mikelink45

I either want them or want them to quit talking about them. But actually I do want them and I do not want the other proposal - reduce the mound and move it back. We already reduced it after Bob Gibson dominated the leagues. But we keep searching for faster and better pitching then look for ways to make it less effective.

Where is the pitch clock? How about the electronic ball and strike count? What about more limits on the mound visits? Still a lot to be done.

Make a rule and stick with it. Tweaks are not necessary, adjustments in strategy are. With three man benches there is only so many substitutes and the opposing manager knows what they are.

I will take the minority opinion here. September does not bother me and if it lets career minor leaguers get points towards the pension I am happy with that.

I love it. How encouraging is that for the Kid!

Here are the words from the actual pension plan. PDF is here if you want to read the entire agreement. You can start to receive your pension: "As early as age 45 if you are no longer employed by a Major League club, or as early as age 62 if you are still working for a club (or its affiliates, including a Minor League club owned by a Major League club). Benefits that you begin to receive before your normal retirement age will be reduced (see “Your Age When Benefits Begin” under “The Three Factors that Determine Your Benefits” beginning on page 101 for details)." http://www.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/bhb/eng/mlb-0f0-pension-print.pdf

I really enjoyed this. What is really does is remind me of why I think that the major league pension system is all wrong. "A big league player needs just 43 days of service to qualify for a pension benefit. Forty-three days of service can guarantee an MLB player a $34,000 per year pension benefit." But what about the minor leaguers who serve their teams but do not get to the required games in the big leagues. I suspect that they could use the pension more than Harper and Machado. I would like to see the minor leaguers included - maybe they have to play three - five years. That does not matter, but they are often giving up college, giving up the early years of a career, and I am not sure what happens to many of them. USA today had an article last year - https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2018/06/11/mlb-10-years-service-time-benefits-pension/682546002/ "The tangible benefits of putting in 10 years of service – with a minimum of 172 days on the active roster or disabled list as the annual requirement – are significant even for players who earn millions of dollars a year. ""The plan pays fully vested members a minimum of nearly $68,000 a year for those who start drawing at 45, with a sliding scale that goes up to $220,000 for beneficiaries who wait until age 62. The payout is even more meaningful for coaches, managers and trainers, who are also eligible and have lower salaries. But the 10-year mark goes beyond any monetary rewards, especially for those who battled long odds to even make it to the majors. Romo was a 28th-round draft pick without the typical prospect’s fastball. Phillies reliever Pat Neshek, who achieved the milestone in April, had to overcome skepticism about his sidearm pitching style. Sandoval was a low-level prospect from Venezuela with a pudgy build." What about a 10 year minor leaguer who never gets a chance? The income of the MLB players is not a problem for retirement for the stars, but the minor leaguers do not have a pension. If they play one game in mlb they get lifetime health care. As a result I am not against the September open call ups. I just wish they would call up more career minor leaguers.

