mikelink45

We have two series in Chicago. If we follow recent patterns the White Sox will sweep us and then we will win the Cubs series. This team has some odd patterns. Mauer does not have his skills back - the lead off position has been a loss all year. Our number 4 hitter is batting 188. That tells us all we need to know this team is going no where.

It is fascinating to see how many players have been up and down with the Twins, but nothing sticks and Gordon is forgotten. We bring in Belisle and Motter and that is the FO great strategy? I never will figure out those advance metrics!

I am so confused - why did we bring him in? What is he supposed to do that Petit did not do? This is the team that cut Niko Goodrum and refuses to call up Gordon. It makes no sense.

I was caught up in the Buxton hype and it just seemed that we had a natural, a star that just needed to be put in the lineup and he would be a fixture for a decade or more. It seemed to come easy for him and his minor league averages did not indicate that he was closing his eyes and swinging and hoping. But he got to the majors and got worse instead of better. It is very disappointing so far and I hope that he will find the magic to swing that wand for more hits and less Ks in the future. Our frustration with watching so much talent flounder is only made with when Sano, his HOF partner we thought, had to be sent to single A to straighten out his swing. What is happening when these budding stars hit the majors? Kepler has plateaued at to low a level, and the only one of the rain catchers that is starring is Rosario and for his first two years people were writing all kinds of notes about getting rid of him. How things change.

The announcers made it sound like the play was changed. But I just checked the line score and you are right - it did not change, but it should have. I guess they want Mauer to win that gold glove.

One of my favorite parts of the game today was when Mauer made the error on what was an amazing play by Berrios and the scorer gave the batter a hit. Between innings he confronted our terrific scorer and was joined by both Morneau, and Jack Morris to say that was an error. Stu corrected it. Nicely done. Cheap hits and forgiving fielding errors is not acceptable. For the game - Berrios gets all the credit. I think he could have gone nine. But the offense is so offensive. There has to be something that can be done to change this.

I enjoy seeing an old guy out there - of course he is still 30 years younger than me, but we have had other old guy pitchers and they have not made it to the HOF on an age dispensation unless they were knuckleballers. Remember that Jamie Moyer and Julio Franco made it to 49! Fun, but not HOF.

What did we get for these Players - Ramos for Matt Capps - almost as painful as remembering Ortiz. As we watch LaMarre and Grossman and others in the outfield we have to remember that we Got Ryan Murphy for Aaron Hicks. We got Jeremias Pineda for Danny Valencia. Alex Meyer came for Span. That is about it unless we remember Ben Revere got us Worley and May. At least May has given us lost of speculation even if the results do not amount to much.

The hard part about Ramos is that we have to live with the memory of Capps.

Please arrange that multi-team trade. I am all for it.

At least we do not have Ortiz to bug us any more.

Let's keep going with this comparison - they had Dave Parker, Willie Stargell, Phil Garner, John Candelaria, Kent Tekulve, Jim Bibby, Bert Blyleven, Bill Madlock... Please point out the comparative talent on this Twins Team. Nice to have hope, but this one does not work for me. That was a fun Pirates team.

I have wondered if the FO reads these posts. They are so information oriented it would seem that they might have someone monitoring them. If so I think they might notice that their honeymoon is over and the criticisms of their roster decisions certainly seem to be much harsher (and deserved).

I still do not understand why Polanco being suspended did not open a door for at least two weeks of Gordon in MLB even with our POWERFUL lineup. Kiriloff really is the most exciting development after missing a year. I think Kepler should be worried, but of course these are the Twins and their development plans are still a big mystery to me.

It makes sense to send down a starter, however, when a RP is as bad as Belisle it makes more sense to more him out and get someone else in the BP. This is just one more of a series of very questionable moves by this FO

Where are they now is not about old and retired, but the players on current rosters who at one time were on the Twins Roster. Just curious how they are succeeding and if we wish we had any of them back. Here are the hitters with their stats after the Solstice: I chose BA, OPS, and WAR for the comparative stats: Aaron Hicks, Yankees, 251 BA, 811OPS, 1.7 WAR Danny Valencia, Orioles 290, 822, 1.2 Wilson Ramos, Tampa Bay, 296, 796, 1.5 Carlos Gomez, Tampa Bay, 197, 609, -0.5 John Hicks, Detroit, 279, 759, 0.4 Niko Goodrum, Detroit, 244, 786, 1.1 Denard Span, Mariners, 292, 784, 0.3 Kendrys Morales, Blue Jays, 245, 714, -0.2 Danny Santana, Braves, 667, 1.750, 0.1 (yes sss) Kurt Suzuki, Braves, 279, 821, 1.4 Pedro Florimon, Phillies, 263, 814, 0.5 Chris Giminez, Cubs, 130, 353, -0.1 John Ryan Murphy, Diamondbacks, 239, 769, 0.7 Do you want any of them back? Collective WAR - 8.1 Teams that chose to have an ex-Twin pitching did not do as well. I have made my list simple, W - L, ERA. Jaimie Garcia, Blue Jays, 2 – 6, 8.16 ERA Blaine Boyer, Royals 2 – 9, 11.76 Liam Hendricks, A’s 0 – 0, 4.50 Bartolo Colon, Texas, 4 – 4, 4.91 Annibel Sanchez, Reds, 3 – 3 2.55 Brian Kintzler, Nationals, 1 -2, 13 holds, 4.45 Randy Rosario, Cubs, 3 – 0, 1.76 Brian Duensing, Cubs, 1 – 3, 4.50 Anthony Swarkzak, Mets, 0 – 1, 3.48 Phil Hughes, Padres, 0 – 0, 6.23 The only surprise is how well Rosario is doing. The Twins gave him a too young, too short try, and then DFA's him. The Cubs saw something they liked. Would you trade Belisle to get him? Who would you have back? And if you can trade one for one, who would he replace?

