Tom Froemming

Absolutely, the fastballs are just all about setting up the breaking pitches. Of those 58 fastballs he threw, he got just two swinging strikes (3.4%), but he got 14 whiffs on his 44 curves/changeups/sliders (31.8%). That's insane! He didn't have all his pitches working for him tonight, but he made it difficult for batters to get comfortable (as you suggested). Here is the breakdown of what he used tonight per Baseball Savant: 29 four-seamers, 29 two-seamers, 22 curveballs, 18 changeups and four sliders. He typically throws more sliders than curveballs, so it'll be interesting to see what he leans on in his next start.

How ‘bout that Kyle Gibson!? Gibby pitched six no-hit innings and struck out six Baltimore batters. Ryan Pressly recorded another five outs before the Orioles finally broke up the no-no. The bats also had a big night too, as the Twins hit their first three homers of the season.Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot331.png This was Gibson’s first start of the year, temps were in the 50s and he entered the game with a 5.66 ERA at Camden Yards in four career starts. He struggled to hit his spots at times, and by his mannerisms on the mound you could tell he wasn’t pleased with his command. And he still shoved anyway. A big narrative about Gibson’s second-half surge revolved around the use of his four-seamer. Earlier today, Matthew Lenz did an excellent job at detailing some of those key changes he made. Gibson established his four-seam fastball in the early innings. Over the first three innings tonight, he used that pitch 38.2 percent of the time (21 of 55 pitches, per Baseball Savant). He switched gears over the final three frames and only threw the four-seamer 17.0 percent of the time (8 of 47 pitches). Hard to argue with the results. At the end of the day, Gibson actually had a 50/50 split between four- and two-seam fastballs thrown (29 of each). In total, Gibson threw 40 curveballs and changeups and got 13 swinging strikes on those pitches. Excuse me while I wipe the sweat off my brow. Gibby was lifted after throwing 102 pitches. Pressly came in and carried the no-hitter until the O’s finally broke through with a single when there were two outs in the eighth inning. Oh! I almost forgot about the dinger party! Miguel Sano hit the first Twins homer of the season … Click here to view the article

And we’re off! Well, sort of. The baseball season doesn’t really get into full swing here at Twins Daily until the minor leagues get underway. The first scheduled games are this coming Thursday, but here’s your chance to catch up on any minor league/prospect coverage you may have missed over the winter.Any conversation about minor league content from over the offseason has to start with the 2018 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook The book has been out awhile, but it’s never too late to pick up a copy for yourself or a loved one. Rarely a day goes by during the season where I don’t crack open my copy. The Prospect Handbook is available as a paperback (which I strongly recommended) or as a PDF/ebook. If you’re interested in a look inside of the book, check out this video. I start to talk about the book at about the 2:30 mark. And here is Seth’s article that announced the release of the book back in late December: Tenth Annual Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook Now Available. There was also a ton of content published at Twins Daily over the offseason. Let’s kick this off with the Twins Daily consolidated top prospect list: Twins Daily’s Top Prospects TD 2018 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Recap | Nick Nelson #1 Royce Lewis | Nick Nelson #2 Fernando Romero | Tom Froemming #3 Nick Gordon | Cody Christie #4 Stephen Gonsalves | Seth Stohs #5 Alex Kirilloff | Cody Christie #6 Wander Javier | Nick Nelson #7 Brent Rooker | Seth Stohs #8 Blayne Enlow | Nick Nelson #9 Brusdar Graterol | Tom Froemming #10 Akil Baddoo | Cody Christie Twins Daily 2018 Top 20 Prospect Countdown: 11-15 | Nick Nelson Twins Daily 2018 Top 20 Prospect Countdown: 16-20 | Seth Stohs Seth’s Reports From The Fort Kirilloff Excited For The 2018 Season Rooker Getting Into The Swing Of Spring Saturday On The Twins Minor League Practice Fields Seth’s Twins On Deck Podcast Episode 9 featuring Sean Johnson, Randy Dobnak and Terrin Vavra. Episode 8 featuring Royce Lewis, Steve Singleton, Trey Cabbage, Sean Miller and AJ Pettesen. Episode 7 featuring Dick Bremer, Jake Reed, Jordan Gore, Luke Pettersen and Pat Mahomes. Episode 6 featuring Cory Provus, Clark Beeker, Hector Lujan and Micah Coffey. Episode 5 featuring Charlie Barnes, Tyler Watson, David Banuelos and Alex Robles. Episode 4 featuring Zack Granite, Lewis Thorpe, Nelson Molina and Chris Blessing. Episode 3 featuring Zack Littell, Travis Blankenhorn, Bryan Sammons, Ryley Widell and Alex Boxwell. Episode 2 featuring Royce Lewis, Brent Rooker, Alex Kirilloff, Aaron Slegers and Toby Hanson. Episode 1 featuring Jonathan Mayo, Stephen Gonsalves, LaMonte Wade, Tyler Wells and Luke Pettersen. Seth’s Player Interviews Get To Know Twins RHP Prospect Bailey Ober Get To Know Twins Third Base Prospect Andrew Bechtold Get To Know: Twins Minor League Catcher Mitchell Kranson Get To Know Twins Outfield Prospect Jacob Pearson Catching Up With Infielder Sean Miller Catching Up With RHP Clark Beeker Catching Up With RHP Tom Hackimer Get To Know: Twins LHP Prospect Andrew Vasquez Tom’s Prospect Spotlight Series Zander Wiel Tom Hackimer Lachlan Wells Ben Rortvedt Travis Blankenhorn More Links! Wherefore Art Thou Romero? | Cody Christie Fernando Romero Is Healthy, Ready To Compete | Seth Stohs Adopt-A-Prospect Is Back!! | Seth Stohs Missing Pieces? Lost Minor League Players | Cody Christie The 2018 Sixth-Year Minor Leaguers | Seth Stohs Did Nick Gordon’s Second Half Turn Him From Prospect to Suspect? | Tom Froemming Three Prospects To Watch In 2018 | Cody Christie Importance Of The 2017 Draft | Cody Christie Twins Minor League 2018 Coaching/Coordinator Assignments | Seth Stohs What's Next For Kohl Stewart? | Cody Christie AFL Report – Week 6: AFL Season Comes to a Close | Steve Lein This coming Thursday is Opening Day for the Lookouts, Miracle and Kernels. The Red Wings play their first game Friday. Are you ready? Click here to view the article

