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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    Learning experience for Festa. Hopefully Pablo or someone like that puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him to shake it off and gives him some tips for how to handle it when the ump is squeezing him early. Because he got hosed in the first; should have been out of that inning with only 1 run at most. It was actually kind of funny (in a frustrating way) hearing Plouffe stopping himself multiple times in the booth from outright saying the ump blew pitch calls (I'm guessing he's been told "don't call the ump outright trash, please"). Really put Festa in a tough spot, but he needs to learn how to adjust on the fly when he's not getting the calls he';s expecting and find a way to still get outs. Talent is there, and despite getting hammered in that bandbox, he still got 6 Ks in 3 2/3. Hope Correa's back problem doesn't keep him out long: he's such a difference-maker, and had been finding his hitting stroke recently. A long, cross-country road trip with two minor league parks. 5-5 isn't a bad result, really. Time to come home and get it going again.
  2. jmlease1
    You're really going to blame Festa when every close pitch he threw was called a ball? I think the maybe the plate umpire needs to go back to AAA. Be interesting to see if he squeezes the A's pitcher today...
  3. jmlease1
    Huge bummer to lose Pablo for significant time. Was hoping he was going to be gone for weeks, now it looks like months. At least it shouldn't be a season-ender, and Joe Ryan came back just fine from this injury. The pitching depth will be tested, but Festa looks ready. Hopefully the team will trust Matthews and Festa to see an opponent lineup a 3rd time consistently and see if those guys can go deeper into games. A's have got some hitters, but their pitching stinks. Glad the Twins have been running it up on them. Thought Royce took good ABs overall and it was nice to see him put up a hit and walk; if he's starting to claw his way out of it, that will be a very good sign for the Twins. Let's go get the sweep! It's just one game, but funny how much better of a road trip this would feel if they finish it 6-4 instead of 5-5...
  4. jmlease1
    So happy to have Walker Jenkins back. Hope his ankle is ok for sure and he gets to play the rest of the season. The talent is immense, but I might literally cry if another top Twins prospect gets derailed by random-ass injury.
  5. jmlease1
    Keeping Castro away from positions where he's overstretched should help him stay fresh, but hopefully they're able to get him appropriate days off too. He's an excellent super-utility guy, the kind of "10th Starter" that makes a difference when he's healthy. He clearly got ground down last season. I really like him as a guy who can play multiple positions, use his speed, and give you options that doesn't make you grimace about a trade-off. He'll give you quality defense at 2B, 3B, LF, or RF and even if he's stretched at SS or CF...he's still able to get by as a "break glass in case of emergency" option that gives you choices. And we've seen him be effective at the plate. Love being able to use him as a pinch runner in the later innings without having to make another bench move defensively. He looks locked in right now and that will be a nice boost.
  6. jmlease1
    A nice win against a bad team. But it's a bummer that Pablo might miss some time. Just hoping beyond hope that it's minor and the time he misses is measured in weeks not months. The depth will be tested here, but the good thing is Festa has looked ready, and SWR has looked like he's been making adjustments in AAA if they need to call on him again. No complaints about getting double digit runs in back to back games! Even Alcala looked good last night. Let's keep it up. win the series today, aim for the sweep.
  7. jmlease1
    It's way too soon to make any judgment on Hill about how many innings he can go in an appearance. He's barely 19 and already looking great in A-ball. They're going to be careful to build him up, especially coming out of HS. With Preilpp's injury history, it wouldn't be a shock to see him end up in the bullpen...but who knows what will actually be better for his arm, starting once every 5 days and trying to go 5-7 innings or throwing 1 inning 3 times a week? The stuff is for real.
  8. jmlease1
    Ryan was just a bit off last night, and it did look like he might have taken his foot off the gas a little when the Twins gave him a big cushion. You'd hope that with that kind of offense your starter might be able to get you 6-7 innings. But it was still enough. A's are a solid offensive team. Fortunately for us, their pitching stinks on ice. Was very happy to see the Twins tack on additional runs after the explosion; the 3rd-5th innings got a little frustrating as you wondered if they were taking the rest of the night off, but they added the insurance. plenty of hits and walks last night, and Buxton showed why he's such a difference-maker. A's are not a good team. Let's go beat up on them all series after a mildly disappointing result in Seattle.
  9. jmlease1
    Nice to see Culpepper getting some national love. He's responded very well with being pushed up to High A and in addition to showing a good bat is looking like someone who can stick at SS. Prielipp has always had the talent to be a big-time prospect, just questions about whether or not he could get healthy/stay healthy. This season he's really getting the chance to show his talent. Still not sure what his eventual role will be, because of his health history, but I will not be surprised at all if he';s with the Twins this season.
