ewen21

No to deGrom and Syndergaard has been out there. They’ll listen

That isn’t the point. Give me someone that isn’t completely horrendous against them. His numbers against them are THAT bad. I’m not scouring the market for guys who are Yankee killers. I do, however, want to know who SUCKS against them and if anyone ever has, it’s David Price. So he can keep losing to the Yankees someplace else

Guys you might want to check Price’s splits against the NYY. That is most likely the team we will need to get past and we can never win a damn game against them. Getting Price is like a cruel joke. The Marlins beat a world class Yankees team in 2003 to win the WS with Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano and AJ Burnett. None of those guys would have been called “aces” in December of 2002. They were young guys on the rise. We need more of that as opposed to throwing money at guys who made their mark already and are on the decline. Houston made a great deal to get Cole. This is what we need to do and it has involve trading off players/prospects. No one said it was easy, but trading for Price is really silly if we want to get someplace in the postseason. He’s awful against the Yankees. Look it up

Sale is on the decline and is going to need to adjust. His velocity is down in a big way so he’s not actually CHRIS SALE. Is the latter version of that guy. So is Bumgarner. If you are looking for brand name status with decent quality you overpay for it. I would actually prefer a guy on the rise without the name that elevates the price tag

He never could beat the Yankees so he would fit right in, if that is what you’re looking for

When has a guy done what Verlander has aside from Roger Clemens? Verlander is like a one in 5,000 example

IF he returns to form is wishful thinking with all those innings on that arm. If anything the last two seasons was an uptick over what is more likely to happen with him over the life of a five year deal. He has a splashy name, and sadly, a lot of Twins fans seem to want to make that fA splash. Whether it makes sense or not some folks appear to be of the midset that this team had better spend money and nothing else would appease them. It really is a drag, in my opinion.

Is Stu your pen name or can’t he speak for himself?

This is an entirely reasonable synopsis and certainly doesn’t deserve to be mocked

Is this a subtle way to say past criticisms of Mauer were irrational?

I worked in the dean's office when I was in grad school and one of the dean's was from Winnipeg. I was playing the Guess Who at my desk late one night and he told me all about Chad Allan and the Expressions and that they had some real "hoot-nannies" Love the Guess Who, Creedence and the Rascals. Lots of great songs there

Let's be real here....Buxton wasn't going to do any damage in that series vs. NY if his history means anything. He has a .121 lifetime average vs. the Yankees and 16 strikeouts in 33 at bats. The guy seems to tense up against them just as he does when a new year starts. Not sure what it is, but pressure seems to make him worse. I think we are barking up the wrong tree if we are going to cite missing Buxton was a big blow in the playoffs. We don't know if he will have a chance to make that play 90% of major league outfielders cannot make during a short series. He might make two or three plays a game and they might be routine plays any ML centerfielder can make. That is far more likely than what some people seem to enjoy imagining: him running around making play after play saving runs left and right. That is a fantasy. The truth is there are some very small zones on the field where he can have a chance to make an exceptional play and balls only get hit there every so often. We do know that his spot in the order will come up every two or three innings and that he can be an awfully easy out when he starts gripping the bat too tightly. It is hard for me to envision him in any other light in that situation. Missing Buxton is not worth mentioning if you ask me. We needed to have competent starting pitching and our offense needed to hit. THAT is what needed to happen and we had neither. At this point, it is very disheartening for this Twins fan to see that the psychological hold the Yankees have on us as great as it has ever been. Whatever it is that makes this happen needs to be uncovered because until we get over that we will continue to get swept out of the playoffs by them. I honestly believe something is broken in the culture where the mindset seems to be "it would sure be nice to beat this guys, but if we don't it is OK because we won the division" It was blatantly apparent when Michael Cuddyer dubbed 2010 as a successful season after the last 3-and-out and it was underscored again by Rocco. More than anything THAT needs to die and Baldelli did nothing to bury it. As a matter of fact, he reinforced the mindset once the playoffs ended. I cannot imagine what baseball would be like if we played in the same division with them. They have a hold over us that is hard to take and we need to start discussing it with more candor, in my opinion. Maybe we need to take a page from Tampa and start fighting them. Tampa threw down with both the Yankees and the Red Sox and while I can't say that changed their fortune it is hard to deny it had a psychological impact. Seems like ever since then they viewed the Yankees like rivals instead of being starstruck by them

