Han Joelo

Last night was probably reason 10,001 for some Royals fans why Dayton Moore should be fired--with expanded rosters and everything, why was Joba Chamberlain pitching with the game still in reach? Sigh. You win some, you lose some. I'm not going to quibble on a micro level game by game, but I have to admit I that on a macro-statistical level, the Twins bullpen hasn't been great. Still, I feel pretty comfortable with a back-end of May/Jepsen and (Perkins). Grantland's Michael Baumann has a great piece on Matt Harvey. Probably fodder for a different thread, but in the "fire TR" context, what I took away from it is that TR should be commended for looking out for the best interests of Berrios' future in regards to shutting him down.

Nice write up. I especially like the way you looked t the "rolling" three month splits.

I love these insider bios. Thanks to Buhr, Gibbons, and Bonilla for the insight!

Wimmers pitched in relief today and is starting tomorrow?

I doubt a majority of fan bases are all that happy with their catching situation. Probably feels even worse for Twins fans--a decade of Mauer excellence plus Ramos being frittered away. Butera was routinely vilified and yet still is a wanted commodity. True all around excellence at catcher might be one of the rarest commodities in sports.

Holy schnikies. I know rbi is a "meaningless" stat, but 71? That is pushing historic. That dude comes through when it counts.

Is that a typo? 71 rbi for ABW?

Is Minier going to join the pantheon of E-town greats? Think I would've given him the him the Hitter award today-game tieing and winning hits!

Wasn't Wimmers a high strikeout guy when he first debuted? I seem to remember lines like this way back when.

While I agree with the dfa, I'm glad the Twins took some flyers on some veteran bullpen arms this spring. Staffer didn't work out, Boyer has, at least so far. Regardless of how good Tonkin and Oliveras look in AAA, they seem to be ghosts of Slama. Glad Boyer has been around.

The preseason prognosticators all lumped the Twins into a bottom four group that included the Phillies, Rockies, and Diamondbacks as the only clear "no chance for the playoffs" teams. Most identified a couple obvious locks like the Nats and Dodgers, and then a huge blob in the middle. Looking at the blob, I just couldn't help but ask myself how those teams were all that much better than the Twins. For instance, I (luckily?) questioned the Red Sox because of A)rotation issues, B)HanRam's ability to play defense, anywhere, let alone in front of the monster. And also his ability to stay healthy. And C)How good their prospects really are. Is Mookie Betts playing that much better than Aaron Hicks? At any rate, seems kind of unfair to say the Twins are winning only because other teams suck. I'd rather say, that in the parity blob of MLB, they are taking advantage of other teams mistakes, and other teams aren't doing as good a job reciprocating.

Great read--thanks for sharing. Love the secret sauce.

Fox sports does one based on baseball prospectus playoff odds. Twins are 16 with I think it was 20 percent odds of making the playoffs. Not sure what the methodology is.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-oakland-athletics-flashy-nihilism-billy-beane/ Another article by the same author. Same premise, opposite conclusion: the stats say the A's shouldn't be this bad; therefore they are unlucky. The author seems to prefer a world where games are played on paper. The A's are 3-15 in one run games. Was it unlucky they traded away late inning hero Josh Donaldson or failed to have an adequate backup for their closer? Oh yeah, closers are overrated, and I'm sure some algorithm showed Brett lawrie would be better than Donaldson.

Randball Stu at Twinkietown has dug up the statistical truth here: http://www.twinkietown.com/2015/5/29/8685445/advanced-metrics-say-twins-are-actually-ultimate-frisbee-team To summarize, stats indicate they are not in fact annoying douche-bags who smell of gym mat disinfectant, but rather an ultimate frisbee team from Southern Illinois.

Don't ever tell me the odds, threepio. I'd rather experience the ups and downs of the dots on the graph, versus the mind numbing monotony of the line.

I like the article and share in the hat tip to players like this, no matter how people feel the need to define them. Plouffe feels like someone who is going to latch on with the cardinals or Giants and hit a big playoff homer someday. Proud de is hard to get past auto correct.

How did Burdi get four outs throwing 14 pitches, with only 6 of them strikes? Larson and Granite all over the leaderboard. Nice. And Goodrum sixth in SL and OBP (but not OPS)--is he a permanent 3B now?

Excellent article. I found your use of metaphors colorful, your tone challenging but conversational, the theme relatable, and your word choice musical. Also, you used effective though not rigid meter, a digestible word count, clear but not overly simplistic sentence structure, and your font type and size along with your line spacing prove you have exceedingly clear but sympathetic vision. I found the illustrations aeshetically pleasing and subtly thought provoking. Also, you used appropriate ratios of contrasting colors. All in all, your writing demonstrates that most elusive of skillsets--the rare, true, "ten tool" baseball writer.

