IndianaTwin

I don’t play video games. I just read the article to ensure that the “Well played, Mauer,” was included.

With that hire, I think their chances have gone under.

MLBTR actually pegs Kluber with the Twins at 1/$12MM.

I’m with you on your second paragraph. Eliminating batting gloves is never going to happen, obviously, but in watching the playoffs this year, I was just struck by how many guys were going all Nomar Garciaparra on EVERY SINGLE PITCH.

After watching games this year, my suggestion for speeding up the pace of play is quite simple: Eliminate batting gloves. If there’s nothing to adjust besides your cup, things will move along much more quickly.

When commenting on Hrbek’s retirement, Peter Gammons summed it up well. “If he had stayed in better shape, he might have been a Hall of Famer,” Gammons said. “But we wouldn’t have loved him as much.”

Sorry, not able to quote properly today, but this is from the original post: "Is this “penalty” the baseball equivalent to the boogeyman? Hitters actually had a lower OPS in their third plate appearance against a starting pitcher this year than the second time seeing them (a .765 OPS the second time, .754 the third)." I assume that you're talking about all pitchers who pitched a second or third time through. One factor here is that the only people who got to face a batter the third time through are those that have been effective that day. It's a SSS, but my hunch is that the guys who contributed to the .754 the third time through probably were better than .765 on their second time through.

Pong rocks!

A nitpick. They didn't all pitch the same amount, so if you weighted the FIPs by innings pitched, the number drops a bit to 3.46. Another reliever I'd certainly include in the list is... Tyler Clippard. His 2.65 this year was better than his career average, but his FIP over the past 11 years is 3.65, right in the range you're talking about. In an age of reliever volatility, he now has a streak of 12 straight years of at least 60 innings (or on pace for that in 2020). And his salary this year was $2.75M. Bring him back at that level. Heck, give him a couple years at that amount.

With no at bats at the AAA level in his career, two words explain why Kirilloff hasn’t seen his last days in a minor league uniform: Service Time.

I’d be cool with an Odo reunion. I’d also ask the Dodgers for the original Word file with Maeda’s contract, do a search-and-replace to swap out “Maeda” for “Hill,” and send it to Rich for signing. That’s $3.125M as the base and generous incentives for starts and innings.

Clearly Renabanena’s immediate supervisor and the company HR director are on Twins Daily.

In terms of his winding down at the end of the year, it’s worth noting that he played 53 of 60 games. That includes 40 of the first 41. He missed four consecutive games at the end of the season. That’s considerably less rest than he’d gotten the last couple years. I’m guessing that’s a function of both the urgency of a shorter season and the injuries/underproduction of others making Rocco reluctant to give a day off. In a “normal” season, I think he’d have gotten a few more strategic days off and remained fresher.

A. I heard the Twins front office changed its number because they kept getting pestering calls from random people. I think we just found the source... :-) B. Concur. I think they'll keep both catchers. No team gets through the season on two. Even with the two, I'd consider adding a veteran, Avila/Castro type. I assume both Garver and Jeffers have options and one could start in Rochester, knowing they'll get called up. Alternatively, guys like Avila/Castro/Erik Kratz sign minor league contracts with a general commitment from the team to get the first callup when a catcher goes down.

Concur. For what it's worth, they did not remove Sano for defensive purposes in any of his last 28 games. I mainly listened to games, but from what I could tell in the games I did see, I think Sano could be on his way to being a solid defensive first baseman. He did some things well (though not others) as a 3B, and he seemed to be very good on picks. He also seemed to have a very quick tag on pickoffs -- there were a couple of occasions where I think he outpsyched a 1B ump and got a call reversed. His mistakes seemed to be ones where he ranged too far going after balls and didn't get back to the base in time, which will come with more reps there. (Aside, I think the learning of a new position as a full-time 1B could have contributed to offensive struggles this year. His past offensive struggles seem to coincide with trying to learn RF and when trying to improve at 3B.)

If someone has named this, I've missed it, but there's another reason why I think the Twins won't start the year with Kiriloff and Rooker in the majors -- service time. Kiriloff is particular seems like a guy who "needs a little time in Rochester to adjust to high-level pitching." With a new CBA needed, it's not a guarantee that things will stay the same, but it's still probably in the mix at some level.

Thanks. That’s the gist of what was coming to mind. I think of Cron and Schoop as being distinctly different. They were both guys brought in from the outside on under-valued one-year make-good deals to an 87-loss team without clear alternatives. In Schoop’s case, he ended the season without a job. In Cron’s case, he’s one of the easiest things to replace, and I think their preference was to find a 3B alternative to be able to move Sano to first. By contrast, Rosario is someone who has been part of the building process and has been quite consistent in his maddening inconsistency, with an OPS+ of 115 to 119 in three of his last four years, plus a 107 in the year he was hampered by injury. To me, it feels like their orientation will be to keep him. That said, I think MLR’s point is well-taken. You can talk about whether to “bring back” guys like Cruz, Odo and Gonzalez, but the reality is that they are free agents and they have no actual control. Rosario is really one of the few places where the team can make a significant difference in their returning payroll. This is definitely a different year in terms of revenue projection. Yet, this team showed that when they think they are ready, they will spend money (see, Donaldson and a cast of several others). The White Sox overperformed, the Twins underperformed, and the Twins still beat them. They see themselves as competitive and more. Thus, my hunch is that they’ll keep him. A prospect is a suspect until they have proven it. Rooker has looked good in a small sample size and Kiriloff has four at bats, but neither played a minor league season this year, so it’s hard to know how they have really developed. This organization a) doesn’t like to give starting jobs to rookies out of spring training; and likes depth. With Buxton’s injury challenges, I see them going into the season with Rosario/Buxton/Kepler as Plan A, with the hope that Rooker or Kirilloff will be ready when someone goes down or if they force their way into a call up.

