bean5302

Baldelli has mentioned the TTO deal more than once this year. I do also think the Twins have implemented soft pitch limits (seems around 80) for MiLB prospects to try and protect them from wearing down. I don't think it's a good thing and I don't see it working for the team at all.

That part I got. Just didn't know if they were still talking about the aisle/walking vendors still haha. Or if they were talking about dedicated, like, "Pepsi" kiosks.

Tough to say how the pay will change, but I would suspect slot bonus' becoming guaranteed and slot bonus amounts vs. player salary will be the major sources of friction. MLB has already taken a huge backlash for closing down 42 MiLB franchises, coinciding with the smaller amateur draft. I think the amateur draft would have to be cut back further in order to contract more MiLB teams like that and affiliates now have 10 year agreements instead of 2-4 year agreements. I think it would be a huge mess for MLB to try and contract MiLB affiliations again right now.

Target Field does offer free water and you can bring empty water bottles into the game. I'm not sure what is meant by "pop vendors" if they were talking about the walking vendors or just in general. You can get soft drinks, sports drinks and water at virtually every single vendor at the stadium.

Dylan Bundy went 6 consecutive starts without giving up more than 2 earned runs and had 1 bad start in his previous 9 games. He's making $4MM this year. If he's the guy who fans expect to carry the team... In any case, Bundy gave up 4 of his 7 earned in the first inning and the bullpen is not ready to go in inning 1. Baldelli did what he thought he had to, and probably what I would have done and let Bundy go back out there for the 5th. It was playing with fire, but the bullpen has been taxed recently.

Ushers are definitely NOT holding fans in most instances for non-premium seats. They rarely enforced the rule in upper level seats, but they always used to enforce it for lowers. They definitely enforce it well for Club Level based on my personal experience. I'd be shocked if they didn't for Dugout Box, Home Plate Box and Champions Club as well. Diamond Box and Field Box? maaaaayyybe. Left Field Bleachers, almost never. Even when fans are voluntarily standing. It's really annoying.

Gotta make it to the post season first, but yeah, I don't know if the general rules apply to this Twins team either. Their futility against the good teams isn't part of a normal dataset.

Wallner does seem to be quite a bit faster than advertised. His first triple was a fielding error more than a triple, but his triple for the cycle on 9/1 was legit. Haven't seen tonight's effort. Also, for a guy who seemed to have a lot of detractors on the site because of a short very cold start to his stint in AAA, he's hitting .247 with an .829 OPS overall at this point. Good thing we went out and got Billy Hamilton so Baldelli could start him in the outfield. In any case, I hope Wallner will have a shot at making the team out of Spring Training next year at this pace. Julien continues to hit in AA. Not sure he has anything to prove at that level anymore. Brooks Lee has really done everything the organization could hope for at this point. I expect he'll spend next year at AA if he keeps up the pace. Balazovic must feel really good after that effort. It's the very first time this year he's gone more than 4.0 innings (seriously), though it certainly seemed like he should have been given the opportunity to throw another inning a couple times, but that could be the Falvey Philosophy to prevent pitchers from accumulating value.

I wish fans would appreciate what Ryan is instead of setting an impossible bar for him to reach as an unreasonable expectation. He's an MLB caliber starting pitcher right now. That's pretty outstanding considering what he's had to do to prove he could hold his own with the tools he has to work with.

The pitcher can avoid those situations by... throwing a pitch. Since pitchers are doing everything except throwing pitches, MLB needed to make these undesirable rules changes. It wasn't MLB's first choice. It's the lesser of multiple evils.

I won't call them "idiots" but I think their philosophy/strategy is very poor.

No idea on that. He's pitched 42 and 52 pitches in consecutive starts against Low-A competition. Not sure why they didn't move him up sooner if he felt good. Maybe they're concerned his groin could act up after a couple innings and they don't want to risk having to pull him super early in a start with the current bullpen possibly still struggling to recover from the double-header. I'm not sold on Ober being a starter anymore anyway. I don't think he's durable enough.

Offf... great article with a painful reality. No team is as bad as the Twins have played against good teams. That's a big problem. Statistically, it's not possible for Minnesota to play like this on talent alone, which means the issue is probably less with the players and more with management and philosophy.

