BD57

130 games, 500 PA. Twins are paying him too much money to have him available only half the time.

i'm hoping the "splash" on both sides of the logo on picture #3 won't be part of it ... looks "Seattle Pilot-esque." Not a huge fan of squishing the C either. Taking out the gold is OK.

we've signed too many guys "hoping for better" Starting pitchers we "hope will improve on the past couple of years" . . . or even "hope won't spend half the year on the DL." Relievers we "hope will return to the form they had x seasons ago." Position players we "hope will return to the form ... and/or avoid the DL." Look at all the guys we had on the DL last year, how many of them are "hoped for better" guys: Hope Buxton stays off the DL for most of the year / plays 130 games Hope Larnach / Kirilloff become healthy / productive Hope Sano becomes even marginally consistent in a helpful way Hope Maeda / Mahle / Paddack / Ober contribute Hope Jeffers gets healthy & improves at the plate Hope Lewis recovers & is as dynamic as he was during his cup of coffee We have very few guys who we can count on, guys who were dependable & effective in 2022. Now, maybe the lack of a proper spring training in 2022 had something to do with that (sure hope so) . . . but, IMO, we need guys who (a) show up for work every day and (b) are definitely "better than average."

"Lack of options" is the biggest issue I think of when considering "managing the Twins." Have to hope the truncated spring training had something to do with all the injuries & time missed because of same. Please . . .give me some reason to be more hopeful. For too much of the year, the majority of the lineup should've been playing in St. Paul, getting experience & getting better, but they were starting for the Twins b/c the guys who "should have been playing" were injured & out. Hard to win with a AAAA lineup . . . . Same issue with pitching. Moves were made to bring in better pitching, then guys get hurt (in some cases) and don't produce (in others). What do you do next? I share the opinion that Baldelli's too "twice through the lineup for the starter bound," especially when you consider the relative weakness of the bullpen options (woefully lacking in guys to get you from Inning #4/5/6 through inning #8). Twins' baserunning was atrocious this year. Responsibility for that falls first on a coaching staff (IMO) - if they refuse to accept that sort of thing, they'll get less of it. While I'd expect them to do their best to keep such things in the locker room, we would have noticed if 'something was being done about it' (IMO). Ultimately, this roster produced the result it earned. We have too many guys who miss too much time too often. Think about it . . . how many guys do we have where their season is described by the words "missed a whole lot of time due to injury again"? IMO, we need "New hitting philosophy & coaches system wide." Too much trying to hit home runs, etc., too much striking out, not enough contact. "Baserunning practice." Ran into way too many outs, left way too many runs on the bases b/c of poor baserunning. "Top flight pitching coach" Get someone who's a master of the craft in, someone who's going to stay a while. There's no stability there. "Evaluation / restructuring of training" Again, while this might just be because everyone started in a bad place because of the truncated spring training, it sure seems like guys were dropping like flies because of sore (fill in blank here).

If "the plan" was to have the guy you're building your team around play only 100 games - 61.7% of your team's games - then that "plan" had to be based upon Buck's health being compromised & the goal being "get as much as we can from him this year in light of his health being compromised." But . . . there's no way that should be "the plan" for a healthy, 5 tool outfielder. IMO, every front office in the game would want a generic "star" with Buck's talents on the field for at least 140 games. Which is the issue with Buck . . . will his health ever allow him to play the volume of games which his talent says he should play?

"The Plan" didn't work. IMO, the only "Plan" which has any chance of working is Buxton figuring out what it is about his body which makes him so fragile & fix it. I know, some of the injuries are absolute flukey stuff which no one could guard against, but . . . I can't help believe there's something about his conditioning plan, etc. which renders him vulnerable, whether it's stretching, muscular imbalance, whatever. I'm sure the Twins & Buck are as frustrated as all of us fans are, and want to figure it out more than we hope it will happen. Just wish it would.

We've been running out MAYBE three "projected starters" a game for, what, three weeks to a month now? Buck is extraordinarily talented, and, for whatever reason, can't stay on field. I can only imagine how much it frustrates him - seems to have HOF talent, but will never play enough to get considered.

