Trov

Tatis Jr. was a White Sox for a few days when they signed him. Then traded for James Shield. Wow sure Sox fans are kicking the GM for that one. Imagine putting him that lineup and moving Anderson over to 2nd base. Sure they still need to pitch but he would help defense and offense. Glad that trade happened.

First, my understanding is WAR is terrible for pitchers and a better stat for them is wins probability added is better, not sure though. Maybe for starters it is better, but this year starters innings wont be much more than some relievers it would seem. Regardless when comparing Sheffield to Dobnak on start by start. Sheffield gave his team 1 chance to win, his last start. The other two he had a WHIP of 2 giving up 1 hit and walk per inning, and averaging a run per inning giving up 4 runs each start with 3 inning and 4.2 innings. For me, giving your team a chance is more important than if you get a win or a loss. Dobnak has done that. I also find it hard to give rookie of the year to a reliever unless they were unhittable and pitched nearly every day or at least 50% of teams games. I bet it goes to Reoberts barring him falling off completely because his hype will always be in voters minds. Lewis if he can carry it through he will have a chance. Overall it normally goes to hitters because they play every day and even if they slump for a week or two that gets forgotton about, normally with their hot streak being impressive. Pitchers though, even more so this season, have two or three bad starts it will blow up all their numbers. If Dobnak can keep going like he is, he should get the reward.

For me, with all the struggles for all the hitters you need to remember it is still a short period compared to what we normally see. It is not even a month into a season, but nearly 25% of this season. For most of these guys we would say it is still early and give them time they will come around. I am sure we could find some bad 15 game stretches for everyone in their careers. This season just magnifies those 15 game stretches. However, with way Avila is swinging I wonder if there will be much more of a platoon going forward.

We are still in first, but have been struggling on the road so far. The biggest worry I have is our lack of consistent offense. Last year we managed to put up runs early and late, and not just by HR. This year HR is our only offense it would seem, at least the last week or so. No clutch hitting by anyone. It feels like if we get a lead the pitchers need to be perfect because that will be all we get. So many of guys we were counting on have struggled. Kepler, Polonco, Cruz, and Eddie have been good overall. Buxton heating up. Gonzalez has been as expected. Beyond that not much to be excited about. Hopefully they turn it on. They will most likely make playoffs so not too worried on that front.

The problems with pitchers is very small adjustments can make huge differences either way. You will see one year amazing numbers but every other year nothing. They are so volatile, even mores so for relievers. Hendricks was let go by the old guard, but Anderson was by the new. However, as I have mentioned in trade posts, you need to understand what leads to certain decisions. Sometimes it is public perception. I do not recall the trade when it happened in the off-season and doubt most do sending Anderson away. He was aging, non-top prospect. Most likely he will have a good couple years and bounce around team to team hoping to be close to what he was. Pen guys are very replaceable, that is why there is the shift from paying big money for top end closers because they were over valued by many, the Twins among them. The pen is important, but I will not cry over losing out on a pen guy.

If the Twins feel he is an upgrade I am all for it. However, they know that better than me. I will defer to them who see him in St. Paul working.

To answer question of the day. It does not matter to me at this point how they got to their record. Every season has ups and downs, just this seasons they are magnified. Lets hope they starting a winning streak. I am mostly concerned at the lack of runs across innings. They have been very boom or bust with big run innings or nothing lately.

Interesting move, not sure where he fits in, if at all. Seems like he would rank below who we have but most likely above Gordon and Blackenhorn. I wonder if there is greater worry with Aarez knee.

For the question of the day. I am not a fan of the infield in for first inning. I assume they have data to suggest it is the right play, but it has backfired too. I would like to know the data they are using to show it is the right play and then I could have a more educated answer. My guess is it is not common that a back infield produces that many more outs that a drawn in infield does not, and therefore the risk reward factor weighs in favor of playing in. I would like to know the difference though to determine if I think it is worth it early in game. It also depends on who is pitching, hitting, and running in my mind. In terms of pitcher after Clippard I bet they go smeltzer, unless they have plans for him after Meada but the off day most likely allows to go back to Odo after off day. However, they may want to give him that 6th day like they have been doing so Smeltzer would be most likely after the off day. Then that leaves Thorpe, stashak, and Acala most likely to follow depending on situation.

