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Old Twins Cap

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Everything posted by Old Twins Cap

  1. Old Twins Cap
    Just like Radke, couldn't find the feel for the change-up in the first inning. After that, it was smooth sailing. But the first inning, watch out!
  2. Old Twins Cap
    This is brilliant. Thanks for doing this. We will never know what would have happened to Kepler's AB with the bases loaded, but, a 3-1 count compared to 2-2 is big. Potentially huge, and game-changing. The real issue here is that pitching is getting better, much better. And hitters need some level of consistency in order to have a chance. When the hitter can't say for sure if a ball is going to be called a strike, they literally have no chance, and the result is that the integrity of the game is being left on the side of the road. No integrity equals no interest for me, and the game is sinking in a number of ways. Baseball is going down the tubes. Calling balls and strikes is near impossible right now.
  3. Old Twins Cap
    We will have to content ourselves with recalling, very fondly, the game last year at Yankee stadium when the Twins scored (was it?) 10 runs in the first inning off of Gerrit Cole. That was a great game.
  4. Old Twins Cap
    Forgot to mention the truly egregious ball/strike calls by the umpire. Love to see the umpire scorecard from last night. Baseball has a real problem on its hands when the umpire is so far off. As Baldelli said: Every meaningful call over the last three innings went against the Twins. Every one.
  5. Old Twins Cap
    Did the Twins play the Yankees this week? Missed it. Missed it all.
  6. Old Twins Cap
    Turns out, that was a game not worth watching. Even the highlights weren't worth it.
  7. Old Twins Cap
    Pretty hard to watch a full baseball game on TV on a regular basis. This is what MLB needs to understand. They have a product that can't hold an audience fully. How do they respond? They make it harder to find games on any platform? That's what you call a critically awful decision. If they don't address that quickly, they will lose a full generation of fans and maybe more.
  8. Old Twins Cap
    If the desirable outcome is more entertainment for the fans, and baseball is or should be entertaining to sustain its audience, then there has been an improvement. There has been for me.
  9. Old Twins Cap
    Except soccer, where teams and players, along with the fans, will encourage that the ball get kicked out of bounds, stopping play. There are exceptions, but it does generally hold true in soccer.
  10. Old Twins Cap
    Twins have lost games because of their offense, their defense, their starters and their relievers. They have a historically low batting average, with low number of HRs; they aren't stealing bases, nor getting on base even, and they continue to strike out at a very high rate after breaking records on that score last year. They aren't fun to watch, and it's unclear which players to root for and which to hope they send down for more seasoning. Pretty much a worst case scenario for the players, fans and management. When you don't play well, at any level, you end up where the Twins are. There is no substitute for making winning plays, and no where to go when you aren't able to do that.
  11. Old Twins Cap
    It seems like the rising teams in MLB are the young ones, Baltimore, Cleveland, KC, Detroit, Cincy, The young hitters are showing pop and the old guys, or even late 20's veterans are dragging rosters down. Twins need the young talent to excel, Julien, Jeffers, Miranda, Lewis, Kiriloff. Oh wait, that's their core right now.
  12. Old Twins Cap
    I am trying to square the opening paragraph with the actual results of last night's games. If I am following, the Twins needed good news and they got it: their MiLB teams got swept, they only scored six runs across five games.... Correa goes down with an oblique, Lee is injured without a time-table to return, their offense is worst in the league, Lopez gets banged around, Lewis won't be back until June, Kepler on the IL. Wallner has a hole in his swing the size of Lake Mille Lacs. There is not an obvious position player who can help with any of this. KC., Cleveland and Detroit are winning, while looking young, enthusiastic and very competitive. And we are supposed to feel good about all this, because..... Face it friends, this season is off to the worst possible start, if not being already over, and there ain't a way to sugar coat any of this. Hard times are hard. Period.
  13. Old Twins Cap
    I thought the three biggest concerns in this article were going to be: strike one, strike two, You're out!
  14. Old Twins Cap
    I don't know, you look at Royce's legs and he's really added a lot of muscle. At some point in baseball, because of the need for explosive muscle movements, a player has to consider how they are going to avoid an injury to all that muscle. Flexibility is the key and they do a lot of pre-game stretching. But, you sit around for a couple of hours not really doing much and then all of a sudden, it's full-on sprinting in front of a crowd, everyone watching, the outcome hanging in the balance. For me, these athletes need to have "flexibility conditioning" not just weight training. Or maybe, more consideration to flexibility, the lengthening of muscles, rather than just bulking them up. Watch some games from the 60s and 70s and it is obvious that Baseball players have bulked up and as a result, injuries have exploded. He wasn't focused on running, he was watching the ball down the LF line. He screwed up rounding the bag, throwing off his stride. Next thing you know, he won't be running at all for a few weeks, maybe a month. So, two major issues: preparing the body to maximize flexibility in the off-season. Second, focus on running in a smooth, graceful gait, staying within yourself, carrying the team's hope forward without risking your ability to play at all. His comments about wanting to score from first and get that third run say it all. The goal should have been to make it safely to second and then third and not get ahead of himself. He's a great kid, a great player and he really, really wants to help his team. With maturity, he will need to learn how to do that in a more measured, disciplined way.
  15. Old Twins Cap
    Going to be a long, hard year for the Yankees.... relying on Twins' bullpen castoffs. One injury to Judge and they are a second division team in the East.
