Greglw3

My two cents is the same as it was before this year. A reunion with Arraez would be very beneficial. They badly need his contact skills. That was supposed to be and could be Brooks Lee’s strength but he’s gotten caught up in the 5age old adrenaline rush cravings that hitting some home runs brings, which has skewered his plate discipline so he can’t be trusted for situational hitting when its needed most because he’s swinging for homers and I think it’s subtracting about 50 points from his batting average. Lee would be much more valuable spraying the ball all over the field, hitting line drives and hitting .300 with 15 home runs. Add Arraez to that and the wild offensive inconsistency of this season could be alleviated. The bonus is it looks like both Jenkins and Rodriguez are going to be high on base guys. Rodriguez is obviously ahead now but Jenkins shows at least spurts of elite plate discipline but then breaks down and chases, which he’ll have to learn is an adjustment he needs to make fast.

92 losses last year to much better than that this year with a vastly inferior bullpen. And I’m glad all over that you’re glad.

Total no-brainer, yes! He’s done a terrific job with a decimated rotation, a hapless bullpen for 65% of the year and an inexperienced and inconsistent lineup with the perennially offensively challenged Royce Lewis, about 60% of another injury marred season from Buxton, a decent amount of it chasing bad pitches, and slumping. Plus Wallner’s demotion, significant time without Jeffers. where the .220 hitting Caratini filled in. And I hate to say it because I’m a big fan of his potential but Brooks Lee has gotten caught up in the "swinging for homers trap" that ate up Max Kepler, is eating up Royce Lewis, destroyed Matt Wallner. Lately it’s been maddening some of the way over his head pitches he’s been chasing. Lee has such a high ceiling but hit’s around .250 when he could hit .300 with 15 homers. His defense has been out of this world. Larnach is, after all, not much more than an average hitter. Bell has the most professional at-bats and is the best clutch hitter, as his 86 RBIs and working counts constantly in clutch situations attest. If it’s good enough for Bell to hit to all fields, and for Jeffers to use the whole field, then why can’t Lee and Lewis. I could see an outfield of E Rodriguez, Jenkins and Keaschall next year with whatever time Buxton can offer as a bonus. Gabby Gonzalez to hit lefties. Adding an impact bat to the outfield would be a good play. Lee, Culpepper, Houston and a 1st baseman that they sign or trade for. Clemens homers are fun but he’s extremely streaky and that .238 batting average is not what I want when trying to build a winning team. Plus they still have Mendez, and Lackey could come extremely fast.

I agree, Zoll took at 22 games below .500 team to one that’s only 7 below and has a bright future with Jenkins, Culpepper, Lee, Rodriguez, Keaschall, Houston, Lackey, Bradley, Prielipp, Abel, Lopez, Ryan, maybe Roden, Gonzalez or Mendez and young pitching. They need to re-sign Jeffers and Minter and try to extend Ryan. They need to sign a solid starter in free agency. I think Zoll has done an admirable job as has Shelton and Hawkins and Sizemore.

I like Brooks Lee as the glue that holds the team together with his gold glove defense at 3rd, bat to ball skills and power, though I wish he was slightly less home run oriented. Lee and Josh Bell. 85 RBIs and the sophisticated approach he takes with men in scoring position put him in a near co-MVP with Lee for me. However, I think Jeffers may be 3rd most valuable and they absolutely should try to sign him to a 3 year extension. No excuses.

Uh, B-B-B- But I Say, I S-S- Say, Boy, I say Mr. Leghorn, please, I just wanna be like Lyman Bostock! Would, W- W- W- That please be OK M- M- M- Mister Foghorn???

Bell has been superb. His at bats in the clutch are a masterclass in how to work counts, have a professional at bat at most importantly, approach an at bat with the team’s success prioritized over any individual goals. I think his 83 RBIs are the most impressive statistic of any on the team at this juncture. I very much agree with the premise of your article!

Sadly true!

Just to be clear, I think Prielipp has outstanding stuff, and the potential to be a top of the rotation pitcher. He has a great slider, curve and his fastball is more than sufficient. It just appears to me that he’s worn down for this season. The two games lost, he gave up 8 and 6 runs while pitching very well at the start. I noted that in his 2nd to last major league appearance, Marquez pitched 5 innings of 1 hit ball. So, he has something left in the tank. That was my logic in the post. See if Marquez, being fresh, can give a competent start.

