The Great Hambino

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

I don't think this ump is getting paid by the minute

The SWR Experience: consistency in inefficiency

Monday July 7th is a mutual off day for the Twins and Mariners. Twins have home series on each side of it. Mariners are flying from Seattle to New York during it. Sounds like a fairly reasonable make-up date

I'm not sure what some are expecting him to say here at this point in time. (If your answer to that is "nothing", I'm not going to argue that) Regardless of the choppiness of the Falvey Word Salad, there is no advantage to be gained by declaring yourself to be sellers in June. Most of the league is in a holding pattern where they sit somewhere on the spectrum of potential contention for a playoff spot. As time goes on, some of those teams will have that potential contention become actual contention, which will increase the pool of buyers, which will be more attractive to sellers. On this date last year, the Tigers were 6 games under .500 and 6 out of a wild card spot. They're not trending great right now, but the Twins are only 4 under and 3.5 back. I'm not putting all my money on a similar turnaround, but there's a lot of baseball left. Too early to punt on the season. Also, publicly announcing your buy/sell intentions might not meaningfully hurt your leverage in negotiations, but it certainly doesn't help it.

He's not running away from the platitudes right in front of him

Wow, for a moment that felt like fun baseball to watch

Duran Shoots Self, Others in the Foot

Sounds like he should be the Pacific time zone specialist Did you know he's from California? They never talk about it

Come on now. I'ts a tie game in the 9th and they're at home. There is no possibility of a save situation. Are you suggesting they don't use him at all? This is where the Rocco hate goes too far.

I assume you're referring to Duran's grip on the curve

Hur-ray Lee!

That was a Lewis-fresh-off-the-IL swing from Correa. Woof

Perfect recipe for a rally