jimmer

Twins were losing and got swept. That's not the time for Sano to put any swagger in his HR trot. I think him not pimping his HR had more to do with that (and him getting slammed for pimping HRs in the past, because we wouldn't want to show too much moxy), than any kind of lesson he was trying to teach much more experienced players.

Not according to a huge contingent of Twins fans, many on TD.

I have a feeling that if we had been awesome since the AS break and/or trade deadline, this same kind of article could have been posted with a different title: 'Winning has highlighted twins correct deadline decisions.' If one tries hard enough, they can always justify inaction.

Reyes was a salary dump by the Jays. The Jays wouldn't do the trade without getting the Rockies to take Reyes. Colorado didn't want to take Reyes. They ended up taking Reyes because they found that preferable to eating a good chunk of Tulo's contract. When you look at the players, the money involved and so on, it was a very light return for Tulo.

Addison Russell is now the Cubs shortstop. Castro is now a bench player.

I also think it's naive to think that when a pitcher supposedly plunks a guy for pimping, part of that anger doesn't stem from his (or his teammates) lack of ability to execute his pitches or just getting beat. A pitcher can hide behind the whole 'he was pimping' thing all they want when they hit someone, but it's more than likely it's just whining because his team keeps getting beat by a guy. Do your job, shut him down if you can, and if you can't tip your hat, move on and get better. P.S. I just don't know about my computer. All this font change and movement, not planned at all.

You didn't mention catcher. And when you look at the just need list you provided, that's actually a lot of pieces, if you think about it. And there's no evidence to suggest they will go get those things nor evidence to suggest the farm will provide those at a passable level. We are counting too many eggs from our farm system when saying we are right on the verge. Do we forget the huge fail rate on prospects? It could very well be 2017, 2018 (if then) before we are actually real contenders.

I absolutely hate the idea of purposely hitting people. What KC was allowed to do to the Jays last week was an embarrassment to the game and that umpire crew needs to be punished. Saying we should plunk someone out the gate in the hopes he'll have a bad remaining game is something I hope my team never endorses.

Looks like he's now been stretched out enough to be the 5th starter.

Making a call: Toronto will win the AL East.

then we can just blame Bill Smith.

I'm confused by your reasoning. Are you saying no one can make evaluations on Molitor's in-game strategy during the current series because they are so much better than us it didn't matter what he did, we'd lose? Can we only evaluate his in-game strategy against poor teams? People are questioning his in-game strategy not saying he stinks because we keep losing to these guys. Let's not pretend it's just about this series.

All this has all been covered including the part that said it's been 5 seasons since Ramos left and there's been plenty of time to address the catcher position. Suzuki isn't starting for us now because Smith traded Ramos. Smith didn't make Ryan sign Suzuki last year nor did he make him re-sign him for two years. That's all Ryan. He had plenty of time to address the problem correctly. The closest thing to true that could be said is that Ramos might have been our starting catcher right now if Smith hadn't traded him. Cause that's all we know for sure. Then again, Ryan might have done something differently in the last 4 years and he still might not be our catcher.

Are you saying that foreseeing the lack of action was a difficult task? Cause, yeah, not so much :-)

I agree his career OPS is better than what we have now, but that has a lot to do with who TR decided to be our catcher this year and next. There's nothing to say he couldn't have addressed the situation differently. It's been 5 seasons since Ramos left, it's not why we specifically have Suzuki now. Additionally, we used to have a catcher that people complained about his games played. Look at Ramos over the last three years going into this year. 25, 78, 88 games played. He's played over 88 games exactly once.

I thought we were starting Kurt Suzuki this year and next year because TR ridiculously thought he had turned some kind of corner offensively and re-signed him. And we really need to get past the idea Ramos is some kind of stud. He's not

I always use Fangraphs WAR because I prefer what they use for their formulas. For example, Fangraphs uses FIP, which is defense independent. while rWAR (baseball reference war) takes a pitcher’s actual Runs Allowed and adjusts that to account for their opponents, team defense, park, and role. I could send you more info if you like in a PM because I don't want to turn this thread into a WAR debate.

Ryan hasn't ever done anything significant at the deadline. When we were serious playoff contenders, when we weren't. Never. It's a trend. And it's funny because both ways can be defended for him to do nothing. If we are serious contenders, why change anything, we are fine. If we aren't serious contenders, why bother getting better players when we likely aren't going to the playoffs.

From Fangraphs http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-sacrifice-bunt-the-real-rally-killer/ 'The only thing that needs to be executed is the sacrifice bunt from the playbook of Major League managers. It is not always the wrong move, but it is used far too often and in too many situations where swinging away is more likely to produce a positive result. At the front office level, every organization in the game is getting smarter. In some cities, the on-field personnel are utilizing facts and logic to better inform their tactical decisions. But, by and large, most Major League managers are still like Mattingly and Wedge, and they’re going to bunt regardless of whether or not it actually helps their team’s chances of winning. We don’t live in 1953 anymore. We have access to more and better information than ever before. Teams are spending large amounts of resources to make better decisions to get improvements on the margins that may end up winning them one or two games over the course of the season. And yet, at the end of the day, most of these teams are still entrusting their in-game strategy to people who simply don’t understand the basic probabilities of the sport. Maybe it’s going to take five more years. Maybe even 10 or 15. But at some point in our lifetime, teams are going to start hiring managers who understand that giving away an out should be a rare occurrence. Bunting for a base hit, putting on a well-timed squeeze, beating an overshifted defense, having a pitcher move a runner into scoring position… there’s room for bunting in baseball. The frequency of sacrificing bunting that is prevalent now, though, is simply incorrect strategy, and the sooner it is removed from the sport, the better off Major League teams will be.'

From yesterday's s chat with Dave Cameron: Comment From David What trade do you think was the biggest overpay or underpay? Dave Cameron: Rob Kaminsky for Brandon Moss seemed like a high price for STL to pay for a platoon guy with a bad hip having a mediocre season. And the Tulo deal was probably the cheapest acquisition of a high-level player we’ve seen at the deadline in a while.

exactly. Been saying we have a hard remaining schedule for awhile now. Good find, Mike. One possible playoff contender has a rougher schedule than us

it's been done in the 2nd inning as well.

old school guy went with his gut instead of what the math geeks say :-)

We have gotten to see a lot of the young talent. That's awesome. Best part of the season, IMO. Sano looks good, Hicks looks good, Rosario is looking good. I enjoyed seeing Buxton play. It's been a fun year.

Have you noticed how we've been playing? You say Detroit and the W Sox are waiving surrender flags? What does that say about us? Detroit is 2 games behind us and Miggy will be back, White Sox are 2.5 game behind us. They could be ahead of us in a week. And yes, 27 games against team that are .500 or better. That's a lot to end the season. And that's only as it stands now. We also have three games against TB that is one game under .500, right now. The schedule is a good reason why our playoff odds sat at under 10% before tonights loss.