PDX Twin

Nine pitches and grab your gloves.

I usually prefer slower basebaths anyway. Otherwise it splashes too much.

What about the interior makeup? Is he Luiz Arraez, listening to and working with the likes of Carew to get better every day? Or is he Miguel Sano, ignoring advice, swinging for the stat line, and burning himself out trying to hit 500-foot bombs? That's going to go a long way toward determining his long-run success.

It's not the baseball tradition, but there's nothing wrong with ties. I hate the American tradition (which has now spread to American football and hockey) that there must be a winner and a loser in every game. USSF even had American pro leagues doing tie-breaker shootouts for regular-season games a couple of decades ago until FIFA overruled them saying (correctly) that it was contrary to the uniform, international Laws of the Game.

Wonderful stuff.

Maybe this was covered in other articles, but how many other hitters have had this surgery and what were the results? It's nice to know that there is an example of success, but if it is one out of 50 I'm less optimistic.

If they all seem too high, maybe we just don't have a very good list from which to pick! :)

Lovely tributes and great stories. Some tell you as much about the story-teller as about the subject.

Yes. Count me among that "many." I'll give the 2023 Twins a chance to win me over, but my prediction is that my MLB.TV subscription will not be used much this year. Watching three-outcome hitters is about as exciting as watching someone roll Strat-O-Matic dice.

https://www.startribune.com/twins-trade-luis-arraez-batting-craftsman-doesnt-set-well-patrick-reusse/600245265/ Says is all, and well.

So instead of watching Arraez work the count and play intelligent baseball, I get to watch Gallo strike out. No thanks. I'll watch fewer games this year.

I wonder if Boras has secretly taken an ownership interest in the Twins. He suddenly seems to be great pals with the Twins' FO.

His perfect position is in the league in which the Saints formerly played. He'd be a gate attraction, hit a bunch of ooh-aah homeruns against bad pitching, and salve his ego. I doubt he needs much money.

Don't you mean a glut?

I am in favor of robo umps, but I dislike the challenge system because it embarrasses the umpire, takes time, and requires the challenging team to ration its challenges, which isn't really fair if there are lots of mistakes. When it's feasible, let's get the call correct the first time and not embarrass the umpire by overturning it. The umpire has an earpiece (or buzzer or something) that gives him the call from the automated system. He or she can then make the call on the field just as always. If there is a glitch in the automated system (which is bound to happen occasionally, maybe in strange weather or if piece of equipment gets near the strike zone), the umpire simply ignores the machine and gives the correct call.

That's easy. Follow the Manchester City model: Get bought out by a sports-mad sheikh who uses every trick in the book to plow hundreds of millions of dollars into the club (sponsorships, overpriced luxury box subscriptions, even buying the stadium from the club). And that's in English football where there are (ineffective) "financial fair-play" restrictions that attempt to punish clubs that have expenses far in excess of revenues.

TD seems to have forgotten about him completely. Lots of articles about pitching going forward have not even mentioned his name. I had to go back to the Twins' site to make sure he was still on the roster. But you are totally accurate that he is a potential boost for the next two years, when we will seemingly lack veteran starters.

There are 30 teams in MLB. All of them are trying to improve. It's a zero-sum game because the league player pool doesn't improve or degrade much year to year. If the Twins are going to get better, someone else is going to get worse. With the exception of a few "tankers" at the bottom, no one wants to get worse. There are a few fortuitous "double coincidences of wants," but mostly the only way to get better is by outspending the other teams---not a strategy that is feasible for the Twins most of the time---or by substituting current players for future players in trades. In the case of the Correa transaction, the Twins have decided to devote a huge fraction of their limited payroll (about 20%) to single player for the next 6 years, knowing that most of the rest of the team is (for now) cheap. This is a very risky strategy. We'll all be cheering for it to pay off and for the cheap peripheral players to evolve into cheap (for now) stars. But last season shows the downside: Neither Correa nor any other player can carry a team alone and without good team health and more than few teammates emerging as stars, we will be doomed to watching something like Ernie Banks's perennially losing Cubs. Correa makes the 2023 Twins better and more of a contender, but they could have been a contender without him with good health and successful seasons from the rest of the team (as in 2019). And they could fail to be a contender with him (as in September 2022). Important deal, but not a guarantee of success, or even of improvement.

Great take from the New York Times:

Maybe Al Davis's ghost can assemble a team with Bauer, Donaldson, and others to emulate the 1970s Oakland Raiders... Big NO for the Twins.

Not to mention Houston, who parlayed a few years of very high draft picks into a long spell of contention and championships. It wasn't all banging on trash cans.

This is simply wrong. Perhaps it would be better to say that "The Twins continue to follow a path I don't like." Or maybe "The Twins continue to follow a path that doesn't involve throwing silly money at every shiny free agent." The Twins' path will lead to a decent team on the field that, if luck goes right, will be competitive in their division. The Twins' path will lead to a team that doesn't lose tens of millions of dollars for their owners, who are not in this for charity. The Twins' team will have some good players, some interesting players, and some players that don't perform up to the standard we would like. This is what we sign up for when we become Twins fans. I'll be watching and cheering with interest this summer as long as the players are putting in the effort and as long as there are some players I find interesting to watch. (I don't find strikeout kings like Joey Gallo interesting to watch, so to that part of the path has disappointed me.) Too many writers on this site seem to think that the Twins are something that they are not, and that there are no constraints (monetary, willing trading partners, or player interest in joining) that might stand in the way of signing everyone on the all-star team. They are one of 30 teams all trying to get better. They are not one of the richest (or poorest). They are probably not the best-run, but not the worst-run. They have successes in player development and recruitment, and they have failures. My season will be full of cheering, always hoping, sometimes regretting, and sometimes celebrating, but very little criticizing. It's better that way!

Had to smile at this juxtaposition. ? Of course, they all seem like kids to us oldsters, but at what age should we stop thinking about him as a "local kid"?

Correa was not an all-star last year, was he?

Exactly. Just no to all of the above. Let's see what Miranda and the other kids can do. If there is a problem and we are contenders, pick up someone at the deadline.