Rod Carews Birthday

Awesome game. I haven’t had that much fun watching baseball on TV since 1991! Now let’s go do it again!

Perhaps if the games/series were played 1000 times, these would be the results. However, we're not playing 1000 times. In the small sample size of three, pretty much anything is possible. Interesting? Perhaps. Useful? Maybe. Let's play the games!

Totally agree. It doesn't matter that today's pitchers aren't (insert cherry-picked name of perennial all-star/hall of fame pitcher here). Hitters are seeing fresh relief pitchers with 95+ mph pitches in the sixth or seventh inning rather than a journeyman fourth starter at 120 pitches. Hitting a baseball is very hard and congrats to Luis Arraez for doing it better than anyone else for the second year in a row! Also, congrats to both the Twins and the Marlins, who were smart enough to deal from their strengths and improve both teams' futures.

The Twins made it through non-critical week of baseball very well and certainly set themselves up through rest and tryouts for the postseason. Now, if we can just get all of those players to come through when it really matters we'll be OK. Go Twins!

Fantastic article, and a welcome respite from the naysayers. We don't know that the Twins will win, but it is certainly reasonable to expect that they will, and that's a welcome change around here!

They are sixth of 15 American League teams in both runs scored and OPS+. In the second half of the season they are #2. My point is not that strikeouts don’t matter at all, merely that their current formula is working and that is what I care about. Offensive juggernaut Cleveland had the fewest strikeouts in the league this season, so obviously your second paragraph must be true. Fewer strikeouts obviously means more runs and more home runs. As to pitching, that’s another subject for another day And yes, some teams do have a pitch to contact philosophy. And, exactly like hitting, a team’s philosophy and approach are based on maximizing the particular skills of their personnel. There is no perfect approach, just one that maximizes your talent.

I agree with those four choices. It doesn't seem like Buxton is going to be an option, and that's just fine if he's not really healthy. The flexibility level of this team, however, gives them lots of options that aren't there in most years. In addition to these guys, Castro and Kiriloff, who will surely both be on the playoff roster, can play out there, adding to the flexibility for the infield as well. That flexibility can help keep hot hitters in the lineup by opening up a spot beyond just the DH spot.

I agree completely with the premise of this article. While Duran is human, he is still at least as good as or better than almost all of the other relief pitchers we could put in the closer role on our team and others. Somehow we expect that perfection is the only acceptable outcome from a closer, when experience says that's just not true. Even Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan allowed runs and occasionally blew saves.

But the fact is that the Twins are indeed scoring runs, while striking out a very high rate. Your argument seems to be that the offense can't be any good because they strike out. My argument is that if the mix of strikeouts/runs works, it still works even if you don't find it eloquent. Would it be better if we struck out less? All other things the same, of course. But, would everything else remain the same? Do we hit as many home runs without the strikeouts? Do we score as many runs without the home runs? Strikeouts are not a stand alone predictive statistic any more than stolen bases or walks. If we score enough runs, we win. If we do it while striking out "too much", so be it. I'll take the win.

Career strikeout totals were my point. In and of themselves, strikeout totals aren't the death knell to a hitter. See Thome, Jim. or Jackson, Reggie. or for that matter Killebrew, Harmon. That's why I used Miguel Sano as a negative example because he didn't have redeeming qualities that made his career longer. Certainly no hits result from strikeouts, but not all contact is the type to lead to more than an out. The Twins had an outfielder that spent about 2 1/2 years doing that before he rediscovered himself recently. I would also argue that a double play is much worse than a strikeout. I'm not saying that strikeouts are a desirable outcome. However, they aren't necessarily indicative of disaster either. You only keep score with runs. Strikeouts don't take them away, unless you are in a very complicated fantasy league.

These are three solid players and I hope that they can at least get a shot at the majors. Camargo seems like the surest bet to me, as a catcher with more than a pulse. Helman and Prato had good seasons, but as @Dmansaid, I'm not sure where they fit on the current Twins team. Either of them could make a lot of sense on a non-contender with lots of holes to fill, but it seems unlikely that their ceiling is high enough to get someone to take a chance on them. It's an unfortunate conundrum. Good players. Not good enough to crack the current lineup, but not any substantial trade value either.

