nicksaviking

Joe Mauer only knew one way to hit, and he refused to change it even after teams started pitching and fielding to stop him. I actually think he'd make a really poor hitting coach. Can't have a whole team of singles hitters.

Other than saying, 'Well he coached player X and HE turned out pretty good', I don't have the faintest idea how you evaluate a hitting coach without being able to drill down into the minutia about mechanics and plate approaches. I will say, as much as I'd love Nelson Cruz to be around the club again, I'm always skeptical about hitting or pitching coaches that were all time greats. You can't teach a skill that you were singularly blessed with. Michael Jordan can't teach you how to dunk from the free throw line, Bob Dylan can't teach you to write lyrics like him and Freddie Mercury can't teach you how to hit his high notes.

That's why I was wondering if it's out of the question to sub in a better run blocker for just those situations. Even if it's a tackle or a guard. No team seems to do that, but outside of practicing the snap, I'm not sure why.

I think I can solve their budget problem. I count 41 members of the 'Ticket Sales and Service' team and another seven under 'Ticket Operations'. Those departments probably only need like one employee next season.

I haven't heard either of those things. Just that they put together a more functional group of people who can use analytical data than they used to. And even if they did, Baldelli isn't going to memorize 100 points of data every game. Like I said, most he's going to do is take the surface level info.

What cuss word were these ellipsis replacing?

Agree, that Baldelli isn't really using analytics. His decisions may be from a data set, but that data set clearly doesn't ever update and it clearly isn't a deep dive into individual at bats, matchups or situations. Young lefties bat X against left handed pitchers. Pinch runners are X amount more likely to score than the better hitter they are replacing. Young pitchers perform X against hitters the third time through the order. Manny Margot is a capable pinch hitter. If he's managing via computer these are all surface level evaluations and they are clearly not accounting for current data (if it did, it would say Manny Margot should never pinch hit some time around June). And he's clearly not analyzing if maybe Matt Wallner SHOULD stay in and hit with X amount of outs, against this particular pitcher, in this particular inning, in this particular stadium, in this particular month, etc, etc.

No, I think the premise of the article was that ownership lacks long term vision and can't/won't/isn't capable of forecasting outside of 12 months. Which means it's poorly run.

I'm not arguing about what the payroll will be or who will be on it. I'm arguing against the idea that the BAM money had anything to do with it, because if that was the reason for the bump, and it was supposed to be a one time deal, they wouldn't have given out those other long term deals. I'll be honest, I'm stewing right now after listening to this podcast: https://www.skornorth.com/episode/minnesota-twins-are-tone-deaf-addressing-their-2024-season-collapse/ As provided by another one of our posters: I was in the minority, I LIKDED Jim Pohlad, at least as far as owners go. I thought he was the best this organization ever had so I did not like Joe Pohlad getting the gig. I had no clue about Joe's business background, which is frightening to say the least. The family gave him a 28M radio station to run and then they had to turn around and sell it for 2M a couple years later? He was given ANOTHER radio station to run and they had to sell it for ***$1*** soon after? Jim Pohlad says that his door is open and he's willing and able to help and give advice to Joe but Joe has never once reached out to him? This all sounds like a kid given $500 and a Robinhood account to play penny stocks. This is troubling and embarrassing, but mostly just troubling. The swift change in philosophy seems much less likely to be due to unforeseen financial changes (TV money? BAM money? how could these things be unforeseen?!?) than it does due to someone wholly unqualified to running the show.

Maybe because most of the other teams didn't also reduce their payroll by 30M due to the BAM money that was a one time earning? If that was a consideration, why would they have given the front office the green light to sign Correa, Buxton and Lopez to MULTI year deals? Wouldn't they instead have said, 'This is a one time situation, go ahead and sign one one guy to a 1 year 30M deal'?

Not Joe, they gave him the team to run because he didn't like banking. He likes running media companies into the ground instead.

Right, they go from 'We're trying to make a run, go ahead and sign Correa, Buxton and Lopez' to 'My unqualified nephew wants to run things now and he's going to cut payroll, what we told you to do last year isn't going to impact the club will it?'

