Hosken Bombo Disco

I wonder if the Reds would have considered trading Castillo last winter for a package of Petty, Steer, and the other prospects we sent off at the deadline. Or throw in Rogers, since they seemed set on trading him, or throw in a Varland/Ober/Wallner since those guys are the new heartthrobs. And then the extension Castillo signed with the Mariners was in the ballpark of the Berrios and Wheeler contracts. From my point of view, the Twins usually pass when there are chances to get guys better than Gray.

Astros now up 3 games to 0 over the Yankees. yay?

I was thinking the same thing. It would be fun to establish an honest population of players who play in true “walk years” and then compare their performance to player not in walk years, or more ho-hum team option walk years, or against their own record prior to the walk year. Are walk years a thing? (Judge was in a true walk year; Buxton did not have a walk year but did perform well for the 61 games he played before his extension; and so on.) Do team option walk years or the year ahead of the option year dampen motivation to perform? Will Kepler do something different this offseason, will he play just well enough to be extended again on another lukewarm contract, or will he wait until next offseason and hope his option is picked up and then get motivated? You are a statistician—how am I doing? Somewhere in there is I think an interesting research question that maybe has already been answered over at Fangraphs or somewhere else. Not sure. Someone might come back with: “are you saying that players don’t try to be good until they are up for free agency?” but no I don’t think that’s what I’m saying. I don’t think Judge was holding anything back in earlier seasons.

My second thought after seeing the lawsuit (my initial thought was wtf?) was that some attorneys are looking for a payday. I hope you stick around to discuss. I am also going to read the complaint; maybe that will help me see some nuance. I agree if it does settle we probably won’t hear what the terms are. One wrinkle from an NPR article i just read is that Magnus is seeking to buy chess.com so not sure if the terms of a settlement will actually let Niemann come back there.

I’d put it up closer to 75-25 batter gets that call at least 3 of 4 times. I’m not a conspiracist (I hope) but I do think umps get caught up in the moment. Not sure if that’s what happened there but most likely that’s just how he saw it—batter didn’t hold up his swing. FWIW my bartender agrees with you It also wouldn’t surprise me if umpires have check swing appeal data we can look up.

Umpires need to be loved too

Horrible call on the check swing (in this baseball fan’s opinion)

Brian Allmendinger's Ford Fiesta was parked next to Jim Anchower's Ford Festiva. That was not a cigarette he was smoking out there, to be blunt with you.

Yikes. This feels like the Astros suing MLB for accusing them of cheating in 2017. What do you think? Any background in this area? I think when a side uses the language "speaks for itself" it's not always a good thing for your case, but I don't know.

Pressly have worked back to back days, so I imagine he is shelved for the rest of the ALCS ?

Padres on the ropes this afternoon but battled their tails off and rallied to win. We even had a Kyle Gibson sighting!

That Schwarber ball went a little ways..

I wanted both those guys, and said so. Do you know how hard it is to wait 4-plus years to feel vindicated for my take on Darvish? Anyway, you are right, we shouldn’t confuse Twins talk with Postseason talk here! lol

What should the Twins do to improve? Gosh I don’t know but here are two free agents they were supposedly in on…

I am glad you see the value of catching lightning in a bottle for one magical season, especially in this market, would elevate them to the status of Gods forever. Wrongly, in my opinion, but whatever. It would be a fun ride. I think where the front office needs to place their faith is in their very first real success story, drafting Royce Lewis as their future shortstop. and best case scenario, a potential star. That was the original long term plan, so if I were advising them, I would say their best bet is to go back to that plan. But if this front office is anything, it’s unpredictable.

I think the much better time to spend would have been prior to 2018, 2019, and 2020, with Mauer coming off the books and the core entering its peak seasons of performance. That said, I would not be disappointed if they re-signed Correa.

Fun with numbers, 2022 free agent salaries: Wheeler + Darvish = $46 million Correa + Bundy + Archer (plus buyouts): $43.5 million

Checking on who the Starting pitchers for NLCS Game 1 are.. aw, nuts!!!

Luis Arraez has been compared to Tony Gwynn, but Gwynn wasn’t used in the super utility role like Arraez is (the good news is that moving him around the diamond doesn’t seem to affect his hitting). Gwynn, Carew, whoever, Probably some one will dig up some examples of great hitters who played various positions during the course of a season. That’s fine. I respect your posts highly but I would suggest that this front office get back to basics and start fielding a baseball team the proper way— with tobacco spit, nut cup grabs, choking up with two strikes, and everyday ballplayers. As for next year, I think they can use Polanco at short until Lewis returns.

On the other hand, couldn’t you build a team the old fashioned way, and name Arraez as your full time second baseman, and work from there? My impression from reading Twins Daily is that Arraez is a below average fielder, but we’ve seen enough to know that he is plenty competent to play second, regardless of where his ranking sits on a given metric. Any flaws in his fielding record are more than made up by his hitting record. I think the best thing for the team is to pen Arraez into the lineup as leadoff hitter and second baseman.

Well said, Mike.

This is all interesting, but I don’t think the teams still alive in the postseason feel constrained by having three good starting pitchers that they can count on for six innings, and then plugging in their best relief pitchers to finish the game, and then use the rest of their pitchers for lower leverage or emergencies.

As far as pitching roles, I think the water has found its level. How it is now is the optimal way to have it, with a starting rotation and a bullpen. There are other comstraints besides agent and salary demands, which no team is obligated to meet, by the way. There is the health of the individual pitcher and then roster limitations. I think having starters and relievers is natural, and at a minimum would be very hard to shake free from, as has been mentioned. Yes we have seen bullpen games, and we did try the opener/primary concept a few years ago, though you don’t hear about that as much now. And there is always the issue of identifying the good pitchers from the bad, which this front office must get better at. But we may be in another sea change and not noticing it. It would be interesting to look back on things like the evolution to 5-man rotations or the fireman/relief role or velocity and pitch types. Those were very gradual changes taking place over many years and probably seemed experimental too. Maybe we are just in the beginning stages now of another pitching revolution and we just aren’t seeing it yet?

Sorry to see Cave go. You could always count on him to hustle out of the box.

Thank you for letting us know. Is this the Minnesota benefit we applied for recently?