Minnesota Twins Talk

Having a friendly debate with a few co-workers. Gibson for Kelly straight up. Who says no? They seem to think the Cards don't take the call. I feel Twins say no at this point. Thoughts?

Random Question of the Day: Have you ever caught a home run ball, or a foul ball at a big league game? Have you ever had a ball tossed to you? It's even OK if you count batting practice. When I was probably 8 years old or so, I was at a Twins game at the Metrodome. They were playing the Red Sox, and during their batting practice, a ball was hit foul down the 3B line. A lefty reliever named John Henry Johnson came over and picked up the ball. I asked for the ball. He turned back toward the field and said, "Ah, I came this far..." He turned and then flipped the ball to me. I'm surprised I caught it. I took that ball and went down by the Twins dugout. I know Kirby Puc…

Since I have no life outside of watching Twins can we please reel off some w's vs kc tb kc tor to give me some false hope?

Good story in Sano http://m.startribune.com/miguel-sano-making-progress-at-class-a-fort-myers/487945021/?ref=nl&om_rid=1661253065&om_mid=100785609

https://www.twincities.com/2018/07/11/twins-place-struggling-addison-reed-on-dl-with-triceps-issue/ Maybe that is why Reed has been bad for a while

Ervin Santana gave up two runs on two hits in five innings. He struck out six and walked none. His next outing will likely be on Sunday for Rochester. After the game, he spoke with a media member from Jacksonville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkjVVWpfBhk&feature=youtu.be With Aaron Slegers' short start on Tuesday night, is it possible that Santana could start instead of Slegers on Sunday?

Souhan and Reusse, who recently renewed their Pohlad Wallet Watcher credentials, wrote separate articles that spending money on free agents is bad. Souhan focusing on the slow ramp up of free agents this last winter such as Cobb, Lynn, and Morrison. And throwing money at a problem is bad. Reusse focused on the last two times the Twins had a record payroll, they failed. So why spend money? http://m.startribune.com/just-maybe-the-twins-are-better-off-not-spending-any-money/487577121/ http://m.startribune.com/free-agents-at-target-field-throw-water-on-collusion-talk/487617461/

It is with a heavy heart that I relay the news that Ryan LaMarre, 2018 Sire of Fort Myers, has been claimed off waivers by the Chicago White Sox, of all teams. Farewell to thee, Mr. LaMarre. We'll always have Puerto Rico ...

I really tried to avoid partial season slash stats but it is hard not to notice Kepler’s this year. I took a look at the measures that have a large enough sample. His strike out rate of 16% is significantly lower than his career rate. His walk rate of 11% is significantly greater than his career rate. His ISO is below his career rate but reasonably close. His slash stats are so hard to ignore. I know they need a much larger sample. Is it simply the bad luck of a .240 BABIP? Maybe. It seems like he has made real improvement in strike zone recognition. I hope that improvement starts getting rewarded in the numbers. I don’t think it is time to overhaul his swing.

Starting a new thread, from elsewhere... https://www.mlb.com/all-star/final-vote Come on, people. With the power of Twins Daily posters backing him, how can he lose? Vote early and vote often. (They actually encourage this.) #AcceptThisRosie

Well deserved kudos to Jose Berrios and Eddie Rosario on their All Star nods! Sorry, excuse me one moment folks my producer is whispering something in my ear. How's that again? I'm not wrong, you're wrong; check again. Hmmmmmmm...... Well deserved kudos to Jose Berrios on his All Star nod!

In quite a few threads there are lamentations about Buxton's poor performance. Folks frequently had similar lamentations about Aaron Hicks during his tenure with the Twins. I decided to pull some numbers on each of the players (note, this is not nearly as sophisticated an analysis as many of the regulars on TD accomplish): Buxton Year PA wRC+ OPS 2015 138 53 576 2016 331 86 714 2017 511 90 728 980 Plate Appearances As a Twin Hicks Year PA wRC+ OPS 2013 313 62 597 2014 225 83 615 2015 390 96 721 928 Plate Appearances As a Twin 2016 361 64 617 2017 361 127 847 For each player, their number of plate appearances are similar for their first three "full" years as …

Mike Bernardino has a good piece about being traded through the eyes of Addison Reed. You can read it here: ttps://www.twincities.com/2018/07/06/addison-reed-traded-three-times-offers-deadline-advice-for-twins-teammates/ He's been trade three times and offers his advice to others and the potential and how to deal with the emotions of it. Sound advice, IMHO, from him. We often look at the trade deadline as a simple transaction. The players do have some forces working on them during this time and it was good to hear about how Reed dealt with his trades.

It has been suggested here, that Twins manager Paul Molitor intentionally ordered a third HBP on Jurickson Profar in Friday's game. This is a fine hypothesis. In my opinion, hypotheses should be tested. Let's do it. ---------- The Hypotheses ---------- H1, the experimental hypothesis: Molitor hates it when players steal with a big lead, and will get retribution by having his guy to throw at the offending player. H0, the null hypothesis: Big-lead steals have no effect. Batters get hit sometimes, but the outcome of an at-bat will be no different than after attempting to steal with a lead. ---------- The Relevant Evidence ---------- Let's define a big lead as 5 or mor…

They called Willians Astrudillo up. Motter to concussion 7-day DL, Felix Jorge DFA'd. This is a great writeup regarding Astrudillo.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/05/twins-acquire-chris-carter.html Should this be interpreted as bad news on Mauer?

