chpettit19

1. Buxton is now on the 10 day IL so your wishes have come true. Hip strain. 2. Why do we assume the team, and, more importantly, Byron himself, haven't been doing what is medically right for him this entire season? Do we think Byron, and the team, are being told he needs to shut it down or he's risking his career? Or do we think they're being told playing on it is purely about pain tolerance and the only risk for long-term damage is the same as the risk everyone else faces because of the type of injury he's dealing with? I'd assume the Twins want Byron around for the entirety of his contract, and I'd assume Byron wants to continue playing major league baseball for the entirety of his contract. Why do we think they're ignoring things and pushing him harder than doctors who've actually seen his medical reports say they should push him? Why can't we just accept that everyone involved want what's best for Byron to perform at a high level for the next 6 years and they're doing what they should be doing? They've told us time and again that shutting him down won't fix his knee, but playing on it won't hurt it more. Why can't we just let that be the answer for this season?

Do you look at Buxton and see someone who isn't following a good conditioning plan? There's a number of articles out there that you can find about his running routine during the offseason to keep his speed and stay in shape. Buxton works his tail off. Somebody doesn't have to have failed at something for them to be injury prone. Sometimes their bodies just weren't meant to do the things professional athletes do with their bodies. Sucks, but it happens. There's no reason to believe Buxton's injuries have anything to do with lack of effort on his part.

I'd sign him to 10/100 right now. He's not a complete shock as a player. He was a 2nd round pick. It took him some time to start making better swing decisions, but he's always had great bat to ball skills. I don't understand why more teams don't do what Atlanta has done with Acuna, Albies, Harris, and slightly later Riley. I think it's absolutely worth it to pay a premium during Miranda's pre-arb years to get him at an absolute steal for his later arb and free agency years. If they're not at least seeing what it'd take to buy out some free agency they're not doing their jobs.

Duran and Miranda are neck and neck to me. Miranda may have a slight edge because he's an everyday player. I think most everyone had hopes he'd show up and start to lay claim to the everyday 3B job moving forward, but I don't know that any of us expected him to be the best hitter on the team on August 18th, and that's exactly what I'd say he is. If I'm the FO I'm reaching out to his reps and seeing what it takes to sign him for 10 years. 10 years 100 mil get it done? I think it should and I'd do it today. Duran has saved this pen, and, likely, this team. He had some 2 inning outings, he's had saves, he's become the 8th inning guy now, was the fireman a few times. He's done everything and I cringe thinking of what this season would've been without him. But as a reliever he loses a couple points on my Twins rookie of the year ballot so he'd be 2nd for me. Joe Ryan seems to have settled in where he was most likely to settle in and it's as a league average pitcher with some flashes of greatness against weaker competition and some real blowup games when he's not on against good offenses. Just doesn't have the stuff to be able to perform when he's not hitting his spots so he'll likely always be this guy. Which is still a useful guy to have on your team. Just don't want him making more opening day starts cuz he shouldn't be the #1 on any competitive staff.

I mean it's provably false that Rocco has that hard and fast rule. 3 of Ryan's first 4 starts this very season he went 6 or 7 innings. He's been awful since his COVID IL stint and now he's being treated like the average to slightly below average starter he is right now. Sonny Gray went 6, 7, 6 innings before his first IL stint this year. Mahle has gone 6 innings in both of his starts with the Twins. Even when he gave up 3 bombs in his first start. No, Bundy, Archer, Smeltzer types aren't seeing the lineup a 3rd time in a close game. There have been a few times where I thought he should've let a guy go another inning, but it's most certainly not a hard and fast rule for every starter the Twins have. And, as I pointed out before, that 2019 rotation had the 6th most innings pitched in all of baseball. If his rule was strictly "no starter sees the order a 3rd time" they simply couldn't have had the 6th most starter innings in baseball. I agree Pagan should've been DFA'd long ago, but, again, Rocco isn't to be blamed for using the guys on his roster. He simply can't go out there and never use Pagan. It's not reasonable. He needs to use every guy on his roster, so as long as Pagan is on there he's going to have to pitch some. If Duran and Lopez held the lead in Anaheim Pagan never even sees the field to give up that HR. So suggesting Rocco needed to be saved from using him after already having used his big guns who blew the lead seems like some revisionist history.

