John Bonnes

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

AAaaaand then he stubs his toe again last night a little. Sigh. Still, those peripherals are pretty (38K in 28.1 IP with 10 BB). For all the hand-wringing going on at the major league level about Mejia, it's sure nice to see a southpaw that can bring the heat. He does seem like a kind of pivotal guy to keep an eye on.

Re: Game threads It sounds like these are coming back in a more limited form, so stay tuned. I'm happy to have them, but last year the overwhelming negativity kind of killed them. Which is not to say you can't be negative in a game thread; that's a valid reaction. But the people who take time to create and caretake the game threads can lose their motivation when doing so creates a cesspool of negativity. It's kind of hard work.

I thought about that too. Maybe there is a difference between the moods when a team is good or bad and maybe "good" means more topics, but fewer comments because people are more content?

Thank you for this suggestion. We are looking at a possible redesign of some things and making the community aspects of this more "up-front" would be a priority. You're absolutely right about this.

We’re definitely seeing a lot of activity at Twins Daily lately. We had a number of contributing writers draw a lot of attention, a small surge in registrations, lots of new topics in the forums, and a few new blog entries that show the breadth of ways the blog section can be used. Plus, a lot more traffic. Here is your breakdown and news for Twins Daily last week.Stories Cody Christie and Ted Schwerzler topped our contributing writers, tallying up almost 14,000 views on their stories this week. Steve Lein, Matt Braun, Jeremy Nygaard and Miller1234 also made the top 10 list, along with Tom, Seth, John, and Nick. Seth’s minor league report on Tuesday, featuring another scoreless outing by Fort Myers Miracle Randy Dobnak, was the most read story of the week. Nick’s week in review was the second most read and John’s game recap on Tuesday was the third most read story. Of course, several of Tom Froemming’s stories were well represented. The top story for contributing writers was Cody Christie examining the impact Craig Kimbrel might have on the Twins bullpen. His minor league report was the second most read story. And I should also mention that Jeremy Nygaard returned to writing at Twins Daily and we had RandBall Stu’s usual Friday contribution, which was both funny and increasingly sad as the weekend progressed. Forums Registrations – 14 (we had 6 the same week in 2018)Topics – 71 (up 48% from same week in 2018)Posts - 2493 (down 23% from same week in 2018)There is some seemingly contradictory data here. We had more people join, and more topics, but less comments. I wonder if that isn’t driven by cutting down on game threads? One of the most gratifying things about Twins Daily for me personally is seeing people connect to each other. It looks like there is a lot of that going on in the forums. If you would like to register and comment, you can do so here (and we would love to meet you). The top ten commenters last week were: Mike Sixel, TheLeviathan, Mr. Brooks, ashbury, h2oface, bighat, nicksaviking, Hosken Bombo Disco, milldaddy35 and spycake. People who started at least two new topics (and who are not writing) are gunnarthor (3), sampleSizeOfOne, stringerbell and ashbury. Thanks you everyone for contributing, and thank you to our moderators for encouraging civil and thoughtful discussion. Blogs I count four new blog posts this week, and they each show some of the features of starting your own Twins blog on Twins Daily: Thieres Rabelo defended Jason Castro’s role on the Twins, and that story was eventually promoted to Twins Daily’s front page. Thieres is a newer writer to Twins Daily, and we’re excited to see what else he can share with us.Ted Schwerzler, on the other hand, has been one of Twins Daily’s most prolific writers over the last couple of years. He wrote about Eddie Rosario’s great start. If you click over, you’ll see he included a link to his own Twins blog, which we absolutely encourage. We want people to find you if you’re writing about the Twins. This story has not been promoted to the front page, but a lot of Ted’s are, and they all include links to his site, which is great.We have a relatively new writer named ajcondon who has been publishing blog posts that include game recaps, or in this case, a recap of the Houston Astros series. We love it when new writers take the personal risk of sharing their work with the community. He got some feedback in the comments and it was great to see him reply to those comments. I suspect you’ll see his work on the front page, soon.Friday, Brandon Warne wrote about addressing the Twins bullpen woes, taking an excerpt from a story he published over at Zone Coverage. Like Ted’s work, if you have an existing blog or web site, and want to do that, that’s fine. The only difference is that we’ll never promote a partial story to our front page because we don’t think it’s fair to make people click over midway through a story. But if it gets more attention to your work, have at it. Again, we want people to find you.Overall TrafficUsers – 24,199 (up 34% from 2018)Sessions - 60,982 (up 29% from 2018)Page Views – 185,193 (up 9% rom 2018)The easy way to explain the increase in basic metrics across the board is that the Twins are actually good this year, and fun to watch, and so we’re busier. I also like to think we’re a pretty inclusive bunch, so members reach out to connect with more Twins fans, and I think that is something the community feels, too. There is some evidence to support the latter theory in the Forums section above, too. Let’s have another great week at Twins Daily. If there is other news you would like to see, or questions you have about the site, or feedback you want to give, we have this great comment section below. I’d love to hear what you have to say. Click here to view the article

On the one hand, Gibby's quality starts have both been against the Orioles. On the other, he's consistently getting a little deeper into each game, and that jives with the narrative about him likely needing a little extra time to get on track after that e coli disaster. I'm optimistic (which is not unusual, but still).