Born April 1966 in upstate NY. My dad grew up in the Bronx so he was a dyed in the wool Yankee fan (who also had a soft spot for the Green Bay Packers). I could not really get into the Yankees and my dad did not mind that. I could not relate to all the old folklore. It all seemed dated and black and white. Like they were ghosts. BY the time I was born the Yankees run was over and when I was old enough to become aware of baseball it was my brother who had the bigger influence on what team I would support. He was born 15 months before me (Christmas 1964) and he became a Met fan in about 1972. That was about when I was collecting baseball cards and following baseball. MY dad took my brother and I the old Yankee Stadium that actually closed after the 1973 season. We took the two hour ride down there a few times over the course of the 1972 and 1973 season. The first game we saw there was against Detroit in May of 1972. The significant thing that happened in that game was that Billy Martin ran onto the field (he was coach of the Tigers then), picked up a number of fly balls that had not been shagged and tossed these arcing rainbows into the stands while the organist played some calliopie music. He probably threw about four or five balls into the stands but the crowd cheered him loudly as he ran off the field. The whole thing was a little confusing because he was on the other team. I will never forget that. I got to see Al Kaline. My dad took us to Shea in 1972 also and we saw the Phillies. I remember Rusty Staub and Bob Boone having some words around home plate because I think Rusty had his tower buzzed. I remember the crowd screaming BOBBBB BOOOOOOONE!!! (like that Vavoooom! character from whatever cartoon). I also remember some scrub on the Mets named Dave Schneck hitting a triple in this game. By 1973 I was into the Mets because my brother was and so were the older kids on my street. I lived in a small town between the city and Albany and my dad took us to several Mets games with the help of coupons cut out from milk cartons offered by Dairylea milk. I got to see Henry Aaron, Willy Mays. Willie McCovey, Jimmy Wynn (a favorite of mine), the starts on the Reds and others. My dad and my uncle also took my brother, myself and our cousin John (born February 1966) to see the Yankees play he Angels in a night game that season (and I got to see Frank Robinson). Roy White hit a home run both lefty and righty in that game and he robbed Bob Oliver of a home run by jumping into the stands. I still talk about that with my brother and with my dad up until his death in November 2000. The wall was only a few feet high in the left field corner at the old OLD Yankee Stadium. How else could Roy White have landed in the crowd sprawled out on his back? I am very glad I can say I was at the OLD Yankee Stadium and I cherish those memories. So as a youngster I was a Mets fan. I also played in a couple of baseball leagues and collected baseball cards. We lived down the road from a school and in my small neighborhood made up of about five or six streets surrounding this elementary school there were enough kids to play four on four pickup games at the school. A lot of times it was only three or four of us but we'd take batting practice for hours if enough kids didn't show up (and that was a lot of the time). We would also play in the woods near the school and adventure. We would sometimes pick blackberries, (in later years we'd build forts, start campfires and have cases of beer in those woods) and in the winter we would play hockey on this small pond that was near a field next to an old abandoned apple orchard. No one had fences, dogs chased cars, and we played in the street since my road wasn't what you would call a thoroughfare. We would watch baseball, too. In 1973 I was so upset when the Mets lost to the A's I cried. When Wayne Garrett popped out to end game in a 5-2 loss. That was where it started and I remained a Mets fan all the way up until the time of the last strike. To be perfectly up front, I always had a soft spot for the Twins. I loved the uniform and I liked Metropolitan Stadium. The path from the batter's box to home plate said TWINS. I thought that was so cool. My brother and I still laugh about how Bob Casey would say "First base! Jim! Holt!". I guess my dad was watching the Yankees and we caught that. Rod Carew might have been my favorite player as a kid. I had Baseball Digest and Sports Illustrated and was a paper boy who devoured the box scores in the late 70s so I followed both him and George Brett. When Rodney went through all that BS with Cal Griffith and was traded I was actually sympathetic toward the Twins. Coincidentally, it also happened that my pony league team in 1979 was called the Twins. That was the year Roy Smalley kicked butt in the first half. I read in Baseball Digest that he went on a Nautilus program durig the off season and right at about that time a gym opened in my town. It had racquetball courts and weights and that was when I started with weights. Because of Roy Smalley. Fast forward to the two WS runs: We played STL and ATL. As a Mets fan I could not stand those two teams since we had so much trouble with them. I was into the Twins BIG TIME during those WS runs, but I did not have the wherewithal to follow them during the season. The baseball strike KILLED baseball for me. At that time in my life I was searching for stability, barely getting by and probably doing things I should not have been doing. I turned away from baseball and focused my energy on the NHL. I went to about 10 Ranger games (the train ride to the city with friends was part of the allure), but I also went to several Hartford Whaler games (listen to Brass Bonanza and tell me if that isn't the best fight song in sports). I guess I got into baseball again when the Mets got Mike Piazza. Even so, I was not really over the top. By that time I was starting my teaching career and I discovered my dad had cancer. The summer of 2000 was the summer where I took care of my dad. He had inoperable brain cancer. He wanted to watch the Yankees whenever he could and I would watch with him. We went from golfing together in early June (I knew something was not right) to him being diagnosed with glio blastoma in early July. Being a teacher I was off during the summer and I took care of my dad. My parents live only 15 minutes away so I was there literally twice a day. So I got back into baseball that summer and I got into the Twins thanks to the internet. By the summer of that 2000 season I was posting daily on the ESPN message board and conversing with a guy known as "Rocketpig" and that whole thing was a nice respite from the terrible feeling I had knowing I was losing my dad just after his 60th birthday. If ever a guy got screwed it was him. He grew up in terrible conditions in the Bronx in a family of 10. He worked all his life and was set to retire early....I am still mad about that today. He was the one who fostered my love of baseball. My dad died that November and I think his death and that summer of watching baseball with him made me the fan I was before the strike. I also reasoned that the Twins were the team with the lowest payroll and I could follow them. This is when I started going to Yankee Stadium to see the Twins play. I also used gameday to follow them and if they played in Cleveland or Toronto at night I could get the games very clearly on my car radio (not sure why I can barely get Boston and get Cleveland so clearly). I moved in September of that year to be closer to my school and as it turned out the condo I bought was next to a sports bar that had satellite coverage of lots of games. A guy named Dennis who worked there was a Twins fan and I went there to watch the final games of the season. By 2002, I was an everyday watcher thanks to MLB. That was one heck of a season, but in 2003 I purchased a flat screen to go along with my MLB package. I had accumulated a bunch of Twins apparel and honestly I have been a fanatic for this team since the end of the 2000 season.