I'm not even remotely concerned about this. We won the division, are in the playoffs and our season continues next week. Therefore, we did something right. I present two arguments. First, if you look at the list of career strikeout leaders among MLB hitters (individuals), you will see that it is led by hall of famers Reggie Jackson and Jim Thome. In fact, when I looked at the entire top 100 list of career strikeout leaders, there wasn't anybody there who didn't qualify as at least a pretty good MLB player. Why is that? Because those players did enough good things that they had long careers and were allowed to continue to play in that same manner. Some, the Miguel Sanos of the world, don't do enough things right that even though they have ridiculous numbers of strikeouts in a season, don't appear on the top career strikeout list. You will notice that Joey Gallo does not appear on that list. Someday, Byron Buxton may. Second, a strikeout, while not pretty for the fans (unless it's your team pitching), doesn't necessarily do less for the team than a weak ground ball that is fielded and thrown to first base for an out (or even for a double play) or than an infield fly. Putting the ball in play certainly increases the odds that something good COULD happen, but doesn't necessarily mean that something good WILL happen. Would it be better if all of those strikeouts could turn into balls in play? Of course it would, but it is also not some unmitigated disaster that there are strikeouts. They are a part of a particular way that a group of hitters plays the game. If the Twins were made up of more hitters like Rod Carew or Luis Arraez, the strikeouts would come down, but that wouldn't necessarily get overall better results, especially if those hitters weren't actually as good as Arraez and Carew.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is a best of three series, all played in Target Field next week (unless the improbable happens and we move up to #2). Therefore, the previous "years of playoff ineptitude" are completely irrelevant to this series. Not a single one of the players who will play next week were there for much (and for most NONE) of that streak, so they don't feel it the way the fans do. They are plenty motivated to win and won't be looking for or needing any additional reason to win the games. I also don't think it's particularly healthy for fans to dwell on playoff losses. Who does it help? I think it's probably healthier (and happier) to rejoice in the fact that the team was in the playoffs several times in the past twenty years or so. I'm choosing that and rooting for some Twins victories moving forward -- almost as much for choking off the weeping and gnashing of teeth about playoff losses from the fans as for the positive effects on the team's success this year.

Nice idea. I like the concept, but I'm envious of all of those baseball cards. I think #6 is best. It gives you the darker color as the outer border stripe making it pop a bit more and also the alternating red and blue is a nice pattern on the fathead. The lighter colored stripes wash out too much in the wall.

It's hard to spin as a problem that are actual choices and competition for spots. Sounds like the decision is made, and I agree with it, that Lopez and Gray in some order start the first two. Much is being made of who starts game three, but I think that is really unknowable at this point. It seems like Ryan is being set for it, which sounds great to me, but there could be reasons to go with Maeda (or even Ober) depending upon the circumstances. Regardless, if game 3 is in the wild card series it will be all hands on deck and everyone will have the world's shortest leash. If it is the first game of the next round, that could be a different scenario altogether. Let's wait and see what develops.

Wow! These guys are SO young! The top six includes one 19 year old, but a bunch are only 17. I realize that they are miles and miles from the majors, but this is an exciting group of hitters in the pipeline. They obviously all need lots of development, but the potential is there.

Before the season started, I was very excited about the potential of the Twins starting pitching. However, as a long-time Twins fan, I figured something would come along to mess it up. Surely injuries and unexplainable ineffectiveness would plague the team. Injuries came along and took out Tyler Mahle, but Ober stepped right in. Ineffectiveness came along and messed with Maeda’s season, but somehow, that storm was weathered as well. Then, we had Joe Ryan’s injury, but they found a way through this also. All of this is to say, the usual bad stuff didn’t really happen to the Twins (collectively) and the pitching came through the season as it seems like that should have on paper before the season started. Having five pitchers of this caliber is totally unheard of for the Twins. Joe Ryan and Kenya Maeda’s stats aren’t sexy on paper, but as noted, if you look at what they have been capable of when pitching well, the staff is impressive compared to the league, and in fact unheard of for a Twins team. I’m not predicting that they are an unstoppable force, but in 1991 the WS championship team basically had three good pitchers — Kevin Tapani, who was outstanding and probably had the best season; Jack Morris, who was more solid than awesome during the season but definitely had the bulldog mentality; and Scott Erickson, who was unhittable early in the season and won 20 games but was decidedly gassed by the time the playoffs hit. The others got the job done but were nothing amazing. Lopez and Gray easily measure up to Tapani and Morris, while Erickson’s end of the year potential is probably matched or exceeded by Ober. That leaves two pitchers who have pitched like all-stars at times in Maeda and Ryan. To say they clear the bar set by Allan Anderson and David West would be quite the understatement. @Nick Nelson, an embarrassment of riches indeed! I don’t know where this leads, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like we can really be competitive in the playoffs. Let’s end the losing streak, win a series, and see where this all can lead.

