Trov

I am not surprised by Dobnak's recent struggles, I was always hoping he would be the exception, but seems like his pitch to contact approach has started to fail him. As more hitters see him for multiple times they are being fooled less and fouling off many pitches. Also, one risk you have with the shift, as shown last night and recently, is that you leave giant holes that soft contact will get through. If you are hoping for soft contact ground balls the need for the shift is reduced. Also, if hitters are not expected to hit HR due to downward movements of the pitch they know hitting other way even weak will produce hits. If you are going to **** you need to pitch to it as well and have the pitches come inside more often. I am getting annoyed with Dick talking about how Dobnak is not getting beat around, well no, but he is hitting guys, walking guys and giving up hits to giant holes in the field. You do not need to give up hard contact to get beat. Those weak ground balls to giant holes was not bad luck, it was good hitting.

Polonco has look much better this year, his throws have not been crazy off like in the past. To me the biggest surprise is Sano. He has looked much better than I expected. Is he gold glove no, but I was very worried he was going to let way too many throws past him.

That is a good point about the only possible 40 man spot, but if either Avila or Garver cannot go post-season, we could move either to long term DL as well. I mean Garver has to be getting close to 40 days by now anyways.

I agree you have little to lose to add him to 40 man, by putting Rooker on 60 day or 40 day as it is this year. Bring in Kiriloff and see what he has last couple weeks. If he is swinging good let him play in the playoffs. I have high hopes for the kid, and all reports are the kid can swing the bat for sure.

Terrible, not fun game to watch. I blame the terrible home plate ump, I have not like Angel Hernadez for years. The man's zone is all over the place, with all the walks you would think it was tiny, but he was not consistent at all. Sure, he did not hit into the inning ending double plays, but when both pitcher and hitter are guessing on what will be called it is hard to have an approach up there.

If the games are played in a bubble, how will this affect the schedule? Will it mean less, more, or same off days. Meaning will you need to plan for a 3 man, 4 man or 5 man rotation? That really affects plans. After that is figured out, you can plan the starters. The pen is up in the air with so many doing well, but Rodgers not doing well. Finally, the lineup will be what it is not much you can do about injuries. Lucky we are deep and Jeffers is doing better on both sides, in my opinion, than Garver was this season before he went down.

I will not take much from what has happened this year as a trend for anyone. This is not any kind of normal year. Players did not get same way to prepare and you are seeing many different players not playing like you would expect. The different in aggressiveness could be pitchers different approach, or maybe he is needing to track pitches and still off on timing, who knows. In a normal year we would be in May, and starting to talk about adjustments that need to be made. Lets hope he makes the adjustments that need to be made and he has a hot end of the year. If not, we can see what next year brings and if it continues to look like 2019 was an outlier season, then we look to move on from him.

I am kind of sick of the Rodgers getting unlucky argument. This has been going on all season, when is bad luck just going to be he is getting beat. Last night, he walked lead off guy, was that bad luck? Even when you have terrible ump behind the plate you knew what he was doing back there, pitch to the ump you have not the one you want. Then he walked second guy, okay the box said ball 4 should have been a strike, but it was right on edge, again pitch to take that call away from ump. Then you have the "bad luck" weak contact, or was it just really good hitting by Engle who saw Polonco vacate the middle of the field meaning anything hit hard enough to reach outfield was going to be hit. Okay, then you have the lazy fly, sweet he got an out. Then the rocket hit by Anderson for a double. I honestly turned it off because in a 1-1 game in normal time it should not have been that late. So I cannot comment on what happened after that, but overall Rodgers has not looked like he has in the past. I will agree 17 inning is not a huge sample size and I am not going to say he is cooked, but I am also not going to say he should get the last 3 outs every game or more like he did a few times last year. He is not lights out right now, so go with hot hand or who you think will get job done. I cringe when he goes out there right now. Can he have a 17 inning stretch of no runs, yes, but until he looks lights out I will still cringe. Either way, enough with the just bad luck stuff, it is not just bad luck every time.

There is some argument to be made here, that this would be best year to break the trend. I just loath seeing those games, even in regular games.

