Twodogs

I was watching the MLB channel yesterday and they had Rooker on the show. Mark DeRosa said that he himself was a bench player for a number of years and how hard that can be. We all know that coaches always say trust the process, keep working and doing things right and if you trust the process good results will happen. When you are a bench player, when you get only a couple of at bats per week that you become results oriented and not process oriented. Rooker then said after DeRosa that his hitting coach was a starter and then became a bench player who pinch hits once in awhile. He said that typically as a pinch hitter you come in and face the high leverage relief pitchers that the league is hitting like .140 against, this sounds weird but if you're hitting .180 or .190 in that role against those guys you're actually doing well. But when us fans look at that and we look at all of the advance metrics we determine that these guys stink. Where in reality some of these guys just needed everyday at bats to show what they can actually do.

Wasn't he the MVP of the NLCS?

Especially Gallo, imagine he has a really good season, he will capitalize on that, most likely elsewhere.

Well yeah, I mean he has 4 losses. However, he didn't really pitch that poorly until his last outing. First start he lost but he only gave up 1 run. Then in his next start he threw well also, went an extra inning as compared to his first start. Then his 3rd start he got the liner off of his leg, and then his last start was terrible. Now he's had some struggles out there but his overall numbers weren't really that bad. So I can see why they gave him a shot

I think you'd have to go with Ober first Varland second. Only because Ober has more major league experience and has done well. Good problem to have though.

Yeah, I think Maeda needs to go on the IL, his first start actually looked ok, even his second start wasn't terrible, his 3rd start is when he got hit by the comebacker and today he looked lost. I think he needs to go on the IL, do some rehab, go to AAA and pitch in the rotation. Meanwhile Ober will be with the Twins. If he locks down the spot Maeda is in trouble as he will have to wait until the next injury. But if Ober struggles then give Maeda a shot. But he needs 5 - 6 starts down there, a full month and then decide what to do with him.

Yeah, obviously he isn't out of the water yet with just a win over Tampa Bay, but I was at the Angels game and he was looking good. I mean his stuff looked nasty as always. He pitched good for about 3 innings and then the wheels started to come off. But the wheels came off slowly. I mean there was an infield hit where no one covered 1st, so it should have been an easy out, there was also a comebacker that Berrios fielded, threw it high to Vladimir, it hit Vladdys glove but popped out. I mean it was things like that, then Cimber comes in to relieve him and Trout take Cimber deep. So it unraveled, but not all his fault. I mean you can't give teams 5 outs and expect to pitch good. But like I said, his velo was mid 90's, had his nasty off speed stuff working, idk, just not getting it done I guess.

I think you are 100% correct with this statement. I'd also add in command. If he can throw wherever whenever then he will be hard to hit. But to the OP, I mean if Jax, Lopez and Duran are on fire why would you replace them with Alcala? I mean if one of those guys had a bad week or two I'm sure Alcala will get a shot then, there is no real reason to remove one of those guys from their high leverage spots if they are handling those spots. Let Alcala pitch in the spots they put him in and hope he does well.

Saints need to get some of their guys back? 😀

Farmer had surgery after getting hit in the face and Buck left the game after a collision on the basepaths. Hopefully not serious stuff.

Twins will keep Buck at fulltime DH until he gets hurt again. Man I'd love to see him back in CF again. I get tired of all of the babying of the professional athletes. Hopefully it helps him stay healthy though, I guess we will see.

I was wondering if any of you guys know of an easy way to look up the stats in our minor league affiliates? I know way way back when I was young that on the ESPN boards there would be links to the minor league stats. Just wondering if there is an easy way to look that stuff up still? Or do we need to dig in and go through the minor league websites. Just looking for the easy way out I guess.

Does this mean Twins broadcasts will be dropped?

Lead off hitters typically only lead off once a game. I know it's possible to lead off again later in the game but usually it's only once or maybe twice. I wonder how many pitches Max sees in his first at bat every game? I wonder if his approach changes depending on when he is due up? I'm not good at looking up peripheral stats like that, but I was just curious if he takes more pitches in his first at bat every game?

Yeah it's funny how things work out sometimes. I mean Cave never really seemed like he was a full time player with the Twins, so I'm thinking if he makes a roster that it would be as a backup on some last place team that doesn't have a ton of talent. But here he is on a legit team with world series aspirations. I wish him all the luck as he seemed like a good guy, hopefully he has a breakout year and we can all sit around and think dang what if we still had him,. 🤔😀

Looks like Jake Cave is the Phillies starting left fielder.

So, since he doesn't hit well, I'm guessing the Twins traded for Farmer because of his glove then?? I'm trying to figure out why we have him?

