Dave The Dastardly

Loved the headline! And really appreciate the report!

If MLB's goal was to make even more money they'd return to scheduling the Twins/Brewers for a couple home and away series like they used to play. But then we know MLB isn't into making money, their only goal is to provide entertainment for the unwashed masses. I shower every day. In case anyone was wondering.

You're the manager, you've run about 20 reports off your computer, had three statisticians, a data geek and a borrowed nun from St. Francis explain esoteric stuff that went right over your head and had you daydreaming like Goldie Hawn and you've now retreated to your manager's office and are debating about throwing darts at the player's roster, wondering who you're going to start at 1st Base. But Fast Frankie, the team's towel guy, has stuck a purple post-it note on your desk that you can't avoid: Arraez .346 .420 .499 .869 Miranda .260 .299 .463 .762 Kirilloff .269 .319 .407 .726 Sano .093 . 231 .148 .379 And you wonder why Fast Frankie wants you to know the players' locker combinations. Who would you start at 1st?

Had to look that up... beignet. Never had one but it sounds similar to something my mother used to make; pan fried dough smeared with butter, looked like a pancake, confectioner's sugar on top. But she called it "cat gut". She'd grown up poor on the wrong side of the tracks from Irish stock so we never pursued where the name came from. Afraid to find out I guess. Going north tomorrow with a planned stop at Tobie's Bakery. Gonna stock up on artery choking baked goods for the cabin. Mouth is already watering. Long as I'm there I'll see if they have any of those sissy beignets.

Putting Sano back at first and benching Kirilloff and Miranda would be criminal. Hand him a check for the rest of whatever he's got coming for this year, pay him the buy-out option for next year and wish him well. Money well spent.

Gotta wonder if Dan Hayes lost a pile in Vegas betting on the Twins. And that reference to people disappearing in northern Minnesota sort of rings true. A guy I knew disappeared up there. Told his wife he was going deer hunting, but I got suspicious when his wife packed his three-piece "funeral" suit instead of his deer rifle. I always thought he'd get in over his head when he married her.

Gaetti and Hrbek were brought up way at the end of the season in '81 just so the Twins could get a look at them. That was typical in those days. The fact they started as full time players in '82 (their rookie season) is a testament to Manager Billy Gardner as well as to their talent. Gardner didn't give out "rest" days or constantly screw around with the lineup. If you made the team you played, usually one position and often the same spot in the lineup. I doubt either Hrbek or Gaetti would have gotten in over 140 games if Rocco had been their manager. More playing time means more player development when you're a rookie. Not playing regularly, in my opinion, is hampering the development of Kirilloff, Miranda and Larnach. All three should be around 70 games by the All-Star break, Larnach excepted of course, but I don't see that happening. So a smaller sample size to work from. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is the 2022 rookies aren't doing half bad at the plate despite limited playing time and often playing out of position.

The Years of the Rookies: 1982 and 2022 I’ve mentioned in several (okay, numerous) posts that as far as I was concerned the 2022 season is primarily a “look-and-see” season for the Minnesota Twins; a fish-or-cut-bait season for testing out those promising young players that have been shining at the minor league level. Are they ready to play at the major league level or aren’t they? If they are, we’re a contender in 2023. If not… back to the Baseball Trade Casino looking for “deals” followed by another couple seasons of wallowing in baseball hell. That’s why I argued back before spring training even got started that the Twins needed to move Sano, Donaldson and Cave to make room for Kirilloff, Larnach, Lewis and Miranda. Did I think these four rookies were sure things? No. But I did think they showed “promise”; that is, enough talent to be at least as good as the older players on the team and hopefully, better in the long term whereas Sano, Donaldson and Cave were all on the downhill slide of their careers. There is no future in the past. Anyway, reminiscent of the early 1980’s Twins team, which also brought a number of rookies up to the major league level, I prepared a chart comparing the 2022 rookies to Gary Gaetti and Kent Hrbek so as to gain a perspective how this year’s “experiments” are doing as compared to a solid ball player like Gaetti and a star player like Hrbek, both mainstays on the team throughout the 1980’s. Draw your own conclusions. Me, I think we’re headed to baseball’s Pearly Gates in 2023. *Lewis I left off because of his latest ACL injury, though I think most of us were ready to declare him a future star before he went down. * Stats are current as of 1:46 PM 6/29/22 * Hrbek finished second in Rookie of the Year Award in 1982 to Cal Ripken, Jr. Gary Gaetti finished 5th. Hitting Comparisons Player Games ABs Ave. OPS Larnach 51 160 .231 .712 Miranda 42 138 .239 .696 Kirilloff 21 65 .231 .560 Gaetti 1981 9 26 .192 .615 Gaetti 1982 145 508 .230 .723 Hrbek 1981 24 67 .239 .659 Hrbek 1982 140 532 .301 .848 * Interesting to note how many games Gaetti and Hrbek played that season.

UCL strain? Wouldn't touch it with the proverbial ten-foot poll. Besides, given our current young starters we shouldn't even be thinking about trading for another one. Agree with dberthia, if we're going to step up to the baseball slot machine we should pulling the relief pitcher arm.

Duran and Jax. The rest give me heart palpitations.

Wow! First time I've seen Archer and Jax pitch and I was impressed by both performances. Anybody else think Jax has closer stuff? And you gotta wonder if Rocco is going to lengthen Archer's leash to six innings after the All-Star break. He hardly worked up a sweat going five.

