glanzer

I remember I proposed a similar idea a few years ago on a Twins blog or comment thread somewhere and was pretty much beaten down by the opposition. No one seemed to think there's a psychological or non-raw-statistics approach to identifying why this team was so poor in the playoffs. While I'm not so sure it has anything to do with being too nice, I do think that playing the mighty Yankees time and time again got in the team's heads... at the very least, it got in Gardenhire and the coaching staff's heads and they projected some uneasiness onto the players. So in theory I agree with what you're saying.

Good stuff here spideyo. Of course the reality is that forum contributors on most any subject come to these places to vent frustrations. What fun would it be to talk about keeping things going just as they are!

Maybe he really is figuring it out. Brunansky and Glynn seem to be working some minor miracles down there.

Technically if the game enters the ninth inning in a tie, there is no possible way for the home team to earn a save. Any home team lead from there on out means game over and no lead to protect. So essentially Perkins' night was over when the game went to the 9th.

Nowhere. I'm beginning to think Liriano stays put and is offered that 1-year deal in hopes of obtaining the draft pick.

Brett Jacobsen was released the other day, and it got me to thinking about the Chuck Knoblauch trade and how it still lives on in Minnesota. Knoblauch was traded to the Yankees for Eric Milton, Brian Buchanan, Cristian Guzman, and Danny Mota.Buchanan was traded to the Padres for Jason Bartlett. Milton was traded to the Phillies for Carlos Silva and Nick Punto. Guzman signed with Washington.Bartlett was traded with Delmon Young and Eduardo Morlan to the Rays for Delmon Young, Brendan Harris, and Jason Pridie. Silva and Punto left as free agents.Young was traded to the Tigers for Lestor Oliveros, who remains in the Twins system. Harris and JJ Hardy were traded to the Orioles for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobsen.That leaves Oliveros as the last product of the Knoblauch trade, unless I am missing something... perhaps a draft pick for losing Silva? I don't know.

I don't remember Terry Ryan being so candidly open in his previous stint as GM. He seems to have come back to his old post angry. Very refreshing, no more BS sugarcoating.

I'm strongly in favor of keeping Willingham. Aside from his numbers, I think it looks terrible from an organizational standpoint to trade a guy in the first year of a three-year contract... it's been said before, but what free agent is going to be comfortable signing here in the future knowing the Twins could just ship them right out the door in a few months. Following Ginger Willingham on Twitter it certainly seems the family loves it in MN... I'm sure Terry Ryan would think twice about the family situation before uprooting the Willinghams and making a trade. Not to say Span isn't in the same situation, but he didn't just uproot his family and move to MN within the past few months.

I wore Twins gear but by Sunday night I was out of clean Twins clothes and dressed neutral.

Turpen earned a spot on the Eastern League Eastern Division All-Star team and wound up pitching the final out in the top of the ninth inning, then seeing his team score the winning run in the bottom half of the inning. For that one batter's worth of work, Turpen received the win in the game! I was a little surprised Turpen made the All-Star team given he's a relief pitcher with an ERA of 4.70, but as I've mentioned before, that number is a bit inflated due to a couple rough outings.

I was at an Astros-Reds game a few weeks ago as well, and I like Minute Maid Park. It feels so much more open than Rangers Ballpark. It, of course, was a totally different experience with a sparse crowd and a poor home team. We were easily able to move from the upper deck to the lower deck in the early innings.

