bean5302

I understand what you're saying there and I agree with you 100%. This failure is on the front office, 100% if Baldelli is just essentially following absolute orders he disagrees with. It's on Baldelli to push back or quit if he disagrees with the philosophy. It's his career and this will be tied to him now. He either lacks confidence to stand up for what he believes or he believes in what appears to be a foolish philosophy. If there aren't absolute orders and if the plan isn't working, it's time to ratchet up the number of innings the starters pitch like every other team in baseball with better or worse rotations than the Twins. There is no good reason for 3 of our 4 main starters to rank in the bottom 6% of all starters in baseball in terms of pitches thrown per start when the bullpen can't handle the strain. Adapt or die.

One of the latest games I watched was absolutely painful to watch. I think it was 8/30 vs. Boston. Archer vs. Crawford. I got so frustrated I actually started counting the time between pitches for Archer and it was in the 35-40 second range between deliveries for a while early in the game. Crawford was no speed demon either. Pitch clock. Please, please, please.

The Twins rank 20th in home attendance average this year, ahead of several teams more likely to make the playoffs and 2nd in the AL Central behind the White Sox's 24.6k. Minnesota 22.6k Baltimore 17.7k Cleveland 17.2k Tampa Bay 14.0k The Twins were coming off a last place finish and a long lockout with almost no time to ramp up season ticket sales in a city which has been rocked by violence, crime and safety issues over the past 2 years. The deck was stacked against filling season ticket holder seats and it shows. Early year attendance was horrid. April = 17.5k May = 19.4k Jun = 24.9k Jul = 28.0k ---------------- Twins lose division lead. Aug = 24.2k (Competing with Vikings, State Fair, Renaissance Festival) All in all, the Twins seem to be holding their own in attendance. Winning is one part of the equation. The game day experience is what really matters. The Pohlads put forth a major commitment to winning this year with a payroll blowing their historical max out of the water at $140MM. Right in line with where the team should be on an annual basis.

Since I'm a season ticket holder, I'm going to show up. I'm also going to spend money on concessions, enjoy the ambiance and have fun with friends (if I can get them to go, haha). I go to the game to have fun, and it's fun going to the game regardless of whether or not the Twins win.

Yep. I think you missed the sarcasm, haha.

No, you should disown them if they DO get into Harvard. Who can afford that? LOL

A good manager should adapt and push back on the front office if the strategy is failing or quit at the end of the season. At this point, Baldelli not pushing back on the strategy and managing in a different manner shows he either believes in the failing philosophy or he lacks the confidence to push back. My guess is he truly believes in the philosophy which I don't.

Sanchez in August and September .222/.309/.403 wRC+ 107. Season wOBA .333 (average), xwOBA .355 (good) Historical his wOBA and xwOBA have been right in line with each other. Sanchez is above average with pitch framing this year +1 runs, but of course, Jeffers is better at that with +3 runs in fewer innings. Sanchez is well above average with controlling the run game at 33% caught stealing vs. 25% league average. It comes from Sanchez having a strong arm and fast pop time. Jeffers is well below average with controlling the run game at 17% caught stealing vs. 25% league average. His pop time is league average and his arm is weak. His weakness in the run game is well known and teams actively take advantage of his limitations. Sanchez goes approximately 23 innings between having a passed ball or wild pitch. Jeffers is better at 25 innings. Both are slightly better than league average, ranking 21st and 19th, respectively, of 42 catchers with 400+ innings this year. To put it bluntly, Sanchez is a solid defensive catcher this year with no obvious flaws in his catching game. He's universally better than average. His bat comes with a lot of power, but a lot of swing and miss, too. He's about a league average hitter. That said, he's a free agent after this year. I doubt Leon is better than Caleb Hamilton. Jeffers is the only legitimate MLB caliber catcher we have on the roster beyond this year, and I'm not sure he's a legitimate starter. So beyond this year, the Twins are in very rough shape. This year, the Twins need Sanchez to stay healthy and they'll be "okay."

The only chance Varland has to be a success story is if Falvey, Levine and Baldelli aren't with the organization anymore. No starting pitcher is ever going to be a "success story" with this front office running the show and destroying all the value they can along the way.

This article couldn't be further off. Other teams rely on pitches to determine starts, not TTO. The TTO concept being implemented in such a hard set fashion is seemingly unique to the Twins. The Twins set an all time MLB record for the longest time into the season for a pitcher to hit 100 innings. - That is not a trend or similar to other teams. It's an all time record (which makes it exceptional). Archer, Gray and Bundy all rank at or near the absolute bottom of MLB starters in terms of their average appearance length. 75% of all starters in MLB average at least 5.1 innings. Twins = 20% (Ryan = 5.1) 50% of all starters in MLB average at least 5.2 innings. Twins = 0% 25% of all starters in MLB average at least 6.0 innings. Twins = 0% Pitches per game? Same story. 75% of all starters in MLB average at least 85 pitches per start. Twins = 20% (Joe Ryan = 87) 50% of all starters in MLB average at least 90 pitches per start. Twins = 0% 25% of all starters in MLB average at least 94 pitches per start. Twins = 0% Percentile rank by pitches per start. Joe Ryan 35% (78/120) Sonny Gray 6% (113/120) Dylan Bundy 4% (115/120) Chris Archer 0% (120/120) The Twins are not part of a baseball trend. The Twins are unique. Other teams allow starters to keep pitching when they're effective. The Twins do not. The Twins pull pitchers who are pitching well because of the false pretense of a major drop off in performance related to TTO and the organization seems to be refusing to alter it's seemingly failed strategy.

