Dantes929

The first 75 games it was more difficult to see Plouffe, Sano, Park, Arcia, Escobar, Santana, Suzuki, Murphy, Buxton, Dozier, Mauer and Rosario on the team together. I'm not going to worry about Park until he performs better in the minors. I have a hard time seeing Plouffe, Sano, Vargas and Mauer on this team together. For much of his career I did not like Plouffe and now I do but still think he is the odd man out.

#8 can be broken into more numbers and probably should be. I am hoping for a rotation with Santana, Berrios and May with Gibson Duffey and Santiago vying for other spots so am intrigued how they all pitch to finish up. Gibson and Duffey's stock have definitely fallen. I still enjoy watching this team more than the previous 5 editions. I can feel something good beginning to brew in this team even with the horrible record. For some reason I still look forward to Mauer and Buxton batting most even with the monster 2nd half Dozier is having .

Or Blyleven or Morris or Guardado or Wally the Beer Man. Listening to Bert it sounded like Berrios was getting advice from everyone. I want to see him back up. Tell him he is up for good and that he will throw 100 pitches every 5th game and his only goal is to throw strikes.. Hoping for a rotation next year of Santana, Gibson, Berrios, May and Duffey/Santiago. Completely out of curiosity, do you prefer Gardy/Anderson? There was a decade under Anderson where the Twins threw strikes.

You said help you out so here goes. I studied this a long time ago and the numbers have changed since then, whether by age or post concussion but the concept was as follows. Mauer and Delmon Young had very similar averages on given counts. They were both great when ahead in the count, good when even in the count and pretty bad when behind in the count. Regardless of what you have heard Mauer is still only a .228 hitter when starting out 0-2. Probably better than average but still really bad. The difference between Mauer and Young then is that Mauer has been ahead in the count more often and the only way to do that is by looking at pitches. The only thing I don't like about Mauer's approach is that it doesn't keep the pitchers honest. If he would swing at the first pitch just a little bit more they would throw better stuff in more careful zones and thus allow him to see their better stuff and thus likely see more first pitch balls which puts him ahead in the count more often from which he shines. Absurd as it is I would like to see him put three pieces of paper in a hat and draw from it each at bat with one of them saying swing at a first pitch cookie. Let the pitchers see it. The result would likely be more first pitch balls. That is all just my take but the numbers supported it. Mauer and Young were much the same hitter except for patience. Young has had a nice career but no one is talking about his chances for HOF.

I already said I would prefer the HOF be about how brightly the light shines rather than how long it shines. Don't take this to absurd extremes. 7 years with three batting titles would get my vote but I most definitely do not think he will get the votes from those who actually have one. Personally I am a little more disappointed in Hrbek who also had HOF talent but did not take the necessary steps to stay in good enough shape to do it. A little more disappointed but still not very disappointed. He was still fun to watch.

Ok, his playoff numbers are just ok but in three of the closest pennant races in baseball history his September average and OPS were 2006 (.337) (.936) 2008 (.365) (.904) 2009 (.354) (.958) His August numbers in those years were pretty great as well. I am more of a great years vs longevity guy. (Ron Guidry could make a good case) for HOF. IMO, any guy with 3 batting titles should have a very strong case and that Mauer did it while catching and getting Gold Gloves should only help. His numbers have been hurt by his post concussion years. .401 OBP and .322 AVG look a lot better than .393 and .310 and sinking.

Won't explain the 4 walks in an inning but I have noticed the same thing in Berrios as I did in May when he first came up. When they get ahead in the count they are trying to make the perfect pitch and invariably throw the curve balls in the dirt or the fast balls head high or the sliders a foot wide. I have no problem with throwing off the plate on 0-2 but if you are not even tempting the batter then you are truly wasting the pitches and the advantage of being ahead while running up the pitch count and evening the count to no purpose.

I apologize to all Twins fans for jinxing the Twins with the above statement.

While I liked Milone and didn't really care for Nolasco replacing them both with Berrios and Santiago has to be viewed as a plus. Of course the way the Twins have been hitting the pitchers just have to keep the other team in single digits.

Dozier has slightly better minor league numbers and did have a .320 breakout season. Casilla and Nishioka was the bar Dozier had to beat. Dozier is the bar Polanco has to beat. Its nothing against Polanco. I like him. Unless we do trade Dozier I don't see a spot for him and I don't want Dozier traded unless we get a nice return. If we do trade Dozier then Polanco is a nice option.

I had no problem with Berros being sent back down earlier because I think that is where command should be worked out. He has done that so I agree he should not make one more minor league start. Same with Chargois. Polanco I am not so sure of. Its not like he is a .350 minor league hitter. I like him but unless we get something good for Dozier he is simply not as good as Dozier and I don't know how he can project to be better than Dozier.

The next cliff is always around the corner good or bad. While we have feasted on some poor pitching I don't think it is fair to say that the last 16 games they have seen pitching substantially different than what they saw the first 68 games. Also, Duffey, Gibson and Santana gave us absolutely nothing the first 68 games but are now pitching well and our relief staff is leaps and bounds better than what May, Jepsen, Fien and Perkins gave us to start the season. I agree that the problems in Texas have helped us but we did score off Hamels better than anyone else. Helped by a down swing in Texas but probably hurt the rest of the year by playing teams when they were hot.