Remember Rich Coggins and Al Bumbry and the two barreled, scintillating rookie transformation of the Orioles they brought in the second half of the season. Coggins/Bumbry. Culpepper/Jenkins. You’ll never find out leaving 1/2 of the potential transformational tandem in AAA.

My sentiments exactly. It seems like a no-brainer.

It’s clearly time to call up German Marquez and have him start in a demoted Connor Prielipp’s spot. Prielipp is not the slightest bit competitive at this point. The other option would to be to call up Rojas and piggyback him with our newly effective relief core.

They thought it was Reggie?

For the whole month of August, 13 games .389/.450/.741

OPS+ with its extreme favoring of power hitters is not a fair statistic to use for a line drive hitter like Walker Jenkins. It’s not as inappropriate but in the same spirit as using OPS+ to compare Rod Carew to his contemporaries when he hit .388 in 1977 and won the batting title by 52 points plus the MVP award. Carew had a 178 OPS+ but Ken Singleton had a 165 OPS+, despite Carew having 239 hits to 176, 38 doubles to 24, 16 triples to none, 128 runs scored to 90, a .388 average to .328, a .449 OBP to .438, 23 SB to none (though not a great %). Singleton appears to be in the same league as Carew simply based on hitting 24 HR to Carew’s 14.

I caught that glaring contradiction as well! You articulated it very well!

I have to agree with everything you said, point by point - Tom, Zoll and Shelton all clearly better communicators than their predecessors and yes, that’s valuable! The higher aspirations and greater skill of all 3 has the Twins in the 3rd wild crd spot for now and whoa thunk it?

That's what I was thinking, 3 HR in game 1 and 3 more in the regularly scheduled game would be 6 Hrs for the day and earn a call up!

.389/.441/~.640 in August as of noon Thursday. I’d call that blowing the doors down.

Some good, old fashioned logic, context and facts being applied to the situation! Jenkins hit a 2nd HR in the rain delayed game!

.380/.436/.640 in August. Where is the barrier when he has "forced the issue"? Is it .450/.585/850? I can get the argument that displacing Larnach or Roden might be disruptive to the clubhouse. On the other hand, Culpepper has so far exceeded his own AAA performance. What if Jenkins merely matched his own? Worth watching as Jenkins hit a HR in the game to be continued today in the third inning to be followed by the regular Thursday game. Maybe a monster day will force their hand???

He’s been better than expected, hitting over .300 so far. Funny thing is, if Culpepper can come up and add such a tangible jolt to the offense, what can’t Walker Jenkins do the same thing? AN argument could be made (or countered) that Jenkins could hit better than any of the current Twins outfielders, two of which have been slumping in Larnach and Buxton. Jenkins certainly has a good chance to outhit Roden, just using the Culpepper situation as a frame of reference. Jenkins, is hitting ~ 20 points higher than Culpepper and fast developing power. Now I’m going to read the article I just spotted headlined "Jeremy Zoll explains why Walker Jenkins....written 9 minutes ago...I’m so curious!

I'm not one of the people that "won’t like to hear it". I love Kody Clemens and all the clutch hitting he has done. But he’s one of the streakiest hitters I’ve ever seen Now his batting average has dropped into the .220s and I accept the ~ .180 for last 6 weeks. It’s hurting the Twins. I’d do exactly what you mentioned, start with an outfield of Larnach, Buxton and Jenkins and move Keaschall back to 2nd. Some days I might even play Roden Buxton and Jenkins as it was starting to look like Roden was breaking through, showing he could be a valuable hitter just before Buxton bumped him. Clemens could play the Willi Castro roll except at SS. I like Brooks Lee at 3rd as his defense has been superb there. I also like his bat but wish he would focus less on HR and more on line drives, which would mean stop chasing bad pitches - I think then he could be a poor man’s Luis Arraez. Now it seems like he wants to be both a high contact hitter and a HR hitter but it isn’t working. I agree with the premise, Jenkins should have been up yesterday or 14 yesterdays ago. I thought we were trying to win but we repaired the damaged bullpen but then acted like the offense doesn’t need help.

As a platoon player vs lefties, leading off (anyone who can do anything well vs lefties is a boon for the Twins), Austin Martin for the whole season, has a .409 OBP. That’s just plain valuable. And probably why Martin gets the start vs lefties in the leadoff spot. He’s an asset.

You can never have too much pitching. The Twins success with righting Gomez and Kremer says maybe he can help! In his second to last appearance ~ July 31, he went 5 innings of 1 hit, shutout ball vs the Giants so he has something left!