gil4

If you just tell us here, we'll try real hard to stop giving you a hard time about the original.

At least this April Fools joke was on the right day, as opposed to "Dozier to the Dodgers."

I promise we won't hold it against you. Yes, today is April 1st. Plus my fingers were crossed when I typed that.

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.

I'm sure it's because he can misplay 6 different positions.

We mind the fact they are playing, but we understand the sabbatical.

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.

So now we're going to rely on dumb a** sequencing instead? (Criticize that which you don't understand is a dangerous policy, but it's all I've got on this one. Anyone want to tell me what we're talking about?)

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.

They dropped Vogelsong, so some of us are still holding out hope that sanity has finally taken over.

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.)

That's part of my point. With my massive blind spots and zero access, I came up with two examples. (Three - Ted Williams) With his full access, he could think of one. It's not like we're dealing with massive numbers - it was 1 vs. 10.

His exact quote was "I think I only heard a white player called “not a winning player” once, because he was on the DL, as opposed to at least ten players of color called that." He didn't name names, but one is one. I came up with two off the top of my head, and I follow the Twins, completely ignore 3/4 of the league, and half-way pay attention to the rest. Heck, Ted Williams was "not a winning player" (all about his stats). I think KLaw just forgot about the examples that didn't set off the alarm he was listening for.

He said he had one example of a white player being called "not a winner." I follow one team to the point that I could probably name more starters from our MiLB affiliates than I could from 2/3 the teams in the majors, yet I could think of two prominent examples off the top of my head. (One might have been the same as his, because he mentioned "because he was on the DL", so maybe he was talking about Mauer.)

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."

Torii Hunter and Kirby Puckett were "winning players." Morneau and Mauer were/are not. At least, that is the conventional wisdom I have gathered from this site and several of its predecessors.

If last year was an indication he figured some things out at the plate, he could have some real value, especially if he can return to being an almost-average fielder. His trade value is still close to zero now, especially with everyone crunching their rosters at the end of spring training, but someone could see him as a useful piece if they have and injury hole to patch or need another bat off the bench.

We have no trouble hearing about the ugly Americans traveling abroad and behaving like they are in America. We even have a saying, "When in Rome..." Why is it now racist for Americans to ask for international players in our leagues to not behave in a manner that many of us consider rude. I know, international tournament might be different, but I think American teams that have toured Japan in the past have at least been somewhat aware of the different cultural attitudes of the host country and have attempted to conform, rather than just labeling their expectations as racist.

I clicked the link in the box score and it went to a picture of him and his stats (last pitched in MLB in 2012.) It surprised me, too.

It might be interpreted differently because of the history of the game in the two locations. Baseball is THE game in Puerto Rico, while it's a cultural afterthought in Australia, and an Australian win would have been a massive shock. I'm sure if Puerto Rico won the FIFA World Cup, wider latitude would be given than would be for, say, Germany, because there is no expectation they would act like they have been there before (because they haven't.) Full disclosure: I couldn't get to the link, so I have no idea what Kinsler said. OK, I have a general idea, but I don't know the specifics.

No kidding. It went past my bedtime and I'm not even on the east coast. I went to bed after Berrios' good inning, and thankfully missed his not-so-good inning. Apparently he had some help from our old friend J.C. Romero, who I couldn't believe was still pitching. I guess he is still just 40, but it seems like it was almost that long ago he pitched for the Twins.

NFHS has a rule change this year that directs state associations to develop "a pitching restriction policy based on the number of pitches thrown" rather than the previous requirement to limit the innings pitched. Pulling him after 52 pitches may have been a strategic move, or a required move if he had a recent prior appearance. I don't know what his state rule is, or even what state he is from. I don't even know what our state rule is, and I umpire. (The only role for the umpire is to recommend they contact the state association if they believe someone has violated the pitch count rule, so I don't have to know, but I wish they had told us because now I'm curious. Plus I have a son who pitches, so I'd like to know for that.) I just know that now there is some restriction on the number of pitches he can throw that didn't exist before this year.

It doesn't prove it, but it can imply it. I'd say it deserves further study.

As long as they don't take the pie

DAY off? Did the chief just give us the day off?