Brad Swanson

Agreed, and they'll do it even if Maholm is on another team.

I watched the replay again and Gomez was yelling at Maholm the whole way. He definitely shouldn't do that. I was totally wrong about that part.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I love Gomez and his antics. Licking bats, yelling at everyone, getting excited, I love all of that. I don't enjoy throwing at people and whatnot.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware of that part of the history. I'm just not a fan of baseball justice and I never will be. It's probably the part of the game I like least. I do feel I'm in the minority though. To each their own.

This is excellent research. I'd be interested in seeing how old and experienced the players traded for on the other teams were. The Twins seem to be relatively adept at finding young pitching talent via trade.

I was watching the game actually. I've also watched Gomez plenty in his career. I'd say 90% of the time he's "jawing," he's talking to (or yelling at) himself. Gomez admired his home run. I'm willing to admit that he shouldn't do that. I will always consider that a lesser infraction than someone throwing a baseball at another person, much less a punch. I guess I just value the unwritten rules of humanity over baseball's.

Yep, no one has ever gotten caught up in an exciting moment and admired a home run. Of course, vigilante catchers literally blocking a guy from getting to home plate just to teach some veiled lesson about sportsmanship happens all the time. Frankly, I'm bored with having to see it so often. All of the verbal interactions and acts of aggression came from Braves players. Who gets to throw baseballs at them?

The main issue I have with Gardenhire specifically not using platoons, is that he insists on using his whole bench/roster to "keep players fresh." It's kind of like, you have to get Clete Thomas starts so that's he ready when needed (not to bag on the poor man any more than I already have). Why not just use Clete Thomas in situations where he can contribute and in turn, limit when another player is used in situations when they aren't as productive? Thomas isn't a great example for obvious reasons, but even in September, I've seen Chris Parmelee at first base against lefties with Chris Colabello on the bench. If you really want to use all your players, why not use them when they have a better likelihood of offering something of value?

You're welcome! That one is a classic.

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Oh yeah, I totally agree that we can't discount Dozier. A lot of his value does come from his defense and I do think Rosario has more offensive upside. You can't take away what Dozier has done this season though. I'm not sure Rosario will be better, but I'd just hate to move him off of a better defensive position before he needs to be moved.

Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Twins/A's Recap The word "bludgeoned" gets thrown around so often... The Gardy 1000 Is this going to happen? Going into this week, the Twins needed to go 4-10 to finish the season "strong" and give Ron Gardenhire 1000 career wins. As bad as the Twins have been, that seemed reasonable. Star wipe to today and the Twins need to go 3-4 in their last seven to pull it off. Yikes. Anything short of a Spaghetti Jesus miracle and I don't see it happening. If Cleveland can somehow wrap up a playoff spot early this week, then it's possible. I don't see that happening though. Maybe we can convince MLB to add games to the schedule? I'll start a petition. Just let me find my megaphone. The two sides of Oswaldo Arcia We got to see both Good Arcia and Bad Arcia over the weekend. He hit two home runs in the Oakland series and generally looked good at the plate. On Friday he put on some sort of reverse clinic in the outfield, misplaying a couple of balls and generally looking like a future DH. He also slid feet-first into first base on Sunday, which was confusing, but entertaining. He's young, so he'll make mistakes. His defense has been inconsistent, but he seems athletic enough to get better. His offense has been pretty good, as he has a 104 wRC+ as a rookie with little