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mikelink45

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Everything posted by mikelink45

  1. mikelink45
    SWR is smiling, the rotation is opening up and I am disappointed in Varland. I never heard of Bowman and I do not expect to hear from him again. Where is Alcala - I know - do the Twins? Kiriloff and Jeffers are the two leading bats. We need them every day. Thank you Miranda for stepping up. The last of the good hitters is Martin. Martin is not great, but with this lineup average is outstanding.
  2. mikelink45
    I always thought that Feller was right when he said you build arm strength by throwing the ball. With all the rash of injuries I do not think saving innings when you are good helps and I do not blame the pitch clock. I blame the excessive pressure to throw max every pitch. Pacing is also pitching.
  3. mikelink45
    Varland started hot too when first called up. SWR is in line, it is up to Louie to take charges of his position in the rotation.
  4. mikelink45
    Fun intro to a big guy, but no - I do not see a Twins uniform in his future.
  5. mikelink45
    Good article, but increased fan frustration. We have always loved Buxton's speed and potential, but ten years and 20.8 WAR - 2 per year and so far this year it is negative. 238/298/464 career slash line is not a superstar. Frustration is not about injuries, but 553 appearances in CF over ten years (55 per year) means his bat has to give more value. I hope it does, but I do not expect star level play -- I would just like a good major leaguer.
  6. mikelink45
    Do we have an organizational rule that SP can't go more than 4 innings now?
  7. mikelink45
    Great report - nice to learn anatomy as well as good news.
  8. mikelink45
    Of all the things you wrote about - sending Alcala down makes the least sense.
  9. mikelink45
    Who is the good hitter?
  10. mikelink45
    One out but he hit the ball hard and he walked. He is hitting 125! I admit that that is better than Wallner, Farmer, and Castro, but - no room for bragging. On a team with Julien, Buxton, Vasquez, Miranda, Margo all batting under 200 maybe Santana looks better, but! Martin, Kiriloff, and Jeffers all above 200- wow. None of them will win the batting title. Sorry to see Thielbar have such a bad outing and Jax too. By the way what is Bowman doing on the team?
  11. mikelink45
    Varland needs to step up, SWR just put the pressure on him. Sands has surprised me in a good way. I am also delighted by Funderburk and his performance this year. Hopefully Jeffers and Julien can join Kiriloff and start getting some hits on a regular basis.
  12. mikelink45
    Give Maeda credit - he did not have the strikeouts of Ryan but he went six and gave up 2 (1 earned) Who is Bowman? Why would you pinch hit for Kiriloff, the only batter over 250 and not Santana?
  13. mikelink45
    Will he strain an oblique coming out to remove the starter?
  14. mikelink45
    Thanks for remembering my comment on Spring Training. I was really frustrated by it. We seemed to be more interested in getting the scrubs playing time than getting our regulars to find their bats and arms.
  15. mikelink45
    That was brutal and it comes on the day when ESPN has their writers making predictions. They're asked to come up with something that was startling and one of the writers chose Detroit to win the American League Central. Of course another one chose Kansas City. Minnesota needs to regain some respect
  16. mikelink45
    We no longer have the marquee match ups - Spahn and Marichal, Martinez and Clemens, Koufax perfect game against Hendley 1 hitter, Or Harvey Haddix throwing 13 inning no hitter only to lose to Burdette who also went all the way. Nor do we have a Morris - you are not taking me out.
  17. mikelink45
    Of all of them, Cesar Tovar was my favorite - he did everything with spirit. Jimmie Hall was a comet - amazing then flaming out. Lenny Green was our first and seldom gets mentioned. In 1962 he had 3.1 WAR. Shane Mack and Dan Ford also did well for us. It is interesting to see fangraphs going back to our Senator roots and listing Sam Rice first. He is a HOF player with 50.7 WAR. Clyde Milan is second from the Senator days with only Rice and Puckett ahead of him.
  18. mikelink45
    What I find most fascinating about baseball is the fact that it is an individual game within a team context. It is pitcher versus hitter - no one else can be involved unless it is the catcher. The players are not covered in uniform like NFL or NHL. We see that individual. Teams are known, but within a team there is individual identity. Shohei, Trout, Judge, Betts standout as individuals and their individual stats matter and are what we judge them by. As an old man who grew up on box scores I still celebrate these individual triumphs and failures. And I loved seeing Warren Spahn win 20 games 13 times. If it did not matter why couldn't more players do that? I admit that we no longer let the starting pitcher go deep enough to control the game like they did in the past, but we still assign wins and we judge teams by how many games they win. I just do not find it a stupid stat.
  19. mikelink45
    I do like and care about wins. I love all the 300 game winners, but they are from another era and today most Twins pitchers go only 4+ innings in many of their games. This is the modern era of BP ball, but still a good 4 inning performance like Paddock had is better than a 1/3 inning reliever who happens to come in to finish the inning and is lucky enough to be the pitcher of record when the team scores go ahead runs. I have always disliked the way wins are allocated and I know in this era only us old timers care about wins. I love Verlander and his 257 wins and desire to get to 300. Only once did I care about RP wins when Roy Face got 18 wins in 1959. He had two more seasons with 10+ wins and 20 WAR for his career. Otherwise, the win for RP is even more worthless than many of the save records. The rule for wins: "A pitcher receives a win when he is the pitcher of record when his team takes the lead for good -- with a couple rare exceptions. First, a starting pitcher must pitch at least five innings (in a traditional game of nine innings or longer) to qualify for the win. If he does not, the official scorer awards the win to the most effective relief pitcher. There is also a rarely used clause where an official scorer can deem a relief pitcher's appearance "brief and ineffective." (For example, if a reliever relinquished a one-run lead by allowing three runs, but was still in line for a win after his team scored four runs in the following inning -- that may qualify.) If that's the case, the scorer can award the win to a pitcher who followed that "brief and ineffective" pitcher. Which relief pitcher earns the win specifically is also up to the judgment of the official scorer." It is time to invoke the second paragraph in the rule. Or maybe we recognize the era we are playing in and rewrite the rule.
  20. mikelink45
    Great trade. Right now Luis is batting 250 and has a negative -0.3 WAR. That will change. Of course we could still use him and I would love to have Steer in our lineup, but that is the nature of trades.
  21. mikelink45
    Is it time for Major League baseball to redefine? What a win is. Paddock going 4. 2. But that's not enough. That's what you're going to get in this era. He should have gotten the win.
  22. mikelink45
    Only cost cash - this is the team that does not have cash. I heard that all off season.
  23. mikelink45
    Wow - we bragged about how many BP arms we picked up this off season. Too many to fit on the MLB roster. We were sure we had the number 1 BP in the league. Where are we now? Where is Blewett, Bloushley, Blowman, Boyle, Brigham, Castillo, Harris - all over 30 and all on the Saints. And then there is Henriquez who is young and was supposed to be a promising BP piece. I guess the Twins are just flush with money so they bought someone instead.
  24. mikelink45
    I know others will wonder 2 - 0 1.45 Not bad.
  25. mikelink45
    In the Athletic team rankings the Twins are 12th - middle of the road, but the comment that went with the ranking applies to the entire team not just Julien: "So long as we’re extrapolating tiny samples, let’s consider the Twins as they square off against the Dodgers. Minnesota last year led the AL in homers (yay!) and strikeouts (whoops!). That all-or-nothing approach has been tweaked. Now it’s just nothing. Through their first seven games, the Twins had the fewest homers in the league (three) and the second-highest strikeout rate (26.7 percent). Carlos Correa and Alex Kirilloff are off to strong starts, yet we’re still waiting for a homer from them or Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, or Matt Wallner."
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