Apparently Tyler Duffey was the only pitcher who understood when the memo went out saying the Twins are NOT a pitch to contact team. What is the organizational record for BBs in one day? How about Lookout Outlook? Lookout Ledger?

Since movies are being referenced, I'll just mention I've always preferred movies that feature a band of rag-tag misfits fighting impossible odds (oftentimes their own immediate superiors) to save the Galaxy or Middle Earth at the last second, always in the face of doom. Having legions of orcs, stormtroopers, and blog posters on the doorstep helps to keep that doomsday feeling immediate. I'm sure there were a lot of posters on RebelsDaily that were pretty upset with how the star war was going. I mean, sending an undrafted free-agent out of Tatooiene to blow up the Death Star? They clearly rushed him. He couldn't even hit the breaking blaster off the AA probe, and destroying that left-handed Tie-fighter from the Falcon's belly gun was too small a sample size. By starting his service time clock with that hopeless attack on the Death Star, they risked losing a year of control in his prime, a year when they would need him to destroy the Emperor. Not evacuating the moon of Yavin and going into full rebuild mode was incompetent. As was signing Porkens, an aging, no upside veteran, to pilot an X-wing. Zed Rosabrio should've been piloting that fighter. Course, on the other hand, you have to hand it to that area scout Kenobi for signing Skywalker in the first place, and to Yoda for forcing him to repeat dAgobAh after he missed time with that unfortunate cold injury and again (briefly) after that hand injury. Those two old school codgers sure knew what they were doing. Course, I didn't care for it much when sabermetrician figured out how to measure force ability as a co-efficient to mitochlorion levels in the blood. Darth Maul was definitely a mito-juicer. And don't get me started on Gandalf. He expected to take down Sauron with a lineup that included four Hobbits??? Bush league. The Architect of the Matrix would never have allowed it. We all know it was statistically unlikely for Luke to blow up the Death Star, which is why George Lucas titled his next film Star Wars Episode V: Regression to the Mean.

This would support my theory about the fifth starter race: they knew about the likely suspension all along and picked Millone to boost his confidence. Then TR fessed up in the closed door meeting.

Or try this on for size: I didn't really like the Pelfrey extension, but he seems like a pretty good guy, and competitive (came back early from injury, was upset he didn't win the starter job.) Maybe he'll build enough value to be trade bait when Meyer is ready. I don't think Schafer or Robinson are all that great, but I didn't think Fuld was either, and look what he brought back in trade. Plus, he's playing a key part for the vaunted Billy Beane, so there's that. Plus, I'm hopeful the reason the FO wasn't more aggressive finding a CFer was that they felt Buxton will be ready this year. On the other hand…I wish the FO would've signed Brandon McCarthy instead of Phil Hughes I mean Ricky Nolasco.

My marriage has somewhat mirrored the Twins for the last decade, from the heady days in the early oughts, to the 'rebuilding years' of the teens, as we struggled through raising babies. We've made some choices, like signing our awesome house to a 'contract extension' in '09, only to endure concussion related plumbing problems and bi-lateral peeling paint. We wonder if we shouldn't have just gone 'year to year' with a rental unit just entering it's prime years. We could have let the landlord, Mr. Amaro, deal with with the decline phase of the washer and dryer. Recently, my wife invested heavily in an expensive 'free agent' automatic cat litter box. We knew it wouldn't get us back into playoff contention, but we thought it might make us more competitive. It was an abject failure, and was soon on the garage shelf, substituted by a replacement level plastic tray, earning the league minimum. If you think it was constructive for me to blame my wife for torpedoing our budget because of her rainbow and unicorn vision of cat poo free bliss, you'd be wrong. Nor was it a good idea to point out we could have just gone with the retread cat box in the first place. Instead, we reevaluated our priorities, and agreed to take turns cleaning the poop up every day. I love the give and take on TD, and I generally blow off the negativity--it seems to me there are about a dozen frequent posters that are responsible for a majority of it. The problem is they have 'numbers' and 'facts' on their side, so moderate posters frequently don't leaven the negativity with their own perspectives, and the result is flat bread, which nobody wants to eat.

Great stuff. Love learning about the human side of players. Meyer: I agree with him on pre-season prognosticators. The Twins have a decent core and a bunch of youngsters about to tear down the gate. I'm not predicting playoffs, but I'd bet on the field when it comes to the worst record in the AL. Heck, I don't even think the Twins will be the second worst. Beresford: Australia is a long ways a way--16 hour flight, plus a days difference--when he wants to call his parents, he has to add a day and subtract something like 8 hours to sync up. When I worked in Antarctica (on New Zealand time) I called at midnight the day after Christmas to catch my family after they had just got done opening presents. Plouffe: Baby due on the all-star break? Well played. Those long road trips are going to suck for him in July, and when he's home…he'll get to play catch up on diaper duty. Get lots of sleep on the airplane, Trevor.