jm3319

Love your breakdown of the AL MVP and I completely agree. No wrong answer, but Trout gets the nod in my book as well.

Fair/foul calls are the epitome of OBJECTIVE calls. There's nothing judgmental/subjective about fair/foul. The ball is on one side of the line or the other. period. Football: The guy either caught it, or didn't. He either had 2 feet in or didn't. infield fly rule: the ump has to make a decision based on the situation and how the players are interacting with one another to see whether or not to call something. There's no magic line in the outfield that controls the IFF, hence it was JUDGMENTAL/SUBJECTIVE. There's a huge difference. Just like you can't review holding calls or anything in football that's just the ref's opinion on a play.

Um, no. You can't use replay to look at any judgmental calls in ANY sport. This would 100% not be reviewable in baseball. Replay would not be an option here. Bad call. MLB and the Umps need to man up and at least admit the mistake. No changing it now, but at least acknowledge the mistake.

The terms "perfect Swing" and "evolve and become better" don't exactly work with each other. Face it, Mauer is good for 10-13 homers a year. If you expect more, you're only fooling and disappointing yourself.

The Twins didn't want to trade prospects to boost their playoff teams by going after a guy like Cliff Lee or other starters because they wanted to protect the future. Well, we're in the future now, and it isn't pretty. I'd much rather have put the chips on the table and tried to advance past the first round and suck these past 2 and next three years because of it. They risked nothing and got nothing in return and here we are.

well, he won the batting title for highest average by a mere human this year. Nothing wrong with that

I think you spelled TROUT wrong because no sane person would pick Cespedes over Trout, unless Trout did something personal to you like kicking your dog or something. That must be it. Trout kicked your dog or ran him over, didn't he? Now I understand. That clearly trumps the clear winner listed below. [TABLE=class: tablehead, width: 922] [TR=class: colhead, bgcolor: #E8E8E8 !important] [TD=align: left]YEAR[/TD] [TD=width: 8%]TEAM[/TD] [TD=class: textright]GP[/TD] [TD=class: textright]AB[/TD] [TD=class: textright]R[/TD] [TD=class: textright]H[/TD] [TD=class: textright]2B[/TD] [TD=class: textright]3B[/TD] [TD=class: textright]HR[/TD] [TD=class: textright]RBI[/TD] [TD=class: textright]BB[/TD] [TD=class: textright]SO[/TD] [TD=class: textright]SB[/TD] [TD=class: textright]CS[/TD] [TD=class: textright]AVG[/TD] [TD=class: textright]OBP[/TD] [TD=class: textright]SLG[/TD] [TD=class: textright]OPS[/TD] [TD=class: textright]WAR[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow] [TD=bgcolor: transparent, align: left]2012[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: transparent, align: left] OAK [/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]125[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]473[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]67[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]136[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]25[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]4[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]22[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]80[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]40[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]100[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]16[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]3[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent].288[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent].350[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent].497[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent].847[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: transparent]3.1[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE=class: tablehead, width: 922] [TR=class: evenrow, bgcolor: transparent] [TD=bgcolor: #F1F1F1, align: left]2012[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F1F1F1, align: left] LAA [/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]134[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]539[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]125[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]173[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]25[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]7[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]29[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]79[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]64[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]132[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]47[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]4[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1].321[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1].393[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1].555[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1].948[/TD] [TD=class: textright, bgcolor: #F1F1F1]10.4[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

No love for students on the poll? I had to lie and say I'm employed working 40+ hours a week. Professional school at 50-70 hours a week sure feels like work, except having to pay for it rather than get paid. Maybe I was supposed to say I'm unemployed, not looking for work but that to me is far different than being in school.

