The Great Hambino

That's a mighty fine tag by Brooks

To be clear, I was being sarcastic. Thought I was making it clear with the duh, apparently I wasn't.

Career-high opposite field hit rate - man, they're really digging for a positive spin graphic for Wallner

Duh - LH hitters come unglued when facing a LHP, while RH hitters can comfortably face pitchers of any handedness

Festa's just nervous to be pitching in front of Marlins Man

The social media aspect has been touched upon, and I agree that the anonymity it grants to fans emboldens the nasty rhetoric. In addition to that, it also follows players everywhere they go. The actual threats may have been worse back in the day, but they also more or less ended when you left the ballpark (unless you didn't have someone else to open your mail). It's harder to get a break from it these days. It's easy to say "just avoid social media", but the reality is that's the primary form of both communication and entertainment for most people under 30. It's easier said than done.

Okay, that makes way more sense. I thought you might be thinking of Matt Walbeck

I was fortunate to be 8 years old when this movie came out during the golden age of baseball movies for kids. But as much as I loved The Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, Little Big League, etc. at the time (and The Sandlot is still an easy top 5 all-time baseball movie for me), this one fell flat for me, even then. You should definitely check out the 1951 original. It's much better, and not just because it lacks the storyline where a father disowns his son so he can go ride his motorcycle. A little restraint can go a long way when showing the supernatural on film The parody 30 for 30 trailer is also much better and worth a watch

I like this plan. I don't see the point of trying to win 74 games instead of 68 games As a general rule, I don't want to trade someone with multiple years of control if you think you can contend while they're still under control. You can also pivot and trade them in the offseason to kick off a true rebuild if the youngsters don't show you anything when given the opportunity the rest of the year.

The self-killing rally

I'll give them this: watching the offense flail for 2.5 hours is better than watching them flail for 4 hours

To me, it's not just about the Twins' chances of working their way back into contention (which, yeah, ain't happening). Most teams are in a holding pattern waiting to see if they're going to be buyers, sellers, or standing-pat-ers as well. As we get closer to the deadline, more teams will identify as buyers. More buyers is a good thing for sellers. And with the third wild card giving more front offices a realistic chance of a playoff berth (which front offices can sell to their owners/fans as contention whether or not it's real), teams are more likely to move into the buyer category than the seller category. There are reasons most in-season trades (for meaningful pieces, not Alcala-esque swaps of pocket change) happen near the deadline. Make inquiries and do some due diligence now, sure. But they should start actually selling now only if they view it as an absolute steal

Ryan got deGrom'd

Defensive Robbery Stuffed?

I can’t remember where I saw or heard it, but one of my favorite nuggets about degrom was that year where he was utterly dominant but barely over .500: if he had gotten exactly four runs of support every start, he wouldn’t have had a single loss

I don't know if they're looking to tank, but they might be looking for tight ends on Craigslist. I just read a description of their TE room as "two blocking tight ends and three UDFAs"

I also blame Barreiro for the bilateral leg weakness thing going completely off the rails and juicing up the pervasive anti-Mauer sentiments locally. If they had instead called it complications from offseason knee surgery - which it was - it wouldn't have generated nearly as much heat (gotta give Bill Smith the assist for that one). Combine it with the weird idea among segments of the fanbase that a high salary makes you indestructible, and Barreiro had the right concoction to spread it like wildfire with his smarmy, above-it-all schtick. I am very thankful for podcasts

Mauer would've been a worthy choice, but it was clearly three options for two spots. There's plenty of justification for the choices they made that don't rely on the old, tired, poor-me coastal bias rationale (remind me again which coast the booming metropolis of St Louis is on) For a list like this that evaluates players at a specific position and not as overall players, it matters that Mauer wound up playing slightly less than half of his games at catcher. That doesn't look great stacked up against Posey (83%) and Molina (97%). When determining the best catcher, that matters in a close race. Also, right or wrong, team success is given a lot of weight in player legacy discussions, whether they're for a list like this, hall of fame candidacies, number retirements, etc. It generally bothers me how much weight is given to team accomplishments in an individual player evaluation (see: Manning, Eli), but it does have to be considered. When your competitors each won multiple championships in their primes while you never won a playoff game, that's going to affect the final tally, especially when you're a key contributor. Posey didn't exactly light it up during the playoffs, but he did have the highest bWAR on two championship teams and was third on the team as a rookie for the third championship team. And while Molina had a pretty mediocre playoff batting record overall himself, he hit well in their two World Series runs (especially 2006). So while I think Mauer gets waaaaaaaay too much heat locally for his teams' lack of playoff success (he won the same number of playoff games as a Twin as Rod Carew, after all), it does have to be acknowledged as a factor. Mauer was worthy of a slot on the team. If I were picking, I'd pick Posey and Mauer (for all the talk about Molina's defense, it's weird how it's just completely ignored that he was a below-average career hitter). But his omission isn't egregious, and certainly doesn't require falling back on our collective regional inferiority complex

80 PAs as a hitter with an OPS+ of 45 37 batters faced as a pitcher with an ERA+ of 30 I hope there's room on the plaza for another statue

If they already know the answer, they don't need to ask the question

My understanding is that this wasn't something they proactively intended to announce. As far as I can tell, the news got leaked, The Athletic reported it, questioned Falvey about it, and that's what brought about his avant-garde explanation. I believe it was also reported that the option was picked up during spring training. If it was something they wanted to be known, they would've announced it then. If that's correct, it opens up a whole different set of questions for me. Why do you have such a leaky ship? Why would you try to keep this move under wraps from fans if you believed in it? I sorta go back and forth on this, but I'm starting to think Falvey is making some of these moves and saying some of these things not entirely of his own volition. I think he's getting handcuffed by ownership with the sale up in the air.

Yay Larnach

Hancock struggles to control the tail of his throws home as well as to first