ashbury

Hip hip!

And maybe deservedly. People were flinging facts back and forth, So I decided to toss in a fact that was semi-relevant but really not. All in a spirit of good fun and if someone felt like responding in kind I took it in the same spirit. I think long-time readers are fairly aware by now of my exasperation with 2021's outcome, and its portents for the future. And if not.... it's only a ballgame.

Unless the Twins sign someone for $30M+ a year for a large number of years, then that pitcher is almost by definition not an ace. Because even the top teams can always find a spot in their rotation for a guy of that caliber, and the ones with the deep pockets will not allow themselves to be outbid easily. There's no reason to even bring up that word when talking about the pitchers mentioned here.

49 errors!!!! That's terrible! With a glove like th- .... wait, across 4 years? 12 errors a year? For a shortstop? If SS errors are your thing, you won't enjoy a return of Polanco to the most visible defensive position - he made 18 and 22 errors in his two full-time stints at the position (and he committed 17 this season, mostly at 2B). Gordon was error prone in the minors and the team showed reluctance to even try him there this year. Arraez... no. Just no. We need range in a shortstop, and an arm. Simmons touched the ball over 500 times this season, as did every full-time shortstop in the majors - his rate of plays made per inning was second in the AL among full-timers (though in years past, he usually would be #1). The number of errors that get charged are a drop in the bucket to a shortstop's total picture, in part because the official scorers are directed not to call an error on every play-not-made for statistics-keeping purposes. I'm not going to defend Simmons. He was "only" 31 but played like an old 31. He has slipped defensively to only better than average, and his bat is impossible to support no matter how good the defense - no player can save enough runs to make up for the black hole he was in the lineup. He was below replacement-level and won't be missed IMO. But I like to make roster decisions based on the full resume a player brings, not the superficial aspects. Oh, and, Welcome To Twins Daily. I wound up doing a little deep-dive on one of the supporting points you made, but overall I like the ideas you raised in this article.

Twins had 8 more wins than any other last-place team in 2021. Fact.

I would add deception to the list of qualifications. The fastball has to look for all the world like it could be an off-speed pitch of some kind, until it is too late.

Or to make manifest just how far from genuine competitiveness they really are.

13. What a disappointing article! Each Friday I look forward to a bit of trenchant satire here, and I see now that with RandBalls Stu having been kidnapped and replaced by a swarm of drones it's going to be a long, long winter where I will have to fall back on the creaky old Onion for my LOLs.

Jake Cave IMO has zero to do with decisions the team makes about the glut of marginal pitchers needing attention on the 40-man.

Are you from The Future? Are you here to tell us this won't be his only one?

I wish they had chosen different timing, later on when a flood of players are all hitting the waiver wire at once. I don't think Colina is super unique as a target for acquisition, it's just that this looks to me like a temporary move by the Rangers, who will in turn put Colina on waivers and likely be able to stash him in the minors but off their 40-man. That's the aspect I'd like to have Falvey elaborate on.

If it's an overpay situation, fine, I like good pitching as well as the next fan. But a trade of Garver means the FO has to turn attention to finding another catcher for the 40-man who is either strong enough for us to want in the majors all season or else is acceptably good and has minor league options. Those aren't for sale cheap, which is why Miami would want one of ours. I want to have a competitive advantage at several positions around the lineup, and Garver's offense provides that at catcher. You don't build a contender by being average everywhere. I don't believe a tandem of Jeffers/Rortvedt is championship quality for 2022, nor do I expect to incur no injuries to need to work around. None of Tomas Telis, David Banuelos, and Caleb Hamilton fit the job description, for me, as a viable third option. I'd rather Rortvedt remain the third option, until his bat develops further. OTOH, catcher is about the last position where I value having a total stud, since either he plays only 60% of the time or else brings roster problems by needing to DH on his days off (you can't attract a Nelson Cruz type if you have a Joe Mauer type). So my mind isn't closed to the idea. I just need some assurance that there is a plan beyond "gee, this looks like a good trade." That seems like should go without saying, but too often I've wondered about a move, only to find several months later that the plan was "we'll make do with what we have."

Similar in that respect to Mauer; and with a similar necessary outcome for a signing.

To save glunn (or any other lawyer at this site) the embarrassment of being "that guy", may I point out that a "council" is a group of people, whereas "counsel" is the word I think you intended to mean a lawyer or similar representative who gives advice? You're so very, very welcome.

I can't separate Baldelli to any meaningful degree from the front office. With regard to pitch counts, for example, it seems plain he implemented the front office's vision. I give them all a D. Maybe it should be an F, but I'll regrade it to that retroactively if 2022 gives further evidence they're running this franchise into the ground. And conversely maybe this should be a C grade if next year reveals 2021 to be just a blip toward their own benchmark of sustainable success.

baseball-reference.com computes their "Pythagorean" record as 70-60, so the difference must be losing a few too many close ones, and might account for what you felt.

The rubric of one game for each month imposes some difficulty, but if the focus is on season-defining moments, for me the April category has to at least consider the April Fools Day game where Josh Donaldson hits a double in his very first plate appearance and then has to come out due to a leg injury. "Season Over," we joked. Yeah, kinda was. Could have said, "Season Defined."

His baseball-reference.com page shows his nickname as The Doof. (He went to Rice University so the term is surely a fond one - he's not a doofus.)

The off-season begins the day after the World Series is over, and those initial roster decisions have to be made by then.

Ditto on the kudos.

I appreciate the analysis and the attempt to locate value in our player, but I feel the bar is set too low. A bat-first player who costs you runs when on defense is basically only breakeven if his OPS is .800. He needs peripherals more like in the Nelson Cruz range, to be an asset. Our 40-man roster is kind of thin with outfielders, once you discard the 30-year old placeholder corner guys, so I'm not eager to likewise discard Rooker for a bag of balls or similar. But I'm not very high on him and it's mainly the sad state of our roster that makes me open to investing further in his development.

Yeah. Pointless understatement. How about, THE most disappointing result in the history of human endeavor.

Swagger is all well and good, but how about command, and also consistency? Too many times I've seen him come out there with no ability to put the breaking pitch where he needs to, and then the hitters sit on the fastball. Some days he looks like he's found it, and then the next time out, zilch. I haven't seen him often enough lately to know whether I still feel the same; but consistency is partly about not getting too enthused about any individual outing. He's had a good September, fantastic really and nearly spotless except for one outing, but I'm uneasy that it's built on a BABIP of .111 - and the one blemish was against a top team. I'm going to withhold judgement about him being at a new and permanent level of elite achievement at least through next April, and against top teams when those opportunities roll around.

Any team with the Doof as closer probably is looking at 90+ losses. Not because he will personally blow 20 saves, but because the rest of the bullpen must be really mediocre and there won't be too many leads to save.