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IndianaTwin

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Everything posted by IndianaTwin

  1. IndianaTwin
    I know it’s bad form to comment on your own posts, but this just came to me. As an additional perk besides the x number of trips on the Pohlad’s private jet, can we also promise to put “Mannysota” on the FRONT of our jerseys during next year’s Players Weekend as a negotiating tactic?
  2. IndianaTwin
    GIven that he started the third, I’d assume they were trying to use Gonsalves as a typical starter. But say they’d followed him with a five-inning, not-quite-quality, 3 runs in 5 innings “start” from Odorizzi (I know, the rotation didn’t line up, but I’m just using this as an example), it might have made for something like a 9-3 lead after seven. If it works like that, I’m all on board for the opener approach. And since I’ve gone off on a tangent now, I’ll continue. It seems to me that if a team lined up their rotation 1-4-2-3-5, they could get by with using one Opener to lead off the games for both the 4 and 5 guy. If he goes two innings in 40 percent of the games, that’s only about 130 innings for the season. WIthout any off days, his pattern would be to alternate one and two days off, but with off days scattered, some of the one-day-offs would become two and some of the twos would become threes. If he has too many one-day-offs in close proximity, they could shorten an occasional outing to one inning rather than two. If Berrios and Gibson go 6 or 7 most days as the Nos. 1 and 2, and Gonsalves-Odo and Gonsalves-Mejia/Romero combine for 7 most days as the Nos. 4 and 5, and Pineda comes back as the No. 3, that seems like a pretty solid rotation that would protect a bullpen of May, Busenitz, Hildy, Rogers, Reed, Duke (do we control him?) and Magill and allow a four-man bench. As depth/injury coverage, that still leaves Thorpe, Stewart, Moya, Curtiss, DeJong, Drake, Duffey, Littell, and Vazquez. Shuffle the parts if you will, but I’m generally comfortable with that mix as a pitching, particularly if there’s willingness to go after a rental mid-year (starter, reliever, or both) if they are indeed in the race. Think of how much money that would leave for the Mannysota Twins to use on the hitting side!
  3. IndianaTwin
    Are the strawberries fresh with the shortcake? With whipped cream? ’Cause, yeah!
  4. IndianaTwin
    Tom, is the bullpen usage chart a single Excel file? I'd be interested in seeing it in it's entirety for the season, just to get a sense of what things look like in a long-term sort of way.
  5. IndianaTwin
    1. I think the Profar comparison is interesting, and helpful. I hope Buxton has a similar response. There's no reason Profar needs to do this, but I think it would a classy move for him to reach out to Buxton and say, "I've been there -- go prove them wrong." https://www.twincities.com/2018/09/02/byron-buxton-decision-becomes-sensitive-topic-for-twins-players/ 2. I think Molitor's quotes make sense: “I’m going to have a nice conversation with him and share my perspective,” Molitor said Sunday in Arlington, Texas. “We’ll try to get to where the understanding and the respect remains. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem between Byron and (me).” and “Sometimes I think time is a really good ally for everybody involved. Ultimately it’s still going to be about him and his career and his performance and his health, all those things moving forward.” We can bellyache about Molitor decisions, but one thing I think he does pretty well is remain under control, not throwing guys under the bus, and dealing with people one-on-one. I suspect there will be a hear-to-heart conversation between the two of them that we won't even hear about, and that's probably a good thing. 3. I think Levine was a straight shooter with his comments. I paraphrase his message as, "We made a tough decision, and Byron and his agent have their right to be disappointed. We would be disappointed if he didn't want to come up to the majors. We still believe Byron can help us, so we are going to do our part to make it a good relationship going forward." And I applaud them for not trying to force such a conversation right now -- those chats rarely go well when they happen in the heat of the moment.
  6. IndianaTwin
    Actually, my wife is one person who is not aware of this, though I've said it often enough myself that she may be starting to get the picture. My mother-in-law doesn't even know who Odorizzi is, however. :-) But you point to one of the inherent challenges. As I read on TwinsDaily, two of the most common complaints about Molitor's in-game managing are that 1) he stays with the starter too long; and 2) that he overworks his bullpen. Short of a 15-man pitching staff with Chris Gimenez as your bench player, what's a guy to do? I'm guessing the response is, "Don't use the same bullpen guys over and over." But as I look at long-term usage patterns and try to balance them with in-game situations, I actually think he walks that tightrope pretty well. For example, we worry about overuse with Rogers because of him being on pace for 74 games. But look at his game logs and you'll see that he's only gone back-to-back on 15 occasions. On all but one of them, he threw 12 pitches or fewer in one game or other other (or both, on several occasions). The one exception was a time when his first game was 14 pitches, but came on the heels of four days off, so he was still rested. On the two occasions when he went back-to-back-to-back, in the middle games he threw 8 and 3 pitches. The first series was 15-8-17 pitches, but it came on the heels of two days off and was followed by three days off. The second stretch had a total of 20 pitches in three days. I don't know how to compare that to other managers, but to me, his long-term usage pattern for one of his most effective pitchers has been pretty good. I didn't take the time to look at others as closely, but a cursory eyeballing of Hildy, for example, show's a similar long-term pattern. I think it would be interesting to see Tom's game summary pitch count chart as an entire season to see what it looks like.
  7. IndianaTwin
    I wasn't responding to the "should Joe go or should he stay," but to the question of whether Austin is likely to be a strong defender.
  8. IndianaTwin
    Difference being that Austin also has significant minor league innings at 1B, and Mauer was a good enough athlete to be a Gold Glove catcher. That's not to say that Austin won't improve with experience, but I'm skeptical he'll improve to the level of Mauer.
  9. IndianaTwin
