Richmond Dude

Bleacher Report is referring to him as a 3B. I don't know, in good faith. I guess he could play either, based on how things play out with Correa or another FA. Could also free up 3B for Lewis in two years.

Regarding the crime issue and the impact on attendance. I don't live in Minnesota anymore and I miss having the ability to go to the games, but as a result, I have no idea whether crime is actually up in the city and even what kind of crime may be occurring. But I have a lot of experience with understanding crime and how people respond to it and can tell you that there are actually two different things here. There is crime and then there is the media coverage of crime. The second plays a much greater role in how people view an area and it lasts years. For instance, when the LRT discussion came up, I imagine that people remember how there were a bunch of Strib stories about robberies and assaults on the trains, usually during the overnight. But those stories were pre-Covid, if I remember. But they stick. It is irrelevant to attendance whether people are safe, what counts is whether they feel safe. Regardless, Go Twins! Wish I could be there with you in person.

The Twins once fielded a squad with five Hall of Famers on it. The fielders were Killebrew, Oliva, and Carew, who were three very different types of hitters. Carew scored 50% more runs than he batted in, It's because he was constantly on base when people like Killebrew and Oliva drove him in. Takes all types to put together a good team.

In the words of the Daily Norseman website, this Twins team is a Buy. Great write-up, solid reasoning. I do think KC deserved a mention, they're improved from last season and did take a series from us as the winning streak began.

Oddly enough, for all the gnashing of teeth last week, we are half a game out of first place and one game out of the wild card race, Long season. Looking forward to watching it.

Neshek always struck me as one of those situations where Gardy just didn't like certain players who didn't fit his view of the game and he got run out, never really getting the chance to work all the way back from the injury. The Twins during this period had a solid history of screwing with their pitchers and either losing them or having them find success elsewhere after the Twins gave up. Regarding Neshek's popularity, the sidearm delivery was cool, but Neshek was from Wisconsin and really bonded with our fanbase. Beyond that, he was simply fun. It was a shame how that played out, he was pretty clear that his hope was to stay with the Twins for the long term.

MLB has been reducing the time between innings as part of the pace of play issue, so maybe there? Great point about the nature of soccer stoppages.

Interesting point about tradition and the nature of the buttons on the front of the shirt. If you look back on the 70s and early 80s, the uniforms absolutely lost a lot of tradition. Most teams wore pullovers, looked awful. The White Sox tried out shorts at one point. There was a real snapback to tradition in the mid-to-late 80s. So if you don't care for the patches, there is hope.

There's a whole episode of Ted Lasso devoted to this.

You're right. I looked up the DFA rules to see what I misunderstood. Once DFA'd, the team has seven days to either trade him or place him on waivers. I conflated the two when they are actually separate.

I think, *think*, that this would mean that one or more waiver claims were made on Cotton and they are attempting to work out a trade. If I recall, the designating team has a week to do that from the time of the DFA.

I agree with you on all points. I felt that putting Rodriguez out for the fourth inning was pushing it and maybe even setting him up (or somehow sparing the relievers who you expected to keep around the rest of the season. But there is no game today, weird. And, just as recently as last year, we were reminded of how little connection there is between the first week of the season and how a team actually plays the year out.

Unless, possibly, the Padres viewed Rogers as the single missing piece that would get them over the hump that they seem to have been stuck on in a division with two juggernauts. They underperformed the past two years and the GM was retained while the manager was fired. Teams in that position overpay. Not disagreeing, btw. You're right under regular circumstances. Just giving a different perspective.

Trading Sanchez away is probably the most certain way to ensure that he regains his form and even makes the All-Star game.

The fact that we are done with the last spring training game and they still haven't decided between Rooker and Garlick is a bad sign. Neither looked good this spring, at least statistically, and neither did anything today, either. To me, it seems like they clearly want Rooker, but they're having trouble convincing themselves.

Several of these rosters have 16 pitchers and the MLB only allows there to be 15 unless one is a two-way player like Ohtani. And if it is 15, both the players sent down in May have to be pitchers because the max is 13 at that point. In other words, there has to be 13 position players. Oddly, there are currently 13 rostered position players still in camp (+3 NRI). If Godoy gets sent down, somebody has to be removed from the 40-man. My own preference with the way things appear to be shaking out would be for Arraez to be the regular DH, but it looks more like it will be Sanchez. And maybe, if all Sanchez has to worry about is hitting rather than catching, he'll do better at it this year. But that's the kind of hope baseball fans always have in April of each year.

I'm okay with it, but the Twins have a long history of letting these second-chance guys hold on too long. I don't want to watch Happ or Shoemaker again like we did last year. They let those guys go way too late and it hurt the team.

A couple of points, based on things brought up in the thread: The Pitch Clock will be revolutionary, but it's not even actually a rule change but rather just enforcing a rule that already exists and fell out of enforcement. Changing the mound. MLB has done it before and the average height of men has increased significantly since the last time it was done (the average MLB pitcher as of 2019 was 6' 2.5"). While the distance between the rubber and the plate seems to be the most important, the actual important distance is between the point of release and the plate. Taller player = longer legs and longer arms = shorter actual pitch distance and less reaction time for the batter. Rules change in some sports frequently (football), but some are truly revolutionary. I can't imagine watching basketball without a shot clock, but it *is* artificial. Think of eliminating shifts as being similar to when the NBA prohibited zone defenses. Yeah, it "changed the sport," but all it really did was return it to its roots. The only thing I'll truly miss is watching a player on third take a 45 foot lead because the 3rd baseman is nowhere to be found. That was fun.

I think your comment is especially valid given the new CBA condition that you can only option a player five times in a year without placing him on waivers. While five seems like a lot, those heavy bullpen days followed by exchanging relievers with the AAA squad will evaporate that very quickly. On the other hand, if you slot in Jax/Thorpe as a tandem 5th starter and tell both they need to go three innings, you haven't lost that much. You could still use them in short relief on some days and one of them would have been the 5th starter anyway.

If you're serious, starting with runs scored is pointless, since both teams would get them at the start of their half-inning and it would still come down to what runners or batters scored after the granted run.

Thise of us who are Vikings fans have a phrase: Just one before I die.

This may very possibly be the best insight I've read on the situation all day.

I dunno, that story screams a plant from Story's agent to price up a bidder at the end of the process now that most of the other teams that inquired on him have finalized other options.

And that includes trading off Berrios and Cruz and losing Maeda, all key pieces of the team. It is hard to overestimate how badly Colome affected the team early on.

For all the smack talked about Dobnak, everyone seems to forget just how very badly mishandled he was at the start of last year. Wrecked his whole season. I'm glad to see someone else remembers.