[quote Because the offensive triple crown is all done with the bat. It is the things that the Batter can directly control. The person ahead of me beat me to it, but please explain how the batter can control how many people are on base for him. In theory, a leadoff guy could hit like 50 triples in a season, a bunch of doubles and 30 homers, and have very low RBI to show for it. RBI is just not a good reflection of a hitter. the real triple crown should be batting average (a measure of how well the batter can hit the dang ball, but I'm open to arguments against average)/ OBP/ SLG avg/OBP/SLG...you win these 3 with a good number of "traditional stats" like homers mixed in and you deserve to win. My vote goes to Trout. He does more for his team than Cabrera. You can win games with the bat, but you can also win them with the glove and legs, too.

If we can get some MLB ready pitching as well as some pitching prospect(s) then I say we worry about defense in the outfield later. I'll easily trade a little offense and defense from a team that's absolutely terrible at pitching. Having said that, it still needs to be the right return and not just a trade for the sake of trading him.

Plouffe missed a lot more than 5 games with a little thumb injury and hasn't returned to form since. Where was all the outrage over that? Or does no one care because he isn't making $23 million a year?

he's not the source of the problem. but at the same time, he isn't the solution. You honestly think he can rally the troups and get guys like Mauer and Morneau fired up after hearing the same voice after all these years of never really being THAT good? I don't think so. I don't like change for the sake of change, but if you're not going to make a change after 200 losses in 2 years, when will you make a change?

How about our whole front office? The "haul" would be ridding the team of this mess (and dumping it on a different team) and bringing in fresh blood that the organization desperately needs. Probably more valuable than anything the Twins can acquire via trade. (I'm only half kidding...which means I'm also half serious)

That's one of the great tragedies of the steroid era. A guy gets older, and has a few better seasons that are above his average (which can statistically happen without steroids) yet people assume it's because he was cheating. Not everyone's career is a linear progression towards a peak then a linear regression towards retirement. I realize that wasn't explained well. I'm saying not everyone goes 20,22,24,26,30,35,40,37,33,29,25,20 homers in their career. it's perfectly normal and understandable to have some statistical variation over the course of 10-20 years of a career where someone drops a 40 or upper 30 among some upper 20 seasons. You have to factor in things like health, or just dumb luck. The difference between a homer and a flyout can be as simple as the ballpark, the direction of the wind, etc. In short, seeing a few good seasons in a person's mid 30's is sadly automatically linked to steroids now.

This was announced this morning on ESPN. I'm shocked no one is even discussing it yet. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8309691/minnesota-twins-host-2014-all-star-game-report

This was announced this morning on ESPN. I'm shocked no one is even discussing it yet. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8309691/minnesota-twins-host-2014-all-star-game-report

i absolutely hate sliding adds on any website. I understand they fund the site and whatnot, but there's gotta be a way to get by with only adds at the top of the page or fixed in various places on the page or something other than following you everywhere.

are people really arguing over a sample size of less than 3 seasons? let's wait at least 10 years before we call a park "homer un/friendly"

i just wish they would have gone for broke a few years ago when they had a healthy Mauer, Morneau, Nathan, along with productive Cuddyer and Kubel along with some decent starting pithing. They needed to put the chips on the table and go big, instead of always planning for the "future." We are in that "future" now, and it's nothing to be proud of.

Revere and Mauer will be 1,2 in highest human batting averages in the AL. Mike Trout is simply a robot. No one can possibly be that good at that many things so young.

I agree. He's much more of a risk under his current cost, but if you added 2 years on at roughly half of what he is making now (made up figure, no idea what he is worth), he is more affordable and easier to move if he regresses a bit or we simply want to get younger at 1B. If he continues to rake like he has been these last few games (very small sample size I realize, but he is approaching his career BA) he's going to be getting closer to his $14 M a year value anyway

Twins are undefeated and score 10+ runs per game with Nishi in the lineup! Schedule that World Series parade now!

but does this organization need any more slappy, singles hitting outfield prospects? (as someone described him earlier) or can he actually hit for some power?

It's just some inside joke they (or is just one? he? she?) insist on repeating all the time.

to top it off he struck out on the very next pitch. classic.