walkstar89

Thanks for writing these! Look forward to them weekly!

Or, and just hear me out on this.....playing professional sports is hard on people's bodies and not all bodies handle it well. Not always anyone to blame with injuries

Given who is on the guardians roster, I wouldn't say their offense has "gone missing". They just have a lot of very poor offensive players. I doubt their offense will improve this season

Totally agree. This is a perfect recap of my own thoughts. Wish the team was more transparent about injuries

Pitching prospects in general have really high rates of blown arms- league wide

Yes but how do you make a "plan" to get someone in CH when he has potentially a career ending injury? Obviously it's not ideal to have him at DH. This isn't what team wants! It's either this or he just doesn't play. Why do fans not understand what injuries are?

Why do so many fans and twins bloggers continue to insist the team is "choosing" not to play Buxton in the field? Some thoughts: 1. Clearly the team would be better if he was in the field. Duh. Everyone including the Twins knows this. 2. HE ISN'T HEALTHY. He can barely run to first base. Right now - being in the field isn't an option, even for an inning. They aren't DH'ing him to protect him from injury, that's a nice little fantasy fans came up with. They are doing it because he isn't healthy. 3. The bigger issue is - what to do? Although no one knows for sure, my guess is that this is a long term chronic issue, maybe bone on bone. That's something that all the rest in the world won't fix. So - he can DH or just not play. Team is trying DH because if he could be a solid hitter from DH spot that's better than nothing? But maybe it would be better if the 60 day'd him and gave roster spot to someone else. 4. Long term ? This just sucks. I don't think it's anyones fault. Across all sports including baseball you can find countless players whose careers ended far earlier than they should have because of injury. It's not just Buxton and the Twins, this happens all the time. It really, really sucks and it's human nature to want to blame someone, but I think in this case it's just how Buxton's body is built.

Two things seem pretty obvious at this point 1. Clearly team would benefit immensely from him playing CF 2. Clearly he is not healthy enough to do so. The scary thing is I'm guessing this isn't a "go on the IL and get right" type of injury. After all, he had all off-season and is only DH and still isn't healthy. Some athletes bodies just stop working right, and all the modern medicine in the world can't fix that. Plenty of examples across baseball and other sports of careers ended or severely compromised by chronic injury

All indications to me are that his knee is in bad shape, and center field isn't really an option. His lack of playing there isn't to "prevent' an injury but rather BECAUSE of an injury

Mahle and paddack trades suck....but all trades are a gamble. We also got Ryan, gray and Lopez (x2) from trades and they have all been fantastic. Pitchers get hurt a lot, and that means some trades are gonna look bad in retrospect

Gordon has the ability to play semi-decent CF which is kinda important given Buxton may not be healthy to play CF all season. I'd prefer to have Kepler / Gallo be the backup CF and get AK up here, as his offense outweighs the defensive downgrade of Kep or Gallo in OF....but I doubt that's what the Twins are thinking

I don't want to continue to take losses with a listless offense. We need to prioritize putting our best lineup on the field every day. If that means cutting someone like Gordon or Kepler I'm all for that

I thought of this idea awhile ago and love it. Maeda hasn't look especially dominant as a starter and at his age and with his injury history, how will he hold up as the season goes on? As a reliever he could both pitch multiple innings while also potentially being very good. If a starter gets knocked out of a game early, potentially due to injury (Like Maeda's last start) it wouldn't have to be an automatic loss for us if Maeda could come in and pitch 3 innings.

I think an important distinction here when we talk about "bulk" is whether Miranda lost fat or muscle or both. It's not like Miranda is suddenly showing up at camp weighing 170 pounds. He's still a big guy, he just lost fat and is in better shape. If anything, that should only help his power. If a 250 pound player lost 60 pounds of muscle and became a distance runner, than yes, I'd worry about his power. But clearly, thats not whats happening here. Whether or not he improves at 3rd base, I think his being in better shape can only help his power and hitting as the season goes on

Yeah I get that you know more than me. I just don't think you know as much as the team doctors and physical therapists who also have access to the player and his medicals. I'm having a great day actually. But I apologize for the rude tone. It's easy for me to do that when typing, my fault. Agree we want the same for him!