Cap'n Piranha

Especially given Brian's 69 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR so far this year.

Except through May 7 this year Rogers has thrown 206 pitches. Through May 6 last year, Reed had thrown 277, which is the equivalent of almost 4 more appearances. Pressly had thrown 281. I think it's pretty clear Reed and Pressly were getting quite overused last year, and you can't dismiss that as a factor in Reed's decline.

Just like every player looks bad if you throw out their good months and only count their bad months? You stated he wasn't good before his injury. I provided a number that demonstrates that not to be true (to at least some extent). In no way did I cherry pick--I looked at a timeframe in which you said he wasn't good, and provided evidence that, actually, he was.

Go check out the playoff odds on fangraphs--the Twins are now favored to win the division.

3.3 FIP in March/April suggests otherwise. He also had a 2.22 FIP in September when he returned. Reed's not prime Andrew Miller or anything, but he certainly represents an upgrade to our bullpen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of adding Javier to the 40-man, isn't that only if they don't want him to be rule V eligible? Unless he tears it up and somehow makes it to AA this year, I can't envision any organization using a 25 man spot next year on him.

Houston is definitely a good offense, but Toronto is 26th in wRC+ and 27th in OPS.

Very nice win, especially against the team that put us on the only truly disheartening series of the year thus far. Having not pitched since Thursday, and only needing 8 pitches to get through the 8th, I would have liked to see Harper just finish the game. The pen is fully rested, so not a huge deal here, but doing things like that to give yourselves more rested options is something Baldelli needs to learn to do in the future. Dan Gladden's adherence to old-school smallball tactics is grating. Before Castro's RBI groundout last night, Gladden stated the goal should be, with runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, to hit a ground ball to the right side. When Castro did that, he called it "perfect".

He also has a .200 babip, well below his career norm of .291. Give him 9 more hits on the year, and all of the sudden he's batting .294 with a .351 OBP and at worst a .500 SLG (assuming all 9 hits are singles. Since Cron averages 2 bases per hit, his SLG would more likely be .526). This puts him at an OPS in the .850 to .875 range, which puts him in the mid 40's to mid-50's in the league (somewhere between Yoan Moncada and Kris Bryant), and in the top half of first basemen. That being said, he is making less hard contact, and more soft contact, which suggests a lower babip might not be an outlier. I'm in favor of upgrading our first base spot, but it's still possible the upgrade is simply Cron progressing to the mean.

Navaretto has twice caught 80 or more games in a season, so while it is rare, it happens. That being said, with two potential major leaguers, I'd prefer to see them both get more time to aid in their development.

I'd like to see either Rortvedt or Jeffers promoted to AA, so both of them can get 75-80% of the time behind the plate. A plethora of cheap number 4 and 5 starters is what will allow the Twins to compete going forward. And if a guy doesn't develop into that, you can always try the Trevor May/Taylor Rogers route, and build out your bullpen. SSS, but Lewis has an almost .800 OPS in May. He's done a nice job of holding his own in controlling the strike zone (16 bb to 26 k), but really struggled against righties (.511 OPS, compared to .978 against lefties).

Well then I think to fix the team, we should recall Drew Maggi from AAA. After all, once we do that we can simply ignore his .438 OPS at AAA. And DJ Baxendale, with his 11.57 ERA and 2.57 WHIP is just what the bullpen needs, since those numbers are obviously irrelevant the moment he puts on a Twins uniform.

Arraez is doing some interesting things--.321 Avg, .384 OBP with as many walks as strikeouts. Schales has a .905 OPS, despite striking out in nearly half his AB's Rortvedt has an .817 OPS (fangraphs puts him at a 154 wRC+), and also has as mnay walks as strikeouts, with half of his hits going for extra bases.

Pensacola, as a TEAM, has a 1.77 ERA. They are almost 1.5 runs better than second place Montgomery at 3.23. They also have 210 k's (10.5 a game), most in the league by 25 (Mobile at 185, which is 9.7 a game).

This also might just be Marwin. Historically, he's struggled against breaking balls (he grades out worst against the curve, and then sliders). This year, he's seeing those pitches a combined 37.8% of the time--fastballs are at 36.2%. Until he shows an ability to handle those pitches, this isn't going to get better.

