Teflon

The Lone Ranger has kept his "Lone" appellation in response to Tonto's less-than-forthcoming dictum ("Doctor say you going to die, Kemosabe.") during the now-famous snake bite incident.

Which Rockies hitters would you take over their Twins equivalent? Mark Reynolds over Joe Mauer? Nolan Arenado over Miguel Sano? Trevor Story over Jorge Polanco? Charlie Blackmon over Byron Buxton?

I remember Little Falls beating Robbinsdale to win the 2A high school basketball championship in the 70's behind Frankie Wachlarowicz who went on to be a standout Minnesota collegiate player at St. John's. One of the games Litte Falls won in the tourney that year was over a Hibbing team with a fella named McHale.

And he's under team control for four more years - unless we try to sign him longer term and avoid his arbitration years.

The modern use of the closer in only statistical-save-potential starting-the-9th inning situations is pure buffoonery. For older Twins fans out there who remember Doug Corbett, the 538 article makes you appreciate his 1980 season in comparison to modern relief pitching all the more. According to the 538 article, Corbett had the 14th highest single season in Goose Egg performance in MLB history. I would add that he was first in the American League that year in win-probability added, as well. He pitched 136.1 innings in 73 games allowing only 102 hits. He inherited 80 runners that season and only 19 scored. The average pressure situation when he entered games was 1.780. (Jeurys Familia who led the Majors with 51 saves last year had an average pressure index in games he entered of 0.42) Looking at his game log that season I found a stretch in August where he pitched an iinning on the 5th, an inning-and-a-third on the 6th and six-and-two-thirds innings on the 7th! He entered the game with one out in the 8th inning and pitched through the end of the 14th. I'm not advocating that teams use their best relief pitcher like Corbett was used in 1980 - but we should ABSOLUTELY use the best pitchers in the highest leverage situations. Like Gossage says, if there is a pitcher on the staff that can't protect a three-run lead pitching one inning, he shouldn't be on the staff.

At 5.32, Rick Porcello's ERA is almost half a run better than Verlander's this year. That pretty much justifies Porcello's 2016 Cy Young in my book.

Santana's batting average-against on balls in play are going to normalize at some point this season. It's currently .074 which is ridiculous - no matter how much ground Buxton, Kepler and Rosario can cover.

.700 OPS, 60 runs scored, 45 RBIs. 10-15 HR.

Question - If Byron Buxton profiled to be a Paul Blair at this point -an elite defensive center fielder but subpar hitter - would that be enough for him to remain an everyday player?

Driving home from work today, I had Sirus XM on listening to the Braves-Pirates game. The Pirates announcers referenced a play from a Braves game earlier in the week where Kurt Suzuki blocked a pitch in the dirt and the ball stuck to his chest protector "like velcro" raising some questions as to whether Suzuki had something sticky on his chest protector. Suzuki denied this in post-game comments and said he had no idea why a baseball would do that. My conspiracy theorist nature suspects Suzuki may have been assisting a Braves pitcher (Bartolo Colon?) by warehousing some tactical substance to discreetly apply to baseballs. Conspiracy theory number 2 would be that applying stick-um to a chest protector may help limit caroms off it when blocking balls in the dirt. Has anyone else heard more of this story?

Sweeping. In olden times, people would sweep for hours and the floor would still be dirty. Then came the realization that they were trying to sweep dirt floors. Soon came wooden floors, carpets and, eventually, technology progressed to the point that mankind sent automated rovers to the planet Mars -where the dirt is called regolith. From this Mars rover technology sprung the Roomba - a fully autonomous sweeping device which, while convenient to the modern homemaker, is a nightmare to get into the ballpark and swing as a prop at baseball games. http://thesweethome.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/02/01-robot-vacuum-irobot-roomba-650-630.jpg

Runner ups: After Joy Buzzer Incident Minnie Refusing to Shake Hands With PaulSano Down to 215...strikeoutsTwins Figure What's the Point? Cancel Faith Night After 14th Consecutive Loss. Byung Ho Park Leads AAA in Home Runs in April - Sent to AA Chatanooga

Chargois tore a rotator cuff pitching for the Red Wings in June of 2017 in the sim. Rolling the sim into 2018, the Twins plan to have Felipe Rivero (from the Nick Gordon trade) as closer and use Sammy Solis from the JR Murphy trade with Washington as a set-up guy along with Trevor May.

Ian Kennedy, 7-16. Matt Strahm, 8-13. Jason Vargas, 6-10. Jorge Soler - .610 OPS, 212 Ks. Hosmer misses half the season.

JD Drew was a #2 overall and didn't sign with the Phillies. I think that's how he ended up spending a year with the St. Paul Saints.

And this is what happens in the offseason so far...

Tyler Skaggs went 15-4 for the Angels in the simulation cancelling out Ricky Nolasco's 7-13. Matt Shoemaker and Jesse Chavez were a combined 26-14. Cam Bedrosian saved 37. The pitching only has to be so good with a lineup of Trout, Calhoun and Pujols, I guess. I was shocked to see the Nick Gordon trade, too. The sim drafted Hunter Greene first overall for the Twins and then couldn't sign him - which was a little shocking, too. Don't think the real Twins could survive the criticism if that happened.

