mikelink45

I will take a SB over a HR for excitement. Not sure how this will help. If they want to help the SB - make them safe when they get to the base and allow for a short lack of contact after they make it. Like 1B - the momentum take out is fun, but not necessary.

I am with you. Jeffers and Rortvedt have not proven themselves, Garver has and everything I read makes catcher the first or second most important position. I thought a catcher would be worth more than the man who is being moved off SS to 3B for the Rangers. I might be under estimating his value and I hope I am. It is not a bad trade, I just wonder about our catcher position and the value that Garver seemed to have.

See my report in the whirlwind forum. A lot has happened in two days.

See my whirlwind forum - updated tonight

See my whirlwind forum

I hope this is a wild ride like we have all anticipated. But I need to see action from the FO. If they did all that they could before the lockout I would hope that means that they will do more and quickly now that the lockout is over. Hard to see this roster with all the holes in it so now the FO can get the buzz started among fans and potential fans because other than those of us who are always excited for the new season, the general public has a lot of apathy. With the Wolves and the Wild being really interesting this year the lockout just took BB out of the general sports fans mind.

Finally the Twins Daily site can report on baseball. Get ST started.

That was depressing. How about looking at the second round. Maybe we did better there. Wimmers, Steward, Jay - no wonder our pitching staff was so bad.

A couple thoughts come to mind - How many of the current players were drafted or signed by the old regime? Second, I thought about this ten year journey and then about the other sports. Drafted first overall, would an NBA or NFL team work with a player for ten years to get their potential? It is such a different dynamic in baseball and perhaps a reason why a number of really good athletes gravitate to the sports where the jump to the pros happens so much quicker.

I still rely on the minor leagues. The additions to the playoffs just put more lousy teams in the extended season. The NFL was a good example - its first week of playoffs was dreadful. A waste of time, but lots of money for the league. To be one of the teams that comes in just to be shuffled out by round two is not an accomplishment. Lets build a team to go to the WS.

We did something similar when Hrbek, Puckett, Gaetti, Kelly and others came up and changed the Twins attitude and success.

Nice list and lots of recency. Sano could still meet his potential if he stopped watching statcast to admire distance and speed. He is one of those players who has more than enough power even if he cuts down on his stroke. Lewis is the one who needs some of the bad luck that has plagued him to end - which means the strike this year. What a terrible set of circumstances he has faced. Liriano was another who really provided what his ranking promised until fates stepped in. He won 112 games so his career was a bust, but he was changed after the operation. We have a long list of pitchers in MLB who have had great starts and were unable to maintain. Bob Grim won 20 as a Yankee rookie and then arm trouble plagued him and he was made a relief pitcher. Today they would have had a better diagnosis. Herb Score was in his second year and heading to the HOF until a line drive hit him in the face. Baseball is a cruel game.

Here is a radical idea - set the game at 2 hours 30 minutes. It ends with the last inning completed. Maybe we can get a complete game? They are not bothered by throwing away games so why worry about lost innings? Just had to let that idea out and it isn't even happy hour. So now that I have gone down this alleyway - maybe it is Harry Potters Diagon-ally - I would follow up on some early ideas. Pro sports teams pay for their own stadiums. Pro sports teams look at their salary structure and decide to reach out to the fan and reduce their cost of tickets letting us off the hook for paying outrageous salaries. Some where the union of frustrated fans has to be heard.

You are right - streaming, social media, news stories, personalities are all needed. I just look at my family - five grandkids, three couples, not one interested in baseball despite the fact that they know I love it. No curiosity. I finally sold my memorabilia and cards. I try to think of ways to interest them, but they all fall flat. No one wants to go to a game unless it is soccer (for two) or LaCrosse. Spring training does help because at least there are stories in the media. Right now we can look at the rise of the Twolves and the struggles of the Wild. Baseball news? The benefit of February/March news in baseball is that it is at that time that people have more time for social media, unless they are xc skiers like one grandson. If baseball waits until April or May we have winter sport playoffs coming up, fishing seasons, picnics and graduations. May and early June are difficult to compete with, but do offer some nice days at the park if you can get them there. How about special prices and treats for family reunions? Picnics in the OF following the games? I do not know the answer, but MLB better figure it out. It will not go away, but the golden goose that props up the bottom line right now could slip away.

