John Bonnes

Aaron and John talk about Eddie Rosario's demotion and Robbie Grossman's arrival, Jose Berrios' disaster start, Phil Hughes' shoulder problems, Minnesota Corn Growers' groundskeeper contest, Brian Dozier's ongoing struggles, and Terry Ryan's quotes about the sorry state of the team.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins getting right in Cleveland, the surprising AL Central pecking order, the legend of Juan Centeno, Tyler Duffey and Ervin Santana carrying the rotation again, Joe Mauer leading off, Byron Buxton on fire at Triple-A, Byung Ho Park looking better and better, and finding the unexpected on the Minnesota Corn Growers' website.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' total system failure, the pros and cons of Terry Ryan as general manager, whether Paul Molitor deserves some of the blame, and "Caddyshack" via the Minnesota Corn Growers. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Having the lead developer for Baseball-Reference living in the Twin Cities AND being willing to talk to the local SABR community is pretty cool. I hope I'll see some of you at this. I plan to be there.

“I know that guy had an extra RBI in 1954.” Minnesotan Hans van Slooten gets these inquiries daily as the primary developer for Baseball-Reference.com. The Halsey Hall chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research invites you to join us at the Roseville Library on Monday, May 16 as we welcome Hans to give a presentation on this popular site that has become an indispensable resource for statheads, casual fans, current and ex-players, baseball researchers and everyone in between.Van Slooten will provide a brief history of the website, reveal some of the lesser known corners of the site and provide a tutorial on the site’s play indexes. He will also answer questions and run any play index queries requested by the audience. While some may consider spending their day working with baseball stats a dream job, van Slooten told me recently with a laugh, “It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds.” The main office is in Philadelphia so he works normal business hours (“on east coast time”) from his home in St. Paul. A typical day may include fixing bugs on the site or developing new features. “I spent a lot of time earlier getting ready for the new season,” said van Slooten, who has a degree in computer science. Another big responsibility is responding to daily inquiries – “A lot of the historical questions get forwarded onto Retrosheet but I also get emails from former minor leaguers saying, ‘Hey, you spelled my name wrong.’ And I can’t just take their word for it, I have to verify that they are who they say they are before I can correct it.” With the sheer amount of information on the site, it’s easy to get lost in a mountain of data. “Sometimes I forget everything we have on the site,” van Slooten says. “It’s fun to search for random stuff like a Hall of Famer’s worst game or guys who played one major league game.” The site is 15 years old so it has its bugs and the work is ongoing – continuing projects include speeding up the site’s loading time and improving the mobile capabilities. So if you’ve ever wondered how many complete games Old Hoss Radbourn had in 1884 (73 – take that, Bert Blyleven), join us for an evening of stats, baseball history and random information that every baseball fan needs filling their brain on a daily basis. An Evening with Hans van Slooten Monday, May 16, 2016 7 pm Roseville Library 2180 Hamline Avenue, Roseville, 55113 Hamline Avenue and County Road B This event is free and no RSVP is required. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about Byron Buxton's demotion, Jose Berrios' debut, David Murphy's retirement, Joe Mauer's resurgence, Ervin Santana and Kyle Gibson going on the disabled list, Alex Meyer getting another chance, buying razors from Harrys.com, Kevin Jepsen's grip on the closer role, Miguel Sano's first 100 games, and eating rattlesnake at New Bohemia.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

For the Minnesota Twins, the hits just keep coming.Unfortunately it's hits to their collective health, not against opposing pitchers. This afternoon, the corresponding move to the Jose Berrios promotion was revealed: starting pitchers Kyle Gibson and Ervin Santana will be placed on the 15-day DL today. As a result, Berrios and Tyler Duffey will likely be in the Twins rotation for at least a couple of starts.The news about Gibson was the biggest surprise. He hurt his shoulder in his start on Sunday. Per Mike Berardino, an MRI on Gibson’s shoulder revealed no structural damage and so the Twins are hopeful that his stay on the disabled list will be short. Ervin Santana missed his last start on Sunday with a back problem so adding him to the DL was more expected. The Twins can make it retroactive to his last start, which was April 19th, so he could pitch again by the middle of next week if he is recovered. The starting pitching depth which was the focus of so many stories in spring training will be used to patch over the spots. Tyler Duffey was recalled for Sunday’s start. He was exceptional for the Twins late last year (3.10 ERA), but lost his spot in the rotation due to inconsistency in spring training. The 25-year-old threw four innings on Sunday, leaving the game after being hit on the shoulder by a batted ball. He gave up just one run, but walked two and gave up five hits. His next start will be on Saturday. And we learned earlier today that JO Berrios will be starting tomorrow's game. You can read analysis about him here. The promotion of Duffey and Berrios, along with the recall of Alex Meyer means the Twins have promoted their three top major league-ready arms over the last three days. In addition, they are promoting Jorge Polanco to bring the number of pitchers on the roster back down to thirteen. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk at Lynlake Brewery about the Twins' mortality, Tyler Duffey's spot start, Ron Gardenhire's return to the organization, watching you be a Twins groundkeeper, Miguel Sano coming out of his funk, Byron Buxton drifting toward a demotion, Brian Dozier chasing high heat, losing John Hicks for nothing, Chris Colabello's suspension, and partying for Prince.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

