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bunt_vs_the_shift

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Everything posted by bunt_vs_the_shift

  1. bunt_vs_the_shift
    To me, the whole "who's on 3rd?" conversation is less about Sano's defensive metrics than the net difference between Cron and his replacement. Sano is adequate at 3rd. He has a cannon and is surprisingly agile at times, but can't necessarily make all the plays you'd like. I like the idea about "position flexibility" more than having a firm stance about where he needs to play. Sano at 3rd gives you the option to experiment with someone like Kiriloff at 1st and with Sano at 1st, you could give Royce Lewis a look at 3rd (or shuffle around in some way that you could insert him). I don't know if either guy will be ready by spring, but a scenario where you could bat those guys down in the lineup and ease them along without a ton of pressure is ideal. I'm not saying that was their plan in the Schoop situation, but it worked out pretty well with Arraez...
  2. bunt_vs_the_shift
    It's on Rocco to do his best sports psychology bit to get this 15 game losing streak out of their head and it's on the individuals to play with some pride at this point. You've gotta get 1 before you get 3. I'm not delusional enough to think we'll just roll off 3 straight, but please don't mail it in! They still have to play the game - make them earn it! Our happy go lucky approach has been great for 162 games, but at this point for the love of God I'd like to see someone get mad and take this personally! Give me an unacceptably long home run trot... dugout stare down... or how about Jake O moving some feet?... We've looked completely shell shocked for about 15 innings. Show me a little fire and punch back!
  3. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Completely agree. As a young player, Wade has come in and had professional at bats. Without having enough data on his defensive metrics or speed vs. others, he seems to be an above average fielder with above average speed. To me, the net sum of his skills will be more useful in more instances than Miller's flat out speed, so I'd give the nod to Wade over Miller. That said, we will need a ton of pitching with the increasing likelihood of opener/bullpen games in play and I don't know if they feel we can get by with Kepler, Rosie, Cave and have Marwin and Arraez as depth?... That makes me nervous with so many guys coming off injuries, but with bullpen depth being such a part of playoff baseball I don't know how much they want to load up on that and ride with fewer position players.
  4. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I agree with the Perez take on needing him to be serviceable. I was also losing my mind last night wondering if I was watching the same game when the broadcast team kept going out of their way to talk about how great he was pitching. Four walks and 9 guys LOB in 6 innings? That was luck and I am happy with the outcome, but not the process. And that process does not give me any more confidence in Perez than I had before last night. I know we need to patch it together down the stretch but I'd love to see Thorpe get some more looks as a starter. I don't know what the analytics say, but it seems like his stuff will play. Perez and Smeltzer need to adjust to the adjustment if they are to have any future success.
  5. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I read in LEN's column that Arraez told Schoop he was stepping on 3rd and turning it if it came his way. Back in the 90s I believe Gaetti called a triple play before it happened too. Props to Luis for having the stones to sprint toward the bag and make an off balance throw to Schoop. Unbelievable turn by Schoop. In addition to being a sensational play, it was a confidence building game changer.
  6. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Nice article. Sano is still excruciating for me to watch at times, so this is very good perspective. I still contend that even if he shortens his swing with 2 strikes and opts for a little more contact, with his strength he can still hit 75% as many bombs and doubles as he could if he swings for St. Paul... I will say that he's been much more selective lately, which makes it much easier to watch and is shown in the numbers. I have less hope for Schoop, who seems to be an automatic out whenever someone is on base and would like to see Arraez continue to get reps. Wednesday aside, our pitching has been better and this is especially encouraging about Perez and Pineda. We're in a dogfight and we're going to need them both to continue to step up!
  7. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Are you surprised by my tears?... Strong men...also cry
  8. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Throw Rocco, Wes Johnson, James Rowson, Falvine and the Twins analytics department in there for me. It's always dicey to quantify coaching on team success/failure when they're not throwing the ball or swinging the bat. That said, in the FO, Falvine has hit on almost every one of their free agents, locked up Kepler and Polanco and they've definitely implemented an entirely new cultural approach. Overall, we're pitching better. We're hitting better. We're rotating guys and getting contributions from a number of players, including bench players and callups... I was skeptical on some aspects of the new approach, but these guys are killing it through the first part of the year and it seems like we've got some structure and process in place that could be sustainable. I'd like to give some credit where credit is due.
  9. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Good game, tough loss, some good talkers. First, the bunt. Like several others have stated, I don't love the bunt when our best hitter is up with 2 on in a clutch spot. That said, Polanco put it in play, made a close play of it and was about the first guy in 2 games to advance the runners with a productive out. He gave Cruz a chance to tie the game with another productive out. These last 2 games I've been screaming at my TV to advance the runners with guys in scoring position and he did. I would rather have had him swing away, but Polanco was not the reason we lost. The other thing I'd like to comment on is Parker in the 9th... I don't need to see him anymore in that spot, hope Rocco doesn't either. You can't throw Rogers every night so I'd like to see Harper get more of those looks if Rogers can't go. Other than that, maybe May, but I'm not completely sold on him either. Not many options to throw out there in high leverage spots that are currently on the team.
  10. bunt_vs_the_shift
    (Looking at my phone) Sorry, what?
