Tom Froemming

Fair point. The Twins are among the lowest teams in GIDP%, per b-ref, but there aren't huge differences. The Twins are at 9%. They've had a runner at first and less than two outs 1,047 times and have hit into 94 double plays. The Royals have the worst rate at 13.5%. League average is 11%.

We were talking about successful sac bunt attempts. If you want success rate at bunting for a hit, Fangraphs has that. The Twins have a 31.7 bunt hit percentage over the past three seasons. That's fifth-best in baseball over that stretch. Not too many .317 hitters out there, either. But, those are all singles so it's a very empty .317 batting average.

And despite all their practice, the Twins have been bad at bunting. They're 26th in sac bunt success rate this year at 49%. That's an improvement from the previous two seasons when they ranked 29th both years (49% again in 2016 and 53% in 2015).

B-Ref tracks sac bunt attempts, though I don't know what their methodology is. Sometimes it can be tough to tell whether a player is bunting on their own/trying to bunt for a hit or if he was asked to lay down a sac bunt. Either way, according to their data the Twins lead the AL in sac bunt attempts over the past three seasons with 159. Cleveland is second with 151, followed by the White Sox at 143. But the average for AL teams over the last three years is 113. A few teams almost never bunt. Oakland (65), Boston (77) and Baltimore (78) all have bunted less than half as much as the Twins have.

Oh, I see. Well, no, there aren't any quotes anyone's going to be able to dig up about that, but committing to Molitor in that way really sent a message. It's entirely possible that the new regime requested that Molitor update his strategy and he simply replied "no thanks." Either way, if Falvey/Levine have any issues with the way Molitor is managing, I'm sure they have communicated that to him. Now whether he needs to listen is another story. Molitor has ownership on his side, so he can do whatever he sees fit as long as that's the case.

All the way back in July of 2016, Jim Pohlad was already insisting that Molitor would be the manager this year. Here's a link to a Chip Scoggins piece about it. It includes this quote: "They can do that (hire a manager of their choice) in the future if they want,” Pohlad said. “But for 2017, Paul will be our manager.”

I believe my final prediction was 71 wins, but obviously I was wrong either way. Anytime you're trying to figure out how six months of baseball is going to unfold, you're basically throwing darts. I don't wanna take anything away from Brandon, who made some excellent points/observations. He was dead on about Jason Castro. But he wrote that piece in January. A couple reasons he provides optimism for the pitching were Phil Hughes and Trevor May. He also foretasted possible contributions from Stephen Gonsalves, Kohl Stewart and Fernando Romero. What I'm trying to say is that even those who predicted 80+ wins had insufficient information to work with at that point. But that's part of what makes predictions fun. Part of what I was forecasting included a mid-summer fire sale. I thought if this club got off to a slow start, the Falvine regime would take the opportunity to really put their stamp on the org by trading Dozier, Ervin and firing Molitor. I figured the aftermath of that kind of shakeup would've been a really ugly second half. Again, I've already been proven wrong, but the Twins are at 74 wins as of today. Yes, I'd assume they'll be able to win at least six of their final 19 games to get to 80 wins, but I wouldn't count any chickens before they hatch. Baseball is weird. Even the mighty Dodgers have only won four of their last 20 games.

Welcome! I hope you and your loved ones are making it through the hurricane OK and that this place can be a healthy distraction from any real life issues Irma may be causing. It is pretty remarkable how far this team has gotten with so few reliable pitchers. Says a lot about how awesome the lineup has been, both on offense and defense. Here's hoping another couple pitchers can pull a Gibby and get hot out of the blue.

