Johnny Ringo

Say what you want, the whole premise of the season was doomed from the get-go. Scratch and dent starters limping to a mediocre bullpen. What could go wrong? The pure absurdity of it all was cloaked by the other-worldly performance of Duran, certainly something that the FO benefitted from but surely did not expect. They acquired three starting pitchers (Maeda, Paddack, Mahle) with known and notably health issues and surrendered significant assets to do so. The injury bug got us? Really? You don't say. I listen to DSP bemoan tepid ticket sales. I listen to Falvey dish the word salad on the season. Does anyone get it? It's a results business. Business has stunk for two years. Stunk like four day old fish or relatives. This was a embarrassing season in an embarrassing division with embarrassing results. You can be a fan of the team and still call it what it was; a flim-flam to sell cold hot dogs and warm beer. Ps. Can we stop saying "If Correa leaves?" I am sure the U-Haul (but it's a nice one) is in front of the house right now. There is a better chance that Bonnes turns down a free beer than Correa stays. There is a better chance that Gladden ends any verb every with a G. Sorry but I've been scufflin' enough. I've got to go whompin'.

I have been around Joe several times and he is the nicest guy on this planet. Period. End of story. People who criticize him over the money are morons because anyone would have taken it. "Hey Bob, we want to double your salary. "No thanks boss. I drive truck just for the aesthetic." But more importantly, as Bonnes' buddy Gleeman would tell you; with a 55 plus career WAR, it can be easily argued that Joe was significantly underpaid in his career. In one of my conversations with Joe, I asked him about his favorite away city. His reply surprised me. "Kansas City." Me: "Really? Good barbeque. Decent ballpark. Why? Did you have great numbers there?" Joe: "Not really. I just like that I could bring my family down and people would leave me be." I let that soak in. So many players fight desperately for the last bit of the spotlight when their career is done. (Insert Dan Gladden joke here.) So congrats Stu on passing on the Ryan question and allowing Joe to enjoy the show undisturbed. Leave him be folks. Leave him be.

If you constructed a Mount Rushmore for the four most accomplished people in Twins history, it would honor: Killebrew, Carew, Puckett, Randy Dobnak's agent But not necessarily in that order.

As the great Vin Scully said, "The pitching mound at Yankee Stadium; the loneliest place on Earth." Good luck Louie. Everyone here is rooting for you. Ps. Pitching around Judge is not capitulation. It's smart ball.

The Vikings give a reward to the person responsible for selling the most game tickets. This month's winner? Max Kepler.

Twins Daily community unite!! What binds us? Our shared opinion on these club options and our current state of misery.

Replays are supposed to be used to overturn calls on the field that are clearly wrong. That principle was egregiously violated here. There is a lot of gray in the world. But not here. Rocco is 100% right and NY is 100% wrong. I am sure that his passion on this point plays just fine in the clubhouse.

He plays with an obvious love of the game that is refreshing and infectious. All-Star player? I'm not sure. All-Star dude? You bet.

This fit of measured competency and commitment is surely a sign of the apocalypse. If next, Dick Bremer stops making excuses for every Twins out or opponent's home run and/or the self-named "Dazzle Man" actually allows for a few blessed seconds of silence on a call, I would suggest that you gather loved ones and canned goods. Then seek shelter. You have been warned. Good luck.

Sell high. Buy Lo(pez).

The FO essentially traded Aaron Hicks for Gabriel Moya. This misadventure would certainly would make the Twins worst-trade HOF. I needn't go into Hicks' bona fides. The fact that he earned those with the Yankees is, of course, the cherry on top. The by-product of this trade was the brief company of John Ryan Murphy. Murphy is the answer to the question of "how did Drew Butera stay in the bigs so long?" Say what you want about Murphy but he has the perfect name for a country singer; like some algorithm in Nashville created it. Perfect for knocking back some bourbon and branch or a few longnecks, weeping a little and lamenting the one that got away.

If he is traded the receiving club either would have to pay him $14mm for next year or buy him out. If that is so, isn't he untradeable? They would have to pay his pro-rated contract for the rest of this year (about $5 mm) and the buy-out of $2.75mm or $7.75mm effectively for two months. Who would do that with all of the uncertainty around him? What has (negatively) impressed me about Sano the past few years is his inability to hit plus fastballs. He seems overmatched at anything over 95mph. For most clubs, that is the 5th guy out of the pen these days. He clearly is not in the plans in 2023 at $14 million. Even if they could, the Twins wouldn't pay him 1/3 of that. Save the ABs for someone who is part of next year. I think the only way he is not DFAd is if injuries to others intervene.

The 3 most likely things to happen this season: -- Sano is traded for anything helping the team this year or any other; -- Correa is signed to a mega long-term contract with the Twins; -- Jessica Alba asks me to dinner and picks up the tab. Of the three, the last one could happen. She misdials and in her embarrassment, she surrenders the American Express black card. If you want to compete in 2022, trading Correa makes zero sense. WAR is WAR and any other of the Twins' replacement alternatives at shortstop would be replacement at best. Is anyone going to give you that value in a pitcher for a free agent like Carlos? I think not. Only if the team tanks before the trade deadline, should a Correa trade be considered. That being said, it has been an absolute pleasure watching the guy play. He is terrific in every regard.

