Twodogs

I hope I'm wrong but I have a bad feeling that both Buxton and Berrios will be gone as soon as they can be.

Well it's a good thing that dudes who write on a blog don't get to make any decisions when it comes to who the twins sign and or phase out, etc.... I mean if the writers had any input whatsoever then the twins would have signed Cole, Ryu, and Wheeler this off-season. But they didn't, and I'm pretty sure that most of the dudes who write this stuff didn't really anticipate signing Hill and trading Grateral for Maeda. So the twins front office will do what they feel is best for the twins regardless of what any of us think or what any of these smart writers think also. My personal opinion is that the Twins will keep Rosario, and in 2021 if the Twins are in the thick of a playoff run they will keep him and probably let him walk because he will be a FA in 2022. If the Twins are not in a playoff run in 2021, then they will probably trade him at the deadline for a couple of prospects similar to Eduardo Escobar. It's how the Twins have operated for a long time. Plus just because the Twins have guys like Kirlloff, Rooker, etc.... doesn't mean those guys are going to produce anything over the course of a MLB season. They might not produce close to Rosario's supposedly terrible numbers, we aren't going to know unless someone gets hurt and they are thrown into duty. If that happens and one of these guys rake for 2 or 3 months straight then you have a log jam but right now for a team going for the playoffs the guys who got the twins here are going to be everyday type of players. So there is no real reason to get mad if someone suggests to quit playing this guy or that guy because they have absolutely no influence on a professional teams front office decisions. It's also good to know that guys like Rosario, and Sano, and Buxton etc.... could care less if something bad is written about them on here by people who don't make any decisions about this team. These guys are going to show up everyday and play as hard as they can at the time and I will be cheering for them to win. And I'll get mad because some guy didn't do well and I'll be excited when some other guy hit a game winning hit. I'll probably come in here and complain about this or that but I realize that I have zero influence over what is going on in those offices where the decisions are being made.

For sure, Pineda is #2 in my mind right now, with Berrios #1 and probably Maeda #3. Berrios and Pineda give us the best chance to limit the bullpen usage down to the best couple of guys when they pitch. Not that it will happen every time, but they have that chance to go deep into games.

But the way Dick reacts to any pop fly you'd think it was going into the 3rd deck, so who knows about how close it could have been with Rooker had they not thrown Eddie out at 3rd?

Yeah, Morneau might have been saying that that out at third isn't necessarily uncommon, but running over your base coach to blow through his sign probably is a little uncommon?

I know it's from the old book, but the old adage is not to make the 1st and 3rd outs at 3rd base. Because if he makes it then a fly ball scores him. So I don't think anyone on the twins staff was really upset about today. Had yesterday not happened we probably wouldn't even be talking about it. Man it was nice to see a pitcher throw 7 innings for once. I was shocked when I heard that it was only the 2nd time a twins pitcher had pitched into the 7th inning this year. Lamont Wade is making a nice name for himself. Looking like he could be Jake Cave's replacement in the future? Don't wish anything bad on Cave, but if Wade keeps doing well he has to take someone's spot.

The last two wins were huge. It really stunk that the Twins lost 6 straight. I think had they gone 3 - 3 over that stretch no one worries about anything. But when you lose 6 straight you kinda feel that panic mode hitting and then they rip off 5 straight that kinda evens it out, but to rip games away like they did today is huge for the team in my opinion.

Yeah it seems to me that if it was just the hitters trying to get base hits instead of home runs then you'd think they'd have better batting averages, but they don't, infact it seems like their averages are down by quite a bit. So I really think the league has adjusted to them and are pitching them differently and the twins hitters have yet to adjust to the adjustments. Because the first week seemed like they came out smashing, Kepler with two bombs in the first game etc.... So I think the guys are still swinging for the fences it's just they aren't getting the pitches they want as often in order to do that. I think the only hitter who has been able to adjust is Cruz, and I remember him hitting a lot of just singles in those first couple of weeks. I think he took what they gave him. Just my opinion.

I wonder if the twins hitters are just seeing different pitches this year. Less fastballs, more pitches with spin etc....

The Twins need one of those 7 or so days off due to a Covid infection. Then when they come back everyone would be off the injured list and ready to kick butt. This is obviously a joke, so don't get all mad at me because I'm only joking around. But hey a week off would be nice for the team to gather itself. Maybe a couple of Bull Durham rain outs?

