danielp19653

the timing of this article and Gallo finally remembering you have to hit the ball for it go over the fence is fantastic

I'd prefer fully automated or fully human, the challenge system just seems incredibly pointless. We're going to make the umpire guess all while having a system show when he's wrong and the team gets to try and guess when he's wrong and call him out. If you're going to have the automated system running for every pitch anyways just use it to make the call and be done with. I don't enjoy watching players walk on obvious strikes or strike out on obvious balls, so I'd prefer the fully automated but not if it comes with the challenges.

I would call it a B+ for the way too early grade. Getting Correa back at a price way less than expected and with team options in the late part of his career is nothing but a massive win. Farmer, Lopez, and Taylor trades all feel like they pushed the team into a better spot with reasonable prices on each. Don't love the Gallo or Solano signings as it pushes prospects into longer waiting periods at ages they should be established as part of the future or not, but again provides depth on one year deals without any massive negatives. If prospects are really pushing and either isn't good it's easy enough to release or look for a trade partner. Would have liked another bullpen arm with some more upside then Pagan but we all knew that wasn't going to happen. Health and performance this year could easily push this anywhere from an A+ offseason to a D+ offseason for me. Lopez coming out with a shutout on opening day, and Farmer and Solano reaching base as PHs definitely starts to push towards A territory out the gate.

So far he's safe, I can't say I have the highest hopes he makes it much longer but get the value while you can at least haha

sorry for the image locations relative to the text, couldn't figure out how to place them better haha

I recently picked up Out of The Park Baseball 24 to pass some time and fill the baseball craving leading up to opening day. For those of you unfamiliar, OOTP is a baseball management simulator. You can control the rosters, salaries, trades, extensions, drafts, lineups, and even managerial decisions mid game. The difference between it and other games like MLB The Show is that you do not actually play the game as a player. Every pitch and swing is simulated based on the projected ratings of players. Given that I thought it would be fun to spin up the new season a little early and play through the month of April. I didn't make any changes to the Twins roster, Polanco was set to a day to day status to start and so I kept him on the roster instead of an early alternative, and Kirilloff was marked for about a month and a half for recovery and was replaced by Wallner on my roster. This is slightly different than what the Twins did keeping Larnach, but the game rates Larnach as a below average player and Wallner as an average one through scouting reports and I decided to roll with it. The other slight change I made was choosing a 6 man rotation with Ober kept on the roster over Alcala who started the year in AAA. So since we know this is a simulator and is regarded as being one of the better ones out there I'm going to treat this as the only possible outcome for the month of April. The Twins will wrap up the first month of the season sitting in 1st place of their division and with a few surprising performances to get there. First off nothing better than sitting a solid 6 games over the Guardians and 15 games over .500 to get some excitement going! The biggest surprise of the season will be Gallo wrapping up the first month in a Twins uniform with an absurd (for him) .292 average while also putting up 9 HR and 19 RBIs. The only other Twin showing off the power potential to that degree is Buxton who also has 9 HR and 24 RBIs, while the average is a bit lower at a .266 both of them sitting with an OPS over .900 is a big reason why the Twins will be able to race out in front of the division. Everything else seems pretty close to career norms for the lineup minus a bit of a sophomore slump out the gate for Miranda and Wallner playing to his rookie designation with 3 HR and .182 average. The lineup may be producing but that alone doesn't get you 15 games over .500, the starters have been lights out from the first pitch with 5 of the 6 starters under a 3.25 ERA and 4 of them under 3. Everyone is chewing through innings well and taking their turn each time called upon which leaves little room for error for the opposing staffs. Ober has a pretty unsightly ERA sitting around 6 but most of that was a single bad start against the Yankees giving up 9 runs in 3 innings. Overall the hype on the site about this being one of the better rotations the Twins have assembled in the last couple decades seems to carry some serious weight. Lastly let's get to the bullpen, the bullpen has been more a bend don't break and really the only part of the team not firing on all cylinders to start the year. Duran, Jax, and most suprisingly Pagan have been handling their side of things and keeping lineups in check all with low ERAs and Duran with 8 saves already. Thielbar and Moran have both struggled to start the year posting 5.8+ ERAs, but hopefully both settle down as the weather starts to warm and Yankees games turn to distant memories. Cole Sands has not been great but given his role of eating innings when the game is over in the 5th I really can't complain too much although he seems the obvious candidate for a swap with Alcala to try and stabilize the bullpen. This may seem like a surprise to know the Twins are going to be so far out ahead of the division a month from now, but with snow still on the ground and the doom and gloom projections all over the place I thought I'd let everyone see we'll be just fine! Nothing left to do but enjoy the ride, and if you thought this was fun let me know I plan on playing out the season and would love to post how the end of May looks in the future and hear your thoughts!

Watching it felt like Maeda threw an incredible amount of splitters and curveballs, wonder if he felt like the control issues were around those pitches (he did give up runs off a hanging split the first inning he threw). Seemed to have a lot better location on them after so I thought it was encouraging overall for him. Julien still looks incredible and although I doubt its really being considered I wouldn't hate seeing him stay on the roster while Polanco is out.

I think really you could have made an argument for Gray, Ryan, or Lopez to make this opening day start but with Lopez coming off the WBC and being the most ramped up I think this is a smart move. Doesn't hurt that assuming he starts strong and starts the year with a win it makes the Arraez trade sit a little better.

