bighat

Eovaldi looking good. Twins swingin' and missin'! Edit: Except for La Tortuga. Nice!

Yeah I know what you mean. Remember San Diego and Philly last year - two huge signings of Machado and Harper, plenty of hype surrounding both teams (especially Philly). Let's not forget how the Indians were also an across-the-board AL Central winner in just about every prediction model out there before 2019. I've ran through the scenario in my mind. The Twins stumble, start 3-8 or something, and it turns out Cruz needs surgery and Donaldson's in an 0-24 slump. Guys start pushing. Sano and Buxton go into one of their infamous black holes at the plate. The league figures out how to pitch to Arraez, and Kepler's regressing. All of a sudden Astudillo and Adrianza are starting every game and LaMont Wade's playing in the OF every day for some reason. The White Sox are hot, a year ahead of schedule. The Indians are back. Here come the headlines: "Donaldson Unhappy in Minnesota", "Pineda needs surgery", "Twins baseball player arrested for playing Scrabble in a Cub Foods Parking Lot" and the house of cards just falls into shambles.... Then I wake up and realize it was all a bad dream....at least for now. I think this team will be good, but I also think it's very important to get off to a very good start and not play catch-up for too long in April.

I think Kiermeir and Bradley often get to the wall more quickly, so they can time their jump and/or prepare for impact. Or, it's possible that Kiermeir and Bradley aren't as fast as Buxton, and thus aren't in a position to even make an attempt on those balls. Who knows! I think we're all scratching our heads!

"He's still young" - well, by baseball standards I don't think that's true any longer. I think Twins fans are the only people that still think of Bux this way, and frankly it seems a bit naive, kinda like how little kids notice a limp on the aging family dog and say "Buster's still young, he's got plenty of good years in him, right Dad?" Francisco Lindor. Correa. Bellinger, Acuna, Bregman, Soto, Shane Beiber, Jack Flaherty, Gleybar Torres, Shohei Ohtani....Jose Berrios....these are just a handful of players younger than Buxton, but one could keep going all day. You get the idea. Can Buxton still become a force in MLB? Absolutely. Can he finally have that breakout season we've been waiting for since 2012? Definitely. Do I want him to succeed more than anything? YES! Will I be drafting him as a "sleeper pick" way too early in my fantasy baseball draft? Obviously! Let's agree to stop pretending he's just a kid. He's got a decent amount of MLB experience under his belt, and believe it or not I think he's going to end up providing good veteran leadership for guys like Lewis before it's all said and done.

Berrios: 14-8 with a 3.60 ERA and 200 strikeouts. All-Star. Odorizzi: 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA and 180 strikeouts. All-Star. Both of those lines would be clear frontline ace numbers for at least 70% of the teams in the league. Remember Zack Wheeler, that pitcher we talked about all winter? The "ace" we needed to add? His stats: 11-8, 3.96 ERA, 200 strikeouts. Berrios won more games, pitched more innings, and had a better ERA than him. Remember when the Twins used to go into the year with guys like Kevin Correia as their #1 starter? Gee whiz. I know it doesn't hurt to hope for improvement, but let's give Berrios and Odo a little credit here.

I went to the game. It was cold, and while some were under-dressed, many people were well aware of the "chilly weather" and wore appropriate attire. The gophers were extremely overmatched. What I thought was most interesting was that many Twins players were the same age as the Gopher players....the gap between AA baseball and college baseball is very, very large. I think all the fans in attendance loved it. Goldie Gopher was there, tons of maroon and gold, and it must have been really fun for the Gopher players to get that kind of experience. Can you imagine telling your grandkids that you pitched to Hall of Famer Royce Lewis? The only real problem with this game was that it was a night game. Without question it should have been planned for the daytime, just in case of cold weather.

Weil looked good in the game vs. U of M that I saw him play, and he hit a HR today against the Jays. Nice start for Zander!

I think I'll be in the area Sunday, but as of now I don't have plans to attend the game! I'll be driving to spend a few days up in Tampa by Monday night.... You going Sunday?

