Trov

I would agree they have a legit chance to compete in the central. Chicago has dealt with similar injuries to starting rotation and lineup, maybe not the number of injuries we have had, but to starters. They have played similar schedule to us. I do not think the Gurdians will hang with us both. Chicago will expect big things when they get some injured guys back. The issue with Chicago is they are a bad fielding club and in close games that will hurt them sometimes. They have some good pitching, their pen has struggled at times. So will the Twins keep pace? I think they can and will. They have shown their own improvement in hitting overall, and shown depth that they could live with some injuries, as they have, and still compete. Now, do I have faith they are a top team, no they have issues that other top teams do not. Can they fix those things, or get on a hot streak in the playoffs sure. Just as they could lay an egg in the playoffs with the best possible team.

I will agree you can always use more pitching. We have already used several starters in the first month plus of the season. Is Evaldi the right guy? As I say with all trades if the price is right. I would not give up much to get him at this point. He is not pitching well overall, but his history of doing so would give me some willing to use him. He would not be the first SP to fall off the cliff though in his early 30's. Lopez I would be willing to take on as well. He may be like many starters that when they get into that full time pen roll runs with it. Liam Hendriks comes to mind, along with many others. That being said I give up nothing major for him. Do not buy high on a guy that has never had long term success in the MLB. He has the possible stuff but for all we know this is SSS out of pen and as year progresses he falls apart. I wrote a long forum on the 1st base situation. I am not a fan of trading for anyone at this point. Bell would be a fine piece, but I think he is more smoke than fire. He is in his 6th year with a career WAR of 6.8. He only has two years of WAR above 1. Last year he did have a 3.1 WAR, and this year at .8. He could be an upgrade, but I think his numbers look a little more flashy than what his career has long been. He has also hit into 12 double plays this year. He has shown flashes of stardom in past only to have long stretches of poor hitting. His defense is average at best too. I would be worried we would be buying high on him when we have several possible options. Arraez has actually a higher OPS than Bell right now. Sure he has 3 less HR, and 3 less doubls, neither have a triple, but Arraez also has 50 less plate appearances and only 1 double play hit into. Yes, Bell has a better defense right now, but Arraez just started to play it, I would expect some improvement over the year if he stays there. Kirolloff may come back, or other guys could look to transition into it. My main point is, Bell does not appear to be the upgrade some will want, and if it means less playing time for Arraez overall, I am not a fan of it.

I am all for the pitch clock, or something that keeps the game moving. I love the guys like Joe Ryan who get the ball and ready to throw it. Mark Burhle was that way too. His games were so fast because he did not take forever between pitches when no one was on base. The strict pitch clock may not be the perfect way to do it, but it is not just the length of the game, but the long time between pitches. This is not just on the pitcher but the hitter to. He will take a ton of time sometimes. As players start to get used to it, they will adjust. Keep the action going is what I say.

I have not seen every one of Celestino's hits over past few weeks. However, the ones I have seen may not have been rockets but they are far from just pure luck as well. He has hit the ball softly to the opposite field in may of them. He appears to be trying to find the hole in the defense and finding it. Now, as teams adjust to him, will he adjust to that? That is really the question. I would feel more on your side if all the hits were infield hits, or soft pop ups that were finding holes in outfield. I have seen a lot of softer liners and ground balls to the holes in the infield. I would take a 85MPH grounder through a hole that he meant to hit it at, than a 110 MPH right at the defender for an out. Hitting the ball hard will generally lead to more hits, and more extra base hits, but hitting the ball through a hole because no one is standing there will always produce a hit. I am not advocating for him to be regular starter, but also I do not feel he is getting just lucky as well.