Does everyone really think this is the same team that we saw the first 75 games?. Then, no one was getting on base, no one was hitting with runners in scoring position, no one was hitting home runs with guys on base and no one was saving games. Literally 2 out of 25 guys were playing to their abilities and that was Nunez and Grossman. No pitchers were doing well. Zero. Now we are seeing what can happen when all the wheels are turning. That won't last either but something in between and something better than 27-54 will result. Anyone else think this was the worst possible time for the AS break to happen? Two weeks ago I was anxiously awaiting it since I viewed it as a restart button. Now I dread it. I don't need too many changes. Deal Plouffe and Nlasco and bring up Berrios.

imo, this stems from the avalanche of criticism Mauer took for sitting out games, whether it was bilateral whatever or other strains and pulls. I never got on him because I never wanted to see ordinary Joe but tons of posters questioned his toughness and leadership. You can't have it both ways. Either guys should tough it out and play through injuries or rest until they can play their best. I favor the latter. As far as hand injuries go I hurt mine in high school and it was half the season before I realized I had gotten in the habit of holding the bat in my right hand with just the knuckles. Bad habits are another reason not to play through certain injuries.

With the way the Twins have played the last couple weeks playing .500 the rest of the way is a possibility. If Sano, Dozier and Kepler continue to rake, Buxton improves and Berrios comes up and is a badass I can even imagine the .550 clip. If this happens will you continue to say this is a bad team because of the 90 losses or will you say we were a bad team but now are pretty good? Personally, I have been disappointed in the season but still look forward to watching them way more than I did a couple years ago. Hopefully, they can split in Texas and continue to right the ship.

27-54 was the first half result. In the 2nd half they are 2-1 which projects out to 54-27. First half it took them 9 games to reach 2 wins. 2nd half it took 3 games. My conclusion is that they are three times better now than they were then. That conclusion is based on factual statistics that you can look up and cannot refute. Try to poke holes in those stats and conclusions. You know, without referencing that lame small sample excuse.

I bet he puts up better numbers even if he stayed in right field. I also did not see anything on Trevor May but his absence has been huge. I put this season some on bad luck, some on management and by far the most on the players either in their poor performance or inability to stay healthy. I guess injuries could be considered bad luck especially when a guy like Plouffe starts bad and then gets in a groove only to get hurt. Good luck is when he gets hurt while playing bad. Bad luck is when he gets hurt while starting to get hot. After last season how do you no rely on Rosario, Escobar, Sano and Dozier to play well? Sure, Perkins was a risk and the pen was a bit thin but Jepsen and May should have been solid. Instead they haven't just given us nothing. They blew 5 or 6 games early that helped set the tone for the season. That's worse than nothing! Surely it wouldn't have been unreasonable that May and Jepsen could have closed out a few games. If they did their jobs then Abad, Tonkin, Pressly, Ramirez and Rogers are not such bad support staff. Fien has a 2.33 ERA in 16 appearances with the Dodgers. How is it the management's fault that he had a 7.9 ERA with the Twins? Santana, Duffey and Gibson have started to show us what happens when they are healthy and pitching well. Why would anyone think they would give us nothing in the first 75 games? Milone had a sub 4 ERA in 100 starts. I had no problem in giving him the shot. After the last two years why would anyone think that Berrios would completely lose his command? I do blame the Twins for messing with Duffey and not starting the season with him out there. Even with the real and imagined deficiencies in management it is still not too hard to imagine Sano, Rosario, Escobar, Buxton, Mauer, May, Jepsen, Duffey, Santana, Gibson, Arcia, Hughes,, Berrios, Dozier, Plouffe and Suzuki having good seasons or good starts to the season. NONE of these guys performed well. How can the team possibly succeed when Kepler and Nunez are the only bright spots to the season? They should have just been nice side stories to a winning team. Twins have gotten better each month (faint praise) and I expect that to continue. There is more talent on this team than in the past. I certainly put it on the players that they are dong worse than the last 5 years.

Of course its an outflier. He set an all time major league record. However his control history before 2014 was just ok and 2015 was still really good so a good chance he simply figure it out.. The SO/9 dipped substantially which relates to velocity which might very well relate to his health. So I guess 2014 was an outflier but if his velocity had remained it might have been the new norm. Never one of my favorite guys to watch pitch because all his pitches looked the same. I enjoyed watching him pitch toward the end of last year more because he started throwing more breaking balls. I thought it might serve him well if he got his velocity back and it still might but I am not really counting on it either.

Yah kind of lost me by saying Rosario's D is iffy. Did you get spoiled by the Gold Glove play of D. Young and Willingham?

Go another week. Hopefully Buxton gets hot and Rosario can replace Grossman. Rosario, Buxton and Kepler is the outfield we have been dreaming about. Fully expect all these guys to be better after the all star reboot.

Poor comparison to Ortiz because Ortiz was a very good hitter with the Twins. Injuries and a determination that they would rather have Dougie M's defense at 1st than Ortiz and his bat was questionable at the time but it was mostly the injuries. Ortiz had an .809 OPS with the Twins. Arcia's best year two years ago was .752. Big difference.

Kind of funny. He said Nunez was a poor man's Zobrist and you pointed out all the reasons Zobrist is better. If Nunez was better then I would imagine Zobrist would be described as a poor man's Nunez.

Not sure either but I have seen a lot of arguments for and against. Players have made the jump successfully and of course if they do it is not questioned. Of course no one knows unless it is tried.

Only real issue is the without a doubt part. He can mash forever in AAA and still have doubt about his ability to hit in the majors. If the first two guys he faces are Kershaw and Felix and he wears the collar he is going to have doubts. If he faces a lesser guy and happens to get a few hits it might cause him to relax and get into a rhythm that will serve him well. I'm just hoping he gets off to a good start this time around which is the same thing I would hope for if he stayed in the minors for another couple months and was then brought back up.

That is a well reasoned position. Different from the position that if it was a decision that the Twins made that didn't work out then it was a bad decision in the first place. IYO, was Buxton held too long at any of the lower levels? Personally I think he could have got a little more seasoning at AAA especially in light of his lost season but have been told there is often more talent at AA than AAA. People have made the jump successfully and I don't think getting a look at major league ball is detrimental to development.