Rod Carews Birthday

Bravo to you Matthew for an excellent article. You have taken history and made it relevant to the present in a way that people can relate to and in which they can take pride. Hopefully it can also lead to a little bit of non-partisan self-reflection. Bravo to Robinson for having the skills to make it happen. Bravo to the Dodgers for having the guts to make it happen. Both endured a lot of pain in the process but stuck to it for the betterment of us all.

It does seem to blast to the extreme right away. If it were that easy to blow up a team, start over, and be successful everyone would do it. Same with managers. You know, all of the ones we don't have are great and the ones we do have are awful and shouldn't be managing. Sheesh.

Festa came up. Performed well. Earned the chance to do it again. Why would you swap them out when he is pitching well? Matthews' time will come. No tragedy here. I'd be willing to bet that he sees it that way also. This isn't college with NIL and transfers. He'll be fine.

Satire dead. Irony already dead. What is left? Can reality be far behind? How will we even know?

Answers are tough to find when there are this many players who are either injured or playing poorly, but there aren't a bunch of guys beating down the door for more playing time. Keirsey? It seems unlikely he's going to be a great hitter and is probably being used to best effect as a pinch runner/late inning fielding replacement. Gasper? Seemed like a cool story, but probably the definition of a AAAA guy. Those two are basically invisible. Probably DFA time. The problem is with Martin injured, there aren't really any guys ready to go at AAA who are beating down the door to fill the spots. Hopefully Lee helps, but he had his own issues last season. Maybe Miranda starts destroying AAA pitching. That would also help a lot. Keaschall, ERod, and McCusker need some time (for various reasons). Overmatching them in the big leagues isn't going to do them or the team any favors. The much maligned Mr. Julien has been playing well the past few games. Has he actually turned a corner? Good question, but I'm willing to ride the wave at the moment to find out. Buxton and Correa aren't hitting. They are here to stay and as the Twins best players, we have to trust that they will figure things out eventually. Both of them certainly are aware of what it takes to play well. It's so easy to complain about the "lack of fire" or the need to practice this or that. Aside from the Miranda brain fart the other day, most of the issues are simply players not executing. These are professionals, not kids. They are well aware of what they did wrong and aren't going to be moved by some good old fashioned yelling. Some players are emotional. Others aren't -- ever -- when things are great or terrible. That's a style issue, not a character flaw. Fake enthusiasm doesn't really impress me. The solution really is that some players need to play better. Period. I'm hoping that we can regress (progress to the mean? Is that a thing?) to the mean and things will improve, but it may not. Time to play the hand we have and see how it shakes out.

Fair enough. My point was that lots of at bats doesn’t necessarily make a player into a big contributor. Right now the Twins need to find some guys who can actually contribute regularly, which is evidently pretty difficult at the moment.

Maybe, but probably not a lot of teams who think they are playoff teams. Rookies usually get a lot of run and make an impact either because they are superstars in the making or because the team has nowhere else to turn. We’re not there on either front yet.

I think it is still too early to declare either Julien fixed or Miranda permanently broken. That being said, I don’t understand why some are so quick to dismiss anything Julien does. He has obviously done some serious work with his bat and it appears to be paying off. Will it continue? It’s at least a maybe and he’s currently outhitting most of the team. He has certainly earned more chances with what he has done so far. I don’t love his defense, but he’s not the butcher out there that some suggest. He only needs to be “adequate and functional” if he continues to hit.

That’s probably 1987 with Lombardozzi at 2B and Laudner as catcher. Plus add in Gladden who was no great shakes out in LF and those aren’t what I would call “solid regulars” — more like functional. That worked because some others — Hrbek, Puckett, Gaetti, etc. — did a lot on both sides of the ball that season.

Indeed. Their respective rankings are a distinction without a difference. Neither has done enough this year to make a big move in the list and the personnel situation is what will actually determine who gets the opportunity first. In either case, let’s not attach unrealistic expectations to prospects. They may come up and do well, or not, but this process takes time.

Great start by Joe Ryan last night. He did a masterful job managing his pitches and induced some early in the count ground balls. He’s not overpowering, but he knows how to do the job. I’m also continually impressed by how cool and calm he is out there. He might be the most relaxed guy in baseball. Just like last year (pre-injury) I think he is probably our best starting pitcher. Based on the last few days, it looks like Gasper and Keirsey are playing themselves back to St. Paul, which will more than take care of the “who’s next” situation. Send down Keirsey and bring up Martin for now and then send down Gasper when/if Lee is ready to go. It looks like Julien is starting to look like he might turn things around. He was solid defensively and had a couple of pretty nice plays at second last night. His at bats are also seeming getting better. A work in progress for sure, but incremental progress is still progress. Now lets win another one and we’ll have a winning streak on our hands.

He can run. His bat speed is good. He has been healthy enough to play every day. BUT. . . he still isn’t hitting or leading the team. I’m well aware that 10 games is a small sample size, but at some point he’s got to break out of it and really start hitting if he’s going to lead this team anywhere. A 57 OPS+ doesn’t cut it for any of our young players and it certainly doesn’t cut it for the team leader. For the record Correa is somehow carrying a -7 OPS+. Not sure how you do that. I don’t have a solution. You’re not going to bench him, because POTENTIALLY he’s probably our best player. He and Correa need to be the guys to carry this team somewhere and all of the “signs” that things are going to go well aren’t cutting it so far.

Harrison Bader is the current Dan Gladden clone on the team. He does a lot of things pretty well and is a useful guy, but he’s not an all-star. Gladden was a tiny bit better hitter, but Bader is better defensively and on the bases. If Bader can keep hitting the way he is right now, he will be the best player on the team, but that’s not sustainable. What both of them seem to have is that rah-rah component that is in pretty short supply on the Twins right now. Even without keeping the hitting going, Bader has the potential to be very valuable. Hopefully that energy is contagious.

