h2oface

The ballplayers and owners like it, they say. It is just lazy. Get paid millions and you can't get it up to finish the game. You know it isn't real MLB baseball when they don't do it in the post season. Get doctored results all season and then when it really matters, don't play fake baseball, but go back to the way it should be, Just lazy.

My call is he tanks horribly this year. Last year was it. I wish him, and his performance for the team's sake, well, but I think the jig is up.

Mahle has never been a stud. Especially when he broke Buxton's wrist with his horrible control. Now he chose to do nothing to rehab except rest. Good luck to us all with Mahle.

We will see. Your finish date is 10 days off, so it will just affect the team coming together a bit in ST, and it is certainly debatable whether it will be a better preparation for the season. Certainly opinion. I still love the WBC, I just had no idea how many of the 40-man were actually participating. Thanks for the amazing compilation summary of the far reaching web of Twins.

It is gonna be real tough for the Twins to be ready for the start of the season with so many playing in this tourney.

Thank you for confirming. If Gray is getting nailed facing the order for the third time, there is no catch-22. No pitcher that can't get through the order 3 times consistently can be an ace. Giving up one hit in the 6th, even throw a walk in, and then getting pulled with, say, 87 pitches, even though it might be just the third hit given up the whole game, is not considered getting nailed in my book, That is when the pitcher becomes the ace and takes care of the flutter, and the game is not given to a blowpen to give it up.

Joey Gallo .......Maintain a .200 average.......... Let's not set our goals too high, eh? These goals may be a bit aggressive, but I feel like these players have a lot to prove in 2023. Agressive? I don't see how these goals make for a team in the playoffs, and certainly not a playoff run. Self fulfilling prophecies need to be set to push you if you want to succeed. Correa is getting paid $33,333,333 this year. He will be 28. Perhaps the primest age for an athlete. If he doesn't have the goal of being the MVP this year, especially after all this contract mess and wanting to prove he is the man, there is something wrong.

Can a pitcher ever be an ACE if the manager always pulls him after 5 innings or before?

For a dedicated player to get himself in better shape to be considered an organizational thing, or that he was directed to, I find comical. We are not talking Sano or Panda or Prince Fielder here. And since when does loose fat correlate to power more than a thinner but more muscular body? Never. Miranda cares, and is not lazy. It just makes sense for all players to try to be in better shape. They know it. Everybody knows it, unless they are just in denial. Plus, muscle weighs more than fat. One could weigh the same, but replacing the fat with muscle would result in a much leaner looking man.

The whole episode of him (alledgedly) pinning the reliable female reporter against the hallway wall didn't help, especially with the other reporters/bloogers that knew her.

I guess the future means the past. Going back to playing baseball like it was meant to be played in the field. Sounds good to me.

Post of the month! 😇

A number 5 overall pick. I keep remembering Tyler Jay (6), and Kohl Stewart (4). This time we traded for him, and he is now a hugh question mark, and heading that way.....

Thanks for the article, and educating some of these posters that only know the game from todays angles led by WAR.

Pagan!!!!

No more Yikes in the likes. This is a double YIKES!

I think they should try to find another Lopez. Hell, double down again...... double down on..... a couple Lopezes! Add confusion to the minds of the opposition with Lopez, Lopez, Lopez and Lopez! If they had the same first names as one of the other two - gravy. I mean, it's confusing me already, and there are just 2. Go Lopez crazy!

Maybe there will be, as there should be, an actual hall that would be the Hall of Shame in the Hall of Fame. Guys like Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, A-Roid, etc...... could and should all be in the Hall of Fame in that special Hall of Shame. They are part of baseball, and were great players, and most of the steroid clan were good enough already without the boosted stats. Correa would fit in the Hall of Shame deservedly. Correa can never shed that. It is part of his story and history will remember, even if Cody already forgot. He still has a ways to go to get there, though, just on his performance. He will need to stay potent for several more years to make it.

Maybe being the key word, here. For if you pull him, you never really know if you should have or not. If you don't, you find out, one way or the other. And if the pen immediately blows it up, like on the first pitch or first batter like we saw way too often last year, you really can't claim wisdom. One might claim wisdom if the pen performs, but you don't know if your starter would have done just as well.

Funny stuff. Working the "confusion" in - brilliant. The horror of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Love it. Pay no attention to the nay-sayer. Keep 'em coming. I remember the "confusion".... https://www.yahoo.com/video/twins-outfielder-max-kepler-apologizes-for-controversial-photo-amid-george-floyd-protests-230841299.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAqFFyRZ9ZV3VxHOyE9emsg3SVejNk3mRVJzoEwJzxoY2muvLYOG5hNhO1y8QcrTiZeu8Auo8sZS2AWxI2WfSHiLfqMKRuhHD7SA1FeNytu0N2Fi1ZmCMC8G4nCtC_tsijnEgd-gUgK0elPrrpSchaQduzPY2zNd5oz-PgFc8Cns

I guess it is all perspective, and how one hopes it goes. Lopez was an expendable piece with only 2 years of control and arm/shoulder risks to the Marlins, but "controllable, young, high-end pitching" for the Twins, even though "he doesn't [even] quite clear the Sonny Gray Threshold", which might be debatable that Gray even qualifies as "high-end pitching," and "controllable" is just through 2024, and by mid-season he is in the trade now zone if we look at the Pressly and Berrios trades, especially if he doesn't like the terms of an extension he might be offered. Crucial veteran (27 year old season) depth with health question marks added to a rotation besieged by question marks. He probably fits right in. Lefty Evan Sisk and righty Steven Cruz went from promising prospects being pitched with great optimism in the TD prospect articles - Sisk one that could help in the show this year - to "a pair of unexceptional pitching prospects." Teenaged prospects, Jose Salas and Byron Chourio, come with "considerable upside", but apparently not that considerable to the Marlins and they became a throw in to make the deal. The Marlins are betting that Arraez is just getting started at 25 (26 for the 2023 season) and will hit even better and improve his fielding, and now for the Twins, the narrative becomes "if he loses 20 points of batting average, which can happen almost by random chance, he's a pretty mediocre player. He has no defensive value, no power, and doesn't really draw that many walks." And then there is a strikeout master in Gallo to fit in. He talks like he will be starting everyday - "“It’s shaping up to be pretty good,” Gallo said. “I hope Buxton doesn’t steal too many of my balls. I like to run and catch some. I’m going to tell him, ‘Let me catch a few balls.’ Yeah, it’s exciting. Just to play next to a guy like Buxton is an honor. I’m glad I don’t have to hit against him anymore because he catches every ball in the gap.” - We should have fine defense, at least in the outfield and behind the plate. “That's a defense that makes you just want to throw strikes and let the hitters put balls in play,” said Pablo López. Yikes? Maybe all will shine. I hope so. They all may be great deals for both teams, Funny how perspective can change. Personally, I hope the home grown guys play so well that they make the strangers expendable.

So #3 is 1 year wonders, and #4 multiple years of control. Hmmm. Don't tell them that they contradict each other. Maybe they are confused. It surely is confusing me. Maybe I am just confused.

Many credit the 134 pitch heroic no-hitter and the first and the only Mets no-hitter (I can't really count the bullpen 5 pitcher no hit game last April as a no-hitter, you can if you like) as the beginning of the end. The no-hitter was after several injuries, of which some were not to his arm or shoulder, but knees. This is apples to oranges. Duran is his own man, and it should be his decision. If you don't give him a shot, and he wants to, Duran will find a team that will as soon as he can. The Twins can't control him forever if he doesn't want them to. Besides, all he has to do is say he doesn't want to sign an extension yet, and he probably will be traded like Arraez and Berrios, no matter how good he is. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1206124-johan-santana-no-hitter-why-it-was-mlbs-most-impressive-no-no-in-recent-memory#:~:text=For this one night%2C Santana,complete the no-hit bid.

Duran was always special, and that is why they traded Escobar for him. Gabriel Maciel and Ernie De La Trinidad were certainly throw ins and nothing special. The hope was always there for Duran. Verlander doesn't, and never did, throw it 100 or more all the time, but he did/does when he wanted to reach back and unleash it. Powereful weapon. To assume that Duran will not become more of a pitcher and less of a thrower as he matures and ages, and he will not explore change or speeds in his performances, even if only as a reliever, is a pretty limiting and demeaning stance. Last year was a successful experiment. He can always be used in the pen. To let a person grow is not breaking him. To impede someones talent for selfish reasons is breaking him.

I watched Kershaw pitch a flawless 6 innings, and then get shelled in the 7th. Several times actually. Some in the post-season. Is that the same kind of example of fragility?