I'm with Seth. I was baffled by the reaction on Twitter and here; more so on Twitter. As I get older, I get more frustrated with our willingness to distort objective analysis for entertainment. It feels like that is the case here. A quick snarky Gardy joke is top of mind and easy to make, so resort to tweeting it and retweeting it and praising it. But it's ... um ... let's call it "self-pleasuring" - we do it because it feels good, not because it's productive. Ron Gardenhire is the winningest manager in Twins history, and if you think he's a bum, you might want to re-examine if any manager of a team you cared for has ever not been a bum. He finished in the top three in AL Manager of the Year approximately half a dozen times, which is essentially an award based on how a team overperforms expectations nationally. He built his success ON turning young players into contenders; nobody expected a team of Mientkiewicz, Koskie, Pierzynski, Guzman, Jones and Hunter to have anywhere near the run they had. And he oversaw it for an enormous stretch - far longer than, say, Joe Maddon made the Rays a winning team. Also, just so we're clear - he essentially resigned. The story from all accounts, is that Ryan told Gardenhire they could not offer him an extension for 2016 and Gardy said that he thought maybe the organization should make a change, and so Ryan agreed. The "fired" part is true only because Ryan continued to pay him through 2015, which he would not have needed to do if Gardy "resigned," but this was a parting of the ways. So why are we puzzled - and even more crazy, concerned - that Gardy is back in the organization? This reaction is, IMHO, insane. Of course you want a lifetime baseball guy, who spent close to 30 years with the team and is the winningest manager in Twins history, back with the team. You would be crazy not to.

Aaron and John talk about the Twins breaking through with their first wins of the season, Oswaldo Arcia reminding everyone he can hit, Glen Perkins' latest injury, Joe Mauer's great start, Byung Ho Park's huge power, being a Twins groundkeeper for a day, signing David Murphy to a minors deal, hot-hitting Eduardo Nunez, Byron Buxton vs. Eddie Rosario, and Bonnes refusing not to dance like a maniac.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John recap their experience at the Twins' home opener, apply sabermetrics to lifetime beer consumption, and wonder what the team can do to fix itself in a special midweek episode sponsored by Harry's.com.You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk at the Iron Door Pub about the Twins' brutal 0-6 start, over-managing Miguel Sano, "messing" up tater tots, Joe Mauer quietly having a big week, assessing Byung Ho Park, a special Home Opener GATG podcast, Danny Santana getting hurt, Paul Molitor tinkering constantly, Ricky Nolasco coming up big, buying a mattress from Casper, Glen Perkins struggling again, and Max Kepler filling in. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click the Play button below. Click here to view the article

BTW, sorry to go all CAP HEAVY. I'll try again: defense in rf doesn't matter. It's where you out the worst, most unathletic person in every baseballish game at every level for all teams in history, except for DH. And Sano is not the least athletic guy on the Twins. He played third base, which us higher on the defensive spectrum. It's all going to be fine.

La Bombo, I love you're writing style. I can't reply to all you posts, and I wish I could, but a much more important point is that you should write. I want you to have a blog here. I think it's going to be great. I'll possibly disagree with it vehemently, like I do this Sano thing, but u think it will be great. I think most of the Sano in RF angst is rhetorical, which is super fun and super popular, but ultimately at odds with an honest, objective, analytical evaluation. If I had to explain it rhetorically, I'd go with this: Sano is superhuman. That's why we have trouble understanding how a 270(+?) is gonna be able to handle this. But if you watch, he is handling it. So relax. As for the questions earlier about Hunters defense, I'll give more detail & then give the obvious conclusion. Detail: from each AL team I pulled the RFer w the most innings. Then I sorted them by their UZR. (Hunter had a positive UZR.) Obvious conclusion - actually I'll get be two of them: 1) Hunter was not as bad in RF as you expected but you made up your mind early and didn't notice because DEFENSE IN RF DOESNT MATTER. 2) Hunter was still bad in RF, but better than average because most RFers aren't very good defensively, because DEFENSE IN RF DOESNT MATTER.

I'm amazed at our ability to make up our minds about something before we've seen it. From the beginning, the mind set seems to have been that Sano is going to be a disastrous outfielder and that's based on ... what? His weight? Is that it? It seemed like Sano fielded just about as many hits to right field in these first three games than I bet he saw all of spring training. And for the most part, he looked like a fine (if below average) right fielder. He made several routine plays, at least one good play up against the wall and had the mistake that cost the team a run. He looks inexperienced but already the equivalent of Delmon Young, Chris Parmelee, Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia (non-2016 year edition). I'll leave with this. Here are the seven worst fielding starting right fielders in the AL last year: Josh Reddick Shin-Soo Choo Gerardo Perra Carlos Beltran Avisail Garcia Nelson Cruz Jose Bautista Here were the seven best: Kole Calhoun J.D. Martinez Rusney Castillo Alex Rios George Springer Torii Hunter Steven Souza You tell me which group you would rather have. Good hitters with questionable defense play right field all the time. Indeed, looking at the whole list, nearly every "below average" defender in right field is a guy you would want to have, and the best fielders are simply there because there isn't a good hitter on the roster to stick there.