Doctor Gast

Although Wallner has slumped some offensively but I really liked his defensive play. He has risen his stock in my portfolio. The prospects we gave up is mainly redundant, You can't have too much pitching so Povich could be a loss but it'll be awhile before he'd be called up if ever because you can't be too sure about pitching prospects. I'm really excited about our core, the prospects that just graduated and the ones that are in the lower ranks. That to me spells success. I'd rather a few exceptional prospects than a farm full of redundant mediocore prospects.

Besides the 3 errors, some head scratching moves, Jax big HR given up and Gray not pitching his best game we were leading when he left. Was great to see especially Polanco then Sanchez raising to the occasion, hopefully they've started their 2nd half push that'll help carry the Twin to the PS. The game could have been ours. Not a bad game against LAD, let us continue & sweep LAA & KC. Go Twins.

My thoughts too, Ted. It doesn't matter how we get there it's that we get there. We have a great team but we are still working things out. When we get things worked out & gel, that's what matters when we face great teams in post season.

Never said we did. I wasn't talking about the trade I was talking about how desperate we were for an ace especially after Berrios left and how eager they were to brand some one as one.

I see that some react to our pitching after we traded Berrios as a drowning person. They deparately grab onto anyone that faintly resemble an ace. that's what happened to Ryan. He's very good but Ryan's not an ace & shouldn't have been treated as one, constantly over extending him. He;s a rookie & should have been treated as one, gradually eased into a 6+ innings routine. I see also 2 flawed attitudes of the Twins. They are being overwhelmed by team like NYY & LAD, they play uptight and never really get anything going to compete and the other being under whelmed with bad teams where they are way too laid back figuring they'll eventually pull one out but don't. The Twins need to master both to win the division. With Tim Anderson out, maybe our greatest threat isn't CWS but CLE. Let's set our goal to salvage this last game w/ LAD and sweep both LAA and KC.

You have a point Cody, I still don't understand why they took such a high risk on Paddack that with odds that we don't get anything from him. Mets flatly turned down the SD offer on him. Hopefully Mahle might prove himself as a 6+ inning guy thru out the season but I'll have to see it to believe it. Since almost all these SPs would only go 5 innings which should open the door to long relief for some of these guys. If long relief isn't implemented we'll have to try to extend our starters which we'll need to use all of them after losing most of them to the IL & ineffectiveness. I don't know how soon or ever our prospects will be able to make that jump but long relief is a great way to get their feet wet when that time comes. If they do implement long relief, then there could be a few we could use to upgrade our rotation. as trade bait.

That's why I mentioned Ober as a long relief possibility, not as a starter. I too don't put too much hope in those you mentioned to come in and make a great impact on the team. Actually our candidates for long relief that are available right now are more than enough capable to greatly help us, Our need for long relief has been long over due and needs to be implemented yesterday and regularly used.

Thanks Tarheel, I really appreciate it.

Great article, Cody. It's very important to find our weakness and improve on them. I also agree w/ TopGun that another area is lack of training in small ball- bunting, stealing, hit & run, hit the other way. After the year of the "live ball" (2019) our game strategy can longer be hit "moon blasts". Now in close games the strategy has to change from SO or FO as a result from the "moon blast" strategy to small ball, getting our runners in scoring postions & capitalize. But our greatest problem is the innings gap between the SP to closer. Our current strategy is (on the average) 1 SP- 5 innings + 4-5 short RPs to go 1 inning each in a 9 inning game if there's overtime or doubleheaders will cause additional strain . That means we have to have IMO maybe 11 short RPs that we can interchange & at least 2 to close and that we can trust to compete. After we traded Rogers it turned out that we could only trust Duran as closer & Jax & sometimes Theilbar. So that means we have to go mostly go with short RPs which can't trust to complete games. Management solution was to over extend the rotation, result was having all our SPs on the IL at some time or another, tired arms and lost games, so that's not the solution. We have a great rotation but we have what we have, they can give us 5 quality innings sometimes 6 but not consecutively on a regular basis. At deadline we added to the short RPs that we can trust, a SP who supposingly can pitch 6+ innings regularly, released Duffy and put Pagan on the IL. This was a vast improvement but was it enough? Mahle who were depending to give us atleast 6 quality innings, in the 5th& 6th innings gave up 3 HRs & 4 runs. After 2 games we completely depleted our BP leaving high ERA Sands & LHP Theilbar to face a dominating RH batters. They used Sands in long relief and proved as w/ Cotton that they are terrible in short relief but does well in long. My solution is long relief and use them regularly to fill that terrible gap. We have disgruntal A Sanchez, Smeltzer and Cotton sitting in AAA, that are very capable & trust worthy as present candidates with Winder and Ober soon returning, Why waste them all in AAA? Makes no sense to me, especially when we have a gap to fill. So the solution is not over relying on short relief or over extending our SP with added innings, it is to implement long relief to keep everyone healthy, fresh & happy to get us to & thru the post season.

