IndianaTwin

Every time I tell Mrs. IT one of Chief’s jokes, she rolls her eyes at me. I pick them up and roll them back.

Read an interesting tidbit this morning. Turns out there’s a group of 500 people living just outside Calcutta that will only use IBM products. They are known as the Indian Apple-less 500.

Or at least tipped enough to buy a brat.

Demote Kirilloff!!!!

I'm guessing we're not too far from each other here. And yes, that phrase (which I've most often heard attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, but others are cited as well) has served me well when working with folks of all ages. I work in a consulting situation, and I've quoted it to colleagues a number of times recently. I'm sure my boss would prefer I get to the topic at hand a little more quickly than I sometimes do, but spending a little more time in the getting to know someone process has never been a bad move for me. I've got a natural curiosity and Mrs. IT has taught me a lot about empathy. That's a good combination of traits in about any situation.

Agreed, thanks for the update. One game is about as small of a sample size as one can get, but it's interesting that for Lee, it was at shortstop. I'll be curious to see how that plays itself out as Lewis prepares to return, Miranda playing well and Julien struggling compared to a year ago. It wouldn't be popular, but he seems like one of their biggest trade chips.

Agree with your first paragraph, but not with the second. I've also spent a good number of years coaching (not 25, but 10), all at the college level, and focused on the things you talked about. But I also remember a night when we got back from a meet after seriously underperforming. We sat in the bus for a while and had a chat that was a little out of character for me. I'm not a yeller, but I was definitely more direct with them than usual on some things. I also focused on the fact that we were a good team with a lot of potential, but hadn't come together yet. Thirty years later, I still remember the statement from one of my senior leaders, "If coach thinks we can do this, I think we should go for it." I went to clean uniforms (small college, so you do everything), and they continued to talk amongst themselves. I found out later that they spent some time together over the weekend. Turned the season around, and we ended up winning the conference championship. I can't say it was all from that night's meeting (after all, they had an outstanding coach, right? 🤣), but it was a key moment. A few years ago, I asked one of the athletes whether she remembered the night, and she did. Point being, sometimes even a fun team needs a bit of a reset. None of us are privy to what happened Monday, but I'm impressed that they seem to have the right set of personalities on the team (in my opinion) for such a meeting to be significant. The bottom line, however, is that a meeting only lasts a short time, particularly in a long-season sport like baseball. They still need to build on any momentum it generated.

Yikes. I guess...

"Zack Weiss, who has yet to pitch for Minnesota and is on the 60-day injured list, is throwing up to 100 feet." That's serious projectile vomiting!

So you're saying a 9.7 bWAR is worth noting? 😀 "Some" overstates his Cy Young support. Somehow he only got one vote! Guess he didn't look good enough in underwear.

This isn't quite that, but I've always been amazed at the similarity between Eddie Murray's first two years: Other than drawing a bunch more walks his second year, which created much of the difference in OBP, which leads to OPS, which leads to OPS+, these numbers are virtually identical. They speak to the incredible consistency he had. Can you imagine what it was like as a manager to have seven years of writing Ripken and Murray in the 3 and 4 hole, nearly every day. It's hard to think of a guy with 3255 hits and 502 HRs as underrated, but wow.

1. I get that it's hard to argue with WAR, but it's also hard to consider Gomez third-best with an OPS+ of 77. 2. Particularly noteworthy with Sano is that it came in little more than a half season. With a full season, he may have reached Mauer level. 3. Peter Gammons upon Hrbek's retirement: "If he had kept in better shape, he could have been a Hall of Famer. But we wouldn't have loved him as much."

Oh, gee. Here we go again. Was it Bash and Cash? Or Dash and Lash? Maybe Sash and Gash?

I always heard it as the Department of Needless Redundancy Department.

As a pastor, and specifically as a pastor who spends his time helping churches learn how to talk about money in healthy ways, I’m definitely stealing (see what I did there?) this one.

Always thought Ian Desmond should wear No. 22, just for what it would say on the back of his uniform.

