stringer bell

I think avoiding 100 losses is an achievable goal. I am with the optimists that believe there is quite a bit to build on and I don't really think the Twins are that far away from contention. The young outfield of Rosario-Buxton-Kepler, with Grossman as the 4th OF, looks really good to me. The Twins need better pitching and that's what should come back if any of their roster is traded at the deadline.

Yep, the Twins are bad. They almost certainly will lose 100 games and finish last in the AL Central. Management has been trashed regularly on Twins Daily and has deserved the scorn of the fan base. Articles have been written and several threads have discussed trading just about every veteran on the roster. I submit to everyone that the position players aren't that bad and not that much needs to be done. There is enough talent to score plenty of runs. Pitching, on the other hand, is a problem. The only home grown pitcher in the rotation for more than a year is Kyle Gibson. Tyler Duffey has had a couple of moments, but his numbers this year don't inspire confidence. There is talent but I don't know when or if it will ever develop. The bullpen has evolved a bit this year. The supposed end of the bullpen has imploded almost completely--Glen Perkins has a career-threatening injury, Kevin Jepsen was just DFAed, and Trevor May has been both injured and ineffective. I think that reforming the pitching staff is Problem #1 and Problem #2 is defense. All of that has to do with suppressing runs. Last year, for whatever reason, the rotation and bullpen performed much better than it had in all of the 90-loss seasons. They ranked in the middle in runs allowed. This year the Twins are last by a long ways in runs allowed. They are something like 1-34 when they score less than four runs. Too many veterans occupy spots in the rotation and too much money is invested in them. Some of those guys need to go. They are over thirty and most likely will never be better than they are now. The Twins bullpen has traditionally carried several guys who depended on their defense to make plays behind them. The bullpen has evolved somewhat, but isn't that effective. What transactions need to happen? I think at least one of Nolasco/Santana has to go. The live arms in the minors need to be tried, even if they aren't that effective. On the trade front, several players could go. I just saw an article on mlbtraderumors.com that lists Kinzler as a sneaky trade candidate, Abad could be on several team's radar and several position players might be gone--Nuñez, Suzuki, Plouffe (if healthy), perhaps Grossman--and most of this is addition by subtraction or moving on to the next season. The team could get better fast in scoring runs if Sano, Buxton, and Kepler live up to the hype and become solid regulars or better than that. Maybe the pitching and defense can get better fast. IMHO, it's harder to project pitchers than position players. I don't think it's a rebuild, it is a recasting.

OK, what happened there? There is an infield fly rule, so if it was really of pop fly, shouldn't Butler be out?

I forgot about Butler on the A's bench. Hmmm, maybe the Twins could pick him up, DH-1B can't have enough of those guys.

Huge play. What do Corey and Gladden think? Ooops. I now know what the replay umps think.

I said before that I was a Dozier fan, but that Polanco might be a better fit for the club. I think that the Twins chances this season were predicated on having a lot of homers from a lot of players. If they continue to get low power production from first, center and catcher, they need the additional power production from second base (Dozier). My previous thought was that the Twins have a lot of right handed hitters whose best asset is power--Dozier, Plouffe, Sano, Park and that having a guy like Polanco, who looks like he could have pretty good on-base skills, might be a better fit. Don't know which theory is the right one right now, but Dozier has certainly come alive. Good on him!

If Dozier were to maintain that OPS, it would be the best of his career by quite a bit. I guess maybe we shouldn't write off players after a bad stretch.

What did you win, a bus ticket out of town for Plouffe?

The Twins need to get down to 12 pitchers. They should have Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, and Grossman with Santana as the fifth OF/25th man. Whatever pans out from the four outfielders is the way it should be with Grossman certainly getting at-bats against every left hander and occasional starts against right handers. If Buxton truly isn't ready the DanSan can be the fourth OF with a starting trio of Grossman, Rosario and Kepler. I am on board with trades of Suzuki and Nuñez with Murphy and Polanco getting recalled. Again, just play it out and whoever is better gets the playing time. Finally, if Plouffe isn't traded, then Park needs to go down to Rochester, making room for Sano.

