jimbo92107

I don't know whom to credit for Randy Dobnak. This is a guy that looks like a young, innings-eating horse for the next decade. Nothing about his game whispers "fluke" or "flash in the pan." His tempo is excellent - under 15 seconds per pitch, unless a guy swings, then it's about 20 seconds. His motion is compact and efficient, with no obvious physical clues to distinguish his heater from his slider. He is on balance, with good rhythm. He attacks the zone from the first pitch. Not quite the sewing machine precision of Odorizzi, but good enough to throw lots of strikes. Best of all, Dobnak's strikes are all around the zone, so a hitter has little idea where the next one will be. And Dobbie's stuff breaks in all directions. How was he not drafted? Did he really learn all this stuff from the Twins organization? Did Twins scouts simply identify him as a good candidate, good clay, and then they shaped him into a major league pitcher? I mean, we know that's the intention with every pitcher in the minors, but why did it work so well with Dobnak? Anyway, the team somehow seems to have conjured a solid starter out of thin air. Good timing, Twins coaches! Dobnak does not show the hesitation or self-doubt of a rookie pitcher. Like Smeltzer, he just keeps attacking, but Dobnak's heater tops out in the mid-90's. I do wonder if Wes Johnson added a couple mph with his magical mechanical trickery. Johnson has upped the mph for several pitchers here. Dobnak apparently is a very coachable guy.

I did in fact see a bunch of guys on the bench wearing dark glasses.... tee hee!

Tweeted this to Rocky: A crafty man devised a plan to foil the Lords of Probability. His force depleted, yet he defeated all their odds...with ability!

Previously I wrote that Gibson simply wasn't healthy enough to pitch. After seeing him work a few innings in relief, I'm more on the fence. If Gibson looks better in relief in the last few games, then his stuff and command could be valuable in a bullpen game vs. the Yankees.

I may be the only one, but I'd like to thank Michael Pineda for his contribution to this division championship. Pineda came back from both TJ surgery and knee surgery to provide solid starting pitching for the Twins, right up until he got popped for PEDs. He is not the only guy on this team that has gone through this suspension, and hopefully he will come back better for it. If Pineda can come back clean and manage his health in a more responsible way, I hope to see him next year in a Twins uniform. Skol Twins!

Tough decision, but Sano's rise as a power hitter in the second half has convinced me. Best thing the Twins can do next season is trade Buxton for a prospect, then fast-track Lewis, Larnach and Kiriloff, along with the promising starters in AA. Time to harvest the farm system. Bring up Ben Rortvedt to back up Garver, release Castro.

Completely agree with your list, and thank you for putting the best three left over as 1, 2, 3 in order. 1. Cody Stashak, RHP Stashak has remarkably good form, a repeatable delivery, effective stuff. With form that good, confidence comes easy. 2. Zack Littell, RHP Like Stashak, Littell has excellent form, and in his relief role his stuff plays especially well. Littell has some bulldog in him. Future starter. 3. Brusdar Graterol, RHP There is a possibility that Graterol gets destroyed if he loses his nerve. With just a few innings at the mlb level, we just don't know if he can take playoff pressure. On the other hand, he can blow hitters right out of the box, and I have less hesitation to give him the ball (with bases clean) than later options. Grats will give up some hits, but his game can absorb scattered hits with lotsa K's. 4. Lewis Thorpe, LHP Buy: Thorpe's future as a starter. Sell: Thorpe's present as a reliever. Thorpe needs another off-season of coaching to get his mechanics worked out. Right now he's breaking Bert's first rule: Stay back on the rubber. Thorpe launches himself at the plate too soon, which makes everything else go out of whack. The only reason he gets near the strike zone is because he's an athlete. If he gets the mechanics down, he won't need to compensate for his lack of rhythm. 5. Kyle Gibson, RHP Gibson is below the bottom of this list. I consider him physically unable to perform the duties of major league pitcher. 6. Fernando Romero, RHP Romero has the same problem Thorpe has: He launches himself too soon off the rubber. Added to that, Romero also sinks down, rather than staying tall. Another off-season training with Wes Johnson may cure that. If so, he's back to being a starter. 7. Ryne Harper, RHP I actually have Harper as the first alternate behind Graterol. His stuff is legitimately whiffable, even after the league "figured him out." I think he was dealing with arm problems, and he's better now. Problem is, Graterol throws vapor rockets. 8. Trevor Hildenberger, RHP Would be my second alternate, but he has not yet showed his prior effectiveness. 9. Kohl Stewart, RHP Stewart may continue to develop gradually, but I no longer consider him a valuable prospect, not with other guys passing him up like a bicycle on the highway. 10. Jorge Alcala, RHP Alcala is the most raw of all these guys. No way would I trust him in a playoff game. I'd go get Balasovic first. Or some guy from AAA. Actually, most of the promising arms are in AA...Ober, Sands, Durhan. I'd grab those guys before most from the bottom of this list.

