Twins

Over this past year, Twins Daily has continued to provide you with what we feel is the best-in-class Minnesota Twins site. A place where you can visit to comment, gain information and be entertained.

In 2015, an unimaginable amount of words were killed in the name of all things Twins. On a near-daily basis when you land at TwinsDaily.com you will find some combination of Seth Stohs’ unparalleled prospect coverage, Nick Nelson’s thought-provoking analyses, John Bonnes’ quirky humor or my GIF-loaded scouting breakdowns. Or you might discover posts by regular contributors like Jeremy Nygaard, Cody Christie, Steve Buhr and others. Meanwhile, the forums have been alive with debate and conversation like never before. We thank you all for participating in our grand experiment.

But before you Uber off for your rocking New Years’ Eve soiree, help us wring one more click out of these bad boys and check out our top ten most read stories from 2015.

In 2015, Eddie Rosario was called up in mid-April to replace an injured Oswaldo Arcia. At the time of his promotion, it was assumed he would be up for two weeks and go back to Rochester to continue his development. Instead, he became a key cog to the Minnesota Twins surprise success.

Join me for this Prospect Retrospective on Eddie Rosario, and later, see how you can meet Eddie Rosario.

In his rookie season, he experienced a lot of success. He filled the stat sheet in most offensive categories as well as playing great defense and leading the league in outfield assists. However, his free swinging tendencies have made him a strong candidate for regression in 2016. That’s been what has happened to this point, just eight games into the season, but he is immensely talented and has long qualified as a prospect despite some on and off the field issues that he has dealt with.

This year's Minnesota Twins team is bad. Like, most losses in baseball bad. Like, less than half as many wins (25) as the Texas Rangers (51) bad. We've come to terms with this bitter reality.

But what really stings about the ongoing setbacks here in 2016 is the long-term implications. Almost every week, it seems like a new development comes along to sap away any hope for a quick turnaround.

With the Twins expected to officially announce the hiring of Derek Falvey as President of Baseball Opportunities any day now, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look back at how the Cubs' rebuild got started. Now the envy of the baseball world, the Cubs had fallen on hard times prior to hiring their current PBO, Theo Epstein.

Epstein took over in October 2011 and his first move was to hire Jed Hoyer, his former right-hand man in Boston, to serve as his general manager. And it was all butterflies and rainbows in Wrigleyville from there, right?

Well ... not so much.

UPDATE (5:30 p.m. on Thursday) - According to Charley Walters (former Twins pitcher and Pioneer Press writer), Paul Molitor WILL return to the Twins under a new contract. A tweet from Mike Berardino said 'I'm told Paul Molitor has indeed been invited back for 2018, but source w/direct knowledge says 'nothing has been decided or agreed to' yet.

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When Paul Molitor was hired as the Twins manager, he was given a three-year contract. His contract ran through this season, so he is technically approaching free agency. The legend from St. Paul has been in the Twins organization for most of the nearly 20 years since he retired from his Hall of Fame career.

Derek Falvey and Thad Levine took the helm of their new positions with the understanding that Paul Molitor would be the manager for at least the 2017 season, finishing his contract. That season is now over and the front office must decide whether they want to keep Molitor as manager or bring in their own choice for skipper.

The Minnesota Twins played only five games over the past week, though it felt like they got two in on Wednesday when they outlasted the Indians over 16 innings.

In a week that unfortunately featured a lot more lowlights than highlights, we'll cover both below while also looking ahead to one of the toughest series on the schedule.

Spending time with my in-laws by choice. The Minnesota Twins stealing a base. Paul Molitor using Matt Magill out of the Twins bullpen.

These are all things which happen sparingly. But why?

Magill has been excellent for the Twins bullpen since his promotion in April. So who is Matt Magill? What does he throw? Is his success sustainable? If it is, why hasn’t another major league team helped him figure it out?

Aaron and John talk about their night at Target Field with Twins GM Thad Levine and 150 friends, Joe Mauer's latest milestone and 2019 outlook, a too-early glance at the upcoming free agent market, Eddie Rosario's ups and downs, Stephen Gonsalves' rough first taste of the majors, Jake Cave's growing fan club, and mailbag questions from listeners. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.

Yesterday, we reviewed the 21st through 30th most-viewed articles on Twins Daily in 2018. You’ll want to read that, but today, find out which stories or articles ranked 11th through 20th in terms of most viewed on Twins Daily way back in 2018. It’s fun to see which stories were deemed most intriguing. Sometimes it is breaking news, and sometimes it is speculation. Sometimes it is just a topic or a player that we were intrigued by.

Detroit did about all it could to hand today’s game to the Twins, issuing seven walks, but the Twins didn’t seem all that interested in obliging. Michael Pineda had a quality start and the bullpen trio of Trevor Hildenberger, Taylor Rogers and Blake Parker held the Tigers scoreless to secure a one-run victory.

Nearly every team in Major League Baseball uses some variation of pitch tracking technologies to analyze their pitchers.

By now, you have undoubtedly heard that the Minnesota Twins have gone all-in on the Rapsodo craze. However, if you are not entrenched in a team's analytics department or pitching staff, you may not know what that provides. Fortunately, this past spring our high school baseball program had the luxury of having our pitchers throw under the watchful, data-collecting eye of a Rapsodo device.

Here’s what we discovered.

For about three hours this afternoon, leading up the to MLB trade deadline, it appeared as though the entire state of Minnesota was ready to storm 1 Twins Way like it was Area 51. Finally, Twins fans had a trade deadline where they weren’t sellers and they weren’t in between, no they were in full buy mode to give this team a better shot at winning the World Series, and what were they left with, Sergio Romo, a reliever who in his own right is a good addition to the bullpen, but by himself is a little underwhelming of a trade deadline. However, right before the clock struck zero, the Twins were able to acquire another addition to the bullpen in right-handed reliever Sam Dyson. Both Sergio Romo and Sam Dyson were featured in Twins Daily’s “Potential Twins Bullpen Target” series last month.