    The rest of the team has had RISP on 24.25 percent of its at bats. Mauer has had RISP in 20.10. Also, I don't know how to easily figure out who was on base for Mauer, but with where he has been in the batting order, the vast majority of his games have come with guys like Garver, Wilson, Grossman, Lomo, and even the pitcher batting up to three batters in front of him. Specifically, in his 63 games as a lead off hitter, 47 times the No. 9 hitter has been Wilson (27), Garver (7), Adrianza (7), or a pitcher (6). When your guy on 2B is Wilson, you're not going to get as many RBIs as when your guy is Rosario. Also, take into account that Mauer doesn't hit homers. The batter, by definition, isn't in scoring position. Mauer has driven in 34 base runners. For context, in more at bats for each, Dozier drove in only 36 and Kepler 29 base runners. All factors in why a guy with great success with RISP may not have gobs of RBIs.
  10. IndianaTwin
    Greenwood Memorial Park, Lower Burrell, Pa., according to this excellent bio: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/cdec8871
  11. IndianaTwin
    Dear Brian, You can get mad now. Sincerely, IT
  12. IndianaTwin
    Spycake, if you found this easily, I'd be interested in knowing what percentage of starts throughout the league were in this range the past few years. The curiosity has nothing to do with Blackburn -- just wondering if the number has dropped as precipitously as it seems, or if it just seems that way because short starts are getting more attention.
  13. IndianaTwin
    Sorry, but I couldn’t resist — how tall is he when he’s not healthy?
  14. IndianaTwin
    I agree. And I think what magnifies the effect from a fan perspective is that last year’s team seemed unusually lucky in terms of injuries. There were nowhere close to as many major, long-term injuries last year, which is what helped us over-perform and have the surprising 85 wins. If they’d had a few more injuries and ended up a still much-improved 75-78 win team, we’d have felt good and would have been targeting being somewhat above .500 this year. That would have made this year feel like a minor disappointment rather than a major bummer. Going into this year, I was saying that they could be improved and still only end up around 85 wins based on a more normal number of injuries. But all the stuff you name got us into the big hole. But even with the long losing streak, they are 15-14 over the last month. Go .500 the rest of the way and they end up at 78-84. Win 78 last year, and I think 78 this year would have seemed like a good-sized bummer, but not necessarily a full-fled disaster. But realistically, I think the team IS better at this point than it was at many points in the first half. Even decent second-half health, plus Santana, and I think it’s still easily possible to get to at least .500, maybe a few games above. 90 wins? No. But even 83 or 84? Possible.
  15. IndianaTwin
    I can buy that argument too. And maybe the shuttle has begun -- it looks like they just sent Romero back down.
  16. IndianaTwin
    Similarly, it looked like Escobar's verbal response after the strikeout was in response to one of their defenders mouthing off.
  17. IndianaTwin
    Thanks -- I missed that Magill is out of options. But if I look at his game logs, it doesn't seem like his usage is that out of line. His days off pattern the last few weeks has been 4-1-5-1-6-1. The long rests have come on the heels of long outings -- 34, 60, and 45 pitches. He's also in a tough spot. In those six appearances, he's come in in the 2nd three times and 4th or 5th twice. That's a hard role to predict, because the manager is in a constant state of "I'd rather not use him today in case I'm going to need him early tomorrow." Somebody's got to be that guy, and it looks like it's Magill right now. Somebody will probably say, "As long as Belisle is around, why isn't he that guy?" Frankly, over the last few weeks, Belisle has been more effective than Magill. Though Belisle sucked yesterday, he was actually unscored on in the previous five outings. He's either been horrible or pretty good since coming over, but even his three horrible outings all came in the 8th or 9th when they were already down at least three. If the game had been closer, he probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to give up five runs like yesterday. Don't interpret my comments as being down on Magill -- he clearly had some top-notch outings that kept us in games. Perhaps, based on his lack of effectiveness recently, rather than trying to send him to Rochester, they should have considered a DL stint. (Similarly, don't read me as high on Belisle, but maybe not as down on him as a lot of folks.) And here's a wondering on Magill. They didn't name Romero as today's starter until after yesterday's game. That sounds like it could have been Plan B. I could easily see Plan A as having been seeing today as a bullpen game, with a good likelihood of a Magill sighting. But they shot that possibility with so much bullpen usage Friday and Saturday, so it was Romero's start and then play the rest of the game with the guy Molitor thought gave them the best chance of winning. He wasn't ready to go to Magill first, but at one point he appeared to be the next up.
  18. IndianaTwin
    On Magill, I get the love based on the way he started, but he's also given up 11 runs in his last 11.2 innings going back to June 21, with at least a run in all six games. The way today was going, I didn't mind not seeing him in such a tight game. (I also wouldn't mind him going down to Rochester to get a couple innings in the next few days, though a lot of guys are going to be on really long rest the next while.)
  19. IndianaTwin
    That would have been a viable option. But doing so would have also put two guys into situations they aren't used to -- Rodney starting, and Romero coming into a game when he doesn't know exactly when he'll be used. Starters are creatures of habit, and I'm not sure it's fair to a rookie with less than 10 MLB starts to have to guess at the +/-10 minutes of when the second inning will roll around. In addition, with a rookie, there's a reasonable likelihood that he's going to need to be replaced mid-inning. Though that's not the primary way Rodney's been used, he's certainly been there before. And if Romero doesn't need to be replaced mid-inning, there's a good likelihood that he pitched a nice spiffy 5 or 6 quick innings. So yeah, using Rodney as the "opener" would have also made sense, but I think this was a good approach.
  20. IndianaTwin
    Per Molitor's interview, Rodney has an immigration interview in Miami tomorrow morning and needed to catch a flight. They've rescheduled the appointment several times, but were unable to get something better than this. Life happens, and I applaud them for finding a way to still use him for a couple key outs.
  21. IndianaTwin
    Per the post-game show, Rodney needed to leave the stadium by 3:15 because of a citizenship appointment. Always good to know the whole story before assuming the MOY screwed up...
  22. IndianaTwin
    Great idea to link to the game recap over in the game thread. How about doing the same thing in reverse and linking the game thread to the game recap? Maybe put "Today's Game Thread" between the "Next Three Games" and "Last Three Games".
  23. IndianaTwin