  16. Old Twins Cap
    If you think of the Twins infield, with Lewis, Correa, Julien and Santana/Kiriloff, with Lee on the outside looking in, it's inevitable that something needs to happen at 1B long-term. My bet: Kiriloff gets traded. Santana hangs in there this year playing 1B and DH. The best fielding 2B between Lee and Julien gets the nod at the keystone and the other one gets 1B. Likely Julien. Long term, as he loses range, Correa plays 3B and DH's. At that point it's a cage match between Lewis and Lee for SS. Likely Lee wins it. Kind of out there, but the Twins have 3 fully capable SS, plus Castro right now. Someone has to play 1B.
  17. Old Twins Cap
    Can we stop talking about the loss of Sonny Gray? He had his chance and the Twins lost more of his starts than they won, including losing the crucial playoff game against Houston. Now he's injured, and at 34, he wasn't going to carry the Twins beyond the 2nd round of playoffs. The only thing that will would be some "career years" from studs like Buxton, Correa, Kepler and the emergence of their young guns, Lewis, Kiriloff, Julien and Wallner. Plus a strong bullpen. If they need starters, they can always go out and get a decent arm. We see it every year, the playoffs are about short starts and lots of good arms out of the Bullpen.
  18. Old Twins Cap
    Polanco was a peach of a player to watch: swith-hitter with good contact/power and decent speed/defense, but let's face it: he put a lot of miles on his legs and he's not got a powerful physique. More of a dancer's body than a rugged baller. Best dancer on the team. Hope he holds up in Seattle. As for the Twins, another late-inning high quality reliever, some starter innings, a young stud prospect and a wild card reliever with a good arm. It's the way of baseball. Doing bulk on prospects for a mid to low-level payroll team is how you Tampa-up your long term success.
  19. Old Twins Cap
    Michael Wacha was pretty adamant from his commentary chair during the playoffs that Wallner had large holes in his swing on up-and-in fastballs, followed by low and away breaking stuff. Kind of common for power hitters, but adjustments will need to be made. That said, the games I was at, Wallner squares a ball and it stays hit a long, long time.
  20. Old Twins Cap
    On the one hand, if Michael Cuddyer had struck out in the fourth inning of a game in Toronto in 2010(?), the one where he hit a ground ball up the middle that resulted in their SS inflicting Morneau's career-altering head injury, you could see some positives of a more K-prone squad. On the other, baseball is a form of entertainment and not just an algorithym-centric formula for defeating opponents, however masterful in execution. Averaging 15 K's a game, means five full innings of watching pretty much nothing happen. Remember, most fans at stadiums cannot see, nor fully appreciate the subtleties of what the pitcher is doing to defeat the hitter. It's all over in a blink and what happened? Hard to say from most spots in the stadium, but the hitter heads back to the dugout, carrying disappointment and a bat. Too many Ks is a long-term problem for a sport that must compete against a lot of other venues for the public's attention, time and money. How MLB handles this will make or break the sport in the next couple of decades.
  21. Old Twins Cap
    I don't know, Sonny Gray, will someone go back and look at the actual games he pitched? What I remember is that he pitched well in most games, but also had a lot of games with one bad inning. An inning in which he lost the lead, gave up some bleeders, maybe a walk or two, and ended up losing the game. He certainly did not hold down Houston when it counted, on short rest sure. But, for all the talk, and talk, and talk, of trying to replace Sonny Gray, I'm not sure that's what the Twins want or need. Texas wins it all, but how solid was their starting picthing? How solid was their bullpen? Twins walked all over Texas in August. You get a chance, you take the chance. Gray gave away as many chances as he executed on behalf of the Twins. Don't empty the cupboard trying to find a certain pitcher. For well over half the season, the Twins were unwatchable last year. Their offense was putrid, striking out in record fashion. If we got kids who can play, let them hit and see where the chips fall.
  22. Old Twins Cap
    TWINS rookies are getting some very valuable experience in these playoffs, just enough to realize that they need to play better if they really want to win. Hope they can send it back to Houston and experience a really big game against a really good team. As it is, I remember a lot of games this year -- I mean many -- where the offense left runners all over the bases by striking out in huge numbers. Twins did set a record for Ks this year. They are playing true to form so far.
  23. Old Twins Cap
    A lot of analysts are missing a key factor: RH pitching means the Twins will have to bat their lefties. Guess what? That's Wallner, Julien and Kiriloff. I like those guys, don't get me wrong, and they are the reasons the Twins have made it into the playoffs. But, when it comes to post-season baseball: they have no experience and the odds of them feeling their nerves is high. Kiriloff and Wallner especially. Julien seems to have ice-water in his veins; of course, he's from north of the border. Anyway, this series will be determined by when, if and how the rookies respond in the bright spotlight of National TV and playoff baseball. The longer the series, the longer the Twins' run in October, the less this matters. But, against JV, I think they are going to have problems and such issues can compound greatly in a short, high-pressure series.
  24. Old Twins Cap
    Watching Julien run around the bases without a helmet, awkward but determined -- it kind of changed my life.
  25. Old Twins Cap
    Everyone on Twins Daily wants Gallo to be gone, but I don't think it will happen. Gallo is a veteran and a hell of a good teammate. He's been there all season, working hard, struggling for sure -- but he's been there, in the clubhouse, on the bus, on the plane, saying all the right things, apparently never getting down, not on himself, not on his teammates, not on enjoying the moment. You don't cut someone like that loose right at the end; it's bad karma. Twins lose a game, lose a series, lose in the playoffs, they will do it with Joey. For better or worse.
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