Tom Froemming

Tony La Russa is one of the greatest managers of all time, but seems like an odd fit for an organization that adopted the slogan “Change the Game” for the 2020 season. I guess they’ve already decided to change it back? La Russa is 76 years old, and appears to have several stances that clash with some of the White Sox’s biggest starts. There’s a lot to unpack, but Michael Baumann of The Ringer detailed the apparent mismatch of La Russa and the current White Sox roster. https://twitter.com/StelliniTweets/status/1321637241270243329 Even if La Russa manages to connect with his new players, there’s the issue of how his hiring came to be. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that his addition “ruffled the feathers” in the organization. Passan also wrote a lengthy column on the hiring. Jon Greenbert of The Athletic drove home the obvious problem with this hiring, no matter what you think of the match between La Russa and the Sox clubhouse: This was 100% ownership driven. https://twitter.com/jon_greenberg/status/1321915775226171398 Again, there’s no denying La Russa’s past success, but this has the chance to go down as a colossal mistake made by the White Sox. It appears White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has been remorseful over allowing La Russa to be fired back in 1986, and was hell-bent on bringing him back nearly 34 years later. Passan reported that White Sox “players as well as rank-and-file employees told ESPN they were dumbfounded.” Taking a look at fan reactions across Twitter it appears most of them feel the same way. https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1321888970381447168 And we haven’t even begun to discuss the fact that La Russa last managed in 2011 and has not found success as an executive with the Diamondbacks, Red Sox or Angles in the years since then. On the flip side, the Tigers organization and its fans seem generally over the moon that A.J. Hinch remained available after Chicago, which is undoubtedly the more attractive destination right now, declined to even formally interview him. Most of the reactions I’ve seen from Tigers fans on Twitter are more similar to this: https://twitter.com/Mark_Aumann/status/1322172564492505092 Than this: https://twitter.com/MosesMcKinley/status/1322181628790108161 The Tigers have been an absolute train wreck of a baseball team of late. After losing 98, 98 and 114 games the previous three seasons, Detroit finished 2020 in last place in the division at 23-35. That’s roughly the equivalent of another 98-loss season if extrapolated to a 162-game season. Ron Gardenhire retired due to health concerns, and of course all of us in Twins Territory are wishing him the best. With this Detroit team having been this bad for this long, it’s no surprise Tigers fans are excited about a big change. Gardy is an old school guy, Hinch is much more forward-thinking. Hinch managed parts of two seasons for Arizona, posting a .420 winning percentage there, then spent nearly five years in the Padres’ scouting department. He was hired to manage the Astros in 2015, at which point Houston had logged six consecutive losing seasons. Hinch helped lead the Astros to the playoffs in his first season. Over Hinch’s five years with Houston, they won the division three times, went to the World Series twice and won* it all in 2017. Again, it’s easy to see why Detroit would be amped up about this. From the outside perspective, however, it just got a lot easier to root against the Tigers. Even if we try to look past the Twins ties, Gardy was still among the most likable managers in all of baseball. Hinch is getting off incredibly easy in my eyes, having only served a one-year suspension as the penalty of his involvement in the Astros sign stealing scandal. https://twitter.com/buckysportsguy/status/1321964852747898880 Then again, these are the Tigers we’re talking about here ... https://twitter.com/Fiskadoro74/status/1321955240757874688 Happy Halloween, everybody! https://twitter.com/TTownTiger/status/1322195766845255680 MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