Copy/paste: I'd certainly use him primarily as a lefty specialist, especially if you have seven other relievers at your disposal, but you're right in that it's not like he's been a complete train wreck against RHH.

The Diamondbacks found a formula to get a very good season out of this guy as a 40-year-old. I'd think it would be wise to try and replicate his usage as best as possible. It's not ideal to be handcuffed into such a limited role, but I think that's putting him in the best position to be successful. I wouldn't have opened the 10th with Hildenberger in the first place, he had already warmed up earlier in the game. Why not let that be Rodney's inning? Or when Hildy needed to be bailed out, go to one of the four other relievers available and have Rodney pitch the 11th. Why carry all those guys if you're not going to use them? They're only playing six games over the next nine days. To have that deep of a bullpen and not dip into it is crazy to me.

Took a look at Fernando Rodney's game logs form last year. He made 61 appearances for the Diamondbacks and I don't think they had him pitch in multiple innings ever. Not once. He always either entered with a clean inning or finished off the inning and was done for the day. That may sound a little extreme, but it definitely seemed to work for Arizona and the guy is 41. Gotta give him a break.

Pretty insane that Jorge and Romero are the second and third longest tenured Twins pitchers.

Rodney is 41 years young Hildy warmed up in the fifth inning as Odorizzi's pitch count was on the rise. I don't think it's very often that a reliever warms up, sits down for over an hour, then warms up and pitches again. I think that could easily explain his struggles to find the zone. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeaaaaaah, that sucked. Someone prepare my catapult. We've got someone to launch out of Twins Territory

Whaddya think we could get for Dozier? Yup, we got 161 more of these jokers to go. Nobody cares about your fantasy team. He did not look comfortable against Bundy. Bundy is better than pedestrian, but the bats did not look good. Thank you Carole Rosie slid into first, dumb move, but a LOT happened in this game. The goal is to keep these things fairly tight. I think Rodney will be fine if he's only asked to pitch one clean inning. I don't think thing's will go well when he is asked to pitch in two separate frames in the same game like today. LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALA

