Thrylos

Check out who is DHing when Morrison at 1B.

This front office has shown the willingness to make necessary moves despite bad investments of the previous front office, as well as managing the DL and the 25-man roster pretty well. This is one of these moves. Unfortunately Hughes got hurt and he has never been the same pitcher since. Glad to see that someone who will give the Twins better chance of winning will take his place.

I just mentioned a fact. An answer that Buxton gave when asked what side of the game he prefers. It is easy to prefer something one is good great at. However, in order to be a complete player (who Buxton is not) one has to work on things he/she are not good at and do not prefer. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not a personal attack at all.

True. And the key word is overall. However, recent performance is a pretty good predictor of short term success. If you want someone to fill in for 10 days only, you might want to go with the recent performance as an indicator. If you want someone to fill in for a month or two, it is a different story. And it is not the only indicator. Schedule is as well. If you are scheduled to face 10 righty starters, might make sense to get a lefty or a switch hitter up rather than a righty.

March. A couple of thoughts: Everyone last season said that it was the leg kick. I guess they were wrong. In an interview with the MLB Network, when Buxton was asked what he values the most personally: a great catch or a game winning home run, he said "the catch". Unless he changes his mind and works on what he does not like to work (apparently) or likes less to work on, he will not improve with the bat.

LaMarre was optioned when Buxton was activated. There is a rule that says that a player has to stay down for at least 10 games before recalled. Thus Cave and no LaMarre when Mauer was moved to the DL.

Did the Twins get Gregorio?

Beats the one who is currently leading off for the Twins...

I expect Sano in MN will produce better results with the rustiest of bats, than his current (effective) replacement, Ehire Adrianza who is hitting .196/.255/.217 for May.

I'd buy that if they were not swept by the Rays and lost a series at home to the Reds...

He has one option left. Regardless the Twins should go with the pitchers who give them the higher probability to win.

A couple of May videos regarding his performance at Rochester last night:

I had Wade ranked 22nd in my Twins' offseason prospect list with a 2018 ETA. Here is my summary on him, his potential and his ranking: Wade has quick wrists, excellent eye, decent power and speed. He can play all 3 outfield positions with Left and Center being his best as a defender. He is hitting equally well left hand (.794 OPS in AA) nad right hand pitching (.809 OPS in AA.) With Buxton and Granite ahead of him at the majors, Wade might potentially move to a corner spot. There has been some discussion on moving him to second base; however throwing left-handed might put an end to that thought. Wade was invited to the Twins' major league camp this Spring. With Buxton, Rosario, Kepler, Grossman, and Granite in the majors, and with several outfield prospects ranked higher than him with an ETA of 2020 [Note: That would be Lewis, Rooker, Baddoo, Kirilloff, and Arias; with all but Rooker at 2020 ETA] , Wade might serve as trade bait for the Twins. The concussion is worrisome, as is, but to a lesser degree, his drop of performance in the AFL, and part of the reason that Wade is ranked here. The other part is that the Twins 2018 system is better than the 2017. I still stand by this. Once you have Rosario and Kepler as lefties, Wade is behind them. He is also behind Granite who brings a different toolset on the table (plus defense, plus velocity) than Wade and is better fit for a 4th OF. Add to that the fact that Rooker might be as close as Wade and he is someone that the Twins need more than Wade (power Righty bat), add the fact that there are a whole bunch of prospect better than Wade coming behind him, and really there is not much room in the organization for him. Oh. Not to mention that his teammate, Zander Wiel, who is a righty is probably ahead of Wade, since the above was written, based on his performance....

Former Diamondbacks' and Cubs' C, lefty Miguel Montero was DFA'd by the Nationals and is a free agent. Well worth it upgrade over Bobby don't call me Brian Wilson. Brings in not only post-season experience (and a ring) that is sorely missing by this team, but a left hand bat as well. And the price in prospects is right.

Polanco. Career MLB: .266/.322/.417 Buxton. Career MLB: .234/.291/.395 Same age. Let's talk about achievement...

Riots of joy when the Twins have someone who can drive runners in scoring position in, occasionally...

All star? Brian Dozier in high leverage situations for the Twins this season (before today) : .353 OPS, .156 wOBA, -14 wRC+. Overall -0.64 WPA and -2.98 RE24 Those are hardly replacement level numbers, despite the semi-deification of Dozier for some reason.

Chris Herrmann is hitting .255/.435/.394 for the AAA Mariners who need a second baseman badly. Have them add Matt Festa or Art Warren, ship them our current second baseman, bring up Nick Gordon and call it a day. Win win. And addition by subtraction.

Unless Santana and/or May prove that they are better than another pitcher currently in the rotation, they should be in the pen and/or AAA for rehab (Santana) or option (May). Lynn is the weakest link right now, followed by Odorizzi.

Got to think of this a bit: Swihart is out of options. Is he better than Mitch Garver? I don't think he is. Because that's who will go down if the Twins get Swihart when Castro returns. I believe that if Garver get consistent playing time, he will be good. Already his hitting is at league average (97 wRC+, 100 OPS+)

I dunno about 2-way star. He are his numbers on the plate as a 22 year old in the Midwest League: .254/.484/.333. Other than his good great pitch discrimination, the rest are uber pedestrian. For comparison's sake: .343/.387/.414 4-year younger Royce Lewis's line in the same league this season.

One of the things that needs to be mentioned regarding Jake Reed: Based on personal observations the last STs from the way he has been interacting with more junior pitchers and the way he was trying to mentor them, (and some other things I am not going to mention), he is one of the nicest people in the Twins organization and credit should go where there is due.