Bartolo Colon had been remarkably consistent since joining the Twins, but he had a stinker of a Sunday afternoon in Kansas City. He gave up six runs in the second inning, giving the Twins very little hope to escape KC with a series win.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot910.png Big Sexy lasted just 1.2 innings, but lucky for the Twins they had a couple of fresh long relievers to choose from. But Colon wasn’t the only Minnesota pitcher feeling the Sunday blues right now. John Curtiss got rocked for four runs while recording just a single out. The big blow was a three-run blast to Brandon Moss. Curtiss was among the best relievers in all of the minor leagues this season, but after five big league appearances he holds a 19.64 ERA. Kennys Vargas was 2-for-2 with a two-run homer and a pair of walks. Ehire Adrianza, who started in left field, was the only other Twin to collect two hits. Dillon Gee pitched 3.0 shutout innings of relief. Not much else to say about this one. The Twins got crushed. They’ll have tomorrow off to lick their wounds and prepare to host the Padres for two games. Standings Both the Yankees and Angels games were still in progress at the time this published. At the moment, the Twins sit 3.0 games back of New York and hold a 1.5 game advantage over Anaheim. Postgame With Molitor Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Bullpen910.png Looking Ahead Mon: Off Tue: Twins (Kyle Gibson) vs. Padres (Travis Wood), 7:10 pm CT Wed: Twins (Ervin Santana) vs. Padres (Dinelson Lamet), 7:10 pm CT Looking Back KC 5, MIN 2: Molitor Pushes All the Wrong Buttons in Loss MIN 8, KC 5: Rosario Drives in 4, Hildenberger Holds it Together MIN 4, KC 2: Comeback Complete Click here to view the article

The Twins gave away a pair of outs by bunting and ran into a couple of more outs trying to steal bases, but this was still a tied ballgame heading into the bottom of the eighth. There, Paul Molitor decided to put the game into the hands of the struggling Buddy Boshers. The game wasn’t tied for much longer after that.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot99.png Eduardo Escobar led off the third inning with a homer, which was followed by a Jason Castro single. Robbie Grossman, who was 6-for-13 with two homers in his first four games back from the DL, laid down a sac bunt to advance Castro to second. Yes, that same Robbie Grossman who has a .379 on-base percentage since joining the Twins. “Thank you,” replied the Royals. Brian Dozier struck out and Joe Mauer grounded out to end the inning. The next inning, the Twins got burned again, but this time for trying to be too aggressive. Eddie Rosario was thrown out trying to steal second base with one out. That burned, as it was followed by back-to-back singles by Byron Buxton and Max Kepler. The really weird thing was it happened again. In the sixth inning, Rosie got another one-out single, and again got thrown out trying to steal second base. Buxton, the very next batter, hit a homer. Ouch. Oh, and there was more bunting, too. With the score tied at 2-2 in the top of the eighth, Mauer hit a leadoff single. Jorge Polanco bunted him over. Yes, that same Polanco who is hitting third, has been hotter than the sun … wait ... I feel like I’ve done this bit before. Predictably, the Twins would not score that inning. Pretty much all you need to know about the bottom of the eighth inning was that the Twins used five pitchers. I feel like with that information you can pretty much conclude how well things went, but here are the gory details: Ryan Pressly was the first man out of the bullpen, and gave up an 0-2 single to Lorenzo Cain to lead off the inning. He walked the next batter on four pitches. In came Boshers. He threw one pitch, giving up the go-ahead single to Eric Hosmer. Tyler Duffey was up next. He gave up an RBI double to Salvy Perez. He then intentionally walked Mike Moustakas to load the bases. There were still no outs at that point. The next man in was Taylor Rogers, which was pretty confusing. Boshers had been on a terrible slide heading into tonight's game, having given up six earned runs over his previous four innings. Opponents had a 1.154 OPS against Buddy over that stretch. With that given, it was assumed Rogers must not have been available to face Hosmer earlier in the inning, yet here he was, entering the game after things had gotten a bit out of hand. Rogers got Brandon Moss to line out. One pitch and his night was done. Ah, September baseball. Alan Busenitz became the fifth pitcher of the inning, and gave up a sac fly before striking out Alex Gordon to end the inning. Sometimes a manager pushes all the right buttons and pulls all the right levers and things still just don’t work out. This doesn’t feel like one of those times, at least not to me. Is hindsight 20/20? Am I way off base? You’ll have to let me know. Jose Berrios did a nice job of limiting damage over his 7.0 innings tonight. He only stuck out one batter, gave up eight hits and walked two batters, but the Royals were only able to score two runs off him. Rosario, Buxton and Castro each had two hits. Buxton also drew a walk. Standings The Yankees won, so the Twins trail the top Wild Card by 2.5 games. At the time this published the Angels were 1.5 games behind the Twins, but were also losing 8-0. Cleveland won its 17th-straight game and has now tied Houston with the most wins in the AL with 86. Postgame With Molitor Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Bullpen99.png Looking Ahead Sun: Twins (Bartolo Colon) at Kansas City (Jason Vargas), 1:15 pm CT Mon: Off Tue: Twins (Aaron Slegers) vs. Padres (Travis Wood), 7:10 pm CT Looking Back MIN 8, KC 5: Rosario Drives in 4, Hildenberger Holds it Together MIN 4, KC 2: Comeback Complete MIN 10, TB 6: Twins Prevail Thanks to Big Error Click here to view the article

