ashbury

... In The Best Shape of His Life!™

Can the Sire actually be won by someone playing his Spring games on the back fields? 😀

All other concerns having been addressed, the FO completed their off-season preparations with the signing of Ty France. What other meaning could this have? This Twins team is destined for 100+ wins, baby! Book it.

It used to be that you'd bring up a youngster and let him get his bearings in the majors by pitching in relief. Not always, not every prospect, but it was respectable tactic, dating back to the old-timey days when rookies were downright hazed. In more modern times, Johan Santana is a classic example, though it was debated hotly at the time whether they took too long to convert him back to starter status, and one could waste time arguing that their decisions cost him a HoF plaque. Adam Wainwright is another, more clear-cut example, who came up to stay in 2006 and pitched exclusively in relief for the Cards, then converted back to starting and never looked back. By contrast, starter-prospect-turned-reliever Trevor May remarked early in his career that he understood his situation by embracing the bullpen, and that it was too hard for a pitcher to switch to starting once he got accustomed to relieving. There's a disconnect here. The game evolves, but what exactly about it has changed so that putting a guy in the bullpen in the interest of getting to the majors quicker constitutes a death knell for his opportunity as a starter down the road?

I'd like to see Lee start the season at St Paul regardless of his hitting in camp this spring. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the 40-man roster has enough plausible candidates to staff the infield without him! If someone steps up, Lee goes down if I'm in charge.

Didn't Dobber's downfall begin with a finger injury? Perhaps the knuckleball grip would aggravate it.

I will, and I'll tell everyone You Stole My Meme!

"The test results came back, Mr Lewis, and I'm afraid you've got a bad case of Tommy John of the Knee."

I won't take the bet but will pray you're wrong.

I suppose it's a sign of the times that anything I think of to say in regard to the Yankees trading him would earn me vitriol for "being political.". 😀

Treize, s'il vous plaît.

Are your questions as rhetorical as mine was? Santana met my low expectations for him. Castro has exceeded my even lower expectations. Stewart has been quite good, "when healthy." And the FO, perhaps in tandem with ownership, has under-achieved what I had hoped for 8 years ago. If a gentle bit of humor is "insulting," then Derek needs to grow thicker skin, but I'm pretty sure he'd take my highlighting a bad move from a year ago in stride. Perhaps by throwing Thad under the bus for constructing and advocating that particular Dodger trade, but in stride.

(Checks calendar. It's mid-February.) He is!

I'd be curious to know more of the context of those comments. Maybe Rocco was referring to the coming weeks before Opening Day? France's antipathy toward analytics is interesting. Hopefully the new batting coach and assistants are better at communicating than last year's seemed to be.

I look forward to trying to lip-read his conversations in the dugout with Matt Wallner. "Well, sure, it's easy to get plunked from YOUR side of the plate." 😀

.734 isn't all that great in the first place, for a 1Bman with minimal defensive prowess. Do the Twins' talent evaluators go any deeper than, "oh yeah, I've heard of him," like a fan? I sometimes wonder, when they bring us players like Manuel Margot.

Mauer. With what they paid him, he still owes them something.

Pick a lane. 😀

His OPS with bases empty last year was .680 and was .706 with RISP. The one remaining situation, batter on first, he was an uncanny .768. Make of that what you will. 😀 The problem for me is that Willi's just not a very good hitter. Oh, he's a good hitter for a shortstop, except that he isn't a very good shortstop. He's fine in the utility role but should not be leading a team (with ideas of contention) in plate appearances.

Amazing rebuttal. So you have no particular explanation for how a team can finish dead last in something and still make the post-season? I mean, and still have that "something" be of importance?

The Tigers had the fewest innings pitched by starters in the entire majors in 2024, and they made the post-season. I think that amounts to a passing grade whether on a curve or not. Innings per start just isn't a way to judge anything.

It's interesting to compare the 2017 Astros (who won the WS) and the 2017 Twins (who had a surprising winning campaign after Total System Failure in 2016). In a nutshell, the Astros bludgeoned their way to the title, and for every Astros batter who contributed hugely, the Twins had a similar candidate who came up short by comparison. All the Astros' bets seemingly came up aces; we had Buxton beset by injuries compared to Correa, and Sano beset by, well, being Sano compared to Altuve. The Astros signed a big contract with Josh Reddick, which paid off handsomely for them in their WS year and then he was below average for the remaining 3 years of his contract. I didn't analyze any deeper, but those observations on the surface lead me to expect that the conclusion comes down to execution and luck, more so than the master plan itself. One thing I remember, though, is that supposedly the Astros' TV ratings measured literally 0 at one point during their 3 years of 100+ losses, and ballpark attendance declined significantly during that period. It's a lesson I suppose can be taken - that Ownership has to be on board with losing money or breaking even on low revenue for a few seasons in the pursuit of potential profits down the road. The Twins seem to have a plan that involves a profit every year even if the team on the field is bad. (I also note that the Astros didn't get back above .500 before they started trading for players making significant money and signing free agents again. Chicken and egg, somewhat.) Anyway, Terry Ryan never uttered the word "rebuild" to the best of my recollection, but it was evident when he came back as GM that that was exactly what he was doing. It just didn't work. But signing Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit didn't impede Byron Buxton's development. Carlos Correa panned out; Buxton, at least to the same degree, simply didn't. Perhaps, with perfect hindsight, the plan should have been to take Kevin Gausman or Max Fried instead of Byron, but Correa himself was off the board on draft day.

Ha, we seemed to be typing at the same moment. 😀

Twins starting pitchers in 2024 went 852 1/3 innings or almost exactly major league average. This despite slightly worse ERA than average (4.33 vs 4.15 for the majors). Said another way, only St Louis starters pitched more innings despite an ERA as bad as Minnesota's. The stats in 2023 were even more pronounced, when Twins starters were actually performing well. Then, they were 4th in the majors in starters' innings. The trope that "Rocco has a quick hook" is old and tired. When he's got the horses, he manages them much like his peers.