Jham

Interesting concept. My thought is that there would be a positive correlation toward the latter scenario, but I don't think the results would tell you much. Getting 1 hit in 4 at bats for .250 average (last year's league average was .254) is likely to be almost neutral for wins and losses based on being so close to the league average without looking at average wins per team. Going 0-4 in any particular game probably correlates slightly with a loss, certainly more so than a 1-4 day. Going 0-4 might mean you met Chris Sale, but even Sale gives up hits. If you went 3-4, you probably did not face Sale, you probably faced Nolasco. You're more likely to beat Nolasco than Sale. You might go 0-4 against someone in the middle, you might go 3-4 against someone in the middle. But 1-4 doesn't tell me much. Thus my hypothesis is slight correlation toward multi-hit games, but only because your probably not the only one hitting well when you go 3-4. (correlation vs. causation).

I would guess you're probably right. I'm not sure what more TR could really have done without making it look like we were punting after putting together a decent season. I'm willing to see if he makes any changes in scouting, player development, and rebuilding now that he has an excuse to do so without public backlash. Time to bring back the Get to Know Em t-shirts maybe...

That's the ugly truth about this season: there aren't a lot of "right moves" to be made. Most of the moves designated as priorities are "cross our fingers and hope for the best" moves. Hopefully Rosario will prove he can work an at bat. Hopefully May can be a healthy and effective starter. Hopefully Buxton will improve with preparation at AAA. Hopefully Sano can play 3rd... Maybe I'm gun shy because of all the losing and letdowns, but I'm not sure many of these moves matter. I'm not one who is a strong believer in needing tons of MLB experience in order to be successful. I think there are different ways to bring a prospect along. No one way will work for each player. If the solution to Buxton not being ready is more AAA time, then the solution to X player, Shaggy for instance, not being ready may or may not be MLB pressure. I think the latter scenario works better on teams with more veteran talent. I think our #1 and only real priority should be not panicking because of this year's results and continue to be patient and focus on 2017. Consider that TR may have thought this team wasn't going anywhere and that they over-achieved last year. He would have been highly unlikely to go after a big name FA reliever or veteran outfielder, exactly what happened. He also could not embrace a total rebuild (nor would that have been wise before seeing how quickly our young talent can develop). As such, TR may have viewed this season as a season of patience. If so, we need to continue to be patient. If not, TR probably should go and that should be priority 1.

This thread is pretty interesting to see the similar debates around the league as to the move without all the Danny Santana grandstanding clouding the decision. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/06/twins-designate-oswaldo-arcia.html 7 or 8 days into the DFA, and no claims or trades? Could Arcia go unclaimed? Would that be good or bad? I sort of think Ryan was exposing Millone and now Arcia to waivers because he thought teams might try to move up the waiver order and trade for them. If no one claims them, great, we hold on to Arcia with no 40 man issues... of course that means that players who aren't even the worst players on our team aren't even worth rostering on any other team. No wonder Grossman looks good in comparison...

See, I can say I have a different opinion or stance without accusing those with opposing views of mismanagement. Realistically, what could Arcia have shown in those few weeks that would have saved him from a DFA? He may have bought a few more weeks, but in all likelihood, it would have delayed the inevitable. Should the Twins have waited out Valencia's 5 bad years for his less than 1 full good year? Or should we have just signed him as a cheap FA last off season if we were afraid we'd lost something great. I sense a lot of the frustration is misguided. We're all frustrated by seeing all these players we're excited about fail. I think that's what made Sano's run last season so much fun. But the failure of the prospects seems to be poor preparation by the team and players to get them ready for MLB action. Kepler cited crowd noise for his early struggles. Crowd noise. I've never heard that before, and I wonder how someone could come to the Show and be surprised by crowd noise unless we're failing in preparing our players, veterans and prospects alike. Was Arcia mismanaged? Probably. But more like gradually over the last 3-4 seasons and off seasons.

Well, Arcia isn't pinch running for anyone late in a game, can't come in and put down a bunt in the bottom of the tenth, and isn't nearly as versatile as Santana on D. If I'm using my bench to just fill in here and there, I'll take Santana over the pinch-hitting option of Arcia. Both Arcia and Santana had fluke years, apparently. For some reason Arcia is seen as more likely to get back to those levels than Santana. I like Arcia. I wish we could have kept him. I would have sent down Kepler to give Arcia a 2 or 3 week trial to save his job. But I'm not going to say he was mismanaged. The guy is a little too up and down, and maybe he'll settle down like Gogo did, but chances are he'll always be a jumpy, nervous hitter who can't hit an elevated fastball.