That's why part of the difference between managers is the talent they have at their disposal. There's no manager in the history of baseball that carried an untalented team to great success. They just don't have that kind of influence on wins and losses. Especially wins. But that 2019 team also had the 9th best ERA in all of baseball while their relievers pitched the 20th fewest innings, and the the starters threw the 6th most. People tend to act like Rocco/the FO has some hard and fast rule about starters going deep in games. The 2019 team had better starters, and hadn't had a pandemic shortened season, so they were allowed to go deeper. People tend to act like the HR record covered for Rocco despite that being a quite complete team until Pineda cheated and injuries hit late so they went into the playoffs with far less then their A team out there. I'm not a huge Rocco fan. I don't think he's great and I wouldn't be broken up about it if he was fired (other than it's never a happy thing to me when someone loses their job). Sac bunts are very rarely the smart play and it's why the league as a whole doesn't use them very often anymore. The math says it only makes sense in certain situations. I'd like to see Rocco put some hit and runs on with certain guys at the plate, but they also have a lot of dudes who swing and miss A TON and you're just giving away outs when they swing through it and the guy is toast at 2nd. Who on this team should be stealing a ton of bases outside of Buxton who has been battling a bad knee all year? They're not exactly full of speedsters. That's not on Rocco. He can't make the roster he's given faster. At some point it just becomes a no win situation for a manager, though. Rocco can't just never pitch Pagan. You can't afford to just completely waste a spot on your roster like that. Like I said, I don't love Rocco, and don't think he's done a great job, but he's also only able to use the guys he's given. If he's part of the decision making to keep Pagan on the roster because he wants to use him that's 1 thing, but if he's just using what he's given I can't blame him too much for using all 26 guys on the roster.

Firing Rocco wouldn't lead to this FO bringing in a non-analytics guy. They hired Rocco because he's an analytics guy. It's what they believe in. Tampa wins every year. Dave Roberts is an analytics guy and LA wins more than any team. AJ Hinch is an analytics guy and did alright in Houston. Not sure why being an analytics guy means they aren't managing to "win" when the teams that win the most in baseball are lead by "analytics guys." The difference between managers these days is mostly what analytics they use and the talent they have at their disposal. Chicago has what many would consider a non-analytics, old school guy in La Russa running a team many say is far more talented than this Twins team yet the Twins are percentage points ahead of Chicago in the standings.

I'm assuming a play that he ended up being out on when he used, as you say, the most direct path to the plate would also end with him being out when using a less efficient path, yes. I'm not talking about when he left third, I'm talking about when he decided to slide and where he decided to slide. He doesn't have to be able to see the ball coming to know Sanchez is in the process of catching it. He can look at Sanchez and know he's catching the ball. At that point he admits to making a conscious decision to slide directly into Sanchez because he hoped the rule would give him an automatic safe call. "It's just a matter of whether or not they call it" in describing why he chose to slide how he did sounds an awful lot like a guy saying he was putting his faith in that call, not his ability to reach the plate before being tagged, no? It worked in the end and I have no problem with him making that decision as it was his best chance to help his team. My point is that that rule is hardly ever enforced. And he knows it's hardly ever enforced. So deciding to slide how he did for the reasons he admits he made that decision doesn't sound like someone who thought they were going to be safe when they started their slide. He knew the ball was arriving before he slid. He watched Sanchez shift into position, raise his glove, and prepare to catch the ball. He's an excellent athlete who has had multiple plays like this in his lifetime. He doesn't need to be tracking the ball itself to know whether or not it's going to beat him. He did the calculations in his head and decided a rule that is hardly ever enforced actually being enforced was his best chance of being safe. I think that pretty clearly shows he knew he was out if not for being bailed out by the judgement call of the people in NY. And on a side note, if taking an indirect slide makes that rule likely disappear they need to make the rule disappear. Or a whole bunch of guys should automatically be safe at second on steals because the MI has their foot in front of the bag and the player has to indirectly slide to the outside corner.

Perhaps I'm just reading too much into his comments and the fact that he made no attempt whatsoever to avoid being tagged out. I find it hard to believe that a player as smart, and experienced, as him would put all of his eggs in the basket of having that call be overturned by a rule that is hardly ever applied if he felt he had any chance of being safe without that overturn. If this were a call that were enforced on a regular basis and Merrifield had more reason to believe he'd be called safe because of it I'd buy more into him not knowing he was toast. “I know what the rule is. It was just a matter of whether they were going to call it or not" doesn't sound like a guy who was super confident that he was going to get that call and I find it hard to believe he would've gone with the "directly into him" slide if he thought he had any other chance of being safe.

