Riverbrian

I don't like Butera but thought the Butera bashing was a little thick tonight especially with Twins winning. However... Doumit would have been a great pinch hitting choice, I really hope it wasn't the Mauer playing DH thing. lol...

I disagree... I've never met a 3B coach that doesn't yell... Go or back on passed balls. Im also not trying to deflect any criticsism off of Ben. He f'd up. He may screw up again before the seasons out. Young guys make mistakes.

Pitch squirted away from AJ. Ben took off but the ball only moved a foot or two away from the plate and was out by 4 miles. Ben actually had a slight pause before going. Enough time to be talked out of going. IE base coach... Meanwhile Willingham stood like a statue and had no idea that Ben was coming. A simple hand up may have helped. Gardy did not say a word as Revere walked past smiling in the dugout. I thought that was odd... Bad baserunning no dispute.

Most on this website should know that I have stood up for Revere since the beginning of the year. With that said... Bonehead play by Ben. Willingham also should have held up a stop sign. and I would like to know what words came out of the 3b coaches mouth. Was it go or no.

Never been a Butera fan... I never understood how he is even considered for MLB duty. However... If Butera on the roster means Revere can stay up nd Doumit doesn't join the outfield with Willingham. 25 man roster him up and lets go Drew!!!

How good would've Youklis have been. If he didn't handicap himself with that ridiculous batting style.

It seems your troubles are so far away but I'm sorry. Scott Weiland was the writer of those words. He just said them a little creepier and he omitted the word "not. It was John Lennon who said "He got joo joo eyeball". Paul McCartney said "the butter wouldn't melt so I put it in the pie". I don't have any stats but I'm enjoying the thread... Carry On...

The record is 5 in a row... It was Seth and Twinsnorth exchanging back and forth on something. Speaking of North... Where has he been? We need our Canada influence... The site isn't the same without it.

Before we get to a 30 man roster... I'd really like to see all managers manage their bench players better with a 25 man roster first. This is an out of the box thought of mine... But I've always felt that bench players should play more than they do. Here's the out of the box thought: Baseball is a streaky game... Over the course of 162 game season. Players go into funks and it happens to superstars quite often. Managers will let these guys play themselves out of the funk and the team suffers for the stretch. I say sit them when they are funking. Let them work the kinks out in the cage. They won't lose their timing on the bench for a week. That's a myth. Of course the opposite is true. If you stick a bench guy in and he goes 4 for 5. Let him play again tomorrow. Let him roll is he's feeling it. Forget about how much money the player is making. If he's struggling... Give him some rest and see if the bench guy is ready to go. In Short... Play the hot hand and sit the cold one... No matter who it is. I know it's out of the box thinking but the box gets a little stuffy at times.

You are correct... I don't believe that Rick Anderson has the magic words for everyone and it's no fault of Anderson. Coaches get too much credit and too much blame. He seems to pitch better with Butera. Maybe a Spanish speaking coach on the roster can put it in Dominican Republic cultural phrasology. And maybe everybody in the organization has taken a turn at talking with Frankie... Who knows? All I know... He get's lost real bad at it seems to last for awhile. How you keep him out of the woods is beyond me.

That's Good Stuff... Thanks for sharing that. Here's the Deal... In my opinion... Liriano is a great pitcher... Liriano just pitches like a bad pitcher. He found it... I just don't trust that he won't lose it again. Watching him try and pitch from the stretch to start an inning and then start with the windup the next inning earlier this year tells you how he lost he was. If he can lock in his mechanics and keep them locked in. His stuff will reward you. It's the IF part that makes him such a problem. This shouldn't be an issue at this stage of his career. Foot Strike Consistency... Rotation... Release Point... Arm Angle... Should be 2nd nature by now. He's been to Jeckyl and Hyde to relax that the monster has been put to rest. Liriano is destined to leave the Twins and become a superstar elsewhere.

