mikelink45

I always hope for the prospect that refuses to be sent out, the one who is just so good he breaks the barriers and goes north.

I look at your grades and the one that sticks out is the coaching. In theory they may be A's, but lets give them an incomplete until they show us something. Alston was going to make the pitching better and Pickler was going to give us the on-the-field stats and both are gone. The hitting coach had worse results than the pitching coach last year and the pitching coach was the one let go. I cannot judge any of these hires because I personally lack the information and ability to judge them, but I have been reading about great hires, new managers who were really going to turn things around, new coaches who could really relate and in 65 years of rooting for teams and trying to page attention - I was too young before that to count - I have heard more stories about how the new guy will make all the difference to pay any attention anymore. I mean I heard how the new FO was going to spend the money and make us so much better. That is why I wrote my blogs about hitting coaches - https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11336-hitting-coaches/ and pitching coaches https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11326-minnesota-twins-pitching-coaches/ all of whom were going to be great when they were hired and I still cannot tell if the failed or succeeded.

I love Berrios and his enthusiasm - you can see it when he pitches. The FO has not won me over. After the first year I was told that they did not have their guys in place, just wait. The second year they were putting their guys in place and now many of their guys like Pickler and Garvin are not around any more so we made more adjustments. Now they have their guys, they have available funds, and they have gone for flexibility. I am still not in line with them, not even a little bit at this point.

Actually I am in agreement, if I can get over the helpless flailing that I still picture with Buxton. I loved the Go-go White Sox of Fox and Aparicio that won on great fielding and good contributions from a below average offense, and also the period of Whitey Ball with Ozzie Smith and Lou Brock in St. Louis - run, field, pitch. Great ball clubs and I would love to see a team do that now.

Polanco 3B is what my foggy crystal ball projects for the future.

I believe scoring runs is still the best way to win. I love defense, but without offense nothing works.

I think that the Twins might need to steal this name. The fans are blue after years of failure, but every little blip they want us to go Wah Hoo.

I do not care what Buxton and Sano will be! I want a team that wins. I want a roster of big league players and if the three year superstud prospects come through, great, but if we are just waiting than maybe the fans should wait and buy tickets when the prospects come through. Year after year it is if Buxton and Sano.... Put a team together and when Buston and Sano arrive they will ride with talent to a title. Has this front office hypnotized us? Are we all waiting for the illusionist to mystify us? This is professional ball. That means that the teams are supposed to be playing for the championship. If Sano and Buxton had come through last year we still would not have been in the World Series. Quit being Minnesota Nice. When we stink, we stink!

ESPN must have looked at its stats and found that the Minnesota audience has fallen asleep so why not try to wake them up with some outlandish speculation. Nice try, but I am going back for my nap.

Haven't I read this essay before? Last year? The year before?

