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Hosken's Blog

A blog by Hosken Bombo Disco in Twins Daily

  • Entries

    15

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    51

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    29,327

About this blog

a fair attempt at baseball blogging that may roll foul occasionally

Entries in this blog

Players Make Plays

It’s April 16, 2018. The Twins own a 7-4 record. The front office has added free agents at several key positions to complement an 85-win team from the previous year that earned its first post-season berth in seven years.   It's April 16, and despite a string of postponements due to an early spring snowstorm, the team is playing well, and flying to Puerto Rico for an unusual two-game series against their division rivals.   Minnesota Twins and Puerto Rico, April 2018 (copyright Brace Hemmelgarn,

Offense v. Defense thought experiment

I posted this idea in a discussion thread, but I do think it fits better in the blog section or in its own thread, but chose blog. I will leave the scenario as I posted it in the other thread.   Anyway, in light of a recent debate on the value of defense, I came up with a problem. It would be interesting to run a simulation on this or hear what inputs others might have on it.   Anyway, here it goes:   There are two teams.   One team is full of great hitters, 1 through 9, these are .950 OPS, 40

On acquiring Yu Darvish or Gerrit Cole

On Monday, Rhett Bollinger of MLB wrote that the Minnesota Twins are still more likely to upgrade their pitching rotation for 2018 through free agency than by trade.   And on Tuesday, MLB Trade Rumors reported off of a 1500 ESPN tweet that pitchers’ agents were getting the sense that the Twins (i.e., Derek Falvey and Thad Levine) were putting off talks until Yu Darvish announces his decision to sign.   Reading between the lines, one can interpret these reports to mean that the Twins have not bee

Ervin Santana and his second compete game shutout

Ervin Santana is on top of his game.   Earlier this evening, Santana blanked the Baltimore Orioles in a complete game win. It's his second complete game shutout on the season. Santana allowed just two hits, two walks, no runs, and no baserunners after the fifth inning.   Santana owns a 7-2 record with a 1.80 ERA in ten starts. In 70.0 innings, he has allowed a mere 31 hits.   After tonight, Santana has now won all four of his road starts, allowing just one run in 29.0 innings in those starts.

Four things I am watching this week

The Twins sit at 8-10 through their first 18 games.   The Twins are in a much better spot than last season, but considering that opening series sweep against Kansas City, the Twins have been heading in the wrong direction recently.   The Twins begin a six game road trip in Texas tonight. I want to get my hasty thoughts down for the upcoming week.   There's not a lot the Twins can do about the starting pitching right now (yes there is, but anyway), so I will set that aside. There is also specific

Too-late idea for stretching out Berrios

On Saturday, the Twins announced that young pitcher Jose Berrios would be demoted to Rochester to start the season. The reason, according to manager Paul Molitor, was "that the lack of work and consistency of work ... to try and rush the buildup here in the last ten days to try and get him ready to try and be in that spot didn’t make a lot of sense to me.”   Does this explanation pass muster?   Consider Phil Hughes is a given for the rotation, and that Berrios and Hughes have been on roughly the

Follow up rant to the 'insanity' thread

In the spirit of putting stream-of-conscious rants in the blogs section, where nobody will ever see them or have to look at them, I submit this frustrated piece of work in response to the insanity thread poster Shane Wahl started. You have been warned!   Another angle I come at this insanity from is the public messaging; in other words, the people who cover this team for the public.   Let's start with the television guys, the guys with the most reach.   I didn't see any of the broadcasts Jack Mo

A Look at Minor League Promotions of College Relief Pitchers

Back on June 11, the Minnesota Twins were defeated by the Boston Red Sox 15-4, giving up 10 runs over the final two innings to let an otherwise close game get out of reach.   It wasn’t just another loss in another losing season. It was noteworthy because it gave fans their first look at J. T. Chargois, a highly-touted, hard-throwing pitching prospect from the 2012 draft. Chargois is one of many collegiate relief pitchers the Twins have been stockpiling with high picks in the amateur draft over t

Trevor Plouffe, Eddie Rosario, and When to Steal Third

A successful stolen base back on May 18 ignited a minor controversy recently in Twins territory. Holding a four run lead in the top of the 7th, the Detroit Tigers were playing it safe against the left handed batter, Joe Mauer. There were two outs, and the Tigers infielders were favoring the right side of the diamond, where any ground ball off Mauer's bat was likely to be hit. Tigers third baseman Nick Castellanos was playing well off third. Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario, who was the runner on s

Early Impressions from the Boxscores

Some random, small sample thoughts on the Twins performance, based mostly on what the box scores are telling us, as we approach the halfway point of spring training. All the normal caveats about small sample, quality of opponents, and then some. I feel putting it in writing here will let me see how they hold up as spring training ends and we get going into the regular season.   _______   The bullpen. The three back end guys are Perkins, Jepsen and May. Good on Molly to give May a start today, th

OTD 1909: a brief note on progress

A short blurb from 1909 that ran on page 4 of the Princeton Union of Princeton Minn:   ________________________   ."To show that Japan is making rapid progress. in. the. American. game. of baseball. it is only necessary to state that. in. Tokio. alone. seven.. umpires have. already. been. trampled. in. the dust for alleged crooked decisions." .   ________________________   Source: The Princeton Union. Princeton, Minn. October 7, 1909, p. 4. Link: http://chroniclingame

OTD 1915: Marshalltown takes two

Today is Labor Day; in that vein, please remove your caps for the Curt Floods and Andy Messersmiths of the baseball world who challenge the reserve system and paved the way for the players union we know today.   In any case, I'm doing some unrelated research on information found in some public domain newspapers, and thought it would be fun occasionally to take a detour and share some baseball writing from the turn of the century. Some of these account are both entertaining and fascinating, or, t

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