ashbury

Earth Humor.

This is really a nice contribution to Twins fandom.

Nine bucks, with a two dollar discount for youth (3-17) and senior (55+). They were handing out free tickets to tonight's Fall Stars Game - if you have an intention to go, I can give you one.

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League. I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL: The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was very crisply played. It was a 1-0 pitchers duel through 7 innings, before Peoria scored 3 more, and although the home team notched a couple on a ninth inning homer by first baseman Hall, this 4-2 outcome was completed in slightly more than two hours. Scorpions left fielder Trammell made a pair of very fine catches that might have kept the final score from being more lopsided. We had good luck in being seated near a few very talkative fans who kept us company during the game. Friday we made our way over to Surprise Stadium for a Salt River Rafters game against the host Saguaros. By the luck of the draw I've been there for several AFL games over the years, and I think it's a nice one: Travis Blankenhorn was the only Twins prospect who played today. He went 1 for 4 plus a walk, scoring two runs. Here he is, on deck - he sees his shadow, so six more weeks of AFL? Blankenhorn made a nice defensive play in the sixth inning with an unassisted putout on a grounder before throwing to first to complete a DP. And here is his home run trot - coming around to score after his third-inning walk, when Sam Hilliard hit a homer, but it's still a trot. He also scored in the top of the sixth on a sac fly, after singling and then moving up a base at a time. He caught the pop fly that ended the 8-3 victory in 7 innings (scheduled as such, to avoid tiring the pitching staffs in advance of the Fall Stars Game coming up on Saturday.) This is Salt River manager Tommy Watkins after making a pitching change. After the game, Tommy caught us unawares, by noticing my son and me with Twins or Twins Cities related gear (me with my St Paul Saints shirt, ashburydavid with his Rochester Red Wings shirt and his TC Twins hat), seated down low as we were. He made a point of asking where we were from. Just a 30 second interaction, but it's clear why Tommy gets such favorable reviews from all who meet him - he is an outgoing guy, plain and simple. Tomorrow we go back to Surprise for the aforementioned Fall Stars Game.

Santana was selected in the major league phase.

At the AFL game I attended tonight, Scottsdale's left fielder threw lefty, and the right fielder threw righty. FWIW.

Moderator's note: The bickering has gone to an unacceptably personal level, and needs to stop. Probably best if both parties drop this tangent since agreement isn't on the horizon.

Republicans have always been the protectors of coverage for pre-existing conditions.

I omitted any editorial comment in my reply.

Yes, and like Atlanta they could take him back off the 40 and try to sneak him through waivers.

The Red Sox won the World Series on the road, so my tentative plan to be a Cheapskate and lurk the Fenway environs in anticipation of a fourth win proved impractical. Next best thing was to pencil in Wednesday the 31st, when a parade in the team's honor was scheduled. Large crowds were anticipated for the 11:00 start, so again I relied on public transportation. And again I was concerned that the commuter train might already be full before it pulled into my station, but again it was easy-peasy. A rare unscheduled train for the event, and plenty of room. (Not so, on the ride home. Wisely, I boarded at Back Bay, one stop before Yawkey/Fenway, where tons of people got on and filled the train up.) I'm not good at guessing crowd sizes, but I'll go with 200,000. If someone in authority tells me it was 50,000, I'll think that was low but go with it. If they tell me it's 1 million, I'll think, wow, I had no idea. Bottom line, though, there was just a huge crowd lining the entire parade route. I figured I'd go all the way into South Station (most everyone on my train skipped Fenway and got off at Back Bay) and then work my way back toward Fenway, and pick a reasonably uncrowded spot to wait for the parade. That didn't work - wall to wall people at the Common and beyond, so I circled back by side streets and met up with the parade at Back Bay, near the train stop I wanted anyway. I bailed out perhaps a few minutes early, to catch the noon train. I can't say I'm thrilled with any of the photos I took, but here are a couple. This is on Tremont Street, near the end of the parade route, probably an hour before the Duck Boat vehicles would arrive: It was kind of luck-of-the-draw which side of the vehicle each given player was waving from, and even with names on the sides I'm still not sure who was who. Is Eduardo Nunez wearing glasses? This one is pretty definitely David Price, unless someone tells me it isn't. I have a picture of confetti but it is wimpy. To get an awesome photo, I guess you had to be up high, so I am stealing this photo from the Boston Globe: Season over. I am ready for the Arizona Fall League.

Pineda's track record is more than a 5-inning guy, so I'd personally lean toward having him start his own games - but who knows what percentage of his former self still exists. IMO it's not even a sure thing he contributes meaningfully in 2019. Romero was treated as a 5-inning guy this year, so until that point of view changes, I'd give him an Opener to help out. Any such pitcher can wean himself off of needing an Opener by doing well through his 2.5 times through the lineup and being strong enough to tackle the top of the order a third time - get through that cleanly enough, and I let him start the traditional way after that. JMO.

My view is that you begin with the intention to "go traditional" with a pitcher you expect to do OK the third time through the top of the opposing lineup, and use the opener with a lesser pitcher who you'll be itching to pull when the leadoff batter comes up the third time. When it works, the opener lets the nominal starter face the lower part of the lineup three times, but the top only twice. We're talking about small percentage advantages, here, but teams are always hungry for any edge they think they can get. And I say "begin with the intention", to highlight that you adjust your plan to accommodate realities, such as how rested your bullpen is, for example. There are approximately 162x9 innings to cover every season, and you can't do it with tons of one-inning pitchers. Somebody has to eat innings, and the challenge is to improve how that happens. On average, essentially every starter has more trouble the third time through the lineup, but high-quality starters may be less of a dropoff relative to a fresh arm from the pen, than lesser starters. So yes, "go traditional" with Berrios and with Gibson, and perhaps another who you develop confidence in. Established five-inning guys like Odorizzi, and probably rookies who might benefit from a little lower pressure of facing the bottom of the lineup more frequently, are my candidates for employing an opener - when they have decent games, you increase your chances of getting 6 innings out of them.

This is just a ruse, to be sprung on those who want to well-regulate our militia. "Wait, you were super literal where it came to that citizenship amendment. Why is 'shall not be infringed' such a tough concept, Pinko?"

Rule 5( c )( 1 )( C ): if the signing date of a player’s first Major or Minor League contract is between (i) the conclusion of the championship season for the Major or Minor League Club to which the player is assigned on such contract and (ii) the next Rule 5 Selection Meeting, then the player shall be deemed to have signed after the next Rule 5 Selection Meeting, for purposes of this Rule The term “championship season” shall refer to the full schedule of regular-season games that has been approved for a Major or Minor League Club in accordance with the provisions of Rule 32. The above excerpts are taken from THE OFFICIAL PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL RULES BOOK. I don't know which team he was assigned to, but in 2014 the DSL finished its regular season around August 21. So for Rule 5 purposes I take this to mean he counts as a 2015 signing, and thus he has one more year.