Rod Carews Birthday

According to the OP and several others on this rather long string, Rocco Baldelli is a poor manager and is holding back the team. I disagree. I think the combination of mostly happy productive players having a mostly productive collective season (not individual necessarily) and putting the team in first place at this point is indicative of the manager not being the problem, if there really is a "PROBLEM" that is anything out of the ordinary for any baseball team short of the '27 Yankees. "Managing" is about dealing with the big picture items and the team over the long haul, not micromanaging every single thing. (I had one of those once, it wasn't pretty). Rocco is more likely an above average manager based on results alone. Were he let go by the Twins, I'm certain he would get a new job very quickly. That being said, every "problem" must have a solution. Who do you propose that is alive (no to Casey Stengel or Billy Martin), available (probably can't hire Terry Francona or Dusty Baker), proven (remember, we know they are better), willing (probably not Joe Torre), and has the abilities (no to posters on Twins Daily, but hey I'm retired!) to take the job? Surely, if Baldelli is that terrible, the list of candidates is endless.

If everything goes perfectly according to script, the Twins win every game. Things are ALWAYS going to go wrong in a game and that’s why teams lose. It happens. Get used to it. It isn’t always someone’s fault. It is also said (correctly) that a manager gets too much credit when things go well and too much blame when things go poorly. That is most certainly true here. So far, this team is winning games and is in first place in the division, even without everything going perfectly. On the whole, I’ll take that. The manager can’t have screwed things up too badly.

Seems like a tremendous amount to give up for a couple of random relief pitchers. It's also far too early to know how they will be pitching at the trade deadline and/or whether they will even be available. VERY few trades happen more than a week or so before the deadline, so this is very premature. Much to be worked out before making any deals.

It's hard to deny that from just about any point of view, this trade became a mess for all parties involved. Rogers and Rooker have moved on to different teams due to ineffectiveness. Pagan is . . . well. . . Pagan but we are still holding onto him. Paddack MIGHT wind up being a good pickup assuming that things go well with the TJ rehab. The only one of the group making a substantial contribution right now is Brent Rooker, so at the moment you are certainly correct. I kept hoping that he would be a Twins slugger for a long time, but it just never seemed to work out. Sometimes it takes a few extra tries to make things happen and in this case it took stints with the Twins, Padres, Royals, and now Athletics for Rooker to find himself. I'm not really optimistic that he has suddenly transformed into Big Papi, but I'm excited for him now and hope that he continues to find success. I also hope that next year Paddack is pitching well in the rotation and makes us all very glad that the trade happened!

Yes.

But all of the runs were given up by the pitchers you were OK with using. The more questionable guy got through his inning. That’s baseball sometimes. (Even) more innings from starters would be awesome if they were likely to continue to cruise, but again, it’s hard to know as a fan what the inside baseball is at that moment.

If the hitting and pitching and fielding lined up and your average runs scored was higher than your average runs given up, the team would be 162 and 0. It doesn’t work that way. As for coaches in players faces, the world doesn’t work the way it did when Casey Stengel managed, or even Billy Martin. You can’t yell a team to success no matter how loud you are.

I really believe that blaming Rocco for last night’s loss is a bit extreme. Decision by decision. . . here we go. Taking out Joe Ryan “early”. It’s hard to know how Ryan was feeling. He was definitely less sharp in the sixth inning than he was earlier in the game. Jorge Lopez, statistically their best reliever so far this year, was rested and ready. He came in and a guy hit a really good pitch (not a mistake pitch) out of the park. It happens. I take that gamble all day long. I might be the world’s biggest Joe Ryan fan, but he’s not Bob Gibson. He was not trending in the right direction at that point. Griffin Jax comes in to pitch the eighth inning and does well. He’s been a one inning guy all year and he did his job. Could he pitch another inning? Maybe, but it’s not crazy to think he would turn into a pumpkin in another inning. One inning relievers are pretty much the standard across the league. Brock Stewart comes in to pitch the ninth. This was certainly his craziest decision, and it looked a little scary, but he got by with it. It’s not something I would have chosen, but again, he got by with it and the Twins lived to see extra innings. Maybe it bodes well for Stewart’s future to get through something like that. Caleb Thielbar comes out for the tenth. The argument is that Duran should have been pitching. OK, so then who do you have for the eleventh assuming that Duran had done the job? When you go to extra innings, everyone’s bullpen becomes a little bit unraveled, plus it seems likely that Duran was only a break glass in an emergency option, since he pitched two in a row over the weekend and we need someone to be able to pitch the next game. Duran has been very good, but not lights out this season. By the way, statistically speaking, Thielbar has a lower WHIP, a lower ERA, has issued less walks, and has given up less home runs than Duran so far this season - albeit over less of the opposing teams’ heart of the order. Thielbar gave up ONE hit, a single and otherwise pitched well. Oh, and the ball hit was out of the strike zone. Good piece of hitting by a professional hitter. The situation would not have been as dire if the Twins had been able to hit a little bit in the last couple of innings themselves. By the way, imagine the gnashing of teeth on the White Sox side about giving up the tying home run to Nick Gordon, a guy hitting .140, a number which might currently overstate his hitting prowess. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect. It’s a loss. They will lose about 50 more games this season (as will almost every other team). It will not break the season, nor would a victory have made it. It’s funny, if a player gets a hit 40% of the time, he’s having a season for the ages and will likely be in the hall of fame, but we expect managers to bat 1.000 or he’s a bum. Yikes!