Do you know the guys in the Guess Who?

I try not to play the "what if" game anymore. Especially since we won 101 games. I think saying "what if Buxton didn't get injured" at this point sort of ignores reality. He gets injured and it is awfully hard to lament that fact because he can control it if he chose to. There is another thing about Buxton and anyone who reads this can take it or leave it: https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_stats.cgi?full=1&params=oppon%7CNYY%7Cbuxtoby01%7Cbat%7CAB%7C I find it hard to believe he would have had an impact in the Yankees series. Not if he is going to continue to hit like a pitcher against them. The Pineda situation was a bummer, but the Yankees lost Domingo German. As far as pitching is concerned we were terrible in that series aside from game 3 where Odorizzi pitched OK. Marcus Stroman was not that great with the Mets, to be honest about it. He had a 1.475 WHIP with them. Had he given us that he would not have given us much. I get that winter is in swing now and hot stove talk is in full gear. I don't want to discourage any of it, but we were not hit with bad breaks. The Yankees suffered a ridiculous amount of injuries and persevered. Our team did not persevere in the post season. I am wondering WHAT IF we actually won a round in the playoffs (maybe two) and made some noise? That is the WHAT IF I wonder and I think had we done that we would be in a better position in the free agent market. Going three and out in the playoffs at a record pace does nothing to make the Twins a more attractive destination. It was a thoroughly disappointing season because of the ending. I choose not to blame that on things beyond our control. Not when we were non competitive.Sorry

