John Bonnes

Aaron and John talk about Lewis Thorpe's promising debut, all the Twins being snubbed for the All-Star game, Miguel Sano making adjustments on the fly, Eddie Rosario being the latest injury to keep the lineup from being whole, giving James Rowson a raise, and ghosting someone at a funeral. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' first truly bad week, five ace starters the Twins could (and should) pursue at the trade deadline, adding Cody Allen on a minor-league deal, Miguel Sano's highs and lows, injuries reshaping the lineup, and being careful what you wish for. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about Joe Mauer weekend at Target Field, the latest batch of absurd Twins hitting numbers, another week spent thinking ahead to bullpen trades, the Twins' remaining schedule, sports betting and wearables, and Rocco Baldelli vs. Tom Kelly. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Click here to view the article

Thanks guys.

Want even more coverage from Aaron and John for this magical 2019 Twin season? Just click here! You'll go to our new Patreon page and get all the details on how we're releasing an extra two to five episodes each week!Check out the Gleeman & The Geek "Off The Record" Podcast here! It looks like the first episode will be out as early as Monday this week! Click here to view the article

Aaron and John announce big show news, say goodbye (for now) to Willians Astudillo, and talk about missing out on Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel, Byron Buxton's latest jaw-dropping highlight, Max Kepler's three-homer game, Keoni Cavaco and the Twins' draft class, and potential playoff matchups. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. And check out our new midweek (daily?) podcast here. Click here to view the article

Well, we've been around seven years now, so it's not too surprising that it's pretty big. Though I guess that means we've averaged about four new registrations per day for the entirety of the site. That's probably a few more than I expected.

People like asking me about Twins Daily, but they’ve been surprised when they ask me about the page views this year. With a sly smile, I’ve enjoyed seeing their expressions when I honestly tell them that page views have been down. I thought you guys might be interested in why and what it represents.The graph for a week by week comparison of page views is above and I think it tells an interesting story. Expectations were low this spring after a disappointing 2018 season. On the other hand, expectations were high going into 2018 after making the Wild Card game in 2017. The traffic at Twins Daily reflected that. Our page views through March were down 15%. For the next three weeks, the traffic was very similar to 2018. And then, about the third week in April, people started to believe. That’s why I thought the low attendance stories that started percolating in April were so ludicrous. The interest was certainly there. The problem with game attendance is that it is a lagging indicator. Twins Daily’s page view are a lot closer to a real time gauge of fan interest. (As an aside, congratulations to the Twins marketing department for nipping that little narrative in the bud. I’m sure the release of a 20,000 or so cheap seats in early May was mostly to bring people back to the ballpark, but it’s a nice side effect that they don’t have to deal with the perception that their fan base doesn’t care about them.) So for the last two months, I’ve been able to tell people that page view are down, but you can see from the graph that wasn’t going to last. It didn’t. On Saturday, page views caught up from the three-month head start 2018 was given. Which brings us to this week’s numbers…. Overall Traffic Last Week Users – 46,508 (up 163% from 2018)Sessions – 102,694 (up 105% from 2018)Page Views – 275,601 (up 55% rom 2018)The numbers last week almost perfectly matched the numbers from the week before. Last week's numbers has us freaking out, so it looks like we have a new reality. If you are one of the people who regularly share stories or posts from the sites with friends, thank you so much for contributing to the community’s growth. This week should be interesting, as the three days of the MLB draft are usually among Twins Daily’s most visited dates of the year. Last year, for example, the first two days of the draft were our third and fourth most page views of the year. (Trade deadline in which Brian Dozier was traded was #1. Eduardo Escobar trade was #2.) Stories Andrew Thares has provided so much good quality MLB Draft content over the last month, he deserves the page views his stories have generated. This week his page views were sandwiched between Seth and Tom, which tells you just how much the readers are appreciating his great work. I mentioned that the MLB Draft has become a bit of a specialty for Twins Daily, thanks in large part to the work done in previous years by Jeremy Nygaard. We’re very grateful to Andrew for carrying that tradition forward. I’m struck by how many of our contributing writers are getting even more page view than some of our founders, which NEVER used to happen. I, for instance, am tenth on the list. That might be a good topic for a future Box Score. Forums Registrations – 19 (we had 19 the same week in 2018)Topics – 84 (up from 54 the same week in 2018)Posts - 2613 (up from 2761 the same week in 2018)Twins Daily now has 11,403 members. That’s a lot of people who want to talk Twins. Don’t you? Just register and tell us your thoughts. (I know I’m overdue for a post calling out the top participants in the forums, but it takes a while to generate that report, and this Box Score is already running a little long. I’ll try to give a recap of all of May next week.) Blogs The blogs have blown up. Eleven new entries this week, including: a brand new blog that already has two entries,an entry with 20 comments,a continuation of a series on the first round picks that I talked about last week,talk about signing Dallas Keuchel,a remembrance of Bill Buckner,a blog called The Always Fashionable Uncle Charlie,an entry on the top five Twins prospects who should be promoted,a post on what shoulder impingement is,a look at the AL Central race andsome old friends doing their usual fine work.Whew. Thank you all. I’d encourage everyone to make the blog section a part of your routine when visiting Twins Daily. There’s a lot going on there. If you have any ideas for Twins Daily, or feedback that you want to share, please don’t hesitate to give it, good or bad, in the comments below. I promise to read your thought and respond when appropriate. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins lapping the AL Central, whether the Twins should be in the mix for Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel, if it's crazy to focus on the playoffs when making midseason moves, Miguel Sano and Mitch Garver returning, Nelson Cruz being on the verge of a return, Byron Buxton doing Byron Buxton things, and what to make of Devin Smeltzer. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.http://traffic.libsy...3?dest-id=74590 Click here to view the article

