Teddy

While I'm not going to claim to be any sort of a pitching expert here (so is that why I'm about to play one on the internet?), to my eye it appears as if Berrios isn't committing his pitching-arm shoulder toward home plate as explosively as he should. Matter of fact, he seems a little passive with his upper body. Compare the speed of the movement of his shoulders to that of Caminero in the clip on this page. While Caminero may be a bit more violent in delivery than I'd like to see out of Berrios, if Jose could speed up his upper body rotation, and really commit his pitching-arm shoulder toward his target, the ball would explode out of his hand even more and I think he'd be more consistent with location.

I agree with you AZTwin. What is the reason for the deeper farm system? Is there a new scouting department? Not that I'm aware of. Does that mean that the same old scouting team is simply doing a better job? Or are the coaches doing a better job of teaching than a few years ago? Dare I say that the improved depth is because of Terry Ryan?

Any word on what was in the MRI that shut down Trevor Hildenberger? With the stats he's been posting, I was hopeful he'd be a September call-up. That quick one paragraph addition to this story has a very ominous feel to it.

Cody, thanks for including most of the teams' records and their positions in the standings.

Thanksgiving of 1992. My girlfriend and I were traveling with two friends from LA to San Antonio to visit her parents. We flew Southwest, which at the time, had a few rows of seats that faced each other, so families could sit together. The four of us found one of these sections, and sat there with one other guy. Well, at one point on the flight, my buddy said something really idiotic, and so I blurted out, "Oh, shut the f*#k up". Well, at that precise moment, the pilot cut the engines back, and so that word kind of reverberated around the cabin and I noticed that the ten year old boy with the family across the aisle whipped his head around faster than an owl tracking a mouse. I felt like a heel, but didn't say anything more except mouthing "sorry" to the kid. About 20 minutes later, the guy who was in the row with us said to me, "If you were one of the richest players in baseball, would you fly Southwest?" I asked what he meant, and he just pointed to the father of the family, who was sitting in the seat to my right, just two feet away across the aisle. Orel Hershiser. Needless to say, I struck up a conversation with him, and we chatted for a little while. He ended up signing an autograph for the guy in our row. Took about five minutes to craft the autograph. I've never seen a player take so much time to write his name on a piece of paper. He put a lot of care into it, and it was rather iconic looking. I didn't ask him for one, simply because he was with his family and I felt bad enough about the F-bomb I had dropped earlier.

I've come to really like Plouffe, but I wouldn't mind seeing him traded, but I wouldn't trade him for SP. We've got too many starters now with the FA acquisitions the past two years. C and SS are big holes, but those are some of the toughest to fill, and I don't think Plouffe alone would net a top prospect at either position.

Good for Gardy. I still try to remember him fondly from the first seven years of his tenure with the Twins. He's a good guy, and hopefully, he'll manage them to consistent third-place division finishes.

Actually, with Texas losing and the Twins having the night off, the Twins are just one game back in the Wild Card standings.

So, given TR's penchant for veterans, what are the chances Pelphrey comes back next year? Frankly, if it's in a starter's role, I think it'd be a bad move, but if the team can convince Pelph that he'd be an asset as a reliever, I think it'd be a great move. I know he's opposed to the idea, but I think he could be a valuable 8th inning guy, considering how effective he is the first time through the rotation, but ineffective after the first time.

This was exactly the right move by TR. Had he brought up Berrios, they'd have had to remove a player from the 40-man roster. Berrios wouldn't have pitched much anyway due to their long-term concern over his innings pitched, so better to let the machine stay hungry over the winter and come in next spring for a shot at the rotation. He'll certainly be better than Pelphrey next year.

I'm excited to see what he does next year in a full-time starter's role.

Seeing what Stephen Gonsalves has done this year in his two stops in A-ball, I'd love to see him bumped to Chattanooga next season, but I doubt it'll happen. More likely, the organization will want to see more consistency out of him over the first half next year before a mid-year promotion to AA. Is there any reason to think that he's ready to make the move at the beginning of the season?

Jeremy, I absolutely LOVE that you added the standings/record update for each team. Thank you!!

Seth, A suggestion: Could you start posting the farm teams' respective records and their playoff positioning as part of your report? Sure, I can go look them up at milb.com, but I'd rather get all of the pertinent data from Twins Daily. Thanks! Teddy

I truly wonder if the Plouffe of the past was so worried about his place on the team that he was expanding his strike zone. With Sano's injury, third base is Plouffe's for this year and maybe the first half of next year. Old habits (pressing because you're worried about your spot on the team) are hard to break, but hopefully Bruno can get him to relax and realize that a walk is definitely preferable to a weak grounder to 2nd base because he's gripping the bat too tightly (metaphor: meaning pressing without using that word again in the same paragraph) about not getting good pitches to hit.

Respectfully, I don't know that I agree. I think a good first baseman can save a lot of errors from an erratic infield. We know that Plouffe is erratic, and Sano is improving, but some of his hurried throws are off the mark. Florimon is only keeping the SS seat warm until Santana is ready, so it's possible next year we have two error-prone guys on the left side of the infield, so a smooth glove at 1B is imperative. Mauer may not be there yet, with less than 60 MLB games at the position under his belt, but his glove work has the potential to be Gold Glove caliber once he gets the position down. That will only help the infield next year when the kids are ready.

Does Presley have any options left?

Yeah, there's a story in the PP wherein he claims he took pain killers: http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_24724950/minnesota-twins-ruling-eddie-rosarios-50-game-suspension

Yes, Florimon has his warts, but there's a comparison to what we were all saying about Dozier last year. This will really be Florimon's second season as a regular, and Dozier flourished his second time around. Let's hope that becoming a little more comfortable and working on his deficiencies in the offseason will allow him to make a jump to palatable with the bat and consistent with his defense.

I'd be shocked if TR was looking for more than a one-year make-good deal for Garza. Remember that Garza and Gardy didn't exactly see eye-to-eye when he was coming up. I'd bet TR is offering one-year at about $15 mil with a club option for year 2 just in case nobody else makes a move on him before spring training. Any longer than two years would shock me.

With all due respect, I have to call BULLS**T on this one. If you followed the Twins since 1961, you would know that teams in the early 80's and mid-90's were far worse than this one. This team actually could be pretty solid with some decent starting pitching. The offseason isn't over by any stretch of the imagination, and the OF situation isn't as dire as you think. I expect that they'll pick up a solid veteran or two late in the offseason (once jobs begin to become scarce) that will shore up some of the weaknesses. However, to say this is the worst team ever is total hyperbole. There are no Scott Stahoviaks, Rich Beckers or Frankie Rodriguezes on this list (outside of Correia maybe - I don't see the upside in that signing).

h2oface, as of December 6th, you can pretty much count on Slama being gone.

Wikipedia, mikeee? Really? Yeah, because that's such a bastion of gospel truth.

So, Seth...other than the fact that MLB.com sucks almost as much as MLB TV, would you like to share some of the other reasons why the MLB.com list wasn't included?

I'd avoid Dempster. He belongs in the NL, where they can't hit even his weak stuff.