I spent the weekend at the Twins-Rangers series at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. The Twins return there in August, so in case someone is going to that series, here are some of my observations and advice. Basically, it's a great time to be a Rangers fan. The place was packed every night, and there was nary a fan not wearing a red or blue Rangers shirt. I've never seen such a high percentage of fans in a stadium wearing a team jersey. Very kid-friendly.Of every stadium I've been to (15), Rangers fans were the most glued to the game. Very few fans seemed to stray from their seats. It seemed everyone's eyes were completely on the action and everyone paid very close attention to every pitch. Of course, that may just come with the territory being back-to-back AL champs.It was HOT. Very, very hot during the day. The heat during BP was too much to handle for many. But with that said, when the sun goes down it gets moderately comfortable. The temps were in the low 80s by the time Saturday's game ended.Mike Napoli is absolutely beloved there. He seems to be riding his strong World Series play well into this season despite some lesser numbers across the board. I saw almost as many Napoli t-shirts and jerseys as Hamilton.There was a scattering of Twins fans in the crowd. I was taunted a number of times, but overall treated pretty well as an opposing fan. One drunken Ranger fan got up in my face and screamed "YOU SUCK!" and some residual saliva landed on me as he walked out of the pro shop.The giant bold of lightning Sunday night was the single loudest noise I've ever heard. Kids were crying. I don't think TV did it justice. Just glad I wasn't on a coaster at the Six Flags behind the stadium when it struck!The stadium is nearly 20 years old now and, although still nice, doesn't quite compare to some of the newer ones. I wasn't able to see the game from the concourse in 90% of the stadium. The concourse walkways were very packed and at times narrow. Not quite Metrodome, but definitely not Target Field in that aspect. The video board is only visible to about 75% of the stadium, and it was somewhat difficult to follow the pitch count and player stats.Same as anywhere, beer was expensive. Not a lot of interesting or unusual beers sold here. I didn't see many tempting local concessions either, but the cracked black pepper sausage was pretty good.The Rangers PR department is sure reveling the large number of All-Stars on the roster. Every player was introduced multiple times as "2012 American League All-Star." Well, I guess if you have a dozen people going to the game including coaches and staff, why not?The stadium is built in a very entertainment-oriented part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. It is surrounded by Cowboy Stadium, Six Flags, and Hurricane Harbor. There were free trolleys from all the hotels, but they were packed. Parking was expensive but convenient and not ridiculously jammed getting in and out of the stadium area. I didn't realize how far out of both Dallas and Fort Worth the city of Arlington is. It's a 10-mile drive to Dallas and 20 to Ft Worth. The JFK museum in Dallas was worth the time though. And for the ladies, my wife found a famous yarn store in Ft Worth she thoroughly enjoyed. There were nothing but chain restaurants near the stadium though, not much local or ethnic.If you ever have the chance, definitely do the Cowboy Stadium tour. For $17, you have free range of the entire field. There were kids climbing the field goal post and grown men playing a 2-on-2 game at midfield. Very cool experience!

Teams are now signing players born in 1996... wow.

Wow, pretty telling numbers! Of course Valencia's were accumulated with regular playing time, and Parmelee has had to piece that together 1 or 2 games per week. So Valencia's line looks much worse. I ran across something similar recently. My example is a little different, but it's pretty shocking nonetheless. Take a look at Vinny Castilla's 1996 and 1997 seasons for the Rockies. Something like this has to be even rarer, given the significant number of at-bats each year. 1996 .304 - 40 - 113 1997 .304 - 40 - 113 http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/castivi02.shtml

1. White Sox will win division at 84-78 2. Twins will finish tied for 4th with KC at 73-89 3. Liriano, Span, Capps, Casilla will all be in new unis 4. Yankees over Nationals in 5

I can see how a player might be more comfortable batting with no one on base... no pressure to come up with the big hit to drive in the runners on base, more relaxed. I feel the same way when batting in softball sometimes. If someone can come up with a stat that measures psychological factors like a player's comfort level/body language in certain situations that would be interesting.

With Plouffe earning the league minimum, I would think he'd be the type of player the Twins would want to hang onto at this point. Obviously Terry Ryan just said no one is untouchable, but the Twins would have to get quite a big return to pull the trigger. Like you said, I don't think a lot of GMs are going to look at one big hot power streak and ignore his long minor league track record and make that big-time offer. Also I'm guessing the Twins don't really want to be forced into putting Danny Valencia back at third with his mediocre AAA numbers if Plouffe were traded.

Oh, oops, looks like thread already started. Ignore.

Sounds like the Twins are wrapping up a multiyear extension with Doumit! http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/06/twins-doumit-closing-in-on-extension.html

Nice little run to close out June for Turpen, who has now thrown 9 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings over his last five outings. During that time, he has fanned 8 while walking 2, lowering his season ERA back down to 4.43.

As much as they are both deserving, a team this bad probably won't get two All-Star reps. I kinda hope it's Willingham over Mauer, but Mauer is probably more deserving at his position.

Aside from former Twins, especially the feel-good R.A. Dickey stories, I don't follow individual opposing players.

This is a very bad call, no question, but I think this one is the worst of 2012 so far. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/tim-welke-makes-one-worst-calls-ve-ever-235447642.html I also seem to remember last season a horrific call that went against the Pirates and may have led to their demise: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2011-07-27-Pirates-umpire-blown-call_n.htm

I moved from Minneapolis to Austin last year, so I have adopted the Astros as my second team and have been to a couple games decked out in Astros gear. Can't wait till next year when they are in the AL and the Twins will come to town annually. I also can, on occasion, cheer for the Blue Jays since my wife went to college in Toronto and we've visited several times. This year I also find myself secretly rooting for the Mets, with the great Dickey story.

I feel like there's a good chance the team that wins the AL Central will have a losing record. That said, the Twins still have to leapfrog four teams in half a season with a ton of head-to-head matchups remaining between those other four teams, which best-case-scenario would see those four teams all play .500 against each other and the Twins beat up on them. 8.5 games back isn't ridiculously difficult, but it would have to be even more of a magic fairytale second half than 2003 or 2009. I'd say there's a 2% chance the Twins could pull that off.