KirbyDome89

"The increase in legalized sports gambling has made the situation worse." "That screen gives them a false sense of power and protection." I think the issue has far more to do with the latter. I'm also unsure things are worse now, or getting worse. We might be seeing a light shining into some of the darker corners of internet culture. Protect yourselves people; use the tools/settings available on these platforms...

They didn't get swept this week and the pitching staff only blew up 2x instead of 3x. Isn't the bar too low if sinking slightly less fast than the previous two weeks is considered progress?

At least they all (or at least 3 of the 4) have each other to stay somewhat afloat and sell false hope

I hope the next time I hear or read more Danny Coulombe praise the fact that nearly half of his appearances are less than a single IP is mentioned.

Just wait, within the next year or two, all those names, a real embarrassment of riches.

Have you heard about our "pipeline," though?

Dude is the Russell Wilson of baseball.

Yeah, Skubal is nasty but a lot of those ABs weren't close to competitive.

Eh, that's not really a floor you want to tolerate. If he was bringing something else to the table maybe, but he's not a threat on the bases, he doesn't play particularly good defense, and he needs to be platooned. That's a guy you're looking to upgrade/move on from.

Apparently he "voiced concerns," to the the FO the other day. Hopefully his primary concern is his own lack of production. The guy has accumulated zero WAR through half of the season and he's been a major contributor to the offensive woes.

Credit where it's due for acquiring 2 of those 3 good starters, but the Ryan swap was a unicorn. Good luck sending out a declining DH only player for 6 years of a mid rotation arm again. We might as well bank on finding another Santana in the Rule V. The Lopez trade has worked out. You're sending out real talent to acquire somebody like Pablo, and that's fine, but he should be a supplement to an already solid foundation, not the glue holding things together, i.e. if you have a "pipeline," one SP going down shouldn't be disastrous. Sure, don't give up on Festa or Matthews, Idk who is advocating for doing so, but don't count your eggs before they hatch either. Have even a small amount of sustained success in the Majors first. A single mid rotation SP and 2 (maybe 3? Idk) RPs over nearly a decade is above average development? I'm not going to look back over the last 10 years for 29 other clubs but I'd be really surprised if the Twins were near the upper echelon of pitching production. The same way trading for Sonny Gray and Pablo Lopez wasn't building the pipeline?

Is it possible to crown something that never existed in the first place? Lopez hasn't even missed a month yet and things look bleak. One SP from your opening day rotation missing a few starts has the fan base crossing their fingers Chris Paddack doesn't turn back into Chris Paddack and Festa + SWR somehow find a way to consistently make it through 4 innings. Hell, even last year this team was trying to hand real innings to Anthony DeSclafani and they acted like a mid August injury to a single SP (their first in 2 years) was insurmountable. Ober is a success. Ryan threw a whopping 9 AAA innings for the Twins; great trade, but he's not a "pipeline," product. Kudos on Duran and Jax. Who knows what happens with Varland or Sands. That's pretty much it in nearly a decade at the helm for this FO. Zebby and Festa haven't looked all that impressive albeit in very limited innings. Raya is basically a long relief arm, Idk how anybody expects him to hold up as a SP given the way he's been handled. Prielipp is now tracking as a RP on top of his health concerns? Morris? If guys in A ball are being counted as part of the "pipeline," then we're back to square one. They deserve some credit for acquiring Gray and Lopez. Those swaps worked out and you need to make those types of moves to supplement what you should be developing on your own. "But if pitching was supposed to be the calling card, and if the position-player development hasn’t been a major strength, the bar has to be higher." This pretty much sums it all up. The "pipeline," has become a meme. It's been the same argument for years now, and the only thing that has changed are the names.

35 career HRs in what's essentially one full season worth of games. That would've put him just outside the top 10 for total HRs during the 2024 season. I mean.....

Why leave out slugging if your concern is his lack of power?

I'm not nearly as high on Wallner as others here are, but saying he has provided no power is an insane statement.

You don't believe it's possible to arrive at a positive outcome despite a poor process and vice versa? Where the Twins fall on the scale of fundamentally sound (No I don't think they play particularly solid ball) is irrelevant to the point I was making. The phrase "process that yields solid results," seems to be rustling some jimmies. Fundamentally sound baseball is, inherently, a "process that yields solid results."

Do you hate it when defensive players are in proper position, field a ball cleanly, and make a good throw to record an out? That's a "process that yields solid results." Do you hate it when hitters have a plan at the plate instead of hacking wildly? That's also a "process that yields solid results." Teams/players have been optimizing forever and that's true all the way down to the most basic aspects of the game. Before the game started yesterday, if I told you that every Twins hitter was going to swing at ball 4 (multiple times) and chop a roller to SS rather than take a walk would you have been happy? The ball is in play, anything can happen right? I mean c'mon. Here we are, glorifying an objectively poor AB and holding it up as the epitome of everything wrong with the Twins. Go ahead and hate the warts this club has, I do too, but I'm not going to pretend that Altuve AB yesterday was some sort of big brain approach or a knowledge/execution gap between the two squads.

"Processes that yield solid results," applies to all facets of baseball, not just whatever analytical category you're railing against in this post. What you're arguing against is fundamentally sound baseball.

I'm not arguing that a strikeout isn't a worse outcome in that scenario, or almost any. What I'm saying is that the poor process (AB) is going to lead to poor results a vast, vast majority of the time. Altuve beating out a squibbed ball is much more a function of good fortune than a good process.

What was the wild cut on the previous pitch when Pena wasn't running? Extra protection? Yes, it was a bad AB with a positive result. Altuve swung at ball 4 and ball 5. He put ball 5 into play and gave the Twins a chance to record an out. I can't say for certain that Pena swipes 3B safely, but on the broadcast it sounded like he got a good jump, he runs well, and the Twins don't defend the bases so do with that what you will.

So they were all looking to put the ball in play right? I understand your point; I disagree that the process you're advocating for will yield solid results. Poor contact isn't a reliable way to score runs or advance runners.

I very much doubt that. If this club wasn't going to sacrifice an out to advance the runner to 3B and play for a run I don't know why we'd assume Jeffers would've shifted his approach and tried to hit a ground ball to the right side or a deep enough fly ball.

So you want Twins hitters to hit soft ground balls to the SS? It bad AB from Altuve that just happened to have a good result. It's like swinging through strike 3 on a wild pitch and being rewarded with 1B. Altuve swung through ball 4 (which was a mile off the plate) on the previous pitch and then he hacked away again at another ball and tapped it softly to SS. There's absolutely no chance he intended to dribble a roller to Correa.

He was optioned for Matthews with Festa still waiting for a call up but sure, Dobnak, that's what everybody wanted...