IndianaTwin

Thanks. I don’t have a good handle on the location. And yeah, “If it ever gets built” is the key phrase.

Not only that, but Gallo provided many on TD with a late-season whipping boy when they needed someone to replace Kepler, since the Twins' patience with Kepler seemed to be paying off. /s *"Gallo plugged some holes with an average bat for 1 year." To add to your point, during the first half of the year, when he was playing most regularly, he was somewhat of an above-average bat. During the last half of the year , when he was struggling offensively, he was disproportionately serving as a defensive replacement.

Thanks. I'd missed that. For history buffs, two other spots I have gone to (and that are worth it) are the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls (2.5 hours). Very near that are a number of Harriet Tubman sites (including her grave) in Auburn.

Sandy Koufax was 36 when elected, but I think Mauer is currently the youngest.

I would echo the things Ted says in the article, particularly… The ceremony is great, but if your focus is on visiting the Hall itself, choose a different time of year. The Parade of Legends was the highlight of the weekend for me. A guy standing behind us kept yelling, “Thank you, ______,” so nearly all of the players turned and waved, which made for some good pictures. Get lodging early. If you are thinking at all about going, make reservations now at a place you can cancel if needed. If you want a chain hotel, you’re probably looking at an hour or more away, but I got a Comfort Inn at regular price in Albany when I reserved in January. Had I waited, I’d have been shut out or paid quite a bit more. Perhaps implied but not specifically stated in Ted’s encouragement to stake out a place is that it’s okay to do so on Saturday already (or even Friday). We got to town Saturday morning around 9 and made that our first stop. There were already a good number of blankets and chairs set out. The area inside the fence (for Hall members and invited guests) is pretty large, so you are going to have sit some distance away. Binoculars wouldn’t be a bad idea. There are spaces marked off as aisles for getting to the reserved area, so we chose to sit on the far side of one, which gave us the front “row” in our section. Other options nearby are the National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum in Oneonta and the Fenimore Art Museum, on land owned by James Fenimore Cooper, and The Farmer’s Museum, a living history museum that connects to the area’s rural heritage. The latter two are in Cooperstown. I’ve not been to any of the three, but they’re options if they connect to your interests.

Here’s something I put together following my trip to last year’s induction ceremony: If you don’t feel like watching the whole thing, the description notes the times for different “chapters,” like an intro to what you will see about inductees, some highlights from the hall, the Parade of Legends and the ceremony itself.

Well played, Mauer.

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…