John Bonnes

Thanks for the great name suggestions Brandon and benji21. vavo, thank for the feedback. We might roll out an option like that. I'll spell things out in the next report, but the ad results have been encouraging, so I think we're unlikely to switch back. I'm sorry you find them intrusive. I haven't notice a whole lot of difference in my user experience, now that we got them ironed out a little. As for logging in to view the content ... that feels a little forced to me. Plus, the goal isn't to have a lot of registrations, it's to have a lot of interaction. So I'm OK with only registering if you want to comment. I guess what I'm really asking is how can we better encourage people to take the chance and share their thoughts with the rest of the community.

Note the question mark in that headline (for now) but Brusdar Graterol, the Minnesota Twins' top pitching prospect, posted several pictures to instagram that suggest he's at Target Field today, and they include one in front of a locker with boxes in it and one with him on the field. Twins Daily's preseason #3 prospect, who commands triple-digit heat, has dominated in AA this year as a 20-year-old, posting a 1.89 ERA. Is he being called up or being evaluated for something more ominous?The ominous possibility is that he is being evaluated for some problem. But there have been no reports of injuries, and he pitched four days ago, throwing 81 pitches and striking out seven in five innings. Of course, that would also mean he is due for another start somewhere on May 24th, which is tomorrow. And he certainly does not look sad in these pictures. On the other hand, there are also no reports of problems in the Twins rotation, and Graterol is a starting pitcher. So far this year, he's 5-0, with a 1.89 ERA and 46 strikeouts and 19 walks in 47.2 innings pitched. Of course, the team could also have the 6'1" right-hander work as a reliever, which is where several scouts saw his future. For instance, Keith Law, in his evaluation of Graterol this preseason, said "Scouts see no projection here and a delivery that probably points to a power-reliever role." It's also worth noting that Graterol has already been through Tommy John surgery once, in 2016. In Twins Daily's profile of Graterol, Nick Nelson talked about Graterol's two big pitches: There have also been several reports over the last few days of various minor leaguers who were brought up to throw in front of the front office. It could be as harmless as that - he's just being asked to throw in front of people, rather than bring the evaluators to the various minor league affiliates. Stay tuned for more updates.... Click here to view the article

One of the challenges of podcast/radio is you don't always know what you're going to talk about beforehand. So I've replayed that impromptu discussion a bit in my head since yesterday, and if anything, I think I wasn't vehement enough in defending Buxton's existing spot in the order. The Twins (and their fans and the media) have shown a clear bias around Buxton that has repeatedly led to the same mistake: they ask him to do too much. Batting him 3rd on Opening Day. Fiddling with his swing. Heaping on expectations. Rushing him back from injury because he plays so well in center field. That bias is understandable. We see the talent, experience the joy of watching him play, imagine the upside, and remember the expectations. But when you understand a bias, you have to try and consciously reign it in a bit. Thus, he started out in the ninth spot this year. And ... that's gone well! Given that, what is the justification from a risk/reward standpoint of pushing him up in the batting order? We know the reward - an average of 3-5 more runs for this offense over the course of the season. We also know the risk - Buxton flounders in the increased roll, and now the Twins must decide between an elite defensive center fielder who is beating himself up at the plate, or Jake Cave in center field. I don't know anyone who would have argued that Buxton should not be hitting at or near the bottom of the order when the season started. I don't know anyone who thinks if he's still sporting an 850 OPS at season end, that he should still be there. But I also don't think the coaching staff should feel any pressure to move him up the order sooner rather than later to gain three extra runs to a historically productive offense. They're closer to the situation, and have more incentives to handle this correctly, and so far they've done well. I'll trust that they are a better judge than I. In fact, I think it's ludicrous to suggest that such pressure should exist. If I had thought about it before the podcast, I would've been a lot more belligerent about it, not less.

