Daily Twins Daily: July 31, 2017

First: What was your favorite Jaime Garcia moment? Was it his one start in a Minnesota Twins uniform? In Oakland? That’s probably it. In fact, we made a sweet memorial video dedicated to him at our Facebook page.

Yesterday’s Garcia trade’s return (and any potential incoming players at the deadline) reflects on the new front office’s philosophies. Nick Nelson takes a look at that direction when it comes to the recent acquisition of minor league pitchers.

Second: Twins GM Thad Levine joined MLB Network Radio on Sunday to discuss the Garcia trade as well as the team’s status as the deadline approaches. Most reports have Ervin Santana, Brandon Kintzler, Matt Belise and Brian Dozier as players on the table. Here’s what he had to say...

"We've got our dance card out. We're waiting for someone to punch it. But still in tire-kicking stage."

That’s a weird mix of metaphors. On one hand, the Twins are looking for someone to take them to a dance but they are also looking for a new automobile.

At the end of the day, when the music stops, bottom line, when all the cards are on the table, the Twins are hardcore sellers. Seth Stohs, someone who never mixes his metaphors, has created an OFFICIAL TRADE DEADLINE THREAD. Be sure to check back often.

Third: The Twins lost in Oakland on Sunday. Once again it was a bullpen problem. This time it was Taylor Rogers coughing up the lead and Tyler Duffey serving up the extra inning loss. For the full rundown on the day’s events, Tom Froemming has you covered.

It was also a Phil Cuzzi problem too. Cuzzi, who was behind the dish this afternoon, clearly had a soft spot in his heart for strikes just off the left-handed batter’s box side of the plate. As the game ran on, he continued to ring players up on pitches outside of the zone until Miguel Sano couldn't take it anyone.

Home: Byron Buxton AND Byungho Park (remember him?!) homered in yesterday’s Rochester Red Wings game. Other stuff happened too! Cody Christie takes you around the org’s minor league action.

Saturday’s Chattanooga Lookouts game went 21-innings which means a lot of pitchers had to hit because after 13 innings who cares? Let’s just end it all. Nevertheless, Chattanooga’s reliever Todd Van Steensel wants to know which hurler you think swung it best?

Extra Innings: More free stuff! If you sign up at the Twins Daily Thank You Giveaway, you could win batting stance t-shirts of the 1987 or 1991 Twins lineups from Pick & Shovel.

Random: BACK TO PHIL CUZZI.

I’m at a personal crossroads about ROBOT UMPIRES. On one hand, I’m a big fan of getting the calls right. A strike should be a strike and a ball should be a ball. Nothing more frustrating than slapping a solid two-seamer through the outer-half of the zone when an umpire takes it away because your catcher was set up somewhere else. On the other hand, I also love getting mad at umpires. It’s my jam. It’s everyone’s jam. In the history of baseball, no one has not blamed an umpire for something. It feels so good to blame the blue.

I’m conflicted about how I feel about the notion of the balls-and-strikes being taken out of a human’s hands. I’m 85% confident that if we as humans hand over the rights to call balls-and-strikes to umpires, the whole plot to Terminator will happen. The again, I look at charts like this and I think we are crazy to have humans making the calls.

Get a gander at the difference between two umpire’s strike zones on either end of the spectrum. One is Cuzzi’s, whose 2017 strike zone is only more gracious than Doug Eddings and Bill Miller, and the other is Mark Wegner, who has the most shrunken strike zone to date.

During Sunday’s game, ESPN/TruMedia’s data showed that Cuzzi called five pitches out of the strike zone as strikes. Four of those happened against the Twins. Three of those were called strike three (Brian Dozier twice, Miguel Sano once).

A common response people give to that situation is that you got to swing because it is close. That’s just a dumb explanation. The other way to say it is “swing because someone is bad at their job”. Phil Cuzzi has proven to be bad at his job this year*.

To be sure, the Twins did not lose because of Cuzzi. That would be an easy out. They stopped hitting and they stopped shutting opponents down with the bullpen.

* All years.