Yeah so far he has done more than he has done in the past. That is for sure. This however is the first time in his career and like you said, we can hope for a solid 6, but when teams throw Cole, or Scherzer, or guys like Bieber they aren't looking for 6. They might get 6 on a not so great night, but when those guys take the mound teams are looking for 7+. Right now most would look at Maeda as the Twins #1, he's really a #3 just based on past performance and lack of going deep into games. I was watching the Astros and the Angels on Monday and a relatively young guy Valdez was on the mound. The Astros were up 5 - 1 and in the 4th inning Valdez gave up a bomb to Upton. Then in the 5th he got knocked around again a little and gave up 2 runs to make the score 5 - 4. You know if Valdez was pitching for the Twins he wouldn't have even finished the 5th in that situation, after he gave up the 4th run he would have been outta there. But the Stros left him in and he ended up pitching 7 innings and 113 pitches and some of those pitches were under duress in the 4th and 5th innings. But now Houston knows that this dude can get out of his own jams. They know he can be effective late into games and not just games he's dominating in, he can be effective in games where he's been touched up a little. How many Twins starters do you know who can be touched up a little and still minimize the damage and came back out and pitch 2 or 3 more innings going over 100 pitches if need be. I don't know of too many. Hopefully they come through.

Which 3 of those pitchers wins a playoff series for the twins? The twins do have a real good set of about 6 - 7 quality pitchers who really supply a ton of depth for a baseball season. However, playoffs are different. Almost every year, except the year Kansas City did it with their bullpen, the team who has won has won it with starting pitching. Pitchers that regularly go 7 innings shortening the games for their bullpens. Every once in awhile they have to throw their bullpen out there for 4 innings or so, but when you have a Scherzer or a Strasburg you know that at least 2 games out of 3 or 4 you won't need the bullpen. Maeda has done great, he never made the Dodgers playoff rotations however because he never really pitched deep into games. Now we are considering him as the Ace? I still think Berrios has more Ace capabilities just due to him showing in the past that he could go 7+ innings. Don't get me wrong, all of these guys have done well, but they don't fit the bill as far as what is usually needed to win in the playoffs. I thought Pineda looked to fitting that role a little last year before the suspension, but hard to say this year what's going to happen when he comes back? Maybe the Twins luck out and get a horse at the deadline. Playoff rotation Horse (Bauer type) Berrios Maeda Pineda Bp Hill, Odorizzi, Dobnak No Horse at the deadline Berrios Pineda Maeda Odorizzi Bp Hill, Dobnak JMO

I don't think it's worth wasting resources on this. They should have enough hitting. Playoff baseball to me is centered around top of the rotation pitching. Look at the teams that have been winning there is one constant, stud starting pitching that can go 7 - 8 innings. Scherzer, Stasburg. Cole, Verlander, Greinke etc..... Twins starters are only lasting 4 - 5 innings each. They don't stand a chance, about the only guy who has proven he can pitch beyond 6 innings is Berrios and he is more of a solid #2 or #3 starter which is something, but if they want to be relevant in October they need to get someone who can drop 7 innings and 110 - 115 pitches whenever it's needed. The Twins rotation is great for the long haul of a season as they have depth and they have quality that can go out there every day and perform well enough to keep the Twins in it, but Maeda and Odorizzi and such tossing 4 - 5 innings in the playoffs isn't going to cut it. Especially when a team like Cleveland throws a Bieber out there and we can't hit those guys, hell no one can, that's why the Twins need to counter with their own Bieber, but they don't really have him. You can't expect guys like Odorizzi and Maeda to throw 7 innings in the playoffs if they never do it during the season so unless they find someone really good then the twins are stuck with 4 - 5 innings out of the bullpen in every game that typically doesn't work well for 4 straight playoff series. It can work fine for a game or two, but you need 2 - 3 horses who can go 7 - 8 innings so your not relying on your bullpen every game. Pineda was doing well last year before being suspended of going deep into games, but I doubt he will be ready to accomplish that once he is back. Hopefully?

