Riverbrian

I've been to one White Sox game. Got lost and my ND Plate looked a little out of place in the projects.

As we kick off a brand new series with the White Sox. Here are some things to think about.1. Mathematical Elimination -- I'm sure you were all just like me... Waking up this morning to discover that the Twins have been mathematically eliminated from any possibility of winning the AL Central title in 2015. 159 games to go and three games behind the Tigers and Royals... It's clearly over... Boy... the Twins sure jumped off that cliff quick. 2. Next Year -- Sano hit a home run for New Britain... Umm... Make that... Chattanooga last night. Folks behind the fence as the ball was coming toward them were heard saying "Lookout". This is much better then when he hit home runs in Ft. Myers and the folks behind the fence were saying "Miracle". Oh By the Way... Aaron Hicks hit a home run for Rochester yesterday... Call him up now!!! He's clearly ready. 3. 21-1 -- Yeah... Think about that... Just think about that. The Twins were outscored 22-1 over the course of three games to start the season. The margins are thin in baseball. Seventy wins is a bad team... Win 11 more games and you are an average team... Win nine more and you are a great team. Those margins are paper thin in the game of baseball... I gotta say... there is nothing thin about 22-1. Not exactly a flying start for Paul Molitor. 4. The rotation -- Do we have one? I've lost track... Could someone post the current rotation so I can play along. 5. Spring Break -- A couple of weeks ago... My oldest son... Took a break from college and went to Lake Havasu to join a bunch of other college students who were congregated in one spot. He sent a video back of him cliff diving into water below. Cliffs in Eastern North Dakota are approximately 10 inches high so this was a new experience for him. My immediate thought was... "If at first you don't succeed... So much for Cliff Diving". Lineups: TWINS: Dozier 2B Escobar SS Mauer 1B Hunter RF Vargas DH Plouffe 3B Arcia LF Suzuki C Schafer CF Milone P WHITE SOX: Eaton CF Cabrera LF Abreu 1B Garcia RF LaRoche DH Ramirez SS Beckham 3B Flowers C Johnson 2B Noeisi P Game-time forecast: 60 deg F, 20% chance of precipitation (drizzle), winds blowing in from the WSW at 20mph, gusting up to 35mph. Click here to view the article

I'm ok with the position players providing Plouffe improves on his 2014 improvement and Hunter is not the defensive liability those debated D stats say he is. And Arcia strikes out less Umm And Mauer returns to a plus .300 hitter with increased extra base out-put With that... I'm Ok with the position players!!! Providing... Santana continues to play like he played last year at SS... And Escobor finds regular at bats as a utility type and carries on doing what he did last year.... And... Umm... Suzuki keeps delivering key hits to extend some innings. Oh Yeah and Vargas... We need him to lead the team in Dingers if he can do that... I'm Ok with the position players. That's about it... Unless you consider the need for Schafer to finally play like the highly ranked prospect he once was. Ummm... And Dozier... We need him to continue to hit Homers to make up for homers that Joe doesn't hit. As you can see... I clearly believe the Twins will go as far as the Pitching takes them.

I believe in the light switch. I think there times when a player finds it. I also don't believe it's a slam dunk that Hicks or Rosario perform well enough to scream bring me up now in 2015. So... I would not be shocked if Schafer remains the starting CF the entire year... I also would not be shocked if Schafer hits .280 with 6 dingers and 50 SB's with everyday playing time. I certainly feel better about Schafer starting in CF opening day than I do about Hicks before Hicks finds his AAA light switch. It's real simple... Schafer has been given a chance to extend his professional career. If he fails... I'm not sure another chance will be forthcoming. That may help him find that light switch. I'm saying .280 6 Dingers and 50 swipes. Go Twins!!!

I still don't understand this. I've read articles and comments saying what a bad defensive player Nunez was with the Yankees. The only problem is... I still haven't seen it. I watched a lot of Twins baseball and at no point did I say to myself... This Nunez guy is bad defensively. I'm capable of saying it... I've said that Plouffe was bad defensively after watching him in 2012 and 2013 (not 2014). I thought Delmon Young was as bad as it gets. But for Nunez... I honestly haven't seen this bad defender. Ok... OF needs a little work but he can find flybAll's... But in the IF... I just haven't seen the evidence. I just wonder if this is more rep then actual performance. As for Santana... I'm glad he's coming home to SS if that's where he is best. A good manager will find at bats for Escobar if he is also playing well. It's all good. My only concern about Santana at SS comes from looking at CF and knowing that he's the only guy on the roster who can play CF and proven for at least a year that he should be in a major league lineup.