Hat tip, Mary Tyler Moore show. At the funeral for a Chuckles the Clown, Ted quotes the harlequin's signature line: "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants." Mary of course cannot help it, she laughs at the funeral.

With Perez it may depend on how well he absorbs Wes Johnson's coaching. When he does it right mechanically, Perez is great. If he can get that back, I'm fine with him. Gibson, on the other hand, should not pick up another baseball until he is fully recovered from his terrible problem with ulcerative colitis. He looks gaunt, weak, and I am frankly worried that he might have some kind of physical collapse if he exerts himself, especially at a pro baseball level.

Andrew's original premise focused on the plus side of using Dobnak to start ALDS game 2. To that I must add that "all hands on deck" is understating the situation. For the Twins, all hands are not available anymore. Gibson should not touch a baseball until his weight is back over 150 pounds, and one sandwich ain't gonna do it. Pitching Perez is like playing Russian roulette, only the revolver has not just one bullet in it, but three. Low-leverage relief or mop up duty for Perez. That leaves a fairly talented group of rookies, unless you want to see how many innings Duffey can pitch. Actually, he and Littell could probably start a game and go four or five innings of reasonable ball.... Point is, there isn't much choice now. Twins will need to patch together a bullpen game, then hope the bats come alive for about ten runs. Yes, the kids aren't quite ready. Yes, they'll be facing Houston or the Yankees. Yes, they could choke under all that pressure. That's your 2019 Twins, folks. Next season these guys will be a lot more stable emotionally, and have better technique. Next season we might see Graterol starting, and maybe another couple guys from this group. Next season we might get Pineda back. But right now, Baldi and the boys have to choreograph some serious sleight of hand with newborn magicians. It should surprise nobody that this probably won't work. Certainly not against hot-hitting Houston posting Justin Verlander, Garrett Cole and Zack Greinke. The Lords of Probability are tittering in our general direction. Still, somebody has to go out there. Yo Dobnak, you available? As a final request, we grant thee absolution from any environmental disasters resulting from your brave attempt. Go out there and have fun, kid!

Your logic is unassailable; thus, it will not happen. However, if it did, I would pitch Dobbie first, then hit 'em with some Smeltzer in their pants. The young lefty has shown an ability to baffle hitters with his slow stuff, and he doesn't. walk. people. Between Dobs and Smelt, you could get 6 or 7 innings with the team still in the game. After that it's Duffey, Romo, and Rogers slams the door.

It's like I told my kids in summer league baseball: "You can't always win, but sometimes, you can make your opponents very happy."

We do not exist as discrete creatures. We are managers of an enormous zoo of animals and plants that compose our guts and the rest of our bodies. When the zoo gets thrown out of balance (by for instance the over-use of antibiotics, or antibiotics in our food), then all manner of things can and do go wrong. A fecal transplant can actually cure certain diseases. Ulcerative colitis is one of several targets. Others include Crone's disease, C. Diff, and some claim it has reduced symptoms of asthma.

The "yuck factor" for this is high, but I wonder if Gibson's doctors have considered a fecal transplant. https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/ulcerative-colitis/news/20190122/fecal-transplants-may-help-ease-painful-colitis#1 This treatment has produced semi-miraculous results in some people for whom drug therapies have been ineffectual. By simply adjusting the gut flora/fauna in this way, people have been cured of several auto-immune diseases, and diseases that are resistant to penicillin related drugs. Kyle Gibson should stop pitching, right now. His health is degrading before our eyes, and I don't want to see him literally collapse on the mound. Get well first, Kyle Gibson. We don't need a championship badly enough to cost your health.