Eh, it's a business. The owners and front office treat it as such and now most of the players treat it as such now also. I don't think Lynn would give a rats a... What happened in the past if he were traded to a contender at the deadline. Plus I don't think Baldelli would care either about what happened over 2 years ago. Right at this point however, I'm really glad the Twins didn't get Workman. He has stunk in Philly so far.

Arraez has struck the ball hard quite a few times, he has hit some line shots that have been caught. So eventually he will go through a streak where those line shots fall in and it will even out.

Well yeah, and the Braves starters are falling like flies so looks like he landed in a good place for him.

Maybe they should have kept Chacin??

This is a problem with baseball and America. First, I want to address what is considered black in this argument. So I am assuming in this argument that Miguel Sano is not considered black. Because if he was then I believe that the percentage would go up. So I am assuming that Sano is considered Latino, but just to play devil's advocate for a second that then means that the fastest man in the world Usain Bolt isn't black??? Ok ok, I digress. But this is an American problem because of finances. Sports in America such as baseball are becoming extremely expensive. So I pay 40 bucks per week for my son to see his hitting coach and 50 bucks per visit to see his pitching coach. My wife and I are doing well financially so we don't have a problem affording these things. My son also plays on two travel ball teams a ten year old team, as he is ten and a 12 year old team. He plays little league, which on its own cost us 90 dollars per kid, (my daughter plays also but she is much younger) plus we had to sell 100 dollars of raffle tickets per kid and you know as well as I do that most parents end up buying more than half of those. Plus we get charged 50 dollars per kid for snack bar. So you get this money back if you actually volunteer to work snack bar during the games. Now we have two kids so to get that money back we'd have to work two snack bars. (This is California, but I'm sure it's similar everywhere). Imagine for a second if you have 4 kids playing, imagine octomom for a second. Ok again I am digressing. Other sports aren't any better. My niece, my sister's daughter, was nominated for NCAA woman of the year, her mother spent between 20 to 30 thousand dollars per year while she was in high school to play on the Nike national team. My sister was inducted into her former college hall of fame, so she was able to do a lot of my niece's coaching as she was growing up, but imagine if she didn't know anything about basketball and had to send her to trainers once or twice a week? Sports are becoming rich people's games, I mean guys like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry come from families that are well off. It didn't always used to be like that; think back to guys like Daryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, they were inner city kids that grew up playing baseball in the parks, or stick ball in the streets, or they'd play a pickup game at school, I mean kids aren't even allowed to bring baseball equipment to school these days as it's considered dangerous, basketballs are ok, but baseballs and footballs are not ok, it's kinda sad. If you drive by a baseball field these days there are no kids out there playing baseball unless they are in uniforms and there is some sort of organized activity going on. You just don't see kids playing pickup games, over the line, 500, pepper or anything like that these days. If it's happening, it's been organized by a sanctioned event, which needs insurance, umpires to be paid etc.... Again, comes at a cost. Again this new American society affects all poor people, black, white, Latino, Asian, etc.... Sports in college is also starting to get harder for poorer people. They continue to increase the standards to become eligible to play college sports. Now on face value, most people would say that is a good thing, but it's harder to qualify to go to college to play sports than it is to just qualify to go to college itself. Now if you are a poor inner city kid, there is a good chance that you were not as well prepared to go to high school than kids from a more affluent area. So now, colleges look at your classes as 9th graders and if they bomb them they can re-take them to get a better grade, but the NCAA looks at the first time you took the class. Now just to get into school, they won't do that, but to play sports they will. So again another strike against kids from poorer neighborhoods. So now in my opinion MLB is also at fault. They put academies down in the Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic, etc... Many of those kids, a lot of them black, but also Latino are trained in these academies to play baseball. Most of them drop out of school and focus on baseball only. https://www.thedialogue.org/blogs/2019/03/baseball-education-dominican-republic/ So, these kids train in baseball all day and then they can get signed by an MLB team as early as age 16, whereas our own youth, our own African American black athletes can't get drafted until they are 18, if African American black athletes go to college, (all of the American kids, but we are looking at black Americans) they aren't allowed to go into the draft until they have completed 3 years of school. So you have a guy like Ronald Acuna who probably was getting trained by MLB coaches in Venezuela by the time he was 12 or 13. Was signed to an MLB team by the time he was 16 or 17, was already in the majors by the time he was 20. Doesn't it seem like that would put all American born players, American black players at a disadvantage if they decide to better their education and they can't even get drafted until they are 21 at the earliest? Our 18 year old draftee's were playing 25 games a year in high school, getting prob about 2 hours of practice per day for 5 days a week and if you grow up in a cold weather state that might only take place for 3 - 4 months max with your high school coach. There is no way a black athlete in America (or any athlete for that matter) can compete with the sheer amount of hours spent working on his baseball craft as Ronald Acuna was able to. Our kids are at a disadvantage, baseball wise as compared to the kids coming out of the Latin American baseball academies. Heck even Max Kepler I think was signed by the time he was 16? So there are a lot of things at play here when talking about the decrease in American black baseball players. Even many of the black American baseball players have come from well off families. Guys like Dee Gordon Ken Griffey Jr. Barry Bonds to just name a few, their fathers played major league baseball and as a result were a little more well off and could afford whatever their kids needed growing up, not to mention they had all access to great coaching starting at a young age. But nonetheless, sports are becoming rich people's activities including at the college level, and the baseball academies in places like Latin America are making it harder for American born athletes altogether and that also includes black American athletes. Now as far as managers and GM's that seems to be a problem in all sports. How many black coaches and GM's are there in hockey? Even basketball, I mean you have Michael Jordan but this is a rich people's issue, and until you have more black ownership that one may be hard to solve. I think getting more black people into prominent roles in sports management might be an easier fix in the short term.