  11. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Glad I didn't stay up for this, but unfortunately, I wasn't all that surprised when I saw what happened. Our pen needing help is a known quantity and Perez hasn't looked good lately. Maybe our guys were feeling themselves a little too much heading into Cleveland, or maybe our pitching was just due for a statistical correction. Either way, we should be turning over every rock possible to improve our pitching as we approach the trading deadline. Our lineup top to bottom is as good as I've ever seen (including 87 & 91) and there's no reason this can't be our year, so let's not let it go to waste!
  12. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I commend Rocco for riding out 4.1 unwatchable innings with Littell and preserving the bullpen. This particular game was out of hand, but at least we didn't burn innings from the guys that we will need in more competitive games.
  13. bunt_vs_the_shift
    This is the sort of game we lost 4-3 in years past.... LOVE this type of grind it out win. These games build confidence.
  14. bunt_vs_the_shift
    "Michael Pineda has 48 swinging strikes among his 282 pitches over his last three starts. That is a 17.0 swinging strike rate. Blake Snell is the only qualified starter who has maintained a better rate this season." I'm encouraged to see some positive metrics for Pineda, but he constantly seems to be flirting with that "I only made 3-4 bad pitches" territory that we used to hear post-game from our mediocre starters... I didn't think he pitched too bad last Saturday either aside from 3 pitches that got absolutely crushed, but that's part of your body of work. And from a body of work standpoint he is serving up home runs left and right. I guess this shows that he has the stuff to possibly turn it around? I'd rather get behind that than gripe about the HRs, it's just hard to ignore that part
  15. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Wait, is Larry King a certified Old? I'd just like to know where the line is.
  16. bunt_vs_the_shift
    / advice for a friend I got mine from my drunk uncle. If you don't have a drunk uncle then you may want to check the lost and found at Chili's
  17. bunt_vs_the_shift
    "Daniel, who is 37, unmarried, and wears a fedora to chain restaurant bars..." Have you been following me around again? That waitress that I keep overtipping, but never quite have the guts to ask out said it was a nice hat.
  18. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Good summary. What's interesting about our lineup is that what we lack in star power, we make up for in depth and balance. Even our playoff teams have had a pretty steep drop-off at some point in the lineup (see Nick Punto, Lew Ford, Greg Gagne, Tim Lombardozzi)... Top to bottom, we've got good balance and unless someone like Adrianza or Cave are getting some reps, we're mostly tough outs up and down the lineup. I lean Polanco in terms of being my favorite, but I think Eddie's game lends itself more towards being the face of the franchise and selling t-shirts and tickets
  19. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I am speechless... Does our analytics department know how to build pitching? And if so, can they build some more bullpen arms?
  20. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Great game and the best April we've had in a long time. Nothing wrong with enjoying a great W, but there's a lot of season left... Now to keep our head down and continue stacking months like this we'll be playing some October baseball!
  21. bunt_vs_the_shift
    Are we going to gloss over 2011-2013 and pretend that never happened? Kevin Correia, Jason Marquis and Clete Thomas beg to differ... I'm not ready to talk about 2016 (too soon)
  22. bunt_vs_the_shift
    How 'bout some love for Polanco? He doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve, which is probably why it seems like he can get overlooked, but he's just flat out smooth and he can get Rosario-like hot at the plate. I always felt like he was the key guy a couple years ago when we went on our run and chased down the wildcard and also a big part of what was missing last year when he got suspended. But PEDs aside (and yes, I realize that may factor into his public image), I just love how he just consistently makes plays day in and day out and he's the same age as Buxton (25)!
  23. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I'm a believer in body language, so the body language comment on May is interesting. I haven't noticed any poor body language stand out, but I haven't been looking either. I also didn't see the game yesterday, so I'm curious how he looked in his scoreless inning and whether/how much that differed from the following inning given the results? This is going to be on my radar looking forward and I really hope he can figure it out, because we're going to need guys like May to step up! As a separate observation, I love the Ryne Harper story, but Jack Morris was commenting the other night on how he's got very little margin with his fastball and this seems spot on. As good as his array of curveballs look, I think Jack's take is on point. I'll be pulling for him and I'd love for Harper to be Matt Guerrier 2.0, but he's going to have to stay effective with some other pitches to do so.
  24. bunt_vs_the_shift
    I know it's fun to play armchair manager when we lose, because that's what we do, but the fact is that in spite of all of the levers Rocco pulled or didn't pull, we just didn't execute. We are going to need more than what we got from Gibby and the bullpen is our weakest piece, but in the 9th we're down 1 run with a guy on 1st and nobody out... Cron can't move him to 2nd with his force out and we waste the pinch runner, then Garver can't even put it in play... Buxton came up with a clutch hit, but Toronto executed - we didn't. And we had plenty of chances, which is frustrating. The silver lining is that we've got some fight to us, but we can't let the margin for error get to this point.
  25. bunt_vs_the_shift
    It was definitely a dump at the end of its run, but it was our dump and it was a distinct home field advantage for both the Twins and Vikings... Plus, as a kid I always liked that you could get major "air" by jumping as you left the Metrodome. That said, I'll take Target Field and its ambiance over the predictability of the Dome
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