The Great Hambino

Correa has been quite the combo of bad and unlucky this year

Alonso ... buddy ... just accept it and shave it off

FWIW it looks like he threw 58 and 80 pitches in his two starts with the Saints

Tonight we dine in Hell

Ill advised, but how did all three of them miss it?

You don't get to see the banana yellow catchers gear. Consider yourself lucky

So you ... want Paddack pitching more frequently?

The architecture tour on the river was a worthwhile afternoon. Also, they're right about ketchup. Ketchup is for toddlers or for making better sauces.

Innings/start - MIN: 5.4 Innings/start - STL: 5.8 ERA - MIN: 2.90 ERA - STL: 3.90 (My analytics tell me this is one full run higher than in MIN) Lots of areas where Twins management deserves blame. The handling of Sonny Gray is not one of them.

In a vacuum, there's some logic to pulling him as outlined in the article. But games aren't played in a vacuum. I think Baldelli's biggest strategic failure is being too hyper-focused on a specific matchup while ignoring how the decision affects the rest of the entire game, sometimes future games. In the past, this was highlighted most prominently in selling out for the platoon advantage in the middle of the game. He seems to have backed off that tactic this year, but pulling Ober the way he did when the bullpen has already been stretched past its limits multiple times in this short season is a different symptom of this same disease. Any additional innings - even any additional outs - that the starter can eat saves a bullpen arm for the next day. As we've seen, the opportunities for starters to gobble up these additional outs have been few and far between. The next three starts are AAA call-up, Paddack, SWR with no off days. The likelihood of dipping deep into the bullpen well over this stretch is high. Failing to account for this was a big missed opportunity to mitigate that risk. Analytics are not the problem. It's another word for information. All successful teams use them heavily. Ask White Sox and Rockies fans how ignoring analytics has worked out. But just because most teams use them doesn't mean they all use them effectively. They could be using the same information at hand to make decisions in a more effective manner, but too often fail to see the forest for the trees. The problem isn't analytics, it's that Rocco isn't very good at using them. The problem's the carpenter, not the tool.

I'm finding it harder and harder to believe they have a plan at the plate.

Fun fact: Carlos Estevez is Charlie Sheen's birth name

Dammit you beat me to it

Usually when a runner goes from 1st to 3rd on an overthrow juice boxes and a dirt infield are involved. Our guys have managed to allow it twice in a series.

Jeffers offers a nice counterpoint in the torpedo bat debate

Something is wrong. He looked like rookie Buxton and 2025 Buxton on those low and away pitches

Correa will still find a way to GIDP

Bader well positioned on that one

Funny, most of the Twins starts this year have felt like Archer reruns

It's a claim made almost universally by people that haven't actually set foot in the downtown area in over five years. I go to a dozen or so games a year. Sometimes with small children. Unless you count the one time there was an old lady smoking a cigarette on the Green Line, never once has there been anything close to anything resembling a safety issue

I'm seeing roughly $35MM coming off the books next year if no options are exercised. But I'm also seeing 11 guys in the arb cycle, meaning some built-in raises are on the way. I also think it's safe to say that payroll is more likely to decrease than increase in this environment of uncertainty and fan apathy. If things keep going the way they have been, is a tear down/rebuild even a realistic option? Other than Pablo, they're stuck with the guarantees on the books (even if they could convince Byrlos Buxrea to waive their no trades, who the hell is giving up value for them?). Among the arb guys, I'm sure Ober and Ryan could fetch a return, but who else can bring enough back to make a rebuild worthwhile? One year of Jeffers? One of the relievers? Royce the Broken? I'm no GM, but it doesn't seem like there's a ton of value to be harvested from that crop. Any improvement in the roster next year will have to include pre-arb guys taking some spots from arb guys (whether through trade or nontender) to a degree that would allow for some FA acquisitions while still lowering payroll overall. That's a tight needle to thread. So if they stay on the current course, they really need to get an idea of what they have in that potential pre-arb group this year so they can know where to pivot next year.

Considering time to throw, distance to throw, and the degree of the miss, that might have been one of the worst throws I've ever seen. I would've expected a better result if he'd punted the ball to first

Now pitching: Benny Hill

Poking around BBRef to see how they're stacking up against the rest of the AL. Not surprisingly, they have the lowest oWAR in the league. They're also last or next-to-last in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS+ (they're only third-last in OPS). They also have only one more HR and one more BB than the last place teams, but ties technically keep them out of the bottom two. The only major category where they're even top half? K avoidance, where they vault all the way up to 7th. This profiles less like a team swinging for the fences and more like a team selling out for contact of any kind regardless of quality. A couple other things I noticed: The Twins could put out up a full lineup currently playing at replacement level or worse 3 of their top 11 in WAR (McCaughan, Dobnak, Blewett) are riding the DFA merry-go-round I know the Twins hitters have been bad, but what the hell is going on in Arlington?

Wallner thrown out with an assist from Buxton's lid: sums up the season