Riverbrian

In the past 7 days: Castro played in all 6 games and he led the team in AB's. 25 AB 1 HR - 3 SB .360 BA .880 OPS In the other 41 games: Castro had 51 AB's. If he is only getting 51 AB's in 41 games... He has very little value to us. If Castro can't get playing time when the team is healthy and the scripted lineup vs. RH and the scripted lineup vs LH has taken our team straight to the bottom of most offensive categories... Castro has very little value to us. However... now that he is playing... it seems that he may have some value to us. There are times when injuries make your team better.

I applaud your post. I do believe that in order to be fair in criticism... posters should be at least aware of what the other 29 teams are doing. Applause was the main reason for my reply... however... I don't believe the offense compares very well to others and I do pine over Luis Arraez. 😉

Well: If Gordon is hurt. If Buxton is being load managed. If Gallo is a minus 1 million defensively and a plus one million in RF and LF If Castro can play every position but CF If Kepler refuses to play CF If Lewis is only getting reps at 3B and SS If all of that is true... We are on a collision course for Stevenson or a waiver wire grab to man the position as we gear up for the World Series.

I agree with you but I'm taking a different path. To be fair... I'd call Detmers splits closer to neutral. If the pitcher is neutral you still have to factor in each individual batter which could lead you to the lineup with 8 guys hitting from the right side of the plate. But I will continue to contend that the plain ole' ability to hit the ball trumps platoon splits. I don't care what the splits say if you are hitting .210 and we have a team full of .210 and we just added a .210 from St. Paul because... umm... there are couple of lefties heading to the mound. Sending 8 right handers to the plate didn't stop Detmers from no-hitting them for 5.2 innings with 12 strikeouts. We got no hit for 5.2 innings and we struck out 12 times because that is what we do. And I'd also like to point out that 8 batters (7 when Kirilloff pinch hit) hitting from the right side of the plate did not stop the Angels from utilizing two left handers out of the bullpen and two is the exact amount of left handers that they had in the bullpen. The Angels didn't seem to be too concerned about the splits. I'll even add that the Angels bench... besides Trout was all left handed (Thaiss, Phillips and Soto) with Ryan as the starter. The Angels went ahead and started 7 right handers against Ryan with a switch hitter and Ohtani the lone representative from the left side. I'm asking as loud as I can... Dear Derek, Thad and Rocco, What exactly are you doing? You are not going to finesse/platoon your way out of this when we are not hitting from either side of the plate. We need a hitter plain and simple. When Gordon got hurt... his 26 man roster spot should have gone to the best hitter available because we need the best hitter available and that appears to be Julien or Wallner but certainly isn't Garlick. I'm sure it's not the case... but it almost seems to be some form of OCD to me because it doesn't seem to matter if the batter is actually hitting as long as they are hitting the opposite hand. Just sticking to the script and let the platoon trump actual performance. That is backwards. It's like they can't help it and they can't break out of it or something. It's kind of like a friend of mine that has to keep his glass of water at the 10' O clock position of his dinner plate or he can't enjoy his meal. The actual hitting results are the part of the spreadsheet that is being ignored. Get off the script. Your batters are not hitting. You will not finesse/platoon your way out of this.

Does any team have that? It's hard but you have to keep working toward it by culling from the bottom. To find the teams that have it or are closer to it, simply sort by bullpen ERA or WHIP or whatever weapon of choice. The teams will low bullpen metrics at the top of the pile will reveal themselves. The top 3 arms in any bullpen will still only throw 50% of bullpen innings. You need a village to keep those overall village numbers down. Orioles, Mariners, Astros, Yankees and Guardians are pretty deep effective pens. The Orioles are interesting because 2 of those guys were ours once. The Mariners are interesting because they have a couple of good relievers on the injured list but keep humming along. Nobody has recognizable names, maybe the Guardians have some recognizable names but it's not like they are loaded with high dollar proven guys.

Low Leverage will pop up on occasion but not often enough to hide anyone in the bullpen waiting for safe harbor to throw. Low leverage will be even more rare in consideration of our offensive output this year, yes we've had a nice offensive explosion the past few games but it would be incredibly brave to conclude that our offensive issues are over. We will need to win some more 3-2 and 2-1 games in the future is my guess. This means that it will be high leverage the majority of the time when the starter reaches his limit. The offense simply hasn't created breathing room consistently enough. Pagan will see high leverage again as long as he is on the roster. Plus If Duran is going to be utilized as a traditional closer and it appears to be the approach they are taking with him this season. Duran isn't going to be an option in situations like last night because they are going to save him for traditional closer situations. Spots #2 through #7 have to be trusted. If the front office trusts Pagan... OK. I'm not sure why they would but if they do... OK. We will see how it turns out.

