Doctor Gast

Keirsey has officially started in a grand total of 3 games this season. Twins won all 3 games (I guess the win stat doesn't count), he got hits in his last 2, against red-hot NYM. A player can contribute in many ways, almost all his games he has played in were close except a few that Twins won & a couple in the beginning that he was put in when the game was already a blowout. Love your example of Robin Ventura, Greg. There are many examples of good MLBers who had bad hitting starts even after given many regular ABs. Keirsey hasn't been given enough regular ABs to amount to anything.

You hit the nail on the head, Bigfork. IMO, the best thing for his injury is to keep his muscles moving, warm & stretched out. Sitting on the bench, cold, between ABs, then commanding his hamstring to sprint on the bases, is a recipe for disaster. If Lewis injured his arm, then this would make perfect sense but not his leg. Also, Lewis's personality isn't one to sit on the bench. To gain the most from Lewis's enthusiasm is to have him on the field as much as possible. IMO, this isn't the time to move Lewis off 3B. Doing so could also cause further team chemistry damage, but none of this on the spreadsheet, so Baldelli might just do it.

A lot of games sitting on the bench never made a rookie into a MLBer, if you think that you are wrong. It takes a lot of regular ABs, period.

That's what analysts say. Each person is different & needs to be evaluated differently, & those should be given a fair chance & not be lumped all together & say he was 27 last year so he'll never amount to anything because that's what analytics spit out.

No, just a serious Twins fan that believes that Twins' main hope is to develop their own players like CLE, instead of trying to copy NYY. I know it's very difficult for MiLBers to make that adjustment to MLB. Keirsey can contribute with his defense & baserunning now. IMO, Keirsey has the character to make that adjustment hitting if given a fair chance with regular ABs. Rookies need playing time, the last 3 months, Keirsey has been sitting around & not playing. If they won't play Keirsey, he should be sent down, solely to get playing time.

Keirsey 43 PAs spread out in almost 3 months, that is not an opportunity. Margot probably got more than that in his 1st 2 weeks with MN. Keirsey should have had the same opportunity as Margot. Margot is a veteran, Keirsey is a rookie & most rookies need regular ABs to adapt to MLB. I'm not saying that Keirsey will be a star, but he can contribute with his glove, baserunning & eventually his bat if given a fair chance. That should be the goal of the Twins: to maximize the development of every Twin. To some players, they have failed miserably.

In Vazquez's defense of the black hole. Vazquez has gotten some clutch hits in close games in his last few games.

Julien has had the most chances to make a go of it of the bunch. IMO, the whole bunch should be sent down. Keirsey has had the fewest opportunities. The one time he had regular ABs, he showed promise & the team did well. But the other times, they were sparse. He doesn't deserve to be sent down but rookies need plenty of playing time; he's not getting it from Baldelli. He needs to go down to AAA to remove the splinters from his backside.

What! Send Julien down? Who will lead off? You have to trust the process, not the results (at least in Julien case).

I think it's interesting that MN is 6th in projected fWAR at 36.6 & CLE is 19th at 31.4, I believe MN has almost perennial beat CLE in fWAR but CLE has been more competitive than MN. I believe it's because CLE does the little things better, like developing their in-house players better & is managed better top to bottom, pitching not included.

I had a feeling before the game that if they could have good ABs against Crochet & drive up his pitch counts for an early exit, we had a good chance to win the game.

I'd like to add, Twins have, as far as I'm aware has had good team WAR. I'm not big on WAR but I do give some credence to fWAR. The Twins has been one of the top teams this season but has slipped to 6th place in fWAR, (IMO Twins put a lot of stock in WAR). That means we still have a pretty good team, so what's the problem? IMO it's how they are managed.

