Teflon

Based on the limited exposure during a save opportunity, any decent pitcher can convert them at nearly the same success rate as a high-paid closer - it is one of the most over-valued positions in baseball. The Twins realized this years ago when they converted guys like Guardado, Nathan, and Perkins - who were not closers - into very serviceable back-end guys. DO NOT spend money on a closer. Spend it in general on good middle relief and find a decent option from that group.

Knowing that the groundwork needed to improve the baseball operations will require some time to produce results but also knowing that the team has lost nearly 40% of their ticket sales since 2010, what, from a business standpoint, should be the minimum expectations in 2017?

There's a line you don't cross with Jessica Mendoza. We call that the Mendoza Line.

Tom Thibodeau spent his year away from coaching traveling around the league observing a dozen other NBA franchises in operation and teaching himself new ways to build, prepare, and coach his team. The Twins new front office should consider that Ron Gardenhire may have had a similar chance to reinvent himself in his time away. http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/564*328/16twin021613gal.jpg

Derek Falvey quoting Geno Smith: "It's almost exciting to think about all the room for improvement that we have."

Toronto, hoping for looking for home field in the wild card, holding onto a 2-1 lead over the Red Sox in the bottom of the 9th. Big Papi coming up.

Vin summing up his career: "Don't be sad that it's over, be happy that it happened." Me summing up the Twins 2016, "Don't be sad that it happened, be happy that it's over."

Berrios going for a win - Buxton, Polanco and Sano driving in the runs - thought I'd have watched more games like that this season. Have been listening to the Giants-Dodgers game today, too, and enjoying Vin one last time.

Twins Wins and Losses by Number of Runs Scored, 2015 - 2016 I thought it would be interesting to look at the number of wins and losses associated to the number of runs scored in games by the Twins in 2016 compared to 2015. Observations: The Twins scored 5 or 6 runs in a game almost twice as much this year (39) as they did last year (21) The Twins scored 0 or 1 runs fewer times in a game this year (24) then last year (28). The biggest change, however, from last year is the games in which the Twins scored 3 runs. Last year, they won an incredible 16 of 24 played. This year, they lost 13 of 18. Did we really give last year's Twins pitching adequate credit for how they pitched? Add to this that the Twins also managed to pull out 5 of the 25 games in which they scored only 2 runs in 2015 and you realize just what gamers the pitching staff was last year. Too bad we couldn't have had last year's pitching with this year's hitting. (and some other era's defense) What are your takes on this?

I thought this was an interesting piece by Brian Murphy on Mauer's state of mind heading into the season. We know Joe recently bought another house. Not sure he would need a second Twin Cities home if he was planning to spend more time in Florida.

Dammit. I was going to call myself Nelson Cruz but I see he already registered it. -Melson Cruze

I think this is our fault. Last year at this time we all said we wanted to see more of him. Well, there was certainly more of him. http://i.usatoday.net/sports/_photos/2012/07/05/Documentary-raps-MLB-handling-of-Dominicans-KG1QFG7Q-x-large.jpg

Parmelee Leads RailRiders to AAA Crown The International League Champion Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Yankees) defeated the Pacific Coast League Champion El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres) 3-1 on Tuesday to win the AAA National Championship. Parmelee's 3-run homer in the first inning accounted for all the SWB runs.

On September 20th, ten years ago, the Twins defeated Curt Schilling and the Red Sox, 8-2, giving the AL East title to the New York Yankees. Joe Mauer went 2-5 to put his batting average at .344. Torii Hunter homered (his 28th) and drove in 4 runs in the game. Michael Cuddyer knocked in his 101st run while Justin Morneau knocked in his 125th. It was the Twins 4th win in a row and improved their record to 90-61, keeping them within a 1/2 game of the Tigers who defeated the White Sox, 6-2. The Twins would go into the last day of the 2006 season tied with the Tigers at 95-66. The Twins took care of their end of things in their finale, downing the White Sox 5-1 in the Metrodome and then turned to the scoreboard to see how the Tigers were faring against the Royals. The Tigers had already lost their first two games to the Royals in the series, giving up 18 runs. They quickly got out to a 6-0 lead in the final game but couldn't hold it as Kansas City scored 3 in the 4th inning and 4 in the 8th to go ahead 8-7. The Tigers tied it back up in the bottom of the 8th on a Matt Stairs home run, but the 9th inning was scoreless. As fans (and Twins players) watched on the video boards at the Metrodome, the Royals and Tigers went to extra innings. The score remained 8-8 though the 10th inning and the top of the 11th, but Detroit got something going in the bottom of the 11th on singles by Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen. An intentional walk to Pudge Rodriguez loaded the bases with only one out. Royals pitcher Joe Nelson got Brandon Inge to strikeout and then Royals manager Bill Doran brought in Jimmy Gobble to face Curtis Granderson with two outs and the bases still full. Granderson struck out for an American League leading 174th time and the Royals had earned another inning of baseball. In the top of the 12th, the Royals got to Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers for a pair of runs on three singles and a bases-loaded walk. In downtown Minneapolis, the fans watching in the Metrodome whooped! The Royals just needed to close the door now. Gobble returned to the mound for Kansas City. Pinch-hitter Neifi Perez grounded out. [Cheers in the Metrodome.] Placido Polanco struck out looking. Two outs.[More cheers!] Gobble walked Craig Monroe. [A hush] Sean Casey steps up to the plate. After a ball and a strike, Gobble pitches. Casey swings. It's a grounder that the Kansas City first baseman fields and steps on first base. Royals Win! [The Metrodome Crowd Cheers and Yells!!!!!] The Twins win the AL Central Pennant! Happy Birthday. Many Happy Returns!

