Otto von Ballpark

Good post! I was confused about this at first too. Further explanation: 1. Guaranteed good weather or a roof is necessary to avoid delays (which would cause doubleheaders and/or throw off the whole schedule) -- this disqualifies pretty much every northern ballpark without a roof. 2. I think they want the stadium pairs close so the DS winners can drive relatively quickly to the CS stadium. (Insert joke about California traffic here.) Air travel compromises the "bubble" isolation more than ground transport. 3. The ALDS/ALCS is only being played in a pair of NL stadiums, with the opposite for the NLDS/NLCS, to ensure no team is playing those rounds on their actual home field. CA and TX are really the only places left that could meet this criteria. And fortunately one of the CA/TX teams (the Rangers) is already virtually eliminated from postseason contention, so they can safely be designated as the World Series host.

In addition to the responses above, I'm pretty sure every person allowed into the bubble/clubhouses is going to be tightly regulated -- even cleaning and maintenance. As long as the players aren't ordering pizza and going outside to meet the delivery driver, they should be OK.

Okay, here are the called strike comparisons:

If the strike zone calls seemed to favor the White Sox pitchers over the Twins pitchers, I wonder how the approaches of each team's batters affect that? If the White Sox were a bit more free swingers, they are more likely swinging at pitches close to the zone anyway, while if the Twins are more patient, they are taking more of those. Yet again, not a defense of the ump or human umpiring in general, but under the current system of human umpiring, a known risk of a patient approach is putting more calls at the umpire's discretion.

Yeah, it's easy to look at those pitches right up against the box and conclude the ump was wrong, but that's maybe millimeters? Probably within the margin of error of any pitch tracking system. The ump may have still been "wrong" but Twins batters likely can't discern strikes/balls on that edge any better -- and indeed, they've never played under a system with a hard edge like that either. (Disclaimer again: not a defense of the ump or human umpiring in general. I'm intrigued by robo-umps and would be very interested to see them, assuming the calls are made instantly.)

Where's the evidence that "more often than not it went against the favor of the Minnesota Twins"? I'm not claiming it didn't, but wouldn't you also need to show the zone the Twins pitchers received to make that claim? EDIT: Found it! Select "All Away Pitchers" in the first drop down (or "All Home Pitchers" if that is what you want), then "Pitch Description" in the last drop-down, and then in the unlabeled box next to that, you can type/select "Called Strike". Can't get the "Save as Image" function to work, but here's the link: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?game_pk=631483&game_date=2020-9-15&type=team_away&chart_view=pitch&chart_type=description&inning=&count=&batter_hand=&pitcher_hand=&filter=Called%20Strike&player=home-pitchers_605240&view=Umpire&coloring=Pitch%20Type (And before anyone jumps down my throat, no, this is not a defense of the umpire or human umpiring in general. Just a response to the author's statement that the umpiring favored the White Sox.)

There was a little bit of the pattern starting in 2003, or even 2002. 2002 ALCS: won game 1, lost next 4 (vs Angels) 2003: won game 1, lost next 3 2004: won game 1, lost next 3 2006: lost all 3 (vs Oakland) 2009: lost all 3 2010: lost all 3 2017: lost only one 2019: lost all 3 Even when they weren't getting swept the first few times, they still had a propensity to drop 3+ in a row.

Yes, Cruz was ejected. I wonder why they don't use the pinch hitter for the ejection part -- meaning, Cruz could just tell Adrianza to go insult the umpire on his behalf.

