ashbury

Releasing dudes that offend us is the easy part. Who do they get replaced by? Simply calling up guys who aren't ready or never were or never will be is not a solution. Outman for ERod is the only combination that makes any sense with this depleted roster.

Bad offense. Bad bullpen. Bad ... result from an off-season that barely addressed these issues.

Alex Jackson has superficially decent overall AAA stats, but I looked at his game logs and he has base hits in only 5 of his 12 games. For reference, Ryan Jeffers has had base hits in 11 of his 17 starts at catcher or DH, and that's against major leaguers. Baseball averages are basically the "mean", and I've often wondered whether a second-order measure such as "standard deviation" would be revealing about certain players having uneven performances, but I've never invested the time to try to investigate. Anyway, my working theory (lacking real analytics) is that Jackson is one of many hitters who knows how to feast against lesser opponents, with Plan A being "wait for your pitch," but who has no Plan B and flails when the opponent has the command to put his best stuff where he wants it time after time. Last year's breakthrough at Baltimore appears to have been a mirage. If the need arises to bring Jackson up, I don't expect good results. I realize this is a controversial take, not to mention answering a question no one has even brought up. 🙃

Do you remember the illustrious Twins career of Jaime Garcia? Recker was part of that fascinating sequence. The Twins stashed him at Rochester for the remainder of the season.

If you have one apple, and someone takes one apple away, how many apples do you have left? 😁

Will our offense find a way to surmount this deficit?

There are too many names on the 26-man roster that don't belong on a contending team, and not enough replacements worth an audition. Who can they bring up to replace Banda that will make the team better? I'm sure you'll say "anyone!!!", but as soon as that replacement from St Paul puts up an ERA of 7.00 we'll all be lobbying for someone else again, as though magic will make a AAA player like Matt Bowman suddenly become an asset. Who can they bring up to replace Clemens that will make the team better? I'm sure you'll say "anyone!!!", but, well, there isn't anyone. Different warts on the next guy perhaps, but just as many. ERod is the only one at St Paul who seems like a good bet to deliver average offense or better (though some worry that the Ks will loom larger in the majors), and promoting him makes sense as a replacement for Outman but doesn't do much to fix the problem we all see with Clemens. If ownership is really serious about this year being one for contending, they need to let the FO take multiple steps to fix things. But I don't really buy that PR in the first place.

Reunion time for Taj! Hope there's lots of handshakes and good vibes.

I think they are not for you and me, who scan most articles daily and contribute to some. TD broadcasts some of their articles outside the website itself, and this series strikes me as in this "marketing" vein.

Just about how you'd expect a couple of bad teams to slug it out.

I haven't seen him pitch but there's now one more start to look at. On Wednesday April 22, whatever command issues were present in his first three games "magically" went away - 0 walks in his 4 innings. The strikeouts were fantastic, as well - 7 of them - and Peoria so far has been leading the league in runs with very few strikeouts, so that's quite an accomplishment. Only four base hits, so that should be a pretty good WHIP for the game. His first three innings were clean. Immaculate, even*. One fly out, one ground out, and the 7 Ks. And yet - ultimately it wasn't a good outing, because he gave up 3 runs in the fourth, due to a sequence that involved all four of the base hits and culminated in a home run. It might have been even worse, except the first of the base runners got picked off. The game lowered his season ERA to 10.50 - that's how bad things had been across the first 3 games. Oddly, his already unsightly BABIP for the season went up - the four base hits came from among a small number of balls in play because of all the strikeouts. BABIP is one form of analysis that usually normalizes closer to .300 with time. Another way of looking at the numbers is that for the young season his OPS-against is .829, which is bad but one that correlates to an ERA of more like, say, 5.50. Sequences of hits is another thing that usually normalizes. I don't like the word "luck", but it's very possible that we'll see better game results going forward, without there necessarily being big additional changes in the pitcher. Fewer batted balls finding grass and a more typical number finding leather, plus base hits scattered more uniformly instead of bunched - it's easy to imagine far better results if yesterday's performance is a baseline. That's based on a big assumption that the walk rates in the first three games were the anomaly and that the 0-walk performance yesterday represents him figuring something out that will be lasting. It's also an assumption that the bunching of base hits isn't due to losing composure on the mound. Both are things that hopefully the coaching staff can address. So yes, a couple of big BIG assumptions. But prospects are for hopes so I'm going with that * Ha, after posting this, I went back and looked at TD writer Matt Braun's game synopsis, and he chose the same word, "immaculate." So it's a thing.😀

They literally do not. 2023: 2 2024: 2 2025: 5

What was your favorite Eric Wagaman moment as a Twin?

The man's 28 years old. You're never too old to learn, but if he's still developing at that age then he qualifies as a slow learner, I'm afraid.

Definitely small sample size. I'm not "worried" worried. Just a troubling start to his season.

Counting stats versus rate stats. His RBI opportunities have been few, but he's not cashed them in at a good rate.

He's caught Matt Wallner Disease*, at least in the small sample of 100 PA so far this season. Bases Empty, OPS .880. Runners On, OPS .462. (Four solo HR, one two-run shot.) > 4 run margin, OPS 1.071. Situation 4 runs or closer, OPS .680. (Tie game, OPS .456.) This helps explain 7 RBIs for about 1/7 of the season. Hope he turns this around fast. * Who caught it from Joey Gallo. Unsure who Patient Zero was.

Smeltzer? He barely knowz 'er. / for old times' sake

Perkins wasn't starting games past 2010, so if you use that year as a starting point these are the career leaders in games started for the Twins (b-r.com's Stathead tool): 72. Francisco Liriano 2010-2012 58. Scott Diamond 2011-2013 52. Brian Duensing 2010-2015 40. Tommy Milone 2014-2016 29. Martin Perez 2019 25. Adalberto Mejia 2016-2019 25. Hector Santiago 2016-2017 19. JA Happ 2021 19. Devin Smeltzer 2019-2022 I took the list this far because it kind of demonstrates how the number of lefties starting for the Twins has dwindled. Depending on how you want to frame the question, I could nominate Liriano as the last real lefty starter, or Perez, or Happ. But all the other names, particularly Diamond, provide some entertainment value, as frequently used lefties in their respective eras.

Ken Schrom's, Allan Anderson's, and Albert Williams's 15 complete games* each as a Twin might be untouchable in today's game, I don't know. 😀 * to say nothing of Blyleven's 141 and Kaat's 133.

Not sure what Zoll means to "chase" it, assuming that the "it" is "soreness". I will guess that chase means to try rest first, and if that's not the answer then they would start the more aggressive treatments like anti-inflammatories, with a notion of playing catchup at that point. He goes on to describe their course of action as playing it safe, and maybe that's the medical opinion of 99% of qualified doctors, I wouldn't know. I probably would have reversed the terminology and called "rest" the play-it-safe option. Not word salad, exactly, but his quote took more than a little parsing on my part, and I'm still left uncertain.

The Spiderman confrontation? I think it's still going.

As far as I know Enron™ is still registered too. Probably equally valuable. 😀