mikelink45

Reading the post responses I had another thought that I have to get rid of by writing it down. This team does not really deserve excuses. I know Polanco is out - his own fault - but more important do you remember how lousy he was the first half of the year. Yes it looked like he turned it around, but at this time last year he was a minus. Buxton has been and will continue to be in and out of the lineup - Sano too. How much did those two miss last year when our record was good? ​Supposedly we plugged the holes and actually got better by FO moves - FA, but someone better go back and recheck all those stats the team now relies on because there is an error somewhere in the calculations.

Is there anyone who can help the Twins? I do not care about minor league records, but I do like moving player up and right now the MLB roster is not doing it.

The big failure for me is the FO. Great stats guys. Way to construct the roster, good job signing the FO, excellent work choosing who to DFA. In other words, this is what Molitor got from the new geniuses and I am not impressed. Odorizzi and Lynn were better than Gonsalves and Romero? Ya, sure. Morrison is better than Vargas???? Grossman is a better fourth outfielder than Granite and Wade????? Better to move Escobar to SS when he is our best 3B rather than bringing up Gordon - no. Lets get Rodney for entertainment value, but we should have someone who gives us less dramatics and more results. I am not impressed with our FO geniuses and all the moves they have made, or any of thee moves they have made.

I am trying to separate the good from the bad, but I am failing. What is good? I am so disappointed in the team this year. All I can say is - FO - you are responsible. You signed the FAs, you DFA'd the rookies, you signed the unknowns, you got us the Rule 5, you decided the roster. So FO what are your stats telling you know. What is the explanation? I am totally beyond comprehension right now and I have followed the Twins since day one. I know it is April, but what gives us hope for May?

Unfortunately our celebration and winning has to be balanced with the fact that we were playing the Cincinnati Reds. If I am not mistaken they are considered at or near the bottom of the league. Still I hope that we can garner a little momentum and start to turn this season around. I like Escobar at 3B, I still want Gordon to try SS, and I want the best fielding CF we have in the minors to fill in for Buxton. DEFENSE!

Nothing is more mysterious than relief pitchers. Did he get used too much last year, did he change his routine over the winter because he was in the bigs, has he changed attitude? Too many unknowns, but we have two pitching coaches on the staff and I remember that there is supposed to be a pitching guru that we hired in the FO. Where are they with all the pitching woes we are seeing. Or is the answer that there are too many coaches, too many voices? I have no answer. But I know that teams trade or sign great bullpen players only to wonder who swapped bodies when they appear on the new team.

Wow - I thought you were going to make me feel better! Well you didn't so I will go back to hoping for the best, because this is what we have.

Fascinating reactions. The comment on not Rodney's fault really threw me. I looked at his line and I am still trying to find the real culprit. By summer we might think Rodney is doing great and all the other players who are looking bad just had a collective bad streak, but it is hard to be happy with what is happening. ​The free agents are not living up to their billing, but look around the league and the majority of free agents are not doing well. I suspect many will pick it up, but it seems obvious that the human factor means that just plugging in a player does not mean that his previous stats come with him. I am concerned that our defense is down and besides my frustration over not bringing in the young arms instead of going for the Odorizzi, Lynn, Rodney, Reed, Duke handful. And Darvish would have done no better. With the defense I still think that Gordon should be at short, Escobar at third, and Sano at 1B or DH would make me happier and I bet the pitchers too.

We have a lineup of good hitters mixed with no-clue hitters. Do you put all the good ones up front and let the back end of the lineup just flounder or do you mix and match so that there are threats throughout the lineup? What is best when we have such a separation of production? Figure that out then get rid of Hughes, move up Gonsalves and Romero and try to get the rotation right. ​Then look at the bullpen and see if there is anything that makes sense.

The catcher position is the hardest to judge. I am still not crazy about the framing arguments, but over time this is a position where we have had few stand outs - Berra, Howard, Harnett, Bench... and it points out how valuable Mauer was when he could catch. I hope Garver can step up, I think our minor leaguers are more than two years away, and the free agent pickings are meager. What is really important is that we need the catchers to concentrate on their fielding and pitch calling skills despite their batting. Which raises a question - how do we judge the skill of the catcher to call the game? What metrics determine that he called the right pitch in the right spot for the right pitcher. Do we just go by wins and losses, by pitcher ERA, or is there a better measure? This skill is more important than the old frame the pitch and steal a strike or two discussion.