Those 1990's teams weren't good, but the Royals and Tigers don't look very good either. We see not-good teams pop and overachieve all the time. But in either case, yeah, regardless whether one views him as a failure or it's just a natural time to move on, it works out to the same. Time for a change.

That is frightening. Both radio deals and the comments from Jim Pohlad that his door is always open to lend Joe a hand, but Joe has not once come to his uncle for advice. Well, if Joe runs into the ground all of the families businesses that they recklessly hand over to him, maybe they will be forced to sell the team in short order after all. Not that that means we'd get a GOOD owner, odds are that a new owner would also be terrible.

And I don't have any particular animosity towards Baldelli, but we've seen what happens when things get stale. It took Tom Kelly NINE years to pull the team out a tailspin in 2021 and he was given the grace to retire. As much as everyone loved TK, that was wildly irresponsible. Gardenhire got four years before making a change. I don't want four years. I don't want two years. If you can identify when things are dragging on the bottom, pull the plug and try again even if it's just to shake things up.

You as a fan are not allowed to approximate to fit your narrative. Joe Pohald on the other hand is free to do so with every word he speaks. https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/minnesota-twins/minnesota-twins-news/aaron-gleeman-grills-joe-pohlad-interview-2024/ https://www.skornorth.com/episode/minnesota-twins-are-tone-deaf-addressing-their-2024-season-collapse/

It's just too tough to gauge in this sport. It's not like football where you can say, wow, that guy really knows how to run an offense or defense or college team, he'd make a good NFL head coach. Unless you think the team can call out of retirement and dust the cobwebs off of some former WS champ like Francona, Maddon or Baker, you're probably just going back to taking another stab at someone untested and/or unknown. Which, I'm completely willing to do, but it's not like any of us would have more than a hunch, best we can ask for is to give it a shot with Hypothetical Manager X.

For sure, if he's the one dragging his feet about those changes. keeping them is on him. We'll see about Levine, I suspect he's gone, whether he's a scapegoat or deserved (probably both). Paying a second manager is likely a Joe Pohald thing, because in these situations the manager is almost always the scapegoat. Not that we'll ever know.

Things are looking pretty dang good, but the one thing that is bothering me is that this team doesn't seem capable of running a full allotment of short yardage plays specifically running up the middle. There's probably some stats that I don't know how to find, but based on the game logs, it appears in the first two games of the season I count three times the Vikings were either 3rd or 4th and less than two yards where they ran it up the middle and succeeded. However, in the last two games, they've found themselves in 3rd or 4th and short nine times and they've dropped back to pass six of those times and tried to run off tackle or stretch it out three times. Questions about the run blocking skills of the interior O-Line is nothing new. Is it completely out of the question to stick someone like Quesenberry or whomever is a better run blocking reserve lineman in at center in these situations? I know you'd have to practice the snap, but if running behind Bradbury for a must-get yard isn't possible, you know that that is exactly what's going to happen when the season is on the line in the playoffs.

I'm not above public shaming. Maybe I should be, but for billionaires? No, I'm good with it. Especially if it casts a negative aura on their numerous other investments that they care more about.

Three hits for the Mets in game two. Did they pop and then drink the champagne between games?

Max Kepler was brutal against lefties through 2017. The last couple years he was the only lefty who got to face same handed pitching because he got to work it out in those early years. Even if everyone is ready to give up on Julien, Kiersey and Kirilloff, not giving Wallner and Larnach the chance to learn that skill, particularly in a lost season, could come back to haunt them.

I'm definitely not covering for him and I'm not claiming he's improved anything. I'm not even saying they should keep him. Just that he seems interested in changing what didn't work in prior seasons. Like in 2023 when the team swung for the fences but led the league in strikeouts. This year they did neither. Not really an upgrade, but a clear attempt to change things. Which is better than doing the same thing that fails over and over again. From what I can tell, Levine still loves the zero ceiling player acquisitions and Baldelli has managed the team the same way he has since he got here.

And the non-hip drop tackle that should have resulted in 15 yards instead of setting up the next play for Darnold to get crushed and fumble.

It's insane, it's so far inland, but I guess flood waters can move a long way. It's been at the top of my places to visit for a long time. Wishing them all well.