Yes. Varland was pulled too early, putting the Twins into a situation the bullpen didn't need to be in and the Twins lost. I don't have any faith in Falvey, Levine and Baldelli at this point.

There have been articles released about it over the years and it seems like mangameslost.com may have the data, but it's a paid site.

Very exciting for Varland to get called up! I hope he views the Yankees as just another team and not so pensively as fans on this site. If he goes out and shows command of his pitches, he'll have a good shot at giving the Twins a solid start. Sometimes I do wonder if the Twins psyche themselves out when facing New York. The Yankees average 5.0 runs per game at home and 4.2 on the road. Less than a run per game per difference, but it feels like the expectation is they'll hang 10 on the Twins.

The Twins, White Sox and Guardians are running a different kind of 3 legged race, but still just as awkward looking as the normal kind. Except, sometimes, fans just want to put the burlap sack over their heads haha. At least it feels like the rest of the central is intent on keeping the the division wide open so fans can just enjoy the excitement of the potential for the playoffs

The 87 Twins team didn't get a "taste." The Twins have gotten plenty of "tastes" over the past few years in their 1 and done trips. 2017, 2019, 2020... They got their taste of the playoffs before in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 when they advanced 1 time before starting the longest consecutive playoff losing streak in MLB history. I'd like to see the Twins win the World Series, not make the playoffs. I don't really care about the players having the "experience" of going to the playoffs since I don't think of this as a family vacation to Disney World. The players are paid to play. The manager, coaches and front office are paid to make sure the players have the resources to be professional. The team has plenty of veteran leadership and players with playoff experience on the team.

Let's take a quick peek at the primary players on the vaunted '87 club vs. '22. I'll use the top 20 players without comparing the all the bit players. I multiplied '22 by 1.22 to get to their pace for the full season and I assumed Mahle doesn't return. C = (0.4) vs. 0.6 Laudner vs. Sanchez 1B = 4.0 vs. 4.7 Hrbek vs. Arraez 2B = 1.3 vs. 3.4 Lombardozzi vs. Polanco 3B = 2.4 vs. 2.2 Gaetti vs. Urshela SS = 3.9 vs. 4.5 Gagne vs. Correa LF = 1.2 vs. 2.1 Gladden vs. Gordon CF = 4.2 vs. 5.0 Puckett vs. Buxton RF = 2.5 vs. 2.8 Brunansky vs. Kepler DH = 0.2 vs. 1.6 Smalley vs. Miranda Tot = 16.8 vs. 25.7 SP1 = 8.1 vs. 1.9 Viola vs. Gray SP2 = 4.4 vs. 1.1 Blyleven vs. Ryan SP3 = 2.2 vs. 0.4 Straker vs. Bundy SP4 = (0.4) vs. (0.2) Smithson vs. Archer SP5 = (1.0) vs. 0.7 Niekro vs. Smeltzer Tot = 13.3 vs. 4.0 RP1 = 0.7 vs. 2.8 Reardon vs. Duran RP2 = 2.0 vs. 2.6 Berenguer vs. Lopez (combined) RP3 = 0.1 vs. 0.7 Atherton vs. Fulmer RP4 = 0.0 vs. 0.1 Frazier vs. Thielbar RP5 = (0.9) vs. (1.0) Schatzeder vs. Pagan RP6 = (1.0) vs. 0.5 Portugal vs. Jax Tot = 0.9 vs. 5.0 The '87 Twins team's positional players and lineup was mostly solid up and down, but it wasn't an asset for a playoff team. The '22 Twins are almost universally better having a higher projected bWAR in 8 of 9 spots with the positional play truly being an asset to the team in the playoffs. The '87 Twins team had an exceptionally strong top of the rotation which faded fast after Blyleven with Straker being decent at the time and the rest of the rotation being pretty poor. The '22 Twins team's rotation being "weak" is an understatement. Though the weakness is somewhat impacted by the low inning philosophy of the front office and management, there is nobody in the rotation I'd want facing prime Viola or even '87 Blyleven in a playoff game. This is one of the keys to the Twins in the playoffs in 87. Only your best starters trot out to the mound, and the Twins had a great top of the order. The '87 Twins team's bullpen was poor. If it wasn't Berenguer or Reardon on the mound, bad things were likely to happen. It was a different era, though. The bullpen in '87 pitched about 500 innings. The '22 bullpen is on pace for more like 800 innings. Regardless, the '22 team's bullpen isn't much deeper. Outside of Duran and Lopez (on the season), the value is limited. Memories of the 1987 Twins are golden, but they weren't really a great team. They were just barely good enough to make the playoffs and a far cry from the 1991 Twins, who were a very good team. So the 2022 Twins are somewhat similar, but in the wrong way. When it comes to the playoffs, great starters make all the difference IMHO.