We cannot bench our starters because our best players on not on the roster. I compare this with the minor league report - and wonder if Motter, Grossman, Adrianza, Wilson could break in to the starting roles at Fort Myers. Of course they might challenge Mr Sano there. I cannot say Dozier will not pull off a hot second half. He has had three seasons with bi-polar half season stats so he could catch fire, but the problem is that his bad half is so disastrous that it is too late to do what is needed. Of course the real strategy is to get Cleveland to take Belisle to solve their bullpen woes, then we have a chance to catch them.

I know Sano gets the ink, but Buxton had 2 Ks to go with his HR. With his speed, contact means hits. The Ks still bother me.

This is a good game to reflect on the criticism that Molitor gets for BP management. Pressley has been given rest, Magill has not been overused and the FO gave him the new arm - Belisle. He was not over using Hildenberg, he was not using Taylor right after his best outing. Reed has lost all our confidence and Duke just pitched. He used what he had. Gibson did not pitch as well as his line showed and if he had been asked to pitch one more inning the posts would have roasted Molly. Sometimes a manager cannot win. I looked at the batting averages from 1 - 9 and there was only one that looked really good. It is getting hard to find fresh takes on this team. Nice 2 game winning streak, but...

It is not that I hate having these two, but with pitchers ready to step in, it is an opportunity to get some return on our investment and keep building for the future. I would add Dozier if he starts to heat up.

I am ready to trade Lynn and Odorizzi and pull up Mejia and Gonsalves.

I feel compelled to go against the trend and say that the batter that they need is not on the club. The analysis through the comments and posting are really clear on many things. Sano is a mess that needs a lot to get on track and that might start until August - September, Buxton has been a guess and swish hitter throughout his career except for his 1/2 year surge. In fact if the Twins can play only half a season we can half Polanco and his PED half, Buxton's out of no where half and Dozier having his half season and we are excellent. But 81 games takes care of the NBA not the MLB. Kepler has only an occasional one or two weeks and has fallen far below my expectations. Morrison was covered by LA Vikes Fan who looks at his career, not his exception and gives us just what we have got - not much. Adrianza is a utility player who is playing too much. LaMarre and his revolving partner - Cave is not the answer. And Garver and Bobby Wilson give us a black hole at Catcher. Grossman's big offensive contribution is a walk and his best defense is when he plays DH. Which obviously leads us to the one player/batter left on the roster - Taylor Motter. That must be what we are needing. Go Taylor. There is no one else on the 40 man roster.

I always enjoy these summaries and the look at the top prospects. #15 is not performing like we expected. I know he will come off the list for other reasons, but personally I would drop him from the top 20 at this stage.

So fun to see the posts in a win. Berrios, Escobar, Rosario are the stories for the first half of the year. Lets hope there are more stories in the second half.

Nicely done. Baseball has changed more than most people would admit and Money Ball is one of the markers along the way. I would not say that batters never saw a 95 - 100 mph pitch in the pre Babe Ruth days. That first era when pitchers through 9 innings or maybe 15 in a game. Of course they also used baseballs that had been put in at the beginning of the game and were misshapen, stained, and soft. They also were covered in spit. They moved the mounds, let fans be in the outfield, and many other things we would not believe today. Then, along came Mr Moneyball (sorry Billy Beane) - the Home Run hitter - Babe Ruth and the game entered era two. We know the stories - he hit as many HRs as other teams did collectively. Then suddenly every team grew HR hitters - where did they come from? Maybe the ball changed, maybe the fences came in. Maybe the pitchers weren't as good. But it changed. The next change was really dramatic - Jackie Robinson changed the complexion of the game. Suddenly a wave of really great players demonstrated that skin color was not an indicator of talent. Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Robinson... great players brought speed, fielding, hitting and the game altered very dramatically. So it was time for era 4 - the expansion era and 162 game seasons. Lots of teams, a new HR record by an unlikely hero from Fargo, and dominating mound talents like Koufax and Gibson mixed with old time workhorses like Spahn. So we lowered the mound and still maintained all the same records even though there were more games, lower mounds, more teams... What next? Contraction, strikes, shut downs and then the PED era. We celebrated Sosa and McGwire until we found a tube of cream in Mark's locker. And then that curmudgeon in SF took PEDS and broke all the records and suddenly we had congressional hearings. But we kept the records. Finally moneyball, analytics and three true and boring outcomes. Coaching staffs and front offices that looked like Silicon Valley and now we look for the end of this era and the beginning of what we hope will be a more fun style. But most of all we and the game will continue to evolve. I even skilled the Hoss Radbourne era and the WWII period. We lump all the records together and always claim the athletes of our era are the best ever. That is baseball.