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one_eyed_jack

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Everything posted by one_eyed_jack

  1. one_eyed_jack
    This sucks. I wasn't expecting much, but a good showing against the Yankees would have at least helped end this festering turd of a season on a bit of a high note. And now Dunn homers with 2 gone in the 8th to put the Whities up by 2. Thanks, Cleveland.
  2. one_eyed_jack
    Swisher needs to be hit upside the head for standing there and griping about a called third strike that was clearly in the strike zone after some of the pitches that Pettite has been given.
  3. one_eyed_jack
    Good question. We'll have to see what happens in the offseason, but I'd say bring him back in a utility role, and maybe try to deal him at the deadline. We won't get much for him, but reliable veteran guys like that often draw interest from contenders. I kind of cringed when we signed Carroll, but I've come to appreciate him. He may not be the most talented guy, but he's a true professional. Regardless of the situation or the score, he plays hard, and he plays smart. I wish we could put Carroll's attitude and ethic into Casilla's body.
  4. one_eyed_jack
    Well at least we surpassed last season's win total. Yay.
  5. one_eyed_jack
    Blech. Oh well, at least it hurts the Whities. Now if only the A's could have done their part to damage the Yankees' playoff hopes.
  6. one_eyed_jack
    No interest. If we're going to make a managerial change, I don't want a retread. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to fire a guy after 2 disappointing seasons and replace him with a guy whose high payroll teams have underachieved the last 3 seasons.
  7. one_eyed_jack
    ---Well said. Souhan was particularly bad with his supposed anonymous sources who were rolling their eyes at the mere mention of Mauer's name and speculation that Mauer was suffering from depression. And let's not forget Barreiro's constant harping on him on the radio. I stopped listening to him after his not-so-subtle digs at Mauer in the form of constant gushing over the year AJ is having.
  8. one_eyed_jack
    I was pretty much with them until this last sentence: "It will be years before this team competes for another AL Central crown." It may be years before this team competes for a World Series crown, but it doesn't take much to be competitive in the AL Central these days. A lot of people talk about the Twins division titles in the 00's as though they don't count because of supposed division weakness (despite, for example, 2006 when it was the only MLB divsion with three 90+ win teams), but the AL Central now is weaker than it ever was in that time. I'm not predicting the Twins will win it, but being good enough to compete in it is an achievable goal.
  9. one_eyed_jack
    Great article. It does a good job illustrating the pure silliness of the venom directed at Mauer. This is an odd one. Normally the national sports media is clueless about the Twins, but here the 4-letter mag offers a better take on Mauer than anything I've read from the local scribes (outside of this site of course!) in a while.
  10. one_eyed_jack
    To compete for the division? Sure. A lot of people dismiss the Twins success in the 00's with the "weak division" argument, but I think the division now is as weak as it's been in a long time. The Whities have been good enough to win it this year, but can they realistically count on AJ, Rios and Dunn all having career years again? The Tigers got a lot of hype after the Fielder signing, but their flaws have been exposed. The Indians are a mess. The Royals have been better lately, but still look stuck in perpetual 'rebuilding' mode. So the division is there for the taking. And if TR can assemble even a mediocre starting rotation without giving up too much offense,it should be within reach. Competing beyond that? That would require something more. Divine intervention perhaps.
  11. one_eyed_jack
    Well I flipped away to watch the Vikings pee all over themselves. I should have just turned my TV off and gone outside.