Wanna pay double for your tickets? LOL. Seriously, though. MLB did shorten commercials a couple years ago already. Players still take 2 minutes to shift from batting to fielding. A left fielder would be a good example. If they leave the inning at 3rd base, jog back into the dugout, swap out their helmet and gloves for a fielding card, glove and hat, grab a drink of water and run back out to left field. That takes a couple minutes. If they have to make an emergency bathroom run, a little more. So all you'd see are the broadcasters talking about the game and no action anyway.

Considering the Twins were offering tickets without fees, tickets directly through the Twins are cheaper than Stubhub

The MLBPA just automatically opposes everything owners propose as a matter of principle. The owners could propose saving a beached whale and the MLBPA would sign a petition to block it...

It does not surprise me that MLB owners are on board with MiLB organizing. As I argued in the H2H debate, it will sow dissention in the player ranks and create a more difficult bargaining position for players. In addition, the unionizing will block a lot of the avenues for legal pursuits which have cost MLB a lot of money recently and give MLB the opportunity to more forcefully control things like signing bonuses vs. "slot" bonuses, etc. Honestly, with MLB's special exemption, having all the players in a union just streamlines administrative burdens.

Glad the Twins won! Funny the article mentioned all the negativity towards Correa recently. I was thinking I might come in here and point out how the comments were undoubtedly missing the trash talking of Correa haha. Anyway, seems like he's right on track for a 4+ fWAR season and he's already at 4.0 bWAR.

https://fanbuzz.com/mlb/pedro-florimon-philadelphia-phillies-ankle-injury-video/ This is why. At 2B and 3B, you can't overrun the base, but at 1B, you can. Too many injuries stepping on the edge of the bag or getting tangled up in the 1B's foot/leg. I suppose MLB could have just increased the size of the 1B. But, whatever.

I agree with @DJL44. I know quite a few people in or connected to the service industry including a close friend who bartends at Target Field. There's no staffing. Delaware North has a hard core training/intro video about all the rules, etc, but it goes totally un-enforced because they simply can't afford to lose staff. It's also, undoubtedly impacted by being a "cashless" ballpark. I suppose there would be some hesitation to pass people's (always been horribly, disgustingly filthy) money down to a vendor at the aisle and have them pass change and food/beverages back. Wifi transactions are less stable and don't get me started on TwinsPay... so having vendors with only card readers might have been a logistics issue, but requiring vendors to pass their scanning devices through the stands for TwinsPay phone transactions would definitely present problems. I do miss vendors in the stands and it's been commented on by many random folks (especially out of towners) in the seats next to mine when I'm at the game.

I think Ryan is exactly what I expected him to be. A solid #4-5 guy with a ceiling (unlikely to reach it) as a #3. Ryan's offspeed and breaking pitches are pretty limited and that was known when the Twins acquired him. He's a solid back end starter right now.

It seems like people kinda need to hear this, but MLB is not eliminating the shift. A 3B can still stand where the SS normally stands. A SS can still stand just a tick to the far side of 2B. The shift is still acceptable. The super extreme version of the shift cannot be used.

Yeah, all the acronyms and abbreviations can seem pretty ridiculous. Different sites use different factors. It's honestly a big pain to learn them. wOBA = weighted on base average. It's basically a stat designed to combine everything a player does offensively into on base percentage equivalent. .300 stinks, .325 is okay, .350 is good, .375 is great .400 is elite. Something like that. xwOBA = the expected wOBA a player should have based on batted balls. Essentially, how hard and far balls were hit. It tries to take out the "balls with eyes" factor. wRC+ = weighted runs created plus, which is basically a really complicated, and slightly more accurate version of the much older and still usually very good OPS (on base + slugging percentage), but wRC+ is adjusted for park factors. It's just a rating which compares total expected offensive output relative to other batters where 100 is league average.

Being built for October means starting pitching to me. While I think Gray has proven he's a good pitcher this year, there has to be a threat the best starter on the team could corner an opponent against a wall by tossing 7 or 8 great innings, leaving only the elite bullpen to close out the win. Even if Gray had an immaculate game with 18 strikeout on 48 pitches going, Baldelli would pull him at the end of 6.0 innings in favor of Emilio Pagan instead of letting Gray face the order a 3rd time.

Won't it be great if Varland pitches really well down the stretch and the Twins make the playoffs just to watch Varland get the axe because Falvey didn't want to burn an option?