Nothing in baseball is better to watch than an amazing defensive play. It beats the hard Slider and the 370 foot home run every time. The perfect baseball game is right in the middle... Great defense and the occasional long ball. Baseball is great to watch when it is played the right way. The score just ends up being the score.

A perfect example and I still want Gomez back. What a complete failure by the Twins Organization. Gomez is freakishly talented and we wasted him and Santana at the same time. He was in the bigs way too soon but they felt they had to show something for Johan.

Extroidanary post... These kids are kids... Its up to them... It's not like the Twins coaches are telling them anything different than the Rays coaches are. Yeah some organizational creeds can vary but the prospect has to learn to hit his pitch and pitch his pitch and its the same on every club. Every coach should be able to spot a hitch or bad pitching mechanics and point it out and throw BP to try and correct but in the end it comes down to the player working on correcting it. Buying in... Kids come out of HS with bad stuff and get away with it. They hit the pros and they can't get away with it anymore. They don't know why but they will continue to do what they do until the light bulb goes on... It takes elbow grease and the coaches are working at it and talking about it. Now the player has to do it and some just don't get the connection. The game is real simple that way. They have to get used to the changing game speed and grow. Every once in awhile a Trout or Harper comes along but they are not the norm. This is why High round picks fail. They don't adapt or grow.

Exactly... Managers don't use the 25 man depth available to them. Adding 5 more would make it worse.

0 fer 3... Clearly the Twins have blown this draft. Just kidding... I'll let him have 20 more at bats before passing judgement.

It doesn't improve his first 3 innings IF the pitcher doesn't change the way he does things. Who knows why Tracy came to this conclusion and is attempting this. He could be saying... My relievers are better so let's use them more or... What I believe... Tracy is getting tired of talking to his pitchers over and over again about throwing strikes and moving the game along so he's taking an extreme measure to make them change. With a 75 Pitch limit. You got to throw strikes... If you are constantly getting into full counts your pitch count rises. This causes multiple problems. 1. Your Pitcher tires as long innings progress. This increases the chance of cookies being thrown. 2. The More pitches a batter sees. The better the odds that one of those pitches becomes that cookie. This is why batters are taught to be selective. 3. The more pitches a pitcher throws in an inning. The less sharp your defense is behind you. 4. If you are nibbling and end up walking a batter. The bigger the price(runners on base) when that cookie is thrown. This is Pitch to contact and what it's all about. It's about playing crisp clean baseball. Get in and get out. I'm not so much a pitch to contact guy... at least not across the board... But I am a no free passes, play defense guy. So if that makes me a pitch to contact guy... Give me a badge and I'll put it on my sleeve proudly. In the case of the Rockies... The pitchers are getting hit... If they are going to get hit... Might as well get it over with. Throw the ball and hope your defense catches it. Don't compound the problem by walking guys and getting into long counts. Perhaps the truest thing ever said about baseball is this: Walks and errors will kill you... That's a simplification... Walks and balls that should have been caught are what kill you... not just errors. We are not talking about the ball that the SS boots alone. It's the ball that the SS should have got to but didn't cuz he's not on his toes after the 22nd pitch of an inning. The Texas Rangers lead the league in hits with 691... The Pirates are last with 512. That's a difference of 179 hits over the course of 70 games. A difference of a little more than 2 hits a game between the top and the bottom. Yes it's an over simplification but take a look at that and think about it... 2 hits more on average is not the difference between wins and losses. The Pirates are last and doing alright this year. It's all about avoiding the big inning. Not helping the other team string stuff together. If they are going to get hit after hit in an inning... So be it... The odds are against them but it happens... But, if you start blowing plays in the field and walking batters. You are helping them string stuff together and pretty soon you are down 3 runs. Pounding the strike zone eliminates the walk and helps eliminate the lazy play on defense. If you take away the walks and errors or curtail them a bit... Then that BABIP comes into play... and batters get out more often than they don't on balls put in play. Teams average one home run a game. That's it... One Per game. Limit the damage of that one per game on average. That pitcher who nibbles because he's afraid of getting tagged is also dealing with a batter who is pretty good at fouling off pitches he doesn't like which compounds the problem. Pounding the strike zone and using less pitches... Saves arm stress, eliminates the need for the secondary pitch so you can throw your best stuff and challenge hitters. But... all in all... It leads to a good crisp game of baseball and gives you a leg up in those 1 or 2 run games that happen all the time. I see this as a manager making a bold out of the box move in order to send a message to his starting staff. Pound the strike zone or you won't see the 5th inning. I like it and we will see if it works. I don't know if you do this with a Kershaw but if you don't have a Kershaw... Why not... Let's see what happens. Every once in awhile... Someone comes up with something new and if it works it gets copied... This could be one of those things or it could end up being something that doesn't work and baseball leaves it behind. Should the Twins do this? I'd rather let the Rockies be the test project and watch the results. But... We don't have Kershaw either... So put me in the Big MAYBE camp.