The following notes are based on autonomously simulating the 2017 MLB season using Out of the Park Baseball 18's A.I. The Minnesota Twins took two steps up from the cellar in 2017, finishing in 3rd place in the AL Central with a record of 75-86, a 16-win improvement from 2016. Most of the credit goes to the pitching and defense as the Twins finished in the middle of the pack among American League teams in runs allowed in 2017 (784) after having been dead last the season before. Relief pitching (3.61 ERA) and overall defensive efficiency (.692) were both 2nd overall in the AL which offset the still-struggling starting pitching which once again produced the fewest strikeouts in the league and an ERA near 5. Pitching The Bad: Ervin Santana was plagued by injuries early in the season and had a number of poor outings, eventually being removed from the starting rotation. High hopes for a Phil Hughes return-to-form never materialized as he only managed 6 starts before a shoulder injury ended his season. The Twins were forced to leave Hector Santiago in the rotation where he was regularly knocked around. (5.90 ERA) The entire staff was homer-prone giving up 227 long-balls. The Good: The problems with Santana and Hughes gave Jose Berrios ample opportunities in the rotation and he posted a 12-13 record, 201 K’s in 191 innings, and a .230 opponent’s batting average against. Tyler Duffy also responded well to the opportunities presented, pitching with enough consistency to win 15 games and log 220 innings, both tops on the team. Yohan Pino was a pleasant surprise, going 7-3 in 14 starts after being brought up from Rochester to fill in. Brandon Kintzler was an adequate closer and Felipe Rivero was solid in relief after coming over in a trade with Pittsburgh for Nick Gordon. Hitting The Bad: Jason Castro was limited to 54 games by injury exposing the Twins to more John Ryan Murphy and Mitch Garver than they cared for. This spawned a Kennys Vargas for Derek Norris trade with the Tampa Bay Rays in July as the AI kept Chris Gimenez in Rochester all season. Max Kepler lost a number of games to a herniated disc but Daniel Palka hit a freakish 17 bombs with a 1+ OPS in 180 at-bats after being called up to the big league club, leaving the befuddled AI scratching its head. The Good: Brian Dozier duplicated his 2016 performance with 38 HR, 100 runs scored and 109 RBI. Miguel Sano hit 31 HR and drove in 80 runs (and struck out 195 times) in 128 games and was named to his first All-Star game. Ehire Adrianza, splitting time at SS put up .316/.395/.594 slashes in 264 plate appearances. Eddie Rosario had a solid season, hitting .278 with 15 HR and 71 RBI in 126 games. Joe Mauer hit .279 but with 40 doubles, 11 home runs, and a .360 OBP. Fielding The Bad: Miguel Sano, 19 errors at 3B, -7.6 ZR. The Good: Byron Buxton – 1st in AL CF Zone Rating, 2nd in defensive efficiency, 2nd in range factor and 2nd in assists. Max Kepler – 1st in AL RF Zone Rating, 1st in Defensive efficiency, and 1st in range factor. Joe Mauer -2nd in AL 1B defensive efficiency, 3rd in zone rating. 2017 Twins Transactions of note: Saturday, April 8th – Released RP Craig Breslow Monday, May 1st - Placed SP Phil Hughes on the 60-day disabled list (Torn rotator cuff) Tuesday, June 6th – Drafted SP Hunter Greene in the 2017 first-year player draft, first overall (Twins also took SP Bennett Sousa 35th overall and SP Shane Baz, 37th overall) Wednesday, June 14th – Activated RP Glen Perkins from the 60-day disabled list Thursday, July 6th – failed to sign 1st round pick Hunter Greene Friday, July 14th – traded 26-year-old first baseman Kennys Vargas to the Tampa Bay Rays getting 28-year-old C Derek Norris in return Monday, July 17th – signed international amateur SS Eddys Leonard out of Dominican Republic to a minor league contract with a $1,580,000 signing bonus Tuesday, July 18th – signed international amateur C Felix Taveras, Jr out of Dominican Republic to a minor league contract with a $2,280,000 signing bonus Wednesday, July 19th – traded 21-year-old minor league shortstop Nick Gordon to the Pittsburgh Pirates getting 26-year-old closer Felipe Rivero in return Other notes: The Twins total attendance in 2017 at Target Field was 1,847,387 which was an average of 22,807 per game, down 3.1% from the previous year. 10,956 season tickets were sold. Records by month April, 11-14 May, 14-13, 25-27 overall June, 10-18, 35-45 overall July, 12-12, 47-57 overall August, 15-14, 62-71 overall Sep-Oct , 13-15, 75-86 overall, 3rd place – 24 games behind Cleveland. Elizabethton won the Appalachian League title, defeating the Bluefield Blue Jays, 3 games to 2. World Series In an all-LA series, the Dodgers defeated the Angels 4 games to 3. Awards - NL Cy Young - Clayton Kershaw; AL Cy Young - Corey Kluber; NL MVP - Bryce Harper; AL MVP - Mike Trout; NL Rookie of the Year - Grant Dayton (Dodgers); AL Rookie of the Year - Dan Vogelback (Mariners)