big dog

Agreed. That’s why I would give up one or even two of them for a very good pitcher. I’m not giving up Miranda for two months of a slightly above average pitcher. He’s not going to get us Castillo by himself- and if all we get is Castillo we are probably trading him for what ends up being one playoff win.

I look forward to Miranda being more productive than Beckham for a lot longer, myself. If we trade Miranda, and I really hope we don't, we're going to need real production from Steer.

Big Friday night for the pitching prospects with Jordy Blaze, Varland, Povich, and Hajiar all going. Let's hope for some strong performances.

That was…not optimal. Twice.

Garlick- way to hustle.

I did not think Miranda would hit nearly this well so soon.

The story of the starting pitching is that Bundy with an ERA over 5 leads the team in starts.

That was…not optimal.

Chief, what's your call on food for today?

Corbin Burnes is a heck of a find in the fourth round. Let's get Correa home here.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Too bad about Druw Jones hurting his shoulder already. Maybe done for the year after what, two workouts? Shame.

It's a nice day here in Illinois. Good weather, the recent rain has eased the drought. Nice to have baseball on the radio in the afternoon. Brings me back to the 1960s, playing in the yard listening to Harmon climb up the home run list. Go Twins!

Well, Joe was fun back when he was good. Shame about that homer. Let’s get it back! Time for Sano to get some love.

I remember when the Twins went 3-3 against Baltimore and Seattle and we all thought it was a huge lost opportunity, because they had bad records. Those games happened not long before both teams went completely wild- looking back, those were better games than we thought. I don't worry too much about strength of schedule going forward, things change. And as others have said, acquisitions made or not made could be pretty important. Or, as is often the case, they could seem important and not work out. The White Sox looked to be unstoppable last year when they traded for Kimbrel, who was nearly untouchable that year with the Cubs and a dumpster fire with the Sox. I hope the Twins get a couple more players, but that doesn't mean it will work out.

10 runs for one win- I could see that, averaging over a whole bunch of games and teams. It would be interesting to note what that statistic does and doesn't control for, too. I assume that is for a team with an average pitching staff? I wonder if team ERA is used when people estimate number of wins from runs. I was using my numbers from today, which says 12 missing runs (just because the rank for runs moves around a bit depending on how much other teams scored since it is so similar, and over 96 games a little counts for a lot). If I take that statistic and move forward, we have 66 games left, so at the same pace it equals 8.25 runs over the rest of the season. If we use the figure of 18 runs, then it is a healthier 12.375 additional runs. So I might be surprised, but I'm guessing the statistical variation in this is pretty huge so I still doubt there is anything here that isn't swamped by luck. One win by getting 10 more runs, two wins by having a ball hit an outfielder's glove in play and bounce over the fence and a run scoring on a bad call when the other team had used its challenge up. I will take any and all wins, whatever the source.

Just looked at the numbers as of today. The Twins are now 11th in Runs per Game, so a couple of teams just above them must have had low scores last night. It is an extremely small gap among a large number of teams. They are currently at 4.563. Moving to fifth would now require 4.688, which would be another 12 runs, or 0.125 runs per game. That's an extremely tiny number to try and attribute to one or two specific reasons, given everything that factors into turning OPS into runs. I didn't do an innings adjustment, The Twins have played fewer extra inning games, so have fewer innings (they have 7 extras, league average is 8.5), but the ghost runners increase the number of runs scored per inning, so that's probably a net disadvantage for their stat. Does 12 more runs over 96 games matter? Mostly in one-run games, unless you have one of those games where Mickey Hatcher gets thrown out on the bases 3 times (that happened, right?). The Twins are 15-13 in one-run games, a .536 winning percentage that is just barely below their season winning percentage. It is better than some of the teams fighting for playoff spots (Tampa Bay, Boston, Philadelphia, St Louis, LA Dodgers, and SF Giants) and worse than the others, most of whom (other than Cleveland and Chicago) have better overall winning percentages than the Twins. I guess my takeaway, and yours could be completely different, from this statistical wool-gathering is that - it is unlikely anyone can find a particular reason to explain the run shortfall, at least any better than the vagaries of probability suggest; and - if you could find it, and you could fix it, getting another 0.125 runs per game isn't likely to add any wins, unless you could get them all in the bottom of the ninth and come from behind. Which I encourage this team to do, wholeheartedly. I also encourage Miguel Sano to grab the DH slot and catch fire. That could help a lot. Thanks for raising the question, TwinsData, I've enjoyed thinking about it.

Those are the odds as of 7/18. Since then, the Twins have picked up a game on the White Sox and 1.5 on the Guardians. So that's a good thing. My hot take is that I really don't care what a "rival official", whatever that is, tells Ken Rosenthal. Is it a rival trying to get the Twins to overpay to get someone from their team? A rival official who wants to feel important? Someone who got a phone call at an inopportune time and just wanted to say something quick to get off the phone without being rude? Too much noise, not enough signal. If I were a betting man, my most likely bet would be "someone other than the Twins" and my second-most likely bet would be "the Twins". Which is a terrible way to try and make money, kids, remember that gambling always favors the house. But if I had to pick a team right now, I'd pick the Twins. The White Sox seem the least likely to me, despite what seems like a loaded roster.

I'll just toss out that if everyone misinterprets what the writer believes s/he said, it might not entirely be the fault of the readers.

Agreed. Standard errors would shed some light on that, though only in a probabilistic sense.

What is the standard error in runs scored per game? Is that a meaningful difference, statistically?

Nice game, lads! Go Twins!

And now all I can think about are breakfast burritos. Or lunch, in my time zone.

I remember hoping the Twins would re-sign Pineda, along with a bunch of others. Glad we dodged that torpedo. Go Twins! Twins 7, Kitties 3

I see this as the same thing as allowing paternity leave. It’s important to the player, and probably to the family. It costs the team a couple of games. They are humans. Treat them as such.