SwainZag

As much as I have appreciated Pelfrey's season....he has pitched nearly a full run better than his xFIP and much of his success has been based on him giving up less HR and less HR/9 than he has in his career. He will be 32 in the offseason and pretty much his last chance to get a multi- year deal. It would very disheartening to see him come back on a 3 year deal with the veterans the Twins already have, as well as they young guys who very much shot be in the running for a spot. I would hate to see Dozier lead. He's locked up, becoming a fan favorite, both and the emotion he shows is unmatched by anyone on the team, at least IMO.

With the Rangers, Twins, Angels, O's and Rays all in the hunt I am going to throw out a guess that someone gets hot and it takes 87-88 wins to take that 2nd spot.

It's not the only way to get Berrios into the rotation, there are several variables there.

I won't see it's completely impossible, but 20+ games and 100 more plate appearances Correa has over him right now isn't going to help.

I'm in the group that thinks it should have been done sooner, but we are nearing September and they are still in the race. Nothing wrong with adding another piece, especially with Perkins future this year being up in the air right now.

I would like to announce that I am undefeated while starting game threads

Since I'm not entirely sure how to edit my post, here are your lineups: Good Guys: Buxton CF Dozier 2B Mauer 1B Sano DH Plouffe 3B Hunter RF Rosario LF Suzuki C Nunez SS Milone P Boo Birds: 3B Machado RF Parra CF Jones 1B Davis DH Wieters 2B Schoop SS Hardy C Joseph LF Reimold SP Chen

Hey guys, long time-first time here with the game thread! It was so nice to see the boys break out of that funk and take out some the Yankee frustration on the Orioles last night. I was mildly worried I would be looking at my first game thread with a 4 game losing streak and an angry mob of Rally Rogers wielding pitchforks....with unparalleled pressure to start a thread that broke the streak. But.....I can breathe a sigh of relief. Growing up my father was an Orioles fan and I always heard the stories of Brooks Robinson, the 69 O's that lost to the amazing Mets and my favorite piece of trivia, the 1971 O's staff, the first and only staff to have 4, 20-game winners. Palmer, McNally, Cueller and Dobson. Those of you old enough probably knew this, but it's a nice piece of trivia. This brings me to Dave McNally, who is from my hometown is by far the best player from the state of Montana, and why my father grew an Orioles fan. He pitched for the O's from 1962-1974 and was instrumental in the clause that eventually became free agency in Major League Baseball. I would go into that, but there are some great articles out there on it. Going back to the 1969 WS between the O's and Met's, there was a player on the Mets who only pitched in 1 game all season and was not on the playoff roster by the name of Les Rohr. He coincidentally enough also went to High School in Billings, Montana and though he didn't pitch in that World Series, to have he and McNally both grow up in the Billings area and on rosters in the same year is quite mind boggling when you consider there have only been 5 players make the major leagues who grew up in Billings. Rohr stops into my bar from time to time and if you like old baseball stories, talk to someone who toured the minor league's in the 60's. If you meet an O's fan in Montana over the age of 50, you now know why. Anyways, back to modern day. 1. Buxton and Sano in the same lineup. Something that was talked about for years and finally happened yesterday and the twins dominated? Coincidence? Maybe. Either way I think looking at lineups for the rest of 2015 and seeing both their names on the card is something all Twins fans can look forward to regardless of what is going on in the standings. 2. Sano. He gets his own number. Fangraphs had a great article last week about the great number of rookie hitters the league has seen this year. The article can be found here. At the time his WRC+ was 162 and after today it's 165. While it's fun to look at the future as what this kid could develop into, in reality we might be seeing one of the better offensive outputs from a rookie in the last.....70 years. Imagine the numbers once that strike out rate starts to fall. To say I am excited is putting very mildly. 3. Tommy Milone gets the start today and while your stats like fip and xfip aren't in love with him, he has pitched fairly solid for the Twins this year. 9 of his 15 starts he has allowed 2 runs or fewer and it's apparent that his 3 post AS game starts could have been hindered because of injury. For him to get through today he is going to have keep the sluggers off balance, he is homer prone and the middle of the order of Davis-Machado-Jones is no picnic. Don't fall behind Tommy or it might be a long night. 4. Wei-Yin Chen. I like statistics. I know we all love small sample sizes. Current Twins are hitting .287/.333/.506 in 87 AB against Chen. Leading the charge are Dozier (5-13) Mauer (5-14), Plouffe (4-13) and Nunez (4-11). Let's hope the trend continues and they knock Chen around like Gonzalez last night. How about a lot more of this tonight? I love Sano's face. http://i.imgur.com/R9HiDyR.jpg -------------------- Game time forecast: It should be a beautiful night in Baltimore. 81 degrees game-time, 0% chance of precipitation and a slight 6 MPH wind from the NNW. Lineups: Good Guys: Buxton CF Dozier 2B Mauer 1B Sano DH Plouffe 3B Hunter RF Rosario LF Suzuki C Nunez SS Milone P Boo Birds: 3B Machado RF Parra CF Jones 1B Davis DH Wieters 2B Schoop SS Hardy C Joseph LF Reimold SP Chen I will be absent from the thread tonight as I am attending the hometown Billings Mustangs take on the Missoula Osprey tonight. The Mustangs are a rookie league affiliate of Reds, and the Osprey of the Diamondbacks. Let's go Twins! Let's make it a perfect 2-0 with Buxton and Sano in the lineup!

