Rod Carews Birthday

Things really aren't looking good at the moment, as the injuries have sucked up pretty much every bit of depth that they had built up, and then some. Depth is great, but when you are missing your best players, the production is going to take a hit when the replacement is a young guy, or a defensive replacement guy, or a AAA guy. Sometimes, in the bullpen, it's just a "guy" who can be a warm body. There's not much that can be done to fight that problem. If every piece hits just right, you can win, but it takes so little for the whole house of cards to come crashing down, and that's where we are right now. At the moment the bullseye is on the back of the bullpen, but it could just as quickly turn into the rotation or the lineup or the defense, or likely all of the above. When you are missing players of the caliber of Buxton, Correa, and Ryan, while throwing in a few slumps, it's hard to do much better than they have. All of that being said, I don't think things are out of reach. A lucky break or two (we've had NONE of those lately), a player or two getting hot, a player or two returning from injury and things could turn around a little. That might be enough to sneak past Cleveland and KC, or at least get a wild card spot. Unless something dramatic changes though, it would definitely be "limping" into the playoffs.

You just described two opposing scenarios. In case one, you state that a player should not be pinch hit for because he was having a good game, even though he would have an at bat against a same-handed pitcher. OK. Fair enough, as early in the game it’s definitely a judgement call. Yet, in the second case, you want to sit or move down Buxton and Correa, who are obviously left in place due to their historical success. By the same criteria, they should stay where they are. The problem is that “feel” moves around, making it a lot more random than we will admit that it is. Sometimes, a feel move will get a lucky outcome, but often it can become a head scratcher after the fact. I think the point of my post was that we say we want things to happen in particular ways (mostly because that’s our individual opinion, which we are all entitled to), yet we hide behind platitudes of “he doesn’t trust players” or “he manages by the spreadsheet” which don’t really make any consistent sense. It’s ok to disagree with calls that the manager makes, and I do regularly, but we should just own it and not fall back on blanket statements that often are inconsistent and inaccurate.

Oddly, there were a number of former Royals on that team. . . . It's unlikely, but it does make you wonder. I do agree that even the best have clunkers however.

I completely agree on the managers getting far too much credit and far too much blame for their record and what the perceptions are. Funny how teams like the Yankees and Dodgers always seem to have amazing managers. . . . Also, you are right. Comparing managers across eras is pretty difficult. Sam Mele did some impressive things, but have you ever looked at that lineup? Gene Mauch seemed to get a fair amount out of not much, but never really got anywhere (ever). Tom Kelly won two WS championships, but is that enough to make up for poor years with mostly the same team? They all have their warts, and you just hope to match up the right guy with the right moment. I agree that Rocco is OK. I don't think he's amazing but he's a long way from terrible. I also think that we as fans, even though we get to voice our opinions, have a particularly good handle on the job a manager is doing from the outside looking in. Outside of talent, which has nothing to do with the manager, there are some game decisions and the clubhouse atmosphere. One of those most people don't understand (more on that later) and the other, we can't know. Reading through these comments, there are plenty of shoot from the hip reactions. . . Rocco Sucks! He's the Worst! Etc. They have no basis in real analysis. Every article like this one (which was ill timed at best and obnoxiously trolling at worst) invites reactions of the most ridiculous kind. There will be the usual list of "manages with a spreadsheet", "only does what the computer tells him," doesn't trust his players, especially pitchers," "should be managing more with instinct and gut feel," among others. I know I will regret this, because I will likely get beat up by many commenters, but I'm going to ask for some information. Define your terms. What does it mean to manage the game by feel? Is that like my Grandpa telling me it was going to rain because his knee was acting up? How about too much analytics? Is it better to just throw a dart at the dart board for the next move or would you rather the manager took into account the potential for success or failure of the next move? Is being #2 in the league in innings pitched by starting pitchers last year indicative that Rocco has moved on from "not trusting his players?" Do you propose that instead of "using the computer too much" he tries to haphazardly keep the information in his head, or writes it in one of those little flip page notebooks? Does saying the word analytics make him a terrible manager anymore than Ron Gardenhire managing from the gut made him a good one? Analytics are the way of the league and I'm pretty sure more knowledge mostly outdoes less knowledge. YMMV. I return to my assessment. He's OK. Fine. I don't think he's blowing multiple games on his own in the past two weeks. I don't think he's ruining the career of young players. I think he's good enough that he might get us into the World Series at some point, but I don't think it will suddenly make him amazing. The real question for those who would condemn the man is who do you want to be manager (that is available) that would be particularly better than Rocco Baldelli? Obviously Terry Fancona must be better. . . . until he wasn't.

