Dantes929

You can't get a whole lot better than Dobnak's last two starts. I have always defended Gibson in the past and I was mostly kidding about Drobnak (and May for that matter) but this year Gibson has had 9 quality starts out of 30 and none since the beginning of August. The major league average for quality starts is 50%. I hope Gibson returns to health, pitches for the Twins and does great but Drobnak appears to have a lot of the same stuff so I wonder what the Vegas odds would be on who will be better going forward. As far as the studies go please share because I have searched for them, asked for them and have never found any of them. I just can't imagine that a guy throws 120 innings, takes 4 months off, builds arm strength up to pitch 100 pitches an outing and now can throw only 140 innings as if what he did a year before has built up his arm by 10%. So much throwing in between and innings and conditions alone change not to mention the difference in body types. By the way I don't necessarily believe in the 100 pitch limit thing but do believe in building the arm up slowly each season. In fact, it seems like in ST they go from 20 pitches to 100 rather rapidly. I also believe in what I see Gibson doing which is keeping the body and arm loose between innings rather than just sitting and watching until the offense is done.

Can anyone tell me why limiting innings pitched in a season has any validity at all. Of course Graterol should make the post season roster. Limit of two innings every 3 days just like a lot of the relievers. Next year Berrios, resign Odorizzi, resign Pineda, start Graterol and give May another chance. If not, I will say Dobnak has looked better in both of his last two starts than Gibson has all year. Great control, hit 95 with a great breaking ball and change up.

I have defended him over the years. He's a little like the 2nd version of Liriano. He's not as good as people were hoping for so many write him off as bad and as pointed out above and many times he was actually quite good for a long stretch. Whatever his problems are it feels like no one has needed 4 month off and the reset button pushed more than Gibson. I found myself in the unique position tonight of hoping he would get in trouble early without giving up too much damage so our bullpen can come in and give the offense time to come back. Worked out perfectly but it is not the ideal wish. No problem bringing him back. I am guessing he won't get any big offers and might be open to a smaller contract for one year to prove he can hack it.

Not a thing. I said it was one of my pet peeves and I would be fine if someone posted every time someone dogged it and then got thrown out. We're not on opposite sides here. Singling one guy out for what many many players do or have done just seemed unfair. Talk to him about it by all means. Bench him or publicly call him out? Probably not.

You can talk to him about it but go take a look at the replays of everyone that tries to take an extra base and it is close and you will see that Eddie is the rule, not the exception. If you call him out call out everyone that does it because it happens a lot. I'm fine with that too but what makes this one special? Buxton does it a lot but his coasting speed and his extra gear speed are both so fast he gets away with it.

Lets not pretend this is unique to Eddie. Its always been a pet peeve of mine whether its taking 2nd base or 3rd when a guy gets thrown out in a close play you can almost always see on the replay where they are watching the play and you can see the moment they make the decision, just like Eddie where they run in a different gear, when they could have made it there if they had been running from the start. Nothing new here. Criticize him all you want for trying to take 3rd with two outs.

After the Twins lose to any of these teams you are going to think the Twins are not sharp or not playing well but that is only ever half the story. Statistically, the White Sox are supposed to and do win at least one out of every three. They are 9-7 against the Indians, 4-3 against the Astros and 4-3 against the Yankees. I was very happy that the Twins won 2 of 3. If they only drop one in each of the next three series I will be very happy. You think its a lack of sharpness or focus. I just think its baseball. As far as how they are playing going into the playoffs that's also not a big concern to me. Its been kind of a mantra of mine over the season to respond to those either too optimistic or too pessimistic to say wait 7 to 10 days and the picture will likely be entirely different. You can't win October games in September so not being sharp now is not an indicator that they won't be sharp in two weeks. 87 Twins lost their last 5 games of the regular season. Yeah, they had the division wrapped up so how about the 2006 Tigers. They only needed to win 1 game out of three at home against a Royals team that had already lost 100 games but instead got swept allowing the Twins to steal the title. I don';t think you can end a season any worse that that but they ended up in the World Series. The high flying and strong finishing Twins on the other hand got swept by a team they manhandled during the season. I share your concern about not getting too complacent and that they have been banged up but they have earned the position that they can survive a couple clunkers. The sentence I agree with you the most is your last one. Ah, but who knows..... Answer is no one and that is what makes it fun.