experience above AA. His strikeout rate is a bit high and his walk rate is a bit low, specifically compared to his own Minor League numbers. If he can even those rates out and continue to add power, he'll be spectacular. He's 22. Rosario back to outfield? While on ESPN 1500 over the weekend, Rob Antony mentioned that Eddie Rosario might be moved back to the outfield, depending on a few factors. My hope would be that this decision is based entirely on how Rosario performs as a second baseman and has nothing to do with Brian Dozier. As much as Dozier has improved this year, he is still an average offensive player. His 99 OPS+ this season proves that. Defensively, Dozier will likely always be better than Rosario. Offensively, Rosario could be special. I like Dozier, but I'm not quite ready to pencil him into the lineup for the next five years. I would hope that the Twins aren't making any decisions based on the current roster because it could still be 2-3 years before the team is truly good. MADNESS Fun Stat/Possibly Wild Theory Since integration in 1947, only 56 pitchers have provided 45.5 WAR or more. Why 45.5? Brad Radke's career WAR was 45.5. He retired at 33, as we all know/cry about to this day. Only two of those 56 pitchers retired younger than Radke: Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax. Is it possible that Brad Radke was the most underrated pitcher of his era? Or, am I just blinded by our shared first name? Here is the entire list of 56. Looking at all the names, it seems that most of these guys are properly rated as great pitchers. I'm not sure Radke is, at least not outside of Minnesota. Just thinking out loud here. Random Plug - Punto Oral History How the H did I miss this? This is like nine months old and I just found it this week. Anyway, it's hilarious and I figured that if I missed it, others probably did as well. It's an oral history of Nick Punto sliding headfirst into first base. It is eminently quotable. If you missed it, you have to read it. GET MONEY! Random Paint Image I'm plagiarizing myself a bit, but here's an image I drew of Johan Santana and Bartolo Colon to immortalize the robbery that was the 2005 Cy Young Award. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QJ5BFfGImKA/UQNtzTcdSEI/AAAAAAAAAKI/YluO9tXKhE8/s320/Santana.png The biggest tragedy of all is that Colon is still pitching and Santana might have to retire. Unfair. Former Twins Update - Rangers On Saturday night, Matt Garza started for the Rangers. He was outstanding for eight innings, but gave up a lead-off home run to Eric Hosmer in the 9th. He was relieved by Joe Nathan, who hammered down the save and helped the Rangers to remain a half-game out of the Wild Card. He was met at the mound by A.J. Pierzynski, who caught the game. It was a former Twin explosion! ROAD TO 1000!!!!! Last week, we discussed Jamey Carroll's quest for 1000 hits and Ron Gardenhire's quest for 1000 wins. Gardy's week didn't go well, as I discussed earlier. Carroll had a tough week of his own. He entered the week with 999 career hits. He had zero hits this week. Of course, he had zero at bats too. That's rough. The Royals should get eliminated from the Wild Card race this week. Perhaps when their fate is sealed, they'll let Carroll take a crack or two at the roundest of all round numbers. Link to Something I wrote I traveled through time to have a AOL Instant Messenger conversation with my 12-year-old self. It was intense. I really gave myself the business for being behind the curve when it comes to sabermetrics. It was almost as if I hadn't heard of Moneyball in 1993. Idiot! Anyway, if you missed this scientific marvel, you can read it here. Parting Thought One more week. As horrible and painful as the last few weeks have been as a Twins fan, the next six months are going to be just as tough. There won't be any Twins baseball to watch, but there will be news of "improvements" to the team. I hope the off-season is more eventful than the regular season was. I always enter the off-season optimistic and I hope my blind faith is rewarded with some shrewd moves. If nothing else, I won't have to see my favorite team get waxed 11-0 for a little while. Have a great week, everyone!