Great job Nick, We have 5 highly reliable short RPs and the rest can't be trusted as you said needs to pick it up. I suggest to finally replace those short RPs that we don't trust with long RPs that we do trust. A Sanchez, who did a very good job for us, Smeltzer as well as Cotton. Sands as well as Cotton who failed at short relief has shown that they are very capable at long relief. Once Winder & Ober get well they are excellent candidates for long relief. Also a prospect like SWR, long relief would be a great way to get his feet wet some day. We desperately needed long relief prior to the Mahle/Lopez/Fulmer additions but like last nite game shows long relief is still needed. As always long relief is needed to releave the pressure off the SPs & short relief. To keep all pitchers healthy, refreshed and happy for the post season. Everyone is so concern with the OF, but I differ in opinion. Yes Larnach. Kiriloff, Garlic are down, & Kepler isn't 100% & Buxton has always been a concern with his health problems. In the past we should have been concerned about our OF because we really didn't have anyone to sub Buck and when Buck wasn't in CF odds were we lost the game. Now we have Gordon & Celestino to sub Buck, we still have a good chance to win the game if Buck isn't in the game and if we do it isn't because of CF normally. Yes we are missing some pretty good corner OF bats but if we keep Kepler or Cave out ot CF & keep Buck, Celestino and Gordon there, we'll be iust fine.

Gordon's pedigree made a large impact on why he was selected so high. I was very disappointed with his performance in the minors knowing he wouldn't stick as a starting SS. But I was very impressed with him willing to take on a totally alien postion and transitioning himself into a legit CF. I believed he'd improve his hitting but he has surpassed all my expectations and he probably has more space to be better. Gordon has transformed himself from a bust into a very valuable asset for the Twins. Go Gordon!

IMO Dman is spot on. We didn't develop Joe Ryan but maybe you used him only as an example. Which further states the fact that this organization can't develop pitching which is the main reason why we hired them. There has been some bad drafts picks, evaluations and trades by present & previous FOs which has hurt this club and farm system. But we have to look at what is a farm system for? It's not for winning MiLB championships although that's great. It's for developing valuable players core & continue to supply the MLB club w/ an influx of MiLB players to compliment the core. Any redundancy needs to be traded to fill hole in the MLB team. Although I've criticized this FO for not being proactive in trades, they have evolved into a pretty good trader which finally appeared this deadline. I've been very patient with this FO because they have had many bad mindsets but slowly they are evolving into a pretty good one. Pitching still needs a lot of work, they are still a long way from that "Ace Factory" that I had hoped. But as long as we can trade for some of them, I'm happy.

Starting the game, the cards were stacked against us. We had no big guns in the BP available, no Correa, no Buxton and I'd preferred that Leon started because I don't like how Sanchez calls the game & would have been very interesting to see how Leon handles Archer. Archer toned down his game (as I hoped), which resulted in less SOs but no BBs & able to go 5 innings. After a long wait they finally used long relief, although it's not the situation or RP I'd preferred, it worked out very well having Sands pitching 3 scoreless innings. Theilbar was put in a very awkward situation who is not a closer and a LHP against a dominating RH hitting line-up. Now if we use long relief more often we'd win more games and have a well rested & happy pitching staff.The pitching was great but the line up was mainly dead, only scratching out 2 runs when in the 8th & 9th when they finally got there lead batters on. When they should've been slaughtered they end up losing the game only on a bad over turn. Hats off to today's pitching corp.