Santana's BABIP was an issue. But I'm sick of people calling that bounce completely BABIP related. He went from 7 HR in 430 PA to 1 in his next 417. The drop in BABIP was somewhat more predictable, but he appeared to be a young kid with wheels just learning to drive the ball. IE someone you'd expect to have a high BABIP. I would guess that players at his stage who post a breakthrough season like that are more likely to take another step forward power wise then a step back, and that should have countered the BABIP. Instead he's taken several giant strides backward which effects both his BIP and balls not in play (HR). I liked Arcia simply because he tried hard, almost too hard a lot of times. He cared, he supported his teammates, and he played with fire even on losing teams. Everyone complains about the team handing out scholarships. Arcia got one this year out of camp. I would have liked to see him play more, but I wouldn't have bet on better results. Now, the season as it is, I can't justify keeping his one-dimensional bat on the team over Park, Plouffe, Kep, Buxton, Grossman, Rosario, or even D San. He's not a better player than any of those guys other than maybe Santana who's an adequate 25th man on the roster type guy. You don't get better by giving a 5th chance to a worse ballplayer. I hope Ozzie goes and tears it up for someone. Seems like a good kid, but he just wasn't a fit here.

But you forgot to add in Kepler MLB, Sano, MLB, Buxton, MLB, and even JR Murphy and Juan Cento have to be considered some sort of prospects given their position. Zack Granite is tearing it up. Add them in, and you're looking at a decent pool of players to move forward with. No one home-grows a championship. You develop a nucleus. If we can't make a nucleus out of that talent, we've gotten really unlucky, our players have failed, or our development has failed. Terry Ryan's rightfully taken a lot of heat for some of the issues with the MLB team, but we're not so short sighted to go from "this team has one of the best farm systems in the game" to "cupbord is running pretty empty" in a single year based on seemingly slow progress are we? Especially when we're simultaneously making a case to be patient with the young players? If we want to be patient with the talent, should we not also be patient with the guys coaching the talent and the one who assembled it? By the way, I strongly disagree that as an organization, the only way or best way or even a good way to evaluate talent is just to throw kids in for a season and hope for the best. The so called "see what we've got" argument is lost on me since a lot of other teams seem to be able to bring players up when they're actually ready. I also don't think perpetual losing or going full on youth movement is a great way to develop players. I think it puts too much pressure on each young player to be "the guy" rather than letting them relax and find their role. I think it's human nature to want to see the guys we've followed for years in box scores play in person. That's where MiLBTV comes in. But the fact of the matter is we need a much better system of evaluating when players are ready and much better process for getting them ready. Also, Tyler Jay, reliever turned starter, is probably the closest thing to an Ace the Twins have in their entire system. Duffey has been by far our best young arm to come up. The problem isn't the relievers we draft to be starters. The problem is the relievers we draft to be releivers.

Hopefully that gets Brian going a little bit. Maybe the whole team. The team straight needs an energy boost. It's a long season for the team to look so tired.

Yeah, I think we're making the same point. There's no harm real harm in bringing him up, and no real harm in leaving him down. A tad more seasoning vs a dfa of a player we probably won't miss. Maybe I'm overly gun shy about calling players up on limited aaa success. I'm momentarily satiated with watching the guys who put up good numbers in aaa try to find their way through the mlb. I'm ok with being patient take than risk another aaa stage coach turning into an mlb pumpkin. Been that sort of season.

I want to see the science behind that... although I think I get your point if you're just being figurative. I saw Tonkin go up and down and be average to horrible out of the pen. Chargois seems more legit and has risen quickly. Some posters pound the organization for using full seasons of AA and brief stints in AAA before throwing guys into the deep end of the pool. So if we accelerated him through AA and want him to get a good and established grip on AAA, what is the problem? What is the rush? If your premise regarding finite innings is true, it hurts no one to have him in AAA all season. I don't think I'd hastily DFA anyone just to bring him up. Someone will eventually be hurt or traded, and he'll be in line for the call, but to me, I'm not reorganizing my pen and 25 man for Chargois just yet. There's just no need.

97 for Gonsalves?! That has to bode well.

Just tuned in. It appears as though Dean is battling his tail off out there.

I would agree with your general premise, that a lot of the frustration this season is based on prospects not performing and gets taken out on the veterans also not performing. You lost me at the Prince Fielder comparison, although it is interesting. Would I take a Fielder like career from Sano? (a few good years and then ship him off) Probably. Plus remember when Lew Ford lost that pop up? http://www.theonion.com/graphic/prince-fielder-dies-of-inside-the-park-home-run-9910

We all might have the luxury of folding up tent and playing for next year. Molitor and Ryan may not. We'll have plenty of season to get young guys extended looks. But I'd rather see them come up prepared. I don't think trying not to strike out is a viable approach to an at bat and is more likely to lead to bad habits and tentative swings.

I think coming through the minors Nunez was almost universally perceived to be a higher rated prospect and better overall prospect than Dozier, particularly defensively. Then Dozier started blasting home runs suddenly and unpredictably. You do know what you have in Nunez. No one knows what we have with Dozier anymore.

