ashbury

Don't look now but coming into the game his June OPS is .824. Jeffers for comparison is .337. No one in the Twins brain trust is going to stake anything on such small samples - but the trend is that he's earning starter's minutes once again.

Really? The Yankees demanded a high price in return for taking Donaldson off our hands. I did not want to see my Adopt-A-Prospect go.

Martin's catch in LF? Indeed. I was talking about checking some boxes when Austin hauled in that home run in center the other day; this catch today addresses another box I mentioned, of making good decisions when coming in. Unless Buxton could pull a rabbit out of his hat, that ball had inside-the-park HR written on it if Martin completely whiffed. I was half-expecting that. Instead, really nice play that required a correct decision and then execution.

Weird Al Yankovic and Hyde.

Guys are lauded as "gamers" as long as they still produce.

Rooker is tied for the AL lead in strikeouts. The readership here would be going nuts if he were still on the team.

Good point and maybe it carries the day. But if Wallner were added to the roster, at the expense of Farmer, then against a righty you start the above group, and when a LHP is brought in to face Larnach you pinch hit the righty Margot, and then next time around the batting order you have Wallner to counteract the RHP relievers the rest of the way. (Or start Wallner and have Larnach as sub, they're kind of interchangeable even if not identical.) Don't know if it stretches the talent too thin in the infield. But Farmer just isn't getting the job done at bat and he's no longer better than average at any defensive position to make up for it. The subtraction of Farmer would leave a 40-man spot open to bring someone up (or in) if the need arises.

LOL, no.

LOL, no.

Life isn't money, money isn't life, and you will dispute the most anodyne expression of well-wishes to someone who got bad news, for no reason I can possibly think of. Have a nice rest of the evening.

Are you really asking Riverbrian to elaborate?

Hope he figures out how to pick up the pieces and find his way forward in life.

Almost by definition, we can't answer the question usefully, because if we could, they wouldn't be undercover anymore. 😀 But there was one guy for sure. He wasn't undercover, and was validated as who he said he was; funny story. He still stops by occasionally.

I wouldn't trade nearly as much as The Athletic says I should. And therefore I will be outbid at the deadline, because some other team always will.

How many games do you believe Lewis would have played at SS so far this year? 😀 He's appeared in 12 games for the Twins, and that would have left 60 for the shortstop stylings of Kyle Farmer.

Depends on the player, and the team's ability to finance their payroll, but I do agree that it's a tad premature to be gloating quite yet. Those teams didn't back out because they didn't think he could put together numbers like we're seeing right now, they backed out due to injury concerns, as I understand it. Long way to go yet, on the guaranteed part of that contract. The backers-outers could still be proved right.

Since his BA on the road is .402, that's the main component of his SLG, the difference of .087 being an ISO that isn't one of a slugger either. It's an oddity of the terminology, nothing more; it takes nothing away from his being very good at what he (actually) does, which is mostly hit singles in any ballpark.

To go back to the metaphor I used in the post you replied to, I didn't say he'd checked every box on the list yet. 😀 Consistency is something that can probably be acquired; I also haven't formed an opinion on the related matter of his game intelligence, such as coming in and deciding to be a Hero on sinking line drives, AKA Jake Cave Disease. The arm probably is not something that can be corrected if it hasn't been corrected by now. But not absolutely every box needs to be checked, in order to be a productive major leaguer. He profiles better in LF due to that arm. But we lived through a season of Ben Revere in RF, so nothing is impossible. Another unchecked box for him is power at the plate. That's another one that is looking unlikely. A three-tool player if he turns out to be that... there are uses for those.

Martin: one of the boxes Austin had yet to check for me was the ability to play the outfield wall. The time or two I'd watched him try, it hadn't been impressive (or successful). As of today, that box is unchecked no longer. He may still fail to close the deal on a long, difficult fly ball from time to time, but it's not as though he simply can't.