Sanchez not being a quick tagger doesn't mean the throw wasn't there in time for the out. That's what I've been speaking against. Fans complaining that Beckham double clutched before the throw, thus making it a bad play by him. Merrifield was out at the plate and the throw was as good as anyone can reasonably ask for. I haven't been debating the rule at all. I don't think this was an example of what they meant by "clearly" beating the runner either, but I don't think he's blocking the plate and not allowing a lane for Merrifield. If Merrifield wanted to he could've slid to the outside of the plate and reached it like Gordon did the game before. I think the rule is poorly written so it's almost impossible to use it universally as it's a judgement call on what constitutes a lane to the plate. All that said, my comments stand as I don't think the double clutch not happening would've gotten the ball there sooner to the point that they would've said he "clearly" had it soon enough either. My comments are purely about fans needing to find something to complain about even when the Twins got the out on the play until a quite controversial judgement call on replay.

Merrifield openly admitted he knew he was going to be out so he purposefully slid into Sanchez. So, no, I don't think he'd have taken a different slide path. He knew his slide path didn't matter cuz he was going to be out so he just hoped to get the call on that rule and it's why he immediately started complaining to the ump. That was his strategy cuz he knew the ball beat him and he was toast. I mean, unless you don't believe Merrifield when he says " So, I tried to just slide in to him straight in as best I could." He had no intention of trying to reach the plate, he was just hoping to get the call on that rule which is clearly far too vague to be effective or called universally.

Unless you think that ball is moving slower than Merrifield the ball most definitely beat the runner. Maybe it could've been a foot lower and that would've been perfect? Sanchez had the ball before Merrifield got to the plate. So, no, I don't see it at all as akin to a throw to first that pulls the first baseman since they'd be safe while Merrifield was out.

He threw the guy out at the plate. I don't see how that in any way equals a bad play. So anytime Correa doesn't hit the 1B directly in the chest in 1 smooth motion with no extra movement in fielding or throwing the ball when he gets an out at first it's a bad play? Cuz that's the argument you're making. The runner was out at home. The fielder got the ball to the catcher before the runner got there and the catcher tagged the runner out. That's not a bad play. It may have been imperfect execution with the extra step, but arguing it is a bad play is beyond controversial, it's flat out wrong. Thus it's unnecessarily negative. If the standard for a play not being bad is that a player never makes any extra movements during a play then there have been very, very few non-bad plays in the history of baseball.

Nobody called anyone a "bad fan" so let's not go putting those words in my mouth/keyboard, Chief. And nobody has "observed" playing an infielder in the outfield contributed to the play, they've "observed" that despite having made the play he should've made it better. He didn't make a bad play! Did he double clutch or crow hop twice because he didn't know if Merrifield was going to go? Or is it possible he didn't have a good grip on the ball so he had to regather himself because he's, you know, human? Throwing a guy out a home isn't "bad defense." Everyone's allowed to be a fan in their own way and I haven't told anyone on any of these boards they shouldn't be allowed to say anything they want to say. And I'm allowed to disagree with those "laments" when it's about something I don't think should be "lamented" about. No, you can't expect better than throwing someone out at the plate. He literally did what you want him to do so I will point out that it's an unnecessarily negative take to wish he threw a guy out at the plate better than he threw him out at the plate.

So the infielder playing OF took an extra step to make sure his throw was on target and we're upset? Come on now. I know they're professional athletes and we all want them to be perfect while doing the things we can't, but an extra split second to gather himself while making a throw he's likely never made in a professional game seems like something that maybe doesn't need to be complained about. He's played 95 professional OF innings. The throw was perfect and beat the runner but we still need to complain it wasn't perfecter?

Tim Beckham is not an outfielder and came up with a perfect throw that beat the runner and the runner was out. We're reaching way too far for complaints when a throw right on the plate that beats a runner and results in an out is now being criticized for not being better. You realize that Gordon's deep grounder wouldn't have been a deep grounder with Kepler on 3rd because the infield likely would've been in, correct? And while I think Kepler needed to go back to tag, I don't know that he beats the throw to 3rd from the left center gap. That's certainly not a given.

Gordon has really stepped up of late. Great to see. Wonderful utility guy to have around and I'd expect him to play that key role for years to come. Can't say I expected this of him this year, but he really has been a savior as everyone around him gets hurt and he just steps in where needed.

Moran is the only one with an argument for being a better option than Pagan. And I'd actually take Moran over Pagan right now. But "better of late" in AAA does not equal better option than Pagan. He'd likely be quite good in AAA. "Can't throw strikes, but throws hard so could be good" is Pagan. Not sure why we think an inconsistent, can't throw strikes pitcher in AAA would jump to the bigs and be good.