Today we have turned to the Dominican Republic like we used to look to Cuba. Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, Alaberto Mejia, Michael Pineda, Jorge Polanco, Fernando Romero, and Ervin Santana. We also have three from Venezuela. Perhaps the best way to get past the border wall is to hit a ball over it. In the past it was Cuba that was the birthplace of ballplayers. In the 1930s, Cuba like the rest of the world was trying to fight the depression and Cuban baseball, a main stay of their nation and a feeder system for baseball elsewhere was hurting. President Gerardo was overthrown and the dictator Bautista came in to power. The Cuban League was hurting but this winter league had talent - Cuban native Martín Dihigo and Negro League stars Ray Brown, Ray Dandridge, Josh Gibson and Willie Wells. Then after a 1947 agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues American clubs sent their top prospects across the Gulf of Mexico for more seasoning in winter ball. Minnie Miñoso, Camilo Pascual and Zoilo Versailes, Negro League stars like Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe and fresh-faced American prospects Jim Bunning, Tommy Lasorda and Brooks Robinson created one of the most stacked collections of baseball talent anywhere in the world. This was Cuban baseball and to Cuba, it was not the winter league, it was the major league with four teams all playing in the same stadium and competing for the national championship. But, of course, history and politics intervened, and a different dynamic took place. Our most important Cuban connections were probably in our very first years as a Twins team when Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Zoilo Versalles and Tony Oliva made our Cuban Connection. They were lucky to get out of Cuba before the two countries became such enemies that a player could not sign and leave. Lucky for the Twins or the 1965 World Series would not have happened. Tony's father was a cigar roller in Cuba who promoted his sons movement to the US to play ball. On his immigration papers he was listed as his 18 year old bother Pedro instead of the 21 year old Tony. He came over and changed his middle name to Pedro. He came to the US during 1961 spring training and had 7 hits in 10 at bats in the final three games of the spring, but the Twins decided their rosters were full and let him go. Luckily he went to Charlotte to train with a friend and the Charlotte GM, Phil Howser, called and convinced the Twins to sign him. He led the league with a 410 average. Versalles was signed in 1958 – before the Cuban revolution. Camilo Pascual was in US Professional Baseball in 1951 and Ramos by 1955. All of them missed our hatred of Cuba and the communist government. Cuba has also contributed to the HOF with Cepeda and Perez, but has great stars like Canseco, Pascual, Campenaris, Palmeiro, Luque, Cuellar, Minoso, and Tiant ( a Twin in 1969). In 2014 a Twins Daily post looked at all the Minnesota Twins Cuban players – ”Once upon a time, when I was young, the Twins were a team that had a lot of Cuban players. In 1961, six Cuban natives saw time on the Twins' roster, including All-Star Camilo Pascual and future MVP Zoilo Versalles. In 1962, two more Cubanos played for the Twins, one of them being Twins Hall-of-Famer Tony Oliva. All of these players left Cuba before Cuba was closed off to the US by Castro. In recent years, the Twins have had only one Cuban-born player, Livan Hernandez, who lasted less than a year as a member of the Twins' rotation. Here is a list of all Cuban-born (169) major league ballplayers:\ http://www.baseball-...ce.php?loc=Cuba Here is my unofficial list of Cuban-born Twins: Julio Becquer, Leo Cardenas, Bert Cueto, Livan Hernandez, Hank Izquierdo, Marty Martinez, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Jose Valdivielso, Sandy Valdespino, and Zoilo Versalles. All of this brings us to the Twins' newest acquisition, Kendrys Morales. He had been in the US long enough that I had forgotten that he was a Cuban defector. He would be the first position player from Cuba to play for the Twins in almost 40 years.” By stringer bell The revolution was understandable – Bautista was a terrible man and a terrible dictator and Castro was an unknown. “We heard bombs going off and we knew (Fidel) Castro was in the mountains, and Bautista was there,” said Brooks Robinson, a member of Cienfuegos in the winter of 1957, in an interview with the Hall of Fame, “but we would have a bomb go off in the city and then one went off behind the ballpark one time, so we knew there were some things happening.” https://baseballhall.org/discover/hall-of-famers-played-in-cuban-winter-league The Hall of Fame website recounts an part of Lasorta’s memoirs – THE ARTFUL DODGER, “When Castro took over the city on the first of January, me, Art Fowler and Bob Allison came out of a New Year's party with our wives, and it was 3:30 in the morning and I look up and three planes were flying overhead,” said Lasorda. “I said ‘Geez who in the world is flying at this time at night?’” The planes were carrying Batista and his cabinet as they fled the country. Then, Lasorda ended up having his own brush with Castro, when the new leader – a noted baseball aficionado – asked for a meeting with Almendares' star pitcher. “Howie Haak, the scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was with me at the time,” Lasorda recalled in a 2008 interview with Newsday, “So I said, ‘Come on Howie, you come with me.’ When we went into the Havana Hilton into his suite, Howie couldn't believe it. Castro was waiting to talk to me. We talked baseball. And Howie enjoyed that, as I did too. Everybody thought that he was the savior of the country. “When Castro came in, the people were celebrating because they thought he would be good for the country, and so did I,” Lasorda continued. “I found out I was wrong. I wanted to get out of there, but we continued playing baseball after the strike was over. It was a gorgeous country, until Castro took over.” Yes,, that was our Bob Allison, the muscular and talented outfielder of the Minnesota Twins. Following the revolution we found out that we could support a terrible dictator – Bautista, but not a communist – Castro, and so we entered a time when good players in Cuba had to turn to shady characters to get out of one country and into another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_players_who_defected_from_Cuba - many of them are still active and thankfully may be the last to have to go through this political nightmare. The Twins have not had as many defectors as other teams, but Livan Hernandez and Kendry Morales both had a brief time with the team. Now MLB has a new accord with Cuban baseball and hopefully the flow of great players can escape the wall and politics and we can again enjoy the best in the world in our own leagues.

