Minnesota Twins Talk

Don't get me wrong, I like Buxton. But potential is just that, until it isn't. At the end of last season, he looked much better: relaxed, taking nice AB's and still had that stellar defense. So, what's happening this year? Overall poor hitting [changes in his approach and technique], horrendous in the clutch. Defense: That 3 hopper to the plate a couple games ago still rings in my head. What to do? That showed up in the lineup last night.... Max Kepler - CF Max seems like the calm, cool type guy who can handle the pressure. Indeed, I'd say he's already done that: good start on defense, very good start at the plate. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to see him p…

I know it's just a "monthly thing"....BUT REALLY????????? From ESPN: Ervin Santana has a right to feel snubbed, too. He didn’t win AL Pitcher of the Month despite his .77 ERA, which he lowered to .66 after Tuesday’s start. Houston’s Dallas Keuchel won the award after going 5-0 with a 1.21 ERA. Ervin Santana (@Twins) ranks first in MLB in ERA, WHIP, opponent BA, opponent OBP and opponent slugging percentage Santana is the only pitcher in MLB history to begin a season with six straight starts allowing one run and four hits or less since the mound moved to 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893, according to ESPN. In fact, he was the only pitcher to do that in five straight sta…

Normally I'd bury this in teh "fangraphs and other national ...." thread....but here is his 6th inning yesterday! Enjoy. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/daily-prospect-notes-51/

I came across this today -- see Item 6 on the list. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/keri-the-10-dodgers-are-the-new-yankees-paxtons-rise-and-more-mlb-observations/ "Grossman's exploded so far this season. Through his first 18 games, he's batting a robust .286/.437/.411. That already high walk-rate has surged to astronomical levels -- 15 free passes in 71 trips to the plate, a 21.1 percent rate. Grossman's also striking out less often than ever before, slicing his K rate to 15.5 percent. But Grossman's progress goes beyond a few dozen plate appearances this season. As Fangraphs writer Ben Kaspick noted this week, Grossman ranked as one of the worst hitters in the leag…

The Twins finished April of 2017 with a 12-11 record. They had one winning month in 2016 and only two in 2015 when they finished over .500. Here's my take on a decent first 23 games: Sano--The single biggest reason the Twins are above .500 is the hitting a fielding of Miguel Sano. He's been fine at third base and he's been a force with the bat. He crushed it on the recently completed road trip and was mostly responsible for both wins against the Royals, hitting two homers and driving in nine runs in two games. Defense--There has been an overall improvement. The starting outfield of Kepler, Buxton and Rosario covers a lot of ground and they all have good throwing arm…

Has anyone else seen enough of this guy? Yes he throws hard but you can't blow it by big league hitters and it's straight. The guy is so slow to the plate everyone can steal a bag off of him. Let's cut bait and send him down, no ones picking him up.

One my areas of concern coming into the season was the defensive play of the left side of the infield. So far they have far exceeded my expectations. I'm glad to be wrong so far.

Seriously, what's with the protection of the defender at the expense of the pitcher? Both Sano and Dozier had balls hit right at them that they whiffed and cost the Twins runs. Ruled hits. If those aren't errors then why do we even bother with the stat?

Debate continually rages on about many topics so I have tried to pick some of the more interesting and controversial ones for everyone to pick a position on. Try not to turn this into another endless debate thread about these same topics. Just OVER/UNDER Make your picks after the choice in CAPS - delete out my notes in parenthesis For example Twins wins - 72.5 - OVER HR hit - 199.5 - UNDER Twins team Twins wins - 72.5 HR hit - 199.5 (last year 200) OPS - .738 (last year .738) ERA - 4.50 (last year 5.08) # of different SP'ers - 10.5 (9-12 last 4 seasons) # of different pitchers - 25.5 (22-23 2013-2015 and 28 last year) Offensive Players Dozier HR's - 26.5 Sano HR'…

As many are likely aware, MLB rolled out a new feature this year via Statcast, "Catch Probability." http://m.mlb.com/news/article/217802340/statcast-introduces-catch-probability-for-2017/ In a nutshell, catches are ranked based on how likely your average position player would have made a catch on a similar ball. A percentage is assigned; what percentage of players make that catch? Good catches are given stars according to this scale: 0 to 25 percent --- 5 Star play ***** 26 to 50 percent -- 4 Star play **** 51 to 75 percent -- 3 Star play *** 76 to 90 percent -- 2 Star play ** 91 to 95 percent -- 1 Star play * So far this season, both Buxton and Kepler have gotten…

https://thebaseballcodes.com/2017/04/25/message-delivered-detroit-baits-sano-into-disastrous-reaction/ Turbow wrote the great book - The Baseball Codes - that discussed the changes in baseball's unwritten rules over the years. It really is one of the more entertaining books I've ever read about baseball. He has a blog where he continues to discuss it and in this article he discusses Sano and the Tigers. "Whether or not one agrees with the concept of retaliatory pitches in baseball, one must accept the fact that such things exist, and understand that an appropriate response will go a long way toward maintaining general sanity on the premises ... Prevailing notion hol…

Dozier would be LA's backup plan if they can't get Ian Kinsler from Detroit. IDK, Dozier is 5 years younger than Kinsler and has pretty agreeable contract. "Los Angeles is obviously looking in other places for a second baseman, and Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports notes that they have made contact with the Twins on Brian Dozier — who’d also be a quality, right-handed bat who comes with two years of control." http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/ Edit: Forgot to add, Ian Kinsler Won’t Waive No-Trade Clause Without Extension. Makes it look more likely for the Dozier trade. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/11/ian-kinsler-no-trade-clause-wont-waive-without-extension-dodgers-t…

So the Twins have the luxury of being the 1st team on the waiver wire this month, but haven't taken advantage of it... Are there not better options to pick up than what they currently have?

