alskntwnsfn

If he can replicate his offensive numbers from recent years I'm fine with what he can do in the field.

Detwiler... yeah, there was no RPs available. Ugh.

That's my point though. There should never be a stupidly wrong. Just like I cannot abide by pitches right over the middle called as balls or pitches 8"outside called as strikes. It should not happen. Glad they got that one right though.

Same goes for nfl reviews. I think fans usually have a better view than the refs. #balls/strikes

Oh! I still think the TV crews are better at pulling up review footage than the NYC crew. Usually they have it dialed in one way or the other.

No way this gets overturned.

Challenge!

#requiredteamouting #gowild

My daughter goes to the same daycare as the king of ram (the other one). Does that make us part of the ram court?

There is an inverse relationship between the quality of Twins play and TD game threads. Sometimes I'm bummed when they actually come through. Schadenfreude?

Awesome. Love that part. I often think of it when perusing Twins box scores.

Boy, that one went a long way. Take some notes Twins hitters.

First run producing hit since Sunday. -Friday, 4/15/16

Sano! Holy crap, I didn't even think they were allowed to do that.

Well it's Joe, so a grounder. Close!

"Here is Nunez to lead off the sixth. He has the only two Twins hits." -Bremer That is a horrific sentence on several levels.

Thermos shopping huh? Must be a really special lady.

Nice turn Esco!

That is 2-week ago thinking.

12-1 odds Meyer is our closer by September?

Return of the... ? http://i.imgur.com/ZJpY73i.png

I was curious about the importance of bullpen performance. So I looked at playoff teams from the last five years and averaged their WPA and WPA/LI performance... basically how well did they do situationally and how good were they irregardless of the situation. A mix of results and "true ability". The average WPA rank for playoff teams was 11.8 and the average WPA/LI was 11.7. If the best bullpens always made the playoffs, the average would be 4.0 and if bullpen performance (in terms of ranking) made no difference, then the average would have been 15.0. Basically, playoff teams tend to have better than average bullpens. However, there's certainly many clubs who made the playoffs in spite of their bullpens. Further, World Series teams had a lower average ranking than all playoff teams, so at least for this 5-year sample, it suggests that overall bullpen quality/performance during the regular season wasn't a determining factor once teams were in the playoffs.

I have been a very vocal critic of this team's bullpen going back to the 2014/2015 offseason. I thought the bullpen would be one of the worst in the league last year, but to my surprise they were actually about average (in terms of Win Probability Added, and ranked between 11-25 in several other relevant statistics): http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=2,d Further, we had 4 relievers in the top 120 WPA leaders in baseball last year. Even in terms of fastball velocity, we ranked 16/30. A thorough average bullpen, which given the expectations of many fans could be considered as huge success. This year's squad is essentially the same group as last year. Given the results of that squad from last year, the relative lack of relief depth in the FA pool, and our crop of young relievers... I can better understand TR's inactivity. Whether we started 0-7 or 7-0, I do wish that we would have brought in a few more relievers on NRI or minor league contract flyers, but this is basically the group the front office expected to have in the pen to start 2016 all along. A strong spring from an unknown (whether they came from inside/outside the system) probably wasn't going to change that.

This team doesn't deserve walk up music right now.

This painful to watch, but it might be the frostbite out here in section 133. Sun is starting to make its way through, so that's something I guess.