mikelink45

This ranks right with the old contraction talks that almost cost us the Twins. MLB needs to expand its support not pull out the rug from under the players, smaller towns, and future of the game. Less draft choices, fewer minor league teams, a terrible image in negotiating to bring the season back, and baseball wonders why it is no longer referred to as the National Pastime. Now they cut the pay for minor leaguers and it is just big business, which is always was, but it is big business that seems to lose its way when it comes to raising the public's interest and support. They need more than the loyal fans that come to a site like this.

that pitching rotation was insufferable - Hughes saved the club from total disaster and Gibson was maintaining replacement level, but the rest that you listed were such disasters that you wanted to leave the room when the defense was out there and only watch when the offense came up.

I am against the owners - I am seeing this as nothing but a ploy. Short change the players (who made them sign this contracts?) Cut the minor league teams, cut the minor leaguers, then cut the base pay. Has anyone who read this ever seen a billion dollars? Do you have any idea how big that is? millions do not stack up against billions. The meaning of a billion is one thousand million (1,000,000,000).

Oh the misery. Some rainy dreary day there should be a list of Twins trades by decade - who we gave up and who we got and then how they performed on each side of the ledger. Well, maybe that would be too much misery for even the Twins fan to take.

The top three games - all losses! Washed up players, failures at so many positions, a pitching staff that could only elicit tears with two exceptions. 570 wins from 2011 - 2018 at .440 winning percentage. What a story.

60 games is a crap shoot. anything can happen. We have so many instances of teams with a hot start that are no where to be seen in September. I would love to see the owners take the players 114 games, but they would not want to lose face.

Yes - it was important that he continue and get past the 2000 hit mark for voters, but his 1B years diminish his stardom which is a shame because at the time of the concussion he was a sure fire HOF catcher. I think national press will be kinder than many MN fans.

What a mess - my biggest take away from this is Liriano's inconsistency. At times he looked like Johann and at other times like Matt Capps. I know he had an injury, but so have a lot of other pitchers. Many teams have now given him a chance with hopes he will find the magic, but he keeps disappointing. His Pittsburgh years were his best, but 40-52 with 4.33 ERA 1.34 WHIP is a far cry from what we all hoped for. Considering that he was 12 - 3, 2.16 era in 2006 we all hoped he would recover from the injury and be close to what he showed us.

I am amazed at the posting that criticize this. I do not believe anyone is compelled to read everything on the site. I skip Randball because I do not enjoy it, but I see that most do. Here we are in a debate that might impact the future of the game we love and celebrate - Billionaire owners versus some millionaire players and more low income players struggling to get an opportunity. It is a mix of politics, power, economics and we are okay with that. KAT loses his mom to Covid, Colin takes a knee. Michael Jordan speaks out. Torii Hunter is upset. But we should not confront the issue. Come on - everything is related and Nick did us a favor because he posted an opinion that can be discussed or ignored, but if we complain that he has taken his first amendment rights then we have crossed the same bar that kept blacks from mlb for 100 years. I love baseball, I also care about the bigger issues that surround us and our sports. ''Minnesota Football head coach P.J. Fleck joins ESPN First Take to urge millenials to lead the charge for change and social activism.'' https://www.facebook.com/FirstTake/videos/1216637408680056/?__tn__=kC-R&eid=ARCvmN7_k3lBcQzveoMM7OR2cJqLK_OjbGMaddwKnlqMuU_hMduyiOkwWRoJ_5EXadvRH_gLtXPdGl3I&hc_ref=ARRxpjPGokkfsDIPh7TpuZhi2KdLD082cwiE52Ydxb-1HNa4Cg2MZTeJnVvQQAxf0TA&fref=nf&__xts__[0]=68.ARC7FjEE6YaLAWcp9nGH8RI29MAMn5d7QJESJPH0bXbaatL43iLZl1TXDJdWzX4VOyFVFdpiriSUEMYRlCGaubuB27Rmd9xcYNqIHLRUHAPq2ZawMBMZvzcGGwA_EadR3fs7EbgmGEOLniRBF1hBqabGhAQecb1jXH6Qh-bHNC8mxfMwllTKwZX9-jIDYDXRHASV_WvIa8YIijXPJESa3YINCOZCQW-zZoIPHJIlGNZH7KyiD9jdtobPnKc3KCZU_EEJSq2Urc1O7jdgE1Kf3ahuQNCWNreA6NbU-lQF40dIY7XNCHDVwuAW1ziQZoPYViYVSkqew6k0jmUzbBQ0LNRiVUPqTZW43fe8Lw

Another nice recap - the Capps trade will always haunt us, but getting J J Hardy for SS was great until we also decided to trade him (why?). We got Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson - that's right two "who did you say" pitchers. So we traded Ramos and Testa for Matt Capps in 2010, JJ Hardy for Hoey and Jacobson. Just two years after trading Santana for GO GO Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey. Then in 2012 we had the Delmon Young trade. Didn't we have any scouts in those days? Shouldn't we have gotten someone who could play? Gomez was exciting, but has hardly been a sensation, Young had a reputation and promise but the floor came out from under him. All the other names? We did get Brendan Harris, Jason Pridie with Young. These will be followed the Kyle Lohse for Zach Ward trade and Aaron Hicks for John Ryan Murphy and Denard Span for Alex Meyer. And then there is the trade of Escobar for Ernie De La Trinidad, Jhoan Duran and Gabriel Maciel. Do you think Arizona would do that trade again? We have to be careful when we want the Twins to pull off a big trade and this is a reminder.