Tweet from LEN3: Looks like the Twins will get a free arm (or bat) for a couple days. Who is even worth calling up at this point? Boshers can't be called up. Berrios won't be ready to pitch in time. Chargois has been meh in his 2 games. Mejia should start. Melotakis?

News came out of Texas today that Lefty Ryan O'Rourke will have Tommy John surgery and miss at least the rest of the 2017 season. While the Twins have some good lefties in their bullpen (Taylor Rogers, Craig Breslow), they also have some waiting in the wings (Buddy Boshers, Mason Melotakis, maybe Nik Turley). That said, O'Rourke has been as good against left-handed hitters as anyone in baseball during his MLB and MiLB time, so this is unfortunate.

He is going to be one of my favorites. He's already a professional hitter from both sides of the plate; doesn't strike out much and walks quite a bit. He's doing much better at SS than I thought he would although I believe he would be a great second baseman. And he is still very young. We might be looking at someone who will be a starter for 10 years.

We have Mauer at 1B nearly every game. I truly hope that was never the plan. At this point I wouldn't mind if they called up Hague. Not as a long term solution, but he's hitting. This is a temporary fix until Park is healthy and hitting again or Vargas starts hitting. Hague bats RH, so might platoon well with Mauer. And if anyone wants to point out he's not on the 40 man, so what? Drop JR Murphy. If he gets picked up (seems unlikely) then move Rohlfing to AAA. Unless something drastically changes for Murphy this would not be a big loss. Need room on the 25-man roster? DanSan. Or a pitcher. Or both. Thoughts? Better ideas?

He's appealing. Boyd fined. Nothing for McCann hitting Sano in the face. Is Torre blind?

According to Rhett Bollinger at MLB, Boshers back to Rochester after today's game. Melotakis? Chargois? Edit: Brandon Warne speculates possibly Tepesch, with a 40 man move.

New season so I'm trying out a new baseball podcast. We did a National League preview last week. The American League preview will be posted this weekend. We had Rob Neyer on the show yesterday and have Tim Kirkjian coming on this Friday. Let me know what you think. itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-20-80-baseball-podcast/id1210262129 https://twitter.com/20_80Podcast/with_replies

I know several of you have been to the annual Tix for Tots event the last several years. In the past, I and Nick Nelson have both been featured speakers. This year they're expanding it a little to be Sports Night, but there is a lot for Twins fans, including: - Juan Berenguer will be a speaker - The Strib's and MPR's Howard Sinker, who has attended many of our events, will be a speaker. - It's held at the prestigious Metropolitan Club at Target Field - It supports a lean, mean, FANTASTIC organization that has distributed a half million unused tickets to underprivileged youth. - Next week, Tuesday, 4/25, starting at 5:30. It's a great event. We would never miss it, bu…

With all the angst and type spent on the bullpen, and our general views of its construction and it's failures at times, performance and said construction, it might be time to throw a little love Pressly's way. Look, all things considered, a healthy Perkins, close to his old self for a year or two more, really helps this bullpen. The frustrated jury is still out on this matter. Hopefully, we will still get a positive verdict. I don't know if we still know what we have in Jepsen, and we should have traded for a second quality arm last year when we got him, but he was outstanding for us last year. After a couple bad outings this year, regression boo birds were already chir…

What are some possible trades by the deadline?

It was my impression that a 13 pitcher roster would be temporary and was a preemptive move to cover a weak starting rotation. Sooner or later, a move will have to be made to reduce the staff to 12. Two questions: who goes down and who comes up? Note: I am limiting this discussion to a pitcher-to-hitter substitution. I will leave discussions of Berrios for Meija / Gibson or, say, Reginatto for (D.) Santana for other posts. Sent down? Taylor Rogers has the highest WHIP among relievers. Tonkin has only 2 appearances. Breslow has only pitched 1.2 innings. I list the last two of these not because of their quality, but because, it seems that so far, they have been…

http://www.startribune.com/twins-byron-buxton-takes-his-slow-start-in-stride/419912153/ You know, I never looked into this or even thought about it. Buxton has had slow starts throughout his career. Wondering, if playing Winter Ball would get him warmed up enough to start a new MLB season on a higher note. Seems like an easy answer. Spring Training isn't enough of an answer.

Santana pitched a great baseball game today! I believe it marks the start of a real trend of winning for this team. Let me explain: Our offense is ranked 5th in the American League with 46 runs scored; and I don't even think we're hitting all that great right now. We are ranked #2 pitching in the A.L. with a team ERA of 2.69. Defensively, the Twins are ranked #3 with only 3 errors. Our team also has a .636 win percentage on April 15th. Short sample size? Absolutely. A trend in the right direction? Absolutely. Worst to first this year? I've seen it happen before. I watch a lot of baseball, mostly the Minnesota Twins. I have followed this team closely for ove…

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19188672/brian-dozier-sees-plan-every-puzzle ESPN's Jerry Crasnick wrote about Brian Dozier. The story is really interesting and talks about how multifaceted the second baseman is. We saw his ability to do a Rubik's Cube. His work at home and abroad. His willingness and drive to learn Spanish, and his ability to adapt as a hitter. The story is really good. Take a look at discuss.

Weather forecast, says almost one hundred percent chance of rain, within the hour in the Twin Cities....and continuing....................

Wondering if anyone else saw this? If they think there is something too it? http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/49502912/v1279587083/how-to-fix-byron-buxton-at-the-plate-on-mlb-tonight

Yes, I know... we're all tired of Joe being crucified for his shortcomings. But I think Morris nicely summarizes an average fan's frustration. http://www.startribune.com/jack-morris-mauer-should-consider-changing-his-approach/419279644/