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About this blog

Random musings from a transplanted midwesterner

Entries in this blog

2021

Your 2021 Scottsdale Scorpions!

I'm in Scottsdale for 3 days in the late-autumn sun.  Well, no sun tonight, but it was a nice evening for a ballgame despite a sparse crowd of under a thousand, with the always convivial baseball fan Mrs Ash attending with me at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick tonight, where we witnessed the Rafters at home defeat "our" Scottsdale Scorpions 3-2.  Two Twins prospects were in the starting lineup, Andrew Bechtold playing third base and Michael Helman in left field.  Bechtold showed a willin
ashbury

ashbury in 2021

0

Would you have gone 5 years and $80M for Anibal Sanchez?

This is a repeat of a forum post I made in December 2012. I'm blogging it now mostly for my own convenience; I took the time to look up several pitchers and I don't want to have to search again when I try to remember what I learned. The question was, if you were GM would you have matched the 5/$80M deal for Detroit's Anibal Sanchez? The context now is, when if ever would you sign a pitcher to a long term deal, given that there is room in the budget until the rookies start to earn big dough ..
ashbury

ashbury

12
2021

Woo! Worcester

Mrs Ash and I went to Worcester last night to see their brand-new AAA team, the Worcester Red Sox (known almost exclusively as the Woo Sox).  It's part of our farewell tour in New England as we prepare to move back to Nevada. We took a train scheduled to arrive an hour early, so as to have time to take in the sights, but mechanical troubles had us traveling about 5 MPH for the last 5 miles, meaning we arrived about when the next train was supposed to (though it became delayed too, in a ripp
ashbury

ashbury in 2021

4

Why is it...?

Why is it that on most days, when I channel surf to ESPN during commercial breaks of the other show I'm watching, I never get an update on how the Twins' game is going, but when they lose a game 16-4 like yesterday it's constantly the game shown on the crawl at the bottom of the screen when I click over there? Ugh.
ashbury

ashbury

1
Players Union

Twins union rep

Does anyone here remember who have been the Twins' players union representatives in years prior to Taylor Rogers? Rogers was the team's rep, Garver was the assistant rep.  Both gone via trade.  After the CBA was finished up. I wish I had a history of the past several years, for this role on the team, before drawing conclusions from a Small Sample Size of 2.  OTOH the recent CBA renewal was contentious, and perhaps recent history of the quiet years before the present wouldn't tell us mu
ashbury

ashbury in Players Union

15

Timely hitting

A digression from the discussion on Morneau's wrist, concerning an opinion that the Twins were one timely hit away from winning the 4-3 game with the Angels, that I'll post here now.   Twins had 8 hits, Angels had 8 hits. Was it a matter of timeliness?   Angels 1st: double, followed by single. One run scores. Angels 4th: single, followed by homer. Two runs score. Angels 7th: homer. One run scores. Twins 8th: hpb, double, single, single, single: Three runs score.   For the game, Twins had sev
ashbury

ashbury

1

Tigers looking to trade Porcello

I'll try this as a blog entry instead of a forum post.  The Tigers continue to shop Rick Porcello to no avail. MLB Trade Rumors states that the Padres turned down a chance to trade either Huston Street or Luke Gregerson to get him. Other deals have failed to materialize. I suppose the equivalent from the Twins standpoint would be Glen Perkins, factoring in the NL and the Padres home park. Would you make that deal, if the Tigers also saw it that way (and were willing to trade intra-division)?
ashbury

ashbury

3

This day in Twins History

May 15: on this day in Twins history, 2012, Jason Marquis gave up three home runs in one inning, in a lethargic 5-0 loss that also featured (not to be outdone) four different Twins grounding into double plays.   Wait, what? You have to wait a year to mark a milestone like this one?
ashbury

ashbury

2

The Value of Supplemental Draft Picks

Regarding the discussion of whom to pick with the #2 choice in the upcoming draft, there is also the group of supplemental picks the Twins will get. Even if the team believes pitching is their sorest need, it's one reasonable strategy to pick a stud position player at #2 and then load up with pitching prospects a little further down in the draft, if you think pitchers are inherently riskier to develop. However, those supplemental draft picks aren't quite the slam-dunk that some people were thi
ashbury

ashbury

1
Cartoons

The Old Orb Match

Two blog posts in one day.  But I ran across this, and in honor of Opening Day I just have to share: Credit where due, this is apparently the work of Nathan W. Pyle: https://www.facebook.com/nathanwpyle2  
ashbury