I started out to explore Spring Training stories, but soon got caught up in a lot of the strange stories of baseball and had to share some of them. The stories are part of what makes baseball fun. Spring Training is about getting ready for the season, but that does not mean this collection of athletes can’t generate some stories that might cause you to scratch your head from Ryan Klesko straining his back picking up a lunch tray – what was he eating? To Wade Boggs getting hurt pulling up his boots. Nolan Ryan was bitten by a Coyote, and George Brett broke a toe watching baseball on TV! Baseball is filled with weird injuries and not all in the spring, but this is when is starts and we better hope for health both on and off the field. Former Twins have not been immune. Does anyone remember rookie of the year Marty Cordova who was traded after his Twins season and then was fried in a tanning bed in Baltimore in 2002! Strange accidents can happen anytime, yet spring is different. Jose Cardenal asked out of a game because crickets kept him awake all night. Steve Kent injured himself with falling off his motorcycle and then came up with the really goofy excuse that he got hurt washing his truck – that alone disqualifies him for the HOF. I know there have been some real tragedies – boating accidents, fans and players killed in vehicle accidents, but I would rather look at baseball’s lesser incidents – still accidents and injuries but not tragedies like the spring deaths in the 1800s when three died of consumption (TB). Somethings are just weird, like Phil Hughes keeping the rib removed for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Brian Flynn, then a Royals reliever was on the roof placing some roof panels on to protect his roof and then fell through – causing many injuries. And A J Burnett broke the orbital bone in his eye while bunting. Cecil Upshaw got stuck in an awning, after catching his ring in the fabric when he was dared to jump up and touch it. Former Texas Ranger Jeff Baker sprained his thumb in 2013 doing a High Five! Jerry Hairston got a good quote out of his goof up – "I wish I had a really good story," he told Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. "I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, tripped on a bag and hit my head on a desk. I was hoping I was dreaming; I found out I wasn't. A lot of guys gave me grief. I guess my face has character. In the past month I wanted to pick a fight [suspended one game for his part in a brawl] and a desk finally beat me up." Marc Rzepczynski was injured in a Golf game when a ball ricocheted and hit him in the eye and Elvis Andrus had to sit out because of reactions he got from a tattoo! Our old friend Francisco Liriano lost his $13 million contract when he “broke his right humerus slamming his arm into a door on Christmas Day in an attempt to scare his children, who were in the next room.” He got a one million dollar contract with lots of incentives instead. Another former Twin Pitcher – Carl Pavano suffered a ruptured spleen from shoveling snow in Vermont in 2013. Also in 2013, current Twin – Lucas Duda broke his wrist in the off season moving furniture. This spring the Mets Brandon Nimmo was sidelined after eating under-cooked chicken! Did you know our own Martin Perez when he was with the Texans had his non-throwing elbow fractured when he was startled by a bull in Venezuela? He later said he killed and ate the bull. But spring has many surprises like Kevin Millar straining his nose in a particularly strong sneezing fit and Sammy Sosa in 2004 injuring his back from sneezing? If that sounds bad what about Joel Peralta injuring himself getting out of his Camaro to pick up sandwiches? Pittsburgh’s Corey Hart needed stitches from cutting his toe in a hot tub in spring training. Another former Twin in the weird injury category, Brian Duensing underwent surgery for an injured elbow when he was moving a bullpen chair that he was sitting on. HOF Rickey Henderson suffered frostbite after falling asleep with an icepack. And finally former Twins pitcher Joel Zumaya got an inflammation of the elbow in 2006 from playing the video game – Guitar Hero. We can add Sano to this list with his cut from celebrating his teams championship. And now he misses both the ST and the opening month. ""Yeah, it's a little frustrating, I would say," Sano said Thursday, via the Twins. "Because I worked really hard in the offseason to get to Spring Training in shape and ready to go, and now this happened. But it's just a setback and we'll get it going next week." Sano suffered a laceration on the back of his foot during a championship parade with his winter ball team in the Dominican Republic. One of his teammates slipped on a stage and bumped into Sano, who fell into metal stairs and suffered a cut that required 12 stitches." https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-sports/miguel-sano-frustrated-by-injury-keeping-him-out-of-spring-training-action 2019 "Twins third baseman Miguel Sanó will undergo surgery on Nov. 13 after suffering a stress reaction in his left shin in mid-August that never fully healed. He is expected to have a permanent titanium rod inserted into his left shin, and the surgery generally carries a six-to-eight week recovery period before a return to baseball activities" https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/miguel-sano-to-have-surgery-on-injured-shin-c260512716 2017 2013 - "The Minnesota Twins and their fans got they some bad early news in spring training. They were looking forward to top prospect Miguel Sano as he prepared for what might have been his rookie season in the majors. Instead of becoming the team's top story for his performance, Sano became the top story of the spring because of an elbow injury that will require season-ending Tommy John surgery. On Feb. 27, Sano felt some pain in his right elbow after making a throw across his body in the Twins' intrasquad game. The following day, he had an MRI that showed damage to the elbow. The result is Tommy John surgery for Sano and one of the biggest attractions at spring training shelved for the season." https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-xpm-2014-03-07-sns-rt-bbo-news-20130630-story.html "Minnesota Twins slugging prospect Miguel Sano will have Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm and miss the 2014 season. The 20-year-old third baseman had been trying to rehabilitate a strained ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He was hurt in October while playing winter ball in his native Dominican Republic." Why do we let him play winter ball? 2016 - ""Unless something happens where either we made a huge mistake in judgment, which I don't think is going to happen, or injuries hit us hard and we have to do some shuffling. But I would hope to avoid that," Molitor said. "Sometimes you've got to make changes according to how things go. Molitor said he's most concerned with Sano staying healthy, as there aren't many players with similar body types who have made the transition from infielder to outfielder." Of course not all spring training stories end up in the training room. Souhan recounts, “Paul Molitor arrived in the spring of 1996, listened to Puckett in the clubhouse for a day, then said: “I appreciated the quality of what Kirby has to say. I underestimated the quantity.” And finally you might enjoy Bill Becker’s memories of Tinker Field - https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/baseball/os-ghosts-of-spring-tinker-0307-20100306-story.html