Well I saw the new Yankee Stadium last night. It was determined before we got to New York, that we would see Lions vs. Christians er Yankees vs. Twins on Friday night. My son, serving as tour guide/babysitter had us heading for the Bronx by 5 PM. After spending all afternoon in a museum, I was ready to go. We got to a subway station and headed towards the stadium. An uneventful 20 minute ride later and we were there. But wait! We hadn't eaten and the majority of our party didn't want ballpark food. We decided on seafood and the nearest place was only nine minutes away on foot. What we didn't know was that it was nine minutes straight uphill. We walked through what can charitably called a mixed neighborhood, broken bottles on the sidewalk, cars stopped/parked in unusual locations and Latin music blasting from stereos. The seafood place was small, smelled like fish, and had zero seating. We waited for our food and decided to walk back to the stadium to eat and wait for my son's fiancee, who had to work late and was to meet us. We got back and started exchanging texts with the fiancee, Irina, who just missed the subway train she thought she had to take. She was going to be late, so we split up we us old folks getting seated, while Jon waited for his sweetie. It turned out that Irina got on the wrong train and would not arrive until 7:30. Anyway, for me it was game on! Almost! A day of travel had drained the battery of my phone, so I tried to find a recharge station. After looking awhile, I found an AT&T place, but it took almost an hour to charge my phone. Meanwhile, the Twins grabbed an early lead, gave it back, took another lead and then gave it back for good. My observations--Milone was Milone, working the corners, hurt by bad defense and squeezed by the ump.After the first, Milone pitched from behind and he doesn't have the stuff to do that. Grossman made a couple of OK throws, but a good throw would have gotten Beltran. Escobar is supposed to be super reliable. He hasn't been this year. Buxton's first AB was great--he needs to go the other way more. The back of the Yankee bullpen was dominant.Chapman was something else. Yankee fans weren't very obnoxious and the stadium is functional, but not anything special. My son called new Yankee Stadium "soulless". My opinion is if you're a baseball fan and are in NY, it's worth the trip.

True story. Telling my future daughter-in-law about Aaron Hicks, recounting how he just would never hit enough to be a corner outfielder. "Looks like I'm right. I wish him well. Who knows, he'll probably hit a homer on the next pitch."..................and wattayaknow?

Beer is not $8 here in Gotham. 16 oz cup is $11. BTW an absolutely gorgeous day and evening in the Bronx.

Damn autocorrect! Unhittable.

Aabout half the time Pressly looks unhurt able.

Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.

Mauer should have fielded Hicks' grounder, once it rolled away, he had no chance.

Malone works the corners (has to) and didn't seem to get the corners from the ump. Three errors hurt, especially Esco's.

Hello from "the Stadium". Twins 3 Evil Empire 4. Much to say, not much positive. Bad defense has hurt the most so far.

I certainly think that the Twins could go .500 the rest of the way. There's more talent than the last Gardy teams and there's a chance that a couple of guys could go nuts (Sano, Kepler, Rosario, Buxton) in the second half. As was written above, the big issue is pitching. The veterans on the staff can fill the back end and the back end of the bullpen needs to be established. That is a lot of work. Regression to the mean would garner more close wins and also from some players. If the right amount of trades are made at the deadline, the club could emerge from this disaster of a season with some palpable improvement. Not sure that will happen, but I still have hope.

Don't necessarily agree with this, but if Buxton were returned to Rochester, I'm pretty sure that Danny Santana would get the bulk of the playing time as the center fielder.

It would be nice to have Grossman as a platoon guy. He's really solid as a RH hitter and holds his own as a lefthander. He could give either a Rosario or Kepler a day off versus a lefty and maybe give Buck a day vs. RH pitching (Rosario to center).

Strikeouts don't exactly equal lack of plate discipline and walks don't exactly equal selectivity. As was stated above, the key for a Rosario is to stay in the hittable zone and not chase pitches. It will get him to more favorable counts and get him more good pitches to hit. It is nice to draw an occasional walk, but far more important to get good pitches to hit.

My eyeball view of Santana as a defender is that he is not great, but especially in center he's able to outrun many of his poor routes, plus he has a strong arm. I see his DRS is pretty bad, but he is being compared with other center fielders, some of the very cream of the crop. Buxton, undoubtably, is better.

Santana is Plan B in center field. Kepler would play center if both Buxton and Santana are out of a game. DanSan has started one game each in right and left IIRC. I would anticipate he will get a few more infrequent starts on the corners and subs more regularly for Buxton.

Two thoughts about the outfield (without Sano) going forward: Grossman has been........unimpressive defensively. Kepler looks like he has a left field arm to me.