You are spot on, when Lopez isn't able to close we need Duran to. Although using them in tandem is awesome but it leaves us high & dry when they aren't pitching because the others aren't qualified to do so. In the 5th or 6th a long RP (A Sanchez, Smeltzer, Cotton) should be used 1st & see how far they can go and now with added quality high leverage RP depth we can get by with 4-5 short RPs to complete more games w/o over stretching the BP. With overtime games we need a RP like Duran to mow down the batters

I'd consider Moran over Pagan, IMO the others are no better. But our more desperate need is long relief so I'd go with pitchers that I'd trust (A Sanchez, Smeltzer, Cotton now and later Winder & Ober) than any short RP that I do not.

You are probably right on that. But like Phil Hugh shoulder problem they've discovered that they weren't cutting off enough, so they end up cutting off more now, w'/ great results. I'd hope that they've learned and try harder to solve the problem than prolonging one's totally 100% recovery

Although they're still not great w/ RISP everyone contributed. Leon has been a great pick up, great defensively, calls a great game and has been good w/ the bat w/ us, wish he were catching again for us again today. Bundy only pitched 4 innings and I expected everyone would be down on Baldelli and Bundy but there's practically nothing. why? But Baldelli made the right call, Bundy pitched 4 good innings but it was obvious that Bundy was falling off the cliff in the 5th. Unfortunately, they had to use the 4 top guns again plus Theilbar. Will they use our top 5 guns again? I was surprised that they reused our top 4 guns for last nite's game. I hope they can, but I'd be very concerned about over stretching our BP. If not that'll leave OMG Pagan & Sands!!!!!!!! Even if Archer pitches 4-5 great innings we'll be doomed to lose the game! And Archer would miss out on another win. Here I'll rant again, they should have never waived A Sanchez or Cotton, 1st it was a slap in the face after giving us very good performances and 2nd we still need then in long relief. They should have sent down another short RP & not bring up Sands, In this series with TOR they were much needed to take the strain off our top 5 RPs and avoid using the others. IMO this has been a gross mismanagement of our BP. Yes they DFA Duffy (a step in the right direction) but Pagan & Sand should not be pitching in this series.

Too bad they hadn't anticipated this specific problem the 1st time as to not have another surgery done and delayed his progress. Speedy recovery to him.

It'll depend on how well he performs going into & during the post season. If he's super, they'll forget the mediocre regular season.

Back when Gordon was worth something in the minors I was all in to trade him off, because I didn't think he'd make it at SS and he'd only mature into an average 2B. Now that he's almost worthless, he's invaluable to the Twins. He has reinvented himself as a very adequate CF, where we had no one before. Now when Buxton's not in the line up, I no longer automatically write off the Twins as a loss. Once he established himself at CF and get acquainted with MLB, he start establish himself as a hitter. By just looking at what done at every level. Now getting back to the game, that was a very gutsy move to send Gordon w/ no outs. If it was a perfect throw he'd be out. I haven't been impressed with the top of the order lately. Correa got a couple of nice hits last nite but has been sporactic as with Polanco. Buxton has been absent even when he's in the game and Arraez is very horrible according to his standard of hitting & fielding, We need them to step up especially in a series like Toronto. I was very impressed w/ Mahle his 1st 4 innings but his next 2 innings w/ 3 HRs concerns me. The report back says that he gets better further he gets in a game, in this game it definitely didn't happen. I don't doubt his dominance but I'm wondering how he should be managed. Last night he might have gotten tired because of the the extra endrinaline in his system due to pitching for a new team, which his next outing will be different, Or it's because he has pitched 6+ innings regularly until now and it's catching up to him and he should be dialed back. They used all 3 RPs that I'd trust to close last nite game plus #4 RP which leaves only Theilbar to set up and no one to close tonite's game, I have no idea why they brought up Sands, I have no trust in him. We have only 5 RPs I trust and that should be up here, the rest needs to be sent down or released. In a play-off games we need every RP that we trust that can fill the gaps to complete the games, otherwise we'll end up with the condition we have now. Winning a big game using our 4 top guns leaving only Theilbar (which I don't trust to close a game) and Pagan & Sand (whom I have no trust in). That stacks the deck against us going into tonites game. Against a tough play-off team if we use all or 4 out of 5 of the big guns we have we may win one game but definitely lose the series. We need to better manage our pitching especially our BP. We have to have at least 1 set up man and Duran or Lopez to close or it'll be to our disadvantage. We don't want that, Under that premise we'll have a gap between our rotation and the combination of Theilbar, Jax, Fulmer, Lopez & Duran. We shouldsubstitute the rest of the short relief that I don't trust with a long relief corp (that I do trust) of A Sanchez, Smeltzer, Cotton now and later Winder & Ober or maybe SWR. We should have done this from the beginning