  10. jmlease1
    I've been one of the bigger Alcala Acolytes around here, but I'm running out of patience. I thought they handled him poorly last season, and overall he still had a pretty good season even with the bad blowup at a bad time. The WHIP looked good, the ERA+ was good, the WPA was good...he looked like a reliever who could easily handle middle innings and medium leverage situations, with potential for higher leverage outings. This season he's been a mess. The WHIP is dreadful and the results have followed. A reliever can survive putting up some walks when they're K-ing everyone in sight, but while Alcala's K-rate has climbed a bit, he's nowhere near elite levels. Every bad habit has returned, and he's the most hittable he's ever been in MLB. I'm fine with keeping him in low-leverage/mop-up duty for now...so long as the team thinks there's a mechanical fix or something that being worked on. If we're at the point where he just doesn't have the pitches to handle LH hitters (I had hope that the change-up might get there) and the team has no confidence in him...time to move on. Because sadly, we can't have even the last guy in the bullpen be someone that can only do mop-up work, especially when it's a guy like Alcala who isn't really designed for 2-3 inning stints. I've been in his corner, but he might just be a fungible reliever, who is solid one year and bad the next. At age 29, with multiple seasons in MLB (he's technically had 7, but 2 of them has 2 appearances so...) maybe he just is who he is.
  11. jmlease1
    It's not a crazy idea. And maybe it would work better with his headspace than a demotion to AAA? I suspect that's part of what the Twins are trying to navigate right now: what's the right move to handle not just the mechanical aspects but the mental ones. Which is more damaging to Royce's confidence, continuing to struggle against MLB pitching or taking a demotion to the minors? There no "right" answer on that one, either. As other players have gotten healthy again it seems to be something that's coming in to focus, because the team will actually have some options (even if they're maybe not great ones) again. The talent is there, but it feels like a re-set is necessary. Baseball is a tough game.
  12. jmlease1
    Yeah, it wasn't a bad pitch at all; that $#*&%* is just hitting everything right now. After this series I feel like the Twins should give him the Bonds treatment: just walk his ass, because anything is better than letting him swing the bat on you. Oof he's good. I'll admit I always worry when it looks like the Twins are playing a B-squad lineup on "getaway day", but I really can't fault the lineup selection that much. I get that there are some people who don't like rest days and hate having players who are injured a bunch, but Buxton getting a day off after playing 2 straight extra-inning games shortly after being in the concussion protocol seems more like smart player management rather than throwing away a game, especially since the only other "starter" with a day off was Brook Lee, who still played. Yes, we're a weaker lineup without Buxton in there, but we also need him playing regularly and he should get days off to keep him in the lineup for rest of the season.
  13. jmlease1
    I suspect that if this becomes a bigger issue, the next way the owners will move to pay players is based on game checks, rather than days on the roster. I'll always prefer that money go to the players over the owners, especially for guys that are on the fringes of the roster, where it's more impactful on their lives. That said, I doubt it has any real impact on the clubhouse or whether or not this makes the Twins a more or less attractive option for free agents.
  14. jmlease1
    taking your categories at face value and numbering them from 1 (weakest) to 6 (most powerful), Julien's gone from a guy who was in category 3 or 4 for 3 season before falling all the way down to category 1. That's a significant drop-off in power, which is the point: Julien used to show some pop in his bat (even if he wasn't a slugger) and right now he's got nothing. He doesn't need to be a big-time slugger, but he has to be at least a threat and right now no one is going to fear him. Julien looks like he has a lot of work to do, and I don't expect to see him back any time soon. I hope he figures it out.
  15. jmlease1
    GG has been utterly unfazed by his promotion to AA. Love seeing him mash away against better competition. He had shown a need for a second opportunity to figure it out down in A ball, so it's nice to see him show out immediately in AA. He's still pretty young, so his occasional struggles in A ball might just have been part of his physical development too. (he wasn't healthy last season either; he sure looks healthy this season!) He's taking his walks, he's hitting the ball hard...keep it up! Fedko's another guy who has needed to repeat a level to figure it out, but he's sure swinging a hot bat. He's not a young guy, but maybe he's just a late developer. If this new found power stroke is for real, he might have a chance, especially if he can legitimately play all 3 OF spots.
  16. jmlease1
    It definitely did not look good when Zebby got homer-happy in the first. Raleigh crushing a dinger was extra frustration because it was a 3-run shot where neither hit was exactly a solid shot. A little dribbler in the hole with some weird spin from Crawford and a dink from Polanco that barely got over Brooks Lee and into the OF. But suddenly it's 3-0. Credit to Zebby for not getting rattled after a rotten 1st inning where he was unlucky and got punished severely for his mistakes. But huzzah for the offense when came alive and put some crooked numbers up on the board! 14 hits and 4 walks is going to get you a lot of runs, and it's great to see Buxton look like there's no lingering effects from the concussion. Larnach was excellent, Castro was an igniter...great work to not quit on the game and get a nice win,
  17. jmlease1
    Julien was excellent in 2023. He's fallen off badly since then as his power has dropped off and MLB pitchers seemed to figure him out. But he was excellent in 2023 and really hit, not just for a month or so, but for the entire season. He's flailing right now, but let's not pretend that he was never good, that he never did anything. Key part of the team that broke the playoff drought.