For a moment it appeared the Twins bullpen might falter Friday night against the Royals, but Trevor Hildenberger, some nifty infield defense and key insurance hits from Robbie Grossman and Joe Mauer boosted the Twins to their third straight win. Both the Eds -- Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar -- had big nights, and Byron Buxton amazed once again with his speed and defense.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot98.png The Twins had built an early 5-1 lead but saw that advantage slip. Ervin Santana wasn’t in top form, giving up four runs over five innings, but Hildenberger got this game back on track. Tyler Duffey and Taylor Rogers made a bit of a mess in the seventh inning, combining to give up three straight singles to open that frame. Hildenberger entered with runners on first and second, no outs and the Twins clinging to a one-run lead. He got the first batter he faced to ground into a double play and put Lorenzo Cain away to end the threat. Up 6-5 in the top of the eighth, the Twins got a big RBI triple from Grossman and a run-scoring double from Mauer to open up some breathing room again. Hildenberger stayed in and delivered another scoreless inning in the bottom of the eighth. Matt Belisle pitched a perfect ninth inning with two strikeouts to earn his seventh save. Eddie Rosario played a huge role for the Twins in building up their early lead. He ended the night 2-for-4 with his 21st homer of the season, a stolen base and four RBI. Eduardo Escobar also homered, his 16th of the year, and was a triple shy of the cycle. Jorge Polanco drew three walks. Oh, and Byron Buxton did some things. In the third inning, he unsuccessfully tried to bunt his way on. Why was that noteable? Well, per StatCast, his home-to-first base time was the fastest they ever recorded for a right-handed hitter. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Bullpen98.png Looking Ahead Sat: Twins (Jose Berrios) at Kansas City (Jake Junis), 6:15 pm CT Sun: Twins (Bartolo Colon) at Kansas City (Jason Vargas), 1:15 pm CT Mon: Off Looking Back MIN 4, KC 2: Comeback Complete MIN 10, TB 6: Twins Prevail Thanks to Big Error TB 2, MIN 0: Too Little, Too Late Click here to view the article

Here's the deal with Gibson ... Opponent's OPS w/2 Outs Career through the 1st half of '17: .735 2nd half of '17: .552 There are some other things going on, but his ability to finish off innings of late has been huge.

You know, that hadn't even occurred to me. My guess was they were letting Jorge either take a rip at "his pitch" if it came or seeing if Minor was going to fall behind, tipping the scales in Polanco's favor. I just re-watched that play, it's certainly possible that was Jorge bunting on his own. The only guy I could find who has the Almighty Access who bothered to even write about it was Phil Miller of the Strib, but he just noted how rare it was for a third hitter to sac bunt. Nothing on where the decision came from. Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com even wrote an article all about Polanco's ninth inning heroics, but nothing on the bunt. If anybody comes across something elsewhere, please share it. Thank you.

Nick did a nice review of his turnaround late last month. Gibby's made some adjustments, and from the sound of his postgame interview he's trying a different mental approach. I wouldn't be opposed to tendering him a contract for next year, but I also wouldn't expect him to be anything more than a fourth or fifth starter over the course of a full season. Nothing wrong with that, though. That's a much different opinion than I'd have offered up a couple months ago. Stuff like this is music to my ears, thanks for reading. A catcher's mitt is a tough tool to work with sometimes, but I'm sure even Castro would agree with that assessment. You can see that play starting a the 0:20 mark on the MLB highlight package here. I'd love to be able to just embed these highlight packages on each article, but MLB doesn't allow playback on other websites. That really bugs me, especially when using a mobile device, but I guess just even getting that link in on each of these may be more valuable than nothing at all.