Time is short, but there are a number of small developments in Twins Daily’s community as stories, interaction and new visitors all seem to be trending in positive directions. Let’s jump in. Stories Good lord: there were 30 stories last week on Twins Daily. I love you all.I especially love Tom Froemming, our editor, who absolutely hit it out of the park last week. Besides managing all of that content, he wrote a good chunk of it, leading all authors in page views. Our top 10 list for the week also includes several recently productive writers like Matt Braun, A J Condon, Thieres Rabelo, Andrew Thares & Andrew Gebo. When you see their byline in some of the stories you’re writing, perhaps take a little time to comment, even if it’s just to tell them a portion you liked, or even a part you didn’t. Let them know you heard their voice. It matters. Forums Registrations – 6 (we had 13 the same week in 2018)Topics – 83 (up from 45 the same week in 2018)Posts - 3054 (up from 2171 the same week in 2018)Huh. Fewer registrations? For some reason we had nine people register in one day this week a year ago, so that’s why the decrease, but six isn’t many. If anyone has ideas on good ways to increase registrations and discussion, feel free to pass it along in the comments below. But there was a LOT of discussion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen us clear 3000 comments in a week, and the 83 topics seems like the highest number I’ve seen, too. Usually, I’d like to call out some of the top posters, but I’m pressed for time this week. Sorry. By the way, did you know that you can “Like” comments in our forums? That’s a nice low-key way to let people know that you appreciate their contributions to a discussion. Just look for the little “Like This” red button in the bottom right-hand corner of their comment. Or if you want to wade in a little deeper we would love to have you register and tell us your thoughts. Blogs There were six great blog entries in our blog area this week. Honestly, if you’re coming to Twins Daily regularly, you might want to make a point to stop by there. It’s like seeing the bands before they get big: you get to know the writers as they grow, it’s a little more intimate, and there is often some encouraging give-and-take feedback in the comments. I wish I had time to call out all the great topics and stories, but I must point out we had a new voice join the chorus. The “Original Twin” Blog was started by thephilomath this week, and his first topic was about batting order with respect to Byron Buxton. Check it out, and thank thephilomath for sharing! Remember, when you’re ready to start your own Twins blog on Twins Daily, we have a whole bunch of people who are ready to read it. It looks like thephilomath got 500+ readers already. I think I was blogging for seven months before I got 500 readers to stop by a story, and that was only because Rob Neyer linked to it. News We really appreciate your patience at the beginning of last week as we worked through all kinds of issues with our new ad provider. I know there is a lot of anti-ad sentiment in general, but it’s an important source of revenue for the site and also for our contributing writers. If you contribute a story to Twins Daily, and we promote it to the front page, we pay you all of the ad revenue that comes from that story. That rate has been stalled out for a couple of years now, and we’re hoping this change can allow us give more back to our contributing writers who give so much to the community. Overall Traffic Last Week Users – 29,643 (up 71% from 2018)Sessions – 73,316 (up 48% from 2018)Page Views – 231,094 (up 37% rom 2018)Our users and sessions dipped slightly from the previous week, but our page view went up, which suggests more interaction, which is a great sign. And we saw a similar dip between the same two weeks a year ago, only much more pronounced, so this week was actually very encouraging. I don’t think we’ve seen a 71% increase year-over-year of any traffic metric since I’ve been doing these reports. That’s stunning. I’m sorry about the briefness of the report this week, but the length of it depends on how much time I have to produce it, so some weeks I’ll be able to go a little more in-depth on the stories, blogs and comments, and some weeks I can’t. It is more important to me that it be done every week than that it have certain elements every week. Writing it fires me up about the community, even if I can’t dive into every story, blog or post. Finally, I’m still looking for the right title for this series, so if you have a good one, please add it to the comments below. We got a decent suggestion last week, but I’m sticking with the “Community Report” for this week. But seriously, let’s get something a little slicker. Thanks again for reading and contributing so much to the community! Gratefully, John Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about Nelson Cruz and Mitch Garver getting hurt, Miguel Sano and Willians Astudillo taking their place, calling up Luis Arraez for the first time, demoting Trevor Hildenberger to Triple-A, killing the win, saying goodbye to Addison Reed, and Byron Buxton's spot in the batting order. 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

If you have to ask, you're old. I honestly couldn't believe Vogelbach when I saw him last night. He's Willians Astudillo if he ate Willians Astudillo.

