Danchat

Turns out there was reason to be concerned about the hitters' ineptitude in Spring Training... some said "I'll be concerned in Late April". Welp, we've arrived. This lineup is garbage, and has barely faced any strong pitching. Just wait and see once we face some really good starters and relievers. Cleveland's bullpen is going to blow our hitters out of the water.

I don't think the ball has affected the team very much, and definitely not Garver or Polanco. Both of them had very similar issues in 2020 which still featured the 2020 juiced ball. Garver's issues are mostly related to contact, and Polanco isn't driving balls anymore. How many has he actually hit to the warning track / could have actually been HRs? This isn't a Joe Mauer "hits a ton of flyballs to the warning track" issue. Meanwhile, Donaldson, Cruz, and Buxton are smacking the ball around like it's 2019 again.

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but I'd like to bring up why Gordon isn't highly thought of. Fangraphs on why they have him ranked as the Twins' 37th best prospect: Gordon has a lot to overcome - he's mostly a singles hitter who has struggled as a fielder at SS and 2B. I wish him the best and I hope he can overcome all these obstacles that have been in his way - even if he just pans out to be a bench player.

If only the Twins could just take all the bad luck from the Vikings and let them finally win a Super Bowl!

If Baldelli was truly using analytics 100% of the time, there'd be no way in heck that Colome should be throwing pitches in the 10th inning. His usage of Colome as the closer no matter what despite the "we haven't named a closer" statement is quite the old school move and it's costing him. Baldelli's moves constantly imploding like this reminds me of Molitor in the 2016 Total System Failure season. Decently high expectations followed by a season filled with bad play, bad managing, and some bad luck (don't misconstrue this, it was mostly bad play), the team had an abysmal season. Fans criticized him for being behind the times, using the bullpen poorly, and failing to show passion like Gardy did. And he did have a much worse roster than Rocco's got, I'll give you that. But I'm seeing some comparisons here. Let's not forget that Molitor got two more seasons after the total system failure... Gardy had 4 90+ loss seasons in a row. This FO may be different, but Rocco is their guy. He ain't close to being fired.

I'm interested to see the WPA for this game. So many players screwed up so many times in this one, who should receive the blame?! As for the bullpen... Wes worked some magic in 2019 and 2020 (more second half of 2019) and got strong performances from some older/middling/broken down relievers like Duffey, Harper, Littell, Romo, Stashak, Thielbar, Wisler, and Clippard. Add two very good homegrown relievers in Rogers and May, and we've had above average bullpens. I think Wes and the rest of the pitching staff deserve a ton of credit for this group's overachievement. However, the wheels are coming off the wagon now. Rogers is consistently being hung down the heart of the plate and it's no longer "bad luck", Colome is an unmitigated disaster despite having a strong track record, Robles is wild but was abysmal last year, Duffey's velo is down, Alcala still needs development time, and Stashak got shelled and demoted. Wes & Co. should be given time to work on a solution. Maybe it will require axing some arms like they did in 2019 when they cast off Parker, Magill, and Morin in the stretch of a week. Perhaps it will require calling up some rookies to see if they can help the pen. But the fixes need to start coming now or the 2021 season will be lost. I wonder if the Addison Reed and Sam Dyson moves turned the FO off to big reliever moves. Not to mention that they almost signed Craig Kimbrel, which would have also been a disaster. I'd really wish they'd make some trades to bolster their pitching depth.

This lineup was hitting similarly in 2020 with Eddie here. He’s hitting .680 ops with Cleveland... he’d be an upgrade on Cave, no doubt, but he wouldn’t have helped much so far. Especially against lefties, which we’ve faced a ton of lately.

Reminds me of Kevin Jepsen. Had a strong 2015, got the closer role in 2016 and had an appalling April, blowing 3 saves plus another 2 losses. Despite this, he kept his job as closer until early July, finishing with 7 saves, 5 losses, and 4 blown saves (only one was a loss). Kintzler was plugged into the role and was light years better. Let’s hope Colome isn’t heading down that path.

Already calling for Baldelli's head, are we? At 6-7 after two division titles... I mean, I don't particularly care for him, as I am a subscriber to the belief that impact a manager has on the team is minimal. But it seems whenever this team is winning, the narrative is "our hitters and pitchers are great!" and whenever they are losing it becomes "Rocco made all the wrong decisions!", when many times it's due to poor execution. Putting in Robles, our best reliever so far, when Pineda was at 88 pitches is not an egregious decision. Pineda just as well could have walked the first two guys to start the 8th, and then the bullpen would ruin the rest. Rogers was in the perfect situation and had Verdugo dead to rights and served him up a couple meatballs. And the clutch hitting has been mostly terrible, and it doesn't matter how much "fire" Rocco shows, that's not going to help. Having a good hitting coach could, but plug in any other fiery manager like Gardy in his prime and they'd be having the same things happening. Shaun Anderson was optioned for Thorpe? When was Anderson brought up? Also, if Buxton's hamstring is "fine", why the heck has he been unable to pinch hit for 3 games? I know our coaching staff loves to coddle our injured guys, but to me this reeks of "Buxton pulled a hammy in practice but we don't want to admit that". Put him on the IL if he can't pinch hit!

Polanco went 3 for 6 today, and I think we will see his average rise in the coming weeks. Hopefully he improves his left-handed swing and starts making more hard contact. I don't suspect we'll ever see power from him like in 2019, but I have some confidence that he will regress back to the mean.

Holy cow, Baddoo. I expected a guy like him, with zero experience against MLB pitching, to struggle like Sano is at the plate. Instead he's tearing it up... and honestly I want to see him keep succeeding. It's a fun story, and a rare occasion when a Rule 5 guy takes off like this.

