ashbury

Ji-Man Choi has the majority of innings at 1B, and he is scuffling at the plate relatively - I see 0.3 WAR whether B-R or FG. Whom do you have in mind?

Moderator's Note: Ewen, if you missed it, please go back and read the post I made at the top of the Sports Bar forum area: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/33218-political-threads-please-read/ I'm asking you along with the others to tone down the personal comments, as well as the readiness to provoke rather than discuss. When you say "I am [trying to be contrarian]" it implies you are purposely saying things merely to dispute, rather than what you believe. Whether you mean it that way or not, it's how it comes across. When you bring gunnarthor's career into the discussion, it is overly personal, and comes across as discounting the points he makes on a personal basis rather than on their merits. When you suggest you are being made an outcast (by others simply disagreeing with your points), it is again overly personal, this time about yourself, inviting the discussion to be about you rather than the video you brought to us. All these are touched on, in the post I referenced above. Please stick to the topic, and avoid the habits that invite a discussion going off the rails. You highlighted a video of an arrest and invited discussion, and so remarks about others' jobs or your being stigmatized are off-topic. And please don't further disrupt the topic you brought forward here by responding in-thread to this corrective post. Contact me or any of the other moderators if you feel the need to discuss this tangent.

Not getting too worked up over a 27-year old rookie, and dreaming on a 22-year old, are different things and can both be done. Though I agree with the sentiment not to forecast dramatic roster shuffles on account of a nice beginning to a MLB career.

Now 5-0, in the 4th. This has been your Circus Boy Around The League Update. Heaven help us, we're scoreboard watching. In May. I did not see this coming.

Doesn't that bring the roster to 26?

Like rain on your wedding day A free ride when you've already paid

You probably shouldn't wait several more seasons before your next post.

Moderator's Note: The Twins Daily Comment Policy pertains to all forum areas at the site. Of late, the site's moderators have looked the other way regarding some posts in political threads found in the Sports Bar forum. Effective immediately, such posts will again be held to the same standards as the rest of the site - warning points will be issued in cases of violations, and the offending posts may be deleted from view or otherwise dealt with as circumstances warrant. Moderator activity may not be apparent to the readership at large, and as always discussion of moderation policy within topical threads is not allowed. The key rules at the site have always been no personal attacks and no trolling. Please review the above link if you need to. Let me be a little clearer about how these principles apply to political threads: We expect respectful discussion. If you are about to address fellow posters or public figures with an attack on their ethics/morals/intelligence, either find a different way of expressing yourself, or refrain. If you are uncertain of what constitutes disrespect, a more conservative plan is to simply never make it personal about anyone (including yourself!), and keep it about the topic.Trolling amounts to posting primarily to get a reaction, in any of a multitude of ways. While most posts in political discussions are sincere enough on the surface, the intent too often is as much to inflame other posters as to make a point. When in doubt, make your points straightforwardly, rather than colorfully or ironically.Disagreeing with a fellow poster is not inherently a personal attack - otherwise there could be no discussion of any topic. But if you characterize another's opinion as ignorant, racist, et cetera, you inescapably imply the same characterization of the poster, and that is off limits here. I recommend you do a proofreading pass before clicking "Post" when arguing politics, to check that your words are not overly personal or overly inflammatory. If you see a post that flagrantly violates the site's standards, use the Report button rather than compound the problem with a bad post of your own. If the violation is minor, consider just ignoring it and moving on; the moderators are not here to help you settle scores via warning points with those with whom you disagree. Twins Daily is a baseball site, not a politics site, and the Sports Bar area is not central to the site's mission. If you find that the site's policy is too restrictive for your purposes in a political discussion, there are other sites to try. It ought to go without saying, yet seems to need to be said, that this policy is independent of the place on the political spectrum that anyone's views sit. Most political posts here have been OK, and thus a little additional forbearance by everyone should take care of the problem. As always the moderators welcome private discussion via PM if you are unclear on aspects of the policy.

I keep watching, and can't get enough.

Good game. Wish I could stay for it, but I am in the Utah desert getting ready to leave early in the morning for higher ground in Nevada. Moving from a favorable time zone to an even more favorable one - looking forward to watching some good Twins games in the coming week.

Q: How do you round up a half-dozen old goats? A: Post "Game Thread - Twins vs. ..."

IMO Rocco is doing little things here and there to tell his players, "this is MY team."

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Maybe useful, maybe amusing, maybe I shouldn't have bothered....

Or guessing better, with experience. I think he mentioned looking for a fastball which he hit that grannie the other night. Of course, "looking" and "guessing" aren't quite the same thing, more of a continuum.

It would probably be too small of a sample to slice and dice, but I wonder about this in relation to the count. I don't hold a bad swing at a low outside pitch totally against a batter when it's two strikes - sometimes there's no good choice - and in my "eye test" I might be discounting those. It's the "unforced error", where a batter swings lamely at a first-pitch slider in the dirt that I felt to be the Buxton trademark last year, and I think that's where he's now able to lay off. But that's why people keep the numbers on these things, to avoid the selective memory that I am relying on.

This is a good perspective. The word "leadership" comes to mind in what you are driving at. It's a little bit of a dilemma, then. I want the game threads to be a place to relax and enjoy the game, with others in a like-minded spirit. Being a leader in relaxation makes kind of a difficult needle to thread. Yoga teachers for instance can be the butt of jokes.

Just to be clear, I was drawing from John Bonnes's weekly summary from last week. I presume either he or Brock pulled some numbers from the database, and while JB didn't share the raw data, it provides a counterpoint to the totals that we can easily see. I also didn't feel I was equating one thing to another. When sifting through for candidates, you look for many things. It's disappointing to think of somebody who might be good, and then realize/discover that he or she isn't actually around here consistently. So I took the opposite tack in looking for good candidates. Nothing deeper than that.

He's laying off the pitches down-and-away. He's not swinging through pitches down the middle. Let's see LaVelle dispute that.

Obviously frequency is not by itself a good thing, and I didn't recommend Sixel. I just look for a level of commitment, which posting frequency can indicate. OK, I was online longer than I expected this morning, but I'm departing now, so I'll respond any further when/if I can.

My initial impression (there we go with that again) was he came here with a chip on his shoulder about analytics and was dismissive of others, but maybe he's better now, I tend to ignore him dismissively.

In the postgame interview, the way Byron looked at Miguel when the latter was speaking, followed by Byron calling Miguel his brother, pretty much can not be faked. Just two of the guys, so I'm extrapolating, but looks like the chemistry you want after a big win - everyone happy for each other, not just for themselves.

The league average would be even lower if our guys weren't helping prop it up.

If you can please now turn your attention to the Red Wings' W-L record ....

I revisited John Bonnes's week-in-review post from last week, and spotted Don Walcott's name. He seems to like the game threads, but doesn't post exclusively there, and I think he's been a pretty good contributor - which checks several boxes for me. Hadn't been on my radar before, so I don't have a stronger opinion than that to share - I'll start scrutinizing his every word from here on. In particular I think it's worth knowing how they react when someone disputes them, and it would take some time to track that down - I could pick a fight with him but posters tend to be more circumspect with moderators than with others. Most of the names listed were heavily weighted toward game-thread-only members, which I think to be more of a negative than a positive. I'd still like to see tallies separated, as I mentioned earlier.