Moe Berg was born to a Jewish family in New Jersey and became one of baseball’s most intriguing stories. First, he went to Princeton where his Jewish heritage stood out among his classmates and by the time he graduated in 1923 he was not only an outstanding student who could speak 4 – 8 languages, but he was also the star shortstop on an excellent team. He graduated with a law degree and served a very brief stint as a lawyer, but signed with the Brooklyn Robins – soon to be Dodgers and played 15 years in the major leagues. He moved from team to team and ended up a Red Sox. He also quickly changed from a shortstop to a catcher and his fifteen year batting line was .243 batting average, 278 on base average and 299 slugging average. He was not a star hitter and he was not a starter either. Today he would be more highly valued because he had a great arm to throw to the bases and hall of famer Ted Lyons said he was the best at calling a game. He would have been a pitch framer and he would have stood out by the measurements of today, but not by the standards of his day. And yet he kept playing. He was loved as a teammate and his story telling in the bullpen was legendary. Every day he read seven or more newspapers and he seemed to have the charisma to accompany some of the biggest names of his era – like Nelson Rockefeller. But he was also a loner, who loved attention, but needed to get away by himself. The life of every party, but someone who would disappear with an aura of mystery. In many ways he was the bench coach while still active and remained in love with the game. He also authored one of the classic essays on pitching and catching. But he really did not care if he played, his pleasure was in being near the game. He went to Japan to teach baseball and he organized and was with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other HOF stars when they were in Japan. Moe learned the language and even how to write in Japanese. He loved the country and he took photos while he was there that would later be valuable to the war effort. He was a favorite of the sports writers – they called him the professor. Then his career ended with a little coaching and the nation faced the onset of the war. The nation lacked a CIA, they did not have spies and intelligence, so the country formed the OSS and Wild Bill Donovan recruited the most eccentric group of spies we have ever had and Moe was one. The fascinating story is told in the book – The Catcher was a Spy, by Nicholas Dawidoff, and it is amazing. Moe was in Europe and meeting with scientists who were being lured to the US or asked to work with the US to develop the Nuclear Bomb. He met Einstein, Scherer, Heisenberg and other leading scientists. He was at international scientific meetings and moved in a circle that few people and fewer spies could navigate and he loved it. But his life spun in different ways after his OSS days. He was an independent operator and it is hard to make that work in life. He ended up moving from friend to friend, lived with his brother until their relationship fell apart and then with his sister until he died. His last question on his death bed was, “How are the Mets doing today?” In death this mystery man remains a mystery – Berg’s ashes were buried in Newark in a Cemetery and his brother visited every year on his birthday. His sister Ethel Berg died on her 87th birthday the next year and it was discovered that Ethel had taken the urn from the grave and went to Israel. There she asked a Rabbi to bury him, but he refused because cremation was not accepted, so she asked where he would bury someone if he could and he pointed to Mount Scopus. His brother Sam asked the same Rabbi and he would not tell him the location. His brother Sam died in 1990 at age 92 without ever finding the grave. The location, like the mystery man himself is unknown.

Just five days left in April and then we turn the corner!???

Gonsalves and Romero should be there now. What is holding them back - Gibson, Hughes, Lynn??? Bring them up or do we have to wait until some special deadline passes? The Twins need some adrenalin and a good starting pitcher would help. Put LaMonte Wade as the fourth outfielder, Grossman can't field, can't hit, and they are not letting him do his walk specialty.

He has been watching Sano too much.

Yes - tomorrow. Free Agents are always answers to our needs - remember Darvish, maybe the Cubs will let us take over his contract. Give me Gonsalves and Romero - now. Hughes is owed big money, so what. How much does it cost to lose. Granite is out, Grossman should be. I want Wade. I do not see a rescue for the bullpen. Try Curtiss. And Gordon should have been here when the suspension was put in. Why wait?

It is the entire bullpen, not just Kinley that is a problem. It is the fact that over half our lineup is below 250 in batting and we have 62 BB and 166 Ks. We have a team issue and the blow up in game one of the series simply serves to draw attention to what is really needed to succeed.

The Yankees used to be the team to hate in the 1950's and then disliked or envied during the Steinbrenner years, but somehow the Twins never got the memo that the Yankees are no longer playing with Maris, Mantle, Skowron, Richardson, Kubek, Howard, Berra, Siebern... Hey guys you can play with and beat the Yankees, but do it quick before Stanton wakes up to join Judge and Sanchez and Gregorius and HICKS in the new murderers row and we have to hate and envy them again. The starting pitchers are not that great - hit them. Just remember, however, that the great Mantle teams had Whitey Ford and then the list dropped to Turley, Terry, and Ditmar. They did not need Aces, just pitchers who were consistent at getting a good pitch over the plate.