I hope its Julien, since that means he got the chance out of camp and played so well he stuck. I expect it to be Polanco though, I think once he gets fully ramped up he'll finish out this last year with the Twins and not hit the at bats for his contract to vest or get picked up by the Twins. Even if Julien plays well I imagine he moves more into a DH/utility role as Buxton gets more center field time. Wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of Farmer there before we get to the all star break as well

My dislike for teams almost always comes down to one particular player I don't like or insane spending. Most of my spending dislike comes from liking the twins where they'll never be in the top 10 spenders so just makes it annoying when teams double their payroll. Fans in baseball have never really bothered me, I get that much more on the football side. Despise Saints and Eagles fans, hated Broncos fans growing up in Wyoming cheering for the Vikings. Baseball fans have very rarely rubbed me the wrong way, for the most part all the ones I've talked to have enjoyed talking about their team and the sport as a whole without attacking your team or just being an a** to be one.

There is absolutely no way he can handle 70% of games in the outfield. I think much more reasonable amount for him would be closer to 50-30-20. We all want to see the guy play all season but we have a hard enough time getting him to play half the season let alone 70% of the season in the most physically demanding position on the field. We have 4 players who can play center on the roster, while Buxton is the best at it there's no way his body is going to hold up for more than half the season out there. He has the bat on this team to be the DH, with Arraez gone and 30% of the DH starts up for grabs give them to Buxton. Who cares if he doesn't love being a DH, he also doesn't love getting his knee drained daily and IL stints either.

I don't remember which game it was but was watching the away broadcast and the announcers both commented on the M looking like Miami and if we're paying Miami for it or got in the trade with Lopez. Not a great sign when people outside the organization immediately jump to another team when seeing your logo

Personally I'd slide Gallo down to 6th and move Miranda and Kiriloff up until Gallo regains some of the old form, also if we happen to see a lefty on opening day I'd be interested to see if Taylor maybe starts over Kepler and Solano or Farmer over Gordon. Not sure how hard they want to lean into the platoons, especially on opening day but will be interesting to look at as it gets closer.

Personally I'm a fan of the 6 man rotation with the Twins roster, Everyone except Ryan has injury issues and couldn't stay on the field within the last two years. Give them the extra day off and hopefully that keeps them all out there for more starts on the year and potentially deeper in games where 80-90 pitch count isn't quite as concerning with the extra day off. I don't see anyway they get through May with all 6 still healthy so get through the cold months with the extra arms then condense to 5 with whoever goes down and bring up the extra long reliever from AAA

Did anybody sign up for the MLB.tv service for spring? How many of the Twins spring training games were you able to watch? Was considering doing that for the games since Bally doesn't cover a ton of the spring slate. Also are spring training games subject to black out for Minneapolis area as well on the MLB.tv app?

Man I would gladly take a full roster of pitchers all sitting around or below a 3.5 ERA, I don't know how that would be feasible but would love to see it. Feels like second half of last year may have been valued a little heavy based on Pagan and Lopez's reliever projections.

The commissioner talked about short term lifting black outs and the regional side of things if the contracts fall through and MLB.tv is the source for viewing but still sees regional sports networks as the way forward before a long term transition away for additional exposure. I would guess they encourage teams going with new deals to take shorter contracts or contract with streaming platforms without blackouts to start the transition. One of the articles stated one of the biggest hurdles is that every team has their own contract and have different end dates and stipulations around the black outs.

I guess I don't see the harm in letting Megill try and sort out pitch location to start the year in AAA that's not something that requires MLB innings, seems like he has good velocity but struggles with keeping it at the top of the zone and it falls into the belt area too often. I agree no one in the bullpen should have a long leash with the options on hand but why would that mean we wouldn't sign Hand with a shorter leash? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the end of the article but feels like you're saying don't sign Hand because a long leash could be bad, so give the current options a long leash instead. I'd rather take the extra option and give him the lower leverage spots and if he still performs above the xERA great we have an extra option as a setup guy, Otherwise cut him and bring up the best option from AAA and he gets the low leverage spots.

Reducing the position players is a win in my opinion, would be more efficient to just let the other team forfeit and just not play the last two innings but that will never happen. Like most not a big fan of the implementation the free runner, I think most suggestions I've heard would be better in my opinion such as having them at 1st to allow a DP as an option. Or only having the runner after 12 innings. But at the end of the day their goal is purely end the game as quickly as possible post nine innings, and short of having a home run derby situation like the shoot out in hockey I don't know how you get the MLB on board with anything other than this or allowing ties.

I agree it used to be kind of a fun little side show to a game that otherwise was already done. It happens often enough now the novelty has worn off and feels no different to just having a mercy rule and ending the game

Are the Marlins picking up Lopez's Salary for the year? I don't remember the exact terms but if not would that set us closer to the even line? (No idea what his arb salary is or the trade terms on that)

My guess is its Maeda's to lose, he has more experience and has shown more ability. But if he falters early or doesn't get stretched out in spring to that 5+ inning threshold I could see the Twins having him start in long relief and then pull him into the rotation once someone goes down. I think Ober has upside but I think the only way he gets into the rotation is an injury in the spring or a setback for Maeda that cuts his innings or delays his season start.

I agree at the end of the day it plays out the same or worse most times the ball is in play, not like anyone has an .800 average on balls in play, but I think the biggest part is that subconscious hope as someone just watching the game. When Arraez came up with someone out on second you have the part of you that can't imagine anything other than a poke into the grass for a run, and alternatively when Sano or Gallo comes up that it'll be another strike out or lazy fly ball 250' from home. Like I said overall I think he probably ends the season as a worthwhile pick up for the price. Just makes watching games less entertaining, something I think baseball as a whole is struggling with as pitchers improve and the guys who play to the three true outcome side become more common. You expect less and less to happen each at bat when guys like him come up. You expect the strike out instead of a ball in play that could be an error or find space.

My biggest complaint is just the absolute misery of watching a guy totally incapable of making contact for weeks at a time. I don't think anyone would say he has no value or even if he has a low average he can't provide at least starter level value over a season but like Sano man is it the worst feeling ever as a fan to have a runner on second or third with one out and see him come up and flail away.

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