Trov

It may be that I have only heard Bremer on the TV for Twins my whole life, but I do think he is good at what he does. I have listened to some bad play by play guys. In the early 2000's Dick and Bert were great. However, Bert got old and did not adapt to the game, and just sounded like old man complaining that it is not like in his day. The partners Dick gets now are not very good, which is hard for Dick to really do well when he has nothing to play off of. Dick has adapted to the game and gets his audience has adapted as well. He still likes some old school style, but he gets the change that has happened. I just do not understand why broadcasts always feel the need to have the color guy be an ex player or manager. I get they need to know about the game, but there are many trained broadcasters that never played in majors that know the game. They could provide just as much incite but in a better way. For some reason years ago it was decided in all sports broadcasts the color guy would be some ex player with name brand. All too often they are terrible at the job. Some are great at it, but many are terrible.

How so? I can think of 1 game where he would possibly made a difference, that being the blown save by Duffy. The other blown lead by Duffy it is unlikely Rodgers gets the nod. If you can point to any other games the pen blew that Rodgers would have pitched in please point them out.

Remember when people were tearing into Twins for Ryan being the opening day starter? Who has been the best starter on the team so far? Overall our starters have done well, but he has been the best. I bet he could have went another inning or two for sure, but will take the win either way. Early season sure, but if you had to pick Berrios or Ryan right now who would be your preferred starter?

The early returns on Yankees trade is tilting Twins, despite neither player we got doing great, Donaldson is doing terrible. In terms of the Gray for Petty trade, time will tell if we made a mistake or not. High school pitchers are so hard to project. He is doing fine first 11 innings in A ball for Reds.

He started off a little slow, but picking it up. I have huge expectations for his hitting game, just where he will play on defense will be the question. He bat should play at the majors.

I hope his new eye at the plate is not just SSS and when teams start to pitch him different that he will not regress.

Still early, but the Cruz for Ryan trade may go down as one of the greatest ever for Twins. Nothing against Cruz, but we were not going to use him when we traded him, and Ryan has 6 years of team control and has always looked good at MLB level. He may stumble but trading a guy that you had no need for and getting a young good controlled starter for 6 years wow. For all the people that were always low on Gordon, the new FO and Rocco included, he has always had a slow adjusting curve to each level, but when he adjusted he always performed well at the plate. I do not get why Garlick keeps getting playing time over Gordon. Even if you think long term Gordon is not in your future, he is doing just fine right, let him play it out.

Everyone on here was worried about starting pitching coming into the year. There was a few guys they wanted us to have over who we have so far. The few other guys have done well, but overall so has our starting pitching. Even if we got Manea, or Rondon both we still would be losing. Until our bats can score any runs we will never win. What I am most worried about is if our offense start clicking that is when our pitching will start to falter. This is how last year went, we never had all areas firing at the same time. If we pitched well, we could not hit. If the starter gave us a chance to win the pen blew it. If pen was going well and hitting was going well our starters could not get through 2 innings. I know it is early, but this terrible offense is not fun to watch at all.

I know early in year, but Berrios is doing terrible in 3 starts with Jays, 11.1 innings pitched 11 Ks with a 2 whip, and 6.69 FIP. Not saying he will not bounce back, but right now I would say Twins made a good trade last year as he would have little value right now. Also, Jays on hook for 7 more years. I do not wish Berrios anything bad, but I sure hope we win the trade and Woods Richardson sure is looking good so far. Yes he is doing in minors and Berrios in Majors, but every one of our starters have done better than Berrios has so far.

If Correa continues to hit sub .200 with OPS of .586I think he opts in for next year, so I would not say he is a lock to walk. Also, if he continues to hit like that we will be a bottom feeding team again as well. The most frustrating about our hitting prospects is our stacked OF list has not performed for various reasons and now our future OF hitters look terrible right now. Of course Marten, or Lewis could get shifted there if no IF spots are open when they come up. Also corner OF is easiest to fill from trades or FA so not too worried there.

Sano actually is very disciplined hitter, which why his strikeouts are an even bigger issue. He has a low chase rate for a guy that strikes out as much as he does. His issue is he cannot hit fastballs in the zone well, and he takes a lot of called strikes on the edge of the zone. He is not up there swinging at anything thrown, his huge issue, which is worse than chasing, is that he misses strikes in the zone.

I believe people put too much stock in velocity. High velo can be good and helpful, but lack of velo does not mean a pitcher will fail. Location, movement, and changing speeds has and always will be key. You pump the same speed same location every time a MLB level hitter will hit it, even if it is 100 MPH.

I do not understand how shifting Buck to DH would fix the issue presented. He got hurt, to what level it is, while running the bases after hitting. So if the goal is to keep him in lineup hitting, how does just DH him help this, as it was hitting that led to the issue? Last year as well, he hurt his hip running the bases, and he was hit by a pitch later on. Yes, he has got some injuries in the field over his career, but many has been from hitting and running bases too. I believe he broke a toe on a foul ball, hurt a hand on a slide once, as noted hurt hip running bases, been hit by pitches. If he was routinely getting hurt running into walls or on dives in the field I would say this idea is worth entertaining, but the fact that a lot of his value is in his defense, and there is not evidence to suggest that making him just a hitter would reduce injuries to almost none, then why lose his value in the field?

How long before Lewis gets the call up? No he will not take over for Correa, but he can play 3rd, or OF if his bat plays well, just put him in the MLB line up. Right now he would be better than what we have been throwing out there.