    Lollygagging?

    IndianaTwin commented on ashbury's blog entry in Left Coast Bias

    I’ve sometimes felt like he’s been lollygagging as well, but not sure on this one. He’s played a bazillion games and knows that’s a single to left, so it’s not surprising that he jogs over to cover second for the throw in from the outfield. Problem was Polanco made a great play, so Dozier looks bad. Sure, we can say Dozier should have been hustling over, but there’s a fine line between giving full effort and racing to cover the bag when there’s nothing there.
  24. IndianaTwin
    I’ve always thought of having the ability to hang with it on a day when you don’t have your best stuff as being one of the marks of a good player in any sport. Sounds like that’s what Lynn did.
  25. IndianaTwin
    I get it — there’s plenty of reason to be down on the Twins, but I’m too committed to optimism in my life. I was at Wrigley yesterday and it was miserable. I was sitting, not running around. And it was worse today, so in this kind of conditions, I’m not going to get down on anyone too much. By contrast, it was good to see sparks from the offense in the past two days. Scoring 15 runs off the second-best pitching staff in the NL offers some hope, particularly when you consider that the Eds were only 4-14, with two extra-base hits, and only had 3 of the 15 RBIs. A total of 21 hits in two days, when that’s seemed like a week’s worth most of the season. Battling back to tie or take the lead twice today and managing to get a few RISPy hits as well the past two games. Still not where it needs to be, but a few signs of life.
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