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' record-shattering power numbers, preparing for one of the toughest weeks of the season, Willians Astudillo going on the injured list, Matt Magill returning to the bullpen, Justin Morneau vs. Bert Blyleven, and how the bullpen could evolve from weakness to strength. 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

Half the game was a party. The other half was torture. But the underdog Twins won an important game versus the Astros on Monday night thanks to a free-wheeling offense, nervy pitching from some unlikely names and some stellar defense.Box Score Odorizzi: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 63% strikes Home Runs: Castro (1), Polanco (4) Multi-Hit Games: Polanco (4-5, 2B, HR), Cruz (2-5, both infield hits) WPA of +0.1: Odorizzi (.157), Cron (.146), Polanco (.149), Kepler (.112) WPA of -0.1: none Download attachment: 2019-04-22 WPA Chart.JPG (chart via FanGraphs) Lowest High-Hanging Fruit This is the game in this series that the Twins really needed. On Tuesday they’ll face Wade Miley (LHP, 3.32 ERA) and on Wednesday Justin Verlander (3.00 ERA, 38K). Tonight they faced Brad Peacock, who is far from a pushover, but is Houston's fifth starter and hadn’t pitched as a starter in two weeks. But that doesn’t mean it was low-hanging fruit. The Astros were still favored. Vegas gave them a 60% chance of winning. Survive and Advance Given the offense was seeing the back of the Astros' rotation, the Twins biggest challenge was keeping the Astros' lineup relatively in check for nine innings. Twins starting pitching hasn’t had a lot of success getting much past the fifth inning, even with good starts. Plus, after playing (and winning) three games over the last two days, the Twins two best relievers were probably unavailable. Taylor Rogers threw 45 pitches Saturday and Sunday, and Trevor Hildenberger threw 38, so it was unlikely either was going to be used except in the direst of emergencies. Odorizzi's performance gave him the highest Win Probability Added (WPA) score, and it probably underplays just how valuable he was. He navigated the Astros lineup almost completely three times. You might remember that navigating a lineup three times was not Odorizzi’s strong suit last year: opponents had a 1.159 OPS against him when facing him a third time. This time he gutted his way through 5 2/3 IP, giving up just two runs. Trevor May, who also threw 20 pitches yesterday, got the last out of the sixth. That left three fairly high-leverage innings to navigate and four available bullpen arms: RHP (and closer) Blake Parker, RHP Ryne Harper, RHP Tyler Duffey and LHP Adalberto Mejia. Manager Rocco Baldelli chose Harper for the seventh inning, Mejia for the eighth and Parker for the ninth. Harper gave up a three-run home run on a questionable pitch choice, but the rest of the trio held. The Twins had the game they needed, pieced together from some unlikely names. Defensive Play Of The Game In the bottom of the fourth, with the Twins leading 3-1, Odorizzi escaped a possible big inning thanks to an Eddie Rosario to Jonathan Schoop to Jason Catro relay that cut down Josh Reddick at the plate. Enjoy: More Offense The firepower that the Twins displayed in Baltimore continued in Houston, with a couple of noteworthy rebounds. Jorge Polanco, after a mini-slump in Baltimore and a rough first at-bat, had another monster game. Seriously, he has a .776 slugging percentage. That's obscene. Jason Castro, who entered the game hitting .143, left the game with an .823 OPS and hit his first home run this year. And Nelson Cruz beat out two infield singles that left Twins announcer Dick Bremer joking about the imminent apocalypse. Watching the top half of the innings was legitimately fun all night. Alternately, the bottom half was legitimately nerve-racking, but a middle-of-the-rotation starter and some middle relief arms did anything but a middling job. The Twins stole a game in Houston while simultaneously resting some of their more valuable bullpen arms. That can only help as they face even more difficult pitching the next two nights. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days. It looks like the only bullpen arm who might be held back is Trevor May: Download attachment: 2019-04-22 Bullpen.JPG Next Three Games Tue at HOU, 7:10 pm CT (Pineda-Miley) Wed at HOU, 7:10 pm CT (TBD-Verlander) Fri vs BLT, 7:10 pm CT (Berrios?-Cobb?) Last Game MIN 4, BAL 3: Gibby Good, Hildy Holds, Rogers Saves the Sweep Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' fireworks show in Baltimore, debating the merits of pursuing Craig Kimbrel, Byron Buxton's doubles spree, Trevor Hildenberger the fire-fighter, Francisco Lindor rejoining the Indians, and spies reporting on John Bonnes in the wild. 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

Aaron and John talk about getting bumped by Tiger Woods, the end of constant off days on the Twins' schedule, big changes up and down the lineup, making sense of a three-headed catching monster, Tyler Austin's new home, their Donkey Kong skills, 612 Brew beers and the latest injury updates on Miguel Sano, Addison Reed, and Matt Magill. 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