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stringer bell's Blog

A blog by stringer bell in Twins Daily

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Entries in this blog

Thanksgiving in New York, with a Twins twist

I spent Thanksgiving in New York City, visiting my son and his fiancée and seeing some sites. No, I didn't find Dave W, I guess I didn't look. Anyway, I did attend my first, and probably only, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We arrived early and found a place to stand across from Fox News. We saw the parades, floats, minor celebrities and Santa.   A women standing next to me asked me if I was from Minnesota, since I was wearing a coat that said "Mayo Clinic" on it. She said that she had grown up

Life is like a Box of Chocolates...

"You never know what you're gonna get" (from Forrest Gump), this little witticism also applies to baseball players. Every front office projects what their prospects will become, but it is never a sure bet. Consider two current Minnesota Twins: Brian Dozier came to the Twins as a shortstop, thought to be fundamentally sound in the field, but without great tools. As a hitter, he had never hit below .274 and never exceeded nine homers in a season, with his top year yielding at .320 average in a y

Off-Season Decisions

After the back-slapping is done at Twins Way, the general manager should have time to take a long, hard look at the season that just played out. The Twins won 83 games and were competitive. The season was highlighted by one fine month (May) and a pluckiness that kept them from sinking too far when times got tough. The Twins pitching improved more than their metrics indicated while offensively the team scored more runs than their numbers indicated.   The Twins scored 695 runs, while the league av

Your 2016 Twins (no-trades edition)

The Twins will enter 2016 after recording their best record since 2010. They have added several young players, most of whom are here to stay. As of today, they have some gaps, but overall have a decent team returning for next year. Four players are slated to be free agents--Mike Pelfrey, Torii Hunter, Brian Duensing, and Neal Cotts. Perhaps a player or two will be non-tendered. Candidates would be Casey Fien, Eduardo Nuñez, and Blane Boyer.   Here is my current projection for the Opening Day 201

Tightly Packed

The Twins have one week remaining in a regular season which has seen them stay relevant throughout the entire season. One thing that has transpired in the course of the season is that a regular lineup has developed. The nine players with the most plate appearances on the year fill the nine positions on the field and in the batting order and these nine players are the ones getting the bulk of playing time during the stretch drive in September.   I looked at yesterday's box score and made a couple

Recalls! Get Your Recalls Here!

September 1st is almost here. The Twins play Houston twice more and then they can have the luxury of an expanded roster going forward. They are certain to recall some players and a couple guys have earned a look with outstanding seasons. There are service time and 40-man roster considerations as well.   This year, the Twins are in the wild card chase, so they won't recall young players just to get a look at them or grant playing time to see what they can do. The goal will be to recall players wh

So You're Saying There's A Chance?

The Twins current playoff probability according to Baseball Prospectus is just 7%. That seems low, given the fact that they only trail wild card leader Baltimore by 1.5 games and play the Orioles four games within the week.   Here's a tale about the underdog winning. A young sophomore track runner has had a respectable season in the 1600 meters going into the conference meet. However, she hadn't beaten three older runners (one of whom went on to win the state championship) all year. On a cool, c

Odd Man (Men) Out?

n 2016, barring a trade, the Twins will have five players under the age of 26 who profile to be good or better outfielders. Five of these players will have played for the Twins, and the sixth (Max Kepler) might make his debut this September. Here's a look at all six, with my view of strengths and weaknesses:   Oswaldo Arcia--Strengths: Big Time left handed power. In 853 Twins' plate appearances, he has 36 homers and a .437 slugging average. Pedigree of hitting. Going into this year, Arcia domina

All-Star Break Thoughts

I'm jumping the gun by a day, but the Twins are approaching the All-Star break and they certainly qualify as contenders. After beating Detroit today, they are tied for the second best record in the league at eight games over .500. One can't help but be a little optimistic about the Twins chances for the last 74 games. Today was a high point, not only hammering Detroit's starting pitcher, but also the mid-game announcement that Brian Dozier would indeed make the 2015 All-Star team, all on the hee

Time to Decide

Okay, we're past the statistical halfway point in the season. Sometimes it takes a while to flesh out who can help a team for the present and the future and sometimes circumstances make that decision. However, the Twins still haven't made decisions about several positions and players. The team is in the race for a wild card and they have not solidified several positions on the team. Here's my take on the key decisions that need to be made.   1-Shortstop. Danny Santana started the season as the r

A Team in Contention, A Team in Flux

I was originally going to write about the Twins "June Swoon", but the news of Vargas' demotion followed by word that Miguel Sano would assume his spot on the roster makes last month's struggle old news. The Twins are above .500 so by loose definition they are contenders to make the playoffs. They have promoted three of their top prospects within the last month and it looks like this won't be the end of the moves.   First, a look at positions, followed by a look at players. Center Field: The Twi

So Many Decisions, Part III

The outfield and DH positions on the Twins presents many options and decisions will have to be made. The opening day outfield of Hunter, Schafer, and Arcia has been revamped to Hunter, Buxton, and Rosario. DH Kennys Vargas was demoted and has returned, but his status and his future are uncertain. Hunter started slowly this year, had a fine month of May and, with most of the team, fallen off in June. Torii has provided good offense, satisfactory defense and a whole bunch of personality. He's unde

So Many Decisions, Part II

There are a lot of decision to make with the Twins' position players. About the only completely sure thing is that Brian Dozier will be in the lineup every day. There are options for the Twins and the team has a manager without a long track record, so we don't know which direction he will go on many of the choices to be made. The merry month of May saw an extremely productive offense combined with improved defense from the position players. So far, June has shown a lot of the reverse of that

