Danchat

They’re making the tank pretty blatant by promoting Jeff Saturday to interim HC (from being a consultant, having never coached before!) Jim Irsay was micromanaging things, but now he’s fully taken over operations in Indy. Can’t imagine their GM is around for much longer.

He’s a big part of the problem, his play was horrific today. Plus his insane contract is going to cripple their ability to sign free agents.

Wow, never seen a team lose on a PF on a FG!

This team has a way of keeping things close no matter what… defense is playing their butts off while the offense can’t block to save their lives.

He should be healthy for the playoffs, but yeah, he’s not getting a second deal here. Probably gets a one year deal on the FA market.

There's been a whole bunch of rumors, but little action. Playbook is probably the biggest issue, plus teams don't have farm systems with plenty of prospects to trade. With the deadline tomorrow, I'd expect a couple moves but most of the rumored names won't get moved. On paper that looks like a great move, though Smith wants a $20M per year contract and he won't play on the franchise tag next year... which for a LB I would not pay, even though Smith is a very good one. LBs are one of the easier positions to find in the draft and overpaying them usually doesn't end well, especially since their prime is over by age 28/29.

A lot of it is intentional, the safeties are playing really deep to prevent big plays, but it's put a lot of strain on the LBs as Hicks is not good in coverage and Kendricks has been regressing. The benefits have been apparent, with more interceptions coming because the DBs are actually looking at the QB compared to Zimmer's man-heavy schemes which always had the DBs facing the receivers and never being able to make a play on the ball, leading to low interception rates for CBs. And that scheme demanded top tier CBs to be able to function. The downside with Donatell's scheme is that if the QB gets enough time in the pocket or can scramble, the receivers can run to the gaps in coverage and make plays, and also get some big opportunities for YAC (see Rondale Moore yesterday). It's been used to frustrate the high-power offenses that don't want to 'take what the defense gives them', but it's only going to work if the offense keeps scoring 28+ points a game since our defense is usually going to keep the other team in the game. I'm not sure what you mean by the LBs being the best part, are you including the OLBs? Smith has easily been the best player on the defense, with Hunter looking good not great, and Wonnum looking much better than before and even Jones looked great against the Fins.

No, it's not bad luck that the Twins didn't land Darvish or Wheeler. On both fronts it was reported that the Twins' best offers were $20M shy of what they got with the years being the same. Their MO is to sign one year deals and more recently trade for starters, so I'd expect more of that in 2023.

$34M value the past two years, seriously? His defense is good and he takes a lot of walks, but he was atrocious at the plate for long stretches of time, lost most of his HR power, and kept hitting into the shift. I had high expectations for Max and he's been a perennial disappointment since 2019. If a team is high on him and offers a substantial package I'd move him, but I would expect they hold onto him for one more year. Perhaps his numbers improve with the shift limitations, but he will be another year out of his prime too.

It looked 50-50 to me, I don’t blame the ump on that one.

I could see Julien starting the first couple months in AAA and get a chance in May/June, similarly to how Miranda got his chance. With this lineup's durability, there will be an opening for him sooner than later.

I could see Kepler winning it, but Arraez is a 'heck no', and Correa is a probably not.

Getting the 2 seed wouldn’t be so bad, the #7 seed they’ll play WC week will probably be awful since the NFC is so bad. Of course it’d be far more preferable to get a bye…

Only one team gets a bye these days, meaning Philly would have to go 11-6 since they will have the tiebreaker.

Our hitters have traditionally done fairly well in the minors, but man we just didn't have anything good for pitching prospects. Gonsalves and Thorpe never had the stuff to succeed in the majors, while Romero did but just didn't pan out. That turns out to be one legit MLB player in the top 14 (Gordon, with Kirilloff potentially but not yet), but some very strong results for 15-30.

They are a decent team in a very bad NFC conference, and would probably be 2-3 if they were in the AFC.

I am surprised Cave and Hamilton will get a 40 man spot over the offseason... if they keep it, of course. Palacios getting claimed by Detroit has some serious Niko Goodrum vibes, he could make a decent bench infielder. But I don't mind the Twins DFA'ing any of these 5 guys.

No new pitching coach, not even a new bullpen coach to replace Maki's old spot? Hmmm.... feels like this is setting up for the coaching staff to be blown up at the end of the 2023 season. Sorry for the needless pessimism, but that's just my hunch.

Are we sure we hate the runner on 2B to start OT innings? I dunno, that beats a snoozer that goes 14 innings without a run. Also, Toronto somehow blew a 8-1 lead!!

Rogers was perhaps the best reliever in baseball the first two months (1.64 ERA .454 OPS against), but then was horrific the next two months (8.14 ERA .890 OPS against) and then was plain bad for the Brewers (5.48 ERA, .845 OPS against). Enough for them to remove him from high leverage situations by the end of the year. I count 10 blown saves and 8 losses (there is overlap between those two stats). As bad as Pagan? No because of the first 2 months, but it was easily the worst season of his career. The Twins may have been right to trade him while his value was high, but of course they had to choose Paddack to be the centerpiece of the trade.

I just don't foresee them getting good injury luck next year. They simply have too many brittle players, too many hitters who immediately go into the tank upon suffering a minor injury and too many pitchers who already have red-flagged injury histories or are potentially suffering from the optimization that our pitching staff had them go through to get their MPH as high as possible. Absolutely, plenty exist right now. The Rays practically worship analytics and usually field a strong defense. I think the problem is more related to coaching and to the front office's focus on signing/drafting bat-first players and not focusing on the fundamentals in the minor leagues.

I predicted 81 wins, and I was quite confident that I was wrong through most the season, but even now I'm still shocked they went under it. I had some optimism for the future last year at this time, but now I have much less.

Looks like Arraez should win the batting title, barring a ludicrous game from Judge (.315 vs .311).

I see the Astros pulled Verlander in the midst of another no-hitter...

Being 3-1 is nice especially with a matchup with the Bears next, but this squad doesn't look as good as they should - but there is plenty of time for improvement. It does feel like Zimmer is still coaching this team, but simply has more luck this time around... and yeah, I didn't see Cousins becoming more inaccurate and erratic when finally paired with the coach 'that would unlock his potential'. Eh, I dunno if they'll let him be back so soon after all the backlash - but I guess if he's got CTE, it's not like waiting another week is going to fix that. I expect to see Teddy start the next couple games for them. Apparently he got kicked in the groin, so methinks he'll be OK for next week. Cine, on the other hand, might have a 12+ month recovery depending on what exactly happened, but for 2022, it's not a big blow as Metellus has already shown he can be a solid backup.