I would be more worried about Duffy, if we were not as deep as we are in the pen, and we did not have a manager that will not just march his guy out there because he is the guy in that spot. If the team thinks Duffy is cooked or will not get it done they will choose someone else. Other managers will just follow the well Duffy is top setup guy so put him out there in this spot. Rocko does not roll that way. Dobnak I am not worried about either because he is not in top 3 starters, may be number 4, but not like we are leaning on him to carry us, he has just been a nice story and been good, but he will not be the reason we fail in the playoffs. Polonco is worth keeping an eye on, but at this point playoffs are going to be a lock basically, just against who. Let them rest if they need it.

I expect Rooker to be on a MLB team next year, maybe not Twins but he looked solid enough that he is MLB ready.

Anyone but the Yankees. I really do not care who, but anyone but them. I see the Yankees getting fully healthy and sweeping us in 2 games if we play them. We could play them anywhere at any time and we would lose. They could send out little league players and we would lose. For whatever reason we just fold when we face them in playoffs. Judge and Stanton will most likely be back too by playoffs and will not be the same offense that they are fielding right now.

This series will be very interesting to see how Twins do. We have not performed well on the road this season, but we have done well against the Sox overall. 4 games we will see how each team a whole compares. Twins have been hitting well lately. Hopefully this carries over to the road and they keep it up. Pitching overall has been strong too. I hope they can stay hot rest of the season right into October.

There will be a lot of suitors for him next year if DH is across the board. However, I think he has been happy here and Twins will try to keep him. I think it would take a strong push from a team that is similarly set to win now to get him to move on to them. He is not from U.S. so no I always wanted to play for home town team at end of career like some U.S. born guys do. I bet he is back with Twins unless some other team just pays a ton for him and Twins not willing to match.

In terms of Yankees, they at least still have their starting catcher, sure he is hitting like he is on the injured list, but we are on catchers 3 and 4. We also lost our starting 3b for half the season, starting cf for a few weeks, and been rotating pitchers like crazy because of injuries. Every team has dealt with injuries some maybe more than others. It is the fact that the starters or fill ins have faded when the stars have gone on shelf. Maybe it is the pressure, or maybe it is the circumstances of COVID that is messing with players heads, but there are a lot of top talent that are not playing anywhere close to what they normally do this season.

Has there been an announcement for a bubble in playoffs yet? I have not seen it. I know they have talked about it. That being said, home team, regardless of where, has an advantage of hitting last.

This week will clear up a lot of things overall I think. We will make playoffs. Sure might be nice to be division winner to host 3 since we cannot seem to win on the road. It will most likely be against whoever finishes third in this group.

I would not move any of the starters to pen, if they do not make starting list they can sit out the post-season. Out of pen you want guys that can strike out guys, which is what we have now. This is because if you ever come in with runners on the K is the best way to limit runs from scoring. If they are the 5th or 6th starter it is unlikely they would be ahead of the 6th or even 8th pen arm. If I had to choose, Hill would be the guy only because he has done pen work in the past and would be a change of pace for a short burst. Overall, the pen has been good, and even the unproven guys have stepped up to look good. Yes, each have had a rough outing or two but that is going to happen, just hope not in the playoffs.

I do not mind the 7 inning games for double headers, and would be fine with that move for double headers only in the future as well. Not for non-double-headers though. Pittsburgh is in the central because there are 5 teams in the NL that are more east. Miami, Mets, Nats, Phills, Atlanta. Plus they are the closest to the other NL central teams compared to other NL east teams. So sometimes it would seem it does not make much sense on where teams are, but lines have to be drawn somewhere. I am not fan of the 60 games, but I get it. I get the expanded playoffs, which makes the 60 game season even less of an issue. I do not have an issue with how the playoffs will be though. Having best of 3 is better than a first round single game at least.