Just got back to the hotel from the game. Couple thoughts: Royce Lewis is not a small man. I kinda pictured him to be a skinny string-bean, but he's a big dude. He looked great, although so did everyone against the very over-matched gophers. Rooker should be fine, but he really had a scare there on that bean-ball. Rocco was out along with the trainers, and Rooker got up and walked off with seemingly no issues. Saw Sano, Arraez, Polanco, and Adrianza up on the dugout wall cheering on the Twins during the early innings. They were up on the rail and joking around, having a great time. Nice to see those guys supporting the prospects! Did not see Donaldson, Cruz, Kepler, Buxton, Garver, or any other Twins of note in the dugout. It was cold. Freezing, in fact! It's been absolutely perfect all week, but today's been very chilly and it was unfortunate to have the ballgame this evening. Overall it was an awesome experience. Great to see and hear baseball in such an intimate setting. I was a couple rows behind the Twins dugout and you could clearly hear just about everything, it was awesome. I have some pix I'll post if my hotel's crappy internet improves, but I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow when I switch condos.

No.

Love these little tidbits, thanks for the article!

I can't imagine batting our All-Star shortstop 8th? And our 32 HR, 108 RBI guy 7th? Then again....looking at the alternatives, it might just happen. Rocco's going to have a tough decision here, but it should be fun for him.

If we get the guy who played for the A's last year after the trade deadline, it's a steal. What we DONT need are Perez and Gibson clones: slow workers who get demolished more often than not. What we need is a few guys like Bailey who can pitch 6 innings, give up 3 runs, and keep the team in the ballgame on a regular basis. Sounds like a cool guy, I'm looking forward to seeing him pitch in a Twins uniform.

Buenas! Soy gringo originalmente de Minnesota pero estoy viviendo en Guatemala - por casi 6 anyos, fijate! Bienvenido a la familia Twins.

Ballplayers that play full speed 100% of the time are often called "gritty", and they "hustle" and the "play the game the right way". Buxton plays full speed 100% of the time and he's seen in a much different light - by some Twins fans, no less. Troubling. I think we all know what we have in Buxton at this point. An elite defender in the outfield and a streaky hitter who might hit .258, 20 HR, and steal 30-40 bases if he played a full season. I'd argue that as Buxton gets older and slower, he might become a more effective player. Once his speed starts to dip he'll start playing those balls off the wall, thus saving himself injuries he's have suffered in the past. We can't change Byron Buxton. He's "Johnny Hustle" out there and he's always going to be that way. Sit back and just enjoy watching the guy do what he does while he's in a Twins uniform.

I lived in Minneapolis my first 18 years of life. Many more years have passed living outside of MSP since then. Never once questioned handing in my Twins Fan card. Living in Guatemala, we're on Mountain Time during baseball season. Love the early starts, it's perfect to watch a game between 6-9pm! Keep doing your thing, thanks for sharing!

I dunno. Cruz and his reckless afternoon naps could bring on a mutiny in the locker room!

The Twins are stretching out their 21 year-old Canadian right hander in AA this season....bold move indeed. Meanwhile, the Braves were letting their 21 year-old Canadian right hander pitch in the majors for the 2nd straight year in 2019. He went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA and made the All-Star team. I love the team the Twins have on the field in 2020. But someone needs to tell this team that nobody cares about Pensacola winning a league title. When you find an elite player like Balazovic, have the cajones to get the guy up to the bigs and stop wasting his arm down on the farm.

Trevor May has honestly had ONE nice season in Minnesota. Just one! And I, along with every other Twins fan, is thrilled at his new found success. That said, before last year his career ERA was over 5.00. I know he's good now, I like him in our bullpen, and he's also a cool guy who plays video games....still, I've never understood why he's been treated like the next coming of Roger Clemens with Twins fans. Again, I like the kid too and I hope the Twins can keep him, but I think there will be other middle relievers to sign if the Twins lose him. I'd be much more concerned about losing Cruz and the 35+ HR he'll be good for in 2021. Homers like that don't grow on trees. Would like to see the Twins extend the guy in Spring Training for an extra year.