I agree, to an extent. But, what are you going to do when you've only got four bench spots, one of which is reserved for the backup catcher? Guys have to play multiple positions. In reality... Jeffers, Vazquez, Julien, Miranda, Correa, Buxton and Kepler (and likely Lewis) only play one position. Farmer, Larnach, Margot and Martin have almost exclusively played two positions, with the latter three being two outfield spots. You could list Wallner as playing two spots when he was up, but he was really a LF who played some RF when Kepler was hurt. Kirilloff has played two outfield spots and 1b, but half his starts have been in left. He's really a LF and backup 1B who played some RF when Kepler was hurt. Castro is really the only person who has moved around a lot, splitting time between 3B, SS, LF and CF, but most of his starts at 3B, SS and CF have been as an injury replacement. The intent wasn't for him to play much at any of those three spots, but fortunately, he's been able to. In terms of the minors, I suspect you're especially referring to Martin. In 2021, it looks like Toronto was trying to decide whether he was a SS or CF, since he split time evenly. The Twins did the same after they acquired him. In 2022, the Twins tried to focus on SS. with 70 games at SS and 9 in the OF. That was at a time when they didn't have Correa signed for the future and Lewis was injured most of the year. In 2023, they had Correa signed long-term and they decided Martin wasn't a shortstop. They slid him down the defensive spectrum in terms of the infield to play half his games at 2B, which makes sense when you are thinking you may trade/non-tender Polanco and you aren't sure whether Julien is the long-term answer. But you hope Julien is the answer and you also have Lee and Miranda in addition to Lewis, so you use him the outfield. In the outfield, he split time between LF and CF, but that makes sense when you aren't sure how many games you're going to get from Buxton. You hope Martin doesn't have to play CF in the majors, but you want to be covered in case you need him there. And if you don't need him in CF because Buxton is healthy and you have Castro as the backup, then you want to get Martin some time in LF in case that's the only spot available. In 2024, from what we've seen, they've given up on him as an infielder. He's played both CF and LF, but his CF starts were mostly as backup to Castro when Buxton was out or as backup to Buxton when Castro was needed at SS for Correa. At best, Martin was intended to be the third string CF. In actuality, they wanted him to be fourth string, after Margot as well, but that hasn't happened. So yeah, they haven't committed to him playing a specific spot, but they almost couldn't. Had they done so and guessed wrong, they aren't covered in another spot. And with such a short bench, every team is going to need a Castro, so it makes sense to try grooming someone for that role. (Said another way, if Castro goes down, who gets his multi-position role?) I've only heard the radio and read the TD versions of Martin. I haven't seen him like you have. Frankly, it seems like he's never going to hit enough to be a regular, so focusing on one position wouldn't have been helpful unless he's going to be a Gold Glover. I don't think he was ever seen as that, even if he focused on one spot. Instead, being a utility guy is his most likely opportunity for success. But from what I've heard and seen, I'm not sure that's even realistic. I assume the Twins are intending for the Lewis/Julien/Lee/Kirilloff/Larnach/Wallner group to make Martin irrelevant. Unfortunately, they haven't done that yet and injuries have happened, so we've been stuck with more Martin than intended/hoped for. I hope we don't see any more of Martin. That's not because I have anything against him, I just hope that guys stay reasonably healthy and perform even at the midrange of their expectations. If they do, I don't see a spot for Martin. Even at his best, he seems like a Niko Goodrum. (Sorry -- that got much longer than intended.)

Since coming off the IL, Kepler has played in 24 of the team's 26 games. He's started 15 of the last 19 games and entered two of the remaining four. In the two games he didn't play at all, they got blown out in each. We won't know, obviously, but my hunch is that had the game situation called for it, he would have been used, but when you're down 7-0 or 7-1 after five and 11-0 or 10-3 after seven, I'm guessing Rocco decided to give him the whole day off. Plus Margot was actually 4 for 8 in RF in the two games Kepler missed. That seems like Kepler's playing pretty regularly.

Did the White Sox defense just show up to take over for Cleveland?

2023: 6-7 2022: 6-13 2021: 11-8 2020: 7-3 So 30-31 over the past four years entering this season. The 1-7 stretch over 11 days in September 2022 are so etched in our consciousness that they outweigh that they have been 29-24 otherwise.

The places below where there are red lines are days off, either by schedule or by manager's choice. DH stands for doubleheader. The highlighted games are days he didn't play the whole game, either being out early in a blowout (1), pinch hitting/running and staying in or coming in as a defensive replacement. So he did have multiple back-to-back (or more) outings. But Buxton's defense, today isn't a day off after one day of action, considering he played center and then DHed in St. Paul on Thursday and Friday. (I didn't see Buxton, so this isn't a reflection on how he looked, just a summary of when he's played.

They tied us.

Assuming that we hang on to lose, this will be the 22nd game out of 44 that is part of either a winning or losing streak that is five games or more. I don’t know if that’s a high percentage, but it sure seems like it.

I don’t think they should put the white flag on waivers. They may need to have it available for waving on another day.

I’m on the radio. Would any of our other first basemen pulled off the double play?