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Twins Daily

Yankees get Paxton from the Mariners

According to MLbtraderumors, the Yankees and Mariners have annouced a trade with James Paxton going to New York and Justus Sheffield and two other minor leaguers going to the Mariners. This seems to set up that only about 7 teams intend to compete next year with all the rest in reset or rebuild mode. Good news is that the Yankees will probably only sign one more starter, so some ot the competiton will be less, bad news is that the Yankees will be a very good to great ballclub next year. Th
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A Different Advantage for the Twins

Last summer during a late season Minnesota Twins game Thad Levine sat on stage with Aaron Gleeman during the now annual Baseball Prospectus event at Target Field. There was a myriad of topics discussed but on point stood out to me. The general manager quipped that while Minnesota may not be able to outspend the competition in the form of player acquisition, they were committed to adding talent and spending dollars in other facets of the organization. Fast forward to today, and we’re beginning to

Oh man, those stats!

So the computer guys told us this would be smart, we see the trend and we jump on it. Use relievers every day! Let's look at a couple simple stats that are within my grasp. 162 games - average reliever use per game now 3 - put in an opener and it might be 4, but lets not worry about those games where Giminez came in or other extended innings. Just 162 games times three - 486 relief appearances. So we carry 13 pitchers, 5 are starters. 8 relief pitchers divided into 486 means 60 relief appe

A First Basemen with Familiarity

On Monday morning the legendary career of Minnesota Twins great Joe Mauer came to an end. While it's obvious that his exploits behind the dish were far superior to what he did at first base, the reality for Derek Falvey and Thad Levine is that they now have a hole in their infield. Heading into free agency the first base market is pretty ugly, but a familiar name could make a ton of sense.   Last winter Carlos Santana signed a three-year, $60 million pact with the Philadelphia Phillies. Now acco

Well Played, Mauer

Sitting in the Charleston International Airport at 12 pm eastern time, I grabbed my phone and watched as Joseph Patrick Mauer delivered a 17 minute speech to announce his retirement from playing professional baseball. This is a man who had been in the Minnesota Twins organization for nearly 20 years, and spent 15 seasons at the Major League level. Sandwiched between two magazine covers emblazoned with his image, there was nothing left to say except, "Well played, Mauer."   For two straight seaso

Willians Astrudillo might be the second coming of an equally unheralded catcher that won the Twins a championship

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---------   12/13/1988: The MLB transactions for the Minnesota Twins had one line: The Twins signed free agent catcher Brian Harper to an one year contract worth $90,000. The Twins were the sixth franchise for Harper who was drafted by the California Angels in the 4th round of the 1977 MLB June Amateur Draft, traded to the Pirates and then the Cardinals who released him on April Fool's 1986, and then signed and released by the Tigers and A's i

Donaldson to Fix Twins Hot Corner?

Bryce Harper has the best hair on the open market this winter, but Josh Donaldson may not be far behind. The oft-injured third basemen is a free agent and coincidentally plays a position that the Minnesota Twins could be looking to rectify. Joe Mauer should provide clarity to the club soon, and that could leave Miguel Sano with an opportunity to swap sides on the diamond. Transitioning from the division-rival Indians, Donaldson could be an answer to the Twins questions.   When the 2019 season ge

The 60 Million Dollar Team: We can rebuild it, we have the technology

A team barely alive   Some are saying the Twins should abandon the effort to seriously compete in 2019 and aim to reload for 2020 and 2021, when prospects like Alex Kiriloff and Royce Lewis will be ready to contribute. That's a mistake to me--with a payroll commitment of only about $60 Million, they almost can't afford not to spend some serious cash. I'll lay out what we can learn from 2018 and what the Twins can do not only to compete but to put themselves in position to win the American League

The Case for Cutch

Going into this offseason the Minnesota Twins have some very clear needs. Deciding what to do in the infield, and adding a few relief arms are chief among them. If there's a position that isn't immediately on the radar it's adding a body in the outfield. That being said, we don't know what the offseason will bring, and there's a free agent of intrigue on the market.   After being the 11th overall pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2005 Major League Baseball draft, Andrew McCutchen spent the f

2019 Blueprint

The Twins are at a crossroads. 2017 provided fans with the promise of the future as they surprised many to make the Wild Card game and expectations were high for 2018. Needless to say, this past season did not end as many hoped, although at 78-84 they only finished 7 games behind 2017. They had a horrible 15 walk-off losses this past year and had to deal with what would kindly be called disappointing seasons from two supposed cornerstones for the future in Buxton and Sano. Improving their "luck"