  12. one_eyed_jack
    ---Well the Twins have certainly fared poorly in the postseason, but I don't put as much of the blame on Gardy as you do. Postseason baseball is team vs. team, not manager vs. manager. A lot of the Twins playoff losses were close games that turned on one or two plays that the other team made and the Twins didn't. Nathan blowing saves, Kubel completely forgetting how to hit, baserunning blunders, I just don't see how Gardy is to blame for these things. Injuries played a role too. Liriano in '06. Morneau in '09 and '10. In '87 we were on the other side of that with Jack Clark. Suppose Clark had played in that series while Hrbek had been on the self - does it come out the same way? And if no, then are we still talking about what a great manager TK was? As Riverbrian pointed out, the playoffs are a tiny sample size. Do the poor playoff performances of Rod Carew and Ted Williams detract from their legacies? Were they 'bedwetters' too? I also disagree with the dismissiveness with which Gardy's division titles are often viewed. The relative strength of the AL Central notwithstanding, to succeed year in and year out over the long grind of a 162-game season is a really tough thing to do. For all the talk about the legendary managerial genius of TK, he wasn't able string together multiple successful seasons like that. Up until 2010, the Twins were often significantly outspent by the White Sox and Tigers, so it's not like they had a huge talent advantage over their division rivals.
  13. one_eyed_jack
    This. I'm in the "it's time for a change" camp. I like Gardy, I think he's a very good manager. And given that he's finished the top 3 in MOTY voting 7 times, clearly I'm not alone. I'm not saying he's a great manager or deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown, you can question some things he does like you could with any manager. I just don't understand the "Gardy sucks" crowd.
  14. one_eyed_jack
    ---Can you provide actual examples of what Gardy did wrong and what he could have done differently with respect to managing his arms to be ready for the playoffs and improvising? Because I don't find these non-specific claims to be particularly persuasive. If you recall, the Twins won the division on the last day of the season. So that, understandably, was the focus. I can't really fault his pitcher selection in the 3 games. He went with Santana in game 1. No brainer, but he got outpitched by Zito. (I'm sure there will be some explanation for how that was all Gardy's fault.) Most of us realized we were toast when that happened. In game 2, he went with Bonser, which turned out to be a pretty good move as he pitched plenty good enough to give us a shot. But when he went to the bullpen, specifically the guys you mentioned, they blew it. (Let me guess, that was Gardy's fault too?) Then it was on to Oakland for Game 3, where his choices were Radke (who had very little left), Garza (promising rookie but ineffective in limited action), Silva (ineffective more often than not) or Baker (same deal). I would have given the ball to Radke too. It didn't work out, but there's really no basis for assuming that one of the other guys would have done any better.
  15. one_eyed_jack
    --- You need starting pitching to win in the posteason. I think the lack of playoff success is a lot more attributable to the fact that we were running out the likes of Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn to face stacked Yankee lineups in October than it is to Gardy's "failure to build and learn." (When Brucy Bochy won his first World Series in 15 years of managing with the Giants in 2010, was that because of his ability to "build and learn" from his previous failures? Or you think maybe that pitching staff had a little something to do with it.) And I think you're point about ownership is a fair one. At least in the '00s, before Target field, they were content with having a team that competes but never truly contends. Those teams were built to beat the Royals in July. They were not built to beat the Yankees in October. But that's more a reflection of ownership than of Gardy. You do remember the #2 ranked in pitching 2006 team with Santana, Radke, Nathan, Garza, Reyes, Rincon and Liriano, right? ---You do remember that by the time the postseason rolled around, Liriano was injured and unable to pitch, Radke's arm was barely attached to his body, and Garza had started only 9 major league games, going 3-6 with a 5.76 ERA, right? And you surely also remember that the remaining players you mentioned were relief pitchers, and thus irrelevant to the discussion of the quality of starting pitching, right?'
  16. one_eyed_jack
    --- You need starting pitching to win in the posteason. I think the lack of playoff success is a lot more attributable to the fact that we were running out the likes of Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn to face stacked Yankee lineups in October than it is to Gardy's "failure to build and learn." (When Brucy Bochy won his first World Series in 15 years of managing with the Giants in 2010, was that because of his ability to "build and learn" from his previous failures? Or you think maybe that pitching staff had a little something to do with it.) And I think you're point about ownership is a fair one. At least in the '00s, before Target field, they were content with having a team that competes but never truly contends. Those teams were built to beat the Royals in July. They were not built to beat the Yankees in October. But that's more a reflection of ownership than of Gardy.
