Nick Hanzlik

Wonderful piece Alex, truly. Unfortunately, I will be ruining the heartwarming vibe by sharing the fact I get this feeling every time Taco Bell gets rid of the nacho fries.

I’m glad you enjoyed it! I’ll have to look up these confessions haha

To Alex’s credit I don’t think he was blaming the entirety of the twins collapse on those two. In my opinion Archer and Bundy performed adequately, but our bullpen was not equipped to handle Archer going 4 innings every start. Even after trading for lopez and Fulmer, we really only had 3 guys I would say were trusted with the baseball out of our pen. You either have to let your top guys go a third time through or get more arms in the pen. The way the game is trending the solution is probably the latter. I am cautiously optimistic about the pitching staff (barring injuries) for 2023. Maybe one more pen and one more roto arm. That would settle my stomach a bit I think.

I want to start off this entry by saying that I am no writer. I joined Twins Daily so that I could follow the blog of a life-long friend of mine, who is much more talented than I. Shout out to Alex Boxwell, former Gopher outfielder and the next Ernest Hemmingway (follow his blog and become enlightened). Maybe it’s the holidays being around the corner or the fact that I am snowed in and bored, but after what is appearing to be the mundane end to what could have (and should have?) been a historic FA signing period for the Minnesota Twins, I felt the need to find some positives and reflect on why I should continue to give my time to a team I follow with a passion. As well as why I should keep up with a sport that appears to be dying. The answer is a seemingly strange one and stems from the origins of how I became interested in baseball as a kid. Growing up I was super into all the nerdy things. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, comic books, video games, you name it. Then I received MVP Baseball 2005 (Manny cover) as a gift on my 10th birthday. I had zero interest in sports at this time, but my best friend (RIP Brandyn) insisted that I try it so I caved and began to play. It was the greatest gift a nerd could receive. The in-depth simulation, the statistics, the attention to detail, stadium creation, owner mode, everything about that game kept me glued to my computer screen. That game is literally how I became interested in baseball. I was horribly unathletic but I decided to sign up for Little League the following Spring. I was terrible, I mean TERRIBLE, unwatchable even for an 11-year-old. Each year I managed to get a bit better and through sheer love of the game I willed myself onto the varsity baseball team my junior year of High School (as a PO obviously, hitting is hard). As I began to spend more time with skilled athletes, the personalities of the people I spent my time with changed drastically, and the true beauty of baseball revealed itself. It became a wonderful bridge between nerdom and sports culture. As I have gotten older, I have realized I am far from alone in experiencing this ‘world between worlds,’ something about baseball fascinates nerds unlike any other sport. Maybe it’s the heavy influence of statistics, maybe it’s the fact that you don’t need to be a world class athlete to play it, who knows, but there is no denying that nerds love baseball. Just look at Dungeons and Dragons, an amazing game I suggest everyone tries at least once in their life. That game, which I think most people would consider to be the first game that used character stat sheets and involved freedom of choice, came out in 1974. Strat-O-Matic, a baseball simulation game using character sheets, statistics and dice rolling like that of D&D, came out in 1961. That is 13 years prior... I have played D&D almost every Tuesday for the last 6 years and I can tell you that anyone watching such a game without having played, is going to fall asleep. However, that does not mean there isn’t anything going on. It’s just a heavily nuanced world filled with strategy, branching narratives, statistics, probability and larger than life characters. Look at baseball now, every moment has nuance and complexity that leads to anticipation of 1000 different outcomes. I understand there aren’t seven-foot-tall specimens flying around dunking on each other, or 250-pound dudes colliding in full pads, but the game is more complex than that. A matchup between the likes of Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer is beyond interesting. Every pitch something changes. What pitch was thrown? Where was it thrown? How has the hitter been approached by the league? How has the hitter been approached by the specific pitcher? Are there runners on base? What’s the score? What inning is it? All of this can change with every pitch and the mental warfare between hitter and pitcher is absolutely fascinating. I read an article a while back that made a similar connection between D&D, nerdom and baseball. They made the point that it would be amazing to bring together a D&D party in full cosplay and a group of hardcore baseball fans in team attire, face paint, foam fingers and all. I found this to be hilarious, and I imagine the look on their faces when they realize how remarkably similar they are, would be priceless. At the end of the day, I will always follow the Minnesota Twins and baseball as a whole. It is a beautifully complex game that bridges two wonderfully unique yet similar worlds. At times it feels like David vs Goliath for both the franchise among the league, and baseball among the other major sports, which are often seen as more action oriented and ‘exciting.’ Hopefully MLB can find a way to market the game to the next generation better so it doesn’t go belly up. It’s scary to think of the 11-year-old kid who almost never got to experience the immersive culture and beauty of baseball. It would have been a damn shame if the game had never reached me. Friendships that would never have been made, memories lost and a passion left undiscovered. With the game in its current state, that may have been my reality.

Couldn’t agree more. If he sucks he sits. If he doesn’t, you potentially get 40 jacks and plus defense. One year deal. If they had signed him for 3+ I’d feel much different. And yeah, 2019 was outlier for Kepler in a year the ball was absolute flying out of the yard for everyone. Sad to see it but time to move on from Kepler. I’d love to have see them sign bellinger to a 1 year deal instead of this as well. Same mind set. Dude with huge upside, and if he’d sucked he’d have sat. No big deal.

I attended 4 games last year. All of which were occurred during a weekend series. I saw Correa once and Buxton zero times. I am a huge Twins fan, have been all my life but I moved to Iowa for work back in 2019 and with driving back to the cities and the total costs involved with attending an MLB game, it was a real bummer not to see those guys. Unless I see Byron consistently on the field in CF (he's the only thing exciting enough), I'll prolly watch from the couch mooching cable info (blackouts are dumb MLB...)

162 games and some serious salad. 15 years 450 million

I think Farmer/Lewis is probably the move, as the market will allow for Dansby to sign WAY above what he should probably be paid. That being said... after last year and what feels like a reoccurring problem of key players missing significant time due to injury, I wouldn't mind slightly overpaying for Swanson. Especially since it would seem Rodon has no intention of playing baseball in the snowy north. Swanson played every game the covid year, and 160/162 the last two seasons. He may not be Bogaerts with the bat or Correa with the glove, but he isn't crazy far off with either. Give me a guy that'll hit .265 with some pop, great defense, and slot him at SS EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Great take. Part of me agrees completely. Then there is the other part, The part that has endured 0 playoff wins in my time watching the Twins (2006 was the first season I really started following with a passion). The part that has had to watch the likes of Pedro Florimon take the field at one of the most important defense positions on the field. That part of me would have loved to see the next portion of Twins baseball anchored by (hopefully healthy...) Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa. Future me is the one that can deal with the belly ache of those two potentially only playing 90-100 games a year and having no money in 2030. I hope they spend some money and go after Rodon at this point. Don't spend big on Swanson, but hey if he signs I wouldn't be furious. All in all, it could be for the best but it certainly doesn't feel like it now.