I disagree with your take on Rocco- but I do agree this team is not play-off caliber - I don't understand how that rumor even got started - but this is a ballclub building for 2023 and from that perspective I actually like what I see. We've got some talented young players on this club and they're learning to play at the major league level. Now if we could get Rocco and the coaching staff to teach them small ball to go along with long ball... well, we'll have a play-off team next year.

The Twins prefer perspiration instead of inspiration. Instead of using a new colt we prefer to beat a dead horse.

Can't agree with you on the rookie thing. The current Twins are not a playoff team. Cleveland just proved that. And a team doesn't "improve" by keeping average players in the lineup when it has rookies that may be better. But the only way you can prove a rookie can do a better than average job, is to play them. A lot. And give them all the chances in the world to play at the position they have been trained for at the level of competition you need them to play at. If you have to play them at a new position, then its only fair to cut them some slack while they adapt instead of immediately condemning their performance and ruling them a disaster. I've been preaching all year that this season is for the Twins to kick the tires on their prospects if they want to be a playoff team next season. Witness the negative effect the absence of Sano and Donaldson has had. None. Yet the 2022 team is better than the 2021 team because getting rid of those two made room for Arraez and the rookies. Yeah, the rookies will make mistakes, but that's how rookies learn. And if they get enough playing time this year, they won't be rookies next season.

I have the same optimism. Gio has done an okay job at 3rd in my opinion but he's not the future answer for the Twins. Miranda will be an upgrade, if he gets playing time at 3rd this year. At the major league level. He has nothing left to prove in the minors. Use him or lose him.

Forget the position player, bring in a pitching machine loaded with wiffle balls. But don't let it throw more than a hundred pitches... Tommy John is expensive.

Rocco and FO; If you're not going to use Duffy, release him. If Buxton is going to sit out two out of three games, put him on the IL. Bring up a fresh arm from the minors for the bull pen and a rookie hitter that at the least can be used as a pinch hitter. This is no time to be carrying dead weight.

Well said!

Patience grasshoppers. Last year the Twins would've lost this game by the fifth inning. This year they were in it until the end. Next year, if the young guys capitalize on the major league experience they gain this year and Rocco learns to manage by the "feel" of the game instead of relying solely on preordained "plans" the Twins will be the ones in the winner's circle. So pull your head out of the noose, stock up on your favorite beverage and focus on the younger players' development. Oh, the occasional stiff shot of Jameson will help.

No trades at mid-season. This is the year for the young guys to prove out. Until then they're all basically unproven prospects. Name me one team that has a plethora of No 1 and No 2 pitchers and will consider trading one of them for a handful of unproven prospects. We keep our guys together this year, pitchers and position players, and play them regularly. We might just find out our "ace" is already in the rotation.

I was not one of those "trade Arraez" guys. Instead I argued to trade Donaldson and cut Sano in order to clear spots for the likes of Lewis, Kirilloff, Miranda and Larnach and keep Arraez's bat in the lineup. So I feel vindicated. Not bragging, just wanting to briefly bask in vindication because vindication is not something I am overly familiar with. Happens maybe once every ten years or so. The other nine years I suck. I bet on the Vikings to win the Superbowl... four times, just as an example of my usual sports management/predictive abilities. But here's what drove my reasoning for keeping Arraez and going with the "yutes" in 2022; the experience the young guys pick up this year at the major league level, coupled with their obvious talent, will put the Twins in the World Series next year. And they'll take the title. Bet on it.

Can't totally disagree with your counterpoint. However, if Rocco knows days in advance which players are "scheduled" for an off day (and he has offered that argument) then the Twins should publish the "carved-in-stone" schedule on their website at least a couple weeks in advance so fans can pick which games they want to attend. I'm thinking of those families that live two-four hours from the stadium and have a kid who wants to come see his favorite players take the field. I used to be one of those families and my son would choose which games we should attend based on who was going to pitch. But if the Twins actually did post their "rest" schedule in advance, I'd bet attendance would drop when players like Buxton or Correa we're scheduled to be watching from the dugout. Can't imagine ownership would like that.

I believe it's the head coach/manager's responsibility to put the best team he can muster on the field on any given day. Trying to plan "rest" days around the odds of winning a game is overstrategizing and pure guesswork. It's sort of like a team deliberately tanking a season in the hopes of garnering a higher draft choice, but in this case, tanking a game in the hope all your stars will be in primo health come the play-offs. Assuming of course they get in the play-offs.

Winston the Black Lab story reminds me of the time one of our daughters and her husband brought their 100 lb Rottweiler to our country home. Apparently the Rott had never seen a deer or a raccoon before, or apparently a picture window. After several failed attempts to hurdle through the window, our son-in-law subdued the Rott after earning several carpet burns as the dog dragged him across the living room carpet like a dead water skier. Roberre the Racoon was totally unfazed by the attention and returned that evening to lick the grease off my grill and clean up the grape jam the orioles had left in my wife's, she of the "Shoot that SOB" chant, bird feeder. The deer? Well, we think it was Matilda of the Twins. No, not an avowed Twins fan, she's not a masochist like me, but the female deer who drops a pair of twin fawns in my wife's flower garden every spring, the same deer family that eats the blossoms off all the flowers and craps all over our front sidewalk. They sort of have the runs of the place.

Unless we're going to acquire a current starting pitcher with a winning record, a low ERA, goes at least 7 innings every time he takes the mound, has no injury issues, has at least two years remaining on his current contract after this season, is in his lower 30's, has been vaccinated, has never been sued for sexual harassment, helps grandmotherly types across the street, has an IQ over 120 on the Stanford-Benet and prefers classic country over rap I'd say step away from the trade table and keep our prospects. Better the devil we know... Just ask the Cleveland Browns.