Jake Odorizzi turned in an excellent start in his Twins debut, throwing six shutout innings. Unfortunately, he got no run support and fellow new Twins Zach Duke and Fernando Rodney couldn’t hold down the Orioles. The only scoring from the Twins came in the form of a Robbie Grossman two-run pinch-hit single.Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot329.png Duke is a left-handed specialist, not a setup man. Over the past four seasons, he’s averaged less than an inning per outing and only averaged 10.2 pitches per appearance last season and 12.5 the year before that. Paul Molitor decided to give Duke the seventh inning today. Already 16 pitches into his outing, Duke was left in the game to face the right-handed hitting Caleb Joseph with runners on first and second base. Two-run triple. Not the best way to start things off with your shiney new bullpen, Mr. Molitor. To be fair, Duke also racked up four strikeouts in the inning. The leadoff man swung through a wild pitch for strike three, Jason Castro couldn’t keep the ball in front of him and the batter reached safely. The hallmark of the 2017 Minnesota Twins was that they never died. No matter how bad things got, they always bounced back. If Opening Day is any indication, that attribute has carried over to this year’s club. The Twins entered the bottom of the ninth trailing 2-0 and Miguel Sano opened the inning with a strikeout. Eddie Rosario singled and advanced to second base thanks to a passed ball leading to a Logan Morrison walk. Eduardo Escobar struck out, continuing a trend of the Twins struggling to deliver with men on base. It all came down to Max Kepler. With the game on the line, Kepler fell behind 0-2. Over the next nine pitches, he put on about as good a display of professional, tough-as-nails hitting as you’re going to see all season. Max fouled off five pitches and ended up working a walk. That 11-pitch battle had to have worn down Baltimore reliever Brad Brach. Robbie Grossman pinch hit for Byron Buxton and delivered a game-tying bloop single. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days (includes the exhibition at WAS): Download attachment: Bullpen329.png Click here to view the article

Twins Almanac is great because I get to learn about Twins history and shop for baseball cards (just added that Cuddyer Heritage card to my watch list).

The poll is still open, but I'm calling it early. Congrats to Ryan LaMarre!

Get your head outta the gutter! Sire as in a man of rank or authority. ... dastardly indeed.

The Twins play their final game in Fort Myers this afternoon, which means it’s time to name the 2018 Sire of Fort Myers. The crown has been shined, the cape dry cleaned and the scepter, uh ... scepted? Who decides who’s worthy of the title? The people, of course.So, what the heck is the Sire of Fort Myers? Well, it’s my ripoff of the Mr. Mankato moniker people who covered the Vikings invented to acknowledge the unheralded player who had the most impressive training camp. Good luck coming up with a new name for 2018, by the way. Mr. Eagan just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Anyway, how do we define unheralded? Well, I decided that anyone who was either not on the 40-man roster or hasn’t played in the major leagues yet qualified. And just to be clear, this is all about the player’s performance in spring training. It’s not about who is most likely to break camp with the team or who has the most potential. Without further adieu, here are the four players on the Sire of Fort Myers ballot: Ryan LaMarre This guy has been a beast. He’s hitting .487/.512/.795 (1.306 OPS) in 43 plate appearances and leads the Twins in virtually every offensive category. The starting outfield is obviously set, plus Robbie Grossman and Zack Granite are also on the 40-man roster. Over the winter, the front office brought in Chris Heisey, a veteran of nearly 700 MLB games, and Nick Buss, who was the Pacific Coast League batting champ last year. As if that wasn’t enough competition, they also recently traded for outfielder Jake Cave, who ranked second in the International League with a .554 slugging percentage (min. 250 PAs) last season. And yet here LaMarre is, still in camp with the big club. Seth wrote an excellent piece profiling LaMarre and his quest to crack the Opening Day roster. Fernando Romero El Toro’s time in big league camp as short, but oh boy was it sweet. Romero threw eight no-hit innings, struck out eight batters and issued just one walk before being optioned to the minors to get stretched out for the season. Romero, Twins Daily’s No. 2 prospect, recorded strikeouts against MLB regulars Caleb Joseph, Tim Beckham and Adam Jones in his first appearance and just kept rolling from there. LaMonte Wade Speaking of the crowded outfield situation this spring, Wade was another guy in that mix and he arrived at Fort Myers as advertised. Despite ranking 18th on the team in plate appearances, the notoriously-patient Wade led the Twins with eight walks this spring and hit .304/.469/.391 (.860 OPS) before being sent over to minor league camp. Nick Gordon Gordon’s never going to be the biggest guy on the field, but there was nothing skinny about this kid’s slugging percentage while he was in big league camp. He slugged a healthy .636, which was bested by only LaMarre and Miguel Sano among Twins hitters with at least 10 at bats. He had some sketchy moments at shortstop early on, but made some slick plays at second base prior to being reassigned to the minor league side of camp. Honorable Mentions D.J. Baxendale was a surprise candidate for the crown who emerged. Baxendale pitched five shutout innings and racked up six strikeouts this spring. Among his punchout victims were MLB regulars Josh Harrison, Gregory Polanco and Trey Mancini. Baxendale, the 2017 Killebrew Award winner for the Rochester Red Wings, gave up just three hits and did not walk a batter. Tyler Kinley showed impressive stuff and struck out 12 batters in 11 innings. Zack Littell gave up just one run over five frames to go with eight strikeouts. Jake Reed also surrendered just one run over six innings and had eight Ks. Brock Stassi hit .375/.464/.417. Willians Astudillo ... did you see that no-look pickoff throw? What about (this guy)? Remember, the players who are both on the 40-man roster and have already played in the majors (like Gabriel Moya and Ehrie Adrianza) are not eligible. Now it’s time to vote! Click here to view the article

Thanks Nick. I'm definitely guilty of that too. I think as a whole, Twins fans got so used to things going poorly over this most recent downturn that it's easy to flip into that doom and gloom mode anytime the littlest thing doesn't break right. Hopefully we're at a point now where some of that conditioning will start to fade away.