In a doubleheader, you can call up a 26th man. They could have brought up Stewart, Littell, or Thorpe to pitch the Saturday night cap as the 26th man, and it would have been less stress on the team than the two total innings they got from Romero. It would have then allowed Perez to start on Sunday, Gibson on Monday, Odorizzi on Tuesday, and Pineda last night. Personally, I think MLB should also institute a rule anytime an unscheduled doubleheader causes a team to play 6 games in 5 days; in addition to the 26th man the day of the DH, they should be granted a waiver to bring up a player for the 6th game in that string, so long as they "deactivate" another player so there's no competitive disadvantage to the competing team. In other words, the Twins could have brought up Stewart to pitch last night, and instead of designating Cave, simply deactivated Pineda for a game.

Berrios career minor league numbers--591.2 IP, 2.77 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 9.6 k/9, 2.5 bb/9 Gibson career minor league numbers--410 IP, 3.36 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 8.1 k/9, 2.5 bb/9 Stewart career minor league numbers--582.2 IP, 3.41 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 6.5 k/9, 3.4 bb/9 That's why Stewart gets a shorter leash than Berrios or Gibson--he hasn't earned a longer one with his performance in the minors.

Because the entertainers have entered into a contract with an employer wherein they are compensated for their time, but have no other investment obligation. Therefore, since the entertainers have not entered any of their money into the operation, it remains the money of the operator. If the players wanted to own their own teams, or instead of signing contracts for set dollar amounts, opted for a percent of revenue/profit, then it could be considered their money.

There is no one solution to the economic issues facing baseball, but there are a number of individual solutions that could help. In no particular order; Teams must spend 75% of proprietary revenue as a salary floor, else face a 10 to 1 fine for every dollar under that level, while also being ineligible for revenue sharing. Revenue sharing will be made available to any team in the bottom 15 of proprietary revenue A hard salary cap is instituted, with teams not allowed to exceed it for any reason. This will narrow the gap between the top and bottom of the league, meaning more teams have a realistic chance to make the playoffs, providing the incentive to improve Add 2 more teams to the league (Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville, New Orleans, Montreal, Vancouver are all possibilities), which provides more demand for players, meaning teams will need to pay more to get them, as well as eliminating the need for permanent interleague play Expand the playoffs to 8 teams from each league, with no play-in games. First round series are best of 3, second round is best of 5, and LC's and WS are best of 7. It creates more revenue, more division races, and more incentive to be competitive All players become restricted free agents 6 years after being drafted (4 if from college), and unrestricted free agents 8 years after being drafted (6 if from college). International players hit RFA after 8 years, and UFA after 10 years. Arbitration starts after 4 years for HS draftees, 3 years for college, and 7 years for internationals The year in which a player is signed/drafted does not count as a year. If a player is injured and undergoes surgery, his "clock stops" and he loses one year of service time. If the player is hurt, elects against surgery, but after rehabilitation needs surgery, he loses one year of service time, plus another year if he misses more than 50% of a second season The prior two rules would incentivize teams to bring players up when they think they're ready--no more service time games. Minor league pay would further be set at 10% of the rookie minimum for short season leagues, 20% for A/A+, 35% for AA, and 50% for AAAI'm sure there are more that could be implemented, but I'd love to have a debate on the perceived efficacy of these rules.

If this season is viewed through a two year lens—that is, how many games should a team win if two years ago it only won 59–78 seems like a very realistic number. The question is whether last year’s win total was a fluke, or this year’s was suppressed by injuries.

Based on those quotations, it seems like Mr. DeJong likes himself some Chase.

I don’t get the Grossman disdain. He is not replacement level—he has .9 WAR this year and a 109 wRC. He’s certainly not a star, but it’s not his fault the Twins try to use him for more than they should. Let him start a couple of games at DH, maybe one in the outfield every week, and bat him in the lower third, and he’s perfectly acceptable.

I like Grossman a lot—as a bench/platoon hitter for a team with a stacked lineup. He’s not so great if you’re relying on him to be an every day kind of guy. But then, that’s not on him, that’s on the organization for not using him properly.

I don’t understand having an opener go more than one inning. If the theory behind the opener is to have him pitch to batters 1-3 (or 4) in the first inning, allowing the primary to begin his day with 4 or 5, and thus start his third time through the order with batter 4 or 5, getting two innings from an opener defeats this purpose. Since most pitchers have whips over 1, statistically speaking, if the opener goes two innings, the primary will start with batters 9,1, and 2, therefore negating most of the supposed benefit of the opener.

Keep losing, and get some better draft picks (translation; more slot money). Can Belisle be the opener for primary pitcher Gimenez?