Traffic climbed again, we had several new writers in the blogs, contributing writers topping our charts, and an increase in comments in the forums. Here’s last week’s community report. Stories That’s another 24 stories on Twins Daily this last week, which is three or four per day, and that’s fantastic. I would be re miss if I didn’t call out our number one contributing writer, Cody Christie, who topped everyone including the founders, in reads this week. You would think it would be depressing to see eleven names, including EIGHT contributing writers above mine on the page view list this week. It is not. It is beautiful. So congrats gang. You rock.Forums Registrations – 10 (we had 9 the same week in 2018) Topics – 79 (up from 43 the same week in 2018) Posts - 2274 (up from 2207 the same week in 2018) Since I started writing these community reports, this is the first week we’ve increased comments year over year. That’s pretty encouraging. It was driven by our top ten commenters: Mike Sixel, ashbury, Brock Beauchamp, Don Walcott, milldaddy35, Mr. Brooks, Aggies7, USAFChief, Gibby, and Vanimal46. If you didn’t make the list, don’t sweat it, but maybe check out the forums a little more. Nine comments per day would get you into the top 10. Fortunately, there are a lot of topics about which to talk. Just look at that increase from last year. Turns out, people can find topics for a good team as easily as they can for a bad team. Outside of our writers and game thread moderators, we had multiple topics started by milldaddy35, darin617, diehardtwinsfan, sampleSizeofOne, Blake, goulik, and psturnbloom. If you have a question, or find a story somewhere you want to share, just register and tell us about it in the forums with your own topic. We rarely bite. Blogs Oh, wow. We had SEVEN new blogs in our blog area of Twins Daily last week. That’s outstanding! What’s more, FOUR of those I haven’t mentioned in previous posts. One of those was more of a comment (that probably should have been under a story) but let’s touch on the others quickly (with apologies this week to the veterans): We got a post from stringer bell, who also kicks off several of the game threads, about the Twins start in 2019, giving an optimistic view on the future.Agebo wrote a bit setting up the trade deadline and providing some hope on Eddie Rosario getting past some of his bad luck by looking at his BABIP.Finally, Hosken Bombo Disco did a great story comparing the 2019 Twins to the 2018 Twins. It is pretty encouraging.Remember, when you’re ready to start your own Twins blog on Twins Daily, we have a whole bunch of people who are ready to read it. Overall Traffic Last Week Users – 30,963 (up 60% from 2018) Sessions – 77,690 (up 40% from 2018) Page Views – 229,229 (up 26% rom 2018) Traffic is still way up from last year and increased both week over week AND Increased by more than it did in the same week last year. Of course, it was a great week. But thanks for continuing to stop by and talk to your Twins friends about Twins Daily. As someone who remembers blogging for months with no more than two dozen readers, we won’t ever take that attention for granted. Here’s this week’s challenge for the comments section: what should I name this weekly report? I want to keep it far away from “weekly review” since that is close to Nick’s “Week in Review.” I’m going with “Community Report” this week, but it feels like we should be able to find something a little snappier. So have at it, and of course, questions, feedback and thoughts about the site are also always welcome. Gratefully, John Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins boasting the best record in baseball, Willians Astudillo's return, Miguel Sano's impending return, what to do about a struggling Trevor Hildenberger, Mitch Garver refusing to stop, smart ideas to improve Target Field attendance, and breaking down the Twins' vastly improved defense. 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

“But baseball has these unwritten rules....”

Aaron and John record a live podcast with 150+ listeners at First Draft Taproom and Kitchen.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 making it through hell week with a winning record, Miguel Sano nearing a comeback, Martin Perez's magical cutter, the unique nature of the rebuilt lineup, Rocco Baldelli learning how to manage a bullpen on the fly, and Mitch Garver's pitch-framing improvement. 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

Hopefully we have something for everyone. The goal isn't for everyone to love every story. The goal is to provide a buffet of different options, so everyone can find something they like. Prospect stories, game recaps, sabrmetric analysis, satire, roster minutia - load up your plate with what you want and leave the rest for the next person. I just love seeing what new hotdishes appear every week. If someone isn't writing about something, and you wish they were, maybe you're the one who should be starting a new type of story. Maybe start in the forums, maybe try your hand at blogging. That's how the different types of stories in this site started. Seth wanted someone to write about prospects, so he did. John wanted someone to talk about sabrmetrics, so he did. Parker wanted someone to break down swing mechanics, so he did. It goes on and on. Tom Froemming wanted game recaps that talked about the mechanics of the game, so he did. There's a lot of creativity in the people who come to this site. Each one sharing something leads to more sharing. That's very cool.