To assume each game should have been/could have been played flawlessly is futile. The Yankees made errors too and we didn’t capitalize on them at all. Even if we played flawless defense we wouldn’t have had much a chance with the way we hit and how our starters pitched.

I’m in Florida now and flying into Albany early tomorrow morning. When I get home I will add my story since I’m not a Minnesotan. Been in upstate NY all my 53 years so it’s not common for someone in my region to be a Twins fan

Excellent read. I wish I had more than a phone right now.

If a starting pitcher gets outs and goes seven and your offense hits three home runs you are safe. How many web gems can an upgrade in the field give you over what they’ve replaced? Maybe 10 in a year tops? If that defensive upgrade isn’t a very good hitter and what he’s replacing is then it’s actually probably a downgrade overall. We are chasing our tails here

It is about opportunities to impact a game. The vast majority of plays made in baseball are considered routine for a major league player. If you put an above average fielder in the field over an average to slightly below average fielder how many opportunities will the above average fielder have to make an impact? We know he will get four at bats and if he can’t hit a lick what do we get from it? The hope that he can save a run isn’t anything that can be controlled. The number of at bats he gets can be. Houston and Washington got as far as they did for two main reasons: deep lineups and stellar starting pitching. I we are going to be honest it wasn’t because they “caught the ball” Guys like Hawk Harrelson and Gardy subscribe to that dated theory. Sure, it helps, but to make an analogy defense in baseball is like special teams in football. Offense is offense and pitching in baseball is like defense in football. Whether that analogy works for you doesn’t matter to me. The main point is defense in baseball has nowhere near the importance of pitching or having offensive depth. And let’s not kid ourselves here. Defense was not why we lost in the playoffs. Above all, it was because we scored 7 runs in three games and because our starting pitching was mediocre. I honestly don’t want to hear about the defense. It had virtually no impact in any of the three and outs we have had. It was mostly because we haven’t hit worth a damn in the postseason. Look it up if you don’t remember. We have scored on average less than three runs a game in the postseason and it’s not because the opponent’s defense took hits away from us

Break it down for me.

If I were allowed to field a team of the best offensive players by position and you were allowed to field the best defensive players by position and we had equal pitching staffs and we played 162 head to head games I guarantee my team would crush yours. I am not saying defense doesn’t matter. I’m saying it doesn’t matter nearly as much as you seem to believe. Pitching and offense is far and away the biggest aspects of the game with defense in third place. Could you imagine taking a team of the best players all time offensively by position against the best defensively by position? You can pick Ozzie Smith first and I’ll take Babe Ruth. Who made the better pick? Honestly, I think people who want to act like scholars or connoisseurs lean heavily on the defense argument because it is a nuanced position that requires and enlists arcane metrics. You did a mic drop with DER being the determining factor in who wins championships? You don’t think Houston and Washington didn’t get there because they both had deep lineups and maybe the best starters in the games? It was there defensive efficiency. Let’s be clear about this. The Twins were swept by the Yankees because we scored seven runs in three games and our pitching was exposed against their deep offense. It wasn’t because we couldn’t make 2 or 3 extra web gems.

I have to agree. Defense did not hinder us that much last year and the real reason why we have been terrible in the playoffs is that this team clenches up so horribly they can’t hit. Lots of talk about improving defense this winter but in each case it eels like we are chasing our tail. It’s nice to have good defenders all over the field but let’s not pretend defense makes a bigger impact than offense at the ML level

Pretty much my reaction when I saw this thread

He has good discipline and he’s durable. He and Arraez are guys I am not worried about