John Bonnes

FWIW, I'm pretty disappointed that we aren't seeing Berrios this weekend. I'm also a little surprised. But if Santana is really hurt, maybe that will give JO his chance.

One of the more exciting aspects of this year’s trade deadline was the number of ace pitchers available. A bonanza like that comes around once every….what, 20 years? And yet the Twins’ starting rotation was so flush that they moved their most promising young starter to the bullpen. That was fun for, oh, 24 hours.Two days later, starting pitcher Tommy Milone was on the DL. This week, Phil Hughes joined him. And there is at least one other Twins starting pitcher about whom we should be concerned.* *Yup, I’m talking about Ervin Santana, who has only made eight starts. And here are his strikeout numbers in those eight starts: 8K in 8 IP (9K/9) 5K in 4 IP (11.3K/9) 1K in 7.2 IP (1.2 K/9) 8K in 8 IP (9K/9) 3K in 5.2 IP (4.8K/9) 2K in 6 IP (3K/9) 1K in 2.1 IP (3.9K/9) 1K in 6 IP (1.5K/9) See how that strikeout rate drops off drastically after the fourth start? Most times I’ve seen that, the player, within a few weeks, takes time off with an injury. I have very little doubt that Santana is hurt. The alternate theory is that he is now off PEDs, but he isn’t putting up those totals early if that was the issue. And what is really worrisome is that his problem appears to be his control, more than his “stuff.” Control is where the elbow comes in…. So the Twins are using that depth to start papering over those issues – but their latest choice may have already cost them a game yesterday to the Rangers. Here’s the breakdown…. Hughes was due to start Friday’s game. Saturday’s game was open because none of the current starters would have had four days rest and Milone can’t come off the 15-day DL until Sunday, so he was due to start that game. To fill the open slot on Saturday, the Twins planned on Tyler Duffey, who Twins fans last saw a little over a week ago when he was getting shelled by the Blue Jays. Choosing Duffey makes some sense: 1) He’s already on the 40-man roster, because he was added for that last start. 2) He’s legit. He’s not necessarily a top of the rotation guy, but his numbers and rise through the organization demonstrate he’s on track for a middle/back end of the rotation major league career. 3) Don’t worry about him getting the crap kicked out of him by the Blue Jays in his first start. First, it was the Blue Jays, who are on fire. And second, it was his first MLB start. They don’t always go well, and it means nothing. Just ask Trevor May. And speaking of May…. He’s the choice for Friday’s start. Turning to him is good news in a way: it likely means the Twins think Hughes will be back after just 15 days. If they were more worried, they likely would have turned to JO Berrios, the top pitching prospect in the organization, who isn’t on the 40-man roster. Their hesitation to add Berrios to the 40-man roster for what will likely be only a start or two is frustrating for those of us eager to see him. And the Twins have already paid a price for their timidity. Choosing May meant he wasn’t available for Wednesday’s close game with the Rangers. May usually pitches the eighth inning, but this time it was Casey Fien, who let in the tie-breaking run in the Rangers 6-5 victory. The bad news is that the Twins are likely outgunned on the mound for each game in this series. The good news is that you’re going to get a taste of the Twins that could be the backbone of this rotation in 2017. This is a big series for the Twins – hell, every series is right now. It’s unfortunate they are trying to patch together a starting rotation as they try to chase wild card teams. But the patches they are using are a long way from the patches they have used in previous years. Remember Johan Pino and P.J. Walters? Like that indy band that you saw before they got big, this weekend provides a chance to say “I saw them back when….” Click here to view the article

Regarding the logjam 1) I don't really expect the Twins to do anything, in part because... 2) I don't really know if it's that wise. The biggest concern is whether Sano can play 3B. It seems odd that Aaron suggested this, because I think he's been one of the biggest skeptics on this point. And I wonder if the Twins, even if they were convinced he probably could play 3B, aren't wondering why the hell they would mess with a good thing, especially the way Sano has been hitting as DH. The other concern is that it's projecting a lot of guys to either take the next step or not regress. Mauer could continue his drop off. Kepler could need more time. Arcia could never take the step we hope to see and ultimately be a platoon only guy. Rosario and his K/BB rate could take Danny Santana's path. So I come back to the conclusion I came to on the podcast - you take a good offer if it comes along and addresses a bigger need. But I'm not trying to get rid of Plouffe. He's just one option.

Well, like Aaron and I, we're going to need to agree to disagree. I don't want Buxton on this roster as a fourth outfielder until he can't be a full time outfielder in the minors. It s a disservice to Buxton.