http://www.espn.com/media/mlb/2001/0810/photo/a_boudreau_i.jpg As the Twins currently have a manager who was a Hall of Fame player and as the Minnesota Wild has hired someone named Boudreau, I figured a question about a Hall of Fame player who managed named Boudreau was mildly topical... In his 16 major league sasons as a manager, Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau managed 16 eventual Hall of Famers. Who were they?

There have been 54 in-season managerial changes in the Major Leagues since the year 2000. The average number of games managed by the initial managers is 81 and their average winning percentage at the time they were replaced was .401. (1880 wins, 2511 losses) The manager replaced the earliest in a season since 2000 was Phil Garner who was replaced 6 games into the 2002 season by the TIgers after starting 0-6. (The TIgers GM, Randy Smith was also fired) Garner had managed the Tigers in 2000 and 2001. You can read more about that here. The manager replaced the latest in a season since 2000 was Larry Bowa of the Phillies who was fired with only 2 games remaining in the season in 2004 despite the team having an 85-75 record and being in 2nd place in the NL East. Reports were that the Phillies players pretty much hated Bowa. Good article on that here. On average, the Twins have done their in-season managerial replacements 76 games in and at .427 winning percentages. The earlies in-season replacement was Johnny Goryl after 37 games in 1981 (11-25) while the latest change in a season was Ray Miller went 59-80 in 139 games in 1986.

Being on record with a the most dire view of how things will unfold is a prerequisite to the later "I told you so" which, as we all know, is the penultimate of posts.

Toronto was also the birthplace of former Twins players Jesse Crain and Rene Tosoni. Crain last pitched in the majors for the White Sox in 2013 but was back in Chi-Town this week (at Wrigley Field) to attend a Pearl Jam concert. Tosoni is currently playing for the Sugar Land Skeeters of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball where his manager is Gary Gaetti.

Regarding the Metrodome's dismal atmosphere, remember the "We Like It Here" motto that was printed on the tunnel down the right field line? I thought it was cleverly placed as a lot of the Metrodome seats faced that direction instead of toward the baseball field.

Very nice insights, Parker. I recently saw some Nolan Ryan footage and noticed the same thing. He did not push off of the rubber at all, either. He had a long stride but lifted his right leg after he planted his left and just pulled it through the motion after him. All his velocity came from his 90-degree trunk rotation which was perfectly synced with his trebuchet-like arm whip. Sandy Koufax was similar but appeared to have more "fall" in his delivery, buckling his back leg on the rubber as he started his motion towards the plate so he would drop forward, rotate, and arm-whip at the same time. Of course the mound was 18 inches high back then and the Koufax style reflected that. Doubt he could use the same motion on today's shorter mound.

The Braves announced that this weekend, as part of their year-long farewell commemorations before relocating to Cobb County, they will be staging a historic reenactment of Sid Bream's mad dash home to score the winning run in game 7 of the 1992 NLCS. It's scheduled to get underway Saturday at 7 pm and to conclude tentatively at noon on Sunday.

