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bighat

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Everything posted by bighat

  1. bighat
    Great write up @Thiéres Rabelo. Weird, we hear so much about all of our pitching prospects: Woods Richardson, Prielipp.....remember Jordan Balazovic? Then some guy we've never heard of comes up and has a very solid debut in Fenway Park. Huh. Good on him. Nice to see the bats wake up, really loved watching the highlights, can't beat homers from Larnach, Eddie J, and Gallo. Gotta mention they were going against Corey Kluber, who's "bien cocido". I don't see how that guy's going to stick with Boston. Red Sox are 0-4 in Kluber's four starts, losing 10-9, 4-1, 9-3 and 10-4. Tanner Houck pitches today for the BoSox and has also been hittable.
  2. bighat
    Agreed. Say what you will about the pitching, this team is NOT fun to watch. Aside from that 1st inning in New York last week, it's been complete torture watching this offense. And who's gonna save 'em? Gallo? Polanco? Kirilloff? Yeah they better figure this out. You'd have thought going against a pitcher coming in with a 16+ ERA would have been just the right medicine, but they couldn't even make contact against him. Same with Grienke when they faced him on opening day. Abysmal.
  3. bighat
    The good part about fan-run sites is that we don't have to pretend there was anything positive about this. The Twins got absolutely dominated by a washed-up old pitcher who carried a 16.48 ERA entering the game. Sale had been lit up all year before this. Over the past 2 games, the Twins have started the game 0-12 with 11 K's in the first 2 innings. Buxton struck out 10 straight times before grounding out weakly to 3rd base in his second AB last night. We don't have to pretend this is a good team that's just experiencing some bad luck. Everything about these hitting statistics tells you that this offense is the worst in the league. There's no reason to expect better - at this point guys like Michael A Taylor and Solano are carrying the team on offense. Nobody's hitting, especially if they somehow manage to get men on base. The pitching has been off the charts awesome. The opponent's bats are catching up, though, and it's more likely the team ERA ends up towards the middle of the pack. What then? Folks, last night was bad baseball by what appears to be a bad baseball team. At this point it appears the Twins' only hope is that Jorge Polanco and Alex Kirilloff come back from major injuries/surgery and start carrying the offense. Does anyone realistically see that happening? The worst part: it's absolutely excruciating to watch. This type of swing-and-miss offense is exactly what MLB's been trying to fix with all the rule changes, and just about every team's offense is improved. The fact that the Twins have yet to see any improvement is a bad sign. It's early, but hard to believe this team is going to improve on last year.
  4. bighat
    Nice "W" - am I getting too greedy to think that the Twins could possibly take 3-of-4 in Yankee Stadium? A win Saturday would be monumental, Twins are going against a very hittable Domingo German, who has a 5.87 ERA over two starts so far. Can't say anything more about Varland that hasn't already been said. Correa starting to come around. Nice.
  5. bighat
    He hit a rocket off IKF in the 9th, was sad that didn't fall for him. 0-for-5 for Nick. He came around last year, but it did take a while if I recall correctly.
  6. bighat
    Most enjoyable game this season by a long shot. Would like to see if Julien can stick around. Maybe the kid can learn to play outfield? He should at least get a couple weeks before Farmer gets back. Great game for Ryan. Vazquez filled up the stat sheet. Miranda a couple much-needed hits. And Michael A. Taylor might need to be moved up in the order! Really nice to see the offense clicking early,
  7. bighat
    Glad they got the win. Happy the Twins are pitching well. At this point they've got to be the most boring team in baseball to watch, and with this offense they aren't going anywhere. Just wait until they go into New York against Cole, I'm guessing it's even money on whether or not they'll get no-hit. This lineup wasn't hitting WITH its big names, and now the big names are already hurt one week into the season (which I must say is very on-brand, the Buxton collision today was just chef's kiss straight-out-of-central-casting). Is there any hope for an offensive spark? Are we waiting for Royce Lewis to come and save this team? Polanco? Kepler? Gallo? 'Cause that's all we got last time I checked. Honestly I'd rather watch the Twins score 6 runs per game and go 60-102 as opposed to watch whatever this is and see them go 70-92. I know as fans we're supposed to be hopeful and cheerful....but sometimes I feel like I'm not watching the same games as some of you. Is nobody else seeing how limp this offense looks, regardless of who's in the lineup? Is the 8-4 record enough to keep everyone else from being dreadfully concerned? Because I am pretty sure we're watching what might be the worst offense in baseball when the season's all said and done.
  8. bighat
    Brutal for TX. Yeowch.
  9. bighat
    Thanks for the great writeup. I'd love to see him stick, I think it's pretty clear the Twins need offense and I hope they turn him loose and let him play. Starting around 2015, the Twins saw Byron Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco and Arraez all come up from the farm to solidify a core of a rather successful squad for years. Alas, we haven't seen the same stability with our more recent prospects. With Wallner, Kirilloff and Larnach, I think we can all admit that things haven't gone as we'd hoped. It's still unclear to see whether or not they will be core members of successful Twins teams in the future. Injuries are certainly a big factor. Even our prized gem, Royce Lewis - who looks every bit as good as advertised - has been bitten by the injury bug. The Twins are due for some lightning in a bottle. Let's hope Julien starts a prospect resurrection at Target Field, starting today!
  10. bighat
    Great effort by Lopez, too bad he didn't get the win. Speaking of winning - it's great to see the Twins finishing with a "W",,,but so far, it doesn't seem like much has changed from last year. The Twins scored a couple early runs, but the bats went cold and they were held scoreless for 7 straight innings.. They win on a defensive miscue. This was the formula for April & May of '22. Don't get me wrong, being 7-4 is nothing to sneeze at. But I'm feeling pretty queasy when it comes to this team's offensive abilities. We need more. On the bright side, maybe the news that Edouard Julien getting called up will help put a spark in the offense!
  11. bighat
    For Twins fans who wonder when the new, action-packed rules going to start taking effect - they're definitely having an impact: Texas scored 16 runs yesterday, the Baltimore-Boston game was 8-7 and included a 6-run comeback and a walk-off homer. San Diego and Colorado combined for 12 runs, and so did NYY-SF. Alas, us long-suffering Twins fans have been subjected to some textbook vanilla baseball in our 2 games thus far. The offense looked bad on Thursday and looked bad today. Yes, the Twins are winning. But they are still stuck with a sputtering, low-energy offense that slowly sunk this team last year. We'll likely see Jeffers, Farmer, Solano, and Willi Castro in the lineup today. It's also likely that Buxton could be rested. Get your blanket and pillows out folks, it's going to be a snooze-fest today (unless, of course, Pagan gets into the game).
  12. bighat
    Yeah, it was very frustrating to see the Twins leave the bases loaded early in the game. Zack Grienke is a great pitcher, but he's probably in his last year and is as hittable as anyone in the game right now. Outside of Buxton and Correa the lineup looks pretty feeble. Had the Twins lost this game 3-2, the LOB Boogeyman is all we'd be talking about. Thank goodness for Lopez, fingers crossed he stays healthy!
  13. bighat
    That's why they call it gambling! There's a huge thrill associated with betting on sports, First off, the possibility of winning is much higher than buying a powerball ticket or even a scratch off. Secondly, you get to feel really, really smart when you win a sports bet. Lottery tickets and scratch-offs are pure luck, but picking a sports winner makes the gambler feel like they've got some special skills. And some gamblers do! The rest of us are just shark bait. And we know it. But it's fun to swim with the sharks from time to time.
  14. bighat
    I don't see it happening unless there's a major injury at 1B. Which is totally possible - Miranda's already got a bum arm and if Kirilloff goes down, someone needs to keep it warm. White's last MLB season was in 2019 when he hit .208 and had an OPS of .612 in 240 ABs. The last few years he's been strictly an AAA guy, looks like at 32 years old he's just playing things out as organizational filler. I don't think he'll make the team, he might not even make the St. Paul roster. It goes without saying of course that most of us would trade places with him in a second. The guy's living the dream, and will gladly show up to the ballpark and suit up if there's a team that wants him.
  15. bighat
    Speaking of Bundy, I can't believe the guy's still unsigned. He went 8-8 with a 4.89 ERA last year, pitched 140 innings and was about as injury-free as pitchers come these days. Sure, he's not a strikeout pitcher but he improved between 2021 and 2022, and you'd think the guy should be someone's 5th starter going into '23.