Arizona Fall League 2018 - Nov 1 & 2

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League.   I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL:     The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was ver

Twins coaching staff

When it comes to the Twins coaching staff I would like to discuss the hitting coach. I know there are a lot of opinions out there that say that these ballplayers are grown men, professionals, and they don't listen to coaches anyway or you are not going to change their mechanics this late in the game. The choice to retain Rowson is somewhat bewildering to me. The immediate success of the franchise has been pinnned on the potential of Sano and Buxton. these two players have regressed offensively s

Welcome Rocco Baldelli - from a long line of Italian players

With our new manager comes a lot of new stories and expectations, but his arrival actually got me thinking about Italian heritage and the game of baseball. Like the earlier essay regarding the American Indian and another essay looking at the black pioneers who crossed that large barrier of prejudice I know that other ethnic groups also had a lot of challenges. To discover more I found a superb book – Beyond Dimaggio by Lawrence Baldassaro to guide my search.   In our age where we see so much

2019 Off-Season Plan - Trade Edition

Hey Everybody,   This is the second part of my off-season plan for the Twins. I will be following the same needs that I pointed out in my Free Agency Edition and will be treating this post as if we didn't sign any free agents at all and only looked to improve via trades.   Needs: Relief Pitcher Second Baseman Designated Hitter First Baseman Starting Pitcher? Catcher?   Trade Candidates to improve the 2019 Twins:   Relief Pitcher: 1. Raisel Iglesias (I'm not a fan of trading for relief pitching i

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.

Milldaddy's 2019 Off-season Blueprint

Good afternoon everyone,   The off-season is officially here, and that means it is time for us to put ourselves into the shoes of Falvine and tell him what to do with this off-season so we can have a successful 2019, and get back to the playoffs. So, without further ado here is what I would do with the Twins off-season.   Arbitration Decisions (numbers from Matt Swartz, MLB Trade Rumors) Jake Odorizzi - $9.4 million (tender) Kyle Gibson - $7.9 million (tender) Eddie Rosario - $5.0 million (tende

First Round Fall on Minnesota 40 Man

With the regular season and Postseason now in the books, the Minnesota Twins are joined by every other major league team in the offseason. Joe Mauer is a free agent for the first time in his career, and the front office has plenty of 40 man roster decisions to make. Prior to bringing in new talent the organization must decide who will be kept from within. At this juncture, there's a very real possibility a first round pick could see his time come to an end.   Recently on Twins Daily, Seth Stohs

Minnesota Twins Offseason Blueprint -- Version I

This is an excerpt from an article that appears at Zone Coverage; click here to read it in full.   The celebratory alcohol is barely dry on the shirts handed out to the Boston Red Sox after winning the World Series on Sunday night, but in a news cycle that never sleeps, we’re already moving onto the 2019 season via offseason moves.   The Minnesota Twins are facing a pivotal offseason. The brain trust of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have overseen a swinging pendulum so far through two seasons, an

Observations by an old guy from the series

The Dodgers may win. The Red Sox could see their magic disappear - this is baseball after all, but there are some story lines that I have really liked and wanted to point out. One of which is that talent - not analytics wins games. Sorry Aaron Gleeman, but when we retire APBA and other games and get to the teams and games that count there is much more than probability. So what are my take-aways so far?   Relief pitchers can't match great starters. Milwaukee was a fun experiment in defying

WARNE: How Can the Twins Find Their Brewers-like Path to October?

This is an excerpt of an article that appears at Zone Coverage, click here to read it in full!   By the looks of it, it was going to be a battle reminiscent of David and Goliath. Well, that is, the way Vegas might have seen that battle before it happened.   In one corner was the team everyone expected to be there. The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the year with a payroll of a touch over $187 million, and that was on the heels of spending $200-plus million in each of the previous five seasons.   In

2019 Off-Season Plan - Free Agency

Hey Everyone, What a disappointing 2018 season. Besides a couple bright spots like Mauer's send off, Jake Cave, and deadline trades to bolster our prospect lot (minus the Pressly trade), games and news were tough to follow religiously for even the biggest Twins fans. But, the bright spot is it's the off-season now and the Twins are loaded with an arsenal of assets to make a little noise with. As I stated last year in my 2018 edition I've done research on our needs and the free agent and trade ca

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

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