Yes, Chicago definitely loves sports, but. . . The White Sox are by far the team with the lowest interest in Chicago, and they were even when they won the WS back a few years ago. It’s a Bears town. Period. Then it’s a Bulls town, for recent historical success reasons. Then it’s a Cubs town, for some rather silly reasons. Then it’s a Blackhawks town, especially now that they have a couple of building blocks in place. Heck, Notre Dame football might even be a bigger deal in Chicago than the White Sox. That makes them number 5 or 6 in the pecking order among fans. A recent example of this is the stadium situation. The Bears have a poorly thought out proposal in the suburbs that they are leveraging against the city of Chicago, but they will certainly eventually get their stadium. The White Sox have a rather cool proposal that they proposed and they inspired quite a bit of uncomfortable laughter with regard to a new Sox stadium. I think Ishbia just really wants to buy his (adopted) home town team, and that I can understand. I do agree that it could take awhile for the Twins to sell. I hope not, but there are definitely some obstacles in the way at the moment. However, just like when you sell a house, it only takes one buyer who really wants it. Let’s hope the Twins find that buyer. And soon.

It’s been six games. We see it because it’s the first six games. During the season, passages like this happen to most players at some point but we don’t notice because it gets lost in the pile of at bats. Take a breath and give the guy a break.

Exactly this. Randy Dobnak is millions of dollars worth of happy about the situation (heck -- I'd do it for half as much money!). There are probably dozens of minor league pitchers who would sign up for the same guaranteed contract and getting DFA'd a few times. IF Dobnak gets called up and pitches lights out several times, someone may actually claim him (especially later in the season), and that's OK. As someone said earlier, this is a solution in search of a problem.

And, he still can't hit -- just like he couldn't hit when the Twins had him. Unfortunately, even other-worldy defense (Ozzie Smith level) won't get you a roster spot if you can't hit.

He's out of time in this round, but any combination of injury and/or ineffectiveness among those in front of him gives him another shot. If he takes advantage of that, he'll stick. If he doesn't, then the process starts over until he's out of options. Plenty of guys have taken a couple of starts and stops before becoming successful in the majors. For a recent example see Larnach, Trevor.

OK. Calling Lopez, Ryan, and Ober #3's at best, would indicate that you would find at least 30 pitchers in the American League (15 #1's, and 15 #2's) that you would rather have on your team than any of them. Sorry. I can't come up with a list that long, so for me I'll call them better than that. YMMV.

Well, thanks a lot. That will certainly doom him in tomorrow's start against the Cardinals! It's not outside the realm of possibilities that he could contend for a Cy Young award, but it's a pretty long shot at this point. Right now, I just hope he can get his delivery and velocity ironed out for the season to start because if he doesn't do that, he becomes "former Twins pitcher" Bailey Ober.

While Buxton would obviously have to make a transition away from CF, I think it is possible that he could retire as a Twin. If his career took the Torii Hunter arc, it would be perfect. The raw athleticism would give way to more consistency and slugging prowess that would make him solid in a corner spot or at DH. As with all thoughts like this, some amount of continued health would need to follow, but that is true for all players, not just Buxton. It would be really fun to watch a 38-40 year old Byron Buxton DHing in the World Series for the hometown nine!

I think that spirit of these requirements is good, but the actual numbers are probably not likely. 15+ WAR from those three specific players is highly unlikely, not only because they aren't likely to play enough games to build that up, but also because that's really, really, good years from all three. In 1991, their top three position player WARs were Shane Mack, Kirby Puckett, and Chili Davis, and they only combined for 12.6 WAR. So. . . I say unlikely. I do think the second item is likely, if not quite specifically. 550 IP is over 180 for all three. I think they will all be good, but these days, 180 innings is pretty much never missing a start. If you said 500 IP I think that's more doable, and probably nearly as effective. In 1991, Tapani (viewed as their third starter) was their ace, with a 143 ERA+ and a 6.8 WAR season in 244 (!) IP. I would be thrilled with that from any of our big three starters. So. . . I say somewhat unlikely, but it may not matter -- particularly if the bullpen lives up to the hype. I'm going to put the third item in the likely EXCEPT, one of the seasons won't be from Bader or France. They will likely just be OK at best, but I think the Twins have plenty of pre-arb guys who could have really good seasons -- Wallner, Larnach, Miranda, maybe even Julien if he finds his stroke. So. . . I say highly likely.

Somehow I feel like the title of this article was bait! The lineup is a reasonable one. I don’t know that I put any real significance behind it for the most part. There will be 161 more of these this season and some small number will be identical, but most will be different. Bader was going to start in LF at some point, and the first game is a fine place to do that. I’m a little surprised to not see Julien in the lineup but tomorrow’s another day for that. They are all going to get to play plenty if they’re healthy. Let’s play some baseball games!

I think that they are a good team, which I guess we're saying is 88 wins or so. They could be better than that -- you never know, but 88 wins will probably win the division and certainly get into the playoffs. From there, I'm optimistic, because again, you never know. Punch the ticket to get into the playoffs and sometimes magic happens. The Rangers won a WS championship a couple of years ago with a team that was just good, not great. The 87 Twins were really only "pretty good" and the stars lined up to win it all that year. Let's play some baseball!!

He's the veteran. He's under contract. He looked good in spring training. I'm not sure why you wouldn't give him the spot. The beauty of where we seem to be with starting pitchers is that we have plenty of depth if we need to sub someone out, so the risk seems pretty low. The prospects can pitch and stay hungry in St. Paul. Their day will come soon enough.