ericchri

Coming off the ridiculous number of injuries last year, it would have been pretty hard to have a gameplan for this season. Who could you be absolutely certain was going to be a contributor? Barring blowing up the whole team that is, but there was too much "potential" in too many players for that to be realistic, either. It's been pretty lousy to be a fan for the last couple years, but at least this coming offseason you can have a more legitimate evaluation of what you have in the players on the team from this year. That's what has me a little more optimistic. I don't expect grand things from the team next year, but they're showing the signs of having bottomed out and moving upwards again. The ceiling doesn't appear to be really high yet, but it's easier to identify what to work on. The real question is what kind of team do you want? The Marlins have two fairly recent World Championships, followed up by dismantling the team and playing lousy baseball for years. And honestly, for some fans, that is what they want. Competing but ultimately failing doesn't leave a great feeling after it's all done (many of us also get the pleasure of being Vikings fans - Yay). Winning a championship so you have something to brag about is ultimately what you aspire to. But baseball is a different sport than the other big ones in that winning 60% of your games is ultimately regarded as being very successful, where the other sports the really good teams win more like 75-80%, some even more. It's pretty hard to build a team that you can say "that's definitely a championship team" in baseball, because a 10-win difference in record out of 162 games really isn't all that much (i.e equivalent to a 1-game difference in record in Football). We've been conditioned to believe a 95-win team is way better than an 85-win team, which is in turn way better than a 75-win team, but they're probably not much, ultimately. The season is 162 games long over the course of 6 months. Teams are going to change over the course of that time. The current team looks better than the team that started the season, but naysayers can (understandably) claim you can't just cherrypick when to start counting the record from. Last year's team had a silly-good month of being the best pitching team in baseball, which led to the mirage of being competitive, only to ultimately regress back. This year's uptick feels a little more legitimate to me, but not everyone will agree. I'm more inclined to believe Span, Revere, Mauer, Willingham, Doumit, and Morneau (and possibly Plouffe) will continue to hit well than I was to believe last year's team could keep pitching like they did for that short stretch. But it could come crashing down pretty fast, too, if the D's regress as a pitching staff (not hard to believe will happen) or if any of the hitters get hurt or cool off. The Twins need better starting pitching, I doubt you'll find a single person to argue that. But look at last year's Phillies. In the discussion as the best starting rotation ever, first round flameout in the playoffs. How many championships did the Braves win in the 90's? There's no ultimate answer "do this and you'll win." The 2001 Seattle Mariners went 116-46, and didn't win the series. I see a Twins team with a fairly good looking lineup 1-7 when everyone is healthy, and some pretty suspect pitching. And most of the suggestions revolve around trying to keep that 1-7 in pretty good working order and somehow improving the pitching. There are some reasonable suggestions to do that (move Morneau or Span to get pitching, put Parmelee in the lineup), but they don't guarantee success. They just indicate a team is trying to do something. We've tried to do things in the past, some have worked (Shannon Stewart), some haven't (pick one, there's lots). After an offseason of doing very little and not getting much better recordwise, the temptation to recommend numerous ways to get better by trading/signing/firing/whatever is pretty understandable. If you enjoy watching the Twins right now, good for you. If you believe this team needs serious work and the owners/front office/coaches/players need to be held to a higher standard, good for you. Passionate fans are better than apathetic fans. </soapbox>

Sort of a general question: Who does the trade deadline apply to specifically? Players on the 40-man roster? Just wondering how minor-leaguers are handled. It doesn't seem that there's really much trading of minor-leaguers for minor-leaguers without some major-league players being included in the deal, but if teams wished to do so, does the trade deadline apply if none of the players involved are on the 40-man rosters?

Mauer's a little bigger, but not much, than Corey Koskie was. Koskie built himself into a really good 3B after a very mediocre beginning, I'd wager Joe Mauer could do it too. But as has been mentioned, until Joe Mauer shows any inclination to allow the move, it's not happening. I think somebody needs to get LEN or JC or the like to start asking about the "rumors" of a possible move to get him thinking about it.

There's a lot of factors that go into deciding when to use which pitcher, and obviously there's no way to guarantee you'll always have your best pitcher available whenever you want. That being said, my main complaint is this (and it's not just a Gardy thing, but all of baseball): So, if the Twins are batting top of the 8th with a 1-run lead, presumably that is the time when the manager decides who to warm up. If for some reason you have 2 relievers left who haven't put in a lot of work over the last few games, Alex Burnett and Matt Capps, and the other team's 3 best hitters are up in the bottom of the 8th, who's gonna be pitching? Assuming the game remains a 1-run lead going into the bottom of the 8th, you still know that Alex Burnett is going in to pitch, it's just how everybody (Gardy included) does it. Capps is warming up "just in case", but not pitching until Burnett messes up, so that Capps can pitch the 9th. If Perkins (i.e. a setup man who is also considered a very good pitcher, apologies to Alex Burnett, he just appears to be the weakest member of the bullpen at the moment, I hope he proves me wrong) is available, I don't honestly care, that's not really my beef. But if the situation I described above happens, Burnett's going in, and that drives me nuts. It's also not unusual to see the Twins in a save situation and the closer warming up, only to have the Twins score 3-4 runs making it a non-save situation and the closer doesn't pitch, even though he warmed up already. And I don't necessarily think that he has to pitch that situation (save his arm for another day, etc...), but suddenly it's not a situation which gives him his "stat", so he doesn't pitch now. Even though a relatively pressure-free chance to pitch might be beneficial. It's not about miraculously knowing when you're going to have a high-leverage situation innings/days ahead of time, it's about recognizing there will be a high leverage situation in the next half inning and acting appropriately. In reality there are only going to be a very, very small number of these situations in a season, so it's not likely a season breaker. But that doesn't mean that in a few rare cases you couldn't use the best pitcher for the situation instead of pitching to the "role." I am fully aware that managers are not oracles capable of predicting that the highest-leverage situation will be in the 6th inning any given game before the situation arises, but there are some moments that you will have time to recognize such as my example, but the closer is still being saved for the ninth, even though you have time to prepare him for the 8th for an obviously high-leverage situation.

My least favorite thing in baseball... Don't play to pad your closer's save numbers. Outside of a being a good talking stat, it's pretty hard to claim that getting only 3 outs with a 3-run lead somehow proves you "saved" the game. I swear, anybody could save 35 games for the Twins the way he manages. Last year notwithstanding due to everyone being injured. It's infected all of baseball at this point, but wouldn't it be nice to see him put in his closer (theoretically his best relief pitcher, we'll see if that's the case) in the 8th inning to face the other teams 2-4 hitters with a 1-run lead, and let someone else worry about the ninth when the weaker hitters are coming to bat?