By the way - as a non-twitter person - thanks for letting us post questions this way.

The BP is our biggest concern in this era and I read about various guys throwing really well and new changes in pitching abilities. But it still comes down to the real season and I wonder what you are seeing in the emerging BP - mirages, ups, downs, surprises?

Most of the gambling was done to throw games - so that is cheating and with Rose we can never know how it influenced his decisions. And now we can wonder all over the league. A little pocket money for a team that is already out of it?

Check in when the season begins and other teams with their own coaches and their own systems meet our system. A wonderful garage does not make a great car.

I do not believe in Buxton, I believe in his potential and it is up to him to make the step and convince us after a really poor start to his career.

After reading this in the Patrick Ruesse column - "Major League Baseball security held its annual meeting with the Twins on Friday, and among the issues was a review of baseball’s long-standing prohibitions against gambling. The exact rules against gambling for players and staff also were read to the entire clubhouse at the start of spring training last month, in both English and Spanish. "This anti-gambling reminder for the Twins came a couple of days after Peter Gammons, the baseball writing legend, broke the news that big-league teams would be required on gamedays to send their lineups to the commissioner’s office at least 15 minutes before they would be made public. "The commissioner’s office would then ship that information to their official gaming partner, MGM Resorts International, or any other public gambling enterprise that wanted to purchase this as part of a data feed for every game from MLB." All I can say is put in Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose. They were just ahead of their time. Gambling was the panacea the states looked to for new revenue after years of outlawing gambling and now sports are seeing it as a new source of revenue so forget the hypocrisy. If you think Bonds and McGwire and Sosa...should be in, I say put these two all time greats in first. Their actions did not destroy the record book like the steroid users did. Joe might have a tougher case because we was supposed to be in on the Black Sox scandal and even though evidence is questionable that is a terrible offense. Rose on the other hand was the ultimate hustler on the field and has been the ultimate hustler of a different kind off the field. Perhaps the biggest benefit to putting all these men in is that we will stop talking about them and move on. As it is Rose has had the most attention of any of the big red machine because the story won't go away. Maybe the same would be true of the steroid users. I do not want them in, but it might be the price for stopping the stream of annual articles and anguish. But most of all lets see how Baseball handles its first bite of forbidden fruit. You can see a long line of banned and banished players at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/baseballs-bans-and-blacklists-5182f08d43ff and this list includes Mantle and Mays - post career! They were greeters at a Casino. Be sure and check out the Gallery Album Since I posted this I began to think about the cheater team and it is a powerful lineup: OF - Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Sosa IF - McGwire, Rose, Alex Rodriguez, Shoeless Joe Jackson C - I do not have a name so maybe we put the best framer in here since he is stealing strikes P - Clemens, Cicotte, Maglie That team is going to win a lot of games and there is a huge bench!