I have said all along that I will be comfortable when we have X game lead with X-1 games to go but there is no such thing as a must win series when you have a 4 game lead. Twins can have 3 more dogs like last night and still win the division outright no matter what Cleveland does. I don't want the Twins playing like they already have this thing won but don't want them pressing or panicking either if they lose a couple. Its a fine line. Twins might have a must win series or game coming up but this isn't one of them. Probably not a good idea to get swept though.

Right now I have as much or more faith in Sashak than Gibson and Perez. I would feel a little sorry for them but I think Gibson does not make the cut unless he shows some thing better than he has for the last two months.

You absolutely have to break instantly on that. If you have to take time to consider whether the third baseman is in position or anything else then you cannot go. You have to rely on instinct and I believe he thought that ball would go farther than it did so I think his instinct was wrong. I'm glad he went, we probably don't tie if he didn't go but it needs to be a 80-90% chance and I think it was more like a 20% chance. I'm not speaking for everyone but I am pretty sure if the catcher grabs it cleanly, the 3rd baseman isn't sleeping and the throw is decent then Wade gets thrown out easily and fans aren't saying stuff like great hustle or great play. Sometimes good decisions turn out poorly because the other team makes a fantastic play (think Rosario's throw last week) and sometimes poor decisions turn out great because the other team did not execute. I think that play was leaning heavily in that direction.

So maybe score early, often and continuous. I know we scored 5 runs in the 3rd but there is a reason Smalley and Morneau say you have to change the number when you score big early.

Evil, shameful, wrong, disgrace, outrage, atrocity, injustice, affront. Sounds like you're on board.

I guess its all well that ends well but if the catcher doesn't double clutch or makes a good throw then Wade gets thrown out fairly easily, we lose the game and we would all be complaining about another base running mistake. I don''t think it was a good play but we got lucky and I accept lucky.

Ok, I know he doesn't deserve the win and that he didn't pitch well but my old coach used to preach that you never knew how many runs you needed to score or how many you needed to limit the other team to until it was all over so you just need to keep plugging. That two run homer hurt but Harper hung in there and battled to keep it at just two runs. As it turns out that was exactly what was needed.. I won't give him a lot of credit but i will give him some.

Of course there is risk but there is also reward. Of course Odor or Berrios could have short starts. There is probably a higher risk that Perez and Gibson pitch 3 innings and we are behind 5-0. You don't have unlimited roster but instead of the 5 starter 7 reliever combo that you have during the regular season you would have a 2 starter 10 reliever combo with the 2 starters being your best two starters. You also have two days off in a 5 game series. We have a lot of relievers, and I mean a lot, that are more capable of pitching 2-3 quality innings than Perez or Gibson so it would be kind of silly to try to get 5 or 6 quality innings out of those two. Its just a matter of turning quantity of good relievers vs mediocre starters to our advantage.

Take a look at the Yankees starters and tell me we can't compete with them with what we have. One guy barely under 4.00 ERA. Their strength is their offense and their bullpen. So is ours. Houston is a different story. We have about as much chance against them as our 87 team did against the Tigers. No sarcasm or snarkiness intended there. They had 9-0 Doyle Alexander with a 1.53 ERA, Jack Morris in his prime and two good other starters. We were 4-8 against them during the regular season. Twins were not likely to beat them. If anything this team has a better chance against the Astros.

Valencia hit .311 that year. Hardy was decent as well at .268. It was a very good lineup but the big bummer was Morneau had an OPS of 1.055 after 81 games before going down with concussion.

Rogers, May, Duffey, Romo, Littell, Smeltzer, Dobnak, Harper,and Stashak all have ERA's well under 4.00. Then we have Graterol that throws strikes at 100 mph and very likely would join the club of sub 4.00 with more innings. By contrast the 87 team had one reliever with a sub 4 ERA (and that was 3.99). If the stats above hold true through the next 2 weeks that is 9 relievers with sub 4.00 ERA plus Graterol. Further contrast is Gibson and Perez with ERA's above 4.75 and trending higher. If you don't work bullpen games into the rotation you are wasting bullets on the bench and biting your nose to spite your face.

