ericchri

Just... Wow! Never saw this coming before the season started. Congrats Twins! Sidenote thanks to everyone who's a part of TD... Owners, mods, members. I'd be a Twins fan regardless, but it is so much more fun being a Twins fan with this wonderful place to follow the team.

7 perfect innings, so 97 pitches by 21 batters is ~4.6 pitches per batter. That's amazing to me to average that many pitches and still be perfect. Were they fouling off pitches like mad in the game?

I wanted to sort of re-emphasize this. Some of the posts people generate in the forum comments are huge and could easily be a blog post. I have I think 3 blogs entries from long ago that were started as replies to something in the forums, but when I realized how huge they were becoming I figured turning them into a mostly non-serious blog post was better. I think it's fairly clear most are more interested in the conversations in the forums, but there's a lot of potential for people to just make that forum reply they spent 10 minutes typing up into a blog without much more effort. It's up to the site to figure out how to make that as "rewarding" to the writer as the forum comment, though.

Baby steps are okay, we have a long way to go. A slight improvement is still a slight improvement, especially one that seems primarily geared to helping our pitching staff. Sure a lot of days that 1 or 2 extra strikes may not have a huge influence on the game, but in 162 games (well, I suppose he'd be likely to start 100 or so of those), isn't it possible that it's the difference once or twice between the starter getting shelled and not making it out of the second inning vs. barely squeaking out of a mess and then managing a quality start or the like? There's a lot of tiny benefits that will compound over the course of a season for something like that.

Actually, you are asking to spend someone else's money, if indirectly. Perkins and Hughes for instance are getting paid no matter what, so the outlay on them is the same regardless of whether they actually play. But by arguing to just chuck them aside we then have to bring in somebody else who now gets paid (even a couple rookie minimums is over a million dollars in additional wages). It might be the best thing to do, especially as relates to building a winning team which has indirect benefits in other financial matters, but it is still spending additional money that doesn't technically have to be spent. I'm in favor of doing so, btw, assuming it looks like neither can contribute to the level we need, so I'm not trying to argue against, but people need to acknowledge that a sunk cost doesn't necessitate spending more money just because the sunk cost cannot be recovered. It might be the "right" thing to do, but it is not the "necessary" thing to do. I'm sure most people already acknowledge most of my post without it being stated, but it does get back to the issue of "someone else's money" or arguments about "how much profit is enough" or the like which as a fan and not the owner are really easy to decide. I'd rather the owner make 2 million dollars in profit and build a winning team than make 20 million dollars in profit and field a losing team, but I don't get to decide how he runs his business, I just get to complain about it on the internet.

If you get the right offer for Dozier, problem solved. Otherwise roll with Polanco at short and see if being the regular start has any effect on his defense, positive or negative. I don't think he's really gotten to the point where we know yet what his defense is ultimately going to be, he's been used too inconsistently to make a full decision. I'm intrigued by the notion of moving Dozier to 3rd, but we're already overcrowded at DH/1B and making Sano part of that without 3B as a home just makes it worse.

I look forward to seeing what happens when he connects with a 95+ fastball, personally.

I really want to see Berrios up, but because of the service time issue I'm OK with him pitching in AAA for a while. Take the first month to see which starter falls on their face or goes on the DL and bring in Berrios to replace them. If neither of those happens, then I start getting antsy, but for now I choose to be hopeful that things will work themselves out.

Yeah, I always assume they mean somebody who grew up in an environment to learn what it means to be a professional ballplayer, has a sounding board when things aren't working, etc... Not that they literally have genes that make them more suited to playing baseball.

A question that's been bouncing around in my head. Assume for a minute that Buxton, Rosario, Kepler, and Walker all start matching their theoretical potential (no I'm not predicting that, just musing). Rosario and Buxton are definitely filling two of the OF spots, but which of Kepler or Walker (college 1B, no?) gets the last OF, and which mans 1B?

Hmmm. That's a lot of cash... http://mashable.com/2015/06/17/jurassic-world-cost/

Right now ABW looks like he might be the next Mark Reynolds (except playing LF instead of 3B). I think I'd be OK with that. There's a glimmer of a chance he figures out enough to top that, but that's what he seems like to me right now. He's been pretty consistent as he's moved up, huge K%, huge power. I'd agree, seeing him at AAA might be interesting this year to see if his numbers crater or he keeps on doing the same he's done all along.

I look forward to when he has the first week or so of games out of the way, when everyone is done sticking microphones in his face non-stop, and he can concentrate on playing baseball. I don't really expect him to put up great numbers this year (I'm hopeful, though), but yesterday had to be one of the most glass half-full, half-empty days someone like him could have. 1st big league game, now come talk to the press for hours...

Great story. Nice to see they had plenty of volunteers to help make the kids' day. This line cracked me up, though: Granted you can have a ball hit over your head pretty much anywhere on the field and it wasn't necessarily a drill centered on doing so from CF, but the notion of an infielder and pitcher working on that in CF just made me chuckle. Being from the Twins organization and all...

He scored from 2nd on a groundout? Nice. Video please...