I think this is why Farmer is on the roster. I mean he would have been the starting SS if they didn't re sign Correa. I see no reason to not give him the starting 2B gig with Gordon occasionally spelling him? Gordon will get at bats in the OF, DH and a little 2B too. But I think Farmer should start 85% of the time. JMO. I mean the Twins got him for this reason right here.

Victory sports one. The Twins and Carl Pohlad started it. They were trying to copy the YES network, (Yankees). The cable and satellite companies denied them in their packages because they were trying to charge too much. It soon folded.

I think Donnak is the guy who is kind of a longman type of relief pitcher. I just think he can come in and throw a lot of pitches and eat quite a few innings in games that the Twins are getting blown out in. He could be a bullpen savior during those blowout type games where you want to keep your other relievers rested and healthy. I don't really think being a starting pitcher is in his cards going forward. I also don't think he's some relief pitcher that can come in and shut someone down for an inning. I really think he's the guy that comes in during the 3rd of an 8 to 1 ballgame and throws 5 or 6 innings to finish the game out.

And Ober started too. He didn't come in during the later parts of the game. So I'm pretty sure they are going to start him somewhere. Either in the rotation with the Twins then Maeda will be starting in the bp like he did with the Dodgers, or he will be starting in St. Paul until he gets the call up.

Bailey Ober is starting his age 27 season. So if you compare him to Francisco Liriano, yeah he spent some time in the bullpen, but at age 21 he started 4 games and was in the bp for 2 games. In his age 22 season he started 16 games and came out of the bullpen 12 times and then I don't really think he was ever in the bullpen again for the Twins, in fact by the time Liriano was 27 the Twins were looking for places to trade him because he had a 5.09 era. Santana is also a little different because he was brought over as a rule 5 draft pick. So as a 21 year old he had to stay on the roster somehow and that wasn't going to be as a starter. But by the time Santana was 27 he had started like 152 games for the Twins. So yeah if Ober was 22 and he was bouncing back and forth between the bullpen the the rotation then you could make that analogy pretty easily. But he's in his age 27 season, if he is going to be a starter he needs to start 30 games this year. Now if the Twins are planning on making Ober a relief pitcher for the rest of his career in Minnesota then that's fine to put him in the pen, but if they have any hopes of him being a quality starter going forward (at his age) he needs to get those starting assignments.

I mean, wouldn't it kind of hurt Bailey Obers development of he was put in a long relief stint or if he was piggy backed where he only throws 3 or 4 innings? Seems to me that you would want ober to be put on a routine to start 30 - 32 games this season. So if he isn't in the starting 5 coming out of spring wouldn't you want to send him down so he could start every 5th day and get 30 - 32 starts? I mean maybe only 15 of those starts are in the minors and the other 15 are with the Twins when someone gets hurt or becomes ineffective. It just seems to me that you would want to train him to pitch 6 - 7 innings not 3? JMO. Also, if you go with a 6 man rotation then I think you need your pitchers to average 6 to 6 and 2/3rds of an inning everytime out so as to lower the dependence on using 4 or 5 relievers every game. I mean I know someone will say if the starter goes 5 then you only need 4 relievers that day, which gives you like 3 un-used guys for tomorrow. But let's be honest, when you stroll out 4 relief pitchers in a day one of them has a likely chance that he is off that day. So when the Twins have a 3 - 0 lead and they bring out their second relief pitcher of the day and he walks two guys and gives up a hit and now it's 3 - 1 you get his butt out of there and bring in another dude which will make you use 5 relief pitchers in that game. So with a 6 man rotation and one less relief pitcher they have to throw more innings in their less frequent starts. Again JMO.

Yeah, I don't really care when in the game it happens and it really doesn't matter how high the ball was hit. It was a poor play and that should never happen. I mean we are just fans but if the coaching staff makes these types of excuses then we are going to hear a lot of excuses this season. It's obvious with a play like that, that either their heads weren't in the game or they didn't care, either way that needs to be corrected. Hopefully the coaching staff got on them about that because plays like that will lose a lot of ballgames. I am fully expecting to not see anyone tag up from second and score on a fly ball again this season. I mean it wasn't a strong throw to the cut, it was ho hummed to the cut because I'm pretty sure he didn't think the guy was going to try and score. So yeah it was a heads up play by the Red Sox player or maybe the 3rd base coach? But again that shouldn't happen. After a couple of poor plays and a snowball fight I hope the Twins left feeling a little disappointed with their play in the field. I expect that they will be better and sometimes it may take a poor play like that to wake them up and get after it a little bit better. Again I get that it's spring training but I can't get used to hearing excuses for plays like that.

Speaking of little league, I was astonished when a Red Sox player tagged up and scored from 2nd on a fly ball to center. I mean they hopefully are embarrassed with those types of results from major league ballplayers.