Other Baseball

It sounds like they just dumped Justin Upton. He did have an opt out and I would guess he would have opted out rather than be a part of the rebuild.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2017/08/15/detroit-tigers-ian-kinsler-umpire-angel-hernandez/571202001/ You don't see a player go into this must depth very often and it's pretty refreshing to be honest. Kinsler is definitely not the only player, coach or fan that thinks Hernandez is an awful ump. It'll be interesting to see how much Kinsler is suspended for this, but also to see if any change does come as well.

MLB is waiting and still deciding what to do about the Astros in the wake of Hurricaine Harvey. The Astros are scheduled to host the Rangers starting Tuesday and the Mets next weekend. Neither series is likely to take place at Minute Maid Field. The stadium is so far undamaged, but nearly all of Houston is in emergency mode. Airports and roads are closed. Hundreds of thousands are without power and/or homes. And forecasters say they might get another two FEET of rain in the area. Houston is having such a special season. It would truly be unfortunate for it to get derailed in this manner. They have an enormous division lead and a healthy lead for the # 1 seed. But, eve…

Just saw Stuart Turner's name come up on Rotoworld. He was just placed on the paternity leave list. So he will be safe to stay on the Red's roster all year. He has only played in 15 games this season. I figured there would be no way the Red's woud carry 3 catchers all season. But for a team clearly in rebuild mode with just 55 wins they could keep him.

Ends up he threw a 1 hitter, giving up the winning home run in the 10th to lose

For all of you who were upset the Dozier/De Leon trade didn't happen...be happy. He made his debut yesterday and did not look good. I know he is just coming off an injury and might end up being pretty good. But he was throwing 92-93 and had no idea where the ball was going. I am perfectly happy with Dozier in our lineup every day.

For the second year in a row I was able to attend the Saberseminar at Boston University. Here is a summary of of the conference, grouped loosely by category: There were several presentations discussing pitcher health. First, the technology for pitch and biomechanical tracking continues to march forward. Between cameras and sensors, there are some pretty good, lightweight and fairly inexpensive methods for calculating and monitoring arm stresses. It is rather impressive. Armed with this new data, researchers are starting to draw some conclusions: Arm stress is correlated (obviously) with velocity, but only on a per-pitcher basis. So a 95mph pitch does not cause the same …

This is interesting. Joe West was suspended for inappropriate comments regarding Adrian Beltre. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/umpire-joe-west-reportedly-suspended-three-games-for-adrian-beltre-comments/ Interesting how the MLB umpires union works. I guy can't be suspended / or fired because he is a bad umpire. But... http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1636447-ranking-the-blindest-umpires-in-baseball

New research on 538 and the Ringer say, maybe the baseball is to blame for all the HRs! https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-looks-like-the-baseball-is-behind-mlbs-power-surge/

Adam Brett Walker has been claimed again. This time by the Braves: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/01/braves-claim-adam-walker.html

Age 68 after a long battle with cancer. There likely isn't a Twins player that had such a lopsided ratio of games played compared to amount of respect and adulation as Baylor. It's hard to believe that his large impact on the 1987 team was only measured in 27 games. He impacted so many teams both during and after his playing career. A great ambassador for the game.

But not until after next season. 2018 will be his last season, limited to Sunday home games. Heh ... and he will never step into Wrigley again. http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/no-cubs-no-harrelson-says-hell-never-go-back-to-wrigley/amp/

Congrats to Adrian Beltre for hit # 3,000. He has really turned it on since he left Seattle. I can't imagine him not being a sure fire first ballot HOFer. I think he is one of the most underrated ball players of our time. Chipper Jones' offensive number are better, but I would have to think Beltre's defense at the hot corner makes them pretty equal IMO.

.872 OPS 12 bombs in 158 AB. Think the ball is definitely juiced.

Going into today's game the AL has a 34-21 record in 2017 interleague play. While it's still early in the season this has become standard procedure. In 20 years of interleague play the NL has won the season series only 4 times, the most recent in 2003. This imbalance is so strong that it's highly unlikely to be a random coincidence. And what is the only significant difference between the two leagues? The designated hitter rule. While correlation and causation are two different things I don't have any other explanation. What about the DH rule gives the AL the advantage? Many baseball people feel it's easier for NL teams to adjust to playing with the DH than for AL team…

Man on first, one out. Catcher drops strike three. Batter makes a break for first base, going several steps with clear intent to try for first. Obviously the batter is not entitled to try this, as the base is occupied with fewer than two outs. Any umpiring experts here? What is correct action for the plate umpire at that moment?