Thanks again everyone. Semi-colon? What am I, a doctor? Just kidding, of course I know what a semi-colon is. That's Bartolo Colon's other nickname, right? Because he's big like a semi truck.

We here at Twins Daily have basically been previewing the 2018 season for months now. If you’ve let yourself fall behind, no need to worry, there’s always time for a cram session. Here is a collection of articles that have been published this offseason that will help you prepare for Opening Day.You think you’re ready for the season? Not until you read all 50 of these articles. OK, that’s not true, but I think you’ll enjoy these: Latest News No Suspension For Miguel Sano | Seth Stohs Opening Day Roster Coming Clear With Thursday Transactions | Seth Stohs Twins with One Spot Left | Ted Schwerzler Jake Odorizzi Named Opening Day Starter | Cody Christie On the Division/Schedule Report From The Fort: The Twins Strength Of Schedule | John Bonnes Report From The Fort: How Weak Is The Al Central? | John Bonnes Minnesota's Wild Card Competition | Cody Christie Scouting Target Field’s Biggest Games of 2018 | Tom Froemming Lists! Top Ten Twins Players Under 25 (1-5) | Cody Christie Top Ten Twins Players Under 25 (6-10) | Cody Christie The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Assets: Part 4 (1-5)| Nick Nelson The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Assets: Part 3 (6-10) | Nick Nelson The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Assets: Part 2 (11-15)| Nick Nelson The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Assets: Part 1 (16-20) | Nick Nelson Depth Charts Position Analysis: Catcher | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: First Base | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Second Base | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Third Base | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Shortstop | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Left Field | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Center Field | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Right Field | Nick Nelson Position Analysis: Designated Hitter | Nick Nelson Catcher Report From The Fort: Can Confidence Carry Garver To Success? | Nick Nelson Backstop Battery Becoming an Asset | Ted Schwerzler Video: Slowing Things Down To See Jason Castro’s Silent Skill | Tom Froemming Infield Ehire Of Hope: Can Adrianza Seize A Prime Opportunity? | Nick Nelson What Needs To Happen For Joe Mauer To Be A Twin In 2019? | Andrew Thares Report From The Fort: Joe Mauer Will Give Up Hitting When You Pry The Bat From His Cold Dead Hand | John Bonnes Report From The Fort: Logan Morrison Is Staying Quiet (For Once) | John Bonnes That’s Offensive: Did Morrison’s Signing Fix Minnesota’s Biggest Flaw? | Cody Christie Brian Dozier: I'll Be A Free Agent | John Bonnes Outfield The (Temporary) Luxury Of The Best Defender On Earth | Nick Nelson Eddie Rosario And The Battle For Plate Discipline | Jamie Cameron Not So Fast: Is Eddie Rosario Already Losing a Step? | Tom Froemming Will Max Kepler Take the Next Step in 2018? | Tom Froemming Starting Pitching Report From The Fort: Time For Jose Berrios To Take Control | Nick Nelson Report From The Fort: Learning About Lance Lynn | Nick Nelson Report From The Fort: Jake Odorizzi Is Better Than You Think | John Bonnes Getting Rid Of The Bad Odor Might Be Izzi | Cody Christie Don't Panic Over Bad Breaks For Twins Rotation | Nick Nelson Adalberto Mejia: High Floor or More? | Jamie Cameron Twins Sign RHP Michael Pineda | Seth Stohs Hopes And Plans For Trevor May | Seth Stohs Can Phil Hughes Surprise Us? | Nick Nelson Expectations For New Pitching Coach Garvin Alston | Cody Christie Bullpen Report From The Fort: Fernando Rodney Relishes Your Pain | John Bonnes Get To Know Rule 5 Pick Tyler Kinley | Seth Stohs Can Addison Reed Become Minnesota's Bullpen Ace? | Nick Nelson The Minnesota Twins, Zach Duke and Best Practices | Parker Hageman Can Ryan Pressly Put It All Together? | Jamie Cameron Thursday at 2:05 pm CT, the Twins will open the regular season in Baltimore. We made it. Are you ready? Click here to view the article

Depends on what you're asking. Full time in terms of time commitment, or in terms of pay? Just kidding No, it is not a full-time job.

Thanks everybody! I regret to inform you that I will only be doing something like 150 of the game recaps this season (I'll find people to fill in the dozen or so games I miss).