Minnesota Twins Talk

Here are the topics I've covered so far ... March 4: My Top 30 Prospects of 2017 (5:46) March 12: Trevor May's injury (5:21) March 19: Tyler Jay being sent to the bullpen (4:58) March 26: Spring Rituals: Getting Ready for Baseball Season (5:00) I wanted to have a little bit of a backlog and work out some kinks before I shared anything with the Twins Daily community (and subject myself to be mocked and ridiculed ). My plan is to continue uploading to YouTube on a weekly basis. I'll be keeping these about five minutes in length, short & sweet. I've been having an absolute blast contributing articles to the site over the past few months, but I always seem to…

I won't do this everyday but against righties it's: https://twitter.com/LaVelleNeal/status/849628165601468417/photo/1

http://www.startribune.com/byungho-park-s-demotion-doesn-t-inspire-confidence-in-the-twins/417731593/ Souhan was less kind than Reusse on the Park demotion. "The bosses sent ByungHo Park to the minors, to convene with one of the team’s most promising relievers this spring, Alex Wimmers. Park will star for the Rochester Red Wings in April while Twins manager Paul Molitor tries not to use the pitcher who replaced Park on the big-league roster." That's a fair point about Wimmers. Sure, he's also not on the 40 man but I bet he ends up a bigger bullpen piece than Haley.

How terrible is it?

I was just curious what the reasoning on why he was sent down in place of Grossman? Are we that hurting for outfielders?

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Interesting to listen to the KFAN interview of Derek Falvey this AM. Take away that stuck out to me was early in the interview. He said that while everyone is hyper focused on the 25 that head North, it is important to build a roster of 30-35 MLB ready players that you will end up using throughout the year. Also two players that stuck out as he got to know the team: Gibson and Mejia

This season has gotten really, really pathetic. The team sucks, the manager sucks, leading to a nearly unwatchable product. Literally the only reason I am watching this team anymore is because of Byron Buxton. He's been doing things on a nightly basis that very few players in the game are capable of. I mentioned it in the game thread tonight but I honestly can't remember a more entertaining Twins player in my (somewhat short) lifetime. On top of this, he always hustles and just seems like a genuinely nice, likable kid. I'm incredibly happy to see him turning things around. Here are some recent highlights that can function as eye bleach after watching that Grossman d…

I sure hope this gets a second look before they put in the next one. I can only say I agree with just 1 of the 9 choices and that would Eddie Rosario at the bottom. He needs to earn his way out of the 9 hole. Not sure what pitchers are out of options but someone needs to go so they don't basically have a 2 man bench. Your back up catcher has to be held back in case of injury. I know they just won a game but with this 25 man roster it's gonna be a really long year.

Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/tcmedianow/videos/1638476056181797/ (It's on Facebook, but it is for public viewing. Not sure if there is a way to embed it directly here, like YouTube videos?) Met Stadium, a young Bob Casey, Calvin Griffith...

Or will you choose not to? For me, the only reasons to care is following Sano, Polanco, and Buxton's progression, watch Mejia make a start or 2..... And I've got nothing after that.

Hi everybody! New member here. I'm not a big stat person so please use small stats and words! If you were the GM or CBO of any MLB team, who would you want from this 2017 opening day roster? It seems Falvine are looking long term by parking Park and other blue chippers in AAA. I'm curious what you all think. To me it looks more like a 5 year plan to success. Starting Pitchers: Ervin Santana Hector Santiago Kyle Gibson Phil Hughes Adalberto Mejia Bullpen: Brandon Kintzler Matt Belisle Ryan Pressly Taylor Rogers Craig Breslow Michael Tonkin Justin Haley Tyler Duffey Ryan O'Rourke (DL) Catchers: Jason Castro Chris Gimenez Infielders: Joe Mauer Brian Dozier Miguel San…

Inspired by this Statcast article on mlb http://m.twins.mlb.com/news/article/221699212/minnesota-twins-2017-statcast-preview/?topicId=27118388 and http://m.mlb.com/news/article/221576208/statcast-ranking-of-top-defensive-outfielders/ I visited https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catch_probability_leaderboard?min=25&year=2016 downloaded data and did a few calculations in an excel file. The calculations were based on giving a player the inverse of the catch probability for making the catch and substracting the difference from 1 for a missed opportunity. Being that these are bucketed into 5 brackets I took the average for that bracket. For example, for the 5 star bucket,…

April Fools!

Down in Ft. Myers, I've had the opportunity to meet and work with Neil Roberts. He is from Minot and comes down each year to record a bunch of player interviews. They air in 3-minute reports on many radio stations in ND and some in western MN. They're brief, but they're good. Check them out here at his Spring Fever Baseball site. 3/13/17 - Kyle Gibson 3/14/17 - Ryan O'Rourke 3/15/17 - Zack Granite 3/16/17 - Daniel Palka 3/17/17 - Brandon Kintzler Brian Dozier Taylor Rogers Joe Mauer Ryan Pressly Matt Belisle Jason Castro Byron Buxton Joe Mauer Eddie Guardado Seth Stohs We'll keep updating these right through Opening Day, so check back each morning.

