jtkoupal

Oh I agree fully on Cruz. He was an obvious one to trade. I'm not referring to Cruz being traded. What I'm saying is that trading Berrios makes contending a lot harder next year. I don't know what kind of moves they will make to bolster the rotation this offseason, but replacing Jose in the rotation will not be an easy, or cheap, task. As for Buxton, I would be surprised to see him accept an offer unless the Twins overpay. I would have to think that his trade market was suppressed due to being injured. Maybe the Twins think that if he comes back this year yet and plays well, his value will be higher in the offseason? Certainly dealing him now would not be peak value given the length of time he has been out.

Trading Berrios makes all the sense in the world with one major exception: The fact that the Twins had a chance to compete in 2022. I think trading Jose is a very clear indicator that the Twins' Brass does not see the team as a contender next season, which I think is very pessimistic considering the team actually has a lot of good pieces in place. I fully understand that baseball is a business and sometimes you have to make moves you don't really want to make, but I just don't see how you make this move if you expect to compete in 2022. At this point, I don't know what to expect from the 2022 Twins. However, I expect to see the bottom drop out of the 2021 Twins who just traded their two best players.

Odorizzi had a great year, but Cole is on a different level. Cole always had better stuff than Odo. The Twins have done a great job with Odo, but Gerrit Coles don't come around often. I don't know if I'd really compare anyone to him.

If anything, I see Sano being a first baseman before Garver next year. I'd be surprised if they move him, especially since they obviously don't love Tortuga behind the plate.

In all seriousness, though; these changes will take away one of Francona's greatest strengths as a manager. He has always been great with mixing-and-matching his bullpen, and these rules will make that a lot harder for him to do. I think this potentially helps the Twins in 2020, who will probably be fighting with the Indians again in the Central.

Nobody hates these changes more than Terry Francona, change my mind

I think Cron is a pretty good player. Had some thumb issues that slowed him down but he's a solid ballplayer. I don't see a reason to let him go unless there is a legitimate upgrade ready to be made now.

Maybe Dobnak gets one time through the order, then someone else gets the next time through the order, then mix and match from there based on situation of the game?

I think José will be just fine. This recent stretch has been frustrating, but I don't think it's permanent. He's a good pitcher, he just hasn't found his consistency yet. Maybe he never will, in which case he's still gonna be a solid mid-rotation starter, but I think that's worst case scenario.

Just curious. Does anyone know why the Twins haven't used their home whites yet this homestand or at all in the last one?

Absolutely they could. The Indians are playing a LOT better right now and could absolutely win the Central. In the Wild Card, the Rays, A's, and Red Sox are definitely capable of going on a run. The Twins, being in the division they are in, are still in good shape. However, they are not safe, and I think 538's current 93% