Unwinder

It's true, the Twins can use them and they probably aren't even that good at basketball.

I mostly just don't like the games getting parceled out so that you can't just subscribe to one thing and watch all of the games. Though I guess it's not a lot of games.

The rationale I had heard for the base sizes is that it'll shave a few inches off the base paths and make it slightly easier to reach base safely, tilting the game subtly in the favor of offense in a way that will be essentially invisible to fans. EDIT: Apparently it's also to prevent players from crashing into each other. An infielder with one foot on a base takes up most of the base, so a runner sliding into the base is likely to crash into him. With a roomier base, the defender and the runner can both touch the base and have a bit more space to avoid collisions.

Also these days very few 8-10-year-olds are even allowed to go to a park without their parents, and if they did, someone would probably call the police.

Sure, I need the car to get to work, but I can afford to coast on unemployment until I'm able to haggle the mechanic down to $350.

My only fear is the possibility that pitchers don't tone down the velocity and blow out their arms at an even greater rate.

(Adding onto the ideas I was discussing before) Baseball needs that extra bat-flipping flair too, because it needs to promote its stars based on their personalities and stories, and not just their performance. In basketball, you can promote LeBron James as a great basketball player, and if someone checks out a Lakers game, even if LeBron is having an off-day, they'll still get to see him make make some really cool buckets. If someone casually interested in baseball has heard a lot of buzz about Shohei Ohtani, and they decide to check out an Angels game, they might see him hit a home run, or they might see him walk twice, strike out once, and ground into a double play. If you aren't told who the superstars are, you probably won't be able to identify them based on the small sample size of one game.

I agree that blackouts need to stop, and in general, baseball needs to get much, much easier to watch. It's not unreasonably expensive to buy a subscription to MLB.TV... if you're already a fan. Watching your home team's games needs to be accessible enough that you can slouch into it because it happens to be on. That doesn't have to be every game, but it needs to be available frequently enough that you can build a regular viewing habit. My experience with people who do not watch baseball is that they are generally open to watching baseball (especially in-person), and when you invite them to a game, they have fun. I think there's a large segment of the population who like the idea of baseball, but who don't watch it because you can't watch it without making a significant effort to watch it. I think pace of play is an area that can be improved. You might lose people with bad pace of play, but you're not going to gain people with fast pace of play. Even at its most action-packed, baseball isn't ever going to compete with basketball or football for sheer action. Try to improve pace of play, yes, but promote baseball as a leisurely way to kick back on a summer evening, or bill it as a tense standoff between the pitcher and batter. You're never going to hook anyone by trying to provide the same thrills-per-minute as faster-paced sports. Baseball is a game you can watch with friends where it's OK to get distracted by a side-conversation. On some level, you have to embrace it. I agree with what people have been saying about flair, and I also agree with what people have been saying about promoting players. I've had friends ask me about Ohtani or Trout in conversation. People are interested in people and stories, and it's much easier to get people invested in them than it is to get them invested in the impersonal idea of the game.

I was very shocked, and was in denial until almost the all-star break. I STILL maintain that while the team had some real flaws, it was a fluke that it went THAT badly.

Did Sano end up losing those thirty pounds he was talking about? If not, an extra week to get it done could be a big win for him.

Great reason to have the farm stocked with lots of pretty good arms rather than a few great arms, too.

I hope Buxton renders the Oliva/Mauer split moot in the next few years.

I'm interested in how those numbers change based on what level a prospect currently sits at. I assume a prospect who's currently playing at AAA has a better shot than a similarly-ranked prospect who was just drafted last year? Or do they generally take that into account?

It's immensely irritating how much energy the league puts into posturing and making the players look like the bad guys while only succeeding in making themselves look worse.

OK, I hate that I'm looking for a silver lining here, but May looks like a softer schedule for the Twins to start off on than April.

I'm sorry, his son's name is Gamble? Presumably Gamble Garver?

Picking Hajjar to click (I think they will unlock his velocity)

I assume they must be waiting for the lockout to end before announcing anything about the in-market streaming service they promised last year? Seems like a bad time to sell subscriptions if paying customers could be losing games.

I recall Miranda being described as an average defender at 3rd base all last season, and I've only seen this narrative that he's a defensive liability emerge over the offseason. Where did this come from? Is this some statistical trend that only became clear after the season was over? Are we letting Keith Law color our perception of Miranda's defense? Do we have enough data to even clearly evaluate him, especially when he's been playing all over the field? I'm prepared to accept that his defense is a problem, but I'd want to know why.

Fixed

Even if he's right about everything, "sub-median" is still better than "dire," and is therefore an improvement for the Twins. (I don't think he's right, I think he's a bit too pessimistic while we here tend to be a bit too optimistic)

In 2019 I heard the Twins were good and googled "Minnesota Twins blog." SEO still matters!

OK, one EXTREMELY important distinction here: This was a spoken interview, right? So we don't know how he spelled "Juicy/Jucy Lucy?" I want to believe he's a Matt's Bar guy.

I like Chase Petty but I'm not impatient for him to blow through the minors. Let him develop however he needs. I'm sure that whenever he arrives, the Twins are going to have a place on the roster for a flamethrower.