ashbury

Kreidler is in the starting lineup in CF. It is way past time for the RH batters to start pulverizing lefty starting pitcher - otherwise, why sit Jenkins? Anthony Kay's 2026 splits suggests he is murder on the typical lefty batter - .518 OPS against, this season. Fine, maybe. We're still holding on to a hope of sneaking into the post-season? I'm skeptical about that, but then I was uber-skeptical on Opening Day and events have proved me wrong to that degree. But now, into September, there needs to be a benefit from swapping out Jenkins and playing the righty Kreidler. Kreidler has rewarded his manager with only a .575 OPS against the lefties. Might as well give Jenkins the experience anyway, if that's all we're buying with this choice.

Well, that's the source of the disconnect. Bear with me here. In the Buxton thread I took issue with an oblique mention of Jenkins, and you (Mike) took issue with that, and it didn't feel germane enough in a Buxton thread to pursue. See, if a Pohlad Du Jour had asked me way back at the beginning of this past off-season, I would have said, bring up the kids as soon as they are reasonably ready - the idea of contending in '26 was beyond hope. And they would have parted ways with me, just as they did with Falvey for what I presume to be similar reasons. Pohlad wanted to compete. So my pre-season forecast was even more pessimistic than the mainstream - I think I said 61-101, not because of a sheer lack of talent but because I expected underperformance by some players and injury to others - impossible to predict in specific players but hard to avoid as a full group - and that the pitching staff in particular would collapse. Underperformance (Wallner and Lewis in April for example) and injury (Lopez even before the season could start, Abel, and others) did indeed occur - and yet the team has managed to hover near .500, just below but never like I thought it would. Position players like Clemens have overperformed my own expectations, likewise some of the pitchers. But anyway we don't GET to say, tank 2026 and maybe 2027 in order to get the kids experience - ownership has had their say. When there are articles or user posts suggesting "they waited too long to bring up Jenkins", it's in the context of the plan ownership put in place to compete - and the early performance by Jenkins does nothing to say that bring him up sooner would have addressed THAT. What's best for Jenkins (bring him up as soon as he was recovered from early-season injury) isn't necessarily best for ownership's plan (compete this year). To mention Jenkins yet again in the context of the Buxton hip injury is just irrelevant, unsupported by the (very small sample) of his major league performance so far. Lotta verbiage - sorry - but the topic doesn't admit to simple solutions like many posters want.

IOW we're replying to basically a clickbait article.

Lefty? Fedde?

You would be incorrect, sir.

I could get behind this look, though. If I could stand the team, of course.

I was responding to the reverse judgment.

Real doctors will be a lot less certain about your questions than us Internet Experts. 😁

Hoping for the best tonight and recognizing that it's only small sample size to go on, but if not for a home run off of a position playing during a blowout, I believe Jenkins's OPS would be sitting under .500(!) right now.

Instead of implying that this is a negative, you could observe that in his very limited opportunity they gave him the favorable matchup 11 times out of 20 (not always a given, as a short-side of a platoon) and he struck out in 6 of those favorable opportunities. They would have needed to give him 13 more opportunities against LHP, and for him to strike out in none of those, just to get down to a more tolerable 25% K rate. He didn't offset that with much success in the 8 tries against RHP either. How much rope is enough, given lots of other guys also deserve rope* at the same time, when major league rope is always in short supply? Good for him, he got his cup of coffee, and not many prospects get to say that. Maybe Pittsburgh will unlock more for him. People say all the time, "let's bring up the kids and see what we've got." This "kid" will turn 27 later this month. * "enough rope to hang himself" is perhaps an unfortunate metaphor to have chosen if I'm going to say "deserve"

Messages from beyond the grave often do that.

Good luck to him. Even though the Twins' corner OF logjam is mainly of lefty hitters, probably he sees better opportunity in the Pirates organization.

Hopefully not before the batter and runners reached their bases and the umpires called dead ball.

We've all seen sites infested with people anxious to post "FIRST!" in every thread's comment section. Hurrying to be the first to post a bit of news that is hitting the major sources of team news anyway (even if I have done the same a time or three because it's fun) seems similar. It doesn't have to be stamped out entirely, but it's not to be encouraged either. I know what you mean about TD articles coming some time after a member has started a substantive thread that isn't simply breaking news. That's harder to draw bright lines for; people can come up with the same basic idea independently and publication of articles can be on a long timeline. TD does (or did?) have a policy of elevating "regular" threads to articlehood, which makes the member feel good. Conversely letting a paid writer step in like that leaves a bad taste and is a bad look (how many other senses can be affected?). All that said, it helps to be pragmatic about who TD is really for. 1) Its owners and other principals, 2) the writers they contract with and pay, and 3) the general membership. If the priorities were ordered differently, the article writers would gradually drift away, and the revenue would dry up causing the owners to drift away.

"Frontrunner" doesn't start with the letter 'a'. 🙃

For every team X not in the very top revenue tier, X Daily probably has an article explaining how if all the injured arms come back at 100% on Opening Day and all the pieces fall into place, the rotation is on the verge of dominating. I'm too young to be this jaded. Sorry.

Luis Arraez, a lefty, started 41 games in LF for the Twins in 2019 and 2021 combined. 😁

May I commend to your attention the fantastic computer game Out Of The Park? You will love wheeling and dealing. I am sure that no bad habits will develop in your view of how to approach fellow GMs. 🙃

This goes beyond a tool that lets me control my own experience, to a tool to control others' behavior. I can't get behind that.

We played the blame game continually during the past 12 months or so. The manager was incompetent and so a replacement was found. The POBO was incompetent so he and ownership agreed to part ways, and someone else is driving the roster decisions. The team was peeking its head above .500 at the end of July and the roster was rewarded with replenishments in the area of greatest weakness, the bullpen, and those acquired players have as a group performed well, yet the team as a whole laid an egg during August just when you would think they'd be inspired to get better. Now we ask again whom to blame. The nice thing about advocating "sell" instead of "buy" at the deadline is that the blame game for those moves won't come around until half a decade later when the prospects collected in trade demonstrate their merit or lack of same. Articles like these suggest easy answers are possible. I can't help but tune out.

Nobody knows who you are replying to if you don't use the Quote button.

Five to tie, six to win. Let's go!

Hope we have a similar rally killer when it's our turn.

The clash of baseball titans is starting to remind me of this classic bout. Which team will crash through the barrier first?