Aaron and John get together for a special midweek episode and talk about Byron Buxton disappearing from the Twins' immediate plans, the possibility of trading Trevor Plouffe, Max Kepler's breakout season, Kurt Suzuki being skeptical of numbers, buying a mattress from Casper, clearing the 2016 outfield logjam, Terry Ryan's job security and getting the meat sweats at Iron Door Pub. 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

It's a fair criticism. I'm trying not be insulting but recognize how I am. But I don't know how else to convey just how out of left field this suggestion would seem to anybody not in this thread. To suggest the Twins should bench one of the (if not "the") most popular Twins of the last twenty years, who is viewed inside and outside of the organization as a leader, who is helping to lead this resurgence AND who has been one of the top four guys in the lineup while they're still playing meaningful baseball to get a prospect, regardless of his Baseball America ranking, is never going to happen. Again, not for any organization at any time. Listen, if I came out here and said they should bench Mauer, move Sano to first, Hunter to DH and insert Buxton, I have to think you would think it ludicrous. But Hunter is outperforming Mauer, more popular than Mauer and seen as more beneficial to the youngsters performance than Mauer. That suggestion, which nobody even cares to raise, is probably more likely than this. It's that far out there. Well, I get that, but this doesn't change the past. In fact, that's kind of my point. Grumping about this is more a factor of not being happy with past decisions than evaluating this one. And not to change the topic - but this might be a good new thread: was the Hunter signing a good one? I'd be happy to expound on why it was in another thread. (I have, by the way, started one on re-signing Hunter for next year. That's going to be the real question, in my mind.)

That's an interesting example. I appreciate you finding that. Certainly the Cubs are somewhat similar. Certainly demoting Castro could be seen as a stab in the back, like benching Hunter would. But Castro has a 575 OPS. He was killing that team. And the $60 million is a reason to send him down, rather than keep him up - they need to get him right. And it's not too difficult for a rookie to produce a 575 OPS. There is a lot less pressure on him than there would be on Buxton. To be fair, with Hunter scuffling over the last month, it's not totally inconceivable that Buxton would put up better numbers over the last seven weeks if Hunter is truly hurt. (Hunter has about a 680 OPS over the last month). But if he's not, then it's going to be very hard for Buxton to post a 740 OPS like Hunter has now. The average CF OPS this year is 726. To put up even that number as a 21-year-old rookie would put him in elite company historically.

Nice story. More importantly, you look good Axel! You've lost weight, if I'm not mistaken.

I think a better chance for Berrios is to have the team be competitive. If they aren't, I think the Twins will be careful with how many innings they put on his arm. If they're in it and need a starter, I can see them calling him up for a bit. As for Buxton or Kepler, the only thing that gets them into play is an injury, a severe slump, or Hunter demanding a trade to a contender. I don't see the final one happening even if they do drop out, so no, I don't see it helping them. FWIW, you're seeing a youth movement. It's just going to take a little bit of time to sort out who is going to stick and who isn't. (And to find some way to patch holes like catcher.)

Wow. 108 comments by the time I get here after my early morning meetings. And mods, I am sorry that I've created so much work for you. There's way too much to address on this. There's a lot of anger here. My probably overgeneralized take is that a frustrating trade deadline combined with a more frustrating slump has people wanting the team to give up, so they can give up and not emotionally invest in what looks like an unhappy ending. To the issue: I only see three ways that Buxton should be on this roster: 1) He replaces Shane Robinson in the 4th outfielder role. I can't believe that's what people want. 2) He is "mixed in" with everyone, taking a few at-bats from everyone and slightly more from Hunter. I don't have a great reason not to do this, other than we're messing around with a bunch of guys that seem to be on the right track, and I don't see a compelling reason to do that. But this also doesn't seem to by the gist of the comments. 3) He takes Hunter's job. This seems to be the primary argument, and I think I addressed it in earlier comments, but I'll summarize it like this: This is a position that is so extreme as to be nearly detached from reality. I'm open to counter examples. If you can find any evidence that any other of the 29 management teams, from any year, who 1) finds themselves suddenly competitive, still a handful of games from a Wild Card spot, past the trade deadline, a game under .500 and experiencing a renewed interest in the team after four years of abysmal results... 2) would bench a $10 million free agent who has been a productive player and who also is a crowd favorite and AND as recently as Friday night was celebrated as a game-winning, team-rallying hero... 3) just so they can push a 21-year-old coming off a thumb injury who had previously skipped AAA and gone directly to the majors (and didn't have immediate success)... ...I'm completely open to any comparisons you can find.I mean that is never going to happen. Not here, not now, not anywhere at any time. I'm open to new ideas, but to me, this suggestion is fringe; it's borderline untethered. I don't mean that as an insult, though I can see how it would read that way. We can all get carried away as fans. Instead I mean it as a call to maybe reexamine where your perceptional base is. What paradigms are you viewing the world through that makes this sound reasonable? Is anger at someone making all moves like this be viewed as terrible?