We will not know how well the team does in terms of building a good system for a few more years. The key is being able to keep reloading talent as they age and leave via FA or we trade them. Look at Cleveland on how they keep producing pitchers over and over to trade away. Now, they have failed to get good hitting over and over, and they have tried to using pitching depth in trades to load up hitting, but overall has not been all to great lately. Twins have seemed to find some diamonds in the rough lately for some good stints and that is also key to success. Not every top pick will be a MLB player, but finding some late picks to make up for that is always key. We also will not know for another year or two on how great the picks were. So far Jeffers looks MLB level ready and Rooker has had hot start. The rest will come next year or two.

It will be hard for Detriot to come back as they will need to play Cleveland and Sox. I said at beginning of season it will be very hard to have 4 teams from 1 division because of having to play each other. Is it possible yes, but the Yankees, Baltimore, and Seattle will have to lose. Not sure if Yankees and Baltimore will play each other any more. It is crazy how a few injuries to Yankees has cost them so much. They are not alone with issues. Rays have had a ton of injuries, Twins are on there 3rd and 4th catcher, missed several games of "top" starters, many different pen arms, loss of Buck, Donadlson, Arriez, and others. Not saying Yankess are not missing top players, but they failed to have others step up. This is another season of Stanton missing major games. His is by far the most overpaid player due to health.

Lets not forget Pineda was once a top prospect. Injuries really derailed his career early on. If he can stay healthy he shows he can be a good pitcher. Maybe not an Ace, but very good. If he keeps looking this good I bet he will be top 2 pitcher in post season, and we could have a very good top 3 rotation.

I fully believe this will be his last year with team. My guess he will not be traded for all the reasons stated. He will just get DFA and may sign on with a team that is light on OF. We have too many good prospects that will be better than Eddie to keep running him out there. I always liked him, but he has regressed it would seem over the years and not improved. With not knowing what next year will bring, I bet there is no way the Twins will keep him. I would like to defend his base running yesterday. It was not a bad decision to try and take third. If the throw goes home, like most of the time it will, he gets praised for a great heads up running play, but the defense decided get the sure out and let run score. Chances of scoring from third go up a lot with less than 2 outs. If there were no out or 2 outs I would feel different but with 1 out I am okay with him trying to sneak in there thinking the throw would be going home. Now, that being said, if he had just ran hard the whole way he may have just made it outright.

Of the three listed to discuss Odo has worst FA approaching. He took the QO, one for liking MN, and two risk of not getting as good of deal elsewhere. We assume based on other offers he could have, but we will never know now. It was looking good if he could have produced close to what he did last year, but he failed to do so. He also will not be likely to long term deal like most players not knowing what next 2 years bring. If he could have secured his bag last off-season that would have been good for him. May, I do not think is much of an issue because of shifting cost of pen guys. Very few get more than a 2 year deal, and they are top closer guys, which May is not, despite having good numbers in big situations. This year he has struggled in some games. I do not think he is missing out on much as I doubt he would have got a huge deal even in normal FA year. Finally, as said Adrianza is replaceable and aging. Bench guys past age 31 will not be in high demand for more than league min. No team was going to go higher than that in normal season. He may not get offer now because teams may want cheaper internal option but he was not going to get multi year offer anywhere.

A couple comments. Eddie is who he is and will not change now. The base running is not his first time nor will be his last time he makes bad base running call. Sometimes it pays off and we do not remember those times, but we will remember all the bad ones. In terms of defense he is not great overall but has a strong arm. A better fielder could have robbed the HR, but I do not blame him for it. The non ground rule double I do not blame him for not knowing the rule, but he still could have given a little bit of effort to throw the ball in until he saw the call by the umps, play to the whistle as they say in football. In grand scheme it did not cost team much as they would have let the runs score on next hit anyways most likely. If you want to blame anyone for Eddie not knowing the rule that is on Rocco for not teaching all the players the rules. Austidillo should never catch unless we have no other options. I like to see him hit and run because as a bigger guy my self I like to think if he can I could have in my day, but I really could not. However, he is a terrible defender out there. Here is to hoping Garver or Avila can be back soon. The double off day will hopefully limit us to one more game of him catching, a 7 inning game at that. In terms of pen, they did blow this game and they all failed, but that will happen from time to time, not worried.