ashbury

Is this ERod's first major league walk? The a-hole ump wanted to ring him up, but fortunately ABS challenge was available and he was confident enough to call for it. Considering his reputation for watching pitches go by, he seems to have taken a smart approach and crossed up the book on him these first few games. But eventually everyone needs to take the walk when the pitcher won't go after him. The upshot may be that the umps will just redouble their efforts to haze the rookie, just like they seem to do to every new guy who comes up. Maybe it's just selective memory on my part, or maybe umps really do have an agenda (not an anti-Twins one, particularly, except to the extent our team tries a lot of rookies).

They tried that approach in 2023, DHing him the whole time, and he still went on the IL two separate times.

When Luis Arraez was on the Giants this season they scored an average of 4.16 runs per game. Since trading him to the Phillies, SF has scored 4.29 runs a game. * I'm not saying Arraez is a bad baseball player. But he's not some magic run-scoring machine, himself; and he's not some magic catalyst in teammates scoring runs either. One of his magical talents, though, is inducing fans to think that he is. * Okay, to be fair, Philly's run scoring has gone up too.

I dislike DH'ing Buxton on a regular basis, for at least three reasons. One, we tried it in 2023 and he had his worst season at bat since establishing himself. Two, he gets injured even when not on defense - 2023 again being an example since he landed on the IL twice. And third, it's waving a white flag of surrender in advance of battle - when he's healthy enough to play CF he's one of the more valuable players in the majors and I'm unwilling to give up on that potential even after this many years. "Injured" gets treated like some kind of on-off or yes-no switch on a game console. The reality is that anyone's injury is on some scale of severity (and of course injuries to different body parts affect the parts of a players game in different ways). A step up from yes-no would be a percent of capability (still a vast oversimplification), and that's where the calculus for Buxton differs from most players. If Ryan Kreidler is banged up so that he's, say, at 85% effectiveness, you just IL him - he's not a major league player in any sense if he's reduced at all. Buxton, OTOH, might be better at 85% than, say, the OutMan at 100%. But in addition to the points in the above paragraph, the other flaw in most analyses is that the actual effect of many injuries, on a player's game effectiveness, is simply unknowable. 85% like I alluded to above is BS (I picked those digits for the similarity 😄). The player himself can't tell you, the medical staff or trainer can't tell you, nobody can with any certainty unless there is a bone fragment sticking up through a guy's shin area. Buxton will tell the manager or physical therapist, "I'm hurting, but I can play." He's not a liar and he's not stupid - he simply doesn't know, in a lot of cases, exactly how the way he feels will affect things in the heat of battle. Sometimes he'll say, "I can't go today. But I've been through this before and maybe tomorrow?" Again, he's not a liar and he's not stupid - he's trying to make sense of what his body is telling him, and the trainer can't help him achieve certainty. Sure, if the trainer can respond, "I've seen these before, it'll take two weeks," that's useful - but a lot of times it won't be black and white like that. So, in sum, I don't want to designate (heh) Buxton as DH. Sure, DH him if it makes sense to give him a day or three to recuperate. But I keep having flashbacks to 2023, when the lesson seemed to be, if Buxton's not good to go in the field, the bat may not be "all that" either.

None of this matters. The '27 Twins will have the '27 Yankees standing in their way. Ruth, Gehrig, Combs, Lazzeri, Meusel - a real murderer's row and there's no way to compete with that.

You could have knocked me over with a feather, when the article stated that Luis Arraez moved around that much, and (in particular) 2B wasn't his home at all. I thought I pay attention to this team! 😁

Welp. Judge gonna Judge.

None of his managers have so far. 😄

This season the MLB average number of pitches per plate appearance is 3.88. Arraez is at 3.72. There's no disputing his fabulous, low strikeout rate. I don't know of stats for moving runners, but driving in runners has never been his forte. You don't mention run scoring. This season Twins leadoff batters have scored 98 runs so far. #2, #3, #4 batters have scored 86, 87, and 86 respectively. Arraez this season has blended his time in these four spots, and is on a pace to score about 72 runs. He's never scored more than 88 in his career, and his 162-game projection for his career is 83 runs. Where is the improvement supposed to come from?

I'm only up to page 3 but what a disaster. Will anyone still have their job a week from now?

This last RBI was only on a double. Baby steps.

Joe Ryan's not bringing back much in trade this coming off-season.

After striking out only once in his first 5 games in the majors, Jenkins has now struck out 12 times in his last 27 plate appearances, a 44% pace. He's gonna have to figure something out, because the league sure did.

Gameday changed its mind, apparently. I'll try to restrain my enthusiasm next time.

ERod: In play, no out! / edit - An out, how disappointing.

Stay tuned, but for now, I'm just relaying what I heard. Some people (my doctor is one) are very reluctant to just come out and say what they wish to be called.

Watch for the upcoming TD headline, "The Twins May Have Waited Too Long on Emmanuel Jenkins Rodriguez"

Biggest news: Derek Shelton (and the interviewer) called the rookie "Emma". Guess that's definitive!

Get over to the Trademark Office and register this before Twins Daily steals it from you for their corporate logo.

Clearly. It's just math.

I don't know whether the Twins or Buxton have said anything definitive, but TD published an article just a little while back, authored by someone with medical background, that I feel (maybe unwisely) willing to take as nearly gospel. Don't be put off by the tongue-in-cheek title, it's not Satire. Oh, and that article takes a deep-dive into what an impingement is because that is exactly the word used on Buxton's official page at mlb.com - so that at least is not an outsider's guess.

As forensic evidence?