Great essay and so accurate. What is the move that lights the fire under the fans who are waiting for hope? Surely not anything so far and the Free Agent list no longer looks like it has pitching to help us and that is what we need.

I agree, but those arms are already signed and we watched it happen. The bottom of the barrel is no better than Moya, Mejia, Romero, Littell, DeJong and all the other potential arms we have. Lets see the new coaches and system put our own players in position to succeed..

If we are to have faith in this FO their major moves (not signing players from the dust bin) is in putting together better coaches and a better system. The next logical expectation is that those coaches and the system will put our players into a better position to succeed. J T Chagois got a .2 WAR for the dodgers last year. Rosario got a ,3 WAR with the cubs.Nick Burdi had a -.2 WAR with the pirates. Ryan Pressly had a 2.2 WAR with the Astros. Maybe the problem is not in the quality of the Twins, but in the perspective of the FO. It will be interesting to see what Curtiss does. Here is a Strib article about former Twins - http://www.startribune.com/years-of-using-an-average-of-50-players-have-littered-major-leagues-with-former-twins/498267081/ My premise is that it is better to make our current pitchers better than to spend money and time on pitchers who have already established a low performance record.

Sarcasm is welcome at this point

The post was made by his mother'

"At some point it would be great to see the Twins make a commitment to their players by acquiring talent with expectations as opposed to being surprised by what comes of a decision. Martin Perez could certainly have a career year in Minnesota, and that'd be a great revelation, but banking on that is a process with many more flaws than we should be seeing right now." Your quote. Your end statement is perfect. Give me one of the young Twins and quit trying to find magic in the dumpster.

Here is what we got - he is left handed. His record last year gave him a minus -0.9 WAR, 2 - 7, 6.22 era.1.78 whip. Seven years total 43 49 4.63 era, 1.48 whip. Did we just get better or does he repeat last year and make us worse? I would sure like to see some signing where it was not surrounded by question marks. Of course he was a Ranger and rangers and Indians rank high with the FO

None. I feel like the site contrarian, but I say this seriously because our coaches should be able to work with the rookies and minor leaguers we have and coax the stats that these players have. Just adding someone because they have been around does nothing for me. I think we missed our opportunity for the type of reliever we need and it is now better to concentrate on making our own talent perform better.

