knothole61

Hippie, sorry to be such an O.F., but memories are all that I have left!!

Back in the land of "lofty balsams"...assisted living I think.

Gaspar had a good ST and he plays a number of positions, including catcher--okay, but he seems to have so little upside, really. If I had to choose an "infielder to earn a few reps with the team" I'd go with 22 year-old Luke Keaschall who seems to have recovered nicely from his Tommy John surgery. Just a thought...

It's really sweet to have ended the four game horror so resolutely: suddenly Correa is a hitter again, Alcala a beast, Lopez an ace, and Bader a free agency miracle. Phew...and yet, the Twins beat the White Sox, (a team still projected to win only 53) in games that were essentially played on a neutral site, as there really couldn't have been much more than 1,000 Sox fans attending in today's drear. I'm happy with this turn of events, but regarding a resolution of my concern for the fate of the 2025 Twins I recall Churchill's words following the significant British victory at El Alamein: "This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning." Win Twins...

Nice win--Bader's shot into the stiff breeze was impressive and Alcala was a man possessed. I hate to rain on our belated parade, but I really don't understand the Gasper thing. Do folks really think that impressive minor league numbers are likely to translate to success in a 29 year-old journeyman who has been knocking around the minors for 8 years or so? I understand the "feel good" angle but I guess I'm just too old to care, and he is taking a roster spot.

Maybe give Dougie M. a shot--finally? Here's a thought (only made possible by desperate times!) why not float an offer to A. J. Pierzynski? I have no idea if he'd be interested, of course, but that's just the kind of out-of-the-box idea needed to shake the considerable dust off of this organization. He's very knowledgable and was a "take no prisoners" type of player who would, I believe. breathe some life into the Twins. I don't know...perhaps the past four games have made me a little crazy.

Great athlete but MLB pitchers seem way ahead of him these days. He is easily fooled! Hang a curve though and he'll likely hit it 450.

Gordon Liddy's moustache but not his ferret face?

"Dagnabbit"

I'm also ready for a change...Rocco is too phlegmatic (at least in his public persona) for my liking and his inability to pull the team even partially out of last season's tailspin was the last straw for me. In addition, when players hit the IL they seem to stay, and stay, and stay. Ultimately, of course, the Twins' medical staff guides the healing and rehabilitation process, but I can't help thinking that Rocco has some influence on what I believe is an excess of caution when it comes to his players' injuries--a byproduct perhaps of his own sad experience with injuries in MLB? At any rate, he will not survive this year as manager unless he make the postseason, and regardless, as soon as the Twins have a new ownership group he's gone.

Okay, that whole Opening Day thing in St.Louis (one heck of a baseball town!) is over. Now, rest up and take the series. I like our pitching match ups the rest of the way against the Cards, and there's a good chance we'll head into our showdown with the high flying White Sox at a respectable 2-1. I consider Lopez to be a fragile ace. Like an old Austin-Healey I used to have, he's magnificent when things are in perfect sync, but one is always waiting for that cough and sputter that is bound to appear, often at the most inopportune times.

True, true...but I'm a big fan of the hot start! Go Twins '25!

I haven't checked very far back, but part of our April malaise may be the fact that we most always open with two series on the road, and losing early may create a funk that takes a while to shake off. What I have seen is that for the past ten Twins' seasons (not counting the regrettable 2020) Minnesota has started seven of them with back-to-back road series, usually of six total games, and are winning those games at about a .440 clip. I'm sure that MLB is trying to avoid blizzard-related postponements, but it does create a bit of a disadvantage, I think.

Payroll, in and of itself, is not the major item on my "wish list." Spending more, at the right time and for the right pieces is beneficial of course, but throwing good money after bad will only end in failure and frustration. Look, the deplorable White Sox spent more than the Twins in 2024 while KC, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Detroit (all playoff teams) spent less. Indeed, America's Team, the Tigers, spent some $32,000,000 less! At the top of my wish list: I want the Twins to be owned by a legitimate, dyed-in-the-wool baseball guy. Carl Pohlad served in WW II and was awarded Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and went on to make a fortune in banking and other endeavors, but he, and his sons and grandsons, could not be considered either athletes (as far as I can tell) or baseball guys. I want the new owner to live and breathe baseball and to understand the romance and magic of a complex and frankly quite antediluvian game. I am not limiting my wish to former MLB players alone--I'll take anyone who genuinely knowns and loves the game. I want someone who knows firsthand what good movement on a fastball means and how hard it is to square up; someone who knows how best to deal with a two-strike count, or who can time a pitcher's movements well enough to get a good jump on a steal. I mean, Calvin Griffith was not a gifted athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but he was absolutely a baseball guy. And sure, you might point out that his teams were never world champions, but many of them were excellent squads replete with superior and even a few Hall of Fame players. Did you know that be was the bat boy for the 1924 World Series champion Washington Senators? So give me someone who loves the game as much as most of the TD contributions and I can foresee much better days ahead.