Reach out to Tom Froemming. You can do so with a private message in the site. But I know for a face Tom has already seen this one. :-)

This last week on Twins Daily, we had 28 new stories, a new writer of game recaps, a brand new blogger, and a comment section that made me personally very happy. Plus, growing traffic and some upcoming changes to one of the forum pages. Here is the site’s week in review…..Stories I count 28 stories on Twins Daily last week, which is remarkable, but we’re happy to have more. Among contributing writers, Cody Christie and Ted Schwerzer led the field in views again, but Andrew Thares pushed his way into the third spot, just ahead of Steve Lein. I’m also very happy to note that Thieres Rabelo made his game recap author debut, though now I’m blaming him for Friday night’s clunker. Of course, we also got great work from Jeremy Nygaard, Matt Braun, SD Buhr and Randballstu. Forums Registrations – 12 (we had 1 the same week in 2018)Topics – 82 (up from 52 the same week in 2018)Posts - 2414 (down from 2737 the same week in 2018)I wanted to call out one comment that I thought exemplified why we value our comments section so much. In my story on Friday about Harmon Killebrew’s home run that ended the Yankees dynasty, Devereaux added a link to the actual radio call, and Obie gave us a first-hand account. I almost hesitate to call those two comments out, because so many provide additional research, thought, contrasting viewpoints and much, much more. But as a writer, I was so grateful for those particular comments. Staying up late on Thursday to write about an event that happened 54 years ago seemed a little foolish, and it was super cool to find it really resonated with a few members. When you comment, even if you are disagreeing with the writer, you really are honoring their work. So let’s honor them back. The top commenters of this last week were Don Walcott, milldaddy35, ashbury, Brock Beauchamp, Mike Sixel, Blake, PseudoSABR, h2oface, Aggies7 & diehardtwinsfan. Remember, you don’t have to wait until someone else writes a story to talk about a topic. Go to the forums, and start a topic yourself. Our top topic starters this week included stringer bell, psturnbloom, goulik, Vanimal46, denarded and milldaddy35. Finally, I think we should note that game threads are back and have been thriving. If you can’t watch a game with friends, we would love to watch the game with you. Just check the forums. Blogs Besides the stories on the front page, Twins Daily has a blog section. It’s where people from the community share their stories and some get promoted to the front page. It’s kind of like the farm system for Twins Daily, except you don’t need to be invited to join. You just start your own blog and start sharing. If you’re not checking it out regularly, you might want to. The number of people willing to take the personal risk of writing for the community increased this week, and we had two members who didn’t write last week but did this week. Mike8791 expressed a thought I heard several times at the ballpark this week: with the window of contention open this is a good time to bulk up the bullpen. Mike8791 has written before, and you can check out his blog here. On the other hand, Agebo wrote for the first time on his new blog, and pointed out that the bullpen is doing pretty well and got a bunch of comments. I gotta tell you, both did a really nice job. Plus, some of our writers from last week kicked in: Ajcondon recapped the Houston series. I’m looking forward to seeing more from him.Brandon Warne shared an excerpt from his story over at Zone Coverage about Jake Odorizzi.And Ted Schwerzer reprinted a story about Adalberto Mejia from his independentblog in its entirety on his Twins Daily blog. If you have a blog and want to do that, we don’t mind at all. And if you include the full story, it qualifies as a candidate to be promoted to the front page and Twins Daily’s tens of thousands of regular readers. I think you might be seeing more from Ted on the front page soon.Remember, when you’re ready to start your own Twins blog on Twins Daily, we have a whole bunch of people who are ready to read it. News One thing that might be changing on the site this week is the ad layout on some pages, especially in the forum sections. Ads are an important factor in how we keep the site up and compensate our writers, and we’re working hard to try and get that revenue up. If it adversely affects the site in some way it shouldn’t, we appreciate your patience. As always, we’re open to feedback. Also, my original plan was to publish this “Twins Daily Week in Review” on Tuesdays, and that is probably still the plan, but this week I’m going to do so on Sunday, in case that gives you some downtime to explore the site a little more. I’m sorry I can’t commit to being more consistent to the release date, but it’s an experiment and experiments can be a little messy. Finally, I would like to thank Andrew Thares, who did a study of Twins Daily's traffic over the last five years behind the scenes. It gave us a lot to think about. Overall Traffic Last Week Users – 27,382 (up 52% from 2018)Sessions - 68,948 (up 37% from 2018)Page Views – 206,665 (up 19% from 2018)Like last week, traffic is way up over 2018, but it also increased from the week before. That’s pretty encouraging. I looked at the same two weeks last year, and it had basically stayed steady. And since the users and sessions increased more than the page views, I think it shows growing interest in the team to new fans. (Welcome new fans. Introduce yourself and register. We love having new Twins fans join Twins Daily and its great community!) It’s interesting that traffic increase happened during one of the toughest weeks on the team’s schedule. In losing seasons, I expect the opposite was true. Let’s end with a challenge to anyone who is reading this – if you found something you really liked on the site in the last week – whether it’s a story, a blog , a topic of a comment, please put it in the comments below. It’s a big site, and maybe we can curate as a community some stuff that I missed in this week’s report. And of course, questions, feedback and thoughts about the site are always welcome. Thanks and Win Twins, John Last week's review Click here to view the article