So Many Decisions, Part I

DocBauer has started a thread similar to what I intend to write. In my case, I'm going to provide my opinion as well as naming issues, so I decided to make a blog entry. There are a lot of issues, but many of those issues are not about weakness, but strength. That is an interesting situation to be in for the Twins, since they have lost more than 90 games in each of the last four seasons.   I'll start with the pitching staff. The Twins possess seven starters, none of whom is a #1, but all who are

Let's Not Panic

The Twins didn't score many runs in Boston until they faced a knuckleballer and took advantage of leaky Boston defense. They had one good inning in two games against the Brewers. They still have a good number of runs scored and a positive run differential. They sit in first place by one game with the second-place Royals due in town Monday.   In the very successful month of May, the Twins were led by the four guys who usually hit in the first four spots in the order. After a hot first half o

Lies, Da#* Lies, and Statistics

After two straight convincing wins, the Twins stand at 26-18, eight games over .500 for the first time since 2010. It is early, but so far the record says "contention". The record says that the Twins have improved, but a case can be made that the whole thing is "smoke and mirrors". Statistics tell a conflicting story, but the deeper you dig, the more amazing it is that the Twins are among the top teams in the league.   The way you count wins and losses in this game is by the number of runs s

Lineup Changes that Seem to have Worked

The Twins started playing better baseball sometime during their previous road trip. They lost two of three to a good KC club and then were shut out 2-0 by King Felix. I believe it was after Hernandez blanked the Twins that Molitor made some lineup changes. Hunter had been moved to #2 which freed Dozier to hit cleanup. BD looked lost there, Santana had drawn zero walks and was hovering near the Mendoza line and Trevor Plouffe was, at the time, easily the hottest hitter on the team. Let's loo

Still Optimistic

Today the posts have mostly been negative with three young players optioned to AAA. Many have pointed out that the rebuilding Twins won't have a single rookie from their system on the 25-man roster going north. The average age of the team won't be considerably different.   Despite all of this, I'm optimistic that the Twins will improve. The next wave is very close and they could provide a real boost. I have predicted/advocated for Hicks to be demoted since the end of the regular season and w

Fort Myers Musings

Air travel isn't fun and while I am not a frequent flier, I have flown enough no longer to be fascinated by small aisles, nuts and soda, and the people watching. I sat alone in coach and was joined by an delightful Floridian/Minnesotan returning to Minnesota for a funeral. It passed the time and temporarily made me forget about the nasty URI I managed to get in the sunshine state.   We looked out the window and saw snow, probably starting somewhere around the Iowa/Minnesota border, maybe nor

Final Report from the Fort

Heading out this morning. Yesterday, there was minor league action plus BP for position players who didn't make the trip to Clearwater. Ervin Santana pitched the first four innings of the Triple A game and was unspectacular, one run in four innings-probably a half dozen strikeouts. It was home run derby on the AA side with Twins' farmhands connecting for five long balls.   I finally met TD's own Halsey Hall and a couple of lurkers, whose names will be withheld to protect them. Nice people all ar

Stringer's Report from the Fort VI

The minor league intra-squad games for Sunday were cancelled, giving the young players their first day off on quite awhile. The fans at the complex were able to watch the left-behind major leaguers do PFP and for the hitters to take BP. Among the players left behind were Hicks, Hunter, Robinson, Suzuki, Mauer, Dozier, Nunez and Escobar.   A couple notes about BP. Dozier hit the most balls over the fence, but Kelly (who ran the PFP) really encouraged Dozier every time he hit the ball up the middl

Report from the Fort V

With all the TD regulars around, there isn't much to add about baseball. I haven't seen Halsey, Thrylos, or John, but all are indicating they will be watching the minor league intra-squad game today. Look forward to meeting and meeting up with you guys! I believe Ash could be there as well.   A couple of positives: Graham looked very good yesterday and Mauer got three hits, including a gapper to right-center. Pinto got beat up by Adam Jones's follow through (not good). That's all for now. Hope t

Report from the Fort

Short note today. Watched infield practice run by Tom Kelly. TK looked great running drills and hitting grounders. The headline is that Trevor Plouffe took grounders at first base. Went to the Twins game and exchanged tickets from the outfield handicapped seats to third deck first base side. Great exchange! Gibson looked good, hit 95 on the gun, except two pitches to Cervelli and some control issues which seemed to appear and disappear without warning.

Report from the Fort III

Day 3 in Fort Myers yielded similar weather and the start of a pattern before heading to the ball fields. The morning ritual would be "bathroom, blog, breakfast".   The minor league activity yesterday was well covered by Thrylos and Ashbury John. I will add only a couple things: when Perkins pitched, standing behind the screen with us common folk, were Strib writers Lavelle E Neale and Patrick Reusse. I shook Patrick's hand and chatted with him for a moment. The scribes left when Perk did.   W

Report from the Fort II

Day two of my Fort Myers experience featured baseball. After a bit more room jangling, we got to Century Link hereafter known as Hammond or Twins Spring Training camp at 10 AM. We checked the minor league fields and watched pitcher's drills. The Rays were to be the opposition for the Twins farmhands on this warm spring day.   Well before first pitch, we made the acquaintance of TD's own Ashbury John, who is in Fort Myers, living it up while his significant other slaves over a hot computer (I jes

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