The Twins have decided to pay Romo a $250,000 buyout rather than bring him back in 2021. Romo joins fellow 2020 Twins relievers Trevor May and Tyler Clippard on the free agent market. Romo came to the Twins around the trade deadline of 2019, and pitched well enough for the team to bring him back as a free agent this past winter. All told, Romo has delivered a 3.59 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and 4.55 K:BB ratio over 42 2/3 innings for Minnesota over the past two years. While it's difficult to invest too much into the shortened 2020 season, Romo's performance did fade as the year went on. He had a 1.74 ERA through his first 11 appearances, then pitched to a 6.52 ERA over his final 13 games of the regular season. He also was credited with three runs in Game 1 of the Wild Card series against Houston, though none of them were earned. While a Twins reunion is still possible for Romo, May or Clippard, that's a significant amount of the 2020 Twins bullpen set to hit the open market. Those three combined to log 69 1/3 of the team's 231 relief innings this season, which comes out to 30% of the workload. Romo was one of many players added to the free agent pool today. Here's a list of other players who had their options declined today: Corey Kluber, RHP, TEX Kolten Wong, 2B, STL Wilson Ramos, C, NYM Robinson Chirinos, C, NYM Todd Frazier, IF, NYM Adam Eaton, OF, WAS Anibal Sanchez, RHP, WAS Eric Thames, 1B, WAS Howie Kendrick, UT, WAS Daniel Murphy, 1B, COL Mike Leake, RHP, ARI Hector Rondon, RHP, ARI Junior Guerra, RHP, ARI Kendall Graveman, RHP, SEA Dee Strange-Gordon, UT, SEA MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

The information below is from all rounds of the 2020 postseason leading up to, but not including the World Series so far. That’s 47 games, or 94 total starts we’re looking at. As with any starting pitching stats in 2020, the fly in the ointment is the opener. Just something to keep in mind as we take a look at some postseason starter stats. Pitches Thrown Average: 75.1 Median: 79 High: 110 Jack Flaherty, STL Something odd to note is teams that had a starting pitcher eclipse 100 pitches had a losing record over these rounds, going 7-8. If we look at all games in which a starter threw 90 or more pitches, those teams went 17-15. Kenta Maeda’s Game 1 start in the Wild Card round was one of those games where a starting pitcher threw 90 pitches and his team lost. José Berríos logged 75 pitches for the Twins in Game 2. The most surprising thing to me is a starting pitcher threw 90 or more pitches at just a 34 percent clip in these rounds. So it’s not that 90 is the new 100, it’s more like 80. Here’s a chart that shows the number of starts made by pitches thrown. Outs Recorded Average: 13.2 Median: 14.0 Mode: 15 High: 24 Clayton Kershaw, LAD It’s not like starting pitchers are throwing fewer pitches because they’re efficient. The mode number of outs recorded over these rounds — the result that appeared most often — was 15, or five innings. That just happened to be exactly how long both Maeda and Berríos pitched in their postseason starts. Bullpens are doing a lot of heavy lifting, this is becoming especially true in the postseason. The chart below shows the number of starts by outs recorded in these rounds. Batters Faced Average: 18.9 Median: 20 Mode: 19 High: 31 Max Fried, ATL At this point, you shouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of decisions regarding traditional starters are related to the “third time through the order penalty.” The vast majority of starting pitchers were given enough leash to start that third trip around, but very few finish it. Is this “penalty” the baseball equivalent to the boogeyman? Hitters actually had a lower OPS in their third plate appearance against a starting pitcher this year than the second time seeing them (a .765 OPS the second time, .754 the third). Then again, maybe that’s just the result of a weird season. Or maybe managers being more cognisant of the dangers of allowing pitchers to go through a lineup a third time is exactly why that number has gone down. After all, in 2019 hitters had a .777 OPS the second time they faced a starter and an .807 mark the third. The mode of this data set was 19 batters faced. This was the exact number of batters Berríos faced in his outing versus Houston, while Maeda faced 20 men. Anyway, here’s a chart with the number of starts broken up by batters faced. One last item, this one breaks things up by the winning and losing team. This is a bit of an unsophisticated way to look at things, seeing as a team could pitch like trash and still win a game if their bats carry them, but there was a buy three nerdy baseball graphics get one free sale. So here you go: MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