Tons. I found quite a few guys who had horrible first seasons and horrible careers. Of course, not as many who were top 5 prospects like Hicks and Gibson. Most who were actual prospects were pitchers - Willie Banks, Pat Mahomes, Frankie Rodriguez, and Todd Ritchie. The only real notable hitter was David McCarty.

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Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! In case you missed it, a couple of prominent Twins rookies had difficult seasons. Well, difficult might be a massive understatement. Well, massive might be a huge overstatement. I'll calibrate my adjectives later, but we all know that Aaron Hicks and Kyle Gibson performed below expectations. Expectations may have been too high to begin with, but both players struggled to a surprising extent. Hicks and Gibson are hardly unique. Many productive Twins players performed poorly in their rookie seasons. In fact, I have eight such case studies that should demonstrate why we can still be optimistic about these two players, regardless of how abysmal they looked in their rookie seasons. First, let's examine the two rookies from 2013: Subject: Kyle Gibson Rookie Season: 2013, age 25 Rookie WAR: -0.8 Career WAR: ??? Gibson debuted at the end of June to tremendous fanfare. He had been mostly great at AAA and the Twins' starting pitching was mostly terrible. Gibson's debut was exciting, appointment viewing, but it proved to be his best start with the Twins. He posted a 6.53 ERA in 10 starts, before getting sent back to Rochester on August 20. Subject: Aaron Hicks Rookie Season: 2013 Rookie WAR: 0.6 Career WAR: ??? By WAR, Hicks wasn't a complete disaster. His defense and speed saved him from negative value. His bat was almost entirely negative, save for a couple of huge, memorable games. Hicks started his Twins' career by hitting .042 in his first 13 games. He pulled things together slightly to post a 63 OPS+. He never pulled it together enough to earn a full season with the Twins. He was sent to Rochester in early August and didn't perform well enough to earn a trip back to Minnesota in September. Now that we've looked at the two disappointing rookies, we can remember how some past Twins compared during their rookie seasons. Subject: Frank Viola Rookie Season: 1982, age 22 Rookie WAR: -0.1 Career WAR: 47.4 Viola didn't have a terrible rookie season, but he wasn't Sweet Music just yet either. He isn't a great comp for Gibson because he was quite a bit younger. However, had Gibson stayed healthy, he may have rocketed up through the farm system like Viola did. Viola was drafted in 1981 and made his debut just about a year later. In Viola's first taste of the Majors, he posted a 4-10 record with a 5.21 ERA in 22 starts. He was actually worse the following year, although he did throw 210 innings. Viola established himself as a reliable starter in 1984, his third season as a Twin. Subject: Johan Santana Rookie Season: 2000, age 21 Rookie WAR: 0.1 Career WAR: 50.7 A bit of a cheat, as Santana was a rule 5 pick who needed to remain on the roster in order to remain with the organization. However, Santana did have a rough debut. He threw 86 innings, started just five games and nearly walked as many batters as he struck out. Of course, he was 21 and had never pitched above A ball. However, he learned on the fly in the Majors and eventually became one of the best pitchers in Twins history. Subject: Matt Garza Rookie Season: 2006, age 22 Rookie WAR: -0.1 Career WAR: 14.7 Garza's debut might have been the most electric debut that I can remember. His hype was huge and his performance was full of nervous energy. Garza got lit up in that first MLB start, but posted a few nice starts later in his rookie season. He finished with a 5.76 ERA and didn't impress enough to earn a roster spot at the beginning of the 2007 season. Subject: Kyle Lohse Rookie Season: 2001, age 22 Rookie WAR: -0.1 Career WAR: 18.9 Lohse isn't the first guy that Twins fans would want to compare a promising young starter to. In my opinion, if Kyle Gibson turns out to be Kyle Lohse, the Twins would be happy. Well, so long as Gibson doesn't act like Kyle Lohse anyway. Lohse made 16 starts in his rookie season and posted a 5.68 ERA. I don't think Twins fans look back fondly on the Kyle Lohse era, but he did provide at least three competent seasons while very young and reasonably priced. Subject: Doug Mientkiewicz Rookie Season: 1999, age 25 Rookie WAR: -1.6 Career WAR: 11.0 Dougie Baseball made his debut at a relatively advanced age and didn't impress at the plate. He posted a 66 OPS+ and struggled to make contact. Mientkiewicz split time with Ron Coomer, which was probably delightful. He spent almost all of the 2000 season crushing AAA. In 2001, he established himself as the Twins' starting first baseman for the next few seasons. Subject: Matt Lawton Rookie Season: 1996, age 24 Rookie WAR: 0.6 Career WAR: 15.0 Like Viola, Lawton wasn't bad as a rookie. He posted a 78 OPS+ and showed the promise of what he would become at maturity. He walked as much as he struck out and he showed some pop and some speed. His defense was pretty good as well. He was just a young player who needed more at bats to reach his potential. It took a few seasons, but Lawton blossomed into a great, and somewhat underrated player. Subject: Jason Kubel Rookie Season: 2006, age 24 Rookie WAR: -0.9 Career WAR: 4.9 Kubel's debut was actually two years prior, but he didn't play enough to exhaust his rookie status and then he suffered his nasty knee injury and missed all of 2005. Upon his return to the Twins in 2006, Kubel hit .241/.279/.386 in 235 plate appearances. He looked overmatched at times, and was not quite the player he was before his injury. He eventually became an average offensive player and his peak season in 2009 was one of the better offensive seasons in recent Twins' history. Subject: Torii Hunter Rookie Season: 1999, age 23 Rookie WAR: 0.8 Career WAR: 49.8 Aaron Hicks is unfairly compared to Torii Hunter. Both are athletic and talented centerfielders but the comparisons might end there. Hicks is a patient, sometimes passive hitter with good speed for stealing bases. Hunter is an aggressive and powerful hitter, with an aggressive approach to running the bases. However, if Hicks' career takes shape like Hunter's did, then all Twins fans will be somewhere between stoked and very stoked. Hunter posted a 73 OPS+ as a rookie, but slowly improved and eventually became a guy who will likely produce over 50 WAR in his career. Will Hicks and Gibson bounce back to productive careers like the eight case studies presented here? Perhaps, as history shows that a poor rookie season is no reason to give up on a talented player. While Gibson may be older than the pitchers presented here, he is similarly inexperienced. His age shouldn't be held against him, as he can still be a productive pitcher for the Twins for the next decade. Hicks was about as bad as a hitter can be, but he still holds promise and could develop slowly. His skill set is too enticing to ignore and he should be given more opportunities from the Twins organization and from Twins fans.

Hi everyone, I was feeling bitter about Swarzak's non-changing, too-defined role, so I wrote about it a bit. Kevin Slowey was Framed!: Would it be cool if we talked about Anthony Swarzak's role for a bit? Summary: I don't think reliever roles are cool, but relief pitchers are cool.

Thanks x 2! My mom made me shave the mustache shortly after that photo was taken.

It's more of a gut feeling. I have no knowledge of anything. It's just hard to imagine his return after the past three awful seasons.

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