I also am in majority that only take players that have 2021 locked up. The problem is giving up someone from the list available for just 1 month and post season is very little reward for giving up years of control on a prospect, that could be used in other trades next year. It may be possible that other prospects come back in trades for the 1 month rental, then I would be more open to it. Not sure who would be avialable, but for example if you went after minor or bauer, you give up either lower level talent like poppin, or if you give up higher level guy like say Rooker, you get a similar prospect in return along with the MLB pitcher. I just doubt many moves happen this year because of the short season.

The old, "if it is not broke don't fix it" thing. Was he a dominate ACE? No. However, he was a top level guy much of the year. This year he is a liability early on. Even more so, when you plan to count on someone so you stick with them longer. His last start his breaking ball was not doing much, something he used to dominate with. Wonder if the greater power is reducing the movement. It will be interesting to see what little adjustments he makes moving forward.

Hill or Odo concerns me the most. We have a deep lineup, that may not be clicking right now but we have guys that can replace and move around. Donaldson was not clicking when he got hurt anyways. However, as the season goes on missing hill or if odo goes down again will start to pile up with struggles of Berrios. Most offense is down, but the last trip through rotation there was poor pitching and unless our offense can get it going we could be in trouble.

We may not have had much in terms of bullpen that year, but we were not going anywhere that year either. Turns out the loss of him was not a big deal for our pen last year. In terms of the Dyson deal we did get hosed on fact his arm fell apart. It is great to have so much depth you can trade away at deadline for prospects and not really hurt your team, but that is not normally how things are done. Cleveland did last year, but most of the time dynamics do not allow trading high end guys. The most common would be pitching.

Exactly my point. It is not possible to just simply say trade is judge just by the players involved. Also, at the time we traded Presley away, we were not contending that year. Yes he has 1 more year of control, but that increase value. Each move though affects other moves. I get annoyed when people try to say this was a terrible trade, because you will never know how not doing the trade or a different trade would have played out.

I like the article showing both sides. My main comment is that we may be far into the season as it is, but it is still a small sample size over all. The hitting numbers will shift quickly with a couple of hot games. Buxton, as long as he is fielding well he does not need to hit well. Sure if he can hit to what we want great, but he helps the team on defense so much, he does not need to be an offensive monster, he hits 9th normally. Garver I am most worried about in terms of change in offense. He needs to connect on his chances, because teams will give him very few now.

Even if the two do not turn out and the Twins "lose" the trade, it is always important to look at when the trade happened and what the team was looking at. Some people are anti-trades or feel if the player you trade away performs better than who you get back you should not have done it. However, it is not that simple. You need to evaluate how the trade or non trade may have affected the team down the line. Last season our pen early on was struggling and Pressley was dealing, and came off of a great season, so many questioned the deal. However, as shown Pressley struggled later on when the Twins pen was doing well. Pressley would have been near the bottom of our pen based on how they were doing last year at the time. This year, where would he have fit in? Who would we have not signed or traded for if Pressley was with us? To me, the only trades that are really bad is if you trade guys of similar positions and one does amazing and the other fails to be even replacement level. Even though not same position, the worst trade in recent time was Hicks for John Ryan Murphy, because they were both young guys that were not doing well. Hicks figured it out for most part, Murphy never did.

I do not expect any top team to bring up a prospect unless there is injury or a hole in the lineup that they fit into. If they were slotted in this season to not need them, as long as that continues no point in bringing up. Twins for example will have no need to bring up any of top prospects unless there is injury, most likely. Maybe if there is major slump that is hurting the team, but right now the depth at the MLB level is too deep to break in absent injury. For teams on the fringe that have a hole in the lineup I can see it happening if the team believes they give them a better chance to win. Why send out a lessor player?

