mbents

Bravo on the use of "sinister" in an article about left-handed pitchers. Somebody was paying attention in Latin class!

I don't think this is what's wrong with the Twins. Being a tough guy and playing through injuries hasn't served them well. Glen Perkins tried to play through an injury and he didn't pitch well. Chris Colabello tried to play through an injury and he played extremely poorly (although some of it was likely due to regression). Mauer has tried to play through injuries in the past and he hasn't hit well. Those are three examples off the top of my head. Some research on the internets would certainly bring up many more. This morning I made the mistake of reading the comments on Souhan's article about Mauer being coddled and I saw people (and perhaps even the same person, judging by the 'woodshed' remark) making similar arguments. The problem with the Twins is a lack of talent, especially at the starting pitcher position, not some lack of grit or fire or heart or "will to win".

Actually, money does seem to be a big part of this. This MLB Trade Rumors story cites a couple different sources saying Maddon wants a salary in line with what the top managers make. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/10/latest-on-joe-maddon.html These are the two most relevant points: Joel Sherman of the New York Post spoke with Maddon on the phone and was told that Maddon didn’t feel the Rays would commit to him the dollars he was hoping for on a new contract. Maddon, 60, has had jobs throughout his career where his salary was dictated to him, and he felt this would be his last chance to find out how the open market would value him.Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reports that Maddon was looking to be compensated with a deal that would’ve paid him like one of the top two or three skippers in the game, meaning something north of $5MM per season.I'm sure going to a team that has a chance to win in the near future is important, but market value compensation also sounds pretty important to him.

Yeah.......that wasn't really meant to be taken seriously. It was just a joke about what we've heard in the past, when a free agent we had hoped would sign with the Twins ended up signing elsewhere. I agree with all your points and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I do think Maddon ends up with the Dodgers, even if it means sitting out 2015, but I also hope the Twins reach out to his agent just to see if there's any interest from him at all.

It's not going to happen but it's fun to imagine what things could be like if it does. My guess is that once Maddon is hired by the Dodgers or Cubs, Terry Ryan will say something about the Twins coming in second place in the bidding for Maddon.

May definitely deserved a chance and he got it. I'm not disputing that. Pino probably deserved his chance too, given his video game-like numbers last season. He had a crazy WHIP and a nice 3.00 SO/BB ratio. Comparing Johnson, Darnell, and Gilmartin to Meyer is laughable, though. It doesn't really bother me that Meyer had a slightly higher walk rate than all of them because he also had a much higher strikeout rate than all of them. Injury concerns may have been the tipping point in not calling him up, but they shouldn't have been. Pretty much every pitcher gets injured sooner or later and he isn't going to put more wear and tear on his shoulder in the majors than he is in the minors. And if they called him up and still had to shut him down in September, that's fine. Just call up some warm body like Darnell or Johnson at that time. You still have a better idea about what Meyer can do against major league hitting and what he might need to work on.

Because I think the Twins have quite a few players who are on the cusp of the majors, I pretty much agree with this. Meyer is getting to the point where he's close to being a non-prospect because of his age, so I think you need to see what he can actually do. I'm not very high on Gibson - I think best case scenario at this point is a #3 starter. He's probably earned a rotation spot for 2015 and I would expect him to settle into a decent #4 starter role. I'd also like to see the Twins sign a good defensive outfielder who can play LF and maybe cover CF for a little bit, hoping that Buxton gets right and comes up sometime prior to September 2015. Schafer is fine to keep around, but as a 4th OF. It would be great if Pinto sticks as a catcher, but re-signing Suzuki means he's been handed the starting catcher job for 2015, so I'm not sure where Pinto's playing time comes from.

Isn't that what Meyer did? He seemed like a much better option than Pino or Darnell.

I respectfully disagree with this. I think you're giving Dayton Moore too much credit. When he made the trade for Shields, it was a desperate attempt to save his job and get the team to a .500 record. If we could give Dayton Moore truth serum somehow (like, legally and not in a weird way), I bet he would admit that even he didn't expect this. The Royals' win total increased by 14 games from 2012 to 2013. That's a pretty big jump. With the way it's worked out, though, Moore is now getting credit for his "process".

I don't want to divert the conversation in any way, but I think this is important to discuss: does anyone else think it looks like Hosmer's head is photoshopped in that picture? It's probably just forced perspective since Moustakas is right there and just a bit behind him, but it looks like Hosmer's head is slightly too big for its body.

The bullpen having their inning-specific roles nearly cost the Royals their season, too. In the wild card game when Shields got in trouble in the top of the 6th, Yost brought in Ventura, a rookie starting pitcher, who promptly gave up a 3-run HR. It probably would have made more sense to try to get 4 innings out of Herrera, Davis and Holland. It's easy to second guess, though, and it's a moot point anyway since the Royals ended up winning, but I think they're winning in spite of Ned Yost and not because of him.

Another thing the Royals have been is incredibly lucky. They haven't swept two series and come back from 4 runs down with 6 outs remaining in an elimination game solely because of good pitching and defense. They've had timely hitting and a high BABIP, which indicates all kinds of luck (the BABIP citation is really hearsay from what I've read on Twitter - for some reason I can't find team postseason BABIP). They've also overachieved this season. Their Pythagorean W-L record was 84-78. Their offense was middle of the pack or worse: 14th in runs scored, 18th in wRC+ and wOBA. They were 30th in homeruns during the season, but during the playoffs they've hit the second most homeruns. The Royals do play very good defense, have good starting pitching, and a very good bullpen, but they've benefited greatly from luck and timely hitting, because the playoffs are a crapshoot.

I'd like to see the Twins go after someone like Alejandro De Aza. He isn't a free agent after the season but the Orioles might non-tender him, or at the very least he'd probably be available for cheap. Average hitter but played above average defense in LF this year. Also has the ability to play CF if needed.

Supposedly Jack Zduriencik in Seattle is a big advanced metrics guy (although he's also been accused of misrepresenting that), so I'd be surprised if Seattle has no statistics department. Josh Byrnes was a big sabermetrics guy when he was Arizona's GM, but then Kevin Towers was the opposite and was looking for "gritty" players, and completely getting rid of an analytics department seems like something Towers would have done. That being said, as recently as 2012, the Diamondbacks were considered a "Highly Analytical Organization": http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2012-sabermetric-teams-the-market-for-saber-players/ My guess is that there's no way to know for certain if a team does not have a statistical department unless they come right out and say that they don't.

I didn't see the game last night, so all I know about this situation is what I've read on the internets today. What I don't like is that Mauer got plunked and Oswalt didn't get a warning, and Hamilton did not get hit but Diamond was ejected. I think the ump should have warned both teams after Diamond threw behind Hamilton because that's probably the end of it. Nobody gets thrown out that way. It sounds like Diamond's pitch was a purpose pitch. If he wanted to dot Hamilton, he would have.