IndianaTwin

Coming from northern Indiana, I like that I can get to the current location without having to deal with as much downtown traffic. I do like that a potential new location would be close enough to a South Shore commuter line that it would be an option for getting to games.

First thing that came to mind for me as well. https://disemvowel.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/calvin-and-hobbes-by-bill-watterson-transmogrifier/

The time has come at last to find if we can see Mr. Sabato's true identity.

And see! They just signed Matt Bowman to a minor league deal. 😀 (Now I'll try to figure out who Matt Bowman is.)

Has the roster ever been set at this point? No matter the budget constraints (or lack thereof), this FO has always done a significant amount of its work after this date. (And I'm okay with that. I find it easier to walk through life without having my shorts in a wad over a perceived lack of activity by the FO.)

Gordon: I've read that "multiple reports" say they could be headed to arbitration. How many of the "multiple reports" were people reporting on the original reporting? If they are indeed at $1.25M and $990,000, it seems doubtful to me that they won't settle in the middle. It's a difference of only $260,000, not worth upsetting a player over. Mauer: Mauer is approaching lock status for selection. He's at 83.7 percent through 153 ballots, so he's got some cushion in the bank. He only needs to get 69.3 percent the rest of the way. It's pretty rare to have someone drop by 14.4 percent in the public to private comparison. But unlike Ted, I don't think he'll stay close to 84 percent. Though he won't have the PED drop like Pudge, I suspect he'll still have a larger-than-average drop because of the "I don't want to vote for him because he spent too much time at 1b, but I'm not going to admit that publicly" crowd.

Not sure which one's which in the pictures, but for the one on the left, the 'stache was clearly a factor in his success.

Lots of "just missed that one" doesn't typically lead to a promotion.

And did throw 25 innings, effectively. That's not much, but it's not nothing either.

(Tweaked my post to be a little clearer -- thanks.)

They particularly weren't going that high for a hitter, and particularly given that $23.5M wouldn't have gotten it done. To outbid them, they needed to go to $24M or more, depending on how far LA was willing to go.

Chase Petty is a unique case. In a sense, one can say that with the 26th pick in the 2021 draft, the Twins drafted two years of Sonny Gray and the opportunity to have a bonus pick two years later and about 10-15 spots lower. Given Gray’s and team’s success those two years, that pick is a win in my book, even if Chase Petty turns into the Richard Petty of pitchers. (And like King Richard, if Chase ever has the need to run the bases, it will be with the instructions, “go fast, turn left.” But I digress.) And with Jenkins being a high schooler in 2023, that pick is too early to judge. Beyond that, it’s very feasible that five of the eight remaining No. 1 picks will play for the Twins in 2024 (Lewis, Lee, Larnach, Kirilloff and Gordon). If @jeffp’s* guess of 30 percent of first rounders being contributors at some point is accurate, five of eight seems like a pretty good success rate. Throw in Wallner with a comp pick, and that’s six who will play. Many days, there will be three or four of them in the lineup together. I can’t imagine there isn’t another team that doesn’t have a Jay/Cavaco/Sabato-type trio in their history over the past decade. All in all, I think they’ve drafted quite well. *Welcome to Twins Daily, by the way.

2017: Brent Rooker (35) 2019: Matt Wallner (39) 2021: Noah Miller (36) 2023: Charlie Soto (34)

From the OP: "Heading into the 2024 season, the Twins have four arms appointed as primary late-inning, high-leverage relievers: Jhoan Durán, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Caleb Thielbar. Behind this quartet of trustworthy hurlers is an amalgam of relatively unknown commodities who fit one of two molds: young, former starters who are now pursuing careers as relievers, or veterans attempting to bounce back from injuries and avoid a bleak conclusion to their once-promising careers." Given that the "quartet of trustworthy hurlers" is itself an "amalgram of... [now known] commodities who fit one of two molds,..." and given the general level of effectiveness Funderburk showed, it seems appropriate to view him as an option to make the quartet a quintet.

Thanks for clarifying. 😀

"****ing"?

Rick Reed holds a warm place in my heart. I was initiated into fantasy baseball in 1998 when invited to take over a team whose owner walked out of the annual rules meeting in resistance to the league instituting a minimum innings pitched requirement. It was in response to said owner having approached the 1997 season by keeping Mike Mussina at $23 and claiming eight Dodger minor league pitchers at $1 each. His hope was to have a good season from Mussina that would leave him in first place in ERA and WHIP, accept the last place in wins and saves for 22 pitching points in the 10-team, 4x4 league. That would leave him with $229 of his $260 budget to load up on offense, where he hoped to get close to 40 points on offense and win the league with 60-plus out of a possible 80. Mussina had a good year, but his hitters didn't, and he finished in the middle of the pack. From the team I inherited, I cobbled together a team that had Reed as my leader in wins, used my first draft pick on Jose Canseco (46 HRs, 29 SBs) and managed to win the league as a rookie. Alas, I've only won twice since. The Twins are not in our player pool, so I had to drop him from my roster when he was traded to Minnesota. I continued to root for him, however, and I think the only time I saw him pitch for the Twins was on June 4, 2002, when he went seven innings in a drubbing of Cleveland. As I said at the time, "When you spot Rick Reed 23 runs, he's hard to beat." It was a fun game. Jacque Jones had four hits from the leadoff spot and Dustin Mohr, A.J. Pierzynski and Luis Rivas each had four hits from the bottom third of the order. Go here for the carnage: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200206040.shtml

Both Louie Varland and the front office have talked about him preparing as a starter and preferring that, but it hasn’t kept us from being inundated with discussion about whether he’ll start the season in the rotation or bullpen, so at least this one may have prevented another one of those…

Actually, Louisville was a charter member of the National League, though the Grays only lasted two years, 1876 and 1877. Then the Louisville Colonels were part of the NL from 1892-99. Honus Wagner spent his first three seasons with the Colonels in 1897-99. The Colonels were one of four teams contracted from the league in 1990. Their owner gained controlling interest of the Pirates and took 14 players with him, including Wagner, Fred Clarke and Rube Waddell. Oh, and the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association were based in Louisville. With Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel, they were the winningest team in the ABA over its nine-year history, but didn't get picked up by the NBA in the merger.

If the options are... A. Give up SWR for Grisham and pay the $4.9 million he's projected to get through arbitration. B. Re-sign Taylor for the same $4.5 million he got this year. I'll take Taylor, keeping SWR in the process.

Including parking for free at the Mall of America and taking the light rail for $4.50 round trip.

And fun is the point, right? I'm with you.

Why would we want to pay attention to Buxton's 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (and even the first two months of 2023) when we can fixate on his last two months? /s

With apologies to George Strait, I was starting to think that all our exes live in St. Louis.

Related, we could ask who was the best Rule 5 draft pick ever. It would seem to be either Christy Mathewson, drafted by Cincinnati from the Norfolk Phenoms in 1900, or Roberto Clemente, drafted by the Pirates from Brooklyn in 1954. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_5_draft