I like Gibson but unless they can show some really good stuff in their last two starts I think you gotta keep Gibson and Perez off the roster. Berrios and Odorizzi backed up by May Duffey, Romo and Rogers. Smeltzer, Dubnak, Graterol, Littell, Stashak and Thorpe for depth and a bullpen game or two or 3. I like the idea of putting a bullpen game against the other team's ace, especially the way our pen has been pitching but do the Yankees even have an ace? If we threw Smeltzer, Dobnak, Littell Stashak and Graterol the only one that has a higher ERA than any of the Yankee starters is Graterol. I just think the pen has a higher upside than any starter after our top 2. Since they would all be looking at just a couple innings you could throw bullpen in game 1, Berrios in game 2, day off, bullpen in game 3, Odorizzi in game 4, day off and bullpen in game 5. I know I shouldn't get carried away with how our bullpen did last weekend but I just think it is a better option than Gibson or Perez who probably don't last that long anyway. I like Odorizzi a little better than Berrios so the other option is Odorizzi in game one, bullpen, Berrios, bullpen and then Odorizzi in game 5. Last thing we should do is follow traditional formula when we don't have the traditional strengths. Of course 2 weeks is a long time and performances will change our view but as it stands that is the way I would do it. Who would have thought that bullpen games could be viewed as a really good thing just a month ago but guys have really stepped up.

Not sure what is depressing about Romo giving up a homerun. An error and a walk before the home run would have been depressing. Everyone gives up runs. Everyone. Twins did a nice job of hanging in there to get a big win.

Unless he blows up in the next two weeks I don't know how you can keep Littell off the postseason roster. Gave up 8 runs in two appearances in May. Since then he has been absolutely lights out in his last 22 appearances. I could imagine a playoff roster without Gibson or Perez.

With Rogers, Graterol, Littell, May, Duffey, Romo, Smeltzer, Dobnak and Stashak all throwing well it would seem in our best interests to have a bullpen for one spot and a short leash on Perez and Gibson going forward. Have we ever had a bullpen this deep? I know some of these guys are unproven but I have no qualms about any of these guys getting innings. I have no idea how Romo does it with an 84 mph fastball and 90% sliders. I feel a little bad for Romero because it seems some bad luck haunts him in the form of fluke singles, errors, etc. but it seems like he always compounds the bad breaks with a walk or two and wild pitches so he still owns it. Calling them bullpen games seems a little disingenuous since Dobnak, Smeltzer and Thorpe can all go 4 or 5 innings.

I wouldn't have suggested Berrios except he was the expected starter and we had a two run advantage with 4 to go. Seems like a good bet though of course could have gone all wrong. We have a rotation of sorts. Berrios, Odorizzi, Gibson, Perez and Dobnak/Thorpe/Smelzer. I would not mind seeing the last three listed replace Perez and Gibson if they don't do well in their next return. I'm not down on either necessarily but am concerned about Gibson's health and Perez seems to be at replacement level. Get to the playoffs first. Then Berrios becomes our poor man's 87 Viola, Odorizzi becomes our 87 rich man's Blyleven and take your pick for 87 Straker. Bullpen was probably already the equal of the 87 pen before Romo and the emergence of Duffey, May, Littel and Graterol. Fun times ahead hopefully.

Of course there is some hindsight here but maybe Berrios would have been a good guy to pitch the 6th through the 9th. A two run lead and just 4 innings to get through. A win today against our closest rivals would have been worth more than a win Monday.

I would tend to rank it Kepler, Rogers, Cruz, Polanco but come on. With the article and all the comments I don't see Odorizzi's name once? Better ERA, W-L, FIP, ERA+ than Berrios. Innings per start is his only flaw. Huge 7 innings shutout against Verlander and the Astros. Huge win against Cleveland for our only win in the last series with them. Twins won 8 of his last 9 starts at a time when Berrios was struggling, Gibson was sick, Perez was inconsistent and Pineda was being suspended. I think I put him at #5 with an inclination to put him higher still.