I think you kind of made the point on why the Rockies are trying this without realizing it. "a guy like Liriano might only last 3 4 innings". Look at it this way... If I'm a starting pitcher for the Rockies. I can't mess around. I got 15 pitches an inning to work with... just to get 5 innings in. I'd have to pound the strike zone or be done after 3 or 4 innings. The game should move along and the D will be sharper without the long innings. Less walks and less errors and you can let the percentages work in your favor with less free bases and extra outs. I think the move is brilliant and time will tell if Tracy is right. If it blows up in his face. I'll deny typing this and blame it on auto correct. Every once in awhile someone comes up with something that ends up being copied. This could be the next pitching evolution. It's possible.

You can trade Ernie. He doesn't have much value at the moment. Or is that comment too soon? Anyway, Cheers to you.

Below is my list of players that I would not trade in an effort to acquire Pitching. That concludes my list!!!

Disclaimer: I have no inside information. I disagree, Cuz, in my job and any job working with payroll. You have to know when to spend and when not to. I don't believe it is the job of the GM to just ask for the Max and start spending it and do it again next year. I think GM's and the Team President's get to stay in those positions cuz they can be prudent at the proper juncture. I really do believe that it's completely possible that Terry Ryan suggested a payroll cut to ownership based on the Free Agents available and the current state of the Twins organization. I also believe that the money could come back if the window opens up and the team looks like they could contend. I'm hopeful that Terry Ryan has a plan beyond this year. Signing Edwin Jackson for a year and 10 million may not been part of the long term plan. We are rebuilding... We are not re-loading. If I was an owner... I'd appreciate a sensible approach to the finances. However, If I was owner... I'd be staffing the squad myself. My GM would do the paper work... lol...

From the out of left field department. I just noticed that the Current Standings in the AL Central are exactly Alphabetical. CHicago CLeveland DEtroit KAnsas City MInnesota Personally, I have a problem with this and would be prefer if the standings were reverse Alphabetical. Obviously, this will be a heavy discussion topic. Let the discussion begin!!!

