The Great Hambino

Where does this revisionist history that Molitor was anything other than incredibly mediocre in his managerial career come from? Was it the .471 career winning percentage? (Rocco is .511) Maybe it was the .428 winning percentage in 1 run games (Rocco .493) Perhaps it was the .388 winning percentage against teams over .500 (Rocco .433) You know what? It was probably the fact that there's no evidence that I can find of any other team showing any interest in his services after his time with the Twins was done. Hate Baldelli all you want. He should be gone for many reasons that have all been beaten to death. But you don't have to just make stuff up about his predecessor in order to do it. They're actually both great examples of how Manager of the Year awards are not only kinda bogus but also tend to be the kiss of death. Seriously, a lot of them struggle to make it even three years past winning the award.

He was caught once that season (2017). I think he actually overslid the base on the one CS. Wouldn't count for that particular record. His current total of 24 is actually second-best all time per BB Ref. Trea Turner lapped the field by getting 30 without getting caught in 2023

Dang, I was hoping for a 6-love, 6-love finish to this fiasco

30 is also the record for most steals without getting caught. He could get there but needs to risk it a little more. If your SB succcess rate is 100%, then you're probably not trying to steal enough

Abel in his future role?

There's a world in which Baldelli has always kinda wanted to play this way, but has been the good soldier in implementing Falvey's Master Plan. Perhaps Baldelli was as pissed about the trade deadline as many of us were, and he just thought: "eff this, if he's gonna torpedo my team then I'm gonna manage the way I want." Hence the changes in strategy that honestly are more reflective of how he was as a ballplayer. For all the pervasive narratives about being a slave to analytics, spreadsheets, etc, we're talking about a baseball lifer with a high school education, not some MIT lab rat that was looking for arbitrage in the options trading market when Falvey chose him to implement his plan. I've always felt that the issue is how he uses analytics, not the fact that he's using them in the first place. He too often makes decisions at the matchup level without enough consideration on how that affects the rest of the game. Like he doesn't have a full understanding of the information he's using. Which would make sense if he's trying to implement a strategy that wasn't his preferred one. So is Rocco finally going rogue after dutifully following orders for years? Probably not. If he really had an issue with Falvey's plans, this probably would've come out years ago. And post-deadline, he was left with a player mix that was probably a better fit for more aggressiveness on the basepaths. But it does make me wonder. We'll probably need to wait for the book to come out years from now to know the full story

The way things are going right now, they may have to move them to Parade Stadium to get a sellout

The fact that they didn't do that to finish this season tells me more than the contract option does (managers and coaches get fired all the time before their contracts are up) that Rocco is the opening day 2026 manager. They had an opportunity at the trade deadline (as well as several other points in the season) to make the switch and give Tingler a real evaluation period - not necessarily evaluating by wins and losses (especially after The Purge), but in how the club operates overall. To see how a different voice would be perceived by the team. But because they passed on all those opportunities, I don't see why they would make a switch this offseason. Not that I don't think they should make a switch (it's overdue), I just don't think they will.

Checking in just in time to see we're once again caught in the Tonkin Death Grip

Well, at least the Twins can't get walked off this series

All we know about these investors is that Joe Pohlad said they align with their family values If you still think that means a move toward competitiveness, you are utterly delusional Baseball is currently structured where you can make more money with a terrible team on a shoestring budget because of the revenue that’s locked in via national media contracts, plus revenue sharing. It’s like The Producers

Austin Martin? More like Aston Martin

I give this two thumbs up and a high five for good measure. Tomatoes are for sauce, nothing more

Judge and Pareda looked equally surprised by that throw from Martin

The problem is a one-year deal for Darnold wasn't an option unless they put the franchise tag on him, which would've severely handicapped the rest of their free agency plans. He got a three year deal for $105MM ($55MM guaranteed) from the Seahawks. No one year deal could match that, especially not without foregoing improvements elsewhere If they wanted to have JJ backstopped by a vet on a one-year deal, Daniel Jones was the play. In hindsight it sure looks like that would've been a fine move (so far anyway), but I don't think it looked that way back in March