This Rocco bashing is silly. I really don't think he got considerably dumber in the past week. I had to laugh at the posts about Garlick being disaffected because he was batting lead-off. I am pretty sure that Kyle thanks his personal god every day for being in the majors, regardless of his role. If it counted toward accruing MLB service time, I'm pretty sure he would wash Falvey's car. The Twins are going through a bad stretch of injuries, infection and a torturously crowded schedule which reveals the thinness of their ranks. But honestly how are most teams going to do when they are using their fourth option at shortstop? But, a large part of the truth is that the team goes as Buck goes. He is hurt and it shows. Mathematically, this has likely manifested itself in a 2-3 game negative probabilistic delta. But from a morale standpoint, I think it's worse than that. Their next 10 games are a march down a path of shards of broken glass and rusty nails. If they win 3 games, I think they will consider themselves lucky. The hitting will return when Correa and the real Byron do. However, if they are serious about competing, they still need to fix the bullpen. It reminds me of the drunk guy in Vegas who wins a few hands of cards and then suddenly thinks he is gambling savant. He sits for a while and the chips start ebbing the other way. Then they are all gone. The house and the odds eventually always win.

The Twins Daily faithful are a family; a really big, ugly, dysfunctional family. But can we take a moment and pause, spiritually clink glasses and cheers to "Man, that was a gooooood one." ?

Pagan should leave for Vegas tonight. Eventually, that lucky horseshoe will fall out of his pocket. His 1.46 WHIP is not particularly inspiring as to future expectations. Sooner or later, the luck (and the bad teams) run out.

Most cocktail parties are fun an hour in. By midnight, they can be magical or turn ugly. They need to figure out first base. Sano seems utterly lost. His move to the "IL" was predictable. The only thing really injured is his OPS. I am an Arraez fan but he is not a corner infielder on a championship team. He is a great bat, tons of watch but is a minus defender everywhere. DH him. Use him off the bench. Promoting Miranda to third and moving Gio to first intrigues me. Gio is certainly athletic enough to be a better defensive alternative than Sano or Luis. Miranda/Gio has to be accretive to Gio/Arraez or Arraez/Sano. But in any case, lets enjoy this!! As the poet Crash Davis said about a winning streak, "they don't happen very often." Ps. Good post Doc.

Is he the best? Who knows? That's the kind of unanswerable question that just makes windbags like Stephen A. and Skip Bayless bloviate and rich. The moment could pass. Injuries follow him like they are tied to the back of his car. He sure is great though. Like franchise and generationally great. The world is cruel. The world is harsh. Let's just soak this in and really enjoy it while it lasts. Let's hope Buck is enjoying it too.

I live out of market and I watch a lot of baseball through the MLB app. If you have a smart TV, it can be watched right on your screen. Sign up to support the Major League Baseball Alumni Association for $25 and you can get the app for half price. Great cause; great price. I am sure Dick is a nice man. But the more I watch out-of-town ball, the less I appreciate our broadcasters. The allure of Gladden is just inexplicable to me. He is arrogant, pedantic and constantly contradicts himself in his criticisms. To me, he is the reason the mute button was invented.. I had to turn off Dick last year and have only periodically returned. Through the app you have the option of listening to the opposing team's feed. His nonstop excuses for the Twins 2021 train wreck were just relentless. This just in Dick; other teams have to contend with COVID, injuries and weather too. You don't have to be a bummer but the dog-ate-my-homework torrent is just unnecessary and insulting. To put it politely, Morneau (I can't take any silences!!) and Smiley are both a work-in-progress. For my money, the Mets and Boston broadcast teams are the best. I guess this is unsurprising given their organizational commitment to excellence. Ron Darling is really a gem; brilliant in his knowledge and style but truly likeable too. He works terrifically with play-by-play guy Gary Cohen (no relation). The game is beautiful and can be told poetically. But sadly as Twins fans, we need to settle for the town crier. "All is well, people!! All is well!!"

According to Bonnes' boss Gleeman ; all replacement players would yield low 50s wins in a season per the sims.

I think it is entirely possible that the FO had no intention of contending in 2022 (they didn't sign a legitimate free agent pitcher, they didn't fix the bullpen, traded Donaldson in a salary dump and got weaker at third and catcher in the process) but then Correa literally fell into their lap. They got back on the "next year" track by trading Rogers to get younger and cheaper. The Correa signing confused fans and maybe confused the FO a little too. Inking him is hard to criticize though because, in the worst case, they may feel he represents value for $17.5 million (his salary for half a year) in the form of trade value and optionality if lightning somehow struck Of course, they could never cop to not contending as their tickets sales have been shakier than the lead singer in a rhumba band. Four dollar gas and chicken for millionaires only isn't going to shore that up either.

A solution would be to cut Sano, call up Miranda (somewhat struggling so far in St. Paul) and play Gio at first. Gio doesn't really have history there but I can't imagine he is a worse defensive option. But as fans, we really don't know the story behind the scenes. Does Miguel work hard? Does he care? Those attributes can lift players out of slumps. I don't have that insight. But those are important considerations in evaluating marginal players and sadly, that is what Miguel has become. For years on these pages, people said " Sure cut him and watch him become the next Ortiz." I don't know much, but I do know that is no longer a risk.

Boy, the saber guys need to go back and recalc Paul's WAR stats in those years because they are off by 25 games.

The Twins were 216-270 in the Molitor years and the game is entirely different now in how it is understood and played.

There is a real reason Luis is a fan favorite. He is joyful and invigorating. He gives a professional at-bat in every plate appearance. He is an exceptional hitter against righties and is competent against lefties. But, despite neutral saber stats, he is a minus defender everywhere. In last night's game, he looked like he was plucked from the crowd to play third. This is not recency bias. If you take off the glasses of well-deserved fan bias, this has always been present. If you shot Rocco full of truth serum, I am sure he would agree. He has bad knees. He does not hit for enough power to be a full-time DH. Last year was by far his biggest sample size and he posted a .733 OPS which is about the league average. (Cruz put up a .907 OPS stat line for the Twins last year.) So, he presents a quandary. I love the guy but how to use him is one of Rocco's many challenges. I have often thought he might represent interesting trade bait to one of several tanking teams who are looking for cheaper players that can sell some tickets. That smile is a ticket promotion in itself.