Cool. Thanks.

Hunter's 740 OPS is still a mark that will be nearly impossible for a 21-year-old center fielder to match. And that's just numbers, not the personal stuff. Benching Hunter guts the team of one of its more popular leaders. It also puts an enormous amount of pressure on a rookie to replace that leader (which is he is unlikely to do on the field and impossible to do in the locker room) when he already has enough pressure on him. I can't think of a better way to ruin a kid, even one who seems as mentally tough as Buxton. I can see Buxton having a role on this team this year. There could be an injury, or he could serve as the fourth outfielder for September when the minor leagues are finished. But replacing Hunter for Buxton now? It's so far removed from reality I honestly feel like asking it in an interview with management, coaching or players would get you laughed out for the room. And that doesn't just go for the Twins. That goes for 29 other MLB teams, too.

On July 20th, the Rangers were five games under .500, and nine games back in the AL West and seven games back of the second Wild Card spot, held by the Minnesota Twins . With the trade deadline approaching and “sell” trade rumors swirling around their pitcher Yovanni Gallardo, it looked like the Rangers season was essentially over early. Not so fast.The Rangers now enter this series with a .500 record, 4.5 games back in the AL West and a half game ahead of the Twins, albeit still back of that final Wild Card spot. Since the 20th, they have gone 12-6 and held onto Gallardo after they didn’t get any trade offers they thought were compelling enough. But most importantly, the Rangers also traded for Phillies ace Cole Hamels at the trade deadline. Hamels, unlike many of the starting pitchers that traded hands, isn’t a free agent at the end of the year, and the Rangers made a point of emphasizing that this deal was for future years as much as anything. But Hamels is also providing a huge boost in the area that the Rangers have been weakest; their 4.49 ERA is last in the American League. Tuesday Yovani Gallardo (8-9, 3.47 ERA, 5.9 K/9) vs. Kyle Gibson (8-9 3.78 ERA,6.4 K/9 ) This is an interesting matchup because the 27-year-old Gibson looks a lot like the 29-year-old Gallado in terms of results and how they have achieved them. Neither is a big strikeout pitcher, though both are respectable. Both rely on ground balls. They also have identical records, similar ERAs and are within four innings of each other for the season. It could very well be that the “swing” game of the series is the first one. Wednesday Nick Martinez (7-6, 3.91 ERA, 5.3 K/9) vs. Mike Pelfrey (5-7, 4.06 ERA, 4.3 K/9) Martinez and Pelfrey have a few things in common, too. Neither is much of a strikeout pitcher, nor does either have great control, and yet they’re both having fairly decent seasons that belie those numbers. The two pitchers are also on opposite ends of their careers: Martinez is only 24 years old and in his second year. Pelfrey is 31 and a ten-year veteran. Thursday Cole Hamels (6-8, 3.86 ERA, 9.5 K/9) vs. Ervin Santana (2-3, 5.40 ERA, 5.8 K/9) Speaking of double-digit year veterans, this matchup features two of them. Santana has 11 years on his slender arm, and after being suspended for the first half of the year, he has made three stellar starts, three clunkers and one decent outing. If the Twins are to compete in August, they’re going to need their “big midseason addition” (albeit not a trade deadline addition) to be better than a coin flip. Hamels matches Santana in the “slender” department but has served as the workhorse in Philly for 10 years before this trade, averaging 207 IP with a 3.21 ERA from 2007 through 2014. Read that last sentence again. He’s also won a World Series there, received Cy Young votes four times, and threw a no-hitter in his last game with that franchise. His introduction to the American League, however, has not gone as smoothly: he’s given up nine runs over 13.2 innings in his two starts. The Lineup The Rangers are fourth in the American League in runs scored, while the Twins rank ninth, though the difference is only 27 runs over the 111 games the teams have played. But the Rangers are hitting a lot better since the All-Star break, and they’ve added both Josh Hamilton and (very recently) Mike Napoli midseason to provide a few more offensive options. Make no mistake – this isn’t the Toronto Blue Jays. But they can be formidable. It isn’t trivial to navigate a lineup with Shin-Soo Choo, Prince Fielder, Adrian Beltre, and Mitch Moreland hitting second through fifth. Click here to view the article