The more I've thought about this, the more I think we're headed towards a soft cap of some sort. The players will not allow for a hard cap. From the players perspective, all a hard cap will do is take away spending power from the teams willing to spend. The owners have proven through their actions that this will not be made up by the teams that have previously been unwilling to spend, and no amount of revenue sharing will change that. Ultimately it's just straight up salary suppression without a mechanism to make them spend And if the owners are actually stupid enough to try to impose one unilaterally, then they'll get destroyed in court, just like they did in 1995. That precedent has been set. That is not an option. The only thing that will force them to actually reinvest in salaries would be a hard floor as outlined above by t&r. And that's where I doubt the owners will be able to get on board. The leaches at the bottom of the revenue ladder aren't going to want to give up their guaranteed profits and actually have to try to compete, while those at the top probably won't be willing to share as much as would be required to make it work. If they can't come to an internal agreement, they certainly won't be able to come to an agreement with the players. They won't learn the lesson from other sports that a robust national product lifts all boats. That even though small markets like Kansas City and San Antonio were able to build dynasties, that didn't prevent the Giants and Lakers from hitting $10 billion-with-a-B franchise valuations. The owners also should expect to give up some major concessions regarding minimum salaries and service time and other things if they want to win something as paradigm-shifting as a hard cap, and ultimately it just seems like too much for them to get a consensus on what to give up in order to get it. So what will keep this from being a long, drawn-out stoppage? The impending expiration of all media deals after 2028. These deals will be getting brought to market in 2027, and doing so during a work stoppage would be catastrophic for everyone. Just ask the NHL. As a result, they will find a soft cap (and a lower floor) to be a livable compromise. Both sides will have gained something in that the owners will have trojan-horsed a cap structure of some kind as a basis for future negotiations while the players can claim they once again avoided a hard cap, on top of whatever other concessions they get (if the owners get a cap of any kind, then every other bargaining point will surely be moving in the players' favor). This is not to say that I want a soft cap, or that I think it's the best solution. There's no reason an NFL-style hard floor/cap can't work in a vacuum. The tricky part is how to implement it with guaranteed contracts and structures already in place. If they got creative they could find a way to phase it in over several years - say starting with a harsh luxury tax that transitions to a soft cap and eventually the hard cap. Maybe there's some sort of two-tiered system for the few teams that actually have their own successful RSN. Maybe that's the trade-off for licensing their RSNs for use in Manfred's dream of an all-encompassing broadcasting platform. If I'm the players, I make it be known that they will listen on a hard cap IF AND ONLY IF the owners open their books and allow the help of a third party to determine the revenue figures caps and floors will be pegged to. Call the owners' bluff. Are they willing to do their least favorite thing in order to get their favorite thing?

I usually try not to get too tinfoil-hatty, but I firmly believe that this is a benching disguised as an injury. Plays the whole game Sunday night clearly in over his head without any obvious injury occurrence. No noticeable limp that I can recall seeing at any point. Then it's announced fairly early Monday morning that he's already being ruled out for 2-4 weeks? No MRI, no seeing how he responds to treatment, just straight to Wentz? I don't buy it. That timeline just happens to align with returning after the bye and, hopefully, with Darrisaw returning to the lineup. It also bypasses the games in Europe.

The original article said they were cutting their entire department of 4 and had no context regarding other teams. Softens it at least a little bit for me from my original reaction. Still moving in the wrong direction

Bartolo Colon

My understanding is this: control = throwing strikes command = putting the pitch where you want and making it move the way you want Say there’s two sliders thrown. One hangs a bit or misses the spot but still hits the strike zone. That shows control but not command. The next one has the sharp break that puts it in the bottom corner of the strike zone just as the pitcher intended to induce a whiff. That shows command and control I think it’s really splitting hairs personally. Hanging a fat pitch middle-middle shouldn’t be considered good control even if it happens to be a strike. To me, command is what’s relevant by these definitions

The Pohlads are Rachel Phelps without an end game

"With the new business arrangement in place, the Twins are looking to restructure a front office that grew exponentially in terms of resources and positions in the past five years, a team source said. The Twins had leaned less on their pro scouting department in recent years, heavily reducing those scouts’ travel budgets and requiring them to mainly do video-based scouting. The team’s pro personnel department, which was already scouting via video, will handle the club’s pro scouting duties moving forward, a source confirmed."

A nice glimpse into the kind of "fresh ideas" the limited partners are bringing to the table

Per Dan Hayes, the Twins have eliminated their entire pro scouting department to save money. I'm sure those savings are going right into next year's bullpen 🤡

That was a swell piece of hitting from Buck