Brandon

I bet he comes back for a few games after the Twins clinch as a send off getting a few starts to see if he can hit a potentially career ending homerun to close out the season and likely his MLB career.

No matter which stats you use to evaluate the players its nice to see so many hitters are improving / gelling together at the right time. 1B Killeroff just came off the DL and got a hit tonight also 1B Solano has been Mr. Consistent and reached over 100 hits in a season for the first time in his career, 2B Polanco has been on a month long tear also 2B Julien has slowed down a little but has lots of talent so hopefully he gets back on track. 3B Lewis is on a tear. .900 +OPS SS Correa is hitting better lately and his hitting is not as bad as you think, He hits .30 points higher to a .262 average and his OPS is near .780. that is just 15 singles that the Plantar Fasciitis is robbing him of. He has 47 XBH in 488 AB last year he had 47 in 522 so his power is not off as much as it seems. MI Farmer has been exactly who he was before we brought him here and that is after being hit in the face. OF Kepler is hitting better in the 2nd half CF Taylor and so it Taylor and his power numbers are the main reason for this LF Walner has taken the job from Gallo and is a younger more productive Gallo. OF Castro is this years Gordon with more stolen bases. will be interesting to see who sticks next season but Castro has been pretty solid back up player. C Vazquez is on the upswing as his OPS is up .130 points since the all star break and he has been hitting near his career mark. still below .700 OPS but he is a solid defensive C C Jeffers has been hitting great too. So basically everyone but Julien is either holding steady or on an upswing. That is great to see from our offense and hopefully they continue this trend through a World Series victory this October.

Actually Kepler had an OPS over .800 at the end of May last year and over .750 at the end of June. I think he was hurt last year. And in 2020 that was an off year for everyone. 2021 was the bad year to complain about.

I was fine with Popkins ouster too but where I really need to eat crow is that I was fine with keeping Gallo. I missed the mark on that one by a mile. While I didn't think he was overly valuable, I figured a 110+ OPS was not too much of a loss as it would be short burst production followed by long deep valleys. But the valley has pretty much lasted the entire second half except for now 2 days. 1 of those days was against Cleveland's position player.

Going into the All Star break Christian Vazquez was hitting .210 with 1 HR and .287 OBP/ .265 SLG for an OPS of .552 since the Allstar break he has hit .245/ .265/ .439 for an OPS of .684. His career OPS is .687 so he has been right in line with that number which is in line with what we should expect from his for offense. He has 5 HR in his last 98 AB as well as 4 2Bs and 24 hits total. 130 points improvement on OPS is pretty big even if it is still below par. But he has been hitting at a number he was signed to produce at which is all we can reasonably ask of him on offense.

We have no money going towards his contract on this season which is a big help with our mid level at best payroll at an all-time high around 150 million I think. It allowed us to sign the GIDP champ (ok I am still happy we signed Correa). but the Yankees also have a potential back up C too from that trade that would have made a nice third string C here…..

I was just thinking if the Twins go 17-6 they end up with 90 wins and for some reason I feel it’s more respectable to go into the playoffs as a 90 win team even though it really doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s just a goal I want to see the Twins attain. To beat the AL West Division winner, we would probably need to go 19-4 or possibly 18-5 and then it would take a 13-9 or 12-10 by the Astros to tie. The Astros are more likely to do their part in this situation and we are not. I would love to see the Twins make this an interesting race the last week of the season though. I’m thinking we end up going 14-9 or 13-10 to close out the season and that puts us in the 86-87 win range. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out especially with an emerging offensive core.

I hope we hit like this tomorrow too.

The Twins lead is starting to feel safe.

I wat to see Lopez finish with at least 12 strikeouts so he can take over the lead in the AL.

I would like to see Lee at third. Problem is LEwis is also at third and as soon as Miranda’s shoulder heals he also belongs at third. I will just be content when he is up full time getting full time playing time. Some of the doubles he is hitting will turn into HRs as he fills out. I expect to see a .280 ave 20-25 HRs and 25-30 2Bs per season.

The Twins should market for fans in Canada too. Toronto is far from Manitoba.