Geezus, but those were two awfully nice plays.

Was their any explanation on TV for what was wrong with statcast or the radar gun readings,

Freaking out has commenced behind the scenes at Twins Daily this week. Some new partnerships and the interest in the team has kicked off some stunning growth. When one starts a Twins-focused web site in 2012, just as the bottom falls out, it’s natural to wonder what can happen when the team finally rights the ship. It’s also natural that seven years later, one has completely forgotten that can happen. But we’re seeing it, so I’m going to vary the order of this week’s report to call out some exciting developments.News We started some partnerships that are leading to new visitors. The most obvious was with the digital arm of KFAN.com, where you can now find our daily recaps. We also started a partnership with a new programmatic ad partner, AdThrive, and to explain why that’s important, I need to talk about something I should talk about more. Did you know that if you submit a story to your blog on Twins Daily, and we like it enough to edit and promote it to the front page, you get paid all the programmatic ad revenue that your story generates from people reading it? Or that it also works if we ask you to write a story, or a game recap? No? That’s because I’m really crummy at remembering to tell people about it. So here’s how it works: If you write a story that appears on Twins Daily’s front page, we track the reads it has. At the end of the quarter, we pay you those reads times the average blended rate we get for displaying programmatic ads. That number is way less that our writers deserve, but it’s what we get paid, so we pass it all along to you. AdThrive seems to be generating better rates for ads than we have had in the past, and that has us pretty excited about being able to give our contributing writers a raise at the end of 2Q. Their creativity and passion is the fuel on which the site runs, and I’ve been trying for several years to generate better results in this area, so I’m very encouraged to see the results. Ok, let’s get to why we started freaking out…. Overall Traffic Last Week Users – 45,589 (up 168% from 2018)Sessions – 105,910 (up 100% from 2018)Page Views – 285,486 (up 59% rom 2018)So, yeah, that’s why we were freaking out. And even those numbers probably undersell the new traffic, because a lot of the partnerships didn’t kick into gear until Friday. Friday, by the way, was the second highest number of visitors we have ever received. (You’re wondering about the highest, right? It was back on July 21st of 2015, and you’ll never guess what the topic was that drew so much traffic. In fact, I’m going to keep you waiting until the end of this story.) Stories There were 32 stories on Twins Daily last week, and one of the reasons we had such big traffic on Friday is we had so many great stories that day: Tom wrote about Rocco Baldellig being a coddling millennial.The news about Brusdar Graterol being a Target Field break the day beforeTed Schwerzler dove into Jorge Polanco’s success.New writer Andrew Gebo recapped the Twins eight-run explosion.Nick explored adding to the Twins bullpen.Stu poked fun at Twins fans increased expectationsJeremy looked at players the Twins could trade (and got 167 comments)Of course Seth recapped the minor league performances.All of those stories were on the front page at one time this week. When we started Twins Daily, this was the sort of all-encompassing, deep-dive laden, entertaining content we hoped for. There haven’t been many days that I’ve been more proud of what this community can do. Thank you all so much. Forums Registrations – 25 (we had 