Corr Keep in mind that Graham has always been a starter in the minors up until this year where he is in the Twins bullpen. I always assumed that they would hide him in the bullpen this year and convert him back to a starter next season, but who knows at this point.

Remember that they will have Jepsen for next year as well even if it wasn't enough to put them over a hump this year.

I understand that. Miguel Sano was a heralded Top prospect for years. I just don't want everyone to be down when he comes up and isn't an immediate star in the big leagues.

Can we at least see him compete against pitching better than AA ball before we pencil him into the 3 hole in the lineup? I know he is raking in AA, but maybe we should temper expectations a little bit?

Sitting on his hands this year at the deadline this year could just be not overreacting to a good May and sticking to a plan he has to compete in 16-17. Saying he doesn't have a plan is just a straight speculative guess.

Where did Ryan "fail" at every opportunity to amass young talent" during the 2012-2013 seasons? I would like to hear something besides "well.....he failed to trade Willingham." It's not like the Twins were chalked full of talent just waiting to be traded for a haul of players.

Nothing like trading your 32 year old hometown All-Star cost controlled closer at the deadline in the middle of pennant race.

What's with this non-collision? I missed this.

Let's use some context. He was in AAA for exactly 13 games following a 5-6 finger injury kept him out of the lineup. He was also only on the big league club for 11 games and struggled mightily with the bat. There is a lot more than went into those decisions other than, "they are treating him like an injury replacement." Clete Thomas....such a good baseball name, such a poor baseball player.

Yes, you said it didn't cost them a "Berrios, Sano or Buxton." Norris was rated higher than Berrios so......indeed it cost them a "Berrios."

Norris was a Top 20 spec before the season by Baseball America and MLB.com...and he's a 2 month rental.

I would say that they need an OF on the team and Buxton is the obvious choice. They lose too much defense having to start Rosario in CF with a combo of Hunter/Robinson/Escobar on the corners for the next 2 weeks. It's OK to bring him up because it's a fairly big need, and the fact that when he was officially demoted it had been 3 games and now it's been 13 game and he has remained good at the plate.

This board might implode if it's not Buxton.

Hicksie out of the game

I'm sure I'll get burned for this, but every thread doesn't need to turn into the front office being fired. Things can STILL be discussed beyond that. Player's can still perform on their own without being a complete fault of the GM. It gets old. It's driving people away.

If above average SS and C were a dime and dozen and the Twins were still struggling I'd be with you. For a team with so many high draft choices.....why don't we wait until they actually get the pros before chastising them? Buxton is the 1st of those high picks to make the majors......and he's 21. They used a very high pick on SS Nick Gordon who very well could be the SS of the future, but he needs time.

If I'm not mistaken he was shut down with injury last year, unless you can pin point the exact time he was injured, it might just not be a regular wearing down.