The problem is, in order to be eligible for postseason replacement, a player must be eligible to return from the IL. That means they must have spent the minimum number of days required on their IL -- 10 for the 10-day IL, or 45 for the 45-day IL. So while we could move Rooker or Garver or Avila or anyone else to the 45-day IL now to open up a spot on the 40-man roster, we can't also use that spot to make the new player postseason eligible anymore, because it is now impossible for those guys to spend 45 days on the IL before the start of the postseason. (Since he last played on August 19, Garver wouldn't be eligible for postseason replacement on the 45-day IL until at least the second round.) So to add a single new player to the postseason roster from here on out, we may have to put Rooker on the 45-day IL to make room for the new player on the 40-man, AND petition for the new player to replace Homer Bailey as postseason eligible, because Bailey has already served 45 days on his IL stint. That means we may only get one shot to add a player in this manner. (Not sure if Gordon may also be eligible for postseason replacement?) Other factors: - putting someone on the 45-day IL now would make them ineligible for the entire postseason -- what if Garver or Avila may only miss a round or two, but we hope they can return? - once the regular season ends, you can't put a player on the 45-day IL anymore -- so we may put Rooker on there before the end of the regular season and leave our 40-man roster at 39 for some wiggle room during the postseason. If someone gets hurt in the postseason, then we could use the open spot as necessary.

Romo has actually been fine. We need to deploy Alcala to get to Romo. (Well, we need runs too, I guess!)

Sure, that’s fine. But again, the context is taking out a guy who is getting “lit up.” If he’s actually not allowing hard contact, it could support leaving him in. Especially if one is as pessimistic about the likely relievers as some folks around here!

What if Rocco kicked dirt at the ump from 6 feet away, while wearing a mask?

He didn’t have a good game, certainly, but in the context of whether to send him back out for another inning, I think the distinction around “lit up” is significant.

They’ll have to option someone to activate Odorizzi.

Lit up? https://twitter.com/dohyoungpark/status/1306044774856753152?s=20

Smeltzer was optioned out for Blankenhorn.

Garver has 61 PA this year. That is not two months worth of PA, even if the season is almost (but not quite) two calendar months old.

That reliever in Pittsburgh who couldn’t find the plate — I’d have to look up the name...

What's your source for following this scenario? I just added up all the 2+ runner on base splits for the 2020 season at B-Ref: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=MLB&year=2020#bases::none Looking at hits minus HR, divided by AB minus HR, with 2+ runners on base, the Twins rank 11th in MLB this year. Ranking behind us include playoff-bound teams like TBR, NYY, CHW, LAD, and OAK. Keep in mind, MLB batting average overall is at its lowest point since 1972, and isolated power is higher in 2019-2020 than it has ever been in Twins franchise history (since 1961) -- so everybody is getting fewer non-HR base hits than before, in all situations: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=1961&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1961-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=12,a

More importantly, no off-days except between series. Even if you sweep the first two rounds, you may need 4 starters to do so.

Rooker's 40-man spot might be the only one we have to play with, at this point. So if there's a chance we may need to add another catcher, or shortstop, or pinch runner (do we have one of those?) for the postseason, adding Kirilloff in that spot might preclude those moves. Unless you are confident that Kirilloff's bat could quickly become ready enough for the 2020 MLB postseason, it's defensible to hold off on the call-up in favor of keeping flexibility at other positions. That said, I'm not opposed to it! I'd be excited to see Kirilloff, and I'd certainly hope he could be a postseason factor. But it might be more hope than realistic assessment right now.

The short-term goal to which I am referring is getting ready for the 2020 postseason and making sure the players you expect to use in the 2020 postseason are in the best position to succeed. That means starters will undoubtedly get rested, but it also means regular action for subs and role players all over the field like Marwin, Cave, Wade, Adrianza, even Astudillo. I'm not opposed to it, but giving a few reps to Kirilloff over the next couple weeks doesn't have any meaningful effect on his development process. It's not really helping 2020, and it's not doing much for 2021 either. Failing to call him up now wouldn't be a "huge mistake" like you said, unless you believe he's an impact player right now -- an assessment that I doubt the Twins share if we're debating whether to call him up as late as Sep. 15.

At the same time, if other owners are conservative about 2021 payroll, a willingness to spend -- even just on short-term deals -- could really land some good players this offseason. But I would be surprised if we invested in outfielders, or arguably any position players other than re-signing Cruz and maybe finding replacements for Marwin and Adrianza. Trevor Bauer is obviously a top target on the pitching side. Tanaka? Taijuan Walker? Some bounceback candidates... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/03/2020-21-mlb-free-agents.html

Robert had a called strike and swinging strike consecutively in the 3rd inning. Mazara in the 4th. You can click on the counts in the play-by-play here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA202009140.shtml