I still say there's a 0% chance he opts into the 35M next year barring a catastrophic injury. Why opt into that even if he continues to struggle offensively? All it does is take away any chance of finding out what he could get on the market. It only takes 1 team in a full offseason to offer him a huge deal. Nobody thought Jayson Werth was worth much except for the Nats, but that's all he needed as they gave him a huge deal. I don't think Boras is shortsighted enough to take away all market possibilities for 1 year and 35M. What would Correa have to do next year to make taking away his bargaining power this year worth it? His career OPS+ is 127. He was at 131 last year. He's at 124 this year. He's having a pretty typical offensive year for him. His being 6'4" and the risks that come with that as a SS isn't new news to teams. Corey Seager had even more risk at SS since he's never been the fielder Correa is and he got paid last year (for reference Seager career OPS+ 130 and is 126 this year). I don't see any way Correa doesn't opt out of his deal and see what his market looks like again in a normal offseason without a lockout right in the middle of it with his new super agent leading negotiations now. No reason to limit their options.

Well thank you. I appreciate the kind words and appreciate what you bring to these forums as well!

I'm with @Dman, the offense is in a good place with Celestino, Lewis, Kirilloff, Miranda, Arraez, Jeffers, Larnach, Gordon, Buxton, Polanco, Kepler all under 30 years old and under team control for 2 or, in most cases, more years at super cheap rates unless any of the real young guys blow up and get big arb numbers coming their way. That's 10 guys who've shown they have big league abilities in same way, shape or form. That's a really great place to be when building a team as their cheap deals mean the FO should be able to splurge in FA to fill specific holes with top quality talent knowing they have a base of competitive position players in place already. Health is a concern with a few guys and that's where the minor league system needs to kick out solid players here and there, but you're not in dire need of the system producing superstars in the next couple years because of those 10 guys being so cheap. Having someone like Brooks Lee bust out this year and next to possibly become a star would just put them in that much better of a position. The pitching is the concern still. Next year you have Mahle, Gray, Ryan, and Maeda as a pretty decent 4 pieces of a rotation, and, again, with them having extra money due to the young position players they could go out and spend a bunch on a guy to front those 4 in the rotation. Don't know that I'd bet on them doing that, but it's financially feasible at least. The pen is always difficult to assess as they're such volatile pitchers, but Duran and Lopez hopefully can form a really, really good 1-2 punch at the back end for 2 more years with Duran being around for 3 more on top of that even. Hopefully Alcala comes back and is a really nice middle inning guy and Jax can continue to be solid in that role. If you can have those 4 fill those roles for the next 2 years on arb or pre-arb deals you're again in good shape to splurge on the other 4 spots in the pen. They're in a good spot to supplement their holes going into 2023 due to the cheapness of the majority of the roster, but they still need to figure out some #1-3 pitchers from the system. Ryan could be a 2/3, but looks like he's probably best served as your 3/4 guy. The other top arms in the system have really taken steps back this year which is a real bummer. Maybe Prielipp comes in looking like his old self and cruises through the system in 2 years and can front the rotation, but the more likely situation is they're going to have to finally pay for some pitching. If they can keep churning out position players in the Miranda, Kirilloff, Larnach, Lewis talent range they can afford to pay for pitching, but I think we'd all prefer they start producing some top end pitching of their own. Or at least fill the pen with young shutdown arms (I'd move Canterino to a pen role now and see what he can do in the minors to be ready for 2023 as a pen weapon in Minneapolis).

It was definitely a fun time, but today is not a productive workday for me. Boss can't actually expect me to work EVERY weekday, right?

The scoreboard at Target Field called the bomb an 89 MPH splitter if that makes you feel any better...

I definitely had a friend or 2 turn down the chance to go to the game because it was a Thursday, which is a bummer. And I'm quite jealous of your work situation right now. My cube isn't as comfortable as I'd like it to be for days like this. And multiple meetings this afternoon means I can't even take a "long lunch" and not come back. Adulting is hard sometimes.

I'm not a big country music fan, but I stuck around for the concert and it was a cool addition to the game. Wish they'd do that kind of stuff on Friday or Saturday so work wasn't so tough today, though. I suppose I could also have chosen to indulge in one or two fewer Trulys, but then I'd have to partly blame myself for how I'm feeling this morning and that'd make me feel bad about myself so I'll just blame it all on Pagan and Duffey.