TheLeviathan

They still took a lot of middle and deep shots though too. I think what you're see is we're attacking all levels of the defense based on what they're giving us. Dude still had nearly 9 yards per throw. It's not like we're checking down and dinking and dunking. When he dropped back he had a lot of clean pockets. Not to mention the massive, gaping holes they are opening in the running game. These last two games the O-line has been a top 10 unit. Maybe top 5.

That trailer was phenomenal. "What If..." has been a little disappointing IMO.

Agreed, though schematically the Bears made no adjustments. The edge the Vikings have is their skill players are so good at getting open that it allows us to quick throw on people. The other thing the Bears didn't do enough was use the screen game. The couple times they did it was effective, but they didn't go back to it. The Vikings screened a lot to get the d-line to backdown and then hit them over the top. I think that gameplan can work again, but you're right....this might be the best defensive line they'll see all year.

I appreciate this conversation and I think this issue is a really difficult one. A few things to point out: * As bad as it has felt, Rooker has a .691 OPS. Now, you might scoff at that but I think we forget that we're in a pitcher dominated year (in part because they are a bunch of cheats) but that OPS is not terribly far from the norm. I'm not making a value judgement on that, merely pointing out that it's fair to point out that he shouldn't be compared to historical examples of what would impress us. He should be compared to his peers now. By that comparison, he hasn't been "bad". Not "good" either, but not bad. * The team drafted way too many guys who can't field. That's the real issue here. If I'm the Twins I give Arraez a 3B glove and give him extensive work there all offseason. That's his new home. Donaldson looks washed, certainly like he's going to struggle to deliver on that price tag. Trade him and move on. That means with Sano getting some reps at 3B as well you have some room at DH to play a guy sometimes. That means Rooker may have some options to play at 1B, DH, or LF from time to time with enough consistency to evaluate him. I think Marten is the future LFer and could be a really good one defensively and offensively but he will need most of next year. The problem for Rooker is he has to fight off Larnach, Sano, Marten, Gordon, Celestino, etc. But as long as he has an option, with his draft pedigree and flashes of potential, I don't make that decision now. I keep him on the 40, I work with him on his defense and improving his approach, and hope he can hold down regular at-bats next year to see if we can find out if he has value or not. We have time, we should take it.

Yup, and you can say it with me folks, the playoffs are nothing but a series of tyrannical small samples that eat baseball logic alive.

Flawless handling. Hopefully we see more of this, but his situation gives me some faith in the FO.

A really good offense seems to be true. Either way it sure seems like you can say this about 95% of the league. Weird year.

It's another high quality game from the OL. This is a really nice win.

The offense looks damn near unstoppable.

That was a BS call. His block on the screen sprung Mattison.

We love to rag on OCs....this guy calls a good game. Cousins is sharp as hell too.

I don't understand how this defense is this bad.

I didn't make that assumption, I only observed that Nick Gordon spent large amounts of time where he wasn't getting to consistently face pitching this year. That's what I don't like. I agree "Twins aRe StuPId" is a bad argument. But I also don't think dismissing reasonable criticism just because the result wasn't terrible is fair either. Past managers and players have remarked on how important it was for them to have consistent opportunity and trust from the organization as they worked themselves into being big league players. It makes sense and I've taken those comments as useful for how teams need to operate. In a down year, plate appearances have the potential to be real investments in the future and I'm going to continue to criticize when I don't think those investments are well made. I'm glad this one worked out so far, I'm hoping this isn't the path we consistently take.

That's one way to squash those pesky USC rumors.

I care because a good process is better than a good result. The former yields many of the latter while the latter, by itself, could simply be a fluke.

First, I think using games played over plate appearances is an unfair shift from the point and masks the issue. Many of those were late inning replacements that yielded few PAs. I agree with your conclusion, but I think many of us who said he should have been getting playing time regardless of performance. I didn't care how he performed as much as I cared he was riding the bench while marginally less awful players did not.

I have no idea what to make of Gordon playing SS or not. The Twins haven't let us see it enough to know, but even if he's not a SS the usage of this player has been nothing short of terrible. He has great genetic pedigree. 1st round pedigree. Top prospect pedigree. Teams this bad should be looking for dudes like this to play and give a shot at catching lightning in a bottle. I hope these last few weeks have been a sign of things to come, but even if they're not we need to allocate playing time much better than we did in Gordon's case.

Good thing we kept finding reasons not to let Gordon play huh?

In place of your lord and savior. I'm using b-ref to cite that. Simmons has the highest rate of BOWCN, otherwise known as Being Old While Contributing Nothing.

2006. When an 83 win team benefited from the tyranny of small sample size we call the Playoffs.

Nick Gordon should play every day. Every day.

Quite a few, you should go look back at how many deep playoff runs were made with some fourth starter going on a bender for two weeks. Or a bullpen that suddenly couldn't be touched. This is a myth we tell ourselves to avoid accepting how random playoff baseball really is.

Definitely not ace level and bulletproof though

Only if he's constantly telling the dummies on the mound to "throw strikes, but not easy to hit strikes, only strikeouts and weak contact" Then everything will be just peachy. And only if it comes with the promise of a bunch of whacky versions of this.

Dodgers fans were not confident. His legacy has been tarnished by it. You can find a lot of articles like this: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/29/18039728/clayton-kershaw-los-angeles-dodgers-world-series-failures I'll restate my thesis: we make too much of "aces" in the playoffs.