The NFL doesn't have a competitive balance issue - all teams have the same $$$. And yet, some teams (Detroit, Cleveland, and yes our very own Minnesota Vikings) can go 60 years without winning a championship. Baseball is declining now. Okay. Maybe we just say "so what?" and have faith that it'll come back in a cyclical fashion. Nobody was watching the NBA until Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson showed up....and then, after those guys left, the league stumbled. But it's come back, thanks to LeBron. MLB has a guy in Mike Trout that - for some reason - nobody sees and nobody knows about. Maybe baseball needs to just start doing a better job of promoting their superstars. The first step would be acknowledging that the Yankees and Red Sox are NOT the only teams out there. Honestly if you're sports fan living in Kentucky, and you watch ESPN every day....you might not know the Minnesota Twins exist.

Smart move by Marwin to just get out there and apologize and now he can move on and focus on 2020. Which is what we all want him to do....right? I for one am all for punishing the Astros organization and stripping their World Series banner from the rafters. But, as others have said, there's no way you can just suspend 20+ major leaguers without hurting their CURRENT teams (aka the Twins) who had nothing to do with these shenanigans.

It's a cool fantasy, but unfortunately it would never work. In your scenario, where do the "relegated" teams go? And where do the newly promoted teams come from? I love the English Premier League and their relegation system. That said, all of their teams in every one of their leagues are separate, professional teams. It's not like Chelsea has a minor league team playing down in League One, feeding them players...when a team gets promoted, they are doing so as a completely independent entity. What you're proposing is essentially dissolving the minor leagues, and then setting up a system where the Can-Am League, American Association, Atlantic League and Frontier League make up various rungs of the ladder instead. It would be a monumental task that would most certainly be immediately snuffed by the MLB player's union before it even got to the table. Would it be cool? Sure. Is it possible? Check back in 100 years.

I've always thought the slow pace of baseball mirrors the overall theme - that this is a sport that creates fans for a lifetime. Fans of every team are expected to endure "dark times" and "down years" that can last for many seasons. Fans can even enjoy those rebuilding years and use that time to focus on prospects. Remember when we'd read stories about Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano hanging out together down Ft. Myers and think "someday we're gonna be good"! Patience is rewarded, and it makes it all the more satisfying when your team starts to perform after a drought. That's part of the game, that's how baseball's always been in my lifetime. And it's not 100% about winning or losing - it's about killing time listening on the back porch after you get done mowing the lawn, fishing, or just having a game on in the background late on a Thursday night when the team's on the West Coast. This proposal is another example of how baseball is trying to get away from being "America's Pastime" and trying to become "America's XTREME Fever Factory". We've got obnoxious dubstep being blasted in the stadium between pitches. We've got players wearing buzzers and using iPhones to cheat. The commissioner is now advocating some kind of free-for-all bloodbath playoff rule. For me, the details of this proposal don't have me clutching my pearls. But I do think it's going in the wrong direction. When I see rule suggestions like this, I know it's not the end, but just the beginning of what will eventually make the sport unrecognizable. And yes, I know there are problems. Fans don't show up in Miami and St. Pete. But that should be Miami's problem, and St. Pete's problem. Don't change the sport because a couple of franchises screwed up. Address their problems individually.

I hate the idea. I'm still of the opinion that letting the fans vote for the All-Star Game is terrible, but at least that's just an exhibition game. I'm telling you, if MLB has a huge downturn in viewership and they hire the wrong PR firm, we're going to see fans calling the pitches using an app in 10 years.

I'm willing to take his first year's stats with a grain of salt. The numbers were ugly, but if MLB teams gave up on every 18 year-old who hit below .200 in the rookie league we'd have missed out on some good players in this league. This year I think fans (and more importantly the Twins brass) will be keeping a keen eye on this kid. I am guessing the Twins were just letting him do whatever came natural the first year, so they could see what they needed to change/re-work. No need to panic, not just yet.