Is Nick Franklin a better fit for the 25th man than Danny Santana?

The Ringer weighs in on a few reasons to watch baseball this year. One of them is to see if the Twins can win more than 59 games. Another one, is to watch a really large man play rightfield, strike out and homer a lot, and deny Aaron Hicks playing time. https://theringer.com/mlb-preview-opening-day-matt-harvey-chicago-cubs-new-york-yankees-b602e7291f18 I suppose you can tell a lot just from the web address--targeted for the big market teams it seems. And Minnesota is just this adorable bunch of perennial losers... I think its been said by a few, but what this team needs is a chip on its shoulder and a belief they can compete. Maybe the new veterans can bring tha…

Hi gang. I have about 45 mins before I need to leave and I thought I'd take ?s here (as opposed to the already enormous roster thread) until I board. Shoot.

The following notes are based on autonomously simulating the 2017 MLB season using Out of the Park Baseball 18's A.I. The Minnesota Twins took two steps up from the cellar in 2017, finishing in 3rd place in the AL Central with a record of 75-86, a 16-win improvement from 2016. Most of the credit goes to the pitching and defense as the Twins finished in the middle of the pack among American League teams in runs allowed in 2017 (784) after having been dead last the season before. Relief pitching (3.61 ERA) and overall defensive efficiency (.692) were both 2nd overall in the AL which offset the still-struggling starting pitching which once again produced the fewest str…

I know we like our Twins history here at Twins Daily, so I thought I'd share an article series I've been doing at Cold Omaha/Zone Coverage called "Twins Flashback Friday." Here's the link to the category so you can see all the older posts: http://zonecoverage.com/tag/twins-flashback-friday/ This week, I went back in Twins lore to look back fondly on about the only positive thing to happen during the 1994 season -- Scott Erickson's no-hitter. Check it out: http://zonecoverage.com/2017/twins/twins-flashback-friday-scott-erickson-throws-a-no-no/ And of course, as always, please feel free to let me know what you think!

16-13-3 Is there anything that suggests a ST record is an indicator of the regular season record? Anything? Please?

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/221529204/tigers-release-veteran-pitcher-mike-palfrey/ Fool me once shame on you.

http://www.startribune.com/falvey-leaves-players-open-mouthed-by-sending-park-to-rochester/417665353/ I love Reusse and, unlike some, I don't think he makes **** up or pushes an agenda. I think he legitimately wants the Twins to be good. He's saying that players were shocked that Park didn't make the roster and Reusse thinks he knows why: "Molitor wanted veteran Nick Tepesch added to the roster as his long reliever. Falvey made him keep Justin Haley, the Rule 5 draftee, over Tepesch. And since Haley doesn't figure to be reliable as a pitcher to get the Twins from say the fourth to the seventh when needed, it was decided to have two long relievers already on the 40-m…

Here is an Over / Under that is of particular interest to me. Of the 40 members of the opening day (40 man) roster, how many will be traded by the trading deadline? By the way, part of this is prompted by a recent ESPN article where the best they could say about the Twins' bullpen was that it had two or three trade pieces. I think the over / under should be right around 4. But, to make it definitive (no pushing), I'll set it at 3 1/2. Thoughts on the total and the candidates?

We're having a little #MarchMadness-related fun at Zone Coverage. Why not come over and vote in our Greatest Twins Bracket? http://zonecoverage.com/2017/twins/help-zone-coverage-name-the-greatest-twin-of-all-time-pitchers/ hitters will be up later tonight

How serious is it? How long will he be out? And what is it? Thanks!

I was reading this article about David Price's wind-up issues, when I saw this: "MLBPA special assistant Kevin Slowey recently informed Price that umpires are evidently uncomfortable with the way the lefty sets up when in the wind-up or stretch, suggesting there might be too much deception." Apparently, Slowey's been working for the MLBPA since June of 2015. Seems like a good fit. SInce we enjoy predicting the future so much here at Twins Daily, that got me wondering what predictions you'd make for careers outside of baseball for past and present Twins players. Here's a few that seem likely or approriate to me: Justin Morneau - Consultant to Bauer or CCM. JC…

SI had some scout takes on the Twins. It's not pretty. "There's a reason all these guys had 5 ERAs last year. The Twins used to have success developing guys who didn't throw hard but could command the fastball. Now they don't throw hard and they have no command.... Ervin Santana's their ace, but he's actually a three.... José Berrios still hasn't turned the corner. I'm unimpressed by his ability to command the fastball.... Glen Perkins hasn't pitched much this spring. If he can't close for them, they're in big trouble. Well, they're in big trouble anyway.... They gave Jason Castro a lot of money to be their front-line guy. They had a good defensive catcher in Kurt Suzu…

Warning - due to an eye procedure I'm going to have today, I wrote this roughly a week ago and it got published yesterday, so there were some changes in between that my editors didn't catch. https://calltothepen.com/2017/03/28/minnesota-twins-2017-season-preview/ Since it seems like the comments are giving issues, feel free to comment here, and I'll respond as I'm able.