Sousy

Agreed with all of this. Rogers / Duffey are both the type of pitchers that are solid relievers that the team could put on the free market, but then have to replace them with what? It actually seems like in the latter half of the year the Alcala / Duffey / Theilbar (and presumably Rogers) group could give the team a pretty solid core in the bullpen. The team is also a markedly different team when Buxton is in center field (and the plate) that would go a long way to resolve some long term problems if he can even stay in the lineup for half the year. I would imagine that at some point his style of play will also adapt to be less 'hard contact' that seemed to be the case for most of this year. (Not sure how the hip injury happened, but getting hit in the fingers with a fastball was freakish bad luck.)

Is this where I can insert a Hansel Robles crack?

Missing velocity has been pretty evident in where the team is with closers. It seems we haven't had a really strong swing-and-miss closer for a long time.

Yup. The most memorable short performance by a reliever I can recall offhand was marveling at Tyler Duffey in his first appearance since he got a little heated in New York. The movement on these pitches is mind blowing for not having 'sticky stuff'. On the flip side, there was Duran early in the year throwing straight gas:

No.

Agreed on the Simmons debacle. I would be in agreement with the FO, though, should they go out and find another SS in free agency for all of the conventional wisdom reasons (Polanco & the ankles are happy and productive at 2nd, Arraez’ knees aren’t great to have at SS, Gordon just doesn’t seem to have the natural arm strength to be a dependable player there.) I also don’t think the team should press too hard / give up too much to bring Cruz back. There’s a glut of corner / DH kind of guys now and a lack of center depth and pitching; I’d rather the team spend effort and resources on the latter. However, I’m totally on board with offering him whatever coaching job he wants when the time comes if that’s what he wants to do.

“Look - legally you have to give up something in a trade. Don’t you have a dollar in your pocket or something?”

Right. There’s a difference between serious discussion and “just asking”.

Yup, yup, yup. This likely won't be the best team BIlly G puts on the ice - things are on an upswing. A young and (after this preseason) surprisingly deep team might make some noise this year in the playoffs; will only get better as Spurgeon, Dumba, Foligno grow into leadership roles, Ek and Kaprisov solidify their game and young guys (Boldy, Rossi, Beckman) learn theirs. If you haven't been in on this - now's a good time. Plus, that Winter Classic in Target Field is a pretty good tie between franchises on other sides of the river. BONUS: baseball and hockey seasons dovetail almost perfectly.

On the Kirilloff front: have we heard anything about how recovery from wrist surgery is going, or Larnach's issue that put him on the IL at the end of season? More than anything recovery from injury is going to tell the tale next year. We're not even sure if Larnach's injury impacted his hitting in the last half of the season: they just shut him down in the last month or so.

This was pretty exciting to see happen live:

This is a great thread bump. I introduced my youngest to Strat O Matic this year and we've had a great time with the "2020" set (not "2020 re-imagined"). Anyone have fun customizations (cigar box stadiums, etc.)?

What's the axiom here: if you want a good major league pitching prospect you first have to have at least six minor league pitching prospects?

Right - there's not many media markets any longer where the sports section is the driver of subscribers / revenue that it used to be. The Athletic is a case where the writing is the subscription model, but it's apparently not enough to offset what the old newspaper model would make with advertising and classified listings. The Athletic has been unique in trying to sell directly what we all used to pay newspapers for. In my local (admittedly smaller) media market it's obvious that the revenues of the newspapers is nowhere near enough to keep an active group of writers working, much less travel / incidental pay to have a beat writer actually follow the team. Most local sportswriting has just turned into regurgitating whatever the Twitter argument of the day is for the shrinking revenue base that subscribes to the paper.

I’m a subscriber and really enjoy what seems to be the last bastion of good daily professional sportswriting. This, however, does not seem great.

We can hope that he can find his way back to baseball - if he had a second surgery months after the second that sure doesn’t sound positive.

I had a bunch of authentication issues with a Firestick - couldn't log in for some reason and didn't dig much harder; nice to know that it's workable. There was a St. Paul at Omaha game where Ian Hamilton was pitching. For whatever reason the camera angle was such where you couldn't really see half the plate due to the angle: just Hamilton's back. It was great fun to scroll through the Class A video feeds - so many ballparks in the early part of the season that looked like they mounted a webcam in a (mostly) empty stadium.

The reporting from this weekend sure made it sound that way as well. The plans had been made, they just needed to wait for the moment to announce what was happening. Given that Bell passed before the season and Evers was obviously on the glide path to retirement there are probably some people already on the short list.

It turned out to be an eventful lunch break today:

If it comes to pass, I'll go kick the dirt with you.

The same is true for all professional sports leagues - this generation of players is the kind that isn't motivated by the "old school ass chewing" manager. When there are cases where the ass chewing is deserved, it's not coming from the managers but rather the veteran players. That case of Machado ripping into Tatis Jr. a few weeks ago is a perfect example: 15 - 20 - 30 years ago it would have been the role of the manager to keep an iron fist on their players; today most teams lean on veteran players to be the clubhouse / bench leaders.

There's a bit of a reputation with Tony L, but this year (his 77th!) was certainly not the fire and brimstone type of manager of old. I don't think he looked to be the emotional center of this year's White Sox team.

I don't know about that - the days of players needing an Earl Weaver to raise hell seems to be in the past. There aren't many fire-and-brimstone kind of managers out there because it doesn't seem to be terribly effective. Even seeing Tony LaRussa getting tossed from games this year was a like a sad reflection of what his management style used to be. One thing not mentioned here was how well Rocco handled an obviously frustrated Byron Buxton this year. At the time of coming back from the hip injury there was a flutter of media activity about how unhappy Buxton was that he wasn't playing though he thought he was 'ready to go'. Rocco said from the get go that unless Buxton was 100%, he wouldn't see the field. Buxton thought he was ready, so Rocco made him prove it. After he couldn't, Buxton went to see a second set of doctors and the media flutter was over.

That was pretty amazing, too. I just wish there was an easier way to do MiLB on a "TV" rather than having to Airplay / Cast the video. It was amusing to see the differences in how the different MiLB teams did the broadcast, which also reflects the amount of financial / community support that exists for the teams. St. Paul / Wichita originate some pretty good broadcasts. Some of the other cities felt more like someone's mom was holding a phone camera while a radio broadcast was playing.

My favorite Twins memories usually have nothing to do with the actual baseball product. Going to games in the early years of the Metrodome with my dad / uncle. They were usually the cheap seats, were absolutely terrible for watching baseball but for some reason the Metrodome seemed absolutely magical at the time. There's a way you look at baseball when you're 11 years old that never quite feels the same again. Collecting the 1986 baseball card set. I had a spot on the school bus and a box of cards in my bag. I let it be known that if you had a Minnesota Twins card in your possession I was open for business. That baseball card set is sitting about five feet away from me right now. Still has a "Win! Twins!" sticker on the cardboard box. The whole vibe around the 1987 World Series. I don't really have a particular game memory of that series, but I remember the excitement that was in the air. (Down to the local radio station playing that parody song "My Baby Waves the Homer Hanky".) I had a red plastic Twins helmet-like hat that I probably wore way too much. 1980s kids fashion, man. Jack Buck, 1991: "THE TWINS ARE GONNA WIN THE WORLD SERIES!" I was a junior in high school and I remember catching the back half of that game after whatever school activity I had. That sticks out in my memory more than the Game Six Puckett home run for some reason. July 24, 2020. Of all the games that really seem memorable - it was that first one that opened the 2020 baseball season because it seemed that was the first 'back to normal' type of event and the first game that I think my youngest (at the time nine) seemed to get really excited about baseball.