God bless you Tyler for the years of good service, you'll be remembered by them and your even temper. And in your next phase of your life.

Thank you for that info, much appreciated, but my intension wasn't that the ump missed any calls.

It's a shame that Gray pitched a great game but he didn't get some calls (maybe because Sanchez wasn't able to draw those close ones in for strikes) & only seeing Pagan blow the lead and Duffy blow it wide open. Maybe if Gray got those close ones he would have gone another inning, but what would that solve? Could that alleviate one of Pagan or Duffy? I don't think so (I'm sure Baldelli had in his mind to use both no matter what). It may have alleviate one of Duffy's inning that's it. With a tough team IMO Duffy & Pagan should not be used not even it looks like we got it sewn up. That's the problem what to do with Duffy & Pagan? Just use them for mop up against poor teams? That seems a waste of valuable roster spots. Can we send them down? IDK. Can we put them on the IL for some mysterious injury? IDK. Should we DFA them? maybe Duffy (although it wouldn't be nice) since he has only one year left, Pagan would be more difficult. The problem also is the mentality of management when it's obvious that something isn't working they stubbornly stick to it, examples; years of thinking Cave was a legit back up to Buxton, Polanco was a great SS, Colume' as closer and now Duffy & Pagan as legit BP options. In our BP we had only Duran & Jax that we could trust & rely on (to the point of over extending them). Now we have Lopez, Fulmer & hopefull Theilbar, the rest I do not trust, aren't ready & shouldn't be on the active roster. Then what can we do with the remaining spots? I suggest we open up those spots with long relief candidates. I know "long relief" isn't in many volcabulary especially Baldelli's. We have a few MLB proven candidates, Winder did a great job the 3X he was used in April until he got burnt out in the rotation. Sanchez & Smeltzer has pitched very well in MLB for us, we are wasting them in AAA, they are candidates right now. When Winder & Ober comeback they are candidates and Cotton could also be if he clears waivers & when they need him. None of them need extra time in AAA, We don't want our BP & rotation burnt out or injured for the play offs. Long relief will keep them healthy & fresh at the same time give these candidates value time in MLB and that includes pitchers like SWR a way to get their feet wet in MLB.

I'm glad Chief that we agree that the old days are over and I can agree with you it is better to have 4 capable short RPs to complete a game than 1 capable long RPs for that game. But over the long run or even the short run it will wear down the BP. A team that can develop their pitching where they have 8 capable long RPs on the roster and a bunch in the minors will go far. We don't have the pitching developement to crank out those pitchers to compete & vie to advance in the post season. Just because nobody have "long relief" doesn't mean we shouldn't. To compete we have to be innovative, that means when you see a constant problem you strive to resolve that problem. To change our mindset & think outside the box. As I stated before we have had many capable candidates who are SPs who are wasted in AAA that should be in the "long relief" role on the MLB Twins.

Any idea when Mahle to have his 1st start as a Twin?