He's not refusing to be a reliever. The team has kept him starting games to keep in line to potentially start games if they need him to do so. I think he is probably destined to be a reliever at some point in the near future, and I'm guessing he does too. However, at the moment, his value to the Twins is as a guy who COULD start if they need him to and can go to the pen later. To expect none of those rookies to hit a wall or get figured out is overly optimistic. Many here are acting as though moving to relief is going to take months of working out of the pen. He's done it before, knows what it takes, and can do it again. My guess is that he needs about 2 weeks or so. So, until September 15, leave him as a starter.

Of the things on the Twins’ to do list, this is among the least urgent unless you think that the bullpen will implode enough to cost the team a shot at the playoffs. I don’t happen to think that and I don’t think the Twins do either. If we’re lucky, and the rotation keeps rolling along, we will be able to do that, just not yet. Varland can be converted into a reliever very quickly at the end of the season, IF he is no longer needed to be the backup to the starting rotation. Once he has been converted to a relief role, moving him back takes more time than the team would have available if a starter goes down (or is completely ineffective.) Right now, much more harm can come to the team and its record without an adequate fill-in on the rotation than without another arm in the bullpen.

Different folks have different ways of evaluating prospects which can lead to surprising results. I would be thrilled if they are exactly correct and he becomes THAT guy. However, I would also be thrilled if he is just really good and not some fantasy dynamo. It also seems a little weird that he is climbing this list during a year in which he has been injured A LOT.

Let’s hope you are correct. He seems to have made some adjustments to the adjustments that the pitchers have made for him. If he can keep ahead of that curve, he will be very successful and back to the Julien we saw last year. If not, it’s back to the drawing board again for him. I do think that he has what it takes to be an excellent player. However, we, as fans, forget that there are almost always ups and downs on the way to the final product. Again, let’s hope that this is the start of something great!

I’m not necessarily anti moving Lewis to 1B, but I think it is premature at best. He has the glove, that’s the key. He definitely needs work on throwing, but that is a skill that can be learned and practiced. A “Julien” style defensive emphasis over the winter could do wonders. In the long term, I think the infield will be Correa at short, Lewis/Lee at third, Lee/Julien at second, Julien/Lewis at first. They have the people in place to make this work but it will require some patience and persistence. Doing so will allow things to shake out into the best solution. There are others in the system who could force their way into the picture and/or one of these guys could get traded, but I think this is the most likely outcome for the next year or two. This also frees up Martin and Castro to truly be utility players, which makes everyone else that much better.

I'll put this on my list of things to hope for, but not hold my breath on.

Great stories. Life has those special moments and we never know when or where they are going to happen. I hope everyone can find them -- wherever they seek them.

Four million buys nothing in starting pitching. Getting a free agent pitcher who is really good at that price is winning the lottery.

Every team has those situations. The baseball draft is a pretty difficult and inexact science. In the aggregate, I think they've done pretty well. It would appear that 20+ minor league systems would trade places.

Excellent article, although I caution against using that word - pipeline. It will definitely set a few people off with their own interpretations and definitions. Pitching prospects are always pretty fickle, but it certainly looks like they have built something that may continue supplying good solid arms for at least the short term future. Drafting based on mostly projection is dangerous, but if they can do it somewhat successfully, then full steam ahead. I think that Festa and Matthews (and some others) are going to be good MLB pitchers, but let's not judge them successes or failures until they have quite a few innings under their belt. Joe Ryan getting hurt was a bummer, but I don't think all is lost by any means. Let's go Twins!

Wow! He’s better from the other side by a lot than I am with my natural side! Sigh . . . I guess I better keep practicing.

I was about to write something very similar about cost of WAR, but you beat me to it. I can't argue with the cost of $8M/WAR in free agency, but as you said, many players still under team control also generate WAR at a much lower cost. So, yes, going out and duplicating it in free agency would indeed cost a lot, but finding ways to generate it more inexpensively are also possible. As to Buxton's contract, believe it or not, I think the Twins got the numbers about right. He will likely generate that in WAR value in years where he's more or less healthy. They did a good job of insulating the team from a huge and terrible contract while still letting Buxton cash in on his upside if he can have such a season. Some years he may fall short (2023), but others may go well (2024). He's still tantalizing and frustrating at the same time.