Twins are in first place right now. They have played a light schedule for the most part. In about two weeks we start to play some higher class of opponents. As of right now our first base position has been worst in the league overall. Only Arraez has managed to hit, but his defense has not been good, but not terrible compared to other positions he has played some this year. First, should the Twins make a trade for a first baseman? We have had several guys play over there and Arraez is only one that has hit, and none have shown amazing defense to make up for lack of hitting. So should we look to bring one in? If we did, that would mean Arraez would move off of first. Do we want that? His bat is good enough to play at this level, even though some not happy his lack of power. With his poor defense at every other position so far this year, do we want him playing defense anywhere else? Should he just DH then? If we do not make a trade and do not want Arraez to play at first, who do we use? Kirilloff has not done anything, but had a couple of good games in AAA, can we wait to see if he starts hitting? Sano is out for at least another 45 days or so, based on going on 60 day DL. Miranda looks lost at the plate, and defense not there yet much either. Really, I do not see much in the team to step up if you do not want Arraez to play there. Is it too early to make a trade? Very few teams would be selling right now, aside from a few teams. I see maybe nine teams that would be giving up right now, my guess less would admit it. Oakland, Reds, Pirates, Cubs, Rockies, Diamond Backs, KC, Detroit, and Nationals. Of those teams, I would say six have traditional first base guys that would be up for a trade. Reds, Pirates, KC, Rockies, Nats, and Diamond Backs. I am limiting to traditional because why would we trade for a non traditional first base when we have plenty that could do that. Reds have Votto, who up until this year I would have been more than happy to have, but age may have finally caught up to him. He has negative WAR, sub .300 obp and OPS of .413. That is worse than just about all we are putting out there now. KC has Carlos Santana, who is putting up similar numbers, so he is out in my mind. Pirates have Daniel Vogelbach, who is putting up career numbers in short sample size, and his defense is not considered good, just okay. Diamond Backs have Christian Walker, who is putting up career HR numbers, but rest is nothing super special, and his defense is average as well.. Rockies have our old friend CJ Cron who is off to good start, but much like most Rockies, the home road split is crazy. He is also under contract for 2 years, therefore I think he would be out. Rockies may not even look to move him, but they really should if a team thinks he will put up those numbers for them. That leaves the Nats and Josh Bell. Many have brought up his name. If we are looking to make a trade he would be the best available right now. He is putting up career numbers for batting average and OBP but not OPS. Meaning his power could still improve. His BB to K ratio is more walks than K's, way out of line with his career, has he made a change or just SSS and will regress a bit there? We have seen this from him in past in 2019 where he had huge drop off in second half. He also is below average on defense, so you need this level of offense to sustain going forward. A few questions come up. Is he available for trade? Most likely, but Nationals may try to wait out a bit to see if more bidders come along. How much would it take to get him? In part that may depend on if the Nats are willing to trade him now or wait it out to see if other teams want his bat. With DH for all teams there could be a lot of teams willing to take him for DH purposes as his defense is poor. If I was the Nats I keep him until closer to deadline and see how many teams get into the bidding, assuming he keeps hitting well. Overall, I would say if we could get Bell right now for low cost I would do it. Use his offense to help ride out some wins here. However, I find it unlikely that will happen. It will be interesting to see how our first base position develops over the next couple months, and if any other first basemen become available. Maybe our internal options develop, or Arraez learns to play there better. It is clearly right now our biggest need, I just am not sure there is a cheap clear upgrade there right now. I would expect Bell to regress back to his career norms, which on offense is still better than what we have been running out there, but he is still not amazing.

I fully agree with your comments on the signing bad long term contracts. Yes, the Twins can afford to sign some guys to long term deals and maybe afford a larger payroll, people need to remember even though owners have billions they are still business people and losing money as a business is not a good business. I have said for years, to sign a player to a long term deal you need to be sure they are the right guy. Signing a guy like Donaldson to 4 year deal like they did, if he was terrible they are not tied to him for years playing a bad player. Look at some of the deals of future HOF Pujols and Cabrera, both of which did not win a WS with their teams they signed huge deals with. Once Pujols hit age 36, he was getting paid at least 25 mil a year, an extra mil each year, and had negative WAR. Meaning LA was paying him over 25 mil a year to be a player that should not be playing. Cabrera hit 34 and was getting paid 28 mil or more and has been negative WAR. Those are just two examples of guys that are likely to go to HOF and shows how much of a drop off you get when they hit mid 30s. Locking up Correa on a 10 year deal will have at minimum a couple of dead years, but as a SS most likely his defense will start to drop before his bat does. Then you are shifting him to a lower impact position. Some teams can afford to do this, but most cannot. Now, if Correa would take a 7 year deal at top pay I would think that is a risk the Twins can take, but reports are he is looking for 10 plus. The first 5 years most likely you are getting fair value, the next couple is a bit more of a risk, but last three is not likely to be anywhere close to good value, and now you are stuck with them. Remember when everyone was mad about Joe's contract at the end? Everyone would say same about Correa by the end. Now, if the Twins are willing to take that risk of being very overpaid the last few years and believe the first 5 to 7 years will be worth bad years, then go for it. However, that is something people need to think about is down the road. I am not even getting in on pitching as they are even more a risk when signing them long term.

