John Bonnes

In case you missed it, there's a new exciting reason to show up: we'll have three pairs of tickets to give away for a Twins Season Kickoff Party on Wednesday, April 10th. The party will benefit Tix for Tots and feature Paul Molitor, Mark Rosen, Twins EVP Laura Day and some blogger named Bonnes. Plus appetizers and a free wine-tasting, all at the Metropolitan Club in Target Field. You can register for this event and learn more by clicking on this link.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1476-And-Then-There-Were-Two-Joe-Benson-Optioned-To-Rochester

I guess I'd be interested in seeing the data. In some ways, it depends on what categories you're braking pitchers into. Are the pitcher that James looked at strikeout pitchers? Because if they are, then yeah, they are probably more effective. Or could it be that pitchers who make it to the majors, but can't strike people out tend to induce more groundballs? That might make sense. I'll say this: I did a correlation study a few years ago to ERA, and if I remember right, GB/FB had a very low correlation to ERA. In fact, it was 0. It surprised me.

Here are the Twins pitching staff's ERA since 2006, except I'm going to skip one year: 2006 - 3.95 2007 - 4.15 2008 - 4.16 2009 - 4.50 2011 - 4.58 2012 - 4.77 That is a shockingly consistent trend. (The year I left out was 2010, which matched 2006's 3.95 ERA because Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano and Brian Duensing all put up fantastic numbers in the rotation.) That suggests that the meltdown in the Twins starting rotation that we experienced last year was a long time coming, which I would say was verified when they turned to the minors last year and found an assortment of non-prospects and waiver wire pickups. (I also suppose the 2010 season could also suggest that a team can overperform considerably from what should be expected.) But my question is, what do we expect this year? What ERA is reasonable?

Now that's cool. I think I would totally do that. Best wishes to Enrique.

I've never seen this before. In a spring training game between the Cards and Brewers this week, one umpire broke his hand when he was hit by a pitch. While another umpire changed into the home plate gear, the remaining two umpires decided to keep the game moving. So, one of them called balls and strikes from behind the pitcher, instead of behind the catcher. Tim McClelland did so for three batters before the fully-suited home plate umpire appeared during the fourth batter. In related news, I love spring training. Umps calls pitches from behind mound, Pujols at 1B | StarTribune.com

The Strib's Jim Souhan sees all the good things about the Twins - their future, their health, Aaron Hicks - but also sees a pitching staff that has plenty of questions. And a team that might be grasping at straws on Day One.... And so it begins. I want to see this team do well, but this could get ugly in a hurry if the starting pitching falls to pieces early again. And I have to wonder if the guy who is going to catch the heat isn't the guy above Gardy on the org chart. (And he probably should.) Souhan: Twins hurting in bullpen, and have a shaky rotation | StarTribune.com

Well, I'd be on board. By June, this team is going to be looking to replace some guys in the middle infield. They are going to want some options. Florimon might very well be hitting .180 by midyear. At that point, he's going to be sent down, not as a punishment but as an act of mercy. It would be nice not to have Escobar, who is essentially the same player, as a replacement.

Well, I understand that's what you think. But that was an old site, and this is a new one. So I'm clear.... - We won't tolerate self-policing by snark and personal attacks. That is not going to change. We will suspend people for that and move towards a ban. - Brock isn't going to be the only one doling out bans. It isn't fair to put him in that position, plus he's busy, plus there are others who have to live with this site as well. - It is certainly possible that there will be some inconsistency. First, because we might make mistakes. But also, because we are limited in our bandwidth and at some point being a pain-in-the-butt is just trolling the moderators. So, that might happen, but so far it has been a temporary 3 or 7 day suspension. (The only time we've banned someone outright was when they ignored the suspension, and eventually we lifted that too. ) That seems like a pretty reasonable (maybe even too light) price to pay. I hope everyone can live within those boundaries.

