Hosken Bombo Disco

Byron Buxton playing center field will give Miranda an opportunity to DH now and then, for rest and a chance to either turn his mind off for a bit or chat with hitting coach between innings. Byron Buxton playing center field would also open a slot for Kirilloff or Wallner to DH against righties. Miranda, Wallner and Kirilloff being better bets than Taylor at the plate. At this point I’m thinking their magic date for putting Buxton in the field is May 2 in Chicago.

I sometimes mention load management for guys like Taylor and Miranda. It’s not an entirely joking question. Miranda’s 9th inning result last night was unfortunate but it was just one at bat. I would not option him but it sure looks like he needs a day off or some time at DH.

If the Sunday starter is still TBA, a bullpen game Sunday might be another option. Not sure of the details as far as who can be called up, Maeda’s status, etc, so that might not be practical. Just an idea.

Derek Shelton's Pirates are 14-7 and temporarily in second place. Tyler Wells comes within one strike of recording his first win (Baltimore closer blew the save). But the Orioles won and are temporarily in second place in the AL East. Fun to see perennial lesser teams re-emerge, even if it's only for part of a season. Baltimore might have some staying power.

Arraez was in the WBC

I would think with SWR struggling in St. Paul, that he is only here to provide long relief if Mahle gets in trouble, or eat a couple innings at the end if it's not close. Then send him back and call up Varland or Ober for Sunday's start. So glad to have Polanco back.

You are right, Miranda did play a ton all spring—through an injury no less. It’s a case of ‘Load management for me, none for thee’ So you have Buxton, who they are giving a ton of rest to, managing his load, in order to keep him healthy and at his peak performance for the long season. Meanwhile, you have Miranda, who played all spring as you said, and has appeared in every regular season game and almost always in the field for all nine innings. What about load managing for Miranda so his performance doesn’t suffer?

You are right as well. Honestly, if we are facing righties this weekend, I would call up Kirilloff to DH right now. Drive him over from St. Paul and put him in the lineup. So you are replacing Taylor with Kirilloff if Buxton were decide it’s time for him to play center, which is also something that needs to happen soon anyway.

Are we talking about Taylor being the team MVP, or the American League MVP? Looking at his past batting lines, I really don’t think he is capable of that level of play. Nothing against Taylor, he seems like a nice guy. The front office, beat writers, and Twins Daily writers I guess are seeing something that I am not seeing. I am looking forward to this.

If you think about it, this article is suggesting that Byron Buxton and Michael Taylor are interchangeable.

Maeda has looked gassed coming off the mound, has already skipped a start due to fatigue, and now this. I'm glad he's ok. I did love the trade at the time. Also, maybe it's time to talk about Max Kepler. In the past tense. We saw the lack of hustle at the end Tuesday night, and today the Boston announcers said Kepler was getting the wave home in the 9th. (Either that, or Kepler did not pick up the stop sign from Watkins.) The Twins were still trailing by enough runs that I'm not sure the Boston cutoff man bothers to turn and make a throw. I don't know for sure. I do know that Kepler has looked disengaged for several years now. Once you lose that drive, I don't know how easy it is to get it back. I might be ready to use a platoon of Wallner-Garlick in right field. You lose some defense, at least on paper, but you get back that drive. There are not enough roster spots for platoons all over the field but that's the one I would try.

also wanted to say anyone on the diamond could have shouted to Solano to go back and touch first. He had time. The batter was dogging it too. That play caught everyone sleeping, except for Enrique Hernandez who went to third.

Had to duck out early and just saw some highlights. That was the Christian Vazquez game from hell. Even with the high soft throw from Gordon, I think they had the runner out at home. Griffin Jax made a mental error not covering third, add that to the many other mistakes. Luckily there’s always a game tomorrow.

I’m so glad you brought up Darvish and Wheeler 🙂 who cost only money, without having to factor in the value of Luis Arraez, both Arraez’s salary and his value at the plate over his replacement. And just overall value to the lineup. So there are hidden costs there. Either way, I think this Lopez deal will be a game changer!

I’ll admit I don’t understand how qualifying offers work. Sonny Gray has been in the league 10+ years with multiple organizations. I thought these were only for guys after their last arbitration season and team control. Either way I would like to have Gray back but at this point, better to cross that bridge only when it’s time.

I’m sure it’s going to happen, but when does this go from ‘finalizing’ to ‘finalized’? 🙂

Dobnak? 🙂

This morning..

Solid move. Of the current bunch, Lopez is the guy to extend.

Good start, but it’s still so, so early. Pablo Lopez actually got off to a much better start last season, than he has this season. Let’s hope he holds up all year. They should have given Maeda at least one appearance at the end of last season in September after he was fully cleared to go, and not come into camp with that weight of not having pitched for a year and a half. He might not make it to the end of the year in the rotation. Sonny Gray is I assume still calling his own pitches and for him that appears to make a real difference. Ryan is off to a nice start. Another positive, the front office is allowing Rocco to let starters start that next inning, 7 instead of 6 or 6 instead of 5, something some of us have been saying for a while. Granted, pulling a starter is still more of an art than a science. Vazquez appears to be a difference maker. Varland will be up again before long and hopefully Ober gets back on track. So far so good.

"After being told to wash his hands, his spin rates dropped." So, he complied and washed his hands? 🙂 I think the Tweet with the pitch types and spin rates is also a little misleading. Identifying what comes out of a pitcher's hand and labeling it something without knowing the actual intent of the pitcher. Can be an imperfect science. For German today, I think the variation in his fastball spin, before and after the ump thing, could be chalked up to normal variation. Only 32rpm difference (according to the Tweet). The changeup is not a rpm pitch, so scratch that one off. Then you have the sinker, which according to the Baseball savant game page, German only threw two sinkers in the first 3 innings, both in the 2nd inning, one at 2505 and the other at 2552 rpm. The average of 2505 and 2552 is not 2608. So the Tweet is for sure wrong on that. That leaves the curve ball. However, the curve is also the pitch you want that good grip and those numbers appear high with a big difference before and after. So someone who really wanted to do a deeper dive on this would want to first recheck all that data in the Tweet, look at German's history, and look at individual curves thrown in the game today, and so on. The curve with the highest spin rate was in the first inning to Buxton, and the pitch plotting shows it was a wildly thrown pitch way in the dirt out in the left hand batter's box. I didn't see it. Then I wonder if there are some data capturing issues on those outlier pitches? Fun story for sure!

Lots of ex-Twins starting off the season well... but lots of current Twins are too

He’s in the lineup tonight in New York 🙂

He said he first felt it while running the bases Saturday (being thrown out at home) Whereas Correa was sidelined by lower back issues earlier in his career, this flare-up is located in the middle of his back. Correa said he suffered a back spasm late in Saturday’s game and felt it when he woke up Sunday. “I should be good in a couple days,” Correa said. “I want to make sure that I don’t play through it and it gets worse. It shouldn’t be anything to alarm me. (Sunday) was a little more sore. (Monday) it’s been feeling better, so hopefully in the next couple days I can be back in.”

Are you aware of the moment Correa said he got spasms in his back and how many plate appearances he had after that?