I don't think all the Twins' players used have been the result of injury. The Twins have manufactured some the need to be creative with the MiLB to MLB shuttle due to the way the TTO pitching strategy has been implemented. The Twins are 2nd in MLB in terms of IL players behind the Reds at 31 total. The Twins are 3rd in MLB in terms of IL days spent, behind the Reds and Rays, just a tick ahead of the Cubs. The Twins are 14th in MLB in terms of IL dollars spent. This is often the place where wins lost are counted. This is where the star players are often counted. Obviously, this doesn't normalize the dollar figure with the percentage of the team salary which might also be helpful. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/disabled-list/2021/cumulative-team/ It might be interesting to evaluate the front office's record in relation to their peer teams in terms of all three, plus percentage of salary.

To me, it's the ability to have a feel for the game. Intuition about in game action, observation through methodical focus and knowledge gained through study. It's all about the application of knowledge to situations or being "wise" about the game. Some people just seem to have a 6th sense about things which makes it seem almost pre-cognition like. Instinct is a little different in my opinion.

I think the AFL is fine. While the tone in here suggests the AFL is only for elite prospects, I disagree with that. I see mostly either elite prospects who have lost a large portion of the season to injury or prospects who aren't elite, but who may have had a season which wasn't long enough for the front office's to accept the results as proven. A lot of the time the AFL seems to get prospects who just need more playing time. Conversely, the players who've already had longer seasons than what they're used to (college starters typically don't exceed 80-100 innings) run the risk of wearing out and breaking down with serious injuries if they're overworked so filling an expanded group of rosters might not be ideal.

I'm not nearly as big on Mahle as some other fans on the site, but I recognized what the Twins had to offer to secure an elite arm. They took a shot and it was a decent one considering the team's limitations on assets. It's easy to feel like the responses were more negative or guarded than the grades, especially if you're mediocre on the move. After all, it's not as if the conversation was all absolute ecstatic cheers in the Mahle thread.

You really feel Brusdar Graterol would have been more valuable to 2020's Cy Young runner up? Maeda having a solid (but unlucky) 2021 before going down with the UCL tear was unfortunate, but he's super cheap and has added more fWAR in just his down 2021 than Graterol has in his career so far. Graterol isn't a threat to be a starter, and that was really the big risk in dealing him. Maeda's still under contract for only $3MM next year. Meanwhile, Graterol appears to be a good middle reliever or maybe setup guy. I think Maeda was a very good trade, even considering the loss of 2022.

Hit the nail on the head here. The 1987 Twins were a pretty good team who weren't expected to make it out of the first round, but they got hot at the right time and had the ball bounce their way in route to a World Series victory. If the Twins make it into the playoffs, it's almost certainly going to be by winning the division. Cleveland just decided to roll over and die by losing 5 straight games, and the White Sox seem hapless. Now 5 games out of the Wildcard, it's not happening. Relative to the Twins, the Wildcard standings. *Seattle +7 games *Tampa Bay +6 games *Toronto +5 games Baltimore +2.5 games Minnesota Chicago -2.0 games Boston -2.5 games Aside from that, the playoffs are a different game than the regular season. Only the best players play and every game matters. Also, and I say this seemingly ever year, but it's already long past time for the AL Central to stop playing like it's entirely composed of AAAA clubs. One day, it'll happen and the AL Central will no longer be the worst division in baseball. Some team will step up, stop kicking balls instead of catching them and start playing with confidence instead of desperation.

I just don't see Winder as a legitimate starter anymore, and I've been as high on him as anybody. I don't think his shoulder can handle the workload. As far as this year, he's missed so much time he'll need to be stretched back out and there just really isn't enough time to do it and still make more than a start or two for the Twins IMHO.

Lopez since joining the Twins: 3.09 ERA, 3.12 FIP, 4.25 xFIP 18.8% K (poor), 8.3% BB (acceptable), 1.37 WHIP (poor), .364 BABIP (very unlucky). He's pitched in 12 games and allowed runs in 3 of them, blowing 2 saves. 75% of the time, Lopez puts up a 0 so far. It's not great, for sure, and fans were expecting great, but it's a very small sample size. Lopez has 50% of his season with the Twins left, still. Duran has pitched in 50 games and allowed runs in 7 of them. 86% of the time, Duran puts up a 0 so far, and that's fairly on track for an elite closer. No runs allowed about 85% of the time.

60/40? Here's a link to a Grade the Twins' Deadline. It was nowhere near 60/40 or even 80/20. 92% A or B 6% C 1% D 0% F Here's an article about Mahle in particular. Overwhelming positivity in the comments, with a couple guarded concerns. Nobody was really negative. It's safe to say virtually the entire active poster base on the site deemed the trade acceptable to great.