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The thoughts from a rub in the middle of Twins Territory

Entries in this blog

Quick HItter: Postseason Roster Prediction

On Monday, I wrote a quick hitter on my 2019 Twins Daily Twins Awards. Now, I want to do a quick rundown of my postseason roster.   Catcher: Mitch Garver, Jason Castro   It'll be interesting to see how much they split time in the postseason. Both have been good this year but Garver has been better.   Infielders: CJ Cron, Luis Arraez, Jonathan Schoop, Jorge Polanco, Miguel Sano   With Rocco saying that Arraez is progressing better than expected, I think he'll make the roster. He may not play on F
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

2

Quick Hitter: My Twins Awards Ballot

Soon enough the 2019 Twins Daily Twins Awards will be published. I was excited to be part of the balloting process and wanted to release by ballot with quick explanations behind my decisions.   Rookie of Year: 1. Arraez 2. Littell 3. Harper   I'll be shocked if Arraez isn't the unanimous first place vote. Littell definitely made his case, especially late, but Arraez was the spark plug in one of the best offenses in The League. The fact that Ryne Harper, who actually did okay, got my 3rd place vo
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

5

The Early Returns from Michael Pineda

As the Twins get ready to finish up the four game series against the Blue Jays, Michael Pineda will take the mound for what will be his 4th start of the season. The early returns of his two-year contract have looked good so far as he was another cheap, low-risk signing by the Twins new management during the 2018 offseason. As we’ve seen how shaky our bullpen can be, much of the Twins success this year will rely on their starters and specifically could depend on what version of Pineda they get.
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

2

Opening Day Quick Hitter: Twins Predictions

As I am anxiously waiting to head Downtown and enjoy the pregame atmosphere at Brothers Bar & Grill, I decided to write about my Twins predictions for this season.   Record: 84 - 78, 2nd in division At one point, it looked like the Indians were in a sell mode, but they were able to keep the core of Lindor, Ramirez, Kluber, and Bauer together while replacing Edwin Encarcion with Carlos Santana. I think this team is still a high 80's win team.   Postseason: Loses Wild-Card Play-In Game to NY
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

2

Diving in to the Twins Schedule

We are inching closer to Opening Day 2019 and, don’t look now but, current forecasts make it seem plausible that the Twins will be hosting the defending American League (AL) Central Division Champions Cleveland Indians on March 28th at 3:10pm. The Thursday, Saturday, Sunday series will be the only three games of the homestand before they start their first road trip traveling to Kansas City, the new look Phillies, and the Mets of New York.   April (12 home, 13 away, 5 off) Outside of three games
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

7

Comprehensive Ranking of Every Twins Jersey

With the release of the new Twins alternate jerseys and the Super Bowl Blog Blowout, I felt like it was a perfect time to create a comprehensive ranking of every uniform (top and pants) a Twins player has donned since they moved to Minnesota in 1961. Obviously, this is a highly subjective topic and I look forward to hearing what you think of my list and what your list looks like. From what I could gather, the Twins have worn 17 unique jersey combinations where I have grouped together jerseys tha
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

6

My 2019 Hall of Fame Ballot

As the hot stove is as cold as ever, I started putting a lot of thought into the hall of fame debate and who I think deserves to be in the hall come July 21st, 2019.   If you're a baseball fan who has never been to the Cooperstown, then do yourself a favor a book a trip this summer. It's been about a decade since I was there so I'm sure things have a changed a little, but Cooperstown is a little quaint town on Otsego Lake in upstate New York. The Hall of Fame itself is right on Main Street - whi
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

8

Reflecting on My Predictions and Articles

As the season comes to an end I wanted to reflect on some of what I wrote in my first Twins season at Twins Daily and Zone Coverage. Below you will find a review of my preseason predictions as well as some of my early articles.   My Preseason Predictions https://twitter.com/Lenzy2108/status/979415769036607488https://twitter.com/Lenzy2108/status/979415769036607488 The Record The Twins finished the year with only 7 fewer wins than I had originally predicted at 78-84. What you may not realize is th
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

2

Felix Jorge Update

With the minor league season coming to an end, I thought a quick update on my “adopt-a-prospect” would be good.   It was back in early March when I was looking forward to providing “bi-weekly(ish)” updates on Twins prospect Felix Jorge. I had predicted that we would see him at some point in 2018 with a September call-up being the worst case scenario. Not too long after that, he was placed on the disabled list for the Twins AA affiliate Chattanooga with soreness in his right triceps, which is his
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

3

Selling at the Deadline

Just a couple days ago LaVelle Neal III reported that the Twins are going to be sellers at this years trade deadlines. This isn’t surprising news as the Twins are currently 12 games back of Cleveland in the division and realistically have no shot at a wild card when the AL has four teams in two divisions on pace for 100+ wins. Moreover they are on a 6-game losing streak and are sporting a 2-8 record in their last 10 after and FanGraphs has there playoff odds sitting at 0.4%.   As sellers, you ha
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