  18. jmlease1
    Miranda has looked better recently, but is still not showing any power, so you have to wonder if the back injury has taken that part of his game away. If so, he's in trouble, because even if he's hitting .275+ if it's all a bunch of singles he's not really doing much, because he's also not a guy that walks enough to go that way. Julien has a similar problem: no pop in his bat. He takes his walks and still knows the strike zone, but he's not showing he can do any damage to a pitch in the zone, and still isn't making enough contact. They don't profile the same at the plate at all, but they have the same problem: they need to show they can do more damage with their bat. Both of them look like they're a long ways away from getting called back up. Not giving up on either of them, but they have some real work to do. Not sure which is more concerning: injury makes Miranda's struggles more comprehensible, but it also might mean that he never gets it back. Julien's turn into a guy who can't rip a line drive any longer is more baffling, but also might be more likely to get fixed? Bummer to see them both flailing, had a lot of hope for both of them. But baseball is a cruel game.
  19. jmlease1
    Truth. Shooter is still desperate to be Sid.
  20. jmlease1
    I think that's the big issue: what caused the debt and when was it loaded? If this was added from some of the other Pohlad companies, it will be much harder for a buyer to accept, especially if it's on top of a price tag of $1.7B. Because then the real price is more like $2.1B, isn't it? And if 20% is for things that aren't baseball related...why would they want to take that? I'm sure the Pohlads would love to cash out at top value AND dump a pile of debt at the same time: that will be great for them and make all the heirs very happy (still won't give Joe a big enough check to buy in a managing partner, though) but scarcity won't be enough to make someone pay an extra $400-600M.... It won't be concerning for the new ownership if a majority of the debt came from "related business" rather than baseball operations; that would probably be encouraging! But I suspect their interest in paying off the debt because the Pohalds were using the team for cash flow and equity calls will be reduced. My read on the two articles about the sale is there are some interested buyers who have deep pockets and real interest, but right now everything is hung up on price: Pohlads want what they want and no buyer is willing to give it to them...yet. We'll see who blinks.
  21. jmlease1
    Someone struggling doesn't necessarily mean someone screwed up. Why does there have to be fault assigned? Feels like people are reading in what they want when assigning "blame" for Lewis' problems this season.
  22. jmlease1
    Because of all the injuries, we still don't really know what kind of MLB player Royce Lewis really is. Even his slumps are in a relatively small scale of time (last season's collapse is more memorable because it was the last thing was got to see from him before the offseason, but also happened at a time when we really needed him to hit, and instead of stepping up to help the team pull out of the tailspin he deepened it). This season he's struggled at the plate all year...but all year for him is only about 3 weeks. Complicated issue to navigate, I think. This is the first time he's really had to deal with failure as a player; he was able to get through some pretty awful injury luck with his boundless confidence and positive attitude...and we loved that about him. Not he's struggling and it seems like his attitude is starting to grate on some people. Is he going to be better off going down to AAA for a few weeks to get his mind and mechanics right, hopefully beat up on lesser pitchers, and get a re-set? Or would that be a bigger blow to his confidence? Is his problem right now mental, physical, or mechanical? The Wallner comp is interesting: there's an argument to be made that Wallner was an even bigger mess (.080 BA is brutal, the K's were huge, and he wasn't adding anything defensively) but the move to drop him down ended up working...but we were also covered a bit by Kepler and Castro having hot runs in May. Not sure what the right answer is. The "send him down" push seems a little too reactionary?
  23. jmlease1
    GG has been promoted to AAA already? After only 8 games in AA? Hopefully Wallner is in Seattle for the weekend; we need his bat and he certainly seems healthy and ready. It's nice to see DeBarge run wild on the bases, but it's still A-ball so I'm not sure the pitchers do well at holding runners or have catchers that are all that strong at gunning people down...but 27 steals without getting caught is still impressive. Looks a nice part of his toolkit
  24. jmlease1
    The pitching staff has been great. Especially during the big win streak, they've been what we thought/hoped they could be. Do I still have some concerns? Sure. Paddack may be a little more smoke & mirrors than his results have shown, and SWR had to be sent down. Fortunately we have depth behind them in Matthews (who has an ugly ERA, but the peripherals suggest he's been a bit unlucky) and Festa (who looked plenty ready in his turn). And Ryan, Lopez, and Ober have been excellent. The bullpen has been excellent as well; Jax seems back on track from his early "struggles", Duran is handling his lower velocity just fine, Varland has quickly proven to be capable of higher leverage situations, and Sands hasn't missed a beat either. Stewart is health and back at it, Topa is healthy and back at it...the weakest link is Alcala (who still throws upper 90's) and Funderburk (who simply isn't as good as Coulombe). That's pretty dang good. I'm a little concerned about overwork, but some of that is simply a result of being in so many games. If the offense cranks up a bit, the starters will probably start going a bit longer. It's nice to have this kind of pitching, and this kind of pitching depth.
  25. jmlease1
    Did you know how many rehab games Wallner should have gotten before He went to Saint Paul? Are you sure he didn't need any? If he needed a rehab assignment to get his timing back, the Twin win the series against TB, and he's back against Seattle, then we're literally talking about 1 game...and I don't think having Wallner in the lineup would have fixed the Twins giving up 7 runs.
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