karcherd

Absolutely platooning is the problem. Because of the situational changes, you end up expecting your end of the bench players to be successful in clutch situations. Play your best players and have the end of the bench players have a role that plays to their strength like pinch running for Santana.

This loss was due to this team's slavish devotion to analytics and shows what will happen in the playoffs. Roster construction is devoted to position flexibility so you end up having three infielders playing the outfield. Stolen bases are not valued on defense or offense according to the analytics or is the sacrifice bunt. The team refuses to develop players and make them full time players. You sit two of your hottest hitters and when they do come in you pinch hit for one with Vasquez. By sitting Wallner and Larnach, you then have no bench players to fill the role of pinch runner for Santana in the 9th inning. We need regular every day players and fill the bench with specific roles in mind. And if someone goes down call up somebody that can actually play that position. We don't need three utility players on the roster. When Castro and Santana lead your team in AB's, you are not going to win consistently. Even without injuries they still would have been in the top 5 in plate appearances. They can't just keep dismissing the running game, teams are starting to take advantage of this. Putting runners in scoring position so easily is leading to runs and not helping the pitcher out. We need to start to being a little more aggressive as well, sometimes just starting a runner keeps you out of the double play. Why not have Lee bunt the runners over, you then have two runners in scoring position and put pressure on the pitcher and defense. I probably would bunt more than a lot of people on this board would, but how can you not bunt in that situation. Rocco's explanation basically just confirms that he was playing for the home run again. This team will have some success with their philosophy in the regular season because the odds say if you do x action so many times it will have success x percent of the time. But you can't do that in the playoffs, you need your best and regular players to step up and win the game. Last night is what a playoff game would be like, they will keep trying to playing the odds and in a short series you will lose. Are they going to turn ERod and Jenkins into platoon players if they continue to develop as they have been.

This is what happens when you only value versatility, just because the player can go out there doesn't necessarily mean he will make the plays needed.

There is your Gold Glove first baseman.

Three converted infielders playing in the outfield, induce a lot of ground balls

Wow one run he gave up, proves the point it is about runs given up.

Actually if you are getting outs, that is good, I didn't know they gave runs for the hardest hit balls.

Rocco also not a helper to Larnach.

Exactly, just because a player can play a position doesn't mean he can play it well. There is a reason we see some of the sloppy play that happens, players are not playing in familiar positions.

And now we have the famed power hitters Farmer and Helmen left to pinch hit.

Put Royce at short and move Lee to second, at least he would be more comfortable there. Stop thinking this is Little League.

Helmen is up here because the Twins analytics nerds think this is Strat-o-matic. Just because a player can go to different positions doesn't mean he can play them well. How many utility guys do you need. Play your best players at their best position. Having one utility guy is not a bad thing but you don't need a roster full of them. Helmen may do ok up there but I just wish for once they would bring up the best player regardless of where they play.

I personally would rather see Wallner out there every day regardless of who is pitching.

That is on Rocco and the analytics because they don't 4 seam FB's as well so they decided to go away from Zebby's strengths.

That is what I said none of them do, I was including Margot.

And play them where, none of them play CF.

His pinch hitting prowess.

It was talked about by Perkins that was the game plan because they don't hit 4 seam fastballs well. He needs to set up his fastball with his other pitches.

This is on Rocco and Maki just as much as Zebby. They are trying to get him to throw the high fastball past the hitters like Pablo last night. That is not his game, he needs to use all his pitches. This trying to match up on every pitch and at bat doesn't work. Your players are either good enough or not, let them play with their strengths. They did this to Ober when he got blown up as well, had him focused on using his third pitch.

Are we 3.5 or 30 games out of first place. The way this team acts with no sense of urgency you would think the season is over. They had a day off yesterday, bring him in and make a determination of his availability. This teams plays not to lose instead of playing to win. This is just getting frustrating.

Losing Farmer does not hurt this team, having Lee over Julien makes us better. We need to win the next two games and stop the skid they are on, put your best team out there. Move either one of those out,

It doesn't look like Lee will be here tomorrow, He is not in the lineup for St. Paul and it has been reported he is still in Omaha. Is there no sense of urgency to help this team. They are acting like we are in May and we have plenty of time left in the season.

So instead they keep signing pitchers who have had one good year or they think they can magically fix when no one else can. I don't think their methodology is working, that is when you try something different.

Actually the numbers say they are pretty equal in getting run on-Vasqy has thrown out 9 of 53 runners-17%, Jeffers has thrown out 8 of 55 runners-15%. The pitchers need to hold runners on, but the organizational philosophy is that stolen bases are not important in the analytics world so they don't emphasize holding runners on or to steal bases on offense. So the criticism of Jeffers I think is not completely fair.