First, I must say, the 2018 slogan has been a poor choice considering the results on the field. So help the marketing department - Fill in the blank - My answers - This is how we _______________ 1. Lose Lose Lose 2. Squander good pitching performances 3. Put up huge LOB numbers, if we can get anyone OB 4, Aggravate our fans 5, Sell Sell Sell up to the trading deadline

This season is so frustrating - what else can we do? No way, it should ever have been this bad. They're even making old guys watch the anemic offense on Facebook.

The distribution of playing time has been a pet topic of mine for quite some time. I've felt that Paul Molitor will ride the same horses into the ground and felt that Dave Roberts of the Dodgers would not and so I looked for a Game Started percentage stat and couldn't find one so I did the research myself. Who are each managers go to guys and how often do they go to them. How many games available to start on the 25 man - How many games started - Percentage of games started - Current OPS+ I understand that a managers choices are much more nuanced than this. It does not account for boo-boos not bad enough for DL time, strength of bench options and other factors bu…

Where did all the wins go? - Part 2 - The Batters Today we're going to find out where all the wins went, because it's time for a statistical analysis of the hitters, and it's gonna be ugly. I'll be examining their WAR but also several other stats that I found relevant. This time around, I'm going to use both Baseball-Reference's and Fangraph's WAR measurements and compare them. We'll start with 1B and DHs first: --My apologies for the small images; if you're on a computer, I recommend right-clicking the images and opening them up in a new tab-- 1B/DH Key: oWAR is Baseball-Reference's measure of how many wins the player's offense is worth. UZR is Fangraph's measur…

I found a site that rates the impact of DL stints on teams.....and it does not back up the idea the Twins' problems are "mostly" or even " a lot" about injuries. now, it won't include Polanco, but if he's a 4 WAR player, they lost 2 WAR there..... I don't know if this is a great analysis or a good one, or (less likely) a completely inaccurate one. What it does for me is point out how other teams are doing, which is not something I pay close attention to, as I am more into looking at the Twins than how they compare to other teams.... https://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-disabled-list-tracker/

The Twins finished with 85 wins last year. At the current moment (writing as of 7/2/18), the Twins are on pace to win just 70 and lose 92. You can only scratch your head and wonder: Where did all the wins go? This is the first part of two articles focusing on the Twins pitching through Game 81 (July 2nd). In this statistical analysis, I'll be comparing Twins' WAR from 2017 to 2018, trying to match up position by position to see how things have changed. WAR is obviously not a perfect stat, so I've included others as a way to measure if WAR does things right. (all stats taken from Baseball-Reference.com) First, the starting rotation: The first thing to note: I…

I've been arguing that the Twins front office should have made a few moves a few weeks back that wouldn't cost alot but the front office has done nothing but sit back and watch the team die. I guess I am ready to give up on this season too and join the race to the bottom. Its too bad too cause Pohlad spent money this year on payroll and the front office just went on vacation after spring training and said we'll be back after the allstar break to see if we need to do anything. I guess now they do. They need to shed money cause the fans shouldn't want to pay to see this crap and I'm sure Pohlad doesn't want to pay for it either. So with our loss today we are arou…

This team has been a mess. Something tangible is missing with these guys. Polanco will most certainly be in the lineup tomorrow, but what other moves need to be made, especially with the pitching?

Sounds like a done deal for one of the top International prospects available. https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/twins-to-sign-outfield-prospect-misael-urbina/c-283478518

56 wins, 26 losses. This is the record the Twins need in order to achieve 91 wins this season. 91 wins is the amount of wins the Twins would need to win the division if Cleveland's 2nd half record were to be exactly the same as their first half record of 45-37. A daunting task. Even more daunting when you figure Cleveland is likely disappointed with their 1st half start and is expected to play better in the 2nd half. If so, 56-26 won't be good enough. 56-26 would be the best record in baseball right now, better than the Yankees, Red Sox, Astros, and all NL Leaders by a lot. I'm not saying it is impossible, but, well it's pretty close to impossible. When you …

We can't say for sure but given his production this season, it wouldn't be surprising to see teams in need of some infield pop start calling the Twins. Fox Sports' Jon Morosi speculates that plenty of the teams not willing to pay up for Manny Machado will be interested in Escobar instead. The Twins haven't committed to anything with Brian Dozier for next season and have Nick Gordon in AAA and Jorge Polanco returning. Do you pull the trigger for the right price or is Escobar a building block?

I continued to watch the tv debacle of the Twins telecast, waiting to hear what the manager would say. Postgame dudes on FSN kept saying, “stay turned for Molitor’s postgame comments.” For at least half an hour. Finally, it became, “ tune in tomorrow to hear the manager’s thoughts.” ( sorry- obviously paraphrasing) So, what’s up with him?

I know this has been bemoaned repeatedly this summer but I just can't get my head around why the Twins continue to expose young arms...arms that we've seen on prospect lists...to DFA-land when it is "fairly" certain that a older relief pitcher that has, how should I put it, had a bad year so far could be DFA'd without subjecting Jorge to being claimed...don't get it https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/06/twins-designate-felix-jorge-for-assignment.html