I usually sit on the third base side on the lower level so I can see into the Twins dugout, but there are better (and cheaper) tix on the first base side this time so I think that’s the option this time. It’s a funny stadium. Ugly in general but mostly good sight lines from all over the park. The upper levels are VERY steep though so I don’t like those much.

Nice take on the season so far. I think we sometimes don't think as much in terms of home field advantage as we should. It's tough to go to someone else's ballpark and win a bunch of games. By the way, you said you are from Mitchell. Hello from a guy who grew up in Tripp and moved to the Chicago suburbs (eventually). Looking forward to seeing the Twins in town this week, although I may wait until Thursday's day game in order to prevent frostbite!

Too early to do much adding, and I'm not thinking that any of these guys bring something more to the table than we already have at those positions -- and we have/are about to have a bit of a roster crunch as is. Guys who are as good as Arraez with power mostly don't exist and where they do exist are certainly not available, nor would we be willing to pony up the asking price if they were. Picking up a good bullpen arm would be terrific, but identifying those this early in the season isn't so easy, plus you have to figure out who you are willing to ship out. News flash: Nobody is going to give you a good relief pitcher in trade for a bad one (Pagan). I think this means that we play the people we've got right now, wait for the injured bats to come back, and experiment a little with the guys in St. Paul for the bullpen. The team is winning games and winning series so now is certainly not the time to panic. If we continue to win at this rate for the rest of the season, we will win the division and that's a really good start.

I really like Nick Gordon. I think he's a fun player to watch and has been valuable to the team. That being said, I think his clock has about run out with the Twins. His immediate competition is Castro, who is a better defender than he is but who also has an option remaining, so Castro goes to St. Paul. Then it gets much more difficult. Gordon is one of those utility players who doesn't play particularly outstanding defense anywhere, but can be passable in a lot of positions, plus he hits from the wrong side (for the Twins) of the plate. I don't think that Farmer or Solano are going anywhere before Gordon based on fielding and handedness, plus they are both hitting much better than he is. Barring injury elsewhere on the team, Gordon probably needs to go when a second player of the Kirilloff/Farmer group comes back to the team. Supposing that they manage to hold onto Gordon until mid-summer, the Twins will once again face a roster crunch when Lewis is back, with the potential of Julien/Lee getting a shot as well. Lewis is certainly a better player than Gordon, with much more offensive and defensive potential. The reality is that keeping him now is just delaying the inevitable. For the moment, he's an OK guy to have around since we don't really have anyone who is better, healthier, and in less need of development than him. Hang onto him as long as you can, but don't shed too many tears when he needs to move on, especially if he is moving on because there are better players pushing him onward. A DFA'd Nick Gordon will undoubtedly be claimed by someone pretty quickly. He will likely find his hitting stroke again and will likely have an OK rest of the season with more consistent playing time. He's never going to be a star, but he could carve out a solid MLB career in the right situation. Good for him! He deserves that chance, but it seems unlikely that it can come with the Twins. Smile for him and wish him well.

I hope Kirilloff comes up and absolutely crushes the ball. However, I think he is best served spending a little more time in St. Paul and crushing the ball there. He has been injured for the better part of two years and injuries are scary to come back from. Much of it just involves healing and rebuilding muscles and stamina. But an important part of the recovery is also mental. It is vital that he can become totally trusting of his wrist holding up and also able to play without even thinking about it. That will be better achieved with the reduced pressure of AAA baseball. Keeping him down for a month or so will help him avoid another setback and help him completely become the player we all think he can be.

I'm hoping that they activate him and put him back in St. Paul for a few weeks. This has been quite the long ordeal for him (for the fans too, but even more so for him) and it would be great if he can really get raking for a bit to get his confidence back and to get rid of any hesitations that he might have coming off of this process. I'm actually very pro-Kiriloff, but I want him uber-healthy and ready before they throw him into the fire. I think that's the best way to insure a successful situation in July or August, by sacrificing May to the minors. Let him go down and hit .400 with a quadruple digit OPS for a while!

At the moment, he's not right and belongs on the IL. It's hard to tell whether this is a "current" injury or whether he just isn't recovering completely from TJ surgery, or maybe a bit of both. Give him some rest and healing and then bring him back through St. Paul on a rehab assignment to get his wheels back under him. Then make a decision about his future, not now. In the meantime, give Ober some starts over the next month and see where that leads.