Falvey was hired to get the pitching pipeline going & the pipeline is finally starting to flow. But everything else he has failed miserably. There is so much to criticize, I'm going to generalize. I'm all for analytics, but if player evaluations and baseball philosophies are way off, analytics can't help you. Those weird analytics are focused on & the important fundamentals are ignored. We are a mid-market team; to be competitive, we need to draft & develop our own players & trade for promising young players to cover any holes. We aren't doing that. Many times they place players in positions where they think their bats play, but not their gloves plus have biases. Then the Twins' defense suffers a lot. They also like to place players where they don't belong. Some can fake it, if their bat plays, but others can't mentally or physically handle it & they flounder, aren't developed to the max & fizzle out, wasting their potential.. Falvey has great difficulty zeroing in on needs, initiating & finalizing trades, which is key to mid-market teams to succeed. Part of it is not having the ability & the other is that he loves to hoard all his prospects even if they are redundant. Therefore, he tries to become a poor man, NYY, we can't compete with them in FA (it's ridiculous to try) so we are a much inferior team. If you don't develop your own players, can't trade for them & can't compete in FA then we are lost. IMO, a leader must take responsibility for any shortcomings. What gets to me the most about Falvey is that he doesn't own up to anything. It's always the trainers or batting coaches or cheap owners; next will be the core & will be quick to dismantle it to save face. What made the '87 & '91 Twins so good was the core & the FO keeping them together. After our '23 success, Falvey began to tinker with the core. (My greatest enjoyment this spring is following Polanco). Tinkering with the core & not raising up deserving in-house players IMO affects chemistry, fire & morale among the ranks (IMO,that's why we have so little of it). IMO. the core doesn't need to go, it's Falvey & Co. We have wasted enough time, its should have been done last offseason. But I think nothing will help until after this season is over then bring back MacPhail & let him clean house.

Looks like Peter's optimism is back!

Glad to see Duran close

Management gets weird ideas, then they spin stats to support them. The players are told not to look at results and to trust the process. It is long overdue for ownership to look at the results & say the process isn't working & make changes. But Pohlads know nothing about baseball & are in love with Falvey, Falvey is in love with Baldelli & Baldelli is in love with Tingler, Conger & Watkins. So nothing gets done.

Bingo!!!!!!! & analytics don't show present or past underlying conditions that need to be acknowledged when making pregame & in-game decisions. Much less viable gut feelings.

2 things that I scratch my head on with this organization is their determination to showcase their new acquisitions & place players where they don't belong. Case in point, Clemens is played too often & he's not an OFer. I get that players need rest, but in-house Keirsey isn't overused, actually, he needs a lot more regular ABs. He makes a great play in the OF & then after being pumped, he's pulled? & Clemens is played over him in yesterday's game? Yesterday, the Twins out-hit CLE 13 to 6. France got 3 hits but came up empty when we needed them. We had base loaded & came up empty. It's not about how many hits or HRs you get, it's when you get them that counts. The 1st 2 games with ATL were winnable; if we had won those games with momentum, we could have won the 3rd. All the games with CLE were winnable. It's the little things that make the difference in close games. We need to do the little things we aren't doing well. Better player evaluation, fundamentals, in-game decisions, and maintaining the fire. CLE wins because they can & they develop better in-house players. When we had in-house player Keaschal with us & the Twins encouraged him, that added to the team's chemistry & fire. We need to do that with all our in-house players. In the last 14 games, we were 6-8. IMO, we could have been 12-2.

IMO, his biggest problem with the meatball was when he was a SP. Now that he's a RP he can execute better, he's perfectly fine, That said I don't think he's quite a closer yet & can expect some hiccups there.

I finally watched the highlights. Keirsey made a big fantastic catch. Too bad it went for nought.

A pretty sad game with so many bad calls, bad decisions & bad play. Glad I couldn't watch it.

& leadoff with Gasper. How can you normally score more than 2 runs against a good team with this lineup that had 13Ks?

I'm OK with Gasper or Clemens or Keirsey in the lineup. But not all 3 at the same time & not Gasper at leadoff.

The article is about the new ownership taking over the Twins & how fans can get on board. It has everything to do with winning. Joe Pohlad wanted to maintain some control over the team after he sells the team. A smart new ownership will never go for that. They'll want to change the direction of where the team is going. Maybe that's part of the reason the Twins weren't sold.

I'd rather win 3- 1 run games & lose 1 blowout than win 1 blowout & lose 3- 1 run games.