naobermiller

Perkins throwing Pinto under the bus like that was a pretty low brow move. "You know, Josmil is a young guy with a lot of potential who's still learning some of the subtleties of the game at the major league level. I can't wait to see him when he puts it all together" You mention the fact that he's still working on some stuff, but you still lift him up. Much simpler

Here's my one concern about Perkins (it's horribly formatted, but it's Season/Saves/4Seam Velocity/2Seam Velocity in that order Season 4-seam Velocity 2Seam Velocity 2011 (2 Svs) 93.8 94.0 2012 (16) 95.2 94.4 2013 (36) 95.2 94.4 2014 (23) 93.4 93.0 This may be an aberration, maybe he wasn't 100% healthy coming into the year, and maybe it will pick back up. But 2 pitch relievers who rely on a Fastball/Hard Slider combo don't always fare well when they start losing velocity. That being said, Perkins will have trade value next year as well, since his contract will still be team friendly (2 extra years of control plus a team option). I hope he stays in Minnesota, as I think 2015/2016 competitive dates for the Twins are very real. Just get a little concerned about looking back and saying "I wish we had traded him then" (a la Willingham)

Aaron Hicks goes 1-5 with three strike outs, but that one hit was a grand slam

Buxton missing his second consecutive game.....

The question I have, is why was it planned. May threw 47 pitches. 50 pitches seems like a ridiculously low pitch count, especially for a calf strain. If I'm putting my tin foil hat on and getting creative, could it be possible the Twins saw a poor outing from Pino at AAA, wanted May to go out and test the leg, but then cut him short after three innings, consider this a bull pen session and have him ready to start for the Twins on Tuesday? The optimist in me is begging for this to be the case. I realize it's more likely that May is going to have a few starts at AAA since coming off the injury. 50 pitches just seemed very very low...

When Buxton is ready to go to AA, Hicks will go to AAA.

Still haven't seen any talk of an injury, so pretty safe to say we can rule that out. Ryan is playing mum about it. Questions abound over whether the Twins will call upon May or Meyer to join their big-league rotation this season. The team's starting slot for Tuesday's game is open, but it's likely that Yohan Pino, Sam Deduno or Kris Johnson will take the spot vacated by Ricky Nolasco, who is not eligible to come off the disabled list until Wednesday. On Saturday, Ryan remained mum. "I have a feel for it," he said, "but I'm not gonna divulge it." I know that it's likely not going to be May or Meyer, but it just seems weird some of the things that have happened with those two. 47 pitches in a return for May seems low for any pitch count. The day Nolasco went on the DL, Meyer out of nowhere stretched out to 99 pitches.

If the rest of the season depends on a pitcher who is in his first full season at the major league level, that should tell you how much trouble the team is in. Gibson is doing fine, his inconsistency is consistent with that of a young pitcher.

I'm glad I found this post....I might just fill this page up

Hadn't considered that, but that seems extra strict though

After giving up 1ER on 3 hits and 1BB to go with 3Ks, May gets pulled after 3 innings in tonight's game. He threw 47 pitches, 30 for strikes. 2 possibilities: 1) Injury forced him out 2) After Pino's poor start on Thursday, they treat this like a bullpen session and pull him after three innings to call him up for Tuesday's start. Anyone with info?

That is basically the definition of a tough luck loss. Gives up the lone run in the bottom of the 6th of a seven inning double header. Very nice game though. No extra base hits. All four hits were singles

After striking out in the top of the 10th, Buxton returned to the field in the bottom of the inning. Having him swing a bat was what I was worried about, so at least early signs point to everything is just fine

they're going to extra innings. Buxton has been in the field since it happened. Hopefully he'll get an at bat here and we'll get to see Edit: Buxton coming up in the top of the 10th with runners on 2nd and 3rd

....

He was hit by a pitch. He went to the field.....they haven't mentioned it since. Hopefully I'm just crazy

I just turned the Fort Myers online stream and I heard the announcer say "hopefully Buxton is alright" heading into the break. Buxton was on base and ended the inning on the base paths. Anyone listening know what happened?

If Nolasco struggles coming back this year, do you cut your losses, look at him as a long man/6th starter and pursue a big name starter like Lester/Scherzer/Shields with the worst case scenario being you have an expendable young arm to use as trade bait (e.g. Dan Straily with Oakland) Edit: I should clarify, by worst case scenario, I mean Nolasco performs well and maybe one of your young guys doesn't

I was reading the story on here about the Yankees prodigous spending in the international market and various ways of approaching the international market. The most interesting line I pulled from it actually came from the comments (Oxtung); They have money to spend and need to spend it somewhere. The questions really just becomes where should that be? I think this really describes the Twins heading into this off-season. As you said, the hope is that Meyer and May will get called up this year and be able to settle in to the starting rotation at the start of next year, so pursuing a big name starter seems doubltful. Arcia, Mauer and Dozier will be on the opening day roster in LF, 1B and 2B respectively. Whoever is at 3B is keeping the seat warm for Sano, and Plouffe is still under team control, so why not let him stay there in hopes that he has a breakout year and maybe can be a big trade piece in 2015. Pinto is waiting in the wings to catch, and Suzuki will likely be the cream of the free agent catching crop anyway, but that's only about 7-9million invested. CF is ear marked for Buxton, and I think the hope is that Hicks can find it and be your RF, with a very real possibility that both of those guys are up here mid to early 2015. We have a closer locked up for another couple years, and Fien is just heading into Arbitration. We also have Burdi who should move up through the minors pretty quickly. What I'm getting at....Where do you spend the money? Casual fans won't be happy if the payroll is sitting around 70million, so I think ownership will want to stay on par with what they did and be around mid to upper 90s, if not jumping up into 100million.

Since a lot of the talk seems to be hovering around prospective trades, I wanted posit a different topic. Projections for opening day payroll in 2015. What we know: Payroll is currently at $94 million. The FO spent some money this past off-season, adding $30mil in free agents from the end of the year 2013, and also tried to lure Matt Garza with another with a deal worth another 14mil per year over three years (though whether they would have spent on Morales if they got Garza is something we'll never know). For the second consecutive year, the organization has a fair amount of salary coming off the books. Morales - 7.5mil Willingham - 7mil Correia - 5.5mil Suzuki - 2.75mil Guerrier - 0.8mil Kubel - 2.0mil Burton (option) - 3.25 ------------------- Total: 28.6mil (31.8mil) This leaves payroll at around 62mil when you throw in pre-arb/arbitration players. The organization has 53 million in committed contracts heading into 2015. The question is two-fold: 1) Where do you expect/want payroll to be on opening day in 2015? 2) Where do you expect/want to see the biggest additions to the payroll?

Quoted for Truth

Nice Data

2/3rds of the time (less than two outs), if a hitter triples, the thought of the next batter becomes "Sac Fly and get that run in from third". With a double, you still have a hitter thinking single to drive in the run

So I was doing a little research on Alex, and I came across something odd. I was under the assumption that Meyer was on a pretty strict pitch count this year due to his shoulder surgery. But when I look at his game logs on baseball-reference (here) I see two games at 100 pitches and another at 92 in late April and early May. Are these accurate? If they are, is there any reason they seemed to cut him back after that?

Also reposting my response from the blog entry. While it's hard to argue with 6 innings of shut out ball, in a low leverage game like that you'd hope he could go a little deeper. Gibson was able to work out of the jams he put himself in though.