Otto von Ballpark

@aTwinsFanInMaryland congrats on the first TD forum topic too — that’s definitely something to put on the resume!

Can Jake Cave list this on his resume? “Part of the 2nd best CF group”

I only hope my use of the word can embiggen the vocabularies of others.

Dang, that looks like a good swap for the White Sox. As good as Kimbrel can be, he is just a 1 inning reliever. For the same money/commitment, the White Sox now get an average to above-average outfielder.

The Twins are entering the last weekend of spring training. What community discussions are making the cut in the Twins Daily forums? Image courtesy of Twins Daily The Twins are entering the last weekend of spring training. What community discussions are making the cut in the Twins Daily forums? Topics included rookie pitchers, national media attention, rookie pitchers... and did we mention rookie pitchers? The Twins are "the most intriguing team" in their division, according to one national website. glunn has the highlights here: FiveThirtyEight Article on the Twins In 2006, the Twins found The (Rally) Monkey's Paw and wished for a great rookie pitcher, but got a playoff curse along with him. Could another rookie pitcher help break the curse this year? Is 2022 finally the year we see another Francisco Liriano? Vanimal46 broke the news that the Twins will be rolling the dice on one rookie pitcher as early as opening day: Opening Day Starter is…. (Spoiler alert: Joe Ryan.) In an alternate universe, Hunter Greene could have been another Twins rookie pitcher this year. It was with regret that MMMordabito shared that news in our Other Baseball forum: Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda - Hunter Greene in Red's Opening Day Rotation Sadly, not everybody will make the big club -- some will be sent to a nice farm upstate St. Paul. Twodogs wonders who they will be, in the Twins Minor League forum: St. Paul's starting lineup?? Rookies and veterans alike are welcome in the forums to join or start a conversation. View full article

Vanimal is an authority on this subject: March 27, 2013: Twins to roll with Vance Worley for Opener

That got me curious about the next longest streaks: Rk Strk Start End Games W L CG SHO SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Opp 1 MIN 2004-10-06 2020-09-30 18 0 18 0 0 0 161.2 167 107 96 65 129 30 5.34 2 8 0 NYY,OAK,HOU 2 BOS 1986-10-25 1995-10-06 13 0 13 3 0 0 115.1 122 71 66 50 90 13 5.15 9 5 1 NYM,OAK,CLE 3 PHI 1915-10-09 1976-10-12 11 0 11 4 0 0 96.2 89 41 34 37 47 8 3.17 2 3 0 BOS,NYY,CIN 4 ATL-MLN 1958-10-06 1991-10-09 10 0 10 0 0 0 86.1 107 66 57 34 66 12 5.94 1 3 0 NYY,NYM,STL,PIT 5 KCR 1980-10-19 1985-10-09 10 0 10 1 0 0 88.2 87 44 32 21 42 8 3.25 2 2 0 PHI,OAK,DET,TOR 6 CHC 2003-10-12 2008-10-04 9 0 9 0 0 0 77.0 80 57 47 41 80 14 5.49 3 4 0 FLA,ARI,LAD "End" here is the date of the last loss. Boston broke their streak with a win in 1998, Philadelphia in 1977, and Chicago in 2015. That means, the next 5 teams after us all won the World Series within 6 years of breaking their postseason losing streaks! KC won it the very year they broke their streak; the Cubs won it the following year. Just gotta win one game first...

Is that a threat?

Here are the Twins individual rookie starters in that 2001-2021 period. I guess they are counting both 2011-2012 for Scott Diamond, and both 2014-2015 for Trevor May. Must be a career 50 IP threshold, ignoring the additional "games on the active roster" criteria for the Rookie of the Year award. Berrios had the worst ERA- among these "rookies" with more than 5 starts.

Fangraphs has a "Rookies" filter. Not sure how accurate it is (and it obviously won't include someone like Carlos Silva circa 2004), but here are the Twins rookie starting pitcher marks from 2001-2021. You can look at GS and IP to see how much the Twins relied on rookie starters, and ERA- (lower is better) to estimate how effective they were. Twins didn't rely on true rookie starters that much until Liriano in 2006, then again in 2008. Got solid performances both years, though. The 2012 Twins relied on rookie starters the most, and they actually did fairly well that year, but the years around that were pretty rough.

I'll go first: Longest Twins team streak without hitting a HR is 12 games in 1981 (albeit spanning both sides of the strike). Longest Twins team streak without *allowing* a HR is 9, from 1976.

Today (Thursday March 31, until 8 AM CDT Friday April 1) is a free preview day for Stathead, the advanced search tool for Baseball Reference (and Pro Football Reference, and Basketball Reference, etc.). Normally access to this tool is $8 per month. So if you have any burning questions about streaks or events throughout baseball or sports history, now would be a good time to try to get some answers! https://stathead.com/baseball/

If Garlick makes the team, Rooker could probably be waived to make room. Also, Nick Gordon is out of options. On the pitching side, I would have guessed Jhon Romero would get waived again, but Seth seems intrigued by him.

I like this. Figuring out the Twins lineup seemed too easy.

Ober's stature is easy to overlook.

Yes, Rooker had a shoulder strain. This update was in the Pioneer Press on Saturday: Baldelli said Brent Rooker (right shoulder strain) is doing well but the team is going to give him another day or two before he restarts baseball activity.

If that's the threshold (and not Liriano-level performance), I'd say Ober did it last year. 2019-2020, Dobnak would seem to fit the bill too. It was less frequent in the "dark years", although Tyler Duffey's rookie year was a pretty good match for Scott Baker's. Adalberto Mejia's rookie year seemed about as cromulent as Kevin Slowey's. Nothing as valuable as Blackburn or Duensing, though!

Well, that’s just What A Fool Believes.

That was my first guess too.

We're down to 31 guys from the 40-man roster who are left in camp, which is pretty close to the opening day roster size of 28. Who are the last 3 to go from this group? Can any non-roster guys still sneak in? Pitchers Jorge Alcala Chris Archer Dylan Bundy Jharel Cotton Tyler Duffey Jhoan Duran Sonny Gray Griffin Jax Jovani Moran Bailey Ober Taylor Rogers Jhon Romero Joe Ryan Joe Smith Cody Stashak Caleb Thielbar Josh Winder Catchers José Godoy Ryan Jeffers Gary Sánchez Infielders Luis Arraez Carlos Correa Nick Gordon Jorge Polanco Miguel Sanó Gio Urshela Outfielders Byron Buxton Gilberto Celestino Max Kepler Alex Kirilloff Brent Rooker

This makes me wonder if the Reds aren't just doing a reload rather than a rebuild. They've definitely shed salary, and losing Gray hurts, but Winker seemed overrated and Suarez looked cooked. Amir Garrett for Mike Minor seemed like a good swap too. They've still got some good players and a top prospect like Greene.

Today’s sermon: “The Parable of the Shoe Maker”

Not true, see my post above -- 60-day IL guys don't have to stay in Florida for 60 days. (Would that be a punishment or reward? ) They can be sent to other minor league teams for rehab assignments during those 60 days. For example, Trevor May opened the 2018 season on the 60-day IL, was sent to high-A for a rehab assignment on May 12, then moved to Rochester to continue his rehab assignment on May 17. Finally, he was activated and optioned to Rochester on June 7.

A minor league rehab assignment is actual minor league games. So in terms on Enlow's ability to pitch for Wichita in May, there's no real difference whether he's on the Wichita active roster, or assigned to Wichita on a minor league rehab assignment.