GONE - so much for that dream

According to Baseball Reference these are the Minnesota Twins hitting coaches - Why there are years without a coach I do not know. But this is what Baseball Reference could tell me about our hitting coaches. These are the men we have entrusted to make our batters better. Did they? There are few hitting coaches that make it into the pantheon of greats – Charley Lau was one, but he might not be employable today. Now we want to have the coach communicate the metrics that statistics have called for – launch angle and other details are the language today. So what do we use to review these Twins coaches? 2017 – 2018 – James Rowson supposedly stolen from the Yankees – can you really steal something from the Yankees if they want to keep them? James did not play in the majors, he played in the minors and the independent leagues with a 193/285/298 minor league slash so he was not hired for his ability to do what he is now teaching. “Rowson served as the Yankees' minor league hitting coordinator for six seasons, joining the Chicago Cubs as their minor league hitting coordinator for the 2012 season. He took over as the hitting coach of the Cubs in June 2012, after Rudy Jaramillo was fired. After the 2013 season, he rejoined the Yankees as their minor league hitting coordinator. Rowson was hired to be the hitting coach for the Minnesota Twins in 2017.” Wiki. The Twins were .251/.316/.421 before he was hired and .250/.318/.405 last year. 2013 – 2016 – Tom Brunansky was a Twin favorite and his fourteen year career gave him a .245/.327/.434 personal slash. When he took over the Twins the team slash was 260/.325/.390 and his last year it was .251/.316/.421 which is not a big change except in slugging. 2006 – 2012 – Joe Vavra did not come to the majors, but he did make AAA and his slash line is quite respectable - .288/.351/.347 – but not much power. When he came to the Twins their slash line was .259/.323/.391 and when he finished it was 260/.325/.390 which looks like a mirror image. 1999 - 2005 – Scott Ullger had a one year debut for his position and hit 190/.247/.241 which is not the most auspicious of lines for a batting coach, but he coached for six years and his team had been .266/.328/.389 when he started and in his last year was .259/.323/.391 which does not look like much of an improvement. 1991 – 1998 – Terry Crowley had fifteen big league seasons and hit .250/.345/.375 which was quite respectable. His predecessor at hitting coach had the team finish with .265/.324/.385 and Crowley finished with .266/.328/.389 which is not exactly a big leap forward, but then it has not been for any of the coaches. 1986 – 1990 – Tony Oliva was the all star of hitting coaches as far as his own career. He hit .304/.353/.476 which is HOF numbers. As a batting coach his team hit .265/.324/.385 in his final season as coach. The team hit .264/.326/.407 the year before he took the reins. Which means a little less power. Now there is a mystery. Baseball reference lists no hitting coach. 1981 – Jim Lemon in 12 big league seasons hit .262/.332/.460 which is a really good career. In his year as hitting coach the team hit .240/.293/.338 Once again no hitting coach is listed and in 1976 – Tony Oliva shows up again and the Twins have a slash of 274/.341/.375 so Tony really got them hitting for average. But once again no hitting coach is listed until - 1968 – 1969 – Johnny Goryl who has the team hit 268/.340/.408 in 69 and .237/.299/.350 in 1970 which shows the opposite of improvement in year two.. This was much better than Goryl’s personal six year stats – 225/.305/.371 1965 – 1967 – Jim Lemon inherited a team that hit .252/.322/.427 in 1964 and then they went to the world series in 1965, .254/.324 /.399 and he finished .240/.309/.369 which means his teams were worse when he was coach but they went to a world series and won 102, 89, and 91 games during the three years. So who was the best hitting coach? Look at this list of slash lines for the last year of each of the coaches? Jim Lemon .262/.332/.460 Johnny Goryl 268/.340/.408 Designated hitter became part of the team rules. Tony Oliva 265/.324/.385 Terry Crowley .250/.345/.375 Scott Ullger .259/.323/.391 Joe Vavra 260/.325/.390 , Tom Brunansky .251/.316/.421 James Rowson .250/.318/.405 The range in BA is 250 – 268 and in recent years this has been on the low end; On Base 318 – 345 and the two lowest On base averages were with the most recent; while the slugging was highest in the first years it has ranged from 375 to 460 and the last two hitting coaches have been second and fourth in this stat. It appears that all the strategies of hitting, fielding, pitching keep evening out and the coach is a nice guy to have on the team. Since writing this blog the Athletic came up with this article - https://theathletic.com/774591/2019/01/18/hitting-coach-of-the-future-dillon-lawson-is-here-to-make-yankees-prospects-have-the-best-eye-in-baseball/?source=weeklyemail - about the new wave of hitting coaches and strategies. I believe we are in a strato-matic universe and it comes down to our coaches having better stats than your coaches.

The problem is not Hildenberg, it is the amazing demand that teams are putting on relievers - not the inning, the appearances. Every appearance demands many warm up pitches in the Bullpen and 8 on the mound even if they just throw one pitch to one batter. This is the new major leagues. Look at the Yankees who just signed Ottovino to go with Britton to go with Betances to go with Chapman and two other really good relievers. They are set so that they can rotate the appearances if they want. When teams average 3 - 4 relievers a game we are going to wear them out. It is not just team strategy, the entire league has not caught up with the demand.

How about we designate all players free agents when they are 27, there peaks, and let the teams scramble to put their rosters together. It might be fun and chaotic.

I would lean to the young pitchers. Look at the length of our potential young starters - Romero, DeJong, Gonsalves, Littell, Stewart, Thorpe, Mejia, Moya. Let our new pitching guru work with these guys, use the escape clause that lets pitchers go up and down and really test to see what we have. I have more faith in them than I do Pineda. They had there test last fall and they have a better idea what MLB demands. I really want to see them, and if need put them in the pen and spot start them. In the meantime Duffey is definitely removable.

An opener means you are afraid that your starter is not good enough to face the top of the lineup multiple times. If I was a starter I would be pissed.