Thank you - we need strong statements and strong moral stands.

LaTroy Hawkins had an amazing career, but could not close - check out the recap of the 2000s that has been on TD. We have a player who can handle the pitching and the mental aspects - leave him be.

I completely agree - one more aspect of gold gloves is repetition and less work to just keep awarding the gold glove to the same person year after year. Did Kaat and Maddox really deserve all those gold gloves? You brought up the best example of all in Palmeiro. Here are more examples http://insidestl.com/top-7-worst-gold-glove-winners/15715 That is why the Andruw Jones debate wears me out - yes he was a good fielder - but did he deserve all those gold gloves? His career is just not good enough for the Hall. Here is a good essay on why the awards are bad - https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1391222-why-the-mlb-gold-glove-award-is-the-biggest-farce-of-end-year-awards-season Here are the 2019 finalists https://www.mlb.com/news/2019-gold-glove-finalists Note old friend Robbie Grossman - did anyone see this coming?

If you put the statistics of Cave, Wade, Larnach, Kiriloff, and Rooker side by side - who do you keep and who do you trade? I would imagine Larnach and Kiriloff would be the last two standing.

This demonstrates either a failure of philosophy or scouting. Or I over estimate how well other teams did.

Gold gloves have been devalued and might not count as much as you think in his assessment

I enjoyed this - I like the HOF speculation and often hate the voters choices (Baines) so who can predict. I see both in the Twins HOF - and that is good enough. No to Torii. Fun player, good player, but nothing comparable to Mays, Cobb, Mantle, DiMaggio. He is #34 on the Jaws CF rankings between Curtis Granderson and Willie Wilson. Josh Donaldson is #29 in jaws 3B ranks - but remember there are fewer 3b (15) HOF players than other positions (DH is not a position). He sits between Heinie Groh and Matt Williams. He needs 27 WAR to reach HOF level - that is a lot at his age.

Thank you for the continuing excellent quality in these recaps - so many names and details get forgotten!

"In baseball history, only three full-time catchers have won batting titles. In the National League, Cincinnati's Eugene "Bubbles" Hargrave won it in 1926. The Reds' Ernie Lombardi won it in 1938 and 1942. Mauer is the only American League backstop to win a batting title, coming out on top in 2006, 2008 and 2009." https://bringmethenews.com/news/how-many-major-league-catchers-have-won-a-league-batting-title If the voters concentrate on his catcher years he is in. The extra years got him past 2000 hits which is an important consideration for the voters. Jaws has him #7 all time among catchers. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_C.shtml right behind Yogi Berra - that is really high praise. The next three on the list and everyone above him is in the HOF. For all the fuss over Yadier Molina he is 24 on the list and Buster Posey is 16. The highest rated catcher not in the hall is Thurman Munson and, by-the-way, AJ is number 69 on the list.

The list of players that Bill Smith added is eye-opening. Wow were they a bad lot. If he had hit on any of them we would have won that year. I guess I forgot how bad Bill really was.

Very enlightening. Maeda's numbers surprise me.

Unlike Gleeman and the Geek in their last podcast, I am bothered by strikeouts. I can buy into having more than were historically acceptable, but Sano will see an erosion of his bat skills and it will be compounded by the limited number of times he makes fairball contact. If he is only going to connect with the ball 2/3rds of the time, he cannot afford any issues mental or physical, he cannot adjust to aging and regression. Ask those still paying Prince Fielder's contract how they like writing those checks. I want Sano to succeed, but lets quit feeding him the "it's okay to strike out a lot" line.

It was so sad in this era to see talent rise and then be shipped away with Ponson, Nolasco, Correia, Ortiz...coming our way. Bill Smith gets a lot of bad press, but Terry essentially bailed on him when he saw he was going to lose Santana and Hunter.

Yes. We do not talk about the legitimacy of the strike seasons, the world war depleted seasons, the nine game series, or even the year that McGraw refused to participate in the series. The series stands alone as an experience - we do not remember the playoffs once the series begins (unless it was the Twins versus Yankees) and seldom do we quote the records from the regular season. When wild cards win it does not diminish the championship, when cheaters win we do not remove them from the records except for the 1919 Black Sox - who are actually more remembered than the poor Cincinnati team that actually was the winner of the tainted series. If the Twins can avoid the Yankees and win I will be excited and happily congratulate them.

The Twins in the playoffs and the Vikings in their Superbowls and playoffs have given Minnesotans a complex that even 1987 and 1991 could not shake. We celebrate the season and fear the playoffs.