Nobody accused Zulgad to knowing anything about baseball and Mackey has dislearned what he knew...

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- In a cold May evening about 5 years go, give or take a week, I witnessed one of the most dominating pitching performances I have seen in person: Twins' first round draft pick in 2009, righty Kyle Gibson, about a year removed from his return from Tommy John surgery, shut down the Lehigh Valley IronPigs with a three-hitter, carrying a no-hitter into the eighth inning. This was when the Twins were on their way to another season flirting with 100 losses and were conflicting reports regarding Gibson's pitching, so I really wanted to see what Gibson could do. In person. Here is how I described his performance 5 years ago: I was very lucky to be there because this was a magnificent pitching performance by Gibson. I came in with an open mind and nothing to expect and I left a strong believer in that Gibson is the best starting pitcher the Twins have today. A bit about his performance, and I am not going to get into things like numbers, which you can read elsewhere: He had four pitches that he threw when he wanted with a great command. His fastball was his primary pitch and was sitting from 92-94 all night long. It spiked to 95 a few times and went to 91 a couple. It was at 94 in the 9th inning as well. in the first 5 innings he mostly threw his fastball and his slider, which ran from 84 to 86 and really kept the IronPigs' hitters off balance, causing a lot of swings and misses. Have to mention that Gibson had impeccable command of the fastball: he would locate it up and down and inside and out. And throw it at the dirt when he wanted to. In the latest innings he started throwing more his change up that was running from 81-83 mph with a good late motion; also he featured a tight slow curve (78-80 mph) that I did not realize he had. He threw that pitch a few times late in the game. He was totally on top of his game today. In addition to what he did on the field, a thing that really impressed me was his composure in the dugout, knowing that he was having a no-hitter: he was sitting there cheering his teammates and clapping when they were batting, instead of being "in his own world" and apathetic about the game. This was a dominating performance that, I think that won him his first trip to the majors. Frankly, I thought that I will witness history and it was that close... After the game ended, Gibson was interviewed in the dugout after the game, and when that was done, I yelled something like "Great game! See you in Minnesota soon, Kyle!" towards him, and he smiled and dismissed the Minnesota part with a hand gesture. My answer was a "We'll see!". LENIII penned this about that game the next day: Class AAA Rochester righthander Kyle Gibson had his best outing of the year on Sunday, taking a no hitter into the eighth inning before finishing with a three-hit complete game shutout as the Red Wings beat Lehigh Valley 11-0. Gibson needed just 93 pitches for his gem – 58 were strikes, 35 were balls. He walked two and struck out eight as his record Improved to 3-5 with a 3.25 ERA In retrospect nobody noticed the fact that Gibby threw only 62% of his pitches for strikes or noted that it might have been something undesirable, because you cannot argue with the results. Fast forward a bit over a month. June 29th. I was happened to be in the East suburbs of St. Paul that week for work. A friend of mine who is a season ticket holder treated me to one of his tickets at the Delta sky360 club, so I got to witness, Gibson's first major league start. In that game, he beat the Royals (who were actually starting Wade Davis) in a six inning, 8 hit, 5 strikeout, 2 run performance. He threw 91 pitches and 64 for strikes (70%). The next several years have been up and down for Gibson, until his 3 game demotion to Rochester last season. He came back and pitched 11 games, of which the Twins won 9, striking out 8.4 per 9 innings, and walking about 2.1 per nine, while throwing only 63% of his pitches for strikes. And nobody thought that this was a bad thing. In 8 games that season, of which the Twins have won 5, he has been striking out 10.1 per nine, walking 4.4 per nine, and throwing 59% of his pitches for strikes (which only some Twins' TV broadcasters think its a bad thing, based on the comments in his Angel's start.) What happened to that Kyle Gibson of five years ago in my back yard, and what happened for him to slowly appear to be back? My hypothesis is that Kyle Gibson got Ricked and Neiled out of shape, being forced to be a pitcher he is not. Both Rick Anderson and Neil Allen, his previous pitching coaches have been stressing "pounding the strike zone" and inducing soft contact either with the sinker or the changeup. And this approach had been a top to bottom approach in the organization, in the previous Twins' front office. Change happened and it is a good thing. The new pitching approach throughout the organization is try to get ahead of the count and then let them chance, either outside, or inside or high. And this has been working for Kyle Gibson who went back to his roots. In Saturday's game against the Angels, he even brought back his rarely thrown and ever rarer for strikes curveball when he faces certain batters the second time. That description up there of his performance with Rochester, against Lehigh Valley five years ago, would be pretty close to what he did against the Angels, save a hit or few... Gibson has been pitching to his strengths and it took an organizational overhaul to allow him (and the rest of the Twins' pitchers) to do that. Other than Fernando Romero who pitched only two games and will be the Twins' future ace, Gibson leads the Twins' starters in ERA, FIP, K% and K/9, fWAR, and is second only to Berrios in innings pitched per start. It seems that Gibson is finally the pitcher we all thought that he will be five years ago. Better late than never, and I hope that it is here to stay. And a parting food for thought about those who might be bothered by the strike percentage and Gibson's walks: This season Gibson's K/9 and BB/9 numbers are up there. The pitcher who struck out the most batters in baseball, has a career 9.5 K/9 and 4.7 BB/9, both worse than Gibson's numbers this season. Not that Gibson is close to Nolan Ryan; however strikeout pitchers walk hitters as well, and hitters strike out often on balls and hit strikes. It is ok. Results are what matters.

That's a can of worms. I think that until he performs well in AAA, and until we have an idea what Santana might be up to, and until Lynn stops sucking, it will be hard to tell. These 3 plus Odorizzi will be fighting for 2 spots. May does have an option