Interesting to see these rankings and then know who really shined. Wasn't Buxton in the top 25? Morneau is the shining star in the group and this is reminder that prospect rankings are not necessarily a guarantee of success.

I like the first ones on the list but success of the last three I would shock me. I do like the idea of Martin and Canterino forcing their way on to the roster.

When you say Garver is "37% above the league average hitter." I see that as all players or is it at catcher? I do not see the need to put him at 1B right now until I see how the Sano and Kiriloff mix is. Of course thanks to baseball and Covid he is seeing less games without any maneuvering and I am including this year.

Not something that I am excited about. I guess it is not something I have cared about, so I have no objection. Now to get some big issues settled and move on.

Nice research, That was fun, I will look forward to others that people remember in the posts. I am sure there will be some good memories and some player disappointment. In our inaugural year Fred Bruckbauer from New Ulm Minnesota came in for one game, faced 4 batters and gave up 3 runs. He gave up three hits and a walk. He had been a star pitcher for the Gophers before going pro. He passed away in 2007. Depending on his future, Edwar Colina had his one game debut and holds an era of 81.00

I will never lose my enthusiasm for the game - but I have lost my enthusiasm for the structure and leaders who are supposed to preserve the game. Manfred is not the leader that is needed, but I do not know who is the right person to lead the players either. I know there are owners, commissioner and staff, team front offices, coaches, players and prospects and agents. Who has the real power, ultimately the owners, but in many ways the fans and the audiences on TV and radio. We have no voice at the table, no one representing us. Look at 1995 - a shortened season with 144 games. And it was the first season with extra - Division Series - post season games!!! Their best asset was the Cal Ripken streak. Baseball always needs something that a player does to get fan interest which was low until Sosa - McGwire put Baseball interest back beyond the pre-strike levels. "1993 attendance for Major League Baseball was 70,257,938 (Grabiner 1998). In 1995, the year aRer the strike, attendance dropped to 50,464,275 (Grabiner 1998)" I am reading a graduate research paper which includes this very interesting paragraph - "Some comments people had, were very interesting. One person who has been following baseball for fifty years and answered that another strike would lead him to stop spending completely commented that they should "dissolve the leagues and start over." Another comments "F'rior to the strikes of the past few years I used to go to a lot more games ... I have lost my enthusiasm for MLB, I now follow college and minor league baseball." A comment that I could relate to read "I was disappointed with the greed of the players during the strike. It is unfortunate that our society has come to this point.. ." A survey that 1 found very interesting came from a person who goes to 3-6 games a year. This persons answers indicated that the 1994 Major League Baseball Strike had no effect on their spending. This person did however say that another strike would lead them to stop spending on the sport completely." Another part of his conclusions (please read the whole report): "Not one person answered that the strike increased their loyalty to the game. This shows that the consumers do not find anything positive about the strike. It also shows that Major League Baseball should expect absolutely no positive outcomes from a strike concerning their customers. Only negative actions should be expected from consumers."

Ball parks in the 'old days" were also filled with quirks. Mel Ott got his 511 HRs using a ridiculous short porch, but give him credit he made his swing do what he wanted it to (unlike our shift stifled lefthanders today). There was the green monster in Boston, Here is great look at ballpark history. The fact that there is no standard stadium has always meant that teams had to orient their lineup to meet the stadium opportunities and yet the pitchers maneuvered through all the venues.

