Willihammer

You were one of those kids who was completely satisfied to color with the Crayolas buried at the bottom of the box weren't you?

OK- favorite General Mills cereal- go. https://www.generalmills.com/en/Brands/Cereals/genmills-cereals/brand-product-list

Since August 7 last year, Mauer has a 43 game OBP streak a 28 game OBP streak and a 27 game OBP streak (still active).

Happy 150th birthday General Mills! Doesn't taste a day over 125

What is that in PST?

Worse than any team since the 2010 Pirates. Worse than any 90s Twins team as well.

Welp, Its like that old nursery rhyme every Twins fan grows up hearing after 5 innings. Rain rain come come come now now now now now now now

If the 2016 Twins were a car, it would be a 1973 Reliant Robin http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view3/1181282/top-gear-reliant-robin-crash-o.gif

Dozier gives new meaning to "hittin' em where they ain't."

Alright let me try again. "Hurt me" said the Twins fan. "OK" said the Twins.

Hurt me, said the sadist. No, said the masochist.

The 2016 Twins pitching staff has an ERA+ of 82. Worse than the 2015 team. Worse than 2014. Worse than 2013 Worse than 2012. Worse than 2011

Gotta find out what we have in Pat Dean! Aging no strikeout non-prospect AAA lefties don't come around every day!

15 years of TSA "security" is proof the terrorists won on 9/11. They aren't even good at what they do. Audits show them failing to detect mock explosives constantly. I'm not entirely sure why the skies have been safe since 9/11, but I think we can safely say the costs outweigh the benefits as far as the freaking TSA imposing on people's privacy / time / freedom goes.

There are a few issues that divide R and D members- pot, gays, prison, guns maybe, those are probably the biggest. For a third party to really hold there will need to be a critical mass of pet issues that force R's and D's to caucus together. I don't think we're particularly close yet. No reason to put anything but an R or D by your name at the local level, if you put any letter at all.

Twins' talent evaluators have been in lockstep with the rest of the league for some time now. Since they are currently the worst team in baseball and Arcia the last man on the roster, we can be confident no other team will claim him if he reaches waivers. Not.

Who else is just hoping for another small meltdown by Plouffesy after the inveitable strikeout. Maybe a thrown bat or someothing. #voteTwins

Not much has changed with Landa after 20 appearances for the Miracle. Walk, strikeout, HR, GB rates all remain stable. Opponents do have a .389 BABIP against him, I'm guessing thath explains some or all of the WHIP increase. http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=landa-000yor

May 2016 in the books. Another ho-hum record breaker at 1.7 degress F above the long-term average.

Why is this guy not the GM of the Twins right now? Or, yesterday?

Park is on pace to be a ~2.5 WAR player this year. Assume that is his true talent, factor in decline, and you're looking at about 4.5 to 5 surplus WAR over the life of his contract. Plus a team option. That should be an attractive chip for someone that needs a RH bat / 1B at the deadline I would think.

The Hughes extension is a good snapshot of some of TR's weaknesses IMO. 1. An over-commitment to free agent acquisitions. Particularly the multi-year contract signees. Hughes had an outlier performance, something other GMs would recognize. His trade value probably wasn't that high, but I have to believe a trade opportunity would have been there, if Ryan had pursued it. But he has built this image of the Twins as the anti-Marlins. It sounds callous to say, but sometimes the best thing for the franchise, is to uproot a player and ship him off. They do it every time they recall or option the Buxtons of the system- Buxton has a wife and kid too. But for whatever reason TR cultivates this image that if you sign with the Twins you don't have to worry about being flipped and I believe that costs him trade opportunities. 2. Poor appreciation for the forces of regression. Kinda ironic because a big part of the justification for signing Hughes in the first place was, his HR/FB would normalize into something resembling league average if he moved into a more league average home park. But Hughes' HR/FB in 2014 wasn't just normal, it was 6th-lowest in baseball. A correction in 2015-18 seemed completely possible, if not likely. And then there was the K/BB rate which was the GOAT, practically screaming regression. 3. Poor appreciation for age related decline. Again, sort of ironic because the other appealing thing about the original Hughes contract was that Hughes was one of the younger free agents in the class. But instead of letting him walk at age 30, Ryan made sure he locked Hughes well into decline years. 4. Lousy timing. As mentioned already, there was no point in extending a player likely to regress, with 2 years remaining on the contract. Not trading him- okay, maybe a deal wasn't there. Maybe. But to go so far the other way and extend the guy? Just completely unnecessary. It turned an asset into a liability, and will handcuff the team when all the young talent they've drafted during this downturn is ready to audition in 2016-2018.

If you don't think the country is horribly broken, wouldn't benefit from a war against an entire class of people (either brown people or the 1%), and are generally satisfied with the last 8 years, then status quo is a pretty easy choice.

To be clear, "luck" is shorthand for variations in outcomes that appear to be random. That doesn't necessarily mean they are random. It could mean that the causes of those variations aren't easily measured.

After 12 appearances, Landa is pretty much on track with his career norms. 300 pitches in 16 IP, 7 walks, 1 HBP, 17 Ks, no homers. He does supress the long ball, but continues to struggle with control and allow too many baserunners. On a positive note, his health has been good.