I feel June will tell us a lot about this team and if we are just an upper middle class team that will fade a bit or not. It is still hard to judge this team because we have pitched well, but not facing top offensive teams, so is it a product of who we are facing. We did hold Cleveland down who was one of the better offenses the first month though. However, our offense has not been clicking and dealing with injuries and slow starts I do have some optimism they will start to hit more when people get healthy and heated up. The main issue has been hitting with runners on base. It looks like the team may be heating up some on offense. Eventually the starting pitching will start to have some bumps and the pen will have some rough runs too. We just need to have the offense going when some of that happens.

I think Larnach is doing rehab in AA because they are much closer to where Twins will be this weekend that he may be getting called up and can take a 3 hour car ride instead of having to find a flight from Omaha. I hope he does come back and swinging like he was to be every day LF. I like Gordon overall, but Larnach is a much better hitter when swinging well. Good to see Lewis staying hot. I hope he starts to force the teams hand in next month. Balazovic is starting to worry me. I am glad we can take our time with him to get back to what he was, but this has been a stretch of not very good starts. SWR is not dominating as he was, but maybe starts like this are best for him. He was not dominating had runners on but did not give up a bunch of runs. I am looking forward to see him called up to AAA after break.

Donaldson is performing better in NY than he did in his two years with Twins. He has better dwar right now in 35 games than his whole time as a Twin. He is doing better than he did in MN. It could be the change of team, the different line up, or change in how he is used on defense that is making these numbers. We do not know if he would be performing at same level. It could be he just was not right for what Twins wanted, or maybe his legs are staying healthy in NY.

I have always liked him when healthy. I think he will need to stay on the 40 man now as he has shown enough that any team will be willing to snag him. I think he could be one that fills in during some injuries and showcases himself to either stick with team, or be a trade piece at deadline. I think now he is entering his prime he will have a couple of decent years. It was just we could not count on him at all after last year.

I would agree that Urshella has been good on the defense side of the ball. He has missed some plays but made some crazy good plays too. However, on offense he has not been good, despite some HR. He has failed to get it done with runners on base, kind of reminding me of Trevor Plouffe, hits when bases are empty but once there is someone he will fail. Sanchez has been better at catcher than I expected. On offense he is heating up and will hit plenty of HR as season goes on. He has been hitting the ball hard most of the season. What I wish he would improve on is his chases. There is a fine line between not taking a third strike and expanding the zone too much. I know he will continue to swing when there are 2 strikes as he will not allow a called third strike on him in most at bats. I had issues with him continuing to hit middle of line up when he was not doing much, but right now ride the hot streak.

I think Kirilloff will need to show a sustained run of solid at-bats. I doubt is about the stat line, but how is his swing looking. All year at MLB level it was terrible with no good hard contact and everything into the ground. Even his hits were weak. With having some extra base hits maybe he is figuring out how to live with his writs, or maybe he just had a couple good games. I would give him another week or two before making in moves, unless there is another injury to someone at MLB level. We can use an offensive boost, but not so bad that we rush him back. Let him take the time figure out his swing again.

I fully agree that first is our biggest issue. Arraez has the general hitting ability, not the power you expect from first, but he lacks defense right now. Kiriloff may figure out the wrist issue, but if not I think they should look to bring in someone. Left is only an issue because no one has stepped in to be the every day guy, but rotating different guys has not been terrible. Every team can say they need more starting pitching. So far this year starting pitching has not been an issue, so to just assume it will be in the second half seems odd to me. Maybe it will, but to just say that it will be, when we have run 8 out there so far, down to 7 total healthy now with Paddock out, but we have internal options if some regress, get hurt. I would not agree we need to trade for a vet. I also disagree we need an ace to win in the playoffs. There are times an ace can make a huge difference, but rarely do they make the full difference, even more this day in age.