Hambino, I love the tone of this...it's both cynical and insightful. Well done!

Well said LastOne...I think those who tend to downplay the significance of the MLB manager are too wedded to stats and the kinds of things that, as you say, "AI could map out" but not with the invaluable human, and largely spiritual aspects of a managers job.

Dang, I was prepared to lick my baseball wounds in solitude while becoming happily beguiled by the surprising Vikings...and then I happened upon this acrimonious and fascinating postseason thread concerning Himself and his fitness to manage our favorite MLB team. Full discloser: Rocco, judging from the admittedly small window I have into his soul. is not my cup of tea. Billy Martin, the passionate, visceral, in your face kind of guy who took on all comers, including his team's owner was more to my liking, although I must admit that he probably would have benefitted from some psychological counseling. Rocco Baldelli, however, with his analytics and empathy and the sort of "doo dah man" essence of his postgame pressers is, I believe, the antithesis of Billy. Don't get me wrong, I have friends who remain "Dead Heads" to this day...I'm just not so sure it's a good thing for an MLB manager to embrace. And, of course, as always I may be entirely misguided in these thoughts. So, this is my long-winded way of admitting that some of my negativity toward Rocco may be based on things not directly related to baseball and that I will try to fight against that herein. Determining Baldelli's value to the team, and his fitness to continue as manager, is a very complicated thing. In mid-August he deserved only praise for guiding a team wracked with some serious and long term injuries and crippled by a miserly owner, to within reach of the Division lead and a near certainty of making the playoffs. But the six-week collapse thereafter was so colossal, so horrible, that questions must be asked about his leadership abilities in a crisis. Pitchers failed, hitters failed to an amazing degree, base runners (and base coaches!) failed, fielders failed...and the manager, as far as I can tell, kept strumming the same tune throughout. Leadership, rising in spite of the obstacles one has to overcome, is why he's paid the big bucks. And I do believe that a manager as a spiritual leader has a great deal to do with the success or failure of a team--often in ways that will not chart out statistically. After two or three weeks of the slump it had to be obvious that something needed to be done to shake things up, while there was still time to pull the the season out of the fire. What? you ask...oh, I don't know, maybe send the third base coach packing, refuse to let Margot pinch hit, become more aggressive on the bases or play some small ball to squeeze out a few more runs and win some of those 17 (?) games in the last 39 where the Twins scored two runs or less! How about this: send the guy who went from a 1.000 OPS, grand slam hero to the Mendoza Line almost overnight back to AAA for a couple of weeks to help get his head straight and as a message to others that no one is protected from poor production. Two weeks back in a minor league locker room without big league buffets, etc. can I believe, prove chastening. Baldelli seems to be a decent man and I know that he was a great ball player, but I believe that when he faced a crisis this season he proved unable to meet it resolutely and creatively. I am not saying that I fault him for failing to quickly and completely solve what was a deep and tangled situation--I fault him for not recognizing that something entirely new and dramatic was needed. For those of you who reached this point, thanks for listening...Win Twins!

Is that right? What an amazing stat! So...in 46% of the last 37 games the Twins scored 2 runs or less. I mean, I remember many games when we made mediocre starters look amazing through 6 or 7 innings but I had no idea it was that bad. And through it all the manager incomprehensibly stuck with his inscrutable system. Take care VBR and enjoy the offseason...

I don't suppose that the G & G boys necessarily read our comments but in the event that they do: good luck Aaron on your pending (?) back surgery. I appreciate your insights and engaging personality (and John's too of course) and I wish you all the best.

In the words of John Masefield: And many a broken heart is here and many a broken head; But tomorrow, By the living God, we'll try the game again! That “tomorrow” is now months away,* so stay healthy and safe until we can dip ourselves in magic waters again. It’s been real TD! *137 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Yes, because the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen which burns upward while the Twins season was a pure gasoline fire...or so it seems. I love the reference..."Oh the humanity!"

How is it possible for so many players on a single team to look so clueless at the plate, for several weeks running? Shouldn't someone have kicked some serious ass at some point, or even tossed some bats into the shower? What manner of man could oversee such a colossal failure day after bloody day with only the slightest ripple of emotional reaction? I've had enough of The Automaton! Give me someone for whom winning is flesh and blood..."the gun breech hot to the touch."

Soccer Fan?

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

HK, It's been tough...see you next year. 138 days and 15 minutes until the start of spring training 2025.