IndianaTwin

Eduardo Escobar: The initials give us a literary flavor, so I’ll toss out “The Poet” for our own e.e.

Joe Mauer: As a team leader, how about the “Chairman,” as in Chairman Mau.

Brian Dozier: Someone started this one already, so “Bull” Dozier is on the board.

Ramon Castro: Nothing immediately comes to mind, but we all know he was signed for a particular skill. Thus, I’ll propose “Framey” Castro.

Byron Buxton: “Wheels.” There’s the speed, sure, but everybody knows that “The Wheels on the Bux Go ‘Round and ‘Round.” I’m sorry, parents, for giving you an earworm that is going to haunt you all week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d8Vo72Kbrk.

It’s been great to be thinking about the daily barrage of Game Threads and Game Recaps starting up soon. I’ve been in my sort of spring training, firing up my fingers to respond to all the hot taeks and lame jokes. To help us in this endeavor and to get our creative juices flowing, I’d like to start a nickname thread, where we come up with the nickname of choice when referring to the various players. To play along: Creativity rules. Nothing derogatory or approaching vulgar. Give a “like” to the names you like. Add your own. Do them one at a time, so we know which one you’re commenting or liking on.Let’s get rolling:

Yeah, reading your post was what made me start looking at this. Thanks for starting it.

I should have referred to tie games rather than suspended. Before lights, it was common for games that ended in ties to be replayed in their entirety. It was not uncommon for individual players to have more games played than would indicate in their team's record. So in 1937, for example, Lou Gehrig played in 157 games, even though the Yankees finished 102-52 on the season. For the Senators, the high-water mark was six ties in three different seasons. However, the maximum number of games was only 159 (in 1916), since in each of those seasons they also had at least one game that was rained out or otherwise not made up. An article at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/but-its-tradition-is-no-reason-to-ban-ties-games-in-mlb/ notes that the number of tie games decreased dramatically in 1918 when daylight saving time was adopted. In the 17 years from 1901-17, the Senators played 55 tie games. In the first 17 years after daylight saving time, they played just 23. By the 1940s and 50s, they were averaging less than one tie per year. These were sometimes city curfew-related or because one team or the other needed to catch a train to the next city. To my knowledge, ties were never reported in the standings, though they are listed at baseball-reference.com.

Regular season only.

Bring back the turf -- who needs grass when we've got the LoMo!

I still think of the Twins as being the lesser part of the long history of the Washington-Minnesota franchise. Not so. The franchise played 60 seasons as the Senators and has completed just 57 as the Twins. But the season is now longer, so they are very close in total games played. In fact, amidst following the pennant race, most of us probably missed that late in the season, the Twins passed the Senators in games played to completion. The Senators were 4223-4864 for 9087 games played. The Twins are now 4501-4594, for 9095 games, so they passed their predecessors last September 23. [Aside: Ironically, I was at the the game and didn't even realize its significance. I paid more attention to another statistical oddity, namely that Zach Granite hit a positionless homer. He entered the game as a pinch runner for Joe Mauer in the eighth. The Twins batted around, and Granite then homered while no longer a pinch runner and not yet having played defense. It remains his only career home run.] [Aside, part 2: This homer remains Granite's only career homer. Baseball-reference lists his position as "other." I haven't been able to find a complete list of other "other" homers, but of those I have found so far, Granite is the only person to have it happen as his 1) first career home run; or 2) only career home run.] However, before the advent of lights there were many more suspended games, which counted in individual player statistics. The Senators played 101 such games, whereas the Twins have only played 8. By that count, the Senators have played 9188 games and the Twins just 9103. Barring rainouts or other schedule adjustments, the Twins will play their 86th game of the season and 9189th in franchise history. on July 5, when they take on the Orioles and pass the Senators for good. There will be fireworks to celebrate. Oh wait, the fireworks are just to celebrate that it's a Friday.

As one commentator commentated, the Braves just ran the more talented Mauricio Cabrera through waivers unscathed, so this may be a good time to do such a thing.

Great indeed -- I'd not heard the story of Tapani's high school not having a team. I suspect that's not uncommon in small UP schools.

The first 28 seconds of the Hunter pinata puts that one right there with the Joe Mauer/Greene one in my book. But the final shot of the kid puts Torii over the top for me.

And searching for that, I'm not sure I've ever heard Scully do Puckett in Game 6 either. "...and Charlie Leibrandt has turned the lights out in the Metrodome again." Classic.

Thanks for the Vin Scully clip. I always go back to this one, so I'm not sure I've heard the Scully version. Jack Buck, Vin Scully. To-mate-oh, To-mot-oh. It doesn't get any better than either of those.

And I wasn't being snarky in suggesting they double down and go for both Garcia and Tillman. Tillman was horrible in 2017, but if we were having this conversation last winter, we'd be noting that he was coming off four straight years of 170+ innings, with three of them having an ERA+ of 110 or better. He doesn't turn 30 until Tax Day. Are the Twins good enough to compete for the playoffs and beyond? Potentially. But so much went right last year, and I'm not sure they are a lock to take another step forward this year. I hope they do and think they should, but baseball's a funny game. Think of 2016. We were cautiously optimistic and started 0-9 on the way to 10-30 through 40 games. In 2017, fewer of us were cautiously optimistic, but they started 5-1 on the way to 22-18 through 40 (and 25-18 through 43, if we extend it a few days). Eight or so starts from Yu Darvish would not have made the difference between the 2016 and 2017 Twins through 40 games. Even with him, I could see enough hiccups for them to end up an 80-85 win team, still poised on the cusp of being really good. So given the situation, I'd rather roll with Santana, Berrios, Gibson, May, Mejia, Garcia, Tillman (with Gonsalves and Romero getting a half-dozen starts in Rochester) through mid-May. Then, if the team looks like 2017, go get this year's Verlander amidst what shapes up to be a huge herd of potential rentals. If the wheels have come off, the focus unfortunately shifts back toward another year of development and those remaining 25 starts that aren't allocated to Darvish are given to others.

As fans, we often rip on athletes for only being in school to play ball. And on Twins Daily, Pelfrey has taken a lot of grief for his performance. But let's take note of this statement from the article and give him props -- a 34-year-old who has made nearly $47MM per baseball-reference.com is going back to school to complete his degree. "...Pelfrey, who will work with the team’s pitching staff, and assist with recruiting and day-to-day operations of the team while working to finish his degree at Wichita State."

Jaime Garcia and Chris Tillman.

Worth noting is that Wilmington and Earlham are both Quaker colleges, so they are self-identifying as such.

Don Williams, 1980: “I Believe in Yu.”

I was one of the "lots of Twins fans there too." I remember it as one of those "center fielder didn't even turn around" shots.

How aBOUT that? The TWIB Notes are being bested by the TWITD'Notes. I'll be attending TwinsFest for the first time this year -- how about a preview particularly orientated to the newbies among us?

Trevor May Resolution: Get healthy enough, stay healthy enough, and pitch effectively enough to get 140 innings as a starter or 50 appearances in the pen.

Agreed on Dozier and other vets needing to be on the list. A lot of it is going to depend on context, of course. The Marlins might not have any interest in Dozier or ESan, but a contender may well have more interest in one of them over a guy who's several years away. As a way of looking at that, put the shoe on another food and ask, "Would the Twins trade away Dozier for a Kiriloff-level player?" Some on TD might want to do that, but I wouldn't.