Unwinder

Not to mention depth for the inevitable injuries. ?

I think she's still after Dobnak's mustache.

This team is in deep, hopeless need of pitching, and I still think calling up Miranda should be the top priority.

He absolutely should.

I admit, I'm probably just fondly remembering how cheap St. Paul parking was before CHS was back up to full capacity.

Anecdotally, my family and I have been to six Saints games this year, and I've been to two Twins games (and have not brought my whole family). If I weren't going to Saints games, I estimate I'd have attended maybe 1-2 more Twins games, and I would've bought the cheapest seats available. If the Saints weren't affiliated, I don't know if I'd have gone to any Saints games at all, but I'd certainly be going to fewer, because I wouldn't be going to see Ober, Miranda, Winder, etc.. Based on this very small, very personal sample size, I'd say the amount of additional baseball that people are seeing makes up for any cannibalism on the Saints' part. CHS field has a pretty limited number of seats anyway, it's not like they can welcome hordes of disappointed Twins fans.

Today (and this year in general) I'll take the Saints. If it was a good Twins season I'd take the Twins, but I'd still probably go to more Saints games than Twins games anyway because I can get very good seats for cheap, they have cheaper concessions and a better beer selection, my family likes it more, and I'd rather find parking in St Paul than Minneapolis.

I mean if somebody's talking about the Twins in Minnesota, nobody's going to say "I'm rooting for the White Sox to beat them." I'm not saying they've been accused of something. That was misleadingly worded. And yes, I do believe that having a division rival with a lot of fan presence in our state stokes greater interest in football in fans who would otherwise be only moderately interested.

Interesting take, I'd love to hear your reasoning behind this. For me it would just mean that there are fifteen teams that I never have to care about at all.

It would be easier to travel to away games against rival teams to cheer on your own team. Plus you'd be much more likely to have a relative or coworker who you can argue about it with. People love getting into it over the Vikings/Packers border rivalry. I know couples who tease each other about being split on the Vikings/Packers, and this gets them more invested in football. But I don't know anybody in real life who will defend the White Sox.

Uh, what are we looking at for Kenta at this point? Are the Twins reduced to rookies/bullpen games only? That's not great.

I hope that Buxton forces us all to issue apologies to him next year.

I realize this is off-topic, but Ryan had a very encouraging 1st inning in St Paul. Just something positive to think about while you watch Barnes getting his head blown off out there.

Oh, well, yeah, I mean, possibly 75%

Gardenhire seems to indicate that he's been let go due to his struggles at the plate, but MLB Trade Rumors notes his usefulness to a contending team. My guess is that the timing is exactly for the reason you say. He's definitely the most impressive defender I've had the privilege of seeing at CHS Field, much more fun than the times I've bought left-field tickets just to have a front-row seat for Rooker serving as a warm body. The crowd loves him too, he always had fun clowning around for people yelling stuff at him from the rail at center field.

I may be off-base here (I haven't been following the sport for long), but I'm starting to think that the FO might view Donaldson as the last remaining healthy Big Name on the team, and therefore one of the last remaining reasons to buy tickets to Target Field. I ignorantly predict they'll make a token effort to explore their options, but won't make a serious attempt to move him in the offseason.

He's literally starting rehab with the Saints tonight. Unless he gets injured there, he'll play at least a few more games this year.

The Saints dumping Broxton is going to be hard on my foster daughter who has a crush on him. Hope he figures it out somewhere else.

1. I would not shorten the season because I personally like how long the season is, though this is totally selfish. 2. Somebody was posting on here the other day about realigning the divisions, and I like the idea of stoking rivalries by making sure that teams are actually in the same division as teams near enough to travel to away games. I imagine it would only add interest to the game if the Twins/Brewers had a rivalry similar to the Vikings/Packers, rather than being mostly irrelevant to each other. 3. Pitch clock is absolutely a must, and for all I know, it might be all we need to fix the problem of not enough balls in play. If pitchers can't rest their arms for a full minute between pitches, they can't throw as hard. This may create other problems, with pitchers possibly going hard anyway and getting injured, or pitching fewer innings than they already do, so it may also be necessary to limit number of pitchers on rosters or something like that. 4. I'm split on robo-umps. They'd increase the consistency of calls, but would be an aesthetic loss. Pitch framing would no longer be a defensive skill for catchers, which would diminish the depth of the game. As I recall, they're testing robo umps in the minors. I'd want to make sure all the bugs are worked out before doing this in the majors. 5. Blackouts and video restrictions are the biggest threat to cultivating the next generation of fans, and must be aggressively dealt with. 6. No opinion. 7. Pay them and house them. A living wage is great, but a living wage still isn't enough to keep paying for your Wichita apartment until your lease is up, while also paying rent on a new St. Paul apartment. By most calculations, a "living wage" assumes that you only need one place to live. A living wage won't keep MILB players from living out of their cars. At minimum, teams should eat the cost of players' existing leases when they bump them between levels. But really they should own lodging that players can use, at least while they're transitioning to a new city. Heck, they should just start building apartments right into the stadiums. 8. No opinion

I think relievers are undervalued, just look at the first half of the Twins' season to see how much damage a bad pen can do. If this guy's eventual fate is to be a solid bullpen arm, that's great news!

Looks like the Polanco walk-off possibility is coming back around.

Great to have extra innings the day before a bullpen game.

I can see myself loving Cave unconditionally forever and never saying anything negative about him again if he pulls this off.

Polanco on deck, can't get here soon enough.

At this point in this season, good starts from young pitchers make me almost as happy as wins. Cool to see Ober solid yet again.