Dantes929

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.

If we didn't have Polanco I would not trade Dozier for Polanco. I like him but he is the 97th rated prospect and doesn't really tear it up in the minors. Conclusion it that I would maybe trade Dozier for a top 50 guy rather than top 100. All star second baseman hitting well right now with a pretty solid career, under control for a couple years and only 28. Do not sell low. As far as the Twins go you can make all sorts of assumptions based on their performance so far but it would shock me if at least 15 guys don't have better 2nd halves than first halves. Whether they lose 95 or 110 I still feel way better about this team than I did about 2012-2014. Its easy for me to imagine a Santana, Duffey, Gibson, Berrios rotation pitching way better than what we saw in the 1st half along with better offense from 7 guys. I would really like to see May in there as well. Of course there are lots of organizations that have had many seasons in a row of suckiness and maybe the Twins will be one of them. There have also been many teams that have gone from worst to first and the Twins could be one of them., Guys playing poorly is not proof that they will continue to play poorly, especially young ones. We are 7-7 in our last 14 and the losses have been close because the guys are playing like they were supposed to all along. Nnolasco our best pitcher and Nunez our best hitter is not what this team is.

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.

I agree with you somewhat and concede you might be entirely right but its not what I feel in my gut. Three innings is a lot to ask but the bottom line is he had the lead and lost it. If we beat them in New York in 2004 there is always the chance that the Twins could have come out on top in the series. Nathan actually pitched quite well in that opening game in New York in the regular season in 2009 and it was more to the Yankees credit that they came back on Nathan but if he shuts them down its possible it changes the next two games and certainly affects both the Yankees and Nathan in the playoffs later. Yankees were 17-17 that season and had three walk off wins in a row and credit that series with righting their season. Hard to argue since they went 86-42 from that point. The feeling on the Yankees that they can always come back and beat the Twins combined with the feeling on the Twins that they cannot beat the Yankees is a pretty powerful force. Nathan had a couple chances to nip that in the bud but did not. If you don't think one or two games can make a difference look at the Royals first playoff game in 2014.

2009. I was already thinking it. Nathan in the first game of the series had a 2 run lead in the bottom of the 9th and gave up 3 runs. Nathan was great for us but it seemed like half his blown saves were against the Yankees. The 2009 game and at least two blown saves in the playoffs against the Yankees. If Nathan had saved those games instead of blowing them who knows what might have happened. I had bet on the Twins in the 2009 game and with a 3-1 lead I saw Nathan warming up. I had a really bad feeling and offered my ticket for just my original bet back. Statistically everyone should have been jumping at the chance but everyone else had the same feeling.

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?

The comparisons were to Blyleven because of the quality of pitches Duffey had last year. I find it odd that people don't think a guy's curveball can't be as good for one season as Bert's was for 22. Its not that remarkable. The remarkable thing was Bert doing it for that long. I concede the small sample evidence though. You are right that there was nothing unique about Duffey's season, last year, good as it was. Deduno was a good comp because he is another guy that had a lot of stuff but was held back because of command. Nothing unique about that. I just see people jumping off the band wagon because of a bad stretch. They will jump back on after a good stretch. Its up to Duffey to have that good stretch.

Except I am not comparing careers. I only picked Duffey and Diamond because they had decent fastballs that they had good command over and Diamond had a good curveball and Duffey a great curveball. If you are saying Blyleven had 7 better seasons and 1400 better innings than Duffey's partial season then that leaves 15 seasons and 3500 innings where he did as well or worse. I don't know how many ways to say this. IMO, the league did not figure out Duffey. He is simply not throwing as well. He has the talent to do so again but that is up to him. Blyleven did it for 22 seasons. That was to his credit and why he is in the HOF. How can i make comparisons on how and what they throw at a given time and how can I do it without having people compare their entire careers and calling it ridiculous? Bert compared Duffey to himself many times last year. I have not said Duffey is a HOFer.