People fixing potholes, find it easier to do their jobs with a jackhammer. It's a lot harder to fix that pothole without a jackhammer. An electronic strike zone is a tool to help them do their jobs easier and better. For the life of me, I don't understand why Umpires would be apposed to an electronic strike zone. There will still be a home plate umpire so there is no loss of jobs. I assume that umpires don't want to miss calls ever and I assume that they know they do. This would be a tool to help them. Grill, Smrill... This fire will cook this steak just fine after I rub these two sticks together.

If the Twins can score 10 runs a game from here on out. I promise to not complain about the offense for the rest of the season.

That is true... there was some anti-Jeffers sentiment during the off-season... no doubt. Personally, I was concerned about Jeffers himself after last season and... and concerned about the set back in catcher development that would occur if they moved off of him. I was probably more concerned about the catcher development organization wide and therefore hopeful that they would give Jeffers another shot. Here we are in May and if it was my call. I'd reverse the current catcher rotation for the time being for offensive help no matter how little that help may be. Play Jeffers 2 out of 3 and Vazquez 1 out of 3. If Jeffers cools down and Vazquez heats up you can always switch back. I still hold a dream that the Twins can develop a Sean Murphy type talent with high trade value. Jeffers is a long way off from that but still the closest.

Many veterans struggle in their 87th taste of the big leagues as evidenced by our current offensive predicament. Julien had 27 AB's. His OPS during that small sample currently ranks 6th on the club. If that is a first taste struggle... OK... let's say it is. What term are we going to do use for the larger sample struggles from our vets that are worse than that. Are his first 27 AB's an indication on where he would be if he had 130 AB's like Correa and Miranda have received? While I agree that it is probably too soon and too much to ask Brooks Lee to rise up and lead us where we need to be. We need someone to come from somewhere and we are not in the position to write off help from AAA. Rookies can also do alright for a stretch, even if they came down to earth later. We were just beaten by two of them with the Cubs last night. The Cubs didn't seem to have a problem moving a decently paid vet like Hosmer out of the way for one of them and Hosmer's 2023 numbers look a lot like our entire big league team. Who knows if they have staying power but some of them have helping right now power even if it's just a little bit of help.

I'm not going to declare anyone an Ace in the sense that everybody uses the term Ace. I only care if they are good pitchers and Joe Ryan clearly is. However... in the sense that everyone talks about an "Ace". They were was a time when they were not an ace and then they become an ace. The Twins like all other 29 teams can grow an "Ace". If we want one or two of them... Growing one or two is the most likely path.

Coming from me... of course it does!!!

Gotta hang zeroes. 3.81 Bullpen ERA. 15th Ranked at the moment and that isn't going to be good enough. I'll bring more to the party. If Duran or Lopez hit the DL for 10 day stretch or two. How much fun will that be?

I was sleeping in med school so I have no idea about the physical side of what they are doing with Buxton and I won't pretend to... however, YEAH... getting Buck into CF some of the time will open up the DH some of the time... to... I don't know who... anybody... I don't care who... someone who might help. They have to get off the script. The adaptive cruise and the lane assist isn't sufficient for a nap... grab the wheel.

Agreed As a whole and in comparison to other teams... the bullpen is OK. The biggest problem the bullpen is going to face this year is... The offense. With this offense there is no such thing as low leverage. If low leverage is a rarity, there is no breathing room and the bullpen will need to be much better than OK from top to bottom. The offense is healthy right now. These contributors to the offense are in those off-season architectural plans that are laying on a desk or in a filing cabinet somewhere. Team batting average down to .218... 30th ranked. 367 team strikeouts now... 28th ranked. Oakland is 30th ranked with 5 more K's but they got a game in hand so... let's just say they are striking out more than everybody else because let's not quibble over a K or two as they battle with the bay area teams for the trophy. Team OPS down to .679... 23rd ranked Team Runs at 164 and falling fast to 23rd I don't believe, the front office, the scouts, the coaches, the players or the fans can use the term slump anymore. Last year in 2022, 25 different players swung a bat for our Twins, injuries were off the charts, we couldn't buy a hit in September with the chips down as 5 through 9 in the batting order were contributing absolutely nothing every single night. Celestino, Cave and Sanchez were being asked to bring us home and they didn't have a compass. Yet, we still finished mid-pack in almost all offensive team stats at the end of the year. I'm starting to feel like injury is the only thing that can help us out. I don't like this feeling.

You are quickly becoming one of my favorite reads on Twinsdaily. I would like to propose that slumps need a new term after they eclipse 100 AB's. Actually they may need a new terminology after 50 AB's.