If this is Hicks... Take 3... (Smacking sound of that Clip Board Movie Thing-a-ma-job). So be it... I'm pulling for the kid to figure it out and become what we hoped!!! However... If it was me... I'd start Hicks in Rochester and make him tear up AAA first and then call him up. And then make him compete for the MLB CF Job with someone that I brought in to start opening day. I Don't Know... Someone like Mike Trout or Willie Mays... Nothing unreasonable but yet someone with a little game. The way it sits right now... I can only see one scenerio. Hicks or Schaefer starting opening day and if either or both don't work out... Santana returns to CF. But I'm still scratching my head on why the Twins would utility Escobar in order to play someone in CF who didn't perform at the plate like Escobar did in 2014. I understand wanting Santana to play SS but... CF is still a wing and prayer in it's current state. The attention paid to CF remains baffling and the calender has changed again.

I think I can rightfully claim that I have not been an overly critical poster toward the front office. However... I admit I have no idea what the Twins have been doing in CF since Span and Revere were dealt. I think most of us were OK with the trades. I was... but I think most of us would have thought CF to be solved by now. Since the trades: Terry Ryan announced that Mastroianni... Benson and Hicks would compete for the job for 2013. 2 years later... Benson is out of baseball and Mastro is just about out of baseball. Hicks has proven nothing at the MLB level and reported attitude problems swirl around him. We picked out 3 guys... 2 are done with baseball just two years later and the other... Well... Yeah... The other. After winning the job in ST... Hicks is so overmatched in 2013 that Clete Thomas and Alex Presley finish the year in CF. Thomas and Presley are so highly thought of that they are let go. Going into 2014... Despite Hicks clearly being miles from ready in 2013. He is handed the job again... Ok... Fine but surely there is a backup plan in case 2014 is like 2013. The backup plan in CF is... Jason Bartlett who is a Veteren SS. Hicks fails again and Bartlett retires himself after looking completely helpless in the outfield. SS prospect Danny Santana is quickly moved to CF out of desperation and he performed at the plate and made significant improvement in CF as the year goes on. Schaefer was signed off waivers and he looks like a decent pickup. Going into 2015... Molitor announces that Santana will move back to SS moving Escobar to the bench or trade bait and Hicks/Schaefer are announced as the CF plan. This will be year 3 since the trades... Can anyone explain what the Twins are thinking? Waiting for Buxton? Well... Buxton isn't here yet and he's been very injury prone thus far. CF just appears to be Under Assessed... Under Addressed... And under stressed for 3 years running now. Thank God we signed Schaefer is all I got to say... Thank God we got that guy off waivers... That's what I'm saying. I can't believe I'm saying that. But thank god for Schafer.

When he gets it together it will be as quick as flipping a light switch. Unfortunately some are not around long enough for them to find the light switch. Molitor and the Twins can talk about Hicks opening the season as our CF in 2015. That's fine... I'm more curious to see if he is playing CF for the Twins on May 1st. If it's not Hicks on May 1st... As it stands now... It could Santana back in CF.

Its quite possible... However... It all comes down to percentages and weighting of. If You misplay a ball that is coverted at 95% in a certain zone...The punishment is large. The majority of balls hit are handled in these high percentage zones. You only have a few chances to make a low percentage play when you get high Percentage plays by the boatload.and those low percentage plays converted are less and less uncommon. You simply can't catch up and when you consider how little low percentage data is available from week to week... Even month to month or year to year... It produces unstable swings in the result and therefore unreliable data. Yeah... I'm not a UZR fan. With that said... Torii may be what is being claimed. I don't know... I'm just not trusting of UZR at all.

LOL.. I'm not overlooking any facts... I'm just not digging for all of them. Torii may very well be what is being presented... I'm not equipped to argue. I just can't resist the chance to rail on UZR since the stat is thrown around frequently. Good work as always Parker. Ill be curious to watch Torii daily in 2015.

Yeah... Torii!!! That isn't even close to how you coach it. BTW... My iPad struggles to load video now and webpages constantly reload after the latest update. I'm pretty pissed at Apple right now.

Ok... That GIF is awfully damning. If I saw Hunter do that in a Twins uniform... I'd be pissed at him for a week... At least. Regardless... It's one play... He'd have to Delmon Young a few like that before I gave up and say he's a butcher. On the defensive metrics... Outfield metrics are dominated by the routine ball. Make one mistake on one routine ball and you are immediately put into a UZR hole that is impossible to climb out of. It's like ERA for a RP that's throws three or five innings a week. One bad day where you give up 8 runs in a third of an inning... it's going to take a bunch of scoreless innings to correct it and that will take a while if you only throw a couple of innings in a week. UZR is the same... One bad play... One botched ball in a high percentage zone is like giving up 8 runs in a third of an inning for a pitcher and your chances to correct it are overwhelmingly routine leaving you only a couple of non routine plays a week to make a dent in the bad UZR number, Shift to the wrong spot at the behest of coaches and have the shift cause a ball to land in a zone where the ball is normally caught and you are in a big UZR hole. Everybody is catching routine balls... catching the routine ball fixes nothing in the UZR world once one routine ball is misplayed. I've never consider Torii to be a range guy but I will not use UZR data to support my hypothesis. It's flawed... Half cooked uselessness at this point. The fluctuations from year to year is an obvious indicator of its flaws. To me... Defense is all about moments. Can you make the play when the pitcher and team needs it? Torii used to be pretty good at that... Let's see if he still is at age 57 or whatever.