I've been an off/on fan of Kyle Gibson for a while. At his best, he is a dominant starter with good command of his heater and his 1 to 7 curve, which is a legitimate whiff pitch. Unfortunately, Gibson has had just one season where he was healthy and his mechanics were in good shape. Today Gibson is battling a chronic illness that has literally left him emaciated and weak. I would much prefer that this man stop pitching until his illness is gone and his full physical strength is back. The world will get by without Kyle Gibson's pitching. He needs to get well before he gets back on the mound. Otherwise, Bomba city, y'all! Thorpedo again showed why he intrigues the team. Thorpe's command issues really come down to old Bert's mantra: Stay back, stay tall, and work out front. Mainly Thorpe is blowing the Stay Back part, releasing his drive foot too soon. The other thing he needs to refine is his balance point. As I've said before, a pitcher's balance is like an imaginary broom stick planted on the front of the rubber, running up through the pitcher's center of mass. For a pitcher to have good command, that stick must fall in a direct line towards home plate. If it falls to the left, the pitch will go left, and vice versa. Hitters watch for body lean during a pitcher's delivery to predict which side of the plate to cover. Anyway, Thorpe is one of a few Twins pitchers whose stick doesn't fall towards home plate consistently enough. May has that problem when he's missing. Perez has that problem. Duffey used to have that problem, but I think Wes Johnson fixed it. Romero has it a little, but mainly he needs to stay back and stay tall. Good news is, most Twins pitchers work from a very good foundation. Dobnak and Littell look really solid. Smeltzer has great balance. Stashak is almost perfect. Odorizzi is perfect. Perhaps coolest of all, Graterol looks almost perfectly on balance. This bodes well for their k/b ratios.

Enter the pandering poobah of positivism! This Twins team is amazingly resilient. There is absolutely no giving up in this squad. Oh, and if anybody is wondering, Ronald Torreyes is not a hole in the batting lineup. He's a career .281 hitter that has played for the Dodgers and the Yankees. And he's not 5'5", even if that's what he looks like. He's 5'8". Gno. Yor. Twinkies.

Exactly. If Arraez has any weakness as a defender, it's footwork, the exact same thing Polanco needed to work on last season. This season, Polanco looks good at SS. Next season, Arraez will have perfectly good footwork, at second base. Gotta keep a bat like that in the lineup. For the next decade. The future value of Arraez is going to be a solid 2B, with one of the league's highest average bats. He will set the plate for a thousand RBI, and knock in a thousand himself.

Rule of thumb: High-OBP guys bat just before the Big Knockers. The OBP guys are Arraez, Kepler, Polanco, maybe Gonzo . The Knockers are Cruz, Garver, Sano, Rosie, and Cron when healthy. Rocco's lineups almost always follow this rule of thumb, in various shuffles. In a playoff scenario, I can see Arraez bat 1, with Cruz or Garver behind him. I would say Sano, but he strikes out too much to bat top of the order. I see Rocco also likes to bat L, R, L, R... Good idea, with switch hitters Polanco and Gonzo making it even harder for opponents to find an advantage.

A right-handed Louis Thorpe, plus 5 mph? He might do more harm than good if he can't command his pitches. These guys need to learn to use their drive leg on the rubber. Calling Wes Johnson!

Individual honors on a team that prides itself on its selfless team spirit? I assume the winner would not accept the award!

Lewis Thorpe was having a terrible time finding his groove, mostly because he was releasing his drive foot off the rubber and lunging towards home plate. Or, as Bert would say, he wasn't "staying back." The result was that his arm wasn't catching up to his body, thus all the pitches drifting high and left, arm-side. I suspect Thorpe will be doing a lot more work with Wes Johnson to keep his drive foot on the rubber longer, and then we will see Thorpe's command come back. We'll also see him start hitting the low areas of the zone with his fastball.

Of course Michael Pineda was using steroids. Are we going to feign stupidity? Athletes cheat all the time these days. I'm not going to forgive it or forget it, because it's just a fact of life in a capitalist society. People that grow up desperate for financial security will lie, cheat and steal to get it. Even people that grow up rich will lie, cheat and steal to stay rich. Now, if we have all thrown off our baby one piece jammies, should the Twins pitch a contract to Pineda? Heck yeah, he was a bargain basement special, and he might go slightly under top dollar to make things right with the Twins. He did put the team in a pickle by getting caught. He needs to learn to build his body legally. It can be done. Meanwhile, Pineda looks great on the mound for this team. Innings eating horse, with ace potential. Keep the man in Minnesota.

Something about Randy Dobnak says "future horse" to me. Not necessarily an ace, but a major mid-rotation innings eater. I really love his tempo - with no runners on, he appears to throw the ball about every 20 seconds. He gave up a homer today, but he's just getting started. He'll give up more!

Time to call up Alex Kirilloff. Average outfielder, great hitter. Put him in RF, with Cave in CF and Rosario in LF. Swap Perez to the pen, replace him with Smeltzer. Start looking at Graterol as an Opener, with Thorpe as a Primary.

More important is for the remaining healthy three or four guys to keep barreling up as many pitches as possible. Home runs are nice, but when you've got runners on base, it's vital to keep the line moving.