Huskertwin

As A.J. Pierzynski pointed out during a Fox broadcast earlier in the season, Garver has a very hard time getting to wide pitches when he catches due to the low positioning used to "help" with pitch framing. If I remember right Garver had two balls get by him in that game (with runners on base). And he had two more get by him in his last game again allowing runners to advance. The pitches usually go as wild pitches for the pitcher so they don't show up in any stats I know of for the catcher. But the eyeball test seems to show that these balls should be at least blocked or stopped. Jeffers uses the same low stance, but seems to be able to get to these pitches much better than Garver (usually sliders going into the dirt away from a RH hitter or into a LH hitter from a RH pitcher). Personally, I think the pitch framing situation is overrated as I think the umpires know what's going on and call pitches accordingly (some good, some bad). I'd like to see the Twins be more concerned with stopping balls going to the backstop allowing runners to advance. This issue gets amplified in close games, which the playoff games should be.

I wish Baldelli would read your post above because he seems to be managing the team like he doesn't realize how the teams are being "seeded" in the playoffs and that the higher your seed is benefits your team in the playoffs. The Twins aren't being "given" a playoff spot just because they show up. I don't like all the days off he gives the players. We had all kinds of injuries at the end of last season and even more this year. So the resting of the players doesn't seem to be helping slow down the injuries. I think the best players want to play on an everyday basis and should play most days, especially with the short 60 game season. I hope we make the playoffs, but we might be setting ourselves up for a two and out playoffs if we don't start taking the regular season seriously.

I'd say if the players have gotten fat heads and need to focus and wake up, that is the job of the manager to wake them up. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be Rockhead's style. He's soft and a babysitter and the team is now playing like a bunch of babies.

I agree to using Duffey or May instead of Rogers. Closing is a lot about attitude and being mentally up for the challenge. Rogers doesn't seem confident out there like he used to, so lets try someone else. And I know Romo has closed as well and been effective. Obviously, he shows fire out there even though he doesn't through fire.

One beef I have with both Twins catchers last year was that they keep their catcher masks on when a throw is coming in from the outfield. They both wiffed on a few balls last year that I sure thought should have been caught. That should be an error on the catcher, but either no error was given or it went to the outfielder/relay person. They must be coached to do this, but I don't like it. With the new rules about how a runner can slide I don't see a reason to keep a mask on and loose track of a ball (especially one that bounces). Otherwise we should hand out masks to the fielders at 2nd and 3rd as well.

My old school instincts want to say let's quit babying the millionaires and look at some training methods (physical and mental) or try to find pitchers with the makeup to pitch two days in a row if needed. Mike Marshall where are you?

I agree Garver is the winner of this award for 2019. And he still can get better. Since we're talking about catchers, I have a beef I want to ask if anyone else has an issue with. I noticed this year when throws were coming to home plate Garver and Castro still had their catchers masks on as they attempted to catch the ball. At least 3 times during the season I saw them totally whiff at a well thrown ball (or one wiht a normal bounce) when they had a play to make on the runner. Being old school, this drives me crazy as I say - take the mask off and catch the ball first. I'm sure the reason is to protect the catcher's face from the runner coming home. But with the rules already in place to try to prevent runner/catcher collisions, I see little chance of a collision that would normally cause injury to the face. Otherwise, we should get the masks out for the infielders covering 2nd and 3rd base as well. Is anyone else on board with me on this?

It will be interesting to see what the "3 batter minimum" rule to be implemented in 2020 will do to lineup makeups. One would think a lineup changing back and forth between lefty's and righty's might be the way to go, to at least get one favorable hitting match-up per relief pitcher. This could also force the Twins to get another lefty relief pitcher or two or they may be facing lots of left handed batters in a row in some innings.

That was really well written and I enjoyed reading it. I also think Baldelli didn't take into account the pressure of the playoffs; especially in Yankee Stadium when he put in the inexperienced and young relief pitchers (Littell and Stashak) into game one . After watching pitchers who had performed well in the regular season perform badly in game 1, I was shocked he went with inexperience for game two in Yankee Stadium. Odorizzi had to be the game 2 starter after seeing the blow up in game one having pitched there numerous times while with the Rays and having a good start there earlier this season.. Dobnak would have seemed a safer play at home for game 3.

Great article! Buxton was really crushing the ball this season and needs to listen to Torii Hunter and not play so recklessly in the outfield. We all love the highlight plays in the field, but Buck can have more highlight reels of his hitting heroics, if he plays it a little safer in the field and thus gets to play more games going forward. Reverting back to his old swing he was smashing ball off the walls for doubles early, then got the launch angle a bit higher and was hitting homers before the wall and turf crashes happened. The Twins need his bat in the lineup!

Wow! I'd forgotten we had him for all of 3 weeks at the start of 2018 spring training and released him.

