stringer bell

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.

OK, here's my take. Oswaldo Arcia is vulnerable to high fastballs and breaking balls in the dirt and he can't lay off either one consistently. That is probably one too many holes to be an effective major league hitter long term. If that is the case, then what else does Arcia offer? Well, he looks like a good teammate and he's good with the GatorAde bucket. He's not fast, he is a poor defender and he plays left and right field. "Good" Arcia happened in 2013-2014. Since then, he has been a poor player. Since 2014, Danny Santana has been a poor player as well. If you want to include 2013 and 2014 for Arcia in assessing his upside, you have to look at Danny's 2014. Santana was pretty spectacular in 2014. So what you have is two players who both looked like they had broken through coming into 2015. One of them is a switch hitter who has played a lot of games up the middle of the diamond and who has very good speed and the other who has only played the corner outfield spots (poorly) and has demonstrated power. It is not so cut and dried that Oswaldo Arcia is the superior option.

Yesterday, Ricky Nolasco and the Twins were cruising to a victory against the weakened, but still hated, New York Yankees. A funny thing happened on the way to the winner's circle--the Twins gave up seven runs in innings 7, 8, and 9 and were beaten despite getting two homers against Chapman in the ninth. Here are some of the culprits: Kevin Jepsen entered in the eighth with a two-run lead and one runner on first and one out. He yielded the game-tying homer to Carlos Beltran, which gave the Yankees with their great end of the bullpen a huge advantage. 2) Ryan Pressly came in with the bases loaded and nobody out. He allowed the go-ahead run to score on a 3-2 fastball to Ellsbury, then wild-pitched the runners to second and third where the Yanks final run. 3) Fernando Abad who walked the leadoff batter and allowed a bunt single to Didi Gregorious setting up the Yankee's big inning. 4) Juan Centeno who failed to catch a low pitch and was charged with a passed ball and then partially blocked another pitch in the dirt, which still allowed the runners to advance. 5) Paul Molitor, who took Abad out instead of having him face a pinch hitter, then two lefty hitters and intentionally walked the number 8 hitter loading the bases. In my humble opinion, Centeno's mistakes, particularly the passed ball, can't be underestimated. If he wants to stay in the majors, he's got to block low pitches. Molitor's strategy was questionable. Abad has been his best reliever and very good against lefties. Asking Pressly to not only get out the pinch hitter, but both Ellsbury and Gardner is asking for a lot. Abad committed the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff hitter. He wasn't in good position to field Didi's bunt. Pressly was asked to perform a near-miracle and probably came close. If he didn't run the count full to Ellsbury, he might have gotten out of the jam. Jepsen threw a nothing off-speed pitch to Beltran, he had a 2-2 count and absolutely needed to keep the ball in the park. Here's my verdict: #1--Centeno. #2--Jepsen. #3 Molitor. #4 Pressly and #4 Abad (a tie).

I think the key component here is that Arcia is not a good fit as a bench player and perhaps not so much as a platoon option (and there aren't that many true platoons in MLB). To be productive (IMHO), Arcia needs to play almost every day and he simply hasn't hit enough since Molitor became manager to justify that. As I said earlier, the Twins are at fault for creating the logjam at DH/1B/corner OF, with little choice but to start Arcia on the team but on the bench.

There really should be two 40-man spots available. Arcia's will come open and also Mastroianni, as soon as he is healthy enough. With Buxton and Santana being what they are, they really don't need Mastro.

I haven't been near a keyboard since I heard the news that Arcia was DFAed. Not a total surprise by a long shot, but still sad because Arcia came to spring training in great shape and did seem to work hard at his deficiencies in the outfield, plus he is one of the few guys to show a lot of emotion when out on the field. It's a failure all right. First, the Twins had a young player who looked like he would be a candidate to hit 30 homers a year as recently as 2014, but he went backward big time last year. This year, he hasn't shown enough as a hitter to garner regular playing time and I would suggest that Arcia is a guy that will never to a good bench player. I believe he needs regular at-bats to keep the holes in his swing from becoming open invitations to throw high fastballs and breaking balls in the dirt. It's also a failure of the organization. They haven't prevailed on him to make the adjustments needed to be consistently successful. Also they've used up options too early and have a glut of younger guys and not enough playing time for all of them, while carrying a 30 year old DH and a 33 year old first baseman on multiple year contracts. I don't think the 40-man decisions have been good for a long time. The Sano, Plouffe, Park, Mauer merry-go-round is a mess and leaves no place really for Arcia or Kepler.

Free Tommy Milone! With the devastation that is the Twins starting rotation, Milone has to deserve another chance in the rotation, if nothing more than to build trade value.

I think it is Nuñez mostly because of positional flexibility. If Abad allowed a three-run homer, his numbers would look pretty average pretty quick. If Nuñez hit .250 for two weeks, his BA would still be north of .300.

His value will probably go up after the All-Star break. Yes, I believe in some respect an All-Star nod is a consideration, but not many trades happen until after the AS game. Nuñez' story is a really good one for the All-Star game and I will be very happy for him if he does make the team. I'll also be happy for him if he's traded to a contender.

I think so. Who'd a thunk it on April 1st?

Apologies for temporarily locking the thread. Trying to operate from a mobile device. How long will the Dean experiment last? Very reminiscent of Andrew Albers.

Only when John Ryan Murphy was catching.

Winnah! First MLB win for Taylor Rogers, who was very impressive against the Rays. I do have to say that I haven't seen a worse lineup against the Twins this year.

I'm holding my breath. It does help that Jep is facing three guys with a batting average under .200.