1500 ESPN host Patrick Reusse has been nominated for baseball's highest honor for a writer, the J.G. Taylor Spink Award. Phil Miller wrote this article which calls the award is give annually for “meritorious service to baseball writing.” I think it's great. I think he's quite deserving for all of his years covering the Twins. I've been able to get to know him the last 4-5 years and always enjoy conversing with him. I've really enjoyed going on air with him from Ft. Myers the last couple of years and catching up at the Diamond Awards. I always enjoy getting a text message from him asking me what I know about a certain minor leaguer, or reminding him the name of the pl…

I sort of apologize because this is sort of a double post (from the 7/25 game thread) but I thought this was the proper forum for people to discuss or comment on this matter. I didn't see the confusion that occurred during the aforementioned game but I think this shows that there is room to improve the system of substituting beyond an umpire writing it down. I would think that some type of electronic system would be available using I-pads or something similar that would enable the managers, the umpire, and the scorer to see and verify substitutions before play resumes. I read that someone speculated that there may have been confusion between position numbers and player un…

WIthin an hour of the Twins announcing the acquisition of Jaime Garcia, the Royals announced that they have added three pitchers to their roster. https://twitter.com/Royals/status/889614198443053057

Only 10 game DL but he's been off this year. I wonder if the Dodgers would pay a good price for Ervin Santana. Couple guys in their org would be intriguing. Keibert Ruiz, Alex Verdugo, Sterling Heredia, and Walker Buehler would all be interesting targets. They could pay a big price with this year looking like their year

Hey gang, going to be going out to LA to see the Twins play the Dodgers on 7/24. Has anyone ever been there before? What are the best seats, "bang for the buck"-wise? Thanks in advance!

Nats pick up Doolittle and Madson for a pretty reasonable price. Maybe (controllable) relievers are gettable for cheaper than I would have guessed if Twins are aggressive. Also possible A's wanted to dump those two (and salaries) before they reverted or got hurt again.

Cubs acquire Jose Quintana from WhiteSox for Eloy Jiménez, Dylan Cease, Matt Rose and Bryant Flete. Pretty high price tag, Cubs top two prospects in Jiménez and Cease.

I'm very pleased with Royce Lewis but thought I'd follow the other pitchers in this draft. Looks like none of them have pitched to date. It was announced yesterday that Hunter Greene will be starting in A ball. Very interesting

...with one of my heroes of writing! John Sickels is one of the guys who really fanned the flame of my interest in prospects in his ESPN days and has kept it up for years since. I interviewed him for Puckett's Pond on his career and his Twins fandom. I figured it'd be a fun read for those here: http://puckettspond.com/2017/07/13/interview-prospect-writer-minnesota-twins-fan-john-sickels/

Any notice what Arcia is doing? He's hitting .353/.428/.710 for Arizona's AAA affiliate with 20 hr. Just dominating that league. His release was the last Twins move truly disappointed me. I really would've liked to see him pay off his potential here. With production like that at AAA, he's gotta be back in the bigs somewhere in the second half.

Tyler Boronski posted a terrific interview with former Twins infielder Alexi Casilla. They talked about a variety of topics including: Being traded from the Angels to the TwinsHis time with the TwinsA lot on Game 163, the atmosphere and his game-winning hit.Playing for the York Revolution.He'll be playing against the New Britain Bees, whose manager is Stan Cliburn.Playing in the Can-Am League."You are here, but you don't want to be here."Playing with Mauer-Morneau.Favorite ballparks, players, etc. It's a fun 10-minute interview... The most interesting part... Was Fernando Rodney tipping his pitches during Game 163? Find out here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5e…

The post is on a Braves site, but this involves a Twins site, so I'll let our Twins Daily overlords decide if it belongs here or in the Twins section. I posted my monthly AQA on the Braves minors yesterday, except this one had a fairly big announcement as far as my readers were concerned: http://tomahawktake.com/2017/06/30/atlanta-braves-minor-league-questions-asked-june-edition-big-announcement/ I'm going to be starting with Puckett's Pond as the co-editor starting July 2nd, so I'm currently writing up my last article for Tomahawk Take. I've been chatting with some of the members of Twins Daily on various forums for nearly 20 years at this point, and the Twins have…

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/07/david-paulino-receives-80-game-suspension.html Houston's pitching prospect was top 50-60ish pre-season on most lists. He'll miss the rest of the year and is unable to pitch in the post-season. He tested positive for Boldenone. That's the same drug Met's pitcher Mejia used and was caught with twice.

On Sunday afternoon, I had the opportunity to catch a game at Atlanta’s new SunTrust Park. With the Braves building a new stadium, I had to re-check Atlanta off the list in order to continue saying that I’ve been to a game at all the current parks. This also moves Turner Field to the list of former parks that I’ve been to, a list that now totals 13. So what’s it like. In a word, I’ll say “solid.” It has a number of good features for watching a game, but I wouldn’t list anything as so spectacular as to rank up with my top five of (in some order) Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Boston, and Minnesota. What’s good? Our seats were in the second row of the third deck, r…