The Twins have been resilient all year, but they had been making a habit of coming *this* close to mounting comebacks lately. Well, they broke through Thursday night. Entering the ninth down a run, the Twins scored three in the final frame and Matt Belisle locked it down for the save.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: Snapshot97.png Jorge Polanco … the team’s No. 3 hitter tonight … the guy who has an OPS over 1.000 since the start of August … was asked to bunt with no outs in the eighth. The Twins would end up not scoring. The very next inning, however, Polanco was given a chance to hit and delivered the go-ahead two-run single after Brian Dozier tied things up with a sac fly. All’s well that ends well. Kyle Gibson had another strong start, though it was in an unconventional way. He went 7.0 innings and held the Royals to two runs despite not striking out a single batter. Nobody in the bullpen recorded a strikeout, either. The Royals, who are still notorious for their ability to put the ball in play, hit into four double plays. It’s easy for late-season hot streaks to go unappreciated. Gibby still has a 5.19 ERA on the year, but coming into tonight he had been among the better starting pitchers in the AL since the All-Star break. It’s true. In his previous seven starts, Gibson had a 3.29 ERA, was 10th in FIP (3.11) among all pitchers and 11th in WAR (1.3) among AL pitchers (min. 40 IP). After watching Kyle throw more than 700 innings with the Twins now, I think we can safely say we know who he is, but there’s no denying the guy is on a great hot streak right now. It’s coming at a great time. Belisle has also had quite the turnaround, but he had actually given up four earned runs over his previous six innings pitched prior to tonight’s game. Even with the expanded bullpen, he’s such a pivotal guy. It was great to see him turn in a 1-2-3 ninth. Joe Mauer was on base five times tonight. He had a double, two singles and a pair of walks. Robbie Grossman hit his ninth homer of the season, Max Kepler stole his sixth base and Trevor Hildenberger picked up his third win. Standings This victory put the Twins back in the second wild card spot. They lead the Angels, who were off today, by one game. Baltimore is two back after losing to the Yankees and Texas trails by 2.5 games. Cleveland won its 15th-straight game. Wow. They’ve really run away with the division. Postgame With Gibson Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Bullpen97.png Looking Ahead Fri: Twins (Ervin Santana) at Kansas City (Ian Kennedy), 7:15 pm CT Sat: Twins (Jose Berrios) at Kansas City (Jake Junis), 6:15 pm CT Sun: Twins (Bartolo Colon) at Kansas City (Jason Vargas), 1:15 pm CT Looking Back Wed: MIN 10, TB 6: Twins Prevail Thanks to Big Error Tue: TB 2, MIN 0: Too Little, Too Late Mon: TB 11, MIN 4: Bullpen Lets Game Get Out of Hand Click here to view the article