I always come back to the notion that even if Arraez is close to a one-tool player, that tool is the most indispensable one, and his hit tool is elite. To the argument that he doesn't provide power, it's easy to counter that with "it's a team sport", with some players setting the table and others driving them in. You might not want a batting order with 9 Luis Arraez types (of varying talent level - a lineup of all .350 hitters would be pretty darn good, but those are unicorns as you say), since you'll normally need 3 base hits in an inning just to score one run and not even Ty Cobb batted .500 in order to do that with regularity. But you wouldn't want 9 Dave Kingmans* either, at the other extreme. Balance is key to good offense, and Luis Arraez can be part of such. You mention OPS and I always like to point out to its detractors, who'll say things like it overrates home runs, that 1) it's only a quick and dirty stat and doesn't promise Absolute Truth about anybody, and 2) unlike any other component, it values batting average TWICE in how it's computed, homers or walks only one way each. I think it's actually pretty good for a q'n'd stat, and counting base hits twice (in OBP and in SLG) seems about right. Batting average is important, and it's how Arraez earns a good OPS even with minuscule ISO; he doesn't slug, and yet his slugging average isn't embarrassing. Ultimately, though, I turn the "team sport" argument around the other way, and point out that someone like Arraez himself doesn't do for his teammates what he expect his teammates to do for him: drive in runners. And for all his hitting prowess, he's on a 162-game pace to score only 95 runs this season. That's very good and every team would love to have that from its regulars; the average team last year scored about 750 runs, or about 83 runs for every spot in the lineup. But 95 isn't other-worldly, and the other-worldly batting average kind of misleads what his full contribution is. At some point you have to stop blaming the teammates and acknowledge he infrequently puts himself on second base to be easily driven home, and he almost never drives himself in with a homer, both of which are ways to assure yourself of scoring more runs with the same batting average. He never really "yield(s) a lot of runs scored." Not a lot lot. Plus, he's only on a pace to drive in 42 runs, and it's not useful to say it's not his job. That's part of yielding a lot of runs too. Runs are the job and every contribution matters. Yes he's a unicorn, and it's easy to over-value those. IMO we did great by obtaining an established starting pitcher in trade for him. * Old school reference, I know. One of the complaints about the "modern" three-true-outcomes style of play is that it's turned every batter into Dave Kingman. While Dave himself was a fun oddity in his day, the effect of everyone being like that is dull for many observers.

A visit to an Asheville NC restaurant changed my view. Sauted in a little oil as you say (I think sesame oil was involved), garlic, lemon, some brown sugar, grated ginger - that was what I could reverse engineer, and it turned my opinion around completely. Then again maybe anything bathed in a thickened gingery lemonade, with a little cooked garlic and sesame, is probably improved except my morning corn flakes.

I once saw Cale described as your favorite guitarist's favorite guitarist, FWIW.

Don't draft anybody as a second baseman. Be honest and call him a good defensive first baseman or so-so left fielder, and draft because you totally believe his bat plays if he's stationed there. This is even if he's a college man. Because, a quick scan of first rounds of the draft a decade or so ago suggests this is what you end up with on a draftee designated "2B". 2B leads you to fool yourself that he's almost good enough to play SS - but he won't be. Tons of guys with the SS label in the draft aren't good enough to stick there either, so don't kid around about 2Bmen. You'll get your 2Bmen from the SS who wash out. What's that? Edouard Julien was drafted as a second baseman? Yeah, as an 18th rounder. This is a first-round discussion, yes? (And plenty of folks will argue that Eddie's not destined to stick at second, even now.) (I have to go back to 2011 to find a first-round exception, the illustrious Cory Spangenberg. Oh, okay, Kolten Wong, later that same first round - yeah he's been good.)

Two different questions.

He got a base hit in his one opportunity after being plunked. I suggest someone on the bench just keep playfully tapping him on that spot on the arm, to keep his head in the game.