Where did you find this! Do you know who created the intro?

This weekend, you’ll see all kinds of stories about the Twins futility against the Yankees. But the Twins also have some history on their side. It isn’t often that one can define, to the moment, the end of an era, but such was the end of the Yankees three decade long domination of the American League. The moment was on Sunday, July 11th, 1965. And Twins slugger Harmon “Killer” Killebrew ended it on one symbolic swing.From 1936 through 1964, the Yankees failed to win the American League pennant just seven times, meaning they were in the World Series twenty-two times in twenty-nine years. But in 1964, there were indications that the end was near. Entering a series with the first place Twins immediately prior to the All-Star Game, the Yankees were in sixth place, 12.5 games back. In front of packed stadiums, the Twins won the first two games. However, the Yankees won the third game, and the fourth game was a tight affair, tied 4-4 going into the ninth. That last inning, it turned out, made the “Phil Cuzzi foul ball” call seem legitimate. In the top of the frame, the Yankees had runners on first and third base with two outs but failed to score when their batter hit a soft ground ball up the first base line. The Twins pitcher wasn’t able to field it cleanly, but that was because the Yankees batter interfered with him while running to first base. So the batter was out, and the runner from third that had crossed home plate didn’t count. Or did it? Yankees manager Johnny Keane came out and disputed the call, telling the umpire that he thought the Twins pitcher fielded the ball and tried to tag the Yankees batter, but then dropped it. If that’s the case, the runner would be safe and the run that crossed the plate on the play would count. Any Yankee detractor can see how this is going to end: the umpires reversed the call. Twins manager Sam Mele charged out of the dugout, but his team was told to retake the field even as he told the umpires the rest of the game would be played under protest. The Twins got the last out, but the damage had been done and the extremely agitated crowd knew it. Didn’t the Yankees get breaks like this all the time? However, the ’65 Twins had proved their resiliency throughout the year. Rich Rollins coaxed a walk, but it was sandwiched between two outs. Still, that gave Killebrew a chance to bat. He worked a full count before Yankees reliever Pete Mikkelsen challenged him with a fastball. In his book about the 1965 Twins, Cool Of The Evening, author Jim Thielman describes what happened next: “The ball jetted towards the stands, almost as if Killebrew had lit a short fuse on a Fourth of July pop bottle rocket. It was not the typical “Killebrew Fly” that featured a majestic parabolic arch. The ball was still rising when it crashed into the left-field pavilion. Silence. Had this happened? Had Killbrew hit a two-out, two-run homer on a 3-2 pitch to beat the Yankees heading into the All-Star Break? Was this team going to the World Series? The crowd erupted, screaming, applauding and stamping its feet on the stands, as had become the custom when the Met Stadium regulars wanted to display their appreciation enthusiastically. The cantilevered triple deck behind home plate shook from the thunderous pounding.” That home run was recognized as the biggest home run in Twins history until Kirby Puckett’s walkoff shot in 1991’s Game 6. The Twins did go on to the World Series that year, though they lost to the Dodgers and Sandy Koufax in seven games. The Yankees not only did not with the pennant, but they finished with a losing record for the first time since 1925 – the same year the Washington Senators (the Twins predecessors) won their only World Series. And the Yankees would not make the playoffs again for the next eleven years. Click here to view the article