I did not watch the game last night, but how many times will Duffy keep getting higher leverage chances? Also, why does Rocco hate Gordon so much? He pinch hit for him early in game to get Garlick into the game against a lefty. Garlick has shown no reason to trust him this year. I get lefty lefty can be issues, but Gordon has yet to get a fair shot in actual game action for extended period. He is always first to be pulled. I am not saying Gordon is going to be amazing, but Rocco is not willing to even give him a fair shot for some reason.

Read update on Krillioff showed no new injury. That is very concerning to me that this will be a long term injury he will need to learn how to play through or never be what he could be.

He is who he is. We know who he is. You either play him or cut him. Sitting him does nothing. He has always been a guy on long slumps and long hot streaks. He will never make the changes we all want. Personally I am for cutting him to give Arraez more playing time, but do not just bench him.

In regards to outlawing the shift, I am personally against it, but I get the point we want to see more hits, so if the hitters will not adjust then maybe we adjust the rules. However, I would also agree the shifting that annoys me more is the rockets up the middle used to be base hits are now easy outs. I do not see too often where a guy playing deep in outfield hole robbing hits it is the up the middle ones, so if they are going to put in a rule, I would go all the way and require the defender to start in a circle that they cannot leave until the pitch is contacted, unless there is a pick off, or runner is stealing.

First the players will have to actually practice doing it, else I would agree they will fail. If they work on it they will not waste pitches fouling it off. Again, you do not need to be even close to a perfect bunt, Rizzo showed that, but you just need to have it past the pitcher and fair. Yes, there will be times it goes foul, or you get out, but how is that any different than swinging away for a foul or an out being pulled on the ground? Guys used to actually practice bunting for hits, it is nothing new, but after it was decided bunting was a bad tactic to bunt for outs advancing runners, guys stopped even learning how to do it. Most the MLB players never bunted in high school or college because they were too good of hitters to bunt for hits or sacrifice, but at MLB level sometimes you need to take what you can get. If I was running a team I would make all left handed hitters learn to bunt hard to third for beating the shift, or learn how to inside out down the line to third, which is much harder to do in my opinion. I believe if you can catch the 90 plus pitch, you can bunt it. We are not asking for a perfect bunt, not even close to one, just get it 90 feet within 10 feet of the third base line. It can even be in the air for most of that time.

Forgot to share link.

I just saw a great play by Rizzo from the other night. He bunted a pitch that was up third for an easy single. It was a terrible "bunt" if you were trying to sacrifice or bunt for a hit outside the shift. It was actually landed fair in the air past third base. Meaning in a traditional defense he would have been very easy pop out. However, with the shift no one had a chance to get it. I personally do not know why more left hand hitters in particular do not practice to bunt against the shift. It is not like you need to have the perfect bunt down the line and beat anything out. You need to bunt it hard past the pitcher anywhere within 10 feet of the third base line. Assuming the one fielder on that side is playing well off and deep. Sometimes teams will play that guy in and closer to the line to help prevent some of these bunts. However, I have seen Kepler many times come up with no one near third base. I do not know why he has not worked on just bunting past the pitcher toward third. You do not need to be great at it, just get it past them. Even when pitch is up and in, if you know what you are doing you can bunt it in that direction. I know they do not practice this often anymore, but I think every lefty should work on this. I would even say do it with 2 strikes some times. Again, you do not need to make it perfect down the line, you can plan to try to have it be fair by 10 feet, if it is hard enough past the pitcher no way do they throw you out. Now this is very game specific situations. 2 outs never do it, unless you know you will steal second. Down 1 run and power hit, do not do it. But there is plenty of times to do it, and we never do.

Kirilloff issue is a huge deal. The fact that he had surgery and has never had pain free swing is huge. This may end his career, or greatly reduce what he may have been. Prior to his injury last year, he made great contact and hit the ball very hard. Since, it has just not had the same sound. Even if he thinks he can play through the pain, it clearly affects him. The fact that surgery did not fix it is worrisome. I had huge hopes for Kirilloff, but now I do not expect he will do much. Maybe he can get a new surgery that does the job, but he will be on the shelf again for months. I do not see how waiting will do any good if he spent all off-season feeling pain but did not address it. I think this is a huge loss and I do not expect him to play, at least not at a high level, the rest of this season if not his career. I know some will say I am overblowing this, but he needs to have pain free swings in his wrist to be productive. Having a full year of this without pain free swings even after surgery means it is unlikely he ever will.

I guess you know Kershaw's body/arm better than him. He told the manager he would be done. He was asked how he felt and if wanted to keep going in the 6th inning. He said give me 1 more inning around 80 to 85 pitches. Guess the manager should have told him, nope I do not care how you feel Kershaw, you can make history here so go out there pitch tell you either give it up, your arm is injured, or game is over. If Kershaw told his manager he was good to go and wanted to try it, then I would have some level of agreement with you, as you should trust the person and what they say, but he said he would be done.

Paddock looked terrible to start. Could not find the zone. He did not get a few possible called strikes, maybe Jeffers would have helped that. The fact the team was going to need to let the pen rest it was nice to see him recover to at least fight through a few innings. Still terrible start. New guy stepped to eat up some innings. Yes he got stretched out and got blown up in 8th but he did what was needed in this game. Lets hope the road helps get some of these bats going because we need more than Buck to hit if we want to compete.

I see no space for Upton. He hits lefties fine still at this point in career, but negative against righties, and in the field. So the only positive you get is the few times he would play against left handed pitchers for the maybe 2 to 3 at bats he gets that game. Why would you use up a valuable roster spot on a guy with very limited times he would be better than a replacement player?