I think Brooks Lee is going to become an important player for the Twins. Just because the team has had some success with young players doesn’t mean that all young players are ready to play in the major leagues. They all need to be evaluated separately. I believe there is some question as to whether he should have more seasoning in the minors at the beginning of next year and not brought up until sometime later in the season (when there are just “normal” MLB games). If that is true, then he probably has no business being on the playoff roster this season. He hit some balls hard at AAA against AAA pitchers isn’t really much of a qualifier. If it was, there would be about 30 position players on each team in the majors. If the comparison is with a veteran who is as good as Farmer, then it is no contest. I’ll take the veteran who is used to playing all over the field at a moment’s notice every time in a playoff environment. .

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that. Yikes!

I think that they go six unless they get in big trouble before that. I agree that Lopez might be more able to push that than Gray. If either Maeda or Ryan (whoever starts) is the starter for the third game, they might be slightly less likely to go six, but not much. If either of them are truly on, they can be just as dominating to the lineups in front of them. If the Twins lose the first game, I think all bets are off as to usage. Then the second game becomes a desperation game, so everyone gets the quick hook in the event of trouble. If you lose that game too, there is no tomorrow to save your pitchers for. If we can score some runs, I'm pretty confident about the series.

Do we think there is any chance that Paddack and/or Stewart get recalled BEFORE the end of the season? There is a lot that could be learned by facing actual major league hitters (as much as can be possible in the last week of the season against bottom feeders). That would go a long way (esp. for Paddack) toward proving that they could be reliable out of the pen in the playoff rounds.

Most definitely a huge improvement. It took a not quite .500 team and let them play at a 94.5 win pace in the second half. So glad they figured it out! Now to keep it going for the playoffs!

This looks solid. I might choose Funderburk over a rehabbing Paddack, but I’m hoping neither will need to pitch. Buxton returning strikes fear in my heart. IF they use him to DH against lefties on the short side and as a possible pinch hitter, I can be ok with that I guess. However, my fear is that he is penciled into the lineup as DH everyday, essentially eliminating Julien from the equation and clogging up the lineup. Remember, Buxton hasn’t hit well most of the season and even more so the last month or so he was with the team. He really needs to show something solid on his rehab stint and not be scholarshipped onto the roster.

Great article! I feel like Polanco’s presence in the lineup has been a steadying factor for years. He generally isn’t the most powerful guy in the lineup, nor is he the highest OB guy in the lineup. He’s just that professional hitter who makes adjustments and gets the job done. When the group with Polanco, Rosario, Kepler, and Sano all came up, I would have never guessed that ultimately Polanco would become the most valuable to the Twins and would have the longest career with the team, but I think it is true. He has figured out ways to stay relevant to the team and keep on contributing even has his body has changed.

The real question here is how to manage him if he is on the roster. If he's unable to function, the decision is easy. Leave him off the roster. If he is able to function, we have to assume that it will be only as DH and pinch hitter. I cannot imagine any way that he plays in the field (why start now?). He hasn't really hit well enough this season to be the full-time DH for the playoffs as that hamstrings the offense in many ways. So. . . . (if healthy-ish), you could put him on the roster and use him in a pinch hitting situation. He can be explosive enough that he would be very dangerous in the right situation. Unfortunately that means that you would probably need to sub him out if he gets a hit (the man doesn't walk), but used sparingly enough, that could be doable. I also wouldn't object to him being the DH for a game or two here or there, provided that he isn't clogging it up for the entire playoffs. The challenge, Mr. Baldelli, will be keeping him happy with just being there for part of it vs. being the star. Making Buxton, and the rest of the team, understand that will be the key to the equation. If he isn't displaying leadership by buying into that type of role, he could turn into a real distraction. My answer? Good question!