Twins

The Twins were already in pursuit of pitching this offseason, but the news that Ervin Santana will miss 10-12 weeks really emphasizes the team’s need to add to its staff. The number of pitchers in the rotation at any given time is obviously five, but how many starting pitchers can a team expect to rely on over the course of a season?

The year is 2017, and Ryan Pressly has made 25 appearances for the Minnesota Twins totaling 24 innings pitched. He’s posted an 8.25 ERA and opposing batters own an .889 OPS against him. To say his season is not going well would be an understatement, and there were plenty across Twins Territory wondering if this was the end in Minnesota for the one-time Rule 5 draft pick. My contention was that the tools were all there and the end result would be worth the wait. Enter 2018.

Happy birthday, Moneyball!

Yes, as Yahoo’s Jeff Passan alerted us via Twitter over breakfast this morning, Michael Lewis’ seminal baseball book, Moneyball, was released 15 years ago today.

Logan Forsythe’s 19-game run with the Minnesota Twins has been fairly remarkable.

In the time since he came over from the Dodgers in the Brian Dozier trade, Forsythe has led the team in batting average (.377) and on-base percentage (.434). Yes, a little over two weeks is the poster child for small sample size enthusiasts and having half of your hits come on ground balls isn’t exactly a roadmap for sustainability, yet Forsythe has looked good considering he was flotsam in LA.

While the hits have been nice, it’s a far cry from his days with the Tampa Bay Rays where he was hitting double-digit dingers.

Jeff Passan from Yahoo Sports is reporting that the Twins have agreed to a deal with designated hitter Nelson Cruz.

Miguel Sano has played in 17 games for the Minnesota Twins in 2019. He missed the beginning of the season rehabbing from an Achilles injury, and joined the club in the middle of May. Through his first 75 plate appearances Sano has fanned 28 times while drawing nine walks. Each of those strikeouts has drawn the ire of Twins fans and stirred up a vocal minority suggesting the club deserves more. They are wrong, it doesn’t matter, and the slugger has been great.

Every year MLB Trade Rumors makes a list of the top 75 trade candidates in the days and weeks leading up to the July 31st trade deadline. They update the list multiple times as the deadline approaches and their final list was posted earlier today. As they alluded to in the post, “Essentially, we’re ordering players based upon our assessment of both their trade value and likelihood of being dealt.”

How many of the top 75 trade candidates will be dealt before Wednesday? Could any of them end up in Minnesota

That’s more like it. The Twins averaged nearly six runs a game through August, but entered Thursday averaging just 4.4 runs per game so far in September. Instead of bombas, they were registering mere blips. They busted out tonight, however, beating Kansas City 8-5.

The non-tender deadline was on Monday and it resulted in a bunch of new intriguing free agents. Among this group was relief pitcher Blake Treinen who the Oakland A’s decided not to bring back for roughly $7.5 million in 2020. The interest in him was immediately heavy, but should it be?

First we thought he was gone. Then, we weren't so sure. At one point it looked like he definitely was going to stay.

But once the dust had settled at the end of the weekend, Brusdar Graterol was indeed shipped out, sent to Los Angeles in a trade for veteran right-hander Kenta Maeda. (Obligatory: Pending physicals.)

So what have we learned from this whole ordeal, and what is the fallout?

Like most of the world, I’ve been spending the majority of my time on the internet. Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos where average people like myself attempt a celebrity or athlete’s diet for a day.

On Sunday evening, ESPN aired its latest 30 for 30 documentary, ‘Long Gone Summer’, recapping the Summer of 1998 when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire captured the nation with their home run race. What were the Twins up to during the “Long Gone Summer”?