"A bad week for the bullpen shouldn't necessarily fling us all into a panic; there's still much to like about the unit. But with games scheduled for the next 16 consecutive days, and the first four of those coming at Yankee Stadium, the Twins will need all the relief help they can get. The luxury of being able to stash their Rule 5 pick Kinley for sporadic usage in inconsequential situations is going to evaporate, especially with a fifth starter now on the roster." Sorry but I am ready to panic with this bullpen. Yikes. Nothing like an incompetent rule 5 filling out the roster or an old and ineffective pitcher filling out the rotation. Take out Hughes, Take out Gibson. Lets see what Gonsalves and Romero can do (I sound like a broken record, but I mean it.) Lynn, Duke and Rodney need to step up, Grossman needs to go down. Granite is on the DL, but Wade is a better choice for the extra fielded. Molitor batting Grossman 3 and 4 to give him confidence gives me the shutters. Bad! Same with letting Morrison continual bat in crucial places before he finds his bat. This is not about feelings, it is about winning. I wonder how bad it would have been to have Vargas instead of Morrison at DH? Keep an outfield defense if nothing else. ​Bring up Gordon and let him struggle and learn. Give Sano an eye test. Tell Castro that a smart catcher might have an idea what they are throwing to him. Tell all the coaches - I do not even know how many there are - to get to work.

It might not be a surprise, but that does not make it a good idea. Grossman has done well for us, but perhaps the league has figured out that if they throw strikes they remove his best offense - the walk. We need someone better.

Some wonderful memories and new names makes this a really enjoyable posting. Thanks for the work.

Not inspiring. Isn't it time to look at the minors and bring up Gonsalves and Romero? This is not a small sample size for Gibson, no matter how many innings he pitches the last one will be a disaster. Moya and Kinley are not MLB relievers and if we really thing we are going to compete they need to go. I hope I am wrong about Hughes, but other than his big contract why is he starting? Pitching was our weak point. The FO got lots of credit for addressing it. I am not one of those saying good job. Except for Reed - the one exception. The percentage is not good. And Sano gets an RBI. Great, he made contact once. I am bored with him and I hated the lineup. Grossman batting Number 4???? Call up the young bats. Do something interesting.

I am less concerned with Molitor than with the team. Managers are always over and underrated. But I go back to my premise in the off season when many thought we should be mining free agents and my mantra is bring up the young players. Of course you do not do that if you have a lousy minor league group, but we don't. I wanted Romero and Gonsalves, I wanted Chargois and some of our minor league relief pitchers. I would have had Vargas at DH or someone else that got hot in the minors, I would have Gordon auditioning at SS. And I would have Granite or Wade as the fourth outfielder and I would play LaMarre until the star stops shining. ​Go with the hot hand, go with the talent. I know that is not popular, but what I am seeing right now does nothing to diminish those thoughts.

The bullpen still worries me and Pressly too. At this point Addison Reed is a real plus, Duke and Rodney no so much, but all need more time to show what they have or don't have. Hildenberger is my biggest concern. He has been used a lot, but something is wrong or he just burned out last year. Kinley and Moya seem to be holding places that could be better filled with some of the pitchers in the minors. This is not the bullpen I want to see with a winning team, but at least they are trying some things. Check back in a month and the individual grades will be more valid.

Today, Sam Miller at ESPN wrote that the Strikeout rate in baseball is going up for the 14th year in a row. Last year pitchers struck out 8.2 batters per nine and this year it is 8.6 so far. The first question is why don't batters care? Second question is - how do we compare strikeout rates now with past pitching performances and careers - although Nolan Ryan is not only secure, his record means more because of when he set it. A side note is the fact that starting pitcher strikeout rates is up and relief is down. Why. I suspect it is because they now have so many relief pitchers on every squad that there are bound to be some mediocre pitchers in the bullpen - look at our bullpen and then imagine the bullpens on poor teams! Next I read an article by Jerry Crasnick on the path to 3000 hits by Albert Pujols. Pujols has never struck out more than 93 times a year and he also has over 600 homeruns. In the article Pujols states "Some guys in this league think the strikeout is overrated." "Its something in the game I really don't like. If you put the ball in play you give yourself a chance to put some pressure on the defense, and maybe they can make a mistake and make an error. If its two outs you can start a rally. If you strike out, you don't have a chance." All I can say is AMEN. Imagine Buxton dropping his K rate in half and having a chance for an infield single every time he does, or causing an error because the fielder is in a hurry because of his speed. Imagine Sano dropping his K rate in half which would still be high, but he might not leave so many on base or kill so many innings. Baseball is all about trends. Right now Ks are in and I am not pleased.

This is the pitcher we imagined when everyone - including me - wanted him up for the race at the end of the year instead of Duffey. As it turned out we were premature, but our expectations were realistic. Berrios is the first really terrific pitcher we have developed since Liriano. All I can say is keep him healthy and then start bringing up our other young arms - Romero is next as far as future potential and Gonsalves is good to fill out the rotation. Very exciting potential.