I've never seen Torii Hunter deal with puppies or old people... I don't know if he's a jerk or not. I won't judge him based on media quotes... Just like I try not to judge any of you based on your quotes on TD. What you post on TD has very little to do with what kind of Accountant... Teacher... Mailman... you are. My judgement will be based on how he plays the game. If I see him layup on a catchable ball... Jog to first on a grounder... Go through the motions... I'll judge him on that and that alone.

I agree with this and this is the kind of leadership that I'm looking for. We haven't had this type of player since Torii left us. I have no idea what is happening in the clubhouse... So there is no way I know who leads what and who doesn't. On the field... I haven't seen a "I'm gonna plow you over... Bust a pitch inside... Spit nails" type player since he left. When it comes to defense.. I never thought Hunter was that rangy even when they used to call him Spider-Man in his youth. But... But... There is no way that I will pay an ounce of attention to the yearly pinball that is defensive metrics. The ball will come his way and Torii will catch it. Everyone should be praying for bat speed and continued possession of it. When that goes... That's when it gets ugly. I'm fine with Hunter for a year... Now get some pitching please!!!

I'm also surprised by the negativity. I'm also surprised by the level of knowledge of Korean Baseball and the confidence in such knowledge. I'm also surprised by the power of those fiber one bars.

Based on 2014... The Twins have some talented offensive players... If everything goes right... We have very little to worry about. However... When was the last time everything went right? 1965? I agree with Levi... I will add... That I understand the desire to bring up our young stars. I can't wait to see them myself. The anticipation is killing me. What I don't understand is the desire to bring them up with no safety net... I don't understand... The wish of some... To not sign talent over fear of blocking them. You can't BLOCK them... Players get hurt all the time... Someone is gonna suck... If Rosario is performing in Rochester... Or Buxton or Sano... You can't block them... Unless we are winning and everything goes right. Which hasn't happened since? 1947? And if everything goes right. Well... Block away... Who cares... We are playoff bound!!! Sano... Buxton... Rosario are safety nets... Some want to cut our safety nets to play the safety nets with no safety net. I can't support that.

Rios is my choice. If you can disinfect all the White Sox germs off of him.

Pitchers spend time on the DL. We used be constantly searching for arms. Would love to see the Twins grab a Scherzer or Lester...I just don't think they will. Therefore Masterson makes sense to me. Anderson doesn't stay healthy but he pitches pretty left handed good when he is. I'd sign them both and hope for the best. Let the pile of them compete for spots. Hughes should be the only lock in my mind. The other guys have stuff to prove and should be pushed to prove it. Nolasco simply has to pitch better or be sunk cost. Gibson needs to be more consistent. Pelfrey has to show something. Milone has to keep the team in games. May needs to put it together. Meyer needs to throw a MLB pitch. I understand the logjam... I won't predict a starting 5... Just gather them and compete for jobs!!! Let's not mess around.. The offense has pieces that could do something in 2015. Get some pitching and let's make 2015 better!!!

Masterson and Anderson would be my choices ... And... And... They both have good Minnesota names.

No brainer... Keep Escobar and the good problem to have that comes with him. Please... Please... Please... Dear Powers that be. Do not settle on starters and lock in. Embrace the flexibility that Santana, Escobar and maybe even Plouffe can bring and utilize that flexibility. While prepping for the arrival of Buxton and Sano. Have honest to god competition for each position... Insurance at all positions. Play Santana in CF and SS... It will sort itself out if you manage your lineuos creatively. Nobody on the 2015 roster should have to sit for extended periods of time. The entire roster should be able to produce and help win games. Bring in a LF who can also play CF and you are good to go with the Offense and Defense. Then you can focus on Pitching.

I went to Buffalo Wild Wings once. And to please my wife... I looked at the menu for awhile before finally ordering the Wings I always have. My wife worries about me and was probably hoping... I'd get something different. A salad maybe. Reflecting on it... There was no reason for me to look at the menu... I was getting Wings. Looking at the menu was a dog and pony show. Nothing wrong with knowing you want wings. If you find what you want. Stop looking.

Riverbrian: C'mon Bert... This Way Bert: Where are we going? Riverbrian: No place special... Nothing to worry about Bert: I didn't get any of the Crab Legs at the buffet.. Hold on... Riverbrian: Never mind the crab... C'mon... You are needed elsewhere. We gotta go now. (Ok... He's out now)

I brought Blyleven into this discussion... But I want to be clear that I'm not advocating the hiring of Bert. I'm not advocating anyone because I dint know enough about the horses racing. Just mentioning Bert because his Dutch squads lacked big names yet performed decently in the WBC's. Bert just maybe someone that nobody thought about it... And maybe they ain't thinking about him for good reason.

I've heard it said... Don't know if it's true... But I've heard it said... In a lot of cases... The best of the best can't explain to others how they did it... It just came natural to them. They never had to think about how they did it... They just fell out of bed doing it.