He moves well at first, but I have noticed he has an odd habit of leaning back into the baseline when receiving off target throws rather than stretching and playing the short hop or stretching to meet the throw. (letting the ball play him rather than playing the ball). He fields it well enough which shows remarkable hand eye coordination, but it's not the most sustainable way to catch a ball without getting run over. At the plate I've really liked watching him play the chess game. On more than 1 occasion Dick has called him a "guess hitter". I'd say that's partially true. But what that really shows me is that he 1) has the confidence to sit on a particular pitch and adjust off it, and more importantly 2) that he's anticipating how pitchers are going after him. That's a veteran approach we haven't seen from hitters in this organization who have typically been taught outright aggression from early on. For all his brawn, he seems to be a very cerebral player. I can't wait until we see some more of his personality show through. Reminds me a bit of David Ortiz when he first came up.

I think this probably what happens if the Twins didn't get 3 innings from Gibson then a 16 inning ball game the next day. I'll admit I was confused when they brought him up and didn't use him. Then when they announced he'd be starting, it made sense. Then when he started, the reason why they only wanted to give him 1 start made sense. I'm going to state once again that I'm not agreeing with the way Meyer's been handled. I just happen to think there's a big difference between disagreeing and simply calling any other line of thinking "mismanagement". Especially when your position is backed by hindsight, which is quite useful. Meyer needs to pitch better plain and simple.

If only we'd called him up in 2014 he'd be working on his 3rd Cy Young by now... Or he'd have gotten shelled pitching 2 innings at a time and got sent down almost immediately, be in the same spot now, and the Twins would have 1 less option year for a guy who may develop late, making that inevitable roster decision that much more difficult... Getting consistently rocked, more likely to happen at the MLB level, may send a message that you need to work on your control. But I don't think facing big league hitters who can hit even good pitches a long way is the best spot to learn, and may have the opposite effect of making a pitcher afraid to throw strikes. Goodness, many speculated last year Meyer wanted to go to the pen as a faster route to the MLB. This year he was good for a few starts and a logical decision to come up after a 16 inning game and 2 starters going to the DL. He got yanked early in his start, but had thrown 30+ pitches under heavy duress a couple days prior. He was likely not going to be asked to pitch much more than 60-75 pitches. It was evident Milone was going to get into that game. There was a lefty coming up, (they pinch hit Gattis). And why not let him go back to AAA on a more positive note rather than setting it up for more damage? I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the decisions, but I am saying the decisions are very defensible and far from mismanagement.

Everyone agrees it's strange. Are Molli and Terry on the same page or bumping heads? This happened once before with Meyer (Coach killer?) and Santana SS vs. CF. Next thing we knew Gardy went from safe to fired, to unemployed, to MiLB road consultant or some made up thing. Therefore it's clear, Ryan is actually setting Molitor up for some sort of weird backward promotion. But seriously, no one whole heartedly wants Meyer to fail. But more people than you think value being right (selfish success) more than they wish for others' success. You're being naive to suggest that personal motives don't play in and that everyone desires to see Meyer pitch well. Personally, I think some success as a starter is a step toward dominance in the pen.

Meyer was obviously nervous and didn't look like he was enjoying himself much. Tonkin always has that look too. A look of survival rather than determination or competition. Come to think of it, no one really looks like they're having much fun out there. I've commented after the walk off wins that their celebration seems forced. I actually like what I've seen from Tonkin this year which is slight progress. Given, it was hard for him to go down much, but he's shown near-dominance in short bursts. I don't think he was mishandled. The Twins gave him multiple opportunities. It's hard to give the worst pitcher in a bad pen lengthy looks when he has options available. I also realize that the scouts and FO don't share the same curiosity to "see what we've got". They've watched him enough to likely already know. His fastball is flat, his breaking ball develops a hump. That works in the minors, not in the pros. I didn't like that Meyer was brought up to ride pine. It appears Molitor was right not to trust him in a big spot, again scouting and watching his bullpens may have tipped him off. But I'm ok with the usage if the idea was to get him a start or two. Still can't help but think there is some disconnect and struggle between coach and GM. Too much weird stuff between calling up Kepler and not playing him. Possibly calling up Murphy and Murphy quitting. Then Meyer getting called up and not playing. It seems like the chef and the shopper are disagreeing on the ingredients.

I'm cool with that outing. Showed some jitters for sure. Should help settle him down for Tuesday. Hopefully we'll see a more representative appearance Tuesday.

Meyer now starting to understand why the pitching coaches were telling him to develop a third pitch...

Well tonight just got a little more interesting...

What are we even going to expect out of Meyer next week? There's got to be something going on between Molitor and Ryan we don't know about right? Just too bizarre. Seems like some egos and frustration maybe getting the better of someone... Kepler called up, doesn't play, Meyer brought up, doesn't pitch...