Rod Carews Birthday

Eddie Julien is a good player who looks like he will continue to get better. I’m not sure of the point of this article though. The Polanco trade happened. We’re not reversing it now. There’s no weeping and gnashing of teeth necessary here, as Julien can fill the job more than adequately. There is also no need for a Twins victory lap on the trade either, as Polanco was a valuable player for them. I agreed with the trade at the time and still do, regardless of what Polanco does or doesn’t do with the Mariners. While Julien is not a defensive master, it has been apparent that he has improved greatly from the beginning of last season. I think it is ridiculous for people to point to his error on Monday as the definitive proof that his defense sucks. EVERY player makes errors. To look at it this way takes SSS to the level of absurd. A larger sample is always good and the largest sample possible is needed to judge defensive prowess.

Agreed. The sample size is too small to mean very much at this point. Give him another month or so to straighten himself out. There are several other players who also need to fix things for the Twins to realize their potential. Unfortunately between injuries and ineffectiveness, there isn’t really anyone in St. Paul that would be much help at this point.

Amen to all of that. It's also one of the difficult hurdles that had to be overcome for Bert Blyleven to be inducted into the HOF. That being said, there have been too many times that pitchers have racked up the win total just because they were on a great team. Some of them made a career out of it.

I have always enjoyed watching the centerfielders for the Twins. As the article states, there have been several excellent ones in team history. The athleticism needed to play the position at a high level is always exciting, even in the cases of players who never became big stars or whose time in the position on the Twins was short, like Denard Span, Danny Ford, or Lyman Bostock. If the centerfielder can hit a little (or a lot!) that's a big bonus and turns players into legends.

As one watches baseball for a while, there are obviously many rules and situations that are "quirky" and possibly of questionable usefulness. That being said, in baseball, tradition and long established practice are things that fans value a great deal, albeit sometimes for nostalgic reasons. The value of the win stat has certainly diminished as an indicator of starting pitcher quality, and that's a good thing. As many here have said, as starting pitchers throw less innings it leaves the win to be awarded at times somewhat randomly to a relief pitcher. Should we eliminate the stat? I don't think so. In a world in which we want to grow the game and have more people interested and not less, the win still appeals to many fans and harms no one. I like the more modern ways of looking at stats, but I always thought it was great fun to root for your team's pitcher (or against the other teams' pitchers) to get to twenty wins. Certainly "counting (or compiling) stats" are being de-emphasized all the way across baseball. RBI's, once thought of as the best measure of value to a team, are almost ignored and Home Runs, while still exciting, are not held in the high esteem that they once were. In their place, OPS (and it's cousin OPS+) seems to have become the go to stat to judge players. As these are rate stats, they take away more of the luck factor that goes into counting stats like RBI's and are perceived as a better measurement. One of the problems with these rate stats is of course sample size, since a player hitting at a given rate for 150 games is more valuable than one who is hitting for only 75. For those difficulties we can turn to some variety of Wins Above Replacement, which is more of a compiling stat, but that introduces another round of complexity to the mix. Those sorts of stats are exciting for some fans, but many casual fans are turned off by it, as they don't really understand how they are compiled.

Yes he is but his defensive impact from the DH spot sucks.

Just reacting to my inner fear of him getting hurt easily on a superman play. We've been down that path before. I would rather he would be in the 90th percentile of centerfielders in baseball and healthy than have him make 99th percentile plays and have him hurt for a chunk of the season.

Great dive. Now don’t do that again. . . .

Indeed. He’s just an easy band aid to tide us over until we can get more pitchers healthy. Totally reasonable choice.

Based on what he has shown us so far this year, replacing his hitting isn’t difficult. I’m afraid he might be turning back into bad Max and that’s very painful.

Exactly. It’s a little early to crunch the data. The sample sizes are just too small and not that predictive of what will really happen. If this weren’t true, then Brent Rooker would have won the AL MVP and broken the season home run record last year.

Putting aside the insanely tiny sample sizes we’re dealing with, they have acquitted themselves nicely and given the number of good arms on the IL, things should get even better. Let’s hope that’s true. But thinking about the insanely tiny sample sizes, these results illustrate the incredible volatility of individual bullpen stats. No one has even pitched anywhere near a game worth of innings, so they are two runs given up away from their individual ERA’s tripling. Let’s hope that’s not the delayed outcome. So far they look good. Keep it up!

So will proven home run hitter Kennys Vargas be the Twins’ All-Star representative, or will that honor go to 45 year old 2nd baseman Luis Rivas?

For a first start after all of that time, I have no complaints. Hopefully he will tidy things up a little over the course of a few more starts and become more effective and consistent. This start looked like a pretty typical 4/5 starter start, and he is our 4th or 5th starter.

After five whole games there is an incredible amount of noise in the data. IF they continue doing the same thing after a month or two, some tentative conclusions can be made. However, until then, the idle speculation is just that. . . . Idle speculation. Certainly all is not lost (or won) at this point. Let them play some ball and then we’ll see how it goes.

I would assume that they will close the roof, and that it likely has been closed due to the several days of recent rain.

Looks good! Let's play some games!

Yes. Yes. and Yes. There are soooooo many options there that have at least a reasonable track record and/or potential for success, that this bullpen will be fine. It will look and feel different, but it will be fine. I can't wait for the season to start so that there is actually some baseball to talk and write about rather than just speculation.

I think it’s a little weird that PECOTA thinks that last year’s 76 win team is going to become an 84 win team with little to no changes in personnel. Granted, they will likely have pretty solid starting pitching, but that lineup is pretty hapless as a group. They aren’t exactly me and 8 guys I found on the street, but they pretty much are Jose Ramirez, Austin Hedges and 7 guys found on the street.

These signings are nice, but when you start with a team that only won 56 games, it’s hard to get close to contention. They are still probably only a 70ish win team, but that’s a big step forward. If more of their young players develop and they can take another step forward after that, they are looking at a .500 record by 2025. I’ve always liked the Royals, but the road ahead is a very long one. Luckily for them, the White Sox will work very hard to beat them to the bottom of the basement this summer.

At a time like this it is important to reflect. What was your favorite moment of the Jesse Chavez era?

Nobody is overlooking these players for this year. Two of our best hitters and one of our best bullpen arms (right now, maybe the best until Duran gets back) will definitely be heard from loudly this season. If Julien and Jeffers can duplicate last year’s numbers over a full season, they are definite all-stars and maybe more.

Not exciting, but pretty useful. This is the rough equivalent of signing Keuchel last year, only the bullpen version. The season isn’t going to hinge on this guy, but he could be a useful bridge player. Deals like this around the margins have virtually no risk and could provide nice returns. It may not be the big starting pitcher signing we wanted, but it’s more than nothing.

I’m in complete agreement with you, as I really don’t care about gambling in general. HOWEVER. . . It’s against the rules for any MLB baseball player or connected employee. Ohtani has earned millions of dollars from baseball and either knows it’s against the rules (in addition to being illegal depending on how it is handled) or most certainly can afford to pay someone to tell him that it is against the rules. If some poor schlub like me were involved in a situation like this, no one would cover up the situation for me. However, I expect the handwringing and “aw shucksing” to be turned up to 11 on this from the Dodgers and the league because he’s somebody important, and that is what I think is wrong with this situation. If he broke the rules, let him pay the dues.

“I’m sound as a pound.” I’m gonna use that. Priceless!