The other side of that trade looks no better. Polanco has been pretty awful for the Mariners and the money saved in salary gave them the means to pick up Carlos Santana. It seems it was mostly an even trade, but the Twins still have Gonzalez to either trade or keep for the future.

Completely agree on the development plan. He's just weirdly valuable on the team from a hitting perspective. His numbers don't look amazing but he is certainly a catalyst with a bat in his hands. Now he just needs a spot on the field where he's really good and a winter of pure centerfield action could really help that.

Correa is certainly an upgrade over pretty much anybody, but I'm not so sure about Farmer. I'm worried that he may be cooked, but I would be thrilled to be wrong.

It's a little bit like watching the Olympics. On the more mainstream sports the commentary is pretty good, but on the more niche pursuits, the commentary strays into "That fall might hurt his score", or "If she can go faster here, it's really going to help her win", or "It's a pretty complicated scoring system, but whoever gets more points will win." There are probably several ways for the Twins to do well this season, offensively, pitching-wise, and just luckiness. But the most logical and mainstream ones have been covered to death. Brooks Lee was professed to be the second coming and the key to the Twins season a few weeks ago, and he has played with a pretty good glove, but the hitting isn't quite there yet (just like with MANY (most?) prospects of his age. Pablo Lopez has been, at best, wildly inconsistent but he could turn it around and be a real stopper. Matt Wallner was supposed to be a key, until he was terrible, and now he's pretty great again. There are lots of things that can happen, good and bad, expected and unexpected, that can really make a season turn one way or the other.

That’s a cable tv contract. That train left the building. I’m actually trying to make less money, but thank you, you’re proving my point about how difficult it is.

By that logic, since we can’t hang with the Orioles or the Yankees, those two teams should have the best record in the league by MILES, because obviously none of the teams with worse records than the Twins can beat them either. Hmmm. Maybe not. Best record in the league is a good thing. It is not the determiner of whether you will win the World Series. I would think that if you DON’T have the best record in the league it would make you MORE likely to need to add at the deadline. All of that said, there wasn’t much to be had this year that I found particularly interesting. Lots of great players didn’t get dealt anywhere, especially the two really good pitchers in Crochet and Skubel. I don’t like how this deadline turned out, but I also don’t feel that we really missed out on a golden ticket to the World Series.

I believe we will agree to disagree. It seems more productive for both of us at this point.

Keep spending other people’s money and keep the conspiracy theory going. It’s actually far less complicated and far less sinister than that I’m sure. When ESPN went off of Dish Network a few years ago for a while whose fault was that? How about when my local NBC affiliate went off of Comcast? It’s just two stubborn parties sticking to their guns and not compromising. The Twins are a third party here. Everybody is trying to maximize their revenue. I don’t like it when it affects me, but I can’t change it and screaming about it doesn’t make me feel better or change anything. Rich people like to keep their money just like you and I do. What is absolutely “pocket change” to them is big money to me. You are correct, but I don’t throw away my pocket change and I’m sure they don’t either.

It’s neither actually, but I can do the math on it. Let’s say that your goal is make $40M. That would roughly replace the TV deal they had/have. I don’t know what the outlay by the team would be for that, but I’m guessing between $10M and $20M between on air talent, staffing, and physical costs, and I might be WAY low. So, you need to gross an absolute minimum of $50M to do that. That’s without taking startup costs like equipment, etc. into consideration. If you assume that people would be willing to pay $100 or more for a season of streaming Twins games, that means that they would need to have 500,000 subscribers AND they would need to hope that it wouldn’t cut into their gate attendance too much. (Would people attend more often or less often if they can watch it through streaming? I’m not sure actually). That is too big of a number of fans that would care enough to pay for streaming to make it work. The big problem is that in order to make it work you need a larger fan base or more fan bases. So. . . the NFL is off the table as is likely U of M with the NCAA involved. Maybe the Timberwolves, assuming that they aren’t in the middle of a deal themselves. Maybe the Wild or the Loons. Now you are down to pretty small fan bases (Minnesota State? St. Thomas?) that really don’t help you much, and you increase your costs by needing to cover more events. I believe MLB strongly inferred that the Twins should wait a year so that the league could have its own streaming package in place. I’m not sure if that was a suggestion or a mandate. We’ll see if that all happens or not. I do know that the league has a lot more economies of scale to make more happen, but who knows. I personally would love streaming as I live a long ways away from Target Field and have to catch the Twins on the road, but I don’t think it works unless it is paired with something that is more lucrative monetarily.