IndianaTwin

One of the secrets to life is eating more Whoopie Pies. Not sure if you're planning Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana Amish country, but if it's the latter and want suggestions, I can help you out. Google maps will send you on a route that avoids Indiana Amish country, but it says it's only 20 minutes longer to come over and go up 131. A key reason to do so is: https://risenroll.com/. You will need to eat a few more salads afterward. If you're into such things, there's also an outstanding Amish/Mennonite interpretive center nearby. And more buffets.

Another thing I count is the number of reasons she's a saint.

Welp. Apparently it's now "Rate Field," but I can guarantee the Sox are still going to stink. In my mind, the best attributes of the Monument to Cement are that it's my shortest drive to a park and that the tickets are cheap. Buy the cheapest available on StubHub -- you will be able to move down easily. The shower is a carryover from Bill Veeck having installed a shower in the outfield stands at Old Comiskey. The drive from Busch to Comiskey is listed at 4:11, but if possible, consider taking Historic Route 66. One of my favorite metaphors for life is the significant stretch that has Amtrak, Route 66 and Interstate 55 going side by side. Staying on 66 will get you lots of kitschy stuff, but the Route 66 Museum in Pontiac is pretty excellent. It's a Monday afternoon game in Chicago, so you may not have the extra time to spend on 66, but you can see the World's Largest Ketchup Bottle with a very brief detour off I-55 at the beginning of your jaunt. I'll add the St. Louis Zoo as a recommendation when in that city. If you're in Chicago for several days, consider getting the CityPass, which will get you into the Shedd Aquarium, Skydeck Chicago [the Willis (Sears) Tower] and three from among the Adler Planetarium, Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum, an architecture river tour and the 360 Chicago Observation Deck. If you're mobile, a bunch of them are within walking distance of each other. And if you're driving back from Chicago to the Twin Cities, it's only a couple blocks off 90/94 to stop at Smoque BBQ. Brisket excellent. Ribs excellent. Pork excellent. Haven't had the sausage. But the BBQ Gumbo -- amazing. How good is it? I choose it over the aforementioned excellent brisket, ribs or pork. If you're not driving back from Chicago to the Twin Cities, find a way to get there anyway. It's only a couple blocks from the Blue Line. Or take Uber, Lyft, whatever -- just get there.

It bugs me when Mrs. IT complains about me counting stuff. She's done it eight times already this month.* *This is not true. Mrs. IT is a saint!

Good point. I mean, not to make a big deal about it or anything, but taking in these two would get me up to 46 different parks....

Some of the coverage around their last games was quite interesting and reflective. There’s been a number of franchise relocations in other sports, but we’ve largely been spared from that in recent years as baseball fans. It’s hard to believe that the Expos have played in Washington for 20 years already.

I’ve said that I’ve been able to see a game in all MLB stadiums, but I’m trying to decide how to treat the “Sacramento” A’s and the “Tampa (no Bay)” Rays in this unique year and upcoming years.

Yes.

Doubtful they’d use Paddack ahead of Paddack. Starters rarely pitch two days in a row. 😄

I enjoy projecting starters, so I decided to play with this, knowing that the first injury makes this all moot. For reference, a pure five-man rotation would result in 32 starts for each, with a 33rd start for the top two, who I'll call Lopez and Ober. In comparison, I went through the schedule with the following plan: Lopez starts every fifth day, unless that lands on an off day, in which case he opens the next series. He would start 36 games. Ober also starts every fifth day, unless that lands on an off day or a Lopez start, in which case he takes the next available game. He would start 35 games. Ryan also starts every fifth day, unless that lands on an off, Lopez or Ober start, in which case he takes the next available day. He would start 34. That leaves 57 games. If you want to maximize the remaining starts with No. 4 (I used SWR), he would get 32 starts and leave 25 for No. 5 (Paddack). They could easily be adjusted to balance the two a bit more evenly, however. So in summary, maximizing the starts of Lopez, Ober and Ryan would result in taking seven starts from SWR/Paddack and moving them to Lopez (3), Ober (2) and Ryan (2). Summarizing further... Lopez would have his rested first start, following by 29 starts on four days and six on five days. Lopez starts the last game before the All-Star Break and the first game after, so that doesn't affect his rest. Ober would have his rested first start, seven days off around the ASB, seven starts on five days and the remaining 26 starts on four days. Ryan would have his rested first start, a 10 day rest at the ASB, a start on six days, seven starts on five days and the remaining 24 starts on four days. If SWR's starts were maximized at 32, his first will be rested, with a 10 day rest at the ASB, seven starts on six days, six starts on five days and 18 starts on four days. The reason he has a bunch of six day rests is because when there is an off day that would already bump him back to five days, he is often bumped an additional day by starting the series with Lopez, Ober or Ryan. Paddack would be throwing on a very inconsistent pattern. He'd only have six starts on four days, two on five days, seven on six days, two on seven days, four on eight days, two on nine days and one each on 10 and 11 days. What it looks like is 7-6-4-11-4-8-6-7-8-4-5-6-4-8-6-9-6-6-6-4-5-9-4-8-10 days off. I suppose there would be a few times when they could use him out of the bullpen a time or so in the breaks that are maybe eight days or longer, but the team has been reluctant to do that. As noted, it would be possible to balance SWR and Paddack's starts to 29 and 28. If I just alternated SWR and Paddack in the remaining starts, they each have nine starts on four days, but only five on five days. Then they have 10 and 8 starts on six days respectively and a combined three starts on seven days, three on eight, two on nine and one on 10. So, while maximizing starts for Lopez, Ober and Ryan gets them seven additional starts, the tradeoff is that it uses SWR and Paddack on a much more inconsistent manner. When you combine the reality that this approach would rarely give Lopez/Ober/Ryan an extra day with the inconsistent usage it provides for SWR and Paddack, I think the better option is just to stay with the five-man rotation.