Fixing the starting rotation has to be done on two fronts. AND... Fixing the starting rotation must be done. In my opinion...The Two Fronts are this: Top End Starters and More options. It's easy to sit back and say... Here's 5 guys... The rotation is set. However... Pitchers get hurt too often... You need Multiple arms with the ability to keep you in ball games. This is where the Twins scare me. We don't have enough quality in the majors right now and even worse we don't have any quality in AAA and AA right now... It's a scary situation and we need to trade for them. Terry Ryan can come up with 5 guys who can throw... MAYBE... but who is the 6th guy and the 7th guy or the 8th guy. We need young AAA guys who can be those guys. When it comes to Top End guys... Well that's a little harder to do but we need a couple at least. The only thing that I can think of is this... Next Year... Start fresh... Let every current Twins Pitcher expiring contract expire. 28 million will come of the books. Take that Money and spend it on one Top Line free Agent Pitcher. It might take 6 years and 20 million to land that guy... Who knows... but roll the dice and do it... We don't have much choice. Multiple years... Big Money and understand that he will be anchoring a pretty rough staff for a couple of years. Trade Span for a top line young pitcher. If Span alone won't get that guy... Package him with someone. Don't acquire some guy who is in Single A... Make sure he is AA or higher so he can join our Free Agent Guy in the rotation sooner... Rather than later... Shoot for a Banulos or Betences, Skaggs or Bradley, Teheren or Delgado, Trevor May, Zach Wheeler. These pitches are tough gets but if you have to sacrifice offense to get them... Do it... We need Top of the Rotation Arms... We don't have any... And this is will put our team in a tailspin in future years. For the rest of the rotation... It's audition time... Sign Rule 5's and take a chance. Look for Potential anywhere and go for it. Trade Capps for it... Trade Morneau for it... Keep throwing guys out there and see if any more Scott Diamonds show up... Hand them the ball... Work with them and hope that you get lucky but do whatever you can to find replacements if they fail. A highly rated guy like Hendricks and Gibson should be allowed to work out his kinks... Be patient with them. Not so patient with the guys who are not as highly thought of. Something kinda important in my opinion. For a while... forget about offense... Focus on Defense... Defense will help these pitchers get the job done. Bad Defense will raise your ERA and deflate confidence. I don't care if they can't hit... Can they run and catch. Make the routine play and the amazing play. Once the Pitching starts to look like it's heading the right direction. Maybe Sano and Hicks and Buxton will be ready and in uniform to fill the offense back in after we have neglected it for a little while. For God's sake... Let's not let Blackburn and Pavano types block rotation spots for younger kids who can help us down the road. Let's start fresh and run as fast we can. I should also point out... That everything I posted here... Is next to impossible. Well not impossible but real real hard. Any Free Agent signing can get hurt and be worth nothing. Any Highly rated prospect acquired in a trade can crap out. I just think that Pitching needs to be hyper focused on. It's the main reason I was a little disapointed with the draft of Buxton. I hope Buxton ends up a superstar and I understand drafting BPA so I'm not totally against it. I was just hoping for a little quicker Pitching Help... I'll be bummed if Zimmer or Gausman or Appel are pitching lights out in the majors next year or the year after that and Buxton is looking like Hicks in Ft. Myers.

That's some interesting stuff. The Sacrifice Bunt is going the way of the dinosaur. The Bunt for a hit is surging. I like that. I have nothing statistical to back this up but I believe the game speed is increasing overall as the years go by. It may not be a steroid era remnant. I just think that the players are getting faster. There is some amazing speed out there and it's a big reason why I'm such a Revere supporter. When it comes to speed... Revere may be best in Class. Speed can beat you and if you have a guy who is best in class at anything. You got something. I think of Revere as Giancarlo Stanton with his legs. Back to the subject of bunting for hits. I think that all players should be working on it. It doesn't matter if they have speed or not. Especially those left handed pull hitters. With the Charting taking place we are seeing some rediculous shifts in baseball today. Some lefthanded pull hitters are looking at shifts with 3B playing SS and SS positioned on the 1st base side of the second base bag. I don't care if your Jim Thome... Drop it down the 3b Line... If you do that enough times. They will shift back and your hole is open again. Revere should definently be working on it but I think it's a club that can be added to anyone's bag.

That's a little disapointing to hear. Ben should be taking pride in the bunting skill. If fits his game... It probably comes down to not being comfortable with the actual act of bunting and being resistent cuz no one feels like doing something they could look foolish doing. You only get comfortable by working at it so you just got to go for it. All in all, better late than never. Chuck Berry didn't pick up a guitar until age 19. Robby Krieger had only been playing for 6 months before joining the Doors. So come on baby "Light my Fire" and "Ben-ny B. Goode".