I'm more concerned about the offense going 0 for 8 in RISP situations than the bullpen. We saw this countless times in 2020, was the primary reason why we got swept in the playoffs, and the hitters are looking cold yet again. The bullpen giving up 2 runs over 4 1/3 innings isn't a huge concern to me

Good teams will drop series to bad teams occasionally, but boy, we should have swept the Mariners this weekend. More poor situational hitting, relievers losing their minds while defending 1 run leads, and then watching some no-name relievers completely shut down our batters late. Sano looks committed to setting the all time K% record. Sure, I know he's going to have a 2 week stretch where he hits 1.100 OPS in June, but is that going to be worth having a black hole that will take a few walks in the lineup? It's not like he provides any value as a fielder. He looks like Chris Davis after he got paid. The bullpen has some question marks in it, but there is time for things to turn around. Outside of Colome doing his best Addison Reed impression and Stashak looking like his postseason form, the pen is doing alright. Robles looks like he's going to be a solid K getter and is a valid option to handle the 9th. Duffey has been one of baseball's best relievers the past 2 years. Rogers is iffy but capable of being dominant. Alcala has the potential to be a top notch reliever, but isn't there yet. This has the potential to be a good bullpen, but they will likely need to add at least one arm at the trade deadline if they want to be better than that. I do hope we'll eventually see some reinforcements from the minors - Cave is begging to be replaced by Kirilloff. I'm down for a platoon of Kirilloff and Garlick.

How would that have helped? Cave still pops out and Buxton grounds out, and you lose all the same. Bunting with Tortuga gives Seattle a free out that could have potentially been a hit.

Rogers was bad last year, and should have to prove himself to be worthy of closing games again. Being the “best reliever so far” through one week means absolutely nothing to me, very tiny sample size.

I suspect Kirilloff will be coming up soon after the date that gives the Twins an extra year on him, so let’s not assume LF will stay a “disaster” for the rest of the year. Plus, Larnach could ready to come up in the summer. To add on to what Tom said, I think Baddoo gets protected if we didn’t already have Celestino. Already have a bunch of OFs on the 40 man. If we applied this logic to other similar prospects, Wander Javier and Lewin Diaz would be taking up 40 man spots right now.

This lineups needs Cruz at DH. There was just going to be too much of a drop-off with rotating guys there compared to Cruz's recent track record. Simmons has looked great at the plate so far, no sign of rust from a short ST. Tortuga has been flexing some power lately. Rooker's ABs have been pretty bad, he had some chances to do damage and made some bad misses. I can see why he didn't make the initial roster. I imagine Garlick will be getting some starts soon.

Donaldson played in 155 games in 2019. Why would he think he’d break down quickly in 2020? He probably expected to play another 150+ games on 2020 before it was shortened.

I'd call up Blankenhorn, as he's played a decent amount of 3B in the minors. I'd prefer seeing him get some games at 3B rather than Astudillo.

I still object to that. Gardy was the one of the fieriest managers in the league and it never helped our offensive output in the playoffs, and couldn't prevent the start of the longest playoff loss streak in sports history. It's been 17 years since they've scored more than 4 runs in a playoff game!!

I still don't get how Iglesias, one of the league's best closers, got traded for next to nothing. Just an A+ no-brainer move from the Angels to scoop him up. Also, they had former Twin Aaron Slegers throwing in the pen. Maybe he'll be the next Liam Hendricks!

Bunting the running to 2nd would have been fruitless because then Hader just strikes out the next two batters and strands the runner at 3rd. You can't afford to waste an AB against a flamethrower like him. And even if they somehow get the run in, well, they needed at least 2 runs because the Brewers would have tied it up in the bottom of the 10th. As the away team, you need to try and score multiple runs in under the new rules.

I just looked around the MLB matchups today, and only a single pitcher got outs in the 7th inning today. The average starter went about 4.1-4.2 innings - it's early in the season and starters won't be given as large leashes, but this is just how things are for the majority of MLB teams now. This is why teams are carrying more relievers than they used to and are cycling through options at AAA. The worst part about today is that the game went 4 hours... even before the 10th inning started!

It was a pretty good game until the 9th/10th innings. Can't believe Donaldson hurt himself on the first AB of the season. Looks like Arraez will be playing a lot of 3B now. I was surprised Robles was the guy to go in the 8th inning, but they clearly like him. Hopefully we'll see more Alcala in the high leverage spots eventually. I totally forgot that runners would stay on 2B to start extra innings again. It was basically over once it was Hader vs Dobnak... and it looks like this time Hader was able to K Tortuga. Not many pitchers can do that!

I'm not sure what exactly the plan is with Rooker... and the greater plan of drafting power-only bats. We've got similar guys like Wallner and Sabato in the pipeline, and then Kirilloff and Larnach also profile as bat-first OFs. Rooker is getting old for a prospect, so I was hoping to see him sink-or-swim in LF before Kirilloff got his first big chance. I have to wonder if there's any path to him in a starting role, or if he's going to just be a bench bat / be lower end piece in a trade. As for Garlick, I think we're overreacting really hard here. I can't blame the FO for wanting to get a bench bat/platoon partner for Cave who can mash lefties after how pathetic we were against them in 2020. Methinks Falvey & Levine have always liked Garlick and want to give him a test drive, and best case scenario he sticks as a bench bat. I think the claiming of Ildemaro Vargas in 2020 was very similar - they gave a guy they always liked 24 PAs when there was a bench spot open, he struggled, and then they DFA'd him. I wouldn't be surprised if Garlick is given a similar shot, though he probably gets more than 24 PAs.