Is the Nipon league going to be on TV at all?

How many instances are there where the twins started hot and then faded down the stretch?

But if the money shifted from 1 player to 3 wouldn't the same agents make their money? I think the big thing is trusting the owners to actually spend that money on those other players and not just pocket it. That is probably the biggest thing is trust between the players and the owners.

I think that MLB teams should be able to field as many minor league teams as they want. I mean if the Yankees wants to have a few more minor league teams then that should be up to them. I get it that some places don't have the facilities to maintain a group of up and coming minor league players, but if a team like the Yankees want to have a couple of more teams so be it. If they want to drop a couple teams and have less than other teams out there then so be it also. I mean all of these teams are not required to have all the same amount of academies in the Dominican? So why do they all have to be the same every where else?

In 1981 after a strike shortened season MLB had a world series rating of a 30.0. Last year Washington's world series win had a rating of 8.1. The owners should really be looking at that when they consider these crazy bargaining conflicts. I mean this type of bull headedness is going to, in the end, decrease their profitability over the next 10 to 15 years. I mean most of their profits come at the hands of TV contracts and deals of that nature. I mean billions. With those ratings headed for the toilet, why would anyone pay MLB so much money for losing viewers? They won't and all of their greed will beging to bankrupt them as they will have to charge more for the games and stuff like that which in turn will decrease the number of overall fans. I mean I get it that this year will be a tough year, they might have to take it in the shorts a little so as to profit at a higher level in the future. I mean when I see the offers of a 50/50 split because of the decreased revenues this year, I kind of get it. But are those same owners willing to do a 50/50 split for all of the good seasons too? If they aren't then they should just get it going now, if they are willing to split profits with the players 50/50 forever then let them know that. But they won't, because they are only willing to split 50/50 when stuff is bad, not when it's good. So at your local grocery store, are they asking the employees to make 50% of a pro-rated salary? No, they are paying the employees what they normally make, and in these crazy times with the virus and all these stores may not make any profits, but they know that if they can keep operations going that on the other side they will. Could you imagine the outrage if someone came up to you at your place of employment and offered you the ability to make 50% of your normal pay. Imagine if you make minimum wage and now you get to make half of that? So yeah I know MLB players make a lot more than that, but still, the owners are making billions off of their backs, and if they screw it up, they might not be in the very soon future.

That is exactly what I was saying, hardly ever does anyone talk about gold gloves first when talking about a hall of fame career. I mean Rafael Palmero won a gold glove and I think he only played like 28 games in the field that year. I know Hunter's gold gloves were earned for the most part, but so many of them aren't. So to talk about his gold gloves first probably means that his counting stats don't quite add up. Otherwise those would be the first things mentioned and then they'd say oh and he also won this many gold gloves.

Lyman Bostock Larry Hisle Jim Eisenrich Mickey Hatcher Tim Tufeul Les Straker John Castino Mark Funderburke Luis Rivas