When the Twins return to Target Field in 2021 there will be a new banner flying. It was a crazy finish, but when all was said and done the club emerged as American League Central champions once again. The Twins went 36-24, playing at what would have been a 97-win pace over a 162-game season. That .600 regular season winning percentage ranks behind only the 1965 AL championship team (.630), the 2019 Bomba Squad (.623) and 1970 AL West champs (.605) among the best in Minnesota Twins history. The sting of being swept out of the postseason still lingers, but there’s still plenty to look back fondly upon. Here’s 35 minutes of highlights from this season, presented in chronological order. If you’d like to reminisce but don’t have much time to spare, below is a quick rundown of the 10 longest home runs the Twins hit this season. This one’s only 82 seconds long. Every season ends with the knowledge that this particular group of players will never be together again. The Twins will return most of their core players, sure, but there will be plenty of new faces next season. I can’t help but feel we didn’t get to see enough of this year’s team, but at the same time I am incredibly grateful we got as much baseball as we did. The 2020 MLB season will soon be over but that doesn’t stop Twins Daily. We’re going to continue providing coverage and analysis throughout the offseason, as always. So please keep us in your rotation. Go Twins. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

Box Score Hill: 5 2/3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K Home Runs: None Bottom 3 WPA: Romo -.394, Cruz -.230, Rosario -.202 Chicago Drama No matter what the Twins did, a White Sox loss guaranteed them the division. So when the Cubs took a 6-0 lead over the Sox in the second inning of their game this afternoon, it was starting to appear the Twins had things locked up. The Cubbies extended that lead to 10-1 by the middle of the seventh inning. The White Sox stormed back to score five in the eighth and two in the bottom of the ninth inning. The tying run came to the plate, but Cubs pitcher Andrew Chafin managed to finish the job, giving the Twins back-to-back American League Central titles. The loss coupled with a Cleveland win resulted in the White Sox finishing third in the division. Staying Atop the Mountain Rich Hill is going to have an opportunity to pitch a 17th major league season if he so chooses. He held the Reds scoreless for 5 2/3 innings today, though Matt Wisler allowed an inherited runner to score. Hill ended the regular season with a 3.03 ERA over 38 2/3 innings. Hill gave up just a pair of hits, both singles. He issued three walks, two to Joey Votto, and struck out four batters. Balk Talk How’s this for manufacturing a run? Jake Cave led off the fifth inning with a walk, advanced to second on a groundout, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on a balk. https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1310319295231033345 The Reds appeared to have tried to argue that this shouldn’t have been considered a pitch because Sonny Gray stepped back off the rubber, but he had already started his delivery by then. There was some confusion, a delay and a review, but the original call was eventually upheld. Arráez Rolling After a successful return to the lineup in which he went 4-for-4 with three doubles, Luis Arráez had two of the Twins’ five hits on the day, one of them being another double. This brief but triumphant return boosted Arráez’s batting average from .288 to .321. Romo’s Ugly Outing Sergio Romo faced four batters in the top of the 10th inning and didn’t retire a single one of them. Curt Casali and Tucker Barnhart both singled before Nick Castellanos and Joey Votto both walked off Romo. Romo really struggled to find the zone, throwing just seven of his 18 pitches for strikes. The Twins used seven pitchers today. Playoff Picture Develops Here’s how things ended up working out for the playoffs below. There will be plenty more discussion and analysis regarding the Twins Wild Card matchup against the Astros here at Twins Daily. https://twitter.com/MLBONFOX/status/1310355131112751105 And the Twins are getting put in the afternoon time slot for both of their first two games. Postgame Pint Check out tonight’s episode of Twins Daily’s Postgame Pint live stream on or Facebook.Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