ashbury in Cartoons

0

The Game

(This is an entry in the Blogging For Pizza contest.)     April, 2010...     "I don't want to be the catcher on the Twins anymore," Joe Mauer said. He looked around the table at the others inquiringly. "Like that?"   Gardy beamed. "Exactly like that." The manager picked up his glass and made a vague toasting motion with it, in acknowledgement of the catcher's quick comprehension.   Morneau's eyebrow inched up. "And the purpose of this rather esoteric activity is...?"   Gardy sighed. "It's a game
ashbury

ashbury

4

The Cheapskate's Guide to Attending the World Series

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.   The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd
ashbury

ashbury

7

The Cheapskate goes to a parade

The Red Sox won the World Series on the road, so my tentative plan to be a Cheapskate and lurk the Fenway environs in anticipation of a fourth win proved impractical. Next best thing was to pencil in Wednesday the 31st, when a parade in the team's honor was scheduled.   Large crowds were anticipated for the 11:00 start, so again I relied on public transportation. And again I was concerned that the commuter train might already be full before it pulled into my station, but again it was easy-peasy.
ashbury

ashbury

0

Swiftian satire must be attempted only by people actually named Jonathan

In response to a forum reply that I felt crossed a boundary, where the writer questioned the courage of Andrew Albers, instead of just deleting the post I decided to try a bit of "see how you like it". Since it stirred up some controversy, I am posting here the private message I later sent:     Brock and I were both basically reacting to one sentence:   Albers could have at least had the balls to fight for it if he really wanted it.   Nothing else in your several posts
ashbury

ashbury

7

Surprise Saguaros game, Thursday Nov 9

Not to take away from Steve Lein's excellent AFL summaries, but USAFChief and I (plus special guest ashburydavid) were in attendance at Surprise Stadium this afternoon, and we got to see several of our Twins prospects appear in the 6-2 loss to the Glendale Desert Dogs, so I thought I'd write something up, given all this Twins game action. Chief might chime in with his own perspectives, if he ever gets free of rush-hour traffic to his hotel.   Basically, nobody really impressed me, I'm sorry to s
ashbury

ashbury

6

Surprise Saguaros game, Saturday Nov 11

I offer a brief writeup for the final game of my three-game Arizona Fall League visit, which the host Surprise Saguaros lost to the Peoria Javelinas 11-10 in disappointing fashion Saturday night.   The headline from the game of course would be Lamont Wade's concussion injury from a collision in right-center field. I posted a few photos in reply to that thread, found here. He was injured in the top of the second inning, before having a turn at bat.   I haven't talked too much about the other team
ashbury

ashbury

2

Surprise Saguaros game, Friday Nov 10

Just a quick summary of Twins-oriented doings, at the AFL game in Peoria Friday evening from which Our Heroes emerged victorious.     Because every one of the Twins pitchers appeared in the Thursday game, we did not expect to see any Friday night, and thus were not disappointed on that count. However, perhaps in compensation, all three of the Twins batters were in the starting lineup and played all game.   Lamont Wade batted sixth in the order. He achieved sac fly RBI in each of the second and
ashbury

ashbury

0

Spring Training Game Number 11 versus St Louis

I had the pleasure of watching today's game in person at Hammond Stadium, versus the portion of the St Louis Cardinal roster they deemed worth putting on a bus (hint: no stars). This writeup ought to be pretty quick, because it's one of those rare games where the box score plus a little inference pretty much tells you all you need to know.   But first, I'll mention that we didn't have tickets to start with, and didn't want to feed the scalpers - but a little bird had told us that tickets get fre
ashbury

ashbury

0

Separated at birth?

Another recycled observation from last year, when a certain someone got reassigned...   Is it just me, or does this guy http://tinyurl.com/746qaud look an awful lot like this guy? http://tinyurl.com/2a4u9mk
ashbury

ashbury

1
2021

Scorpions Stomp Solar Sox

Thursday afternoon's game in Mesa was marred by an injury to Matt Wallner due to an errant pitch high and inside.  I wrote up what I know here.  I find it disquieting that we have not quickly heard a simple "X-rays proved negative" by mid-evening.  The 11-4 drubbing administered to the home Solar Sox by our Twins' Scottsdale Scorpions pales in comparison to the concern I have for Matt, but here is my game summary from a Twins fan perspective. In attendance along with me at Sloan Park was Tw
ashbury

ashbury in 2021

2

Road Trip for Arizona Fall League?

Folks,   When the Twins announced their players being sent to the Arizona Fall League (AFL), John Bonnes made an off-hand comment about a Twins Daily road trip. Something of that magnitude might be a little fanciful, but I'm thinking about going and he and I agreed maybe a clearinghouse would be useful for those who plan to go, or are considering it.   The Twins players will be on the Glendale Desert Dogs. All the AFL games are in the Phoenix area. Our guys have games from October 8 to Novemb
ashbury

ashbury

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