Riverbrian

Blaming the media is basically blaming us, Our media formed by how we consume it. If they don’t lead with the virus... they lose viewers, if they don’t punch up the copy with sensational adjectives like “deadly” “sweeping” “bloody” or “horrific” we don’t stick through the commercial break. If we don’t stick through the commercial break, they don’t survive. We shape the product... blaming what we built is rather pointless. The National Enquirer isn’t a non profit, people buy the National Enquirer, because they can't walk past the headline "His Cheating Photos". They buy it, they go home and choose the news presentation that fits their viewpoints and then they vote. I keep grains of salt near me. I try to pay attention to the people who are supposed to pay attention. As far as I can tell... those people seem to be quite serious about it. Therefore, my opinion is to take it seriously. I won’t change my life too much, if at all but I’m not going to question the protective measures being taken. And for those who are selling hand sanitizer on EBAY after cleaning out Walmart. Kudo’s for the foresight and your contribution to the panic buy, but I’m putting you in the same classification as the group of people who called my work cell phone telling me that my car warranty has expired.

After 22,630 posts I have nothing new to add I'm out of contributions

Love of the Schtick or Love of the game? Does it matter? Any concern over why they watch is an unnecessary filter to a product that can't afford filtering in the first place. It elitist to say, you must enjoy baseball how I enjoy baseball. Only people who like the sacrifice bunt can watch this game? The demo's have grayed significantly, From 52 to 57 in a ten year period, we are going to Dick Bremer this sport into the grave with us. Will Mic'd up players drive away the existing audience? If it does... the game is more fragile than you and I could ever imagine. Introducing the personality of Freddie Freeman or Mitch Garver or whoever to the world establishes bonds between the product and the consumer. For example... There are lots of people who watch American Idol. American Idol producers could just roll through the singers one by one, song by song and you'll never know anyone on a personal level. But, they don't, they tell the stories of the performers and reveal the personality of the performers and it produces passion, interest in the performance and the viewers are more engaged in the outcome. My wife will do about a verse of the performance and sometimes fast forward through the rest but she doesn't fast forward through the produced bios or the "who are you", "where are you from" and "why are you here" questions from the judges. She sincerely roots for that guy "who is singing in front of a national audience because he wants to show his 4 year old daughter that she can accomplish anything". Schtick? It doesn't matter. The audience size has grown and that does matter. Personality is marketable, perhaps the most powerful marketing tool on earth. We don't want to utilize it because?

With his fun personality, more public exposure of his personality will lead to more commercials, bigger commercials, from local to national, appearances on late night talk shows and who knows what else. The game will produce heroes and villains according to each personalty revealed. In the future, someone from the sport of baseball might crack the list of most famous athlete.

https://youtu.be/JPpVdMDez5U This is the type of thing that Baseball needs to incorporate into every broadcast in an effort to reach new audiences, heighten player brands, increase interest, humanize the players and educate. Obviously, the discussion with the booth should be off limits due to performance distraction and they would have to manage blue language through a simple delay or only using audio on replays but this is one of many things that baseball can do to improve the broadcasts, create superstars/characters, make the game more personal and increase interest from those who fully understand the game and those who are still learning about the game. The broadcast format of the past is a big part of the current demographic problem that baseball is looking at. Change it.

Sano has never been healthy for entire year, Donaldson has been hurt before, Rosario played half the season injured, Kepler was down for all of September. We have Buxton though. He usually stays healthy. We had Marwin last year and we had to create another Marwin with Arraez to get through the season. ANd it worked. I'd love to see Sano get through the season but I'd be surprised.

Kudos.

Man, That Kiriloff is going to provide a real mid-season boost.

I get that Howie and certainly understand the differences between teams in different stages of the cycle. However, I would argue that the Twins were never in full rebuild mode and I would certainly say that after 2015, 2016 was time to compete and not take flyers on youth with uncertain outcomes and possible learning curves. But mainly, it would have been better to work them in instead of cementing themselves to a do or die situation.

I believe how we handled Hicks and Buxton was a terrible short sighted mistake, I believe that all front offices should avoid repeating this mistake at all costs. Yet... We kept repeating the same mistake over and over again in CF. Hicks and Buxton were shoved into the opening day lineup with no Plan B should they fail. They failed and the Twins kept trying and they kept failing. With this so fresh in our memories... I don't understand how people can just say... Next Year Kiriloff will start in LF and we can trade others to accommodate. It is so much better to debut your minor league talent in the middle of the season surrounded by talent who can absorb struggles from the newly promoted minor league talent. And if the minor league talent performs... like many are these days. Continue to incorporate them into the mix. When people see a roster full of talent... many think "Blocked". I don't think "blocked"... I think it's the perfect opportunity to let others show what they can do when injuries occur. The team is protected if they fail. If they fail... send them back down. If they succeed... You've improved your lineup and you've found a cheap option for next years roster which can free up cash to improve somewhere else in the lineup. All you have to do... is give them a chance to win a job. Let them play if they win it... Send them down if they don't perform. Depth is a good thing. If you don't play your depth... you don't have it.