LAST NIGHT’S RECAP CIN 7, MIN 2: Twins Lose Game, Donaldson, Buxton SEE ALSO Records the Twins Can Set This Weekend If These Three Excel, the Twins Will Go Far This October Taking a Temperature Reading of the Twins Bats Heading Into October This Season Is a Culmination of the Front Office's Successes On Deck: Wild Cards Who Can Fold the Twins' Playoff Run Ranking the Twins Postseason Opponents and their Chances How Have Twins Handled Their Best Mound Opponents? TRANSACTIONS Luis Arraez has been activated from the injured list and Devin Smeltzer has been recalled. To make room on the roster, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Edwar Colina were optioned. TODAY Twins (35-23) vs. Reds (30-28), 6:10 pm CT Michael Pineda, RHP The Twins are undefeated in games Pineda has started this season, going 4-0. Three of those wins have come against opponents with winning records (White Sox, Cleveland and Cubs). Last time out, Pineda gave up one run on four hits over five innings. He struck out just one batter, but didn’t walk anybody. In fact, Pineda has walked just four of the 93 batters he’s faced this season. Over his last 15 starts, Pineda is 9-1 with a 2.86 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. The Twins will try to avoid losing back-to-back home games for the first time this season. Luis Castillo, RHP This guy was my preseason pick for NL Cy Young. He’s not going to win that award, but Castillo has been pitching up to that level so far in September. Castillo entered this month with a 4.10 ERA, but has delivered four straight quality starts for the Reds. He’s 4-0 with a 1.26 ERA while holding opponents to a measly .163/.234/.245 batting line (.479 OPS) over that stretch. Over his career, Castillo has dominated same-sided hitters, but he tends to give up some damage to lefties. Southpaws have a .746 OPS against him, which is 152 points higher than right-handed hitters. LINEUP https://twitter.com/dohyoungpark/status/1309952554005155840 AROUND THE AL CENTRAL Last night’s results: CLE 4, PIT 3 CHC 10, CHW 0 KCR 3, DET 2 AL Central Standings: 1. MIN 35-23 2. CLE 34-24 (-1) 2. CHW 34-24 (-1) 4. KCR 25-33 (-9) 5. DET 22-34 (-11) Today’s AL games of interest: MIA (Rogers) at NYY (Garcia), In progress SEA (Sheffield) at OAK (Minor), 3:10 pm CT SEA (Blackburn) at OAK (Dunn), Game 2 BAL (Means) at TOR (Shoemaker), 5:37 pm CT HOU (TBD) at TEX (Gibson), 6:05 pm CT PIT (Musgrove) at CLE (Civale), 6:10 pm CT CHC (Lester) at CHW (Dunning), 6:10 pm CT American League Playoff Standings 1. TBR 38-10 2. OAK 35-22 3. MIN 35-23 4. CLE 34-24 5. NYY 32-26 6. HOU 29-29 7. CHW 34-24 8. TOR 31-27

Box Score Berríos: 5 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 7 K Home Runs: None Bottom 3 WPA: Berríos -.177, Gonzalez -.160, Sanó -.126 Donaldson, Buxton Exit Josh Donaldson didn’t take the field with his teammates to start the second inning. He was removed due to what the Twins say is a right calf cramp, they’re calling him day-to-day. Donaldson popped out on a ball that was in play. It appeared he may have been so distracted by whatever he felt in his legs that he didn’t initially even make an attempt to run to first base. Nothing looked too serious there, so we’ll hope the team’s initial diagnosis holds. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1309655428226314240 This, on the other hand, looked very serious. In the eighth inning, Byron Buxton took a fastball off the helmet. He appeared to be alright, but here’s hoping Byron doesn’t have to endure concussion symptoms or further migraines resulting from this. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1309693008611364864 Berríos Finishes Flat Berríos entered tonight on a nice roll, pitching to a 2.14 ERA and 1.07 WHIP over his previous six starts. I’m sure he wanted to close out his regular season on a better note. Berríos was excellent through the first three innings, but gave up a five-pitch walk to Joey Votto to open the fourth. One batter later, Mike Moustakas hit a two-run homer. Freddy Galvis led off the fifth inning with another home run and the Reds scratched across a fourth run before Berríos struck out Votto and Eugenio Suarez to end the inning. Berríos finishes this season with an even 4.00 ERA (28 ER in 63 IP). This is obviously a short, weird season, but that’ll be his worst ERA since his rookie year. Cruz Returns, Lineup Misses Opportunities Nelson Cruz was in the lineup for the first time since last Friday. He drew a walk in the first inning, then proceeded to strike out in each of his next three at-bats. He finished off his night by drawing another walk in the ninth inning. The Twins went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. Colina Debuts Earlier today, Seth did a really nice write-up on flame-throwing prospect Edwar Colina. He made his debut tonight, entering the ninth inning with the Twins down 4-2. The first pitch Colina threw was 99.7 mph. The second pitch he threw was hit 99.3 mph and traveled 355 feet for a home run. It was not the debut Colina had envisioned, he gave up three runs while only recording one out, but better days are sure to be ahead. Postgame Pint Check out tonight’s episode of Twins Daily’s Postgame Pint live stream on or Facebook.Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