6

Making Room for Ervin

A week ago Ervin Santana made is 2018 debut with the double-A Chattanooga Lookouts and threw 2 innings (45 pitches) giving up 4 hits, 0 walks, 2 earned runs, while striking out 1. He was pulled early as there was a concern about his velocity, which topped out at 90 mph while he usually sits around 94. Because of this concern he will move down and pitch today for single-A Fort Meyers Miracle, according to Brandon Warne. With this development it is fair to think that we won’t see Ervin on the Tw
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

11

Season Preview: Kyle Gibson

One of the biggest questions entering the 2018 season is what we can expect to get from Kyle Gibson. Much attention has been given to the differences in his 1st and 2nd half, so I'd like to take a look and see what version of Kyle Gibson we will get in 2018 or if it is somewhere in between. I don't just want to throw a bunch of statistics at you as that doesn't help determine if his 2nd half is truly repeatable, but I do want to start there as that will guide the rest of the article.   Here ar
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

0

Season Preview: Felix Jorge

Through the 2018 Adopt-A-Prospect draft I drafted Felix Jorge with the 27th overall pick as my guy for the upcoming season. It will my objective to give you bi-weekly(ish) updates on the Twins prospect this season, but I wanted to start by providing some background information and project what we might see from him in the 2018 season.   Profile Felix De Jesus Jorge is a 24 year old right handed pitcher who will be entering his 8th season in the Twins organization after being signed as an interna
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

5

The Yu Paradox

According to google, one definition of the word paradox is "a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities." Looking back on it, thinking the Twins were going to end up with Yu as their Opening Day starter was quite the paradox. History tells us that the Minnesota Twins and huge contracts are quite the contradiction. Of course there are some who won't ever let us forget the counterexample which would be the Joe Mauer contract that he never lived up to. Outside of
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

0

Q & A with Clyde "The Guide" Doepner, Twins Curator

[As seen on Zone Coverage]   Recently, I had the chance to talk with Clyde “the Guide” Doepner, the Curator for the Minnesota Twins. Don’t know what a “curator” is? Think about getting paid to collect, display, and maintain Twins memorabilia for thousands of fans to enjoy at Target Field. Yes. Somebody gets paid to do that! Per his request, Clyde asked that I make this as little about him as possible and as much about the Twins as possible, but I want to provide you with a little background befo
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

5

The Best Twins Team That Ever Was(n't)

When Tom approached me about the Big Blog Blowout I was struggling to come up with something to write about. When he gave me the list of topics people had "claimed" it seemed to have a historical theme. So I bring to you the best Twins team that ever was(n't). What I have attempted to do is create the best 25 man roster regardless of era. Interestingly enough, after I compiled my list Seth Stohs wrote about the "Top 15 Minnesota Twins Players". You'll see a lot of overlap here, but I put it in t
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

0

Student Mailbag: Homerun Rates v. Strikeout Rates

Most of you probably don't know that I am a high school math teacher and junior varsity baseball coach. Recently, a student of mine asked for me to write about the record breaking home run and strikeout rates from the 2017 season. I'm going to dive into those numbers for you today, but then also look at how these numbers are reflected in the projected 2018 opening day lineup for our beloved Twins.   League Overview To get a good set of data, I took the K% (K/PA) and HR% (HR/PA) for the last twen
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

5

2018 Breakout Candidate: Stephen Gonsalves

Not too long ago, Tom had the great idea for the bloggers to list their breakout candidate for 2018 in his Twins Weekly article. So I spent days...nay, hours...nay, minutes(!) scouring some of my favorite baseball resources looking for the dark horse breakout candidate that nobody would ever think of. Minutes (!!), looking for the dark horse breakout candidate that would take me from a blogger-in-training to a Schefter-esque insider. Minutes (!!!), looking for the dark horse breakout candidate t
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

6

Understanding the "Quality of Pitch" (QOP/QOPA/QOPV) Statistics

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading about a relatively new statistic called "quality of pitch" (QOP), which assigns a numerical value to each pitch a pitcher throws. The values can then averaged together to come up with a pitchers average quality of pitch (QOPA) or you can look at a quality of pitch set of values (QOPV) as another tool to measure the performance of a pitcher. The purpose of this post is to provide a simple overview of this data as it may be referenced in futu
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

12

Mauer's Future

This article was originally posted back in January, but with Mauer's 2000th hit Tom wanted various Mauer articles. I haven't changed much, but have added more data to support my opinion. I'd also just like to mention that I did not change my opinion on a potential salary for 2019 and beyond despite his torrid start to the season.   It's no secret that Joe Mauer is entering the final year of his 8 year, $184 million contract extension signed in 2010. It's also not a secret that Mauer isn't the
Matthew Lenz

Matthew Lenz

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