Hosken Bombo Disco

But defensible to go to the bullpen at this point, after 5

In past seasons, Gray would have probably been removed by now, and certainly right here

Willi Castro, or WontHe Castro Small ball does work sometimes

Chris Sale is now making this easy, however.

Hmmm.. I may take a listen. Does ‘bum ankles’ refer to something specific?

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.

For the record, I have no opinion on Headrick. Thanks to whoever merged threads. I think Maeda probably makes a start in Boston this week, otherwise just put Maeda on the Injured List if you are not going to use him for 10 days.

That makes no sense, unless they are going to reorder the rotation and pitch Maeda in Boston and separate Maeda and Mahle from pitching back to back. Then it makes good sense. Otherwise just IL Maeda instead. Their two weakest pitchers, Archer and Bundy, pitched back to back during all of 2022, causing some rest issues for the relievers.

"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

The Marlins also won tonight lol

Me, for one 🙂 winning trumps hot takes 7 days a week (8 days a week for Beatles fans)

Agree!!! but it’s nice to have a little of this, a little of that 🙂

The ball-strike calls went the Twins way the whole game… until the 9th lol

Cheer up! The Twins beat the Yankees! 🤗

Vazquez, the pitcher whisperer

I dare you to say that! (oh wait you just did!)

Go ahead run? Sure Maybe because the new shift rules

C4 feelin’ it you could see it with the body language on that Judge one hopper