Teflon

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

With as active as the Texas Rangers were at the trade deadline, I kept waiting for a Twins deal that would package Adam Brett Walker so we could have...

Well, on one hand it's Abad deal but on the other, not a bad deal.

I misread this and thought that the Twins were trading deadline tidbits - like calling up the Mets front office and saying, 'You remember back in '07 when we traded you Luis Castillo for Dustin Martin and Drew Butera? Well, here's a really interesting tidbit on that deal..." Unfortunately, I think that would be more activity than we'll actually see from the Twins front office at this trading deadline.

Fever Pitch.

Minnesota 1.) Eduardo Nunez, SS 2.) Robbie Grossman, DH 3.) Miguel Sano, 3B 4.) Brian Dozier, 2B 5.) Max Kepler, RF 6.) Kennys Vargas, 1B 7.) Eddie Rosario, LF 8.) Kurt Suzuki, C 9.) Byron Buxton, CF P - Ricky Nolasco Boston 1.) Brock Holt, LF 2.) Dustin Pedroia, 2B 3.) Xander Bogaerts, SS 4.) David Ortiz, DH 5.) Hanley Ramirez, 1B 6.) Jackie Bradley, CF 7.) Aaron Hill, 3B 8.) Sandy Leon, C 9.) Michael Martinez, RF p - David Price

What if your Mom's dad is this guy?

One way I would credit MacPhail with forward thinking would be the inclusion of a player option year in contracts. Not really done before and one of the big reasons the Twins were able to get Jack Morris in 1991 - although Morris then chose to use it the next year when his value was at a peak. Credit MacPhail too for moving on from the 1987 team when it became apparent that the same pieces would be lacking. Bruno for Herr was a whiff but it still took balls to make that move. Viola for Tapani, Aguilera, and West was not a whiff, however, and Tapani and Aguilera were significant parts of the 1991 success. Hard to compare, but I don't see the more conservative TR making either of those moves.

The true return on investment on the purchase of a sports franchise is not in the yearly income the team can generate but in the astronomical apprececiation of the franchise's price tag. It's impossible these days to sell a major sports team for a loss and the ROI after five or six years is typically a triple digit perentage. Time for this totally lacluster ownership group to reap their bonanza.

Fellow by the name of Andy MacPhail. Twins owner Carl Pohlad pinned the design of the next Twins teams on a forward-thinking 32-year-old from outside the organization. Carl didn't amass a fortune without having a fair amount of moxie and his bringing MacPhail to the Twins was as progressive a front office hire as you will find in Reagan era baseball. Fast forward to today where fortunes and the ball club have been inherited - not built and not attained. Decisions are based on risk avoidance. All evidence is that moxie is a recessive trait that disappears in the second generation. Hope that isn't the case.

The Cardinals took the bait just like Lunhow planned all along. That guy's an evil genius.

My favorite Molitor-Pohlad juice is the all-greens Hardcore, made with celery, kale, chard, parsley, spinach, cucumber, and squeeze of lemon. Really, how more absurd can this year become? Molitor now has family ties to Twins ownership by way of Veggie Boy - the worst drink known to man? (You can really taste the Kale!)

I would like a GM who believes defense is a thing, who doesn't default to "safe" over "difficult", who has an idea of not just how the current team will be put together, but also the next four teams. I want a GM who is secure enough to hire other smart people from outside. One who believes in the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the columns of Jim Souhan are self-indulgent, overrated crap. That Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. One who believes there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. One who believes in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and one who believes in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.

Happy 6,666th post Thrylos.

http://mlb.mlb.com/assets/images/9/5/2/154411952/cuts/rossintern_0o47db22_57ax063e.jpg Reds pitcher Ross Ohlendorf - majored in Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton. His thesis developed analysis to estimate return on investment in the MLB draft, parts of which are in use in the league today.

