gil4

Carole? And all this time I thought ChiTown was her real name.

Let me guess, you increased it by one, and the suckers all used it on your post.

That has to be about the worst tiebreaker ever. Just running through some possibilities, run differential, head-to-head run differential (among the three tied teams), runs scored per inning (total and then head to head), baserunners and baserunners allowed per inning (again, both total and then head to head). Can you imagine a team advancing because a scorer decided to change a ruling from hit to error? A coin toss is a better second tiebreaker than ER/inning.

They are somewhere between dislike and hate. I dislike most matte helmets. I hate the White Sox. Most of you can do the rest of the math - that was demonstrated a couple of days ago.

I haven't been as high on Rosario as some others, but at age 25 there is still reason to believe he can take a large step forward. I wouldn't expect him to lead the league in OBP anytime soon, but he was had decent production even with amazingly bad plate discipline. If he is able to improve that aspect from horrendous to merely below average, he could be very good.

Patients, as in mental patients? Are you saying we should all have our heads examined? I'm sure you meant patience, but that was a very nice Freudian slip.

I agree completely, and it was that bad the whole time. The Twins were competing through 2010. When the wheels came off in 2011, there weren't many pieces to be salvaged. Pavano, Baker, and Morneau were hurt. Had Kubel left already? Mauer was on a no-trade contract. Thome was old. Willingham was old and regressed massively after his good year. Hardy was traded for Hoey. There just was no Eaton or Sale to build a fire sale around.

Lost me at "They had a good defensive catcher in Kurt Suzuki and let him walk" and just read the rest for laughs. I don't think there's a cool hashtag for that, though. My son is a senior in HS and is probably the best bunter on the team and is one of the two fasted kids. He didn't get either of those from me - I coached kids baseball for about 12 years (3 sons) and I never gave the bunt sign in all that time. We practiced it some, but it as never a priority. I also had more of a Hrbek build, with wheels to match, so speed genes cam from mom. I will say bunting came in handy for my son earlier this year. He hurt his back swinging a bat and missed a couple of games. His first game back he could do everything but swing, so the coach had him play the field and used the DH for him. (In HS, the DH can hit for any position.) In the 4th inning, the DH got on and coach sent my son in to run (DH now gone). (The next batter hit a line drive with my son running - easy DP) We got to the bottom of the 7th (7 inning game) down 9-2 against a team we should beat. My son leads off with a bunt hit and comes around to score. A couple of batters later, they change pitcher to a guy who throws BP. My son gets up again with the tying run on 2nd and tells the coach he was going to try to swing. The 3B was in expecting a bunt, but he was able to slap a roller past him that the SS just got to. The throw was late and shorthopped the 1B, so the runner from 2nd kept going and just beat the throw to the plate. My son steals second, then steals third. The throw to third bounced and deflected away. The SS got to it pretty quickly, so there was a play at the plate, but my son beat throw - game over. The coach afterwards told the team "You screwed up my post-game speech with that comeback, but I'm going to give it anyway because you never should have been down 9-2 to those guys." It was still worth sitting through the first 6-1/2 innings to get to that I still want to get the coach one of the t-shirts I saw on the #neverbunt feed: Make America Rake Again #NeverBunt (He likes to give away outs.)

I agree with you - a lot of work went into the article and it does make a pretty good case. I had a hard time getting past one word in the title: Dominate. That is not a word that comes to mind with Santiago, and the article itself really doesn't argue that he can. If he can keep his ERA around 4 and stay in the rotation all years, I would consider that success. I think he can do that. Many around here would consider that overly optimistic. I can live with that. That's not dominance. Johan dominated. Liriano dominated that one year before he hurt his elbow. I almost didn't read the article because I saw the title and answered "Hell, no. Next question."

I'm sure the coaching staff saw a lot more of him during spring training than the 2.2 IP he had in the games. They sounded happy with his performance and he sounded happy with his performance. I'm not ready to shuffle him off to the pen yet, but he is still a longshot to be more than a guy who hangs around at the fringes of a MLB roster in case someone gets hurt and a team needs a warm body to fill in for a few weeks. Of course, we could say that about 75% of the guys pitching at AA, and some of them come up with that one more pitch or the FB command and/or the couple of MPH boost needed to be more than that.

I agree. It looks like he might pitch and might not be a disaster, and I saw the FB velocity as an encouraging sign, not a red flag. Like you said, many pitchers ramp it up, and Hughes said he wasn't throwing at his max yet.

Does Murphy still have options? (I know, I could look, but that clicking seems like a lot of work.) Are you planning on a 13-man pitching staff, or do we get to add one more name? (Od do you have someone (Vargas?) penciled in as the primary DH? Keeping Park would require a 40-man move. Is Adrianza on the 40-man? (That clicking thing again.) I'd hate to dump Escobar and then find out that Adrianza really, really can't hit. I also don't want to rush Granite and dump Grossman because I think Grossman is more likely to maintain his performance at the plate (esp vs LHP) than in the field (I don't think he had ever been that bad in the past and might return to being marginal.)

It seems like I remember someone joking that Gibson was on pace to average 18 K/9 after 1 inning of his first outing, so I think there's one more.

Well, if Obama hadn't promised "If you like your Baseball Reference site, you can keep your Baseball Reference site..."

Please say healthy! Please say healthy! Please say healthy! Please say healthy! (Oh, and keep missing bats.)

YouTube

I still remember the names you had for your wife and daughter in your blog - the Voice of Reason and the Chatty Chatty Princess. (Does your daughter know about the name? If so, has she forgiven you for it?) You weren't as prolific as Seth (who is?) but your writing was always entertaining.

So it was from BYTO, not TD? I misunderstood.

I can't see the Twins trading for a #1, but if we add a little more wishful thinking to the equation, Berrios turns into one.

How did I miss that one? I think I was here pretty close to the beginning, because I was a regular reader of Seth's site. I have no idea what the debate was about, but it was pine tar.,

That jersey Stewart is wearing in the photo is one of the ugliest baseball jerseys I have ever seen. Maybe that's why he had a bump in K rates in A+ - the batters were blinded by the shirt (or couldn't keep from laughing while in the box.)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If Molitor goes Art Howe on Falvey, he could be gone quickly, but I see how it could be a constructive partnership if the personalities allow it.

But to answer your question, no, not yet.

I had forgotten that. It sure is funny to picture it now.

I sure don't. I'd be shocked (but not upset) if he didn't clear.