For the commenters that are attacking Roco on the decision to roll with Winder as their plan was to do so. Managing a 162 game season will have games where you send a guy out to save the rest of the pen. Winder has the ability to throw the pitches he did, it was not like he is exclusively pen guy that was getting stretched out. I am not saying it was the right move or the wrong move. The point is each move in a 162 game season impacts future games. You cannot play each game like it is a game 7. Now, if this was a playoff game and the comment was we had a plan and stuck with it, that is a terrible comment in must win games, you adjust to the game and do what you can to win that game. However, this was not a must win game. We will have many more wins and losses before the season ends. I do not understand the single game micro decision making people harp on. This is one of 162 and we have no clue if making a change to bring in someone else earlier would have changed the outcome of last nights game, but it would have affected who would be able to pitch todays game.

I long have been a supporter of Buck, but also stated he would not play a full season, as he never has. The contract he reached really accounts for his lack of health, and pays him more if he can stay healthy. It was actually a good contract for the Twins and Buck. When on the field he is worth one of the highest paid player in the game. However, we knew he would not play even 150 games a year. I also feel when he plays DH his value is dropped a ton as much of his value is on his defense. However, he is worth the contract as he will play about half a season each year. One comment on the counting stats versus antilytic stats. No one stat tells a full story. They need to always be taken into context. Also no stat predicts future outcomes either, they can only be compared to see if they are in line with expected results. I could go off for a long time about that issue, but I do agree WAR as a whole is best to look at as an overall looking at most stats, but it is not predictive either.

If Miranda did not look lost at the plate right now, and Lewis was not raking for a struggling offense I would be okay with the decision. However, right now we have little to no offense to speak of and Lewis has been on of the bright spots in that line up over his short time here. Sure, he may start to struggle, but I am not a fan of this move at all. If the reports are accurate he is going to play different spots down in AAA, it better be with a plan of bringing him back up after a couple weeks, but he really could do that at MLB level. With Miranda doing nothing at this level but staying up, when Lewis can play the exact same spots, it sends a poor message in my mind. It is not like Lewis hits have been lucky, he is hitting solid line drives, and even some outs were crushed.

The belief that an ace is needed to win in post season is such a myth. Yes, there are times that an ace does make a difference, but that is rare. We have gone to post season with an ace before and did nothing. Many teams have won the whole ship without an ace by most definitions. Remember when Oakland had 3 top pitchers and we had Brad Radke and a bunch of mid rotation guys? Radke was not an ace by most standards, and most likely would have been ranked 4th best pitcher in the series, the other three being all on Oakland rotation. Or remember how many series we won with Santana, who was an ace. Technically he was on staff in 2002, but was not in the playoff rotation. Now, I would agree if Lewis is showing that he can fully step in be the defender Correa is with the same level or better bat, and a team offers a long terms option top tier pitcher we should listen, because I still no believe Correa will be back next year. The problem you will have is that no team looking to take Correa in on a rental would be trading away an ace as they will want to keep them for their own playoff push. Only selling teams will trade pitching away, unless you are Cleveland that feels you can trade your top pitchers away because your pipeline is that strong.

Those fees you only pay if you buy online. If you go to walk up sale, which as poster pointed out there is plenty open, you will not pay the online fees. You only have to worry about fees if team starts to sell out and you want to make sure you have a seat. I would disagree about MLB not caring about in person attendance as they stated during the 2020 no fans season that they were losing a ton of money because of no fans. Now in regards to the original post, I would disagree they are playing exciting baseball. Going 0 for whatever they were with RISP during the home stand is not entertaining. Yes, they had a winning homestand, but continuing hitting into double plays with no runs even in wins gets annoying to watch. At least for me. I also live an hour away from downtown so any week game is normally out of question for me.

I made a similar forum post last week. I agree this stretch is important because it is against bad teams playing badly right now. June brings some tough teams, as of right now. It is possible that some of those teams, like the Yankees, are making hay against bad teams themselves. Most of their games have been against losing teams as well. I agree when playing bad teams playing badly you need to pounce. We have not been hitting all the well and got some wins against bad teams, Oakland mostly the last couple week or so. However, just because teams are playing well now does not mean next month or second half will be the same. Detroit may figure something out, as well as KC. So for now pounce. White Sox are better than what they have shown so get as big of lead on them as you can. Also take this time to get right hitting wise and health hopefully. I would also agree with most comments that going 14-3 is not likely, but would be great. However winning each series should be expected.