The Twins had to take the lead on four separate occasions, as Tampa Bay just kept battling back, but outlasted the Rays Wednesday afternoon. A costly error in the top of the seventh finally served as the dagger, as the Twins tallied three runs that inning.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: IMG_20170906_155440.jpg Download attachment: chart.png Brian Dozier got things started with a leadoff home run. He now has 29 homers, which is the second-most in his career. The Rays answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning, but Ehire Adrianza put the Twins back on top with a three-run homer in the top of the second. Tampa caught back up with a three-run shot of their own in the bottom of the third via Lucas Duda. Eduardo Escobar broke the tie with a two-run single in the top of the fifth, but the Rays responded with another game-tying homer off the bat of Kevin Kiermaier in the bottom of the inning. The Twins finally took the lead for good in the seventh. Dozier led off the inning with a walk. Jorge Polanco attempted to bunt him over, but got a lot more than he bargained for. The ball was thrown out into right field, Dozier came all the way around to score and Polanco ended up on third. Aaron Slegers made his second-career start. It didn’t go so well. He gave up five runs, including a pair of homers, over 4.0 innings. Buddy Boshers was the first man out of the bullpen, primarily to get a lefty-lefty matchup with Kiermaier. The strategy made sense, as only seven of his 42 career homers entering today had come against left-handers, but Boshers served up a homer anyway. Then again, Kiermaier also hit a two-run single off Buddy Monday night, so maybe he just has his number. From there, the rest of the bullpen took care of business. Ryan Pressly (1.1 IP), Taylor Rogers (1.1 IP), Trevor Hildenberger (1.0 IP) and Matt Belisle (1.0 IP) made sure there would be no more Tampa Bay comebacks, as they shut out the Rays for 4.2 innings. Eduardo Escobar had a big game, going 3-for-5 with a triple, three RBI and two runs scored. Chris Gimenez also reached safely three times, tallying a pair of singles and a walk. Standings The Angels won last night to take hold of the second wild card spot, but this victory puts the Twins in a temporary deadlock with Anaheim. The Angels-A’s were already underway when this was published. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: IMG_20170906_154835.jpg Looking Ahead Thu: Twins (Kyle Gibson) at Kansas City (Sam Gaviglio), 7:15 pm CT Fri: Twins (Ervin Santana) at Kansas City (Ian Kennedy), 7:15 pm CT Sat: Twins (Jose Berrios) at Kansas City (Jake Junis), 6:15 pm CT Looking Back Tue: TB 2, MIN 0: Too Little, Too Later Mon: TB 11, MIN 4: Bullpen Lets Game Get Out Of Hand Sun: KC 5, MIN 4: What Even Is A Swing, Anyway? Click here to view the article

This is great stuff. Couple things to add ... If you take a look at Jay Jaffee's JAWS system, Mauer is the top-ranked catcher who's not currently in the HoF. He sits right between HoF Yankee legends Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey. That ranking system does include all Mauer's time at first base, but obviously the majority of his value was generated when he was a catcher. Also listed at that b-ref link I provided is WAR7, a sum of the top seven seasons per WAR for each player. The average HoF catcher earned 34.4 WAR over their best seasons. Mauer had 38.5. From 2014 (when he moved to 1B) to today, Mauer has a .326 wOBA, 103 wRC+ and 105 OPS+. No, those aren't anything close to HoF numbers, but it's not like he's done anything to damage the case he built during his catching days. I certainly don't think Joe will be a first-ballot guy, but I think he gets in.

Will do, good call. That thing's getting pretty crowded now.

Bartolo Colon turned in another strong effort and Robbie Grossman returned to provide a leadoff homer in the ninth, but the Twins fell just short of completing a comeback Tuesday night, leaving the game-tying run at third base. This was the third game out of their last four the Twins have lost.Snapshot (chart via Fangraphs) Download attachment: SnapShot95.png The Twins sure ran into Jake Odorizzi at the wrong time. Over his previous three starts, the right-hander gave up 13 runs over 12.1 innings, but the streaky starter found his groove Tuesday night. Odorizzi held the Twins hitless into the seventh inning, and finished his night having given up just the one hit (a Joe Mauer single) over 6.2 innings to go with six strikeouts. Colon turned in a quality start of his own, surrendering two runs over 6.2 innings, but lost the duel. One hitter in particular got the best of him. Lucas Duda drove in both of those runs off Bartolo, hitting a solo homer and an RBI double. The Twins only offense came in the top of the ninth, as the returning Grossman hit a leadoff homer. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Bullpen95.png Looking Ahead Wed: Twins (Aaron Slegers) at Tampa Bay(Blake Snell), 12:10 pm CT Thu: Twins (Kyle Gibson) at Kansas City (Sam Gaviglio), 7:15 pm CT Fri: Twins (Ervin Santana) at Kansas City (Ian Kennedy), 7:15 pm CT Looking Back Mon: TB 11, MIN 4: Bullpen Lets Game Get Out Of Hand Sun: KC 5, MIN 4: What Even Is A Swing, Anyway? Sat: MIN 17, KC 0: What Negative Run Differential? Click here to view the article