Box Score Berríos: 6.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K Home Runs: Kepler (8) Top 3 WPA: Berríos .369, Kepler .122, Donaldson .078 Twins Get to Darvish Early ... The Twins recorded three hits off Yu Darvish in the first inning, which is more than he’s given up in an entire outing in four of his prior 10 starts this year. They only came away with one run in the first inning, driven in on an Eddie Rosario single, as the bases were left loaded. The Twins added another run the second inning, becoming the first team to score in each of the first two innings against Darvish all season. He entered tonight fourth in ERA and third in fWAR among qualified starters, firmly in the conversation for NL Cy Young. Darvish returned to form and allowed just two baserunners to reach for the next four innings. … and Late Since Darvish had been on a roll, the Cubs sent him back out to start the seventh inning. Marwin Gonzalez led things off with a double to center field before Max Kepler blasted his 100th career home run to put the Twins up 4-0. Tonight marks the first time all season Darvish has given up four runs in an outing. https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1307854157836161025 This was Kepler’s first home run since Aug. 26. Since then, he’s had a .309 OPS over 43 plate appearances. Max needed that, badly. José Berríos is Rolling Berríos had a 5.92 ERA through his first five starts of the season, but has steadily been improving. Over his most recent five starts coming into tonight, Berríos posted a 2.60 ERA. It’s basically the complete opposite from what we’re used to seeing from him. Berríos outdueled Darvish, providing six shutout innings while giving up four hits and walking one batter. He struck out four batters and had nine swinging strikes on his 85 pitches. The Cubs also had nine balls hit in excess of 95 mph, so this was far from the most dominant we’ve seen Berríos, but there’s no arguing with the results. The Cubs lineup has been struggling, but this was still a tough matchup on a national stage. It was great to see Berríos deliver. Rogers Before Romo Taylor Rogers pitched the eighth inning tonight. Rogers also entered in the eighth inning his previous outing on Sept. 14, but gave up a pair of runs while recording just one out. On the one hand, there were a couple of lefties and a switch hitter who doesn’t fare nearly as well versus southpaws due up. On the other hand, Kris Bryant was the next batter in the lineup after that. Bryant is having a nightmare season, entering tonight’s game with a .591 OPS. Still, he’s a career .302/.412/.579 (.991 OPS) hitter against lefties and though it was only 30 plate appearances, he also had a .901 OPS against lefties so far in 2020. Rogers retired José Martinez, who pinch hit for lefty Jason Kipnis, before issuing a five-pitch walk to Ian Happ. He then struck out lefty Anthony Rizzo. That brought Bryant to the plate. Rogers got Bryant to line out to end the inning. So was Rocco Baldelli playing matchups? Or is Rogers no longer the closer? Let me know what your best guess is down in the comments. Sergio Romo took over in the ninth inning, inheriting a 4-0 lead. Wilson Contreras reached after a passed ball on strike three, Jason Heyward was hit by a pitch and Victor Caratini walked to bring the tying run to the plate with two outs. Romo prevailed, striking out pinch hitter Nico Hoerner to end the game. Sergio has now delivered a scoreless outing in 17 of his 21 appearances this season. Aggressive Play The Twins ran into a couple outs in their 7-1 win over the Cubs Friday night, and continued an aggressive approach tonight. Jake Cave took a gamble by stretching a leadoff double into a triple, barely beating the throw from left fielder Kyle Schwarber. He later scored on a ground out. https://twitter.com/Twins/status/1307828473864556545 Kepler took a chance in the field that didn’t pay off, but luckily Berríos managed to pitch around it. With one out, Kepler tried to nail a baserunner going first-to-third. The play was nowhere close, and the throw allowed the hitter to advance to second base, both putting two runners in scoring position and eliminating the potential for a double play. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1307841617882218498 Along with the bullpen situation, it'll be interesting to follow any other trends as the Twins ramp up for the playoffs. Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet