LaBombo

Fun headline from Indians fan site Let'gGoTribe after Friday's game: "Cleveland Indians hold Byung-Ho Park to just two home runs in win over Twins" Park's season would be fairly astonishing even if he were not playing for a team whose last venture into the Asian free agent market produced Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Watching him crush the ball is fun, and yet it often reminds me of the line from the old Sundays song 'Here's Where the Story Ends': "....it's that little souvenir, of a terrible year...'

Either a Fool of a Took, or the entire 2016 Twins bullpen. Your call. http://corecanvas.s3.amazonaws.com/theonering-0188db0e/gallery/original/trailerpippin011004c.jpg

Twins 2016 front office mission statement: "Initiative comes to thems that wait!"

Tim Laudner assures us that the Twins won't lose all their remaining games. So that's a load off. Tim Laudner in studio is like a big, friendly, hairless mastiff, but with less focus on sabermetrics. Laudy Laudy's Insight of the Night TM: "If Sano keeps hitting the ball hard, it will continue to go a long way".

This made me think immediately of another 'could be worse' moment... http://andrewsidea.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/youngfrankenstein8.png But then it occurred to me that for the last couple of weeks, bad weather has really been the most reliable thing standing between the Twins and a loss on any given night. So no, not even if it were raining could it be worse. If nothing else, though, maybe each loss will subtract a little momentum from the apparently almost runaway 'Rob Antony for GM' train.

Second point first; the word "minutiae" probably doesn't apply here. Antony was wholly unfamiliar with the concept of batting average on balls in play, for heaven's sake, which has been a fundamental cornerstone of the effort to reduce random effects in player metrics for over a decade, as well as freely available even to the public by the time of that conversation. But that distinction is irrelevant if you believe Antony has since done his homework and is now either thoroughly educated on advanced metrics, or at least in possession of even just a working vocabulary, which he lacked previously. Two problems with that. One is that as recently as last spring, during his tenure as acting GM no less, he continued to discuss player valuations using only rudimentary counting stats and old, cigar-chomping scout phrases like 'the ball jumps off his bat'. With respect to Dozier in particular, he recited counting stats while discussing his contract extension late last year, choosing to ignore Dozier's somewhat paradoxical metrics, especially his worrisome sellout to an extreme pull fly ball tendency that is almost exclusively the domain of aging, one-tool power hitters. The second problem to me is that while I am totally on board with learning from mistakes, how on earth did Antony find himself that far behind his peers with respect to metrics in the first place? The common thread in the background of virtually all pro baseball GM's, coaches, and scouts is an absolute love of baseball that dates back to early childhood. Combine that with an almost universal thirst among executives in any field for 'insider information' about their trade, and a major league front office's constant drive to outsmart the competition, and it's almost impossible to imagine how an ambitious, hard-working front office exec could have such a large blind spot regarding even basic baseball metrics, unless he simply refused to allow that they are potentially of value. And that's not a guy you want running your franchise. An army of Jack Goins won't get through to a GM Rob Antony if he doesn't understand their language or believe their message.

It's a matter of record that Rob Antony's understanding of baseball metrics is 15 years out of date. So my question regarding Antony is simply... how does that work? Nobody expects a GM or other high level executive to pore over FanGraphs or proprietary quantitative analysis of players twelve hours a day in an attempt to break down the abilities and performance of hundreds of players and prospects. The Twins have grudgingly dipped their toe in the 21st century by hiring a staff to do that. But how can Antony the hypothetical GM apply the quantitative analysis he's given by his staff when he lacks even the necessary metric vocabulary to discuss the statistical breakdowns of players? His lack of knowledge is not an opinion. It's a fact relayed by a 2010 Aaron Gleeman interview that frankly should have both embarrassed and scared the hell out of Rob Antony, and most of all motivated him to roll up his sleeves and read everything he could about advanced baseball metrics, as well as learn everything he could from Twins staffers Jack Goin and company. But instead, Antony has continued to embrace what appears to be at best a casual disregard for metrics, and at worst an active disdain . When interviewed in 2015 regarding Brian Dozier's contract extension, he still evinced a quantitative analysis ceiling of combining random counting stats in the manner of a USA Today factoid, and still well below the level of knowledge of his front office peers in the industry. There are only two defenses that I can see of Antony as a prospective GM in light of this deficiency. One is that he's a 'big picture guy', and that he's only looking for a thumbs up or down from Goin and company regarding players of interest. The other is the 'He'd tell you but he'd have to kill you' defense; that Antony and Goin regularly engage in sabremetric summits that would leave NASA engineers' mouths agape, but that both the actual information and Antony's grasp of it are soooper dooper top secret. At the end of the day, with the information available to us 'outsiders', any discussion of Antony's qualification(s) as a future GM starts and ends with his being a trusted member of the Twins front office family. That's pretty thin gruel to anyone whose last name isn't Pohlad, and it's getting thinner with each embarrassing loss.

On any other night than Arcia's bootariffic World Cup game 'winner', your post would have been my best laugh of the night.

The problem is that Ryan picked most of his cherries in the past, ten years or more. One postseason series win in 25 years is a fairly soft record for even a 'low budget' franchise, and they're not one any more. Ryan gets credit for the good years of the past decade, but it's time for him to accept his share of the blame for the failures of this decade, and for the Twins organization to reluctantly and belatedly step into the 21st century by looking for a new GM.

They're losing 75% of their games, so my answer is yes, as long as the deadline is getaway day on Memorial Day weekend. Edit: For a little extra perspective of how bad they've been, they can play .500 ball the rest of the way and still lose 90 games.

yaaaaaay! http://images.performgroup.com/di/library/sporting_news/96/68/blair-walsh-kick-ftr-011016jpg_zdbxjut3332g1bjg9lv0wpoot.jpg?t=757575746

... the answer to Ernest and Julio Gallo baseball.

All of the above, maybe?

Thinking of something to say about Arcia bicycle kicking the ball and the ballgame 50 feet in the air like Pele. Hang on a sec. http://www.bite.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/drinking-moonshine.gif

Dividing them into any portion size smaller than two giant 6 oz. fudge stripe hoagies is just creating a false sense of hope for self-restraint.

Basil McCrae is 50% sure that he likes your post... http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-fifty-percent-of-the-game-is-mental-and-the-other-50-percent-is-being-mental-i-ve-got-basil-mcrae-55-2-0256.jpg

Bombo friend of all head bonk man who not root for White Feet baseball team.

Straight to voicemail. All the cel towers in the Twins Cities blew down after that last cut at the high heat.

Miguel wants you to know that he's sorry that he let you down, and also that in order to make it up to you, after the game he's going to eat a whole package of Keebler Fudge Stripes. And a cow.

Bombo fine. Bombo lips taste salty. Bombo catch more rocks now.

I remember waiting for the pterodactyl to overfly the town square and drop a small granite tablet with a 'W' or an 'L' on it 4 hours after the game was over. Edit: And yes, you're right, whoever was about to post it: being hit in the head by falling chunks of granite explains a lot about 'crazy old LaBombo'.

Don't tell me, let me guess. Morse code for 'eye roll emoji' ?

My old man's a TV repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it!

The other 10 percent being outraged indifference, I'm guessing.