Nine of twelve

Found a stat that in 2019 56.9% of MLB home runs were solo shots. https://tbonesbaseball.com/why-solo-home-runs-are-on-the-rise-in-major-league-baseball/ You don't give a number but it sounds like the Twins were about average, maybe even a bit better than average, at hitting multi-run homers that season.

Yeah, for a good part of the season the eventual Cy Young winner was our second best starter.

Not as soon as you would be if you ate one every day.

Can we please give up trying to categorize starting pitchers? I don't give two ****s whether someone on this site or at a major national sports outlet rates a particular pitcher an Ace, a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 47. Just find good pitchers, coach them to their best performance, and put them in the rotation.

First base.

Actually Houston. Big difference.

Good point. For sure there's reason to have the #5 guy, whoever that is, stay in Ft. Myers. I suppose the #4 guy should travel just in case he would be needed to cover one of the first three games.

Opening day is just one game. As we get into the last two weeks of ST I would think Rocco will be looking at the first three series of the season and try to set up the rotation to give us the best match-ups against KC, Miami, and Houston that he can. His preference for who should start which games will determine the rotation and, working back from that, who will start on opening day. At least that's how I think it should be done. Taking that approach means the opening day starter will be in that role almost by default, so to me, as Brock said, it's not real important or significant.

A brief internet search found that the over/under lines on the Twins' 2023 win total ranged from 80.5 to 84.5. This may not be "good" but I certainly wouldn't call it "bad". I do agree that the Twins have a high level of uncertainty. Two disclaimers: One, this is not close to a detailed analysis of the relative strengths of MLB teams on my part. Two, while betting lines are based on the analyses of knowledgeable people, they are also highly influenced by wagers placed or expected to be placed by bettors. Most fans tend to bet on their favorite teams and usually tend to have optimistic views of their favorite teams. Accordingly, in most cases the betting line will be set a bit higher than the casino experts' actual evaluations. I don't gamble on sports but if someone gave me money and told me I had to use it for a wager based on the above lines I would bet on the over for the Twins.

That means you are saying the Twins are bad. I think it might have been better to use a different theme. Or no theme at all, just straight-up analysis.

I've never been to this stadium. One person I know who has been there said it is like sitting in a giant coffee can.

I don't know that I would describe playing the Sox and the Sox as a "bad" part of the schedule. Neither team finished over .500 and the Red Sox are thought by many to have a weaker team than last year.

And the Twins can certainly sweep all the games.

Losing body fat should do nothing but help a baseball player. Losing muscle mass is a different matter of course, but there's no reason that this should have happened with Miranda.

I've never quite grasped why there is a WBC in the first place.

Watching baseball is still like that. Fans have always paid attention to what strategy the managers are using, and to that end a lot of people like to take all the analytics into consideration. But it's not necessary to do that in order to enjoy watching a game.

Who is Arreaz?

Players like Goltz may be "forgotten" by younger fans but not by me. One of the best games I ever attended was on 7/21/1977. The Angels got 2 runs off Goltz in the top of the first and the Twins got 3 off Nolan Ryan in the bottom of the first. In my mind's eye I can still see Carew rounding third and heading home on a Lyman Bostock triple to tie the score. After the first inning it was basically two pitchers humbling the opposing lineups. Both threw CG's. Good stuff.

I have hopes that Paddack (note speeling) won't have to be rushed back because our starting depth will be holding up just fine without him.

My understanding is that the author of the article was referring strictly to the best defensive outfield. The title of the thread was misleading about that, and even the article itself wasn't completely clear until the last paragraph.

This is the unfortunate truth. I'd say that MLB needs both of those options in some form and that the two things are intertwined. I think the owners need to realize that MLB as a whole is the product, not individual teams, and for that reason it's important for all 30 teams to have the ability to compete on a more-or-less equal footing. The problem is that an equitable system of accomplishing that would be very complex. To me, a team that has good success at player acquisition and development should have the ability to retain its top-flight players at a salary that is fair to the players. That, of course, would require a larger payroll, and if the profit sharing/salary cap system prevents a team from doing so that seems unfair. And on the other end of the spectrum, a system that provides the same financial wherewithal to a low-payroll team as it does to a high-payroll team could result in the ownership of a low-payroll team just pocketing the money. That would seem to incentivize assembling a bad team. So does that mean that the system should take a team's performance into account? Should there be a salary floor, and if so how would that be made fair in the case of a rebuilding team with a dozen rookies on the roster? I wish I had the answer.

Maybe. Or maybe it shows the wisdom of removing a pitcher at the end of 6 innings, performance during those innings notwithstanding.

Not that it would have been make-or-break, but all the more savings on player payroll for the Twins.

I don't think there is anyone who doesn't appreciate Smeltzer's story and who doesn't hope he does well. While it was disappointing in some ways that he was let go I would have been more disappointed for the Twins to prioritize keeping him over keeping a younger player with a higher ceiling.

Of course this is true. But one of the things to look at is how much worse the worst performances are and how many of them there are. If very few outings have very bad results it's more reasonable to assume that they are not reliable indicators of the overall performance.