Bodie

Great crowds for the games all over. Miami and Arizona crowds just Latin crazy, and the Japan/Taiwan a whole new sort of nuts! Just a couple of hours now til Lance Lynn serves it up to America's Hat!!! Enjoying the WBC thoroughly, but already miss The Kingdom of the Netherlands with pitching coach Bert Blyleven and 2B Johnathan Schoop...

I've never heard a team with good starting pitching consider a 6man rotation, let alone implement one. If you're talking about going to a six man rotation, it means you still don't have 5!!!

Just a reminder that Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano were brought up into the bullpen (others were brought up the same way) before they forced their ways into the rotation. And it wasn't a few quick relief appearances but most of a season of stellar relief work for each.

We could still have Berrios - the Blue Jay from last year (&Puerto Rico pitcher from last night) say that the Twins might still be ahead... He is nowhere near the guy the Twins had. Just an utter mess - no control, vrlo down and less movement on seemingly all his pitches. And now he's blonde. .

Over/Under 1.5 strikeouts per game played for Gallo. I'll pray for under, but no money to back that up!

Agree 100 percent, though it just seems weird to me. Just have to remember that spring training games kinda get played by gentleman's agreements as opposed to the hard and fast rules. Very strange to nod off during/after a pitching change and snap back to attention an inning later to see the relieved pitcher back for more!

Fair point, and I agree that the "new" guys for this year DO look to be defensive upgrades. I will also admit to having nearly screamed when I saw they signed Joey Gallo, not realizing that he is apparently a more than an adequate corner OF (we'll see about 1B). Hopefully he doesn't need to play often enough for his myriad of other weaknesses to really become a real problem for the Twins... I 'll go nuts if he is regularly playing and roaring past 200 K's!

From your post I have to conclude I retained virtually nothing from my statistics classes (far too many years ago)...

There is a line in this story about the Twins "undoubtedly valuing glove work" [paraphrase by me]. I don't know when you last watched the Twins but this really hasn't the case since Falvey took over as GM! Gone are the days of Gardenhire's "piranhas" whose defining characteristic WAS stellar defense. Nick Punto wasn't kept around simply to see if he could get over the Mendoza line... Our last couple of years with Doug Meintkeiwitcz (sp? -forgot what a bearcat that is to spell!) was another example, and that at a pretty low-level priority as far as defense goes. Gary Sanchez (Mike Piazza without a bat - how does that work???). Miguel Sano (the seeming attention span of a gnat negating any and all of his natural physical gifts). Even beloved Luis Arrias (sp? -just can't make that look right!) was playing 1B pretty much because he was incapable of playing anywhere else, even without the new shift rules - no range or arm. These 3 (and they are just off the top of my head) were all being counted on one year ago to be major parts of the 2022 team. Defense was obviously not a major part of any decision-making process for any of these players being counted on! Any, and even all of them could be justified by optimistic projections (Sano/Sanchez) that weren't met (happens to all teams) or by the fact that you'll have one of baseball's best contact hitters regularly in the lineup (I won't butcher Luis's last name again!). His batting title is a plus that you'd have to say covers for 'adequate' (at best) at 1B (granted, at a position that he pretty much learned on the fly at baseball's highest level). No, I don't think the Twins (at least those responsible for putting the roster together) care a whit about defense. If he doesn't have some ridiculously high ancillary defensive stat (don't get me started on that/those as a reliable barometer!!! - I remember reading that, statistically, Gary Gietti [sp?) was a consistently below-average glove over his career).

I eat yogurt every morning and I'm still a broken down, fat bast... Oh, yoga. As long as as it is led by Kent Hrbek w/ a cig dangling from his lips and a beer (or2...) in his hand. (Actual 1987 WS post game 7 (WAY post game) memory)

Wasn't that against Santa Claus to boot!?!?

Just pertaining to Jeter (yeah a HOFer w/3000 hits and 58 [estimated] WS rings)... A very good case can be made that at NO TIME in his career was he the best shortstop in baseball. Kinda weird for a HOF position player. At retirement he was likely the 3rd best SS. On the Yankees.

Woke up early this morning to the Korea/Japan game (??? Korea vs. somebody, it was either very late, very early or both...) and who was batting but a "B H Park". Yep, our very own Byung-Ho. His stats from last season in one of the Asian leagues would never gotten him noticed by MLB scouts. How did his career go off track? It didn't- he is what he is, and whatever that may be, it isn't a quality (MLB) pro ball player.

10 HR, 27 BB & 28 Ks. (Northwoods League) An interesting prospect if only that he seems to understand that NOTHING good happens after that 3rd strike...

Most worrying position(s)? That is really a no-brainer IMHO. It is pitching and it's use and abuse by Rocco! No bullpen I can think of can take a full season of Baldelli's 4-plus innings of relief per game. Either the physical strain will fell several arms over the season, or overuse will expose why they are bullpen guys and not starters. And no, I don't think that can be fixed with quantity (the only real option for the Twins) or quality arms in reserve. Simply put, no team past or present could stand up to the new-wave style of Rocco (backed to the hilt by the front office) or anyone else asking what he does. And this doesn't add in the long-term damage done to the starters who never learn to pitch when in a spot of trouble...

I don't think I am off base in saying that no team in baseball has been more devastated by injuries than the Twins- and not just in the short-term. Buxton, Mauer, Morneau. Each of these had real Hall of Fame potential- and all showed that potential translated into actual production (Buxton producing the least but possibly the most potential). None came close to the career that "could have been". MVP seasons -but how many more were lost- for the Ole M&M boys, and we're still waiting for Buxton to play a 2nd full season (this is still only his 7th year, so...). Blame the trainers? Not even the biggest loudest members of the "Twins are sooooo cheap" club can argue (IMHO) that the Twins would continue to endanger the careers of their players over such a long period of time. Managers have run the gamut from relatively old-school Gardenhire to Rocco and his "nobody should be playing EVERY game this (or any) week" preventative style. Molitor, if not strictly splitting the difference, was at least somewhere in between. None of the changes improved the injury patterns, but somehow seemingly made things worse. I have one untried idea - hire Kent Hrbek as strength and conditioning coach and give THAT a go! Maximizing the medically accepted "healthy" angle isn't working, so let's go in the other way!!! Merrits and Miller's for all!!! (it can hardly be worse)