While the injury is very serious with how much time he has missed. Lets be patient. He just got back on the field and he just feels pain for all we know. Lets see if there is more to it or just a little rest and pick back up and power through, He could be delayed just a week. Now if we see a 2 or 3 year extension for Taylor then its time to be concerned.

What’s not talked about here is the return of Miranda. I think if his shoulder heals the he could be a good hitter too. He could be a DH or 1B. I think they will keep Polanco next season. He won’t cost too much and neither will Kepler. I can see Lee starting in AAA and several players moving at throughout the year. Lewis at 3B (120 games and SS (15 games) and DH (10-15 games). For example. Solano could be back. I’m sure he likes it here with all the playing time he received. He already has career high in hits, runs and doubles in a season. I wonder if one of the IF will be a super sub and get some time in the OF as well as all around the IF. Farmer has hit at the same level as last year. I wonder if he will be back. He definitely is worthy but is he priced out for a backup player. so we have Killeroff, Solano, Julien, Polanco, Correa, Lewis, and Farmer. With Lee and Miranda on the periphery. It will be fun watching this play out. for a trade idea we could send one of our IF to Miami for Max Meyer and a reliever.

It’s also a chance to see if he can be the backup / platoon / full time CF next year depending on how healthy Buxton will be by then. The real ? Is do you roster both Stevenson and Martin or just Martin?

So Cody, you are telling us the pitch mix hasn't changed. is there a pitch location map you can find and post to show how the pitches locations have changed month to month for us to compare as well. Maybe his timing is slightly off and he needs to get that back on track. If the pitch mix is the same, Julien will likely figure out how he is getting out and make adjustments. If pitchers have found a way to get him out it is probably harder to make those adjustments to get back on track.

I’ll bite. Minnesota does have money coming off the books and amazingly good rookies are playing their way on to the roster to help keep payroll down so we can afford to make a splash if we wanted to. But as cool as it would be to sign Ohtani, I think we could sign a different big name player though. Maybe a Sony Gray extension at 23 million per season. But really this offseason should be pretty low key. Sign a reliever and another few dumpster diving for relievers by signing 3 or 4 to a minor league deal. Sign a starting pitcher, I guess Gordon and Castro can compete for the platoon CF with Buxton so no need to sign someone for that. Though if they want to resign Taylor I am all for that. He probably wants to start full time…. Next sign a depth starter and additional AAA depth in case of injuries and we should be all set.

I’m just going to beat a dead horse and say the Twins should go for the pitching. The 3 relievers and Clenenger and Giolito too. And one of the rh bats. Renfro or Grichuk. Get something done. I worry we hit our payroll limit for the season and management will decide to do nothing.

He is easily the Twins best offseason free agent signing last offseason. And best value. 1.3 WAR for 2 million and his .376 OBP comes awfully close to what Arreaz gave us last year. put another way if Solano and Gallo switched WAR values this season (Gallo at .4 WAR last I checked) we would be ok with both contracts this year.

And the Twins did it with their top RBI guy at 50.

As far as days off for Correa? I can see limiting him in a series after the second time we play Cleveland and maybe giving him another series to take it easy too. but he needs to be in a rhythm going into the playoffs and not be off right before. too much time off will mess with his hitting. But he should definitely take a few days off. I think something in the neighborhood of playing in 21-25 of the remaining 31 games makes sense or I think there is what 9 games then there is 22 left so playing in 12-16 of the remaining 22 games after the 2nd Cleveland series. I don't know that it is a good idea or how much help a few more days would give him. If he needs a cortisone shot and rest, then he needs to do that right after the Cleveland series so he can be ready to go after that and probably should have a 10-day DL trip for that too.

Solano grounded into a double play here. That must be why the Twins signed him. Also Astudillo pitched 4 games and 4 innings giving up only 1 run for us the year before. Are you sure he shouldn't be pitching in a pen?

The Twins have 31 games remaining. I think I read 9 are against winning teams. Can the Twins go 22-9 to close out the season and win 90 games? That would atleast be a respectable win total for a team going to the playoffs. Not that it matters but a 90 win team makes having the 5-7th best record in the league feel better than being an 85 win team. My money is on an 18-13 record though I hope they prove me wrong and get to 90 wins.

Or maybe a 10 day phantom DL stint for dead arm.

We kept Keuchel instead. He is in the pen now as a piggybacker for Ober.