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LastOnePicked

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Everything posted by LastOnePicked

  1. LastOnePicked
    These boys of summer are really testing my patience.
  2. LastOnePicked
    Perfectly stated. I would love to see a Twins team play crisp, energetic and competitive baseball. I'd love sound decisions when it comes to pinch hitting and bullpen usage. I want this team to get fired up, and make a postseason dent. I can see that it's possible. I couldn't see that a few weeks ago.
  3. LastOnePicked
    Well I, for one, am enjoying this whiplash between hope and hate for this club. Kind of. I've been down on this team. I've been down on this whole organization. I'd be thrilled for them to extend this week into October and make me look stupid in the process. But I really, really want to see Correa put it together at the plate. Have a .350 mid-August-Sept. Put this division away and start getting the younger players ready for a playoff run.
  4. LastOnePicked
    I knew that 1987 team. This is no 1987 team. Energy, passion, fire - not even remotely close. Plus, the 1987 team had just one path to the playoffs, and had to best 6 other teams to get there. Put the Twins back in the same AL West bracket in 2023, and they scarcely stand a chance of even reaching third place. The AL Central continues to obscure the fact that this team is not good. Not even pretty good. We can debate their luck in terms of injuries, sure, but their sheer luck in landing in the worst division in baseball is undisputed.
  5. LastOnePicked
    This is that interesting challenge. I get it. To me, though, this is the same logic that keeps people in an abusive relationship. "It's not that bad, is it? And wouldn't a change be worse?" I'll just restate my take on this: this FO has been given ample time, leeway and the largest payrolls in franchise history. The result? Chronic underperformance. Yearly, they've put out a product that is weak in fundamentals, low in energy and quick to make excuses for failure. And there's been plenty of failure to go along with one longball-fueled AL Central division pennant and one 2020 pandemic participation ribbon. We deserve better than this. And when ownership commits to a rebuilding plan, we can see the result in places like Baltimore and Cincinnati. Yup, a few years of bad baseball. After that? The foundation for a sustainable winner. Could we end up like Pittsburgh? Sure, maybe for awhile. Honestly, I'd take that risk. I'd even find that preferable to what the Twins have become under this regime. I'd rather watch rookies find their footing together and gel than to watch underperforming star veterans slog their way through the season. Twins baseball is, far too often, utterly unwatchable under this regime. Something has to give, sooner or later.
  6. LastOnePicked
    I got a learning experience AND the joke paid off at the end. Double win for you tonight.
  7. LastOnePicked
    Probably wasn't just luck. Usually isn't, though my teenager reminds me that the world raises her, too. We do our best.
  8. LastOnePicked
    Me too. My father is still here, but the time is short at this point. Here's to your father, and the joys that made our dads smile. Maybe even the Twins sometimes.
  9. LastOnePicked
    Looks like the Cardinals pitcher is a little out of tune.
  10. LastOnePicked
    Liberace with a quick inning.
  11. LastOnePicked
    Welcome to the trenches, friend. I mean, come on, I'm pessimistic. Probably too pessimistic. But I have loved/followed the Twins since 1986, and I don't see any kind of title run from this organization in any kind of near future. The players you mention above will likely need to be traded. E-Rod probably represents the type/age of player who could be a part of the rebuilt, potentially-contending Twins. I think it's going to take an Orioles-style overhaul here. But I'm threatening to derail this thread. Stuff to debate at a later time and in another thread. And there's still time for this year's club to make me look foolish.
  12. LastOnePicked
    "It’s easy to compare to the Terry Ryan regime and agree that they’re in a much better place now." I'm not actually sure I do agree. Ryan left with a promising farm system ahead and with a few very modest postseason successes behind. If Falvey/Levine exit after this year, the same just can't be said. Twins will have a bottom-half farm system, a nonexistent pitching pipeline, two very costly and ineffective long-term contracts on the books and absolutely zero postseason success to show for their tenure. Yes, the Twins have improved some in development and analytics, but so has every other team. The game has changed. The Twins are not ahead of the curve in anything in this sport. Otherwise, I agree with pretty much every other point here. Particularly the idea that their job security after this season should be anything but assured at this point.
  13. LastOnePicked
    Since about 5 minutes before this move was made, is my guess. "You have a groin injury, right Joe?" "No, I feel gr-" "YOU HAVE A GROIN INJURY, RIIIIIIIGHT JOE?"