The managers who keep winning even though the team "has injuries" have DEEP rosters. Our roster isn't "deep." This team is better than last year (yeah, I know .. not a huge leap). IMO, it's also better than "results you could expect": Preseason predictions don't factor in "unknown injuries which will inevitably occur." Those predictions had the Twins as a .500 team (+/-) We've had a boatload of injuries . . . and yet, we're still above .500 at the end of August. I'd love to see where we'd be with a healthy Royce Lewis, etc.

"Leadership" flows from production, and there's been darn little of that for the past couple of months.

Except the "Opener" concept (as I understand it) envisions the first two guys going multiple innings, the idea being you're looking to have the first two guys go twice through the lineup before you bring in "bullpen guys" to close it out. Seems our plan is Starter goes twice through the lineup; Everyone after the starter goes 1 inning. Which piles up "pitches thrown by the pen" in a hurry.

Field guys didn't get it wrong, no need to punish them. Find a way to punish the suits in NYC who've forgotten what instant replay is SUPPOSEDLY about - reversing the egregiously wrong call. The suits seem to think they have authority to overturn any judgment call they don't like.

Buck's doing a Dave Kingman impression. I'd rather have the line drives, even if that meant he'd only be at 10-15 HR now.

Looks like we can take "What's wrong with Buck?" off the list of questions about the team.

Yes, it can. Still no reason not to pad those walls better & reduce the risk of hard contact.

Feel awful for Royce. When are we gonna put some proper padding on those walls?

Really lame attempt at humor. from what I’m seeing, the most which can be said for the vaccines is they MAY reduce the severity of the symptoms, etc while that’s “not nothing,” it’s hardly so significant that mandates are in order. BTW - given how fascistic the Trudeau government has become, you do yourself no credit siding with them.

Getting AB's while he's with the Twins is the "biggie" for Lewis. If we can find a way to get him AB's, to feed him AB's, there's no reason for him to go down. See if he can play 3B. Spell Correa at SS. DH him some. If he can play SS, he can probably play 2B - if Polanco gets a day off, play him there. Put him wherever so he gets as many AB's as we can feed him.

Was at the game. Being an optimist, I write off the first inning as "jitters" and like the 2nd inning a lot.

I had no doubt about that. The "medicals" I was interested in are the "he's recovered and there's nothing physically preventing him from pitching at the level he did before the surgery, etc." We're talking about the injury / condition which finished off Phil Hughes, one which has proven difficult to recover from in the past, after all, I'll say this - off first two starts, it looks real good.

Sano should be a 4 - 5 spot hitter. Unfortunately, he hits nothing but air too often when he swings - combination of obvious holes in his swing & inability to lay off 2-strike breaking balls out of the zone (esp. from RH pitchers). I don't know if it's a matter of timing or what - maybe Sano's better later in the year because the wear & tear of the season leads to more "mistake pitches" being thrown to him. IMO, Sano needs to spend time with and listen to Rod Carew - I think Sano's strong enough that more focus on "bat to ball" wouldn't detract significantly from power.

hope they've kicked the tires & gotten good medical reports . . . in the absence of that, it's a "the plan is to win the lottery" move.

There's gotta be more coming, because you're right, we have no SS . . . We also don't have a 3B (unless someone things we're putting Sano back over there, & I don't want to see that).

So, basically, Garver & Donaldson for Sanchez .... don't know how this makes us better.

Do a Washington Senators (the real ones, not the expansion team created after the real ones came to Minnesota) Rushmore for Big Train & the like. A "Twins" Rushmore should focus on "Twins" players. Killebrew & Carew are locks. Kirby too, although there's an "on the one hand, on the other" to it: On the one hand, Kirby was front & center in both World Championships. On the other hand, his impact on the franchise was limited because he career was cut short, and then we lost him so soon afterward. Bert is certainly important, but can we really say his career was centered on Minnesota? 10 of 22 seasons in Minnesota . . . Shouldn't a "Twins Rushmore" candidate be associated primarily with the Twins? (Rod was 12 of 19 years) Mauer did things no catcher had done. That he wasn't part of a WS winner . . . one guy can't carry a whole team. I can only imagine what Mauer & Morneau would've done if neither had ever been hit by concussions. I think it's Killebrew, Carew, Puckett & Mauer.

Hope he has a peaceful & happy retirement. That 2006 team was SO dominant when Lirano, Radke & Santana were rolling . . . and it was a shadow of itself by the time the playoffs came around. "What could have been" if they'd all stayed healthy.