I like it. Rivera would not be ashamed of the 10 inning stretch that Boshers has had. If Bosher gets an expanded roll and continues with the .9 ERA and strikeout totals for the rest of the year I would have no problem saying Bosher pitched as well as Rivera this year. Doesn't mean I would be in favor of locking him up for the next 6 years for a 100 mil.

You are right. I respect what Blyleven did but do not put him on a pedestal. He wasn't usually considered the ace on any staff but he was very good for very long. It is no insult to him to say Duffey was as good as him last year. Duffey threw his fastball with movement on the corners and had a curveball that broke every bit as much and just as sharp as Blyleven's which is why I say the talent is there. You are right about the strikeout thing and I really don't care all that much about strikeouts. I am fine with pitching to contact if done well. Right now Duffey is not doing it well and right now Duffey is not pitching as well as Blyleven which is my whole point. Blyleven is talked about because he pitched well for years. Not because he was spectacular in any one given year. I just said Duffey had talent. Not that he was going to be an HOFer.

Way to twist my words. Duffey's ERA was 3.10 last year which is better than Blyleven's career numbers. His strikeouts per 9 was better than all but one of Bert's years. Doesn't make him a HOFer but its nothing Blyleven would be ashamed of. There are hundreds of hitters capable of a month long hot streak so no. I don't care to compare Grossman to any HOFers. Not a lot of pitchers capable of a 2.25 ERA over 9 games. Its no insult to Blyleven to say that a lot of pitchers have been as good as him for long stretches of time. His glory was in being that good for a really long time..

He is an excellent pitcher if he has command. Not a whole lot different than Berrios. Or any different than a whole lot of other pitchers who have stuff. Last year I said he was every bit as good as Blyleven which some here considered blasphemy but I stand by it. Last year his command of his fast ball was very good and his curveball had a little more bite and downward motion, imo. For one year Diamond had a great curve ball also. Blyleven never pitched much better than Diamond in 2012 or Duffey last year. What made him great was that he pitched that well for 20 years. Duffey, Berrios, Meyer and May are all very capable with very good stuff but command is half the equation.

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.

There is always the possibility that this season is fooling people. It is quite possible that this season is fooling people into thinking Dozier, Santana, Gibson and Plouffe are washed up, that Buxton, Sano, Sano and Berrios are busts and that just because they are losing in droves now they always will be. Losing begets losing. How much is psychological and how much is talent? IMO the talent this year is better than it was last year so the dismal results this season are more of an anomaly than the limited success of last year. If the next 100 games are as bad then I will revise my opinion.

Somewhat of a difference with Ortiz. Its not like he didn't hit with MN. He had an .808 OPS despite the fact that every time he started to get hot he got hurt. .808 OPS for his first years in the majors isn't bad. He got hurt a lot and the Twins liked Dougie M. I think he would have done just fine with the Twins. I can't figure Arcia at all. He used to have the sweetest swing but just swung too hard and tried to pull the ball too much. I just wanted him to stride toward the middle and take a healthy swing but now his approach appears to be better but his swing doesn't look as smooth. A lot of talent that I would hate to lose but right now it seems inevitable.

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.

I value leadership but if you followed last year closely Hunter's leadership was lauded when he was hitting three run homers and wasn't mentioned much when he was slumping. If Hunter gave Buxton some focus and perspective it would probably fall under mentorship. Certainly leadershiop is closely related.

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.

You two are not alone. There is probably a separate place for these complaints but now sure where to go. I have given up on several topics because of it.

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.

Reading these pages the last several years there is a pretty clear consensus. Twins are the slowest team in the majors to promote their top prospects to the big leagues. They should promote their young stars and let them learn at the big league level. The top prospects they do promote, they promote too soon and for the wrong reasons. and hinder their development by letting them fail at the big league level. Personally, I am ok with this move since I didn't really want him sent down in the first place.

Plouffe for a decent reliever if we can. Move May to the rotation so that by year end it is Santana, May, Duffey, Gibson and Berrios. Outfield of Arcia, Buxton and Kepler. Sano, Escobar, Dozier (Polanco) and Mauer in the infield. Still a few holes but a calendar year or two rather than light years.