I am confused on how two metrics for hard hit% are so different. One has him at 36%, but then other has him on high end. How can two metrics looking at same pitcher have two different claims of his hard hit percent?

I wonder how much is fact very few of guys have seen him. Lets see how things go when he starts facing same hitters several times. I am still big on him, do not regret the trade at all because Graterol was not going to be a dominate starter that people hoped. Boston learned that and back out of deal. As seen, you can find quality pen guys all over the place, they just need the right small changes. Wes seems to know how to get a guy to throw the right pitches.

I love to keep seeing scrap heap guys that the Twins identify as someone they can make adjustments to and fix. Right now they are slider heavy guys and looking get high fastballs with good tunneling(at least that was what I read before) I wonder in a few years if hitters start to adjust to new heavy pitching if there will be a swing back to heavy sinker guys. Right now so much of the league learned to hit the low sinker well, so Falvey identified that high fast balls and sliders have become good change. If hitters made changes I bet Falvey will help adjust who to recruit and how to teach them.

It is good where they are, some timely hitting and great pen work is what has done it mostly. However, being we are not even full 2 weeks in many of those numbers will change quickly, the batting numbers for sure. I am concerned with all the starters going down so quickly with arm issues. Hopefully, they will get back quick and can help soon. The pen will need to get widdled down with rosters shrinking soon.

These games are always close games to watch. Both games really came down to single at bats. First game Lindor homer only runs scored. Second game Eddie 2 run double the main at bat. We had a lot of chances later in the game to add on but in terms of runs scoring that was the big one. I expect both teams to make playoffs this year. If Detroit can keep it up they may leapfrog the sox, who are lacking pitching and defense, for a wild card spot. Remember last year Detroit got off to strong start too and fell off, but this year a strong first 30 games is half the season. I am just glad the Twins have not stumbled out of the gate.

Bieber was dealing last night. Dude was hitting his spots got some borderline calls and had Twins chasing late in the game. He really seemed to mix speed an location well. Only a couple balls were hit hard off of him. Lets hope the bats come around tonight.

To answer the question of the day, I do not care either way about the cutouts. People paid money to have them. The money goes to charity and not ownership so I am fine with it. On another note, that Sox line up looks like they will put up some good runs. Their defense and pitching is what will hold them back.

With the new playoff system for this season it takes the pressure off of each game because each division will send 2 teams then top two wild cards. What is interesting is doing this means that there is a good chance three teams make it from central. Mainly because Detroit and KC are expected to be bottom feeders raising the wins for all three other teams. Assuming none of the remaining three crush one of the the others and they are nearly same win totals in the division. So the NL is what will make the difference and the NL central is supposed to be the weakest of the NL divisions as well. It is an interesting concept with not playing the other divisions the wild card teams will really come down to how weak the other teams in the division are. If three of five teams are competing for top two spots it increases the chances that three make it. If two of five are competing for top spots it decreases chances wild card comes from that division. It will also be very unlikely that two wild cards come from same division, unless they crush the other leagues teams, raising their non division wins. I predict Twins Cleveland and Sox make it out of central. Ray and Yanks out of the east, with Boston and Toronto being a team to watch because both could go on good short term runs, and the West will be tough both in division and on NL west. There are 4 teams in AL west that are competitive, and at least 3 in the NL that are. That may lower the overall wins in the AL meaning if either Boston or Toronto can beat up on Baltimore and the other team between them they will be in good wild card position. The crazy season is getting crazier with a crazy playoffs. Buster Onley reported there may be a selection show of who will play who in the first round of playoffs. Meaning the top seed will get first pick of opponent, of bottom four teams I would assume, then on down the line. Figure after that it will be normal seeding. This is not official, but rumored from a source.