42 the same week in 2018)Topics – 82 (up from 43 the same week in 2018)Posts - 3018 (up from 2424 the same week in 2018)Our forum traffic did not increase like our story traffic. It appears a lot of people visited, read one story and then left. That’s OK for now, but we’ll want to work on enticing them to join the discussion. As always, we would love to have you join the discussion, too. Just register and tell us your thoughts. Blogs A number of new writers wrote in our blog area this week, which is really encouraging. I would love to call them all out, but instead, why not head over there and check them out yourself? You won’t be disappointed. I do want to call out two for their creativity. When you see as much baseball writing as we do, it’s striking when someone does something a little different, and we had two posts that struck me. On Thursday, 33mvp, started a series (I hope) that goes through the Twins first round picks of the last 10 years. In the MLB Draft, it’s easy to criticize picks because almost nobody is going to draft the player who turns out the best. So I appreciated 33mvp’s approach of limiting the analysis to the five players taken immediately after the Twins first round pick. It requires research and a little nuance, and it’s a cool enough idea that I plan to steal it someday. The second blog post wasn’t technically written last week, it was written on Memorial Day, but I liked “Wild Bill Umpires The Game” by mikelink45. I had never heard this story before, and would love some historical links to the facts surrounding it. Thank you again everyone who tries blogging. I hope you find it rewarding, and if you read them, I hope you’ll let them know what you think. You honor all our writers with your attention and feedback. So why was so traffic so high in July of 2015? The Twins were pretty good in 2015. They finished the year with 83 wins, and going into the last weekend of the year, they were one game out of the Wild Card spot. You’ll remember that Miguel Sano was a monster that summer, generating sky-high expectations. On July 21st, the Twins held the second Wild Card spot in the American League, and the trade deadline was coming up and… Twins Daily writer Jeremy Nygaard broke the news that the Twins were in the “infant stages” of trade talks with the Rockies about Troy Tulowitzki. You can find the story here. A week later, Tulowitzki was traded, but it was to the Toronto Blue Jays, who surged, blew past the Twins in the Wild Card race, and also passed the Yankees to with the AL East. That’s it for this week. I’ve settled on the name “Twins Daily Box Score” for now, but if you have any other suggestions or feedback about the site, I promise to read then and respond in the comments below. Click here to view the article

This is great. Do you have any links to historical references for it? I have never heard this story.

I thought the same thing. I really appreciated the approach and methodology, and the research it required. Great idea, and well-executed.

Aaron is attending a wedding in an apple orchard, so John is joined by Parker Hageman of Twins Daily. They talk about the source of the Twins' power surge, breakthroughs in the Twins' attendance, the impact of Rocco Baldelli on the organization, how this year compares to the 2001 Twins season, and whether Joe Mauer's $23 million expiring contract is a key factor in this season's success. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.http://traffic.libsy...3?dest-id=74590 Click here to view the article

One other point in favor if acquiring a relief arm sooner rather than later: they control his usage and don’t need to worry bout him being overused.