I'm all for this thread. Thank you VD for starting it. I'll start with this: at the end of the day, we can't run/support/hustle for a site whose forums we can't stomach. That's where things were a month ago for a few of us. I was far more likely to advocate turning them off completely than continuing down that path. And I would have had support among the founders. But before we did that, we decided to try and get it back to a more civil level of discourse, even though that was a lot of work and conflict and self-examination. I think we're pretty close to that. We can't have self-appointed sheriffs of this site shooting snark around to keep people in place. I think that's how it worked on BYTO to some extent. Whether it did or not, we feel it cannot work that way here and still have a growing and inclusive board. It was inevitable that shift would affect some loyal members (and good people) more than others. But I think it requires an adjustment for some of those members rather than a betrayal of a personal philosophy. That leaves open some issues, such as how to deal with posters who lower the level of discourse by posting dumb things. I don't know that I have a recipe for how that is going to work, but my sense is: gently at first, and then more aggressively. At some point, stupidity turns into trolling, and we've tackled that a little with a couple of members. But I'm sensitive to the concern. I share it too. We'll continue to work on it. I think we'll get there as a community. We've had lots of internal debates about this and I welcome this thread to hear the community's feedback. One thing we've debated is changing rule #1 on our comment policy. I'll bold the change. It would go something like this: I understand the desire to loosen the reins. I'm sure, at some point, they will - bolts always loosen. But to be honest, I'm pretty determined to make sure they stay tight right now. That nauseous feeling that I had by coming to my own forums a month ago is still a little fresh.

If you just can't wait for baseball season, and ESPECIALLY if you work downtown, Target Field is going to be open from 11-7 for you to walk around and look at the seats that are available as season tickets. Plus, food and drink... I'll admit it - I have season tickets, but I'd still like to go. I just want this season (and spring) to star already! Here are the details: Twins Select A Seat | twinsbaseball.com: Tickets Anyone in?

If you haven't clicked over, you owe it to yourself as a Twins fan. Not only is there a lot of signed stuff from Sano available, but there is also a 3-day tour of Dominican Republic baseball with the producers available. Talk about a bucket list item. The Miguel Sano Story by Guagua Productions ? Kickstarter

(furiously and repeatedly making the sign of the cross)

I saw the headline and assumed this was an old thread from last year that had been re-promoted. Ugh. What a drag for Baker.

I think one might be able to make a pretty good argument that if Span had not signed that deal, he might not have made as much money as he did. There were a lot of questions about him after that concussion. There still might be quite a few.

We might even have the whole hand...ba-dum-BUM.

Lord, suaerkraut and cheese. That sounds so good I might need to pass up on the cheesesteak. Unless, of course the Philly cheesesteak includes cheez whiz.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1463-Gleeman-and-the-Geek-Ep-85-Kyle-Gibson-John-Mulaney-and-St-Patrick-s-Day

In their Minnesota Twins podcast, Gleeman and the Geek talk about Kyle Gibson's early assignment to Triple-A, going to Dinkytown on St. Patrick's Day eve to see John Mulaney, Samuel Deduno starring in the World Baseball Classic, if the Twins are becoming more aggressive promoting minor leaguers, the Brass Kings, the differences between baseball and football playoffs, Deolis Guerra's scary injury, the lack of Jim Thome news, and going deeper down the bar-buying path. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes. Or just click below:

In their Minnesota Twins podcast, Gleeman and the Geek talk about Kyle Gibson's early assignment to Triple-A, going to Dinkytown on St. Patrick's Day eve to see John Mulaney, Samuel Deduno starring in the World Baseball Classic, if the Twins are becoming more aggressive promoting minor leaguers, the Brass Kings, the differences between baseball and football playoffs, Deolis Guerra's scary injury, the lack of Jim Thome news, and going deeper down the bar-buying path. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes. Or just click below:

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1457-Over-and-Under-The-Competition-The-Tigers

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3511[/ATTACH]You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone that doesn’t think the Detroit Tigers are the favorites to with the AL Central, including those who generate MLB futures odds. But Vegas has also tagged them with the highest over-under number in the American League: 93 games. Vegas picked a similar number last year and the Tigers disappointed. They won the division, but they only won 88 games, and only their dominance of head-to-head matchups with the White Sox saved them from an ignomnius fate. After adding Cecil Fielder in the offseason, their offense was only slightly above average, though playing in Comerica Park might skew that a little. They bolstered their starting pitching staff by acquiring Anibal Sanchez but their bullpen remained full of question marks. To their credit, they further improved this offseason. They retained Sanchez and replaced Delmon Young with Torii Hunter. But maybe best of all, they’ll add Victor Martinez to their lineup as he is fully recovered from the ACL surgery that cost him all of 2012. So start with 88 wins, add a full year of Martinez, a full year of Sanchez, swapping Hunter for Young….and they pretty clearly approach that number. I’ll add in a more ethereal reason too: sometime it seems like it takes a team of superstars a year or so to remember that games won’t be just handed to them. However, 93 is a huge number, so it’s hard to take the over – but that’s the point. If it was lower, everyone would bet it. Which way would you go?