In LF, He went from -21.7 with the Twins to 5.1 last year with the A's. All he had to do is work on that part of his game? If Grossman can do that... so can all of our current UZR challenged players. Just get out there and work on it. I'm more inclined to write this off as another stunning example of why I am not comfortable with UZR methodology.

It depends on how you view your prospects. Do you view prospects like the rookie years of Buxton, Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia? or do you view prospects like the rookie years of Jordan Alvarez, Fernando Tatis, Pete Alonso, Keston Hiura, Bo Bichette, Eloy Jimenez, Mike Ford, WIll Smith, Aristedes Aquino, Vlad Jr, Bryan Reynolds, Mike Yastrzemski, Tommy Edman, Brandon Lowe, Christian Walker, Alex Verdugo, Kevin Newman, Austin Nola, Cavan Biggio, Matt Beaty, Michael Chavis, Oscar Mercado, Austin Riley, Victor Robles or our very own Luis Arraez? If you view them like the rookie years of Buxton, Hicks and Arcia. I can see why you would want to hold that door shut. However, if Kiriloff is hitting like Jordan Alvarez or Tatis or Alonso or Hiura. Holding that door shut would be tragic.

"Destined for less than 100 wins" ??? Where does this destiny come from with a MLB Roster so loaded that top prospects are held back?

Cleveland was hammered with rotation injuries. They had no choice, they needed Civale and Plesac. Now they have purposely chosen Civale and Plesac. The Twins remained healthy and chose Martin Perez. Now they have chosen Homer Bailey. The Twins are not Cleveland yet.

Riverkent doesn't have the same ring to it.

Best looking name on the back of a jersey.

You could be correct. However... I can't think of any team that is deep at Catcher. It's the shallowest of all positions.

Cesar knows he wasn't a dawning. He was a light bulb that lit the sky in his corner of the world during a time when people assumed that light bulbs were some sort of sorcery.

I love Arraez but if I had my wish. He'd remain Super Utility. He can still get the bulk of the playing time at 2B but giving him some time at other positions will keep him prepared for replacing Marwin next year. Someone will have to replace what Marwin does next year. Astudillo. I love flexibility but I'd rather not see the Turtle at 2B. That's taking it a little bit too far.

Hallelujah!!! It's why I'm a big fan of the work being done by this current regime.

I'm still not sure how many people were actually paying attention to 2019 and were able to notice the complete change of roster/lineup management. Or even noticed how well the difference worked. Or even tried to put two and two together. Marwin playing multiple positions in 2019 was the key to executing that successful change. The question is not "Should Marwin be on the team in 2020"? The question is "Who will be replace what Marwin does in 2021"? If he isn't re-signed. The day of simple utility should be gone with the wind. The day has dawned for Super-Utility.

Winning the Central will be considered a success by me. Make the playoffs And then get hot. That's how it works.

Injuries are not the concern. Injuries happen every year (every month) to every team. Injuries will not bring a team down. Just look at the Yankees last year. Just look at the Twins last year. Poor play is what brings a team down. Allowing players to play like Logan Morrison and allowing that poor play to play every day is what brings a team down. When it comes to the rotation... Allowing Bailey or Chacin to pitch like Martin Perez pitched last year while keeping their rotation spot is what will kill the team. Bad play kills the team... not injuries. The Twins have starting depth... if they use it. Let the depth compete for starts. Let the best man win. It's that simple.

Playing below ability while hurt is never a good thing. Rosario was 2nd in AB's post all-star break. LaMarre and Miller had 40 AB's total which were all in September to play primarily CF after Buxton and finally Kepler were hurt. Baldelli had options from June 26 to the Kepler injury on September 8. A little rest might have helped the ankle. Playing players who are hurt is a bad strategy.

Baseball is currently contractually obligated to choke off it's supply lines. How many customers and how much does each customer spend is a pretty simplistic formula but it sums it up revenue generation nicely. Failing to reach new customers requires getting the existing customers to spend more. However, by forcing them to spend more... it naturally reduces them further. That's the slippery slope. Baseball needs to go the opposite direction. It needs to charge less per customer in an effort to gain a bigger more diverse customer base. 10 People paying 10 bucks is $100. 100 people playing 1 buck is the same revenue. You can raise the price on a 100 people you can't on 10. However, Baseball can't do this because it has become reliant upon the revenue produced by selling the broadcast rights to entities that are also knee deep in the process of charging more to cover for having less to charge from. Cable is losing numbers, radio is losing numbers, newspapers are losing numbers and baseball is along for the ride because they signed the contracts. Baseball needs to be everywhere and they need to be everywhere yesterday. Broadcast rights, exclusivity, blackout rules all stand in the way. A large contingent of already roped in baseball fans like to call Manfred an idiot because he suggesting changes to Grandpa's game. Pace of play, Increasing the number of playoff teams is probably screaming off the pages of his research. Yet, the roped in baseball fan contingent dismiss it out of hand while they still think it's Ok to bean a guy in the back for showing emotion. The old school fan has become an additional roadblock for Manfred to navigate. Trevor Bauer was right about what baseball needs to do but he fails to suggest how to extricate itself from the current situation which is caused by the owners, players union and broadcast partners fighting over our money.