Since the introduction of the Designated Hitter in 1974, the percentage of plate appearances by switch hitters (non-pitchers) steadily grew in both the American and National Leagues, reaching a combined plateau of around 20% of all plate appearances, a level that remained intact for ten years, from 1986 to 1996. Since that period, the use of switch hitters has dropped back down, albeit more gradually, to the current rate of only 13% of non-pitchers’ plate appearances in 2015. What caused the initial rise and the subsequent decline in popularity? The Rise In 1974, right-handed pitching accounted for 67% of all MLB innings pitched. Over the next 15 years, this number did not vary significantly but the percentage of plate appearances by right-handed batters steadily declined from 60% in 1974 to 51% in 1987. Teams were favoring left-handed at bats against right-handed pitching more and more. While some of this was accomplished through platooning, surprisingly, this increase in left-handed at-bats was not driven by left-handed hitters (32% of plate appearances in 1974, 34% in 1990) but by switch-hitters. This preference for switch-hitters over pure lefties in this period may have been largely due to frugality. Owners had trimmed active rosters down to 24 players in 1986 – a supposed cost saving reduction that lasted until the end of the decade. As teams were unlikely to sacrifice a pitcher in those circumstances, the last batter on the bench was removed more often than not. When you’re one player down on the bench, a switch-hitter suddenly became a lot more valuable. In 1974, there were only 12 switch-hitters that topped 500 plate appearances, led by Pete Rose and Larry Bowa. While two new teams joined the majors in 1977, by 1987 the number of regular switch hitters had more than doubled. There were now 26 of them, an average of one per lineup. This new group included Ozzie Smith, Eddie Murray, Tim Raines, and Terry Pendleton, switch-hitters that would have played in any era, but it also included the likes of Bill Doran, Mitch Webster, Johnny Ray, and Spike Owen, names that will not similarly persist in baseball memory. The St. Louis Cardinals of this era did more to popularize switch-hitting than any other team with five 500+ PA switch-hitters alone on the 1987 World Series team that faced the Twins. Triva – how many of the switch-hitting Cardinals can you name? (Answers at the bottom of this post.) By 1989, there were 31 players in this group in the majors and the Twins even had a pair of their own – in Al Newman and Gene Larkin – with Chili Davis soon to join them. If you were going to designate a golden age of the switch-hitter in the MLB, 1989 would have been the pinnacle. The Fall The decline of the switch hitter was signaled once MLB rosters were again restored to 25 men but would not actually begin to trend in that direction until the then-established careers of the switch-hitting baby-boom players ended and they were gradually replaced with fewer and fewer switch-hitters. Even as the number of pitchers making up rosters increased to 12 and 13, the numbers of switch-hitters continued to decline. Even as the number of left-handed at-bats in response has grown to the highest level since the DH was created, the percentage of at-bats has continued to decline. It would seem, current circumstances would again favor switch hitters for their added dimension given shorter hitters’ benches, but perhaps an indifference in signing them during the initial downturn in importance has created a lag effect in the talent pool. Or this could just be a cycle. For fun, I thought I’d close with a look at some of the Twins switch-hitter over the years.1961 – 1974 A dearth of switch-hitting on the Twins. Outside of pitchers Jim Perry and Pedro Ramos, only one position player, SS Marty Martinez in 1962 had switch-hit at-bats. 1974 – 1981 Under Gene Mauch, the Twins had their first prominent switch-hitters in Roy Smalley and Butch Wynegar. Dave McKay was also a switch-hitter. 1982 – 2000 Tom Kelly had had a few switch-hitting options on his teams over the years with Al Newman, Gene Larkin, John Moses, Chili Davis, and Denny Hocking. 2000 – 2009 Gardy loved him some Nicky Punto as well as Christian Guzman, Bobby Kielty, Luis Castillo, Alexi Casilla, and Matt Tolbert 2010 – 2014 The early years of Target Field saw the Twins acquire a number of switch-hitters in Orlando Hudson, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Ryan Doumit, Pedro Florimon, 2015- Present No shortage of pinch hitters coming through the Twins with Aaron Hicks, Eduardo Escobar, Danny Santana, Kennys Vargas, and Jorge Polanco 1987 Cardinals switch-hitters: Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, Terry Pendleton, Willie McGee, and Tommy Herr

Nothing like using six pitchers it the first game of a doubleheader. This is where you really miss Drew Butera.

The contents of Molitor's are a pretty interesting collection - a Hammermade dress shirt, a Hazeltine hat from the upcoming Ryder Cup, the books "All the Light We Cannot See" and "The Martian," a 20 piece grilling set, Springsteen CDs, a leather-covered cooler, tennis shoes, golf balls, a backpack along with a number of autographed items. Up to $675 currently.

You can bid online on "Favorite Things" baskets from various Twins players through the 7th inning of the Twins game on August 13th. Items will be available in the ballpark at that time to pick up for the winning bidder. Twins Wives Auction If you didn't already love Max Kepler, here is another reason to do so - most of the items in his Favorite Things Basket are beer! http://vafloc02.s3.amazonaws.com/isyn/images/f321/img-1770321-m.jpg