I don't care. I'm not saying that to sound like a jerk. I'm saying it in a normal tone. I'll put an expressionless face emoji to indicate that I am saying I don't care with no emotion. 😑 I really don't care and I have no inclination to participate in dragging him further through the mud, This poorly reasoned article did enough of that. I was responding to an article that was titled "Donny Barrels isn't getting it done". An article that stressed 28 AB's over 19 games to make a poorly reasoned point. You want to get rid of him. OK... I'm not going to argue. I simply don't care about a short side platoon guy that the manager won't turn to when the 7 players on the strong side of the platoon have taken the offense to the very bottom of 30 baseball teams. I'm taking issue with someone who is slapping a guy who still has his warmups on, sitting on the bench, while Karl Anthony Towns doesn't pull down a single rebound for 40 minutes.

When I said aim higher.That wasn't directed as Mahle. I was talking about free agents or vets that we might bring in via trade. Vets that may be added in the off-season. I like the youth that we have bubbling up now. I really like that we didn't Archer or Bundy this year to fill out depth. If we are going to add pitching and we probably will because we have 3 guys hitting free agency. I'm hoping that we think big. If they can't think big... OK... let's let the youngsters keep coming. I was OK with the trade when it happened. We needed to add for the playoffs. Steer I believe had to be added to the 40 man and we had 40 man decisions to make. I wish E-Strand wasn't part of it but... it's the cost of doing business. The trade feels a little worse because of the struggles that Jose Miranda is having but at the time of the trade the club was in position to win the division and do some post season. We lost the trade... it happens. It had my full support.

Exactly

A. We lost the trade. It happens, wasn't the first time... it won't be the last. The trade was made to improve a contending club. Buyers Buy... Sellers Sell. It's how it works. B. The future is what matters now... Steer and E-Strand have no bearing on weather Mahle is with us beyond this year. C. With his pending free agency after the season. Mahle should have been a light consideration in future plans before the injury. He should only be a minor league deal consideration now. Keep the farm pipeline clear of obstacles because it is starting to produce. The last thing we want is a veteran coming off injury that has to be released to dispose of. D. If you want to bring in a vet starter... Aim higher.

Buxton has been doing alright in the DH role but the team hasn't. Buxton playing some CF will open up the DH spot for other considerations. This team needs other considerations,

I have a friend with two boys. Toby and Butch are their names. Whenever he needs someone to run an errand... he always asks Butch because he thinks he's the better driver. He had just sent Butch to pick up some garden hose at Menards. On the way back Butch got in an accident and came back with significant damage to his car. With Butch standing right there... He yelled at Toby saying that Butch got into the accident because he couldn't send Toby. That's what is happening with this article. Solano is not the solution because management won't let him be the solution. They rode the same players into the ground and did not go off the script.

I find it interesting that the team batting average free fall began once the team got healthy. We had Polanco, Kepler, Gallo on the disabled list. The offense wasn't amazing but it was functional. We get healthy, we face a boat load of right handers and the team offense craters. The past 15 days: Sorted by AB's Polanco - 50 AB - .220 BA Correa - 49 AB - .169 BA Kepler - 49 AB - .224 BA Buxton - 42 AB - .190 BA Gallo - 39 AB - .103 BA Miranda - 39 AB - .205 BA Vazquez - 34 AB - .118 BA Those are your 7 culprits. But let's get rid of Solano?

I don't know much about Helman but... Speed, Power and he plays multiple positions. OPS over 1,000. If you are going to give a guy a shot... when he is hot is the perfect time. When we need someone... also the perfect time.

OK You use his first 55 plate appearances. Ok... this takes him to April 18th. Solano was facing right handers and left handers and playing every day because of injuries to Polanco, Kepler, Gallo and Farmer which also led to Castro, Wallner, Julien and Garlick being called up to fill out the roster. After the April 18th game against Boston... he was sitting with a .756 OPS and a slash line of .314/.364/.392. This was over the course of 17 games. He made 14 starts. BTW... It Looks better after the April 15th game against the Yankees. 47 Plate Appearances. He was sitting with .815 OPS and a slash line of .341/.383/.432. He just went 1 for 7 during 8 PA's on April 16th and April 18th that took him down a tick before Gallo returned from the DL on April 19th. At this point Solano was back to the limited role he was probably signed for. Short Side Platoon dude. They have played 19 games during this stretch. He has made 7 starts - 28 AB's over those 19 games. That's 28 AB's over those 19 games. That is 7 starts and 5 games entering the game as a pinch hitter. Once again... Let me repeat... that is 28 AB's over 19 games. He has mustered up 4 hits over those 28 AB's over the course of 19 games which of course doesn't look that good when you pull it away from the rest of his work. Anyway... I thought everyone should know that your article is completing ignoring what he did... WHEN WE NEEDED HIM due to injuries to instead focus on a 28 AB period of time over 19 games... WHEN WE APPARENTLY DIDN'T NEED HIM. We have a team hitting a collective .219 and we have an article beating up the guy hitting .263 and not playing much while we are sending to AAA the guy who leads the team in AB's. Solano is not the problem. Right now I'd say play him more. By the way... we are 10-7 with 4 of our chosen starters on the DL and 9-10 with our hitters mostly healthy.