  17. one_eyed_jack
    ---Always interesting how some people get judged solely what that they so in the postseason, and bit of success there erases memories of other shortcomings. TK is often considered a legendary manager because he won 2 World Series. Nobody talks about his .478 career winning percentage or the fact that in 15 years, the Twins finished higher than 4th in their division only 5 times. Same thing happens with players sometimes. See Jack Morris and Reggie Jackson, a lot of people look back on those guys as being a lot better than they really were because of a couple of great postseason performances. I get why it happens, but it strikes me as much more emotional than logical. If postseason succes is how you measure greatness, then what about players who had great careers but never achieved there. Ted Williams and Rod Carew for example: .200 and .220 respective career postseason averages.
  18. one_eyed_jack
    What I like about Maddon is his willingess to go against the grain and try the unconventional. Most of the decisions Gardy makes that people squawk about would be made by 95% of other managers in the same situation. Maddon is one of the few guys in that other 5%.
  19. one_eyed_jack
    Really? That's your argument. A .002 difference in win percentage? That's statistically insignificant. 1 Twins hot streak could put Gardy back on top in that race. Not to mention, surely even you can work out why Gardy hasn't been run out of town the way Childress was. Childress had alieanted virtually everyone in the organization by the time he got canned, and had lost the support of his players completely. And Childress was cheated out of nothing. When you take yourself out of range of a potential game winning field goal with a too many men on the field penalty, you don't deserve to win, and you have no right to complain. But back to baseball - if winning percentage is your measuring stick, why don't you look up how .525 stacks up against other managers, past and present. Guys like Maddon, Showalter and Tom Kelly for example. Here a hint: it's higher. But I guess that's just "pro-Gardy bias", right?
  20. one_eyed_jack
    ---I looked it up. 5 seasons. 39-35 overall record. 2 playoff appearances. 1-2 playoff record. Sorry, not seeing the basis for the claim that it is a fact that these teams were "as a whole were more successful that Gardy's teams...".
  21. one_eyed_jack
    I've gotta grundingly agree with you there.
  22. one_eyed_jack
    Loathe the Yankees. Just loathe them. I heard some of the T-Wolves are back in town practicing. Maybe we have Nikola Pekovic stop by and punch Mark Texeira in the face. I know A-Roid and Jeter are the more popular targets of Yankee hatred, but for reasons I cannot explain, Tex is the guy I would most want to see get hit upside the head. We split 4 in the Bronx, so we win this series, we win the season series again the Yankees for the first time in God knows how long. That would be a nice little moral victory at the ass-end of this festering turd of a season. But first things first, let's sweep the Whities and send them into a mini-tailspin. I'm no Tiger fan either, but I'll happily pull for them against the Whities.
  23. one_eyed_jack
    We're sitting in last place at the tail end of a disappointing season, but I still love me a walk-off W. Fun to watch. We'd be in sole possession of 4th if Nathan hadn't choked. Oh well, here's hoping that I'm sitting in stunned disbelief tomorrow night as I watch the Twins rough up Sale and strike a blow to the Whities playoff hopes.
  24. one_eyed_jack
    I liked it a lot better when our biggest complaint was 3-and-out in the playoffs. There were some fun Septembers in the 00's. Detroit held on to beat the Whities and pull within 1 game, setting up the huge Verlander/Sale showdown tomorrow. One of those teams will go home at the end of the year, the other will likely get bounced in the first round. But either of those is infinitely better than this abortion of a season.
  25. one_eyed_jack
    ---Well, blind loyalty in the face of poor results usually doesn't work out too well either. How many 90+ loss seasons are you willing to endure before you'd support a change? Gardy is a very good manager, but he's not entitled to a lifetime appointment here. I'm not a knee-jerk "fire the manager/coach" guy. There's too much of that in pro sports today. Often times teams want to shake this up, but contracts make trades more complicated and difficult to pull off. So they fire the coaching staff. Not because it's the best move, but because it's the easiest. That's said, when the same voice has been speaking for too long, people just stop listening. Change for change's sake can be change for the better. Look at the Whities this year. The Orioles have been a different team since Showalter took over.
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