I had some time to kill while the Pokemon Go server is down so thought I'd investigate this. I looked at all pitchers drafted between 2002 and 2015 that debuted with the teams that drafted them. To narrow this down to starters I only looked at seasons where a pitcher started a game or more and at least 60% of his games pitched in a season were starts.(Glen Perkins figures in the tallies in 2008 and 2009, for example, but not after) The data I could pull en masse from Baseball Reference is only the June draft data so has some glaring omissions such as free agent amateur signings (Felix Hernandez) so it's agreeably far from perfect. Draw your own conclusions. The starting pitchers who have been drafted by the Twins and debuted with the Twins since the 2002 draft are : Scott Baker - drafted in 2003 in second round - first start in 2005 at age 23 Glen Perkins - drafted in 2004 in first round - first start in 2008 at age 25 Anthony Swarzak - drafted in 2004 in second round (HS) - first start in 2009 at age 23 Matt Garza - drafted in 2005 in first round - first start in 2006 at age 22 Kevin Slowey - drafted in 2005 in second round - first start in 2007 at age 23 Brian Deunsing- drafted in 2005 in third round - first start in 2011 at age 28 Kyle Gibson - drafted in 2009 in first round - first start in 2013 at age 25 Pat Dean - drafted in 2010 in third round - first start in 2016 at age 27 Jose Berios - drafted in 2012 in first round (HS) - first start in 2016 at age 22 Tyler Duffy - drafted in 2012 in fifth round - first start in 2015 at age 24 Some Twins 1st round pitchers that missed in that span - Jay Rainvillle, first round (39th overall) in 2004 Shooter Hunt, first round (31st overall) in 2008 Matt Bashore, first round (46th overall) in 2009 Hudson Boyd, first round (55th overall) in 2011 Some we're still waiting on - Alex Wimmers, first round (21st overall) in 2010 Luke Bard, first round (42nd overall) in 2012 Team Pitchers GS WAR Wins SFG 9 956 85.6 359 LAD 10 500 69.5 217 DET 11 571 55.9 253 WSN 13 660 51.1 220 LAA 6 506 49 233 MIA 14 586 47.7 205 TBR 9 613 44.9 248 BOS 9 444 41.7 186 NYM 10 665 40.6 229 OAK 11 496 37.5 189 TOR 15 596 31.9 225 CHW 10 242 31.6 96 STL 12 478 31.6 193 KCR 5 382 30.2 118 MIN 10 466 29.2 180 PIT 11 381 24.2 132 MIL 8 348 23.6 137 ATL 10 392 17.9 144 TEX 9 440 17.3 154 COL 10 336 16.4 106 CIN 8 412 14.8 138 HOU 7 329 14.7 103 ARI 12 343 14.5 112 CLE 7 313 9 114 CHC 7 212 8.2 60 BAL 13 413 6.8 123 NYY 9 206 6 70 SEA 6 168 3.2 49 SDP 9 264 2.9 79 edit: if somebody wants to provide a tutorial on how to get tables to appear as tables, I would be indebted.

The Mobile BayBears are much more threatening than the immobile ones.

Honolul is also appropriate in that Chief Oahu is the mascot of the Indians, whom the Twins face tonight. http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/cle/images/fan_forum/stencil_wahoo.gif

I did, didn't I? Apologies.

Note: If the Twins can beat Texas tomorrow, it will be the first winning record they've posted over any 10-game stretch this season.

Target Field actually lets you bring your own food in as long as the food is not throwable (an orange would have to be sectioned) and the container fits under your seat and would not knock somebody unconscious if you whacked them with it. (Think small soft-sided cooler) Other than that, nothing keeping you from having the free and tasty vast repast of your choosing at the ballpark. For the A's series, try whipping up a little muffuletta with ham, salami, provolone, mortadella and olive salad. For desert, bring along some smoky gouda with grapes. For munching, there's nothing like Snyder's of Hanover Butter Snap pretzels with your beer. You'll still have to buy a beverage or two, but you can now justify it with the money you saved on food.

I miss the old days when you could just turn on the blowers at the Metrodome when the Twins were batting and make up for most of this stuff.

http://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2010%2F1014%2Fmlb_a_daniels11_300.jpg&w=267 With the Rangers in town, you get to admire the handy work of Jon Daniels, who has been the Rangers' GM since being hired in 2005 as a 28 year-old. He majored in Applied Economics and Management at Cornell which he's put to fairly good use, crafting World Series teams in 2010 and 2011 and assembling a team this season that has the most wins in the American League. Unfortunately, the last contract extension Daniels signed runs through 2018, so not much of a chance of the Pohlad charisma enticing him to relocate to points north.