Thanks to the workday afternoon games to start the season I didn't watch any of those games, and when I had a chance on the weekend, I didn't even care to try. I have yet to watch a single minute of them. I can honestly say that hasn't happened in I don't even know how long. Probably those mid-late 90's teams. There's a few players I want to hear good things about, but a large chunk of the team is completely uninteresting to me. I'll still follow the team by coming to this site every day and checking boxscores and the like, but I'm not sure if/when I'll bother to actually watch them this year. The only thing they can do to get me interested in this team is to gut all the no-upside veterans and get the kids up here. I'm probably not representative of most fans out there, necessarily, but I doubt I'm alone in this. I've generally been patient/accepting with the team management decisions the last few years, quite likely to a fault. I think under "normal circumstances" I would be inclined to say let it ride until early May. I'm not sure what has happened this year can be called normal circumstances, though. My guess is there's a pretty big backlash coming soon if they don't start making changes in another week or so. I've lost my patience, I just don't understand the rationale anymore in not letting the younger guys get a chance. There's just too many players who are on that line where they need to be trying their hand in the majors to see if they can cut it to waste all this time with veterans who aren't actually making us better. It just gets worse the longer we delay as we have oodles of potential big leaguers at every level of the organization with barely any room to move up.

Escobar's competence at multiple positions is working against him at this point, and that doesn't really seem fair. Baseball is always a numbers game, though, as you only get 25 roster spots and someone is going to suffer the consequences, right now it's Escobar. I wish I could see a good way to get him in the lineup 4-5 times a week that didn't mean sitting down one of Plouffe, Dozier, or Santana frequently since those guys all earned the playing time as well.

I don't want to go too crazy on this because I have no medical background at all, but I did want to make a comment on this. I've played lots of rec softball in my life, often at 3rd or SS, and the one thing that I always noted about hard throws across the diamond is that if I got all the way over the top of the throw it would light up my shoulder with pain (I assume I have some kind of injury in there but I'm too lazy to bother fixing it as it's not a problem except when throwing, and I've reached an age where my softball days are probably done), but if I can drop down to a 3/4 slot it doesn't do much to my shoulder at all. Parker's probably laughing at my ignorance at this point, but I'm not sure I understand why a 3/4 slot puts more strain on your arm as that's completely opposite to my experience with throwing. I've always assumed the 3/4 slot makes the "downward plane" and potential movement, and maybe control, on pitches more problematic, but I never thought it was more likely to cause injuries.

Semi-random question: Would you rather see the future Buxton for Minnesota hit 20 triples and 10 HR in a season, or 20 HR and 10 triples? Myself, I think I'd rather the guy who hits more triples. Mostly a personal preference thing, but I think triples might be about the most exciting individual play in baseball. For me, anyway.

I don't want to derail this too much, but I find this interesting. Of all the guys mentioned in this thread so far I consider Walker the most likely (barring injury) candidate to play in the majors. Not the guy most likely to be a good major league player, but the guy most likely to at least play in the majors. Guys who hit the ball that hard (without completely sucking in every other way, which Walker obviously doesn't) will get a chance at some point. He could be the next Colabello-type (I think he'll be better than that) who doesn't have what it takes to hit consistently enough to turn that into a meaningful career, but he'll play in the majors. To try and stay on topic, I think Engelb Vielma is the potentially really interesting name next year. He's moving up to high enough levels now that he's not just some "low-rookie level potential defensive-wiz." Hopefully he can solidify himself as an A+ level defensive-wiz with just enough stick.

With the rate at which salaries are skyrocketing I'd sign that deal as the Twins FO in a heartbeat. I'm not sure if Dozier would, though. I agree with someone earlier though, I'd probably try and shift a little of the money forwards on the contract if possible. Wouldn't have to be a lot necessarily, but take a million each off the last couple years and divide it up among the first four, but it makes him a little more valuable later if we decide to move him.

I used to think the same thing about Nick Punto, though. I ranted with the guy in the cube next to me about why any pitcher would ever worry about Nick Punto enough to throw him anything but strikes, but year after year Punto drew large numbers of walks. I don't know why this is, but the lesson I learned from Punto was that pitchers are stubborn imbeciles who refuse to change their pitching approach for obviously inferior hitters... Not that I'm generalizing. Hicks has always stuck me as a similar hitter to Punto in that oftentimes you can see they're up there looking to walk, not to hit. He's got more tools to work with than Punto did, so you want Hicks to be a better hitter, but when your hitting philosophy often regresses to staring at pitches til you strike out or walk, the results will oftentimes end up similar.

For the layman who is a little baffled at the -0.4 inches dropped on a "sinker", that means that his pitches rise at the beginning after release before sinking later, yet still ends up crossing the plate a touch higher than it was released? I imagine that's what I'm supposed to see in the gif but I'm not really adept at spotting that kind of thing.

I'd be shocked if Gilmartin wasn't picked if he wasn't added. It'd be so easy to slot him in as a lefty-reliever if nothing else to keep him on the team. So the question is does he warrant that roster spot versus losing him? He seems like he has some potential as a back-end starter, but I don't know if his upside is high enough for me to worry about it. There've been worse guys taking up 40-man spots over these last few years, though. I'd probably put him on this year. Makes Duensing even more expendable as he starts getting a little more expensive for his fairly average production. Wheeler seems a good candidate for the same reason. Left-handed pitchers with some potential are the easiest to keep on the team in some relief capacity for the season so you don't have to send them back. I can't see much chance of any of the others getting picked. It's possible certainly, but Michael's been injured too often with no track record in the upper minors, Goodrum is too far away, Adam is a giant question mark who I can't see losing sleep over if somebody should happen to take him.

Bring them up (if they're healthy). I can't agree with the premise more. I thought they would and should both be up this year so I'm not going to look at an injury-filled season as any reason to change that thought. If they spend a couple months in the minors fine, but they need to play in the majors to understand playing in the majors. Both have proved in their time in the minors they're better than the other guys they're playing with/against, let them figure out what it's like playing with others their skill level. I get it, there are "obvious" reasons to not start in the majors, but I think (hope) Buxton and Sano are just plain good enough to not worry about it. They need these guys on the team to really understand the team's dynamic anyway, since their presence has a massive effect on who else plays and where. I say the sooner the better.