I think that changing balls so often is ridiculous - but the eras of Spahn and Radtke were not like the old Cy Young and Hoss Radburne days where a ball was used all nine innings. I do know there were rabbit ball years during Spahn's 21 years of pitching as well, but the Bomba year demonstrated how the ball can change the game.

I have never seen a sport that shoots itself in the foot so regularly unless I look at the demise of professional boxing which at the time of Ali/Fraser/Foreman might have been the most popular sport. Then there were so many different men crowned champions by so many different bodies that nobody cared anymore - kind of like adding more teams to the playoffs so that the regular season does not count. So my conclusion is that there is one more trial by fire and that is the game itself. Can they find a way to climb back in relevance? Or do they need to pass out the steroids and have another game saving Sosa and McGwire HR chase? Now that I think about it those two should be in the HOF just for getting the interest back in the game after the 1994 strike. The league added interleague play in 1997, moved the Milwaukee Brewers to the AL and still the game was not back to where it wanted to be until the McGwire and Sosa excitement. To this I will add that the team and team leadership of the Twins is also at a crucial place and the players you chose are excellent examples. We can add - will Kepler finally learn what he needs to be productive, can Buxton give us a full MVP season, where do we play all our 2B and is there a SS?

Does the emphasis on strike outs also commit the teams to the ridiculous 4 – 5 inning starter and a dozen or more relief pitchers per year? Are we straining the arms by demanding near 100 mph heaters and lots of curves and sliders? I went to Brad Radtke’s baseball reference page. He pitched 12 years for us and is one of the best pitchers in Twins history. 148 – 139 4.22 era is not HOF worthy, and he cannot be called a great pitcher, but he was a competent competitor for teams that needed him like today’s Twins. What I wanted to see was his innings pitched – 2451 – an average of 221 per year with a peak of 261. He struck out 1467 and walked 445. His WHIP was not great – 1.26, but acceptable. His complete games – 37 is only 10% of his starts. His average start was 6.5 innings per start. Now comes my crazy comparison – a potential Hall of Famer – Clayton Kershaw – has pitched 14 years, 2454 inning – only three more than Radtke. 2670 strike outs and 606 walks. 25 complete games – 12 less than Radtke and he has started 379 games – 2 more than Radtke. Of course, his 185 – 84 makes him elite, but as you probably are well aware of, for many years he was worn out as the Dodgers got to post season and in the last few has been injured. He is no longer the pitcher that he was and not even the Dodger Ace anymore. Obviously still a great pitcher, but that is not the issue. The pitcher throws on average 62 – 65 % strikes. If I extrapolate - no I am not a statistician - that means the pitcher is going to throw a minimum of 5 pitches per K and 6 per BB. I think that is the difference between the Radtke and Kershaw stats. More Ks and more BBs mean more pitches thrown - not even considering the arm stress of the faster pitches or the curve. I know Terry Ryan and pitch to contact are out, but I did want to look at some of the realities in todays baseball. Finally, I had to look at Warren Spahn, my all time favorite pitcher who lasted 21 years, pitched 5046 innings, started 635 games and relieved in 79 others and he completed 382 games. He struck out 2493 - just .5 per inning and averaged 8+ innings per start so this 363 win pitcher does not fit the current profile, but he does rank number 6 in wins all time despite serving in WWII missing three full seasons and serving at the Battle of the Bulge along with Yogi Berra, Ralph Houk, Cecil Travis, Hoyt Wilhelm and 21 other players from MLB. The war has nothing to do with this topic except that it robbed some years from each. Pitchers of Spahn's era had different expectations, I understand that. Today with the HOF talk still in our minds Roger Clemens is often referred to in modern terms as the greatest pitcher (not by me) and he pitched 24 seasons - with the war years similar to what Spahn would have had. He had 709 starts and completed 118. With almost as many Ks as innings pitched he was the beginning of the current era and Spahn was the end of the previous era. Clemens averaged 6.9 innings per start.

Nice speculation. I am watching Winder and Balazovic (or I would if ST were happening).