Polanco is an excellent baseball player but is often overlooked when one considers the Twins' lineup. When he's been healthy he adds a ton on both offense and defense that makes his presence felt in many tangible and intangible ways on the field. He's not a hall of famer, but he's a hall of really good and really consistent for quite a long time member. I'm hoping that they don't trade him anytime soon. Those prospects need to develop in the minors before we crown them stars and starters on a good baseball team.

I'm not sure whether the magic number is 4 or 6 or 12 or 26, but I'm quite certain that the Twins have taken steps to go in the right direction with the overall talent level of the club -- particularly on the pitching side of things. Lopez, Ryan, and Duran are locked up for several years, which should guarantee the floor being a little bit higher. On the bat side, certainly Correa and Buxton are important cogs, but as we have seen lately, it is often unsung players, like Jorge Polanco or even Kyle Farmer that are the missing ingredient sometimes. On the hitting side of things, there are lots of options, but one or two more need to step forward and produce at a high and consistent level to be a part of any core. The key is not necessarily to have the top two players in the league, or the Angels would have World Series wins on their resume. It's more important to have players that are very good in all or at least most positions to really make consistency happen.

I’m actually a little on the fence about the subject of stealing bases. It actually is a bit of a dilemma. On one hand, the chart shows that we are average plodders, but many of the teams below the Twins, like the White Sox, steal bases. The younger players in particular know how to do it, because they were much more likely to have done it recently in the minors. So, why not? On the other hand, protecting Buxton, et al from injury means we should be afraid to run, but does it actually do anything to prevent injury? Players do get injured and Buxton seems to pick up more than his share, but I’m not convinced that being careful necessarily prevents injury. Sometimes playing “not to lose” means you also can’t win. I think the more Byron Buxton is involved in the game, the better he will play, whether that is through playing CF, running the bases, or anything else. Right now he’s not playing CF, not stealing bases, and also not really hitting. It’s time to change it up and get him moving.

I think it's very sad that they are (apparently) making the move. There is a pretty substantial history with the Oakland franchise, but the last several years have been abysmal, with mostly a bad product on the field and a terrible old stadium to boot. I would rather they find a way to build a new stadium in Oakland, but remember, the Oakland Athletics were the Kansas City Athletics before they were in Oakland. I guess we'll get used to the Las Vegas Athletics (Gamblers? Cash? Craps?) and it may give them a better chance to put a good product on the field, if the owners actually choose to do that.

Argh. Yes!

Seemed like an OK time for Headrick (or even an early Pagan for 2 innings) to come in and get his feet wet, although none of it matters if you don't have some bad defense and lousy offense tonight.

Ha! Ha! Maybe! Especially if you keep writing articles that I agree with! I was mostly reacting to the people who have already decided that Gallo will strike out more often than they like so that makes him a bum. He's a professional ballplayer who has had some pretty strong success and I think that he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I live in the Chicago suburbs and deal with way too many Cubs and Bears fans. They have a very similar knee jerk reaction that sometimes changes every day and their team/player is either the greatest the world has ever seen or a complete idiot that should be run out of town. I lived through a friend of mine (Cubs fan) hoping that Kerry Wood and Mark Pryor would retire the same year so that they could go into the Hall of Fame (yes. . . the Baseball one. . . I know. . . ) together as Cubs teammates. I'm pretty sure that their combined careers don't merit even one entrance ticket. I just don't want the Twins' fan base to go down that same road.

Happy to take two. Just keep winning series and the standings will turn out just fine.

Gallo doesn't need to be in MVP contention to win the comeback player of the year award. He just needs to go from terrible (which by all accounts he was last year) to pretty good. That would involve playing good defense and hitting decent amount of homeruns while not batting a buck eighty. He is certainly capable of that, particularly getting out of NY and back to the land of normal baseball. He's done it before. I don't really care if he wins it or not, but I would really love to see him put up a good year and be in the conversation. It will mean the Twins got good value out of their free agent pickup. Will he strike out a lot? Probably, but he'll also walk a lot, and if tendencies play out he will also hit some balls very very hard. Strikeouts are really no worse than weak ground balls and there are plenty of players on the team who hit plenty of those. After all strikeouts lead to less double plays than weak ground balls.

This is an outstanding signing that is easy to get excited about. He appears so far to be as good as (maybe better than) advertised and this deal locks him in through the next four years, which should really be his prime. I think it is fantastic that the deal could work out nicely for both sides -- for the Twins for obvious reasons, and for Lopez, who will get to test free agency at 31 years old and likely get another good contract. Hey! Who knows? Maybe that's with the Twins too. The fun part so far about this trade is that we are delighted in having Pedro Lopez and the Marlins are equally thrilled about having Arraez on their team. Got to give up something to get something!