I agree with this article. Rocco is a "soft" manager and we turned into a "soft" team. Batting practice being optional for the players, making lineups out a week in advance (reported by others) leading to too many days off in my mind), playing too many players out of position, etc. You play how you practice. And sometimes we don't practice. Yes, I desire some fire from my manager and coaches. the maddest I saw Rocco all year was in a game when some minor rule got broke (sorry I can't remember what it was right now) and he held the game up for what seemed like 5 minutes. The manager needs to know when to step on the pedal and Rocco didn't this year for the playoffs. He's a young manager and I hope he learned from this season. I have my doubts though. I do love the coaches he hired and the changes made in hitting and pitching, but game management often let a lot to be desired. I also would like to see more of our players develop a two-out approach of trying to hit the soft pitches RBI singles rather than bomba's all the way.

Entertaining post and unfortunately probably will turn out to be true. I hope Falvey does get the Pohlad's to open up the checkbook.

I agree with you on all of the above choices the Twins should make.

Gibson has taken the "human rain delay" ownership that Mike Pelfrey used to have. I'm tired of all the 0-2 counts turning into 3-2 counts and missing out on extra sleep every night he pitches. He said at the beginning of the year he knew he needed to pound the strike zone and then went out and basically refused to through strikes. I know he had the illness issues this year (and someone said the colitis stays with you, it just has to be treated). I say it's time for Gibby to move on. Cron played good defense most of the year and if his thumb issue will be healed by next spring I agree that he'd be a reasonable 1st baseman to keep around.

Hopefully not the Kyle Gibson part!

I'm in on him as well. He seems to have earned the umpires respect as well, getting the calls to go his way on close pitches he's taken. And he's getting better the longer he's been up, so the pitchers haven't figured out a solid way to get him out. I'd like to see him stick at second base and also spell Sano at 3rd on his off-days. He's much better there than in left field. The Twins have gotten lucky with him out there so far. Seems that when he plays out there, not may balls get hit his way. Stats look good, but he just doesn't get to a lot of balls in the outfield that a major league OF should and he doesn't have a strong OF arm. But he could work on that over the off-season, but infield would seem a better fit for now. But his bat is needed in the lineup.

I couldn't agree more with this, especially today when a win gives us a 6.5 game lead instead of 4.5. Then Cleveland limps off and we can start resting players again Monday. Rocco didn't care if we won this game and I think that unfortunately rubbed off on the players as shown in the lackluster defense. It's a shame Dobnak didn't get a well deserved win and Wade's homer wasn't as important as it could have been a game winner, if not for the relief pitching moves.

Good point. I was also wondering about Rogers stats when he only pitched one inning compared to 1+ innings. I know earlier in the season he seemed our only option at times, but with the couple of trades and the September call-ups, would he be more effective just pitching one inning a game on back-to-back days than these overall stats show?

Thanks for a bit of humor after watching depleted Twins inch closer to non-playoff status. I would have thought LaMarre could have learned to play right field by now so Eddie could go back to his comfort zone in left.

Some really good info and charts there to show what I thought I'd been seeing from games.

In Wednesday's game he stopped abruptly when he got close to the wall and didn't make an attempt at a very catchable ball that cost us runs. In Thursday's game against TB he misjudged a ball and didn't catch it in the second inning when they scored their first two runs. And yesterday he didn't charge a ground ball hit and held the ball an extra second allowing Joy to take 3rd base on him. However, I was wrong in that Jay did not later score. So that didn't cost us a run.

Rockhead didn't have to deploy infielder Luis Arraez in the outfield, he choose to. Cave isn't hitting well, but we need three real outfielders when they're available. I don't blame Arraez since he's playing out of position, but this was the third straight game the move cost us run(s). And he could have DH'd Arraez if he wanted to. And like Old Twins Cap said above let's activate Buxton and Gonsalez. Time to quit babying the players. You can lose a division in June and July just as easily as in August or September. Actually in September you have reinforcements, so get the boys on track here now.

Even though a bad team the last couple of years, the games so often seem to be one and two run games, with the Twins usually feasting on the KC bullpen after not doing much against the starters. So I'm not expecting a sweep, but rooting for one. Since the Cleveland series started earlier this month and we helped wake them up, the Twins are only one game over .500 (8-7) and 2-4 against "good" teams (Indians and Red Sox). So the Twins aren't playing like world beaters right now. Hopefully some Turtle time can help get the team re-energized. Gibson's start last night was Pelfrey-like and I hope we never see that again. I also didn't like how Baldelli basically seemed to have a plan to give the game away to the Red Sox. We gotta try to win them all and it didn't seem like Rocco cared last night. I know we had the 17 inning game the night before, but so did the Red Sox. They showed up to win.

Buxton should be batting leadoff TODAY and not down the road. He's already proven he's a completely different player and I'm sure he wants to bat first, not ninth. The team needs his extra at bats (over the course of the season) and he would make such a difference getting on base in the first inning. Starting pitchers are known for struggling in the first inning, so having Buxton on first (or second, etc) gives the pitcher one more thing to think about and deal with that no other player on our team does. So by my thinking, I could see more big innings being produced because the chaos he can cause when he is on base. No analytics in my thinking, just good old common sense.