To suggest that Hunter should be benched for Buxton is ... more than a little crazy. This team deserves every chance to either sink or swim for the rest of this year based on their results, I completely understand the frustration people are feeling after a 3-12 run. But that reaction seems to be people letting their frustration get the better of them. If, at the start of the season, I'd have told this group that the Twins would be one game under .500 on 8/10 and within a handful of games from the Wild Card, nobody would've suggested they look towards next year. If, instead of going 2-8 in their last 10 games, they went 8-2 but had the exact same record, exact same stats, exact same everything else, the perception would be totally different. Nobody would be saying "White Flag!". They's be saying "Look at the progress Hicks and Rosario and Sano are making! It's coming together!" The fact that there is no easy place for Buxton to play isn't an indictment against the Twins - it's deserves acclaim. So many positions are crowded with young talent (and with a 40-year-old free agent who is defying his age) that they can't find playing time for the top prospect that tore up AA for half the year so they're putting him in AAA for a few weeks. Terry Ryan should be putting on the top of his resume. I'm not denying that Twins have problems; I'll be happy to dive into how they've handled catcher, shortstop, DH (previously) and the bullpen. But criticism of this area makes me question the credibility of the criticizer. If you're not happy with the outfield situation, I don't know you can be happy with any baseball situation, ever.

Seth, are you saying if a player is sent down for less than 20 days to the minors, the option doesn't count? If so, I did not know that.

Minnesota Twins activate OF Byron Buxton from DL, option him to AAA-Rochester. I'm surprised there is any controversy about this whatsoever. But controversy there is. Buxton can only play in four positions – the three outfield spots and designated hitter - and three are filled with some of the best news of the Twins season. Those productive prospects need (and should be rewarded) at-bats right now. Surely we're not suggesting sitting Eddie Rosario (750 OPS, 23yo), Aaron Hicks (767 OPS, 25yo) or Miguel Sano(873 OPS, 22yo)?That leaves one spot, right field, which belongs to Torii Hunter, who is a top of the order hitter with the second most home runs on the team. Hunter needs his rest, but that’s two days per week. Nobody can think it makes sense to call up Buxton to play two days per week. I guess the argument is that the Twins could maybe sit Rosario and Hicks and Sano one day per week and Hunter two and shuffle people around a bit, but to what end? Playing every day seemingly isn’t hurting these young guys. We want to disrupt things so we can jam Buxton, coming off a thumb injury, into the majors without more than a dozen at-bats in AAA? That seems a little extreme. Not to mention, the Twins might have done him a favor here. He could have stayed at AAA rehabbing for 2-3 more weeks and they wouldn’t have had to burn the option year on him. They could have waited until the end of the month to make that decision when they knew whether or not they were really in this wild card race, kept him on the roster and saved that option year (although it would have cost them some service time). If anything, that's where I think the controversy would be. Hey, we all want our new toy. I get that. But we also sometimes need to wait for Christmas. For what its worth, my view is not a reflection on Buxton. He looks like he could be every bit as elite as we thought he was going to be. Rather, things have changed since his original callup. And while I’m still awfully hesitant to buy into Rosario’s 70:10 K:BB ratio, he deserves that chance to fail at this point and so does Aaron Hicks. That, by the way, is good news, not bad news. If we want to do some hand-wringing about not jamming Buxton onto the 25-man roster, let’s wait until the offseason. That’s when the real controversy should start. Click here to view the article

And an awful lot of hand-wringing lately. That should be par for the course, right? We come here because we are fans, right?.

Well, my point is that the June 1 date turns out to be misleading as it immediately precedes a stretch in which they went 2-9. If you go two weeks out or one week out from it either way, it's a different story. If you go one month from it either way, it's a different story too. Note that I'm not saying that Aaron used it to be misleading - the 1st is a normal number to use - it just ends up being that way. But if you choose other random numbers by which to do a month-long comparison, things look differently. For instance, if you choose the 15th (another normal number to use), the months look like this since may 15th: 15-12, 15-12, and 6-16. Or say we use the 9th, since that was yesterday and we count back a month at time. Then the months look like this: 16-11, 13-15, 9-16. I'm sure, alternately, that we could find a date that even looks worse than the first. Probably the 3rd, since that's when that June swoon started. I guess I'd say that right now, this is a .500 team, and as such, they've had some ups and downs, specifically one big up (May), one medium up (1st half of July), one big down (post All-Star break) and one medium down (beginning of June). As Aaron points out, the last 2.5 months, there have been more downs than ups. But the implication is that we might want to write off May as the only complete aberration, and I think that is a mistake. Either they're all aberrations or they're all not. Teams get hot/cold. Things go right/wrong. (It's just hard to be objective when things are going very, very wrong.)

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' collapse, rotation ugliness, Jose Berrios' timetable, Byron Buxton's rehab, Aaron Hicks' extreme splits, Tyler Duffey's rough debut, Chris Herrmann vs. Eric Fryer, Carlos Correa being a superstar already, the Tigers firing Dave Dombrowski, and reviewing Lollapalooza as a 70-year-old. 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

She would likely say that's exactly what I deserve. :-)