Respy

I'll note that Severino is coming back soon.

Thanks for this article. I also collected when I was a kid. I have some time away from it while in college and grad school, and now I'm starting to look back into my collection. The best thing now, is the ability to go on Ebay and buy the exact cards you want at reasonable prices. There's no chance of that lotto pull, but no wasted money and no common cards to get rid of later. It's also great for building a collection (I'm trying to collect every pre-2000 Kirby Puckett card). Hobby shops are still great and I hope they stick around! And as you said, hobby packs offer special inserts and sometimes better odds, which makes them usually better to buy than the retail packs/boxes. Always read the label first to see what's possible in those packs!

Is Odorizzi returning for tomorrow's game? I predict the Twins take 1 and the Indians take 2. Should be a fun series. Let the nail-biting commence.

I think he would cost an arm and a leg, and probably another arm and another leg.

Another bit of evidence that the baseball is 'juiced.' What I'd really like to see, though, is a use of stats and tracking data which plot exit velocity and launch angle versus distance traveled, for the old balls versus the new balls. I'd be shocked if nobody has done this yet, but I haven't seen any plots like this. I tend to believe that we'll see a higher distance traveled from the new balls, but the paradigm shift in batting approach the last few years makes it really hard to judge from just the league batting statistics and total homeruns.

Really glad Berrios had the comfort of a lead to work through that jam while his pitch count was still below 90. Closer game and that becomes a tougher call for Rocco.

I agree with many other posters above about generally trusting Rocco, and probably leaving Byron alone for now in the 9th spot. One bit of information I'll add, that has not been mentioned, is that due to the current lineup construction, and the fact that Byron is a right-handed hitter, the Twins cannot simply move him up to any spot. To preserve the R-L-R alternating in the batting order (a batting order that I would NOT be messing with right now), Buxton would have to move up to 7th (for Schoop) or 5th (for Cron). Buxton should probably not be hitting ahead of Schoop or Cron. I think an injury to one of our starters is the only way Buxton gets moved up in the order.

Gio has never had great control, now his FB velocity has dropped below 90. I just don't see any value here IMO.

The first week at A level he hit .686 OPS with no HR's. Yes, clearly he's ready now after a good week at AAA. I think if he actually wasn't injured, his agent would be having a fit and we'd know about it. Apparently MLBPA said they were closely monitoring Vlad, and that was before the injury.

I think the Blue Jays were planning on keeping him down the first few weeks of the season, to which I would have cried manipulation. But Guerrero legitimately had an oblique strain (granted, only a Grade 1) which happened on March 8th. So in the team's defense, MLB's Health and Injury Tracking System study suggests that 27 days is normal for a grade 1 oblique strain. Add a week or two for rehab stints, maybe an extra week since it's the beginning of the season and he might be extra rusty, and that brings us to today. He'll be called up within the next week.

I generally believe that the error here is complicated, but if we have enough evidence that robocalls are more accurate than real umpires, let's use the robocalls. Several people have already asked what the real error of umpires and the real error of statcast is. Again, that's complicated. If we claim that umpires have 10% error, that's in reference to what? What's determining with close to 100% accuracy whether pitches actually are balls or strikes? Are we determining that 10% error using PitchFX data? Well, what if the PitchFX has 10% error? What's determining that PitchFX has 10% error? "One-inch accuracy" for PitchFX is nice, but that likely means that it's 99% accurate outside of 1-inch (I'm just speculating), and much less accurate at less than 1 inch. As other have stated, even using the best technology, a pitch that is 1/16 inch outside the strike zone is going to be a coin flip.

4-1 record aside, Rocco is doing a lot with the lineups, in-game decisions, and bullpen management that look good to me so far. I haven't scratched my head much yet. This is the first time I've felt comfortable with the manager in many, many years.

Twins MVP: Jose Berrios Twins Pitcher of the Year: Jose Berrios Most Improved Twin: Max Kepler Twins Top Rookie: Nick Gordon Twins HR Leader: Nelson Cruz Twins RBI Leader: Nelson Cruz Twins Batting Average Leader: Jorge Polanco Twins On-Base Percentage Leader: Max Kepler Twins ERA title: Jose Berrios Twins Wins Leader: Jose Berrios Twins Saves Leader: Blake Parker Twins in the All-Star Game: Jose Berrios, Max Kepler Twins Win Total: 84 Twins Finish in AL Central: 2nd Twins Total Home Runs: 214.

I'm no doctor (well, technically I have a doctor of philosophy...) I'm no medical doctor, but Google tells me that a debridement procedure means vaguely to remove contaminated tissue from a wound to promote better healing.

Apparently he had a 'debridement procedure' at Mayo, according to the Trib. Thus, the extra recovery time.