I'm not remembering past offseasons well enough. Who, if any, have the Twins chosen to non-tender since Falvey and Lavine? Have there been many borderline cases in doing so? That may give a clue as to their orientation on a Rosario.

Since you asked... (all including playoffs) With Donaldson, 17-8 (.680) Without Donaldson, 19-18 (.514) With Buxton, 22-14 (.611) Without Buxton, 14-12 (.538) It’s impossible to know what things would have been like, but a lot of us noticed the different feel the team had when they were back from injury. You describe “malaise” of the last two days, and I think that’s a good description. But I don’t think they have that malaise with them present. If they do, Donaldson is one of the guys in the dugout most likely to address It. It’s even more impossible to know that specific things would have been different, but here’s a few things that come to mind: *The lineup is simply longer with Donaldson and Buxton in it. On Wednesday, a guy made his MLB debut with the bases loaded in the first. If they’re healthy, Kiriloff isn’t up in that situation. *On Tuesday, they got Greinke to 30 pitches in the first inning, without one of their most patient hitters in the lineup. Wednesday, they got Urquidy to 26 in the first, again without the patient Donaldson. *A couple of specific defensive plays come to mind where Marwin wasn’t able to make the tough play at third and Donaldson has a much better likelihood of making it. Tuesday’s was particularly crucial, when he didn’t make the play on what would have been the third out of the seventh inning. Springer followed with the RBI single. It also cost Duffey a few pitches, so he might have gotten more of the 8th. *Wednesday’s play didn’t lead to a run in the top of the fifth, but if Berrios gets out with one fewer batter, he’s more likely to get the sixth. *We don’t know who would have replaced Rosario, but with Marwin and Kiriloff on the bench, perhaps Cave isn’t flailing at ball four with the tieing run on base. We don’t know how things would have played out. And yes, the Astros were missing players, but it also makes a difference to have weeks to prepare for missing pieces, rather than days as in the case of Donaldson and Berrios. And yes, they still needed to figure out how to get hits. But I think it’s definitely a different series with those two available and healthy.

Agree. And because it's never too early to start thinking about the Off-Season Blueprint, I was looking at the Roster and Payroll file. Not only have they made what appear to be good extensions on the three you mention, but I'm impressed that they are regularly tacking on an option year at minimal cost. The three you named all are smart extensions with the guaranteed years, but they've given themselves the flexibility to make them even better with the option year. The Cruz signing was great for 2019, but with just a million dollar commitment, they had him for this year as well. The Perez signing was all-in-all good for them in 2019, but they were able to bail on 2020 at minimal cost. Even with the big-dollar Donaldson, they have the ability to extend one more year. There's some Romo-disliking going on these days, but my initial reaction is to bring him back at $5M. And if not, it's only $250K.

In a different thread, I've been tracking how the seeds look. I think this is accurate: Tampa Bay (39-20): Locked into the No. 1 seed.Minnesota (36-23) No. 2 seed with a win OR a loss and losses by Oakland and ChicagoNo. 3 seed with a loss, a win by Oakland, and a loss by ChicagoNo. 4 seed with a loss and a win by Chicago.Oakland (35-24) No. 2 seed with a win and a loss by MinnesotaNo. 3 seed with a loss or a win by Minnesota Chicago (35-24) No. 2 with a win and losses by Minnesota and Oakland.No. 3 with a win, a loss by Minnesota, and a win by Oakland.No. 4 with a loss or a win by Minnesota.No. 7 with a loss and a Cleveland winNew York (33-26) No. 5 seed with a win or a Toronto loss.No. 8 seed with a loss and a Toronto win.Houston (29-30) Locked into the No. 6 seed.Cleveland (34-25) No. 4 with a win and Chicago loss.No. 7 with a loss or a Chicago win.Toronto (32-27) No. 5 seed with a win and a New York lossNo. 8 seed with a loss or a New York win

Maeda is a great example of what I'm talking about. Folks were clamoring for the sexy Wheeler/Ryu/Bumgarner signing, but they bided their time and pulled off a trade that many people didn't think was that big deal at a time. (Remember all the "we didn't get 'impact pitching'" posts last winter?) Another example of the little moves involving a big-time player was saying, "Hey, Nelson, if we give you an extra million as a buyout, could we tack on a second year as an option." Your .600 batting average comment (or maybe "winning percentage") captures it well. If their winning percentage is .600 and everyone else's averages .500, but they make enough moves, they're eventually going to separate themselves from the pack. That seems to be the approach.

It's still possible for the Twins to host Toronto in the 4-5 series. Toronto is one back of New York with two to play.

Not today. They just went from 4 to 7 today.

What I'm impressed by is that the strategy seems to generally eschew the blockbuster move that tries to move the needle in a big way (but often hampers the team if it doesn't) in favor of making multiple moves that nudge the needle each time and don't back themselves into a corner.