I see no reason to send him down at this point. He could play 3rd, LF, or CF when Buck is resting. He could slide to 1B as well, or even get some DH at bats. I do not think Correa will need much rest when coming back because with way Lewis is playing I am sure they are not rushing him back. That being said they still give him a day off time to time. I think they can get Lewis plenty of at-bats and playing time up here. The only reason you would send him down is if you feel he needs more time to develop at SS on defense, but so far he looks good on that end too. If he starts to struggle at the plate you can send him down then, but Miranda should get the demotion when Correa is back not Lewis.

I get his missed 2 years of games, but in 2020 he was working at the alternate site I believe getting work in. 2021 the started getting work after the season ended. It is not like in game time is only time you can do work. He was a top talent for a reason, and he could still do things recovering from the knee injury. After about 3 months he was most likely jogging, after 6 months he was most likely back to full running and hitting. He could work on the mind part of the game when he was not working on the physical part.

It is not just Oakland being a bad team, but they told their fan base with the moves they made we are making no plans this year to compete. The fans told the team, that is fine we have no plans to attend games if you have no plans to put forth an entertaining product.

I do not give much weight to single game decisions during a season. Managers have two important roles. First, to get a team into the playoffs. A 162 game season is a grind that requires a manager that knows how to play the long game, sometimes giving up on a single game to save the bullpen in the long run. Once a manager makes the playoffs, that is when I will look at moves during the game. That is because each game matters. You cannot just take a loss or give away at bats to give guys rest or because it is time to give someone else some playing time. You play your top line up for each game and manage each game for the win. I was too young to really know how Kelly did it in the early years. However, I was old enough for Gardenhire and hated how he managed in playoffs. I am personally not a fan of the bullpen games in the playoffs. They can work, but if you have a pitcher that is cruising along and hitters are not doing much, I am not a fan of just pulling a guy because he is facing a third time through. First, that is a load stat. Even more so now that kind of because a self fulfilling stat. We find that a third time through a rotation normally is when guys start to struggle. Yes, that is true overall, but when you only get to face a couple of guys a third time now a days if they do give up a hit, it will be hard to get those numbers back down. In the regular season I am not too upset at those decision, but in the playoffs when each inning is important I am not a fan of pulling a guy after 4 or 5 innings just because they made it 2 times through order. As long as they still look good let them go out there. Maybe I am wrong and the Rocco way will work in playoffs. Overall I like him as a manager, but with the lack of power this year, I would love to see more base stealing.

His last few outings have been much better. No walks 3K's. He did give up a HR in a non save situation, ruled unearned runs, because of stupid rule of errors. However that HR did not cost us anything. Reports that he just added this pitch could clearly lead to some issues working on it leading to early walks. Also, the colder weather may not have helped much. I agree his walk rates were not sustainable for success, but no walks last three outings and reduced pitch counts of 9 and 10 the last 2 outings. If he can get the control issue resolved I would expect decent results.

For me the take away is the pitching is still good overall, and we need to start getting more hits with runners in scoring position. Other than Friday, which had the 2 big HR, we again struggled to get hits with runners in scoring position. I also had a take away that Urshella will drive me nuts all season while at same time I will be happy with some of his big plays. Yesterday he made 2 great plays on defense and hit a HR. However, his at bat with bases loaded on Saturday drove me nuts. So many things wrong with it. First, he check swung at a strike in the zone on the first pitch. Then to make matters worse, he jogged out of the box looking back to see how the play is developing only to then run harder when he realized they will try for a double play. Not saying he would not have still got the double play, but why look to see what the fielders are doing, run as hard as you can to first until you are out or told to run to second. It was like he either forgot there was bases loaded, or he just figured they would give up the run and toss to 1st. Similar in the series a Cleveland hitter busted down the line on a comebacker to Duran who made a bad throw. Hustle is one thing that every player should do. All you are doing is burning some cals.