bullpen/let the young guys pitch/he's gassed" but he just keeps pitching like the solid veteran he is.
  18. Bamboo Bat
    "Maeda has been the team’s best starter in the second half, so the club" Any suggestion that Maeda be moved to the bullpen - when the strength of the team this year has been starting pitching - makes the entire article instantly suspect. Keuchel. Just no. Varland. Just no. Perhaps in the future, but i don't want an untried rookie pitching big innings during the stretch run. Paddack. Eh. He's flashed good stuff during his limited outings with the Twins but if he's really back, I'd prefer he supplant the Cole/Winder/Etc. rotation of innings-eaters. So. No for four. The real answer isn't a real answer, & that's the front office adding another competent arm at the deadline. But that boat is well out of sight.
  19. Bamboo Bat
    100% disagree. The interpretation I'm reading is that he "demanded accountability" & that was tough, good leadership. My interpretation is that Rocco just woke up. When I first heard this interview it sounded like he was calling out the hitters, criticizing them for not making any adjustments during the Braves series. More like 'blaming' the hitters rather than taking 'accountability' on himself. YMMV. Where was this 'accountability' in April? May? June? Then the great leadership of "Oh, OK, you want player-only meetings, I'll go to my office & play Sudoku." Accountability isn't a one time, one interview attribute. If Rocco (or anyone else) wants us to buy into this nonsense, it's going to have to be over weeks, months, or seasons...not minutes.
  20. Bamboo Bat
    Good article, but it's tilting at windmills. This front office, as has been mentioned endlessly, will never admit to a mistake mid-season. We're stuck with Max & Poppy for the rest of the season. It's disgusting what could have been with this pitching staff.
  21. Bamboo Bat
    I was hugely against this trade when it was made & still am. Unless Lopez becomes the second coming of Kershaw in his prime, I'll remain against it. I said it when the trade was made - who in this lineup is going to get on base? There was a lot of groaning last year about "solo home runs" & this trade just made that worse. The Twins aren't scoring, they aren't moving guys over, they don't seem to understand situational hitting, on & on. Then the FO trades the one guy who does all these things well. Guess what? The offense suffers. I'm glad we have Lopez. Wish they could have found another way to bring him on board.
  22. Bamboo Bat
    Rocco. He will never learn.
  23. Bamboo Bat
    I don't want to resurrect the Arraez-Lopez debate in one more thread, but this is what I feared when they traded our sparkplug: a sub-par offense from 2022 going backwards in 2023. Some stats from 2022: Category Stat Rank Runs/Game 4.28 22nd Batting Avg 0.225 26th Slugging 0.373 24th OBP 0.296 28th While I did cherry-pick some of (to me) the most important stats, it's tough to find any stats the club was better than average in last season, unless you consider triples per game important. Point being the Twins offense was poor last year, even if one wants to quibble about the AAA Saints roster playing most of their games in Twins uniforms in September 2022. The addition of Farmer, Solano, Gallo, et al adds some solid depth but losing Arraez might have cost us our 2022 floor. There's a lot of potential in this lineup, especially with the return of Polanco & Kiriloff. But unless there is some magic at work, I don't see the 2023 offense as topping better than MLB average.
  24. Bamboo Bat
    It was worse. Nearly every Red Sox hitter who made contact used the barrel of the bat to their advantage. He gave up a number of absolute rockets. There was zero thought he could possibly escape that inning with minimal damage. Just put it on a tee for 'em, Emilio!
  25. Bamboo Bat
    Pagan needs to be released. Before this inning is over. Good lord, he's awful.
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