Danchat

It's Larnach time already? Booya!!

Going 137-85 over those two years was "luck", and going 11-19 in a month plus is not? It seems downright negligent to claim that a sample size of 30 games completely and totally trumps a sample size of over 200 games. We played 52 games over .500 and nobody deserves credit for it except "luck"?! Molitor and his old school approach got us one playoff game in 4 years. He oversaw the Total System Failure squad and had a talented squad in 2018 and squandered it. Shouldn't he be held responsible for his failure of results like you want Rocco to be held accountable?

That's a good question, perhaps they get the big salary per year, but only get 4/5 year deals? Something like 5/$150M?

Rortvedt profiles as the classic "good defender, poor batter" catcher. His bat will likely top out at something like .220/.300, but if he's fielding well and becomes an expert at calling games, he will make for a fine backup catcher.

I hate to say it, but I'm on board the Trade Buxton bandwagon, and this was before his newest injury that happened today. Reasons why: -Buxton has a short track record of hitting well in the majors. Other names mentioned in this thread like Mauer and Rendon had large sample sizes and many years of strong hitting under their belt. Buxton has had a crazy first month in 2021, but how much will he carry forward into 2023 and on? -Buxton is one of the best defensive CFs to ever play the game, but as he ages he will get slower, thus detracting from his value in future seasons -The biggest reason - he's made of glass. He's played in over 100 games just once in 6 years. He's always getting hurt, nicked up, and has only been able to record 6 PAs in 6 potential postseason games. The Twins need guys who can come through in playoff games, and Buxton has proven he can't stay healthy to get into them. -Sell high! I know many on Twins Daily say on a daily basis "trade Sano! Trade Cave!" despite the obvious fact that they have no trade value, but in order to truly maximize value, you have to trade a player when they're at their best. The Rays do this quite a lot and usually come out on top, despite their trades usually looking awful on paper. If this team is not going to compete in 2021 or 2022, then you have to trade him this year. Now, it's impossible to tell whether we will compete in 2022, but at some point it will have to be determined whether this roster needs a reboot. It's hard to say that since most of us thought the Twins' playoff window was going to be open for a while longer... but at some point we'll have to come to grips with the fact that the 2019 roster is not coming back, and this roster is getting old.

Good article, Ted, and I agree with your % points. The players deserve the most blame, by far. They're getting paid to play a lot better than this. I am glad you didn't heap it all on bad luck like the Twins' broadcast does on a nightly basis. Rocco certainly deserves blame, but you could bring in the best manager in the league and he'd be at his wits' end with this roster.

Their main point: "A reach is often a reach, but a steal is rarely a steal" Examples like WR D.K. Metcalf are rare, usually when a prospect falls far, there is a good reason why. Top "Steals" from this year's class: LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah ED Azeez Ojulari G Trey Smith QB Justin Fields DT Daviyon Nixon Top "Reaches" from this year's class: QB Trey Lance L/G Alex Leatherwood DE Payton Turner DT Dayo Odeyingo ED Malcolm Koonce It's a very short article, and that's about it. I thought Darrisaw might make the Steals list, but I think PFF likes him too much and he wasn't that much of a steal.

This team is bad. Seeing them regress isn’t a surprise, but they’re a train wreck right now. Nearly have the players on the roster are but shadows of their former selves. Plus the hitters are as brittle as can be... not sure what they can do to fix this. They won’t lose 100+ games, but 90+ seems realistic.

Game day is drunk, or else all these pitches are landing a foot outside the strike zone?!

Thorpe sent down for Smeltzer, and so the bullpen carousel continues.

Twins Blown Saves: 7 Opposing Teams Blown Saves: 0

High leverage innings are so easy against this lineup, it's just astounding how bad they are against the best of other team's bullpens, yet our high leverage guys serve up batting practice.

Colome threw one pitch in the strike zone in six pitches to Ilbanez... got pretty lucky there.

I wouldn't compare ourselves with them when we're one of the worst teams in the AL... we hit horribly against lefties last year and Garlick seems to be able to handle them. Also saves us from the atrocity that is Cave vs LHP.

Our bullpen's strand rate must be like 20%. All inherited runners are basically guaranteed to score.

I've noticed they haven't been blasting as much dubsteb music between pitches like they did in 2019-20, maybe that's why the hitters are slumping so bad?

What the... Gameday had the game at 4-1 for a little bit, so I thought Thorpe gave up 4 runs. Disregard my past comment.

I guess I should take back my praise of Thorpe...

He's only thrown one fastball this inning, but he hit 92 a couple times earlier.

If only he could regress back to his rookie self, when he was way better...

I see no reason to keep Shormaker over Thorpe in the rotation. Lewis has looked way better since his velo gain and might be on track to be a #4 starter again. Shoemakers upside is low and likely going to be hurt soon.

Is Yang really good, or our hitters just bad? That’s about as good as you can look in your first MLB inning.

Yeah, I'd prefer it if we could keep this to transactions, or at the very least impending transactions that we are speculating about.

Everyone saw this result coming once Rogers blew the save and they showed Waddell leaving the bullpen for the 10th. We can't afford to have two relievers in the doghouse (Colome and Alcala (despite looking better lately)) plus having the AAA project in the pen. And that's with Rogers, Duffey, Thielbar, and Stashak having their own issues. They've got to at least try to fix the pen and not pretend everything is fine. Call up Law and sign Shane Greene, and if they fail, well, I will give them credit for trying.

Twins in save situations: 4 saves* / 11 chances** * does not count Dobnak's "save" in a blowout ** counts Colome's double blown save as 2 BSs That's about as bad as it can get, folks.