  14. LastOnePicked
    He seems to have a very good sense of character, but I agree. This notion that he should be leading this team is solely based on prior reputation, not actual performance here. You can't lead win the clubhouse if you can't excel during the games. He's a hired gun that can't fire. He needs to step back. His errant and hasty praise of Popkins may be one of the reasons the FO has stuck with that failed experiment this long. Problem is, no one else here can yet step forward. There are no other leaders on this club.
  15. LastOnePicked
    You can, but it just means you're going to be the underperforming Angels at best or a rebuilding Tigers team at worst. Most likely scenario from my perspective is that Buxton retires by 2025 and Correa requests a trade when the rebuild years are in full swing.
  16. LastOnePicked
    I've seen very few games this year, but when I have watched Correa at the plate, I get this funny sensation like I'm watching a kid try to swing with a bat that is way too big for him. That's not to say he has the wrong bat size, but just that he looks like he's not planted well, and/or that he has a very late swing through the strike zone. It's possible that he rebounds, but rebounding probably means he's a .260 hitter with 15-20 homers and 50+ RBI moving forward. In short, if I were a GM who passed on him this offseason, I'd be awfully pleased with my decision.
  17. LastOnePicked
    Good article, but a perpetually sad topic. So much of this team's performance and spirit has been placed on Buxton's shoulders, and his body just can't hold it. I do give the FO some credit for trying to relieve some of that pressure with the signings of Correa, but Correa clearly has his own nagging performance issues, and perhaps Houston's lineup and system made him seem more of an elite superstar than he really is. It's just one of those things, I guess. Buxton was an exciting prospect and showed flashes of greatness. If we're all lucky, maybe Buxton has one great Gibson-esque postseason moment in him. But it better come soon, because I don't forsee him finishing this contract.
  18. LastOnePicked
    When does this much-heralded "easy part of the schedule" kick in?
  19. LastOnePicked
    They couldn't play baseball either, huh?
  20. LastOnePicked
    It is odd, but it also seems like a vote of confidence for their developmental system. And that's probably earned at this point. They know the Twins at this point - they know still have a very good chance of taking this terrible division, even without Civale. We'll see.
  21. LastOnePicked
    "is it OK to hope for a collapse if it means the longterm health (or at least a better chance at long term health) of the team I love?" In a word, yes. This team is like a junky friend who you've tried to help, and nothing has worked because they don't even realize they have a problem. They have to hit rock bottom first. The sooner this happens for the Twins, the brighter their future becomes.
  22. LastOnePicked
    "Carlos Correa was brought back, Byron Buxton was supposed to be healthy, and they added a slugger in Joey Gallo." Thank you, Ted. Your post helped clarify a point that I had struggled to articulate lately. Simply put, the 2023 Twins are a house of cards. Your mention of the "big 3" above speaks to the heart of this: 1) Carlos Correa was brought back only because his other free agent suitors bailed. It now appears they all knew something we didn't. And he was good last year, but certainly not elite. Not even great at this point in his career. 2) Who on earth expected Byron Buxton to be healthy? It wasn't going to happen. It's never happened. It never can happen, considering all that is wrong with his hips and knees at this point. It's tragic, but it's plain to see. 3) Every other team passed on Gallo. He's finished. That, too, is obvious now, and should have been obvious in the offseason. If you ran a team and these were your "Big 3," then it was clearly time to rebuild. It doesn't matter how many unproven but potentially promising mid-tier rookies you toss in. That's like building a dining table with straw legs. It wasn't going to hold ... and as we can see, it hasn't. The trade deadline was again a fiasco, but the core disappointment was the FO thinking - and trying to convince us fans - that this team was already ready to compete.
  23. LastOnePicked
    I do too. I get the sense they feel taking this division from the Twins will be easy. So easy that they could even afford to do some selling at the deadline. That takes guts and gumption plus some real baseball intuition. Can the Twins respond, or will they roll over again?
  24. LastOnePicked
    Here's what I find funny: Cleveland has so little fear of us that they turned themselves into sellers and are probably still certain they can take this thing.
  25. LastOnePicked
    I don't think it's quite the roulette wheel you make it out to be. A smarter FO would have been very wary of Mahle's injury history. A smarter FO would have taken a hard look at Lopez's career numbers before his blip of success. Yes, there's always a bit of the unknown and a bit of luck, but fans have been wanting impact trades that don't damage the immediate and near future. The trades they made last year damaged their chances both last year and this year, That's a result far worse than the average deadline risks.
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