A significant factor in the number of starts on five days having increased is the additional off days that were added to the schedule a few years ago. Each off day typically creates five starts that are happening on five days (or sometimes six). When they switched to starting the season on Thursday, they added four off days, which translates to 20 games being started with an extra day. If the Twins were to follow a strict five-pitcher rotation for the entire season, they would have only 60 starts on four days rest, 88 on five days and 4 on six days. Scheduled off days are a bigger factor in the number of extra days than is the idea of "giving someone an extra day" with a six-man rotation or a spot start by someone. That totals 152. There would also be five starts on nine days rest following the All-Star Game and it doesn't count the first five days of the season, though those are often either done on at least five days rest as well or are after a final spring training outing that didn't include a huge number of pitches. . For what it's worth, I did the same math with a strict four-pitcher rotation. There would be 79 starts on three days rest, 73 on four days and 5 on five days, along with the four starts that would now be on seven days rest at the All-Star Break and the four starts at the beginning of the year.

I've wondered the same. What this doesn't take into account, however, is the cumulative fatigue of pitching on four days' rest after every start. It also has the effect of non-Pablos sometimes going on four days, sometimes six, and sometimes even seven, depending on where off days follow.

As a dairy farm kid, I can relate.

Yes. A significant number of games will be started by pitchers not listed above.

I've thought the same thing. Those are his age 34-37 years. Even if he's shifted to 3B by then or even if he turns into a Nelson Cruz-ish DH, that's a stud. They're all one-year contracts at that point. (I personally hope each option year vests by virtue of his being the WS MVP.)

I read that the Vikings so despise the Packers that they refuse to accept a Lombardi Trophy. (Too soon? 😀 I'm not a football fan.)

Maybe ask Carlos what Carlos's mindset is right now, rather than speculating? The main part of the OP I can agree with is asking, "What's the point of pondering Correa's state of mind?"

I'm not trying to be a smark aleck with this question, but when's the last time a starting pitcher that is ready has legitimately been blocked by ineffective starters? And I used the 10th/11th man at the end of the season as my argument, but let's also think of it differently. Because of injuries, I think there is a better than 50/50 chance that Matthews ends up starting one of the first five games. So if you accept my argument that there's a better than 50/50 chance that someone outside the "projected" top five begins in the rotation (or if you prefer, that there's a better than 50/50 chance that a projected starter begins the season on the IL), then the question becomes, do you want to take Paddack out of the mix and expect that Zebby Matthews will likely start the season in the rotation when one of Lopez-Ober-Ryan-SWR-Festa ends up on the IL? With how Matthews threw last year and knowing that he's only had four AAA starts, I don't.

I would argue for that as well, but apparently the "solstice" term has gotten traction. https://science.abainternational.org/2025/01/03/a-solstice-and-a-whole-lot-of-scallops/

To focus on Paddack as a starter, you're really comparing Paddack to something like your 11th starter. I chose 11th because you listed (or implied) nine other starters besides Paddack. What I mean by that is if if you dump Paddack just for the sake of dumping him, you're sliding everyone up the ladder. In many (most?) seasons, you're going to need to go at least 11 deep. So if Paddack doesn't get starts, you're saying that you're willing to use someone not on that list. I get that you're saying Festa will be better in the long run, but with Festa never having thrown more than 125 innings, I don't think it's a huge loss to plan for a best-case (in terms of health) scenario that he starts in St. Paul. Ober in 2023 is a good case in point. He only started five games (22.2 innings) in St. Paul before he was needed. If he's healthy and effective, Festa won't be in St. Paul long enough to shoot many of his bullets. And in reality, I wonder if folks are underestimating Paddack. Will he last the season healthwise? Perhaps (even probably) not. But if you look at his game log from a year ago, his shaky overall stats are really driven by a couple games where he took one for the team, which happens much more for a veteran than it does for a young guy. He had a good number of games that were decent or really quite good. Said another way, Paddack's best games were better than Festa's best games. I'm glad to roll the dice with Paddack as a starter and buy continued development time for Festa, et al.

Similarly, at least one of Festa, Matthews, Morris, Raya and Lewis will make a start in April.

Plus the IL spot(s) that will be needed. The likelihood of all seven being healthy at the end of spring training is a decimal, some number of zeroes and a 1 percent.

Out of curiosity, what was the "budget" that was assumed by those of us with incomplete information* throughout the winter of 2021-22? Because that number changed pretty dramatically, to the tune of $35.1 million, on March 22. To say there's no path to a passing grade in mid-January, when we've barely passed the Baseball Solstice** seems silly. In addition to the aforementioned signing, the Pablo Lopez trade happened on January 20 and the Jake Odorizzi trade on February 17, and those are just the first few late-offseason moves that come to mind. *I.e., all of us on TwinsDaily. **That date that is midway between the last day of the World Series and Opening Day.

Neither Jax nor Duran pitched in the 6th inning of a game last year. Duran pitched in the 7th in only game. Only 23 percent of Jax’s innings were in the 7th.

It has a box allowing you to name why you are editing, but filling in that box isn't required. Try tweaking your post somehow, but don't fill in that box and see if it still saves.