  16. bighat
    Agreed, man. My problem with the ghost runner and all the other 'new rules' is that they're doing this to try and attract people who are NOT baseball fans. Adjusting and building the sport for humans who are NOT interested in the game....it just seems counter-intuitive. It would be like Cosmopolitan magazine changing their editorial content to attract 47-55 year-old male demographic: after six months of reading articles like "How to fix a screen door" and "What to expect at your colonoscopy appointment", the core audience would be leaving in droves! I'd rather baseball lean in to some of its traditions, including the stadium experience. Get an organist and throw out the noise-o-meters. Make going to a game affordable, the NBA and NFL can charge a boatload because there aren't that many games, you've gotta come in way, way, way lower. Make it so fans can go on a whim. At the same time, embrace technology that will streamline the game, like robot strike zones. For those watching at home, improve the viewing experience - maybe get a "skycam" type thing that they have in the NFL that hovers over the infield and another one for the outfield. Sure once a year a ball will hit one of 'em, but it would be extremely rare and the pros would outweigh the cons. Finally, start marketing your stars. For whatever reason, baseball hasn't been able to do this properly since the '80s. I see Mike Trout on a Subway advertisement and I'm betting most viewers have no clue who he is. Any advertisement featuring a major leaguer, the scenes come across as stiff and unlikeable. Good lord hire a marketing firm who can figure it out. Soccer has figured it out - a "boring", low-scoring sport that only features a couple big action moments per contest draws a full house at every professional game in most countries. We all know who Mbappe, Messi, Ronaldo, Maradona, and Pele are. It's just head-shaking to watch baseball - of all American sports - just completely fumble every opportunity to promote the game in a positive way. They announce changes and everyone's on the edge of their seat, but they just keep changing the wrong things and have really blown this whole "rebrand" in almost every possible way.
  17. bighat
    Frankly I think Gordon and Buxton have earned starting spots and the rest of the guys should compete for the 3rd OF spot in Spring Training.
  18. bighat
    Agreed. Kepler's value is about as low as its ever been, so trading him now just doesn't make any sense.
  19. bighat
    I know what you mean, and that's not being negative...'dems just the facts. His inability to hit the ball hard or pull the ball were very evident last year. By late summer, it was almost guaranteed that if Celestino made contact, it was going to be a little flare the other way. He definitely has some skills, but I'd say he a significant amount of time re-learning how to turn on a ball and make hard contact. He's still a valuable piece for this team, but there are adjustments that need to be made. "As-is", he's not really MLB caliber.
  20. bighat
    My first thought upon seeing the Smeltzer news was that he's a perfect example of an AAAA guy. Nice guy to have on a shuttle, especially in July if you're looking to get your aces a day off here and there. Smeltzer was the last surviving piece of the Brian Dozier trade (with Luke Raley and Kevin Forsyth both being long gone). The guy's carved out a nice career for himself. Well done indeed.
  21. bighat
    Be honest: who had Nick Gordon and Jose Miranda on their bingo cards as the meat & potatoes of the Twins lineup for the 2nd half of the '22 season? Give them credit, when everyone else went down and the team was spiraling, they went out there every day and gave it their all. Both have spent their entire careers within the organization and both are great examples of the talent the Twins can produce from the farm system. Seem like great people as well. Looking forward to seeing a lot of both of them in '23. Bold prediction: Gordon is going to grab that starting RF job in Spring Training.
  22. bighat
    We may be seeing a lot more of Taylor this year than anyone here is predicting. This is far more than an "emergency outfielder", he's immediately going to be a big part of the OF rotation. Think about it: Larnach gets off to a slow start or aggravates an injury in training camp and begins the year in AAA. Gallo goes into a deep slump. Buxton is relegated to DH 3 games per week, so we're seeing Taylor basically in a timeshare with Buxton out there, and he's giving Gordon a rest in left field once or twice a week as well. Bold prediction: Taylor gets 400 AB this year in a Twins uniform.
  23. bighat
    Yeah I hear you, it's just that he wasn't lighting the world on fire before COVID either. Compare him to Noah Miller - both high school infielders, but coming out of the gate they've performed much differently. That said, maybe you're right. With the promotion to Cedar Rapids this year and a chance to make AA, 2023 is probably going to be a major lynchpin in Cavaco's career.
  24. bighat
    What are the odds Cavaco ever puts on an MLB jersey? He was one of those really young guys we were told to "be patient" on, but he's been in the system for 5 years now and has been pretty much below average the whole time. Kind of a sad story, really. Will be very interesting to see how Petty turns out. Hard to tell at this point, I don't really have a guess either way. Lee is the most exciting 1st round pick since Royce Lewis. Speaking of Lewis, if I had to bet on any of them having a great career, he's the one I'd take. Can't wait to see him at Target Field in June. Fingers crossed.
  25. bighat
    I know WHY they do it, but it produces horrible results for the real fans of the game. It's an embarrassment at best and a dumpster fire at worst. I'm telling you, there will come a day when MLB will be letting fans choose "fastball" or "curveball" for each pitch, via TikTok LIVE voting during playoff games.
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