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LastOnePicked

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Everything posted by LastOnePicked

  1. "in a matchup between arguably the two best teams in the AL Central." That would be a tortured argument at this point. Nice win today, but the Twins aren't even in the same league as the White Sox unless the bats magically wake up.
  2. I'm surprised by how much I'm wondering if Jermaine Palacios would have been better in the lineup than Carlos Correa. I'm surprised how much we've struggled against teams with blue jerseys. I'm surprised that the starting pitching has given us all kind of chances to win and our offensive has given us almost no chances to win. I'm also a little surprised that my brief preseason optimism is completely gone before May 1st.
  3. When individual players struggle, it is on them, yes. But when an entire team plays well below their capacity, that's probably on the coaching staff. Rocco has said several times that he preaches the players go up to the plate "with a plan." That might be part of the problem. If there's too much of a "plan" going on in their minds, it might be messing with their ability just to see the ball and hit the ball. So, yes, Rocco should be included in the blame. After an almost total roster turnover, and the team is still in last place and abysmal with RISP, he and his staff should be on the hot seat.
  4. Yup. Trouble is, you gotta win four straight series now - two weeks worth of games - just to get to .500. This team hasn't shown any capacity to even win a single series. Gonna be over before it even got started, unless someone can light a spark.
  5. Rogers > any other option out of the pen in a close game. By a lot. Could be a matter of several wins difference or more in 2022.
  6. Fair, but the point of the the Correa signing was kinda to win now, wasn't it? That trade is clearly hurting our ability to win now. Unless Pagan would have been fine in the Duffey spots - in which case, this mess is more about Baldelli's poor choices.
  7. It is funny how the small things become the big things. Duffey's role in the pen is magnified because of the Rogers trade. The pen's role in the team's success is magnified because of last year's April-May debacle. Now, a team that should be at least 6-5 and feeling loose is playing with additional pressure under the shadows of 2021 at 4-7. It's not that I thought Rogers was going to be team MVP, but I feared that a few out-of-the-gate bumps without him (coupled with Rogers very predictable lights-out success in SD) would cause an early momentum downslide that will be hard to overcome later on. And that's exactly what's happening. How could the FO not see this as a likely outcome? At any rate, back to Nick's point. Yes. they better adjust their plans fast. Duffey shouldn't be doing anything for this team but mop-up work in blowouts at this point. You can't make the entire team suffer for one guy's inability to get it done.
  8. I felt it at the time and feel it even more strongly now: the Rogers/Paddack trade is going to be the defining blunder of this season. This team on paper had a small margin to sneak into a WC berth. That trade has made that margin even more narrow already.
  9. Similar to last year, every button Rocco pushes seems to implode. He was a great manager when the Twins were mashing home runs at a record pace (who wouldn't be?), but he seems to lack a feel for the game when things are tight - who's hot, who's not, who needs to be tested, who needs to be rested. Again, I like what I see of him as a person, but I don't find him impressive as a big-league manager. Every team is going to win 54 and lose 54. So far, I think the Twins are 0-3 in the remaining 54. And those losses are on the manager. And he doesn't seem to be learning from mistakes.
  10. Me after Monday: "Not a terrible start at 4-6. It's a long season." Me after Tonight: "The new draft lottery is going to give us a good shot at the #1 pick next year."
  11. "Fans can point to the base-running send error by Watkins or another implosion by Duffey."
  12. I'm leaning a bit more pessimistic, but this is a fair take. Two splits against good teams isn't terrible, and the two-game trouncing by arguably baseball's best team wasn't unexpected. Nice win today. Good teams get clutch contributions from all over the lineup. Good for Garlick.
  13. I seem to recall that Cron's thumb was injured at the end of his year with us, and the injury seemed pretty bad at the time. I liked Cron, and I'm glad he's had a resurgence, but I can't really fault the choice of Sano over Cron. Sano seemed on the verge of stardom. All that said, the bad luck and the missed opportunities are starting to add up again.
  14. "The Twins will show us glimpses of who they are as soon as this weekend at Fenway." Well, we've seen the glimpses now. Yes, it's early, but these glimpses have me thinking more about the trade deadline than the postseason. We heard a lot about the Giants-style increase of the coaching staff this offseason. I can't tell if this team is under-coached or over-coached, but they don't seem ready to hit or to play defense.
  15. Fun read, with great notes on the total game experience. I'm waiting until May to get back to the ballpark myself. If the Twins heat up, that should bring some more folks back as well.
  16. I agree with everything here, BUT ... the only way to field a dominant team like the Dodgers is to buy one (we'll never spend that kind of money) or build one. And building one is going to be a decade+ of Astros/Rays like futility, coupled with major scouting/developmental changes. And even then, you gotta keep all the right guys at the right time, Personally, I was kinda ready for a long rebuild. And it may happen anyway. But I do appreciate that this FO made improvements, here and there, to see if things might click and we could squeak into a WC berth. And that's still possible, because it's very very very very early, The 1991 Twins stunk in April, for example. In short, we ain't the Dodgers. But we don't have to be to have a satisfying season.
  17. Funny how different this team seems after the last two wins rather than the first two losses. My heart is guarded, but like Bombo said, I could learn to love this crew. Good shutout win against a solid Ms team.
  18. Though, tonight's the kind of outing that could, if repeated often, make me a lot less jaded.
  19. I'm rooting for him. But I'm looking forward to a time when we sign a starting pitcher and don't have to pray they somehow revert to a level of success they haven't reached in years, if ever. Maybe it's just the looooong string of reclamation/restoration projects that just never pan out that has me kinda jaded. Maybe the Twins should just hire Bob Villa as an additional pitching coach, see how that works.
  20. I did not think this was a great start. Ober and Ryan do not look good, and betting on magical recoveries for Bundy, Paddack and Archer seems risky. Manea might well have been the better move, and Rogers could have been kept, too. We'll see, but there were more 2021 memories this week than I wanted. That said, thank God Byron Buxton is a Minnesota Twin. This might be his year. Hopefully the FO didn't blow it with poor planning and Rocco won't blow it with terrible bullpen decisions.
  21. 1) It's in our job description. And we've been doing this for a lot longer than a year. 2) 100% perfectly doesn't describe anything about the Minnesota Twins for decades. It's not like we haven't been patient through bad decisions in the FO and the dugout. 3) Last year, we just so happened to be right. The problems we were screaming about after the first few series were the problems that sunk the season. It's possible that trading away Rogers with no clear plan for a shut-down arm to take the 9th is going to be a problem. A big one. 4) Thankfully, we have not yet been mathematically eliminated from contention. See, there's optimism!
  22. "we saw glimmers of what is yet to come with this team" That's what I'm afraid of, yes. Good recap, though, Sherry.
  23. I keep wanting to see this team elevate their game and make something happen at the plate and on the basepaths. They were a slugging team last year, and started sluggish yesterday. Unlike 2021, the bullpen gave them every chance to win. At home for the opener, that's a game they absolutely should have won. BUT ... they nearly did. So here's hoping this was just some residual "bad luck" from last year, and today's result is different. Here's my overreaction though: KLaw was right - Joe Ryan's fastball is going to get hammered into the seats, and it will keep him from being more than a #4-#5 starter on a good team.
  24. Urshela hammers a homer against the reigning Cy Young. Sanchez misses a 9th inning game-winning stunner by inches. Donaldson sneaks a seeing-eye grounder through the infield for a walk-off win. Yankees win. Twins lose. Welcome to Minnesota, boys. Land o' hard luck.
  25. "they’re receiving a significant number of snakes, reptiles, and other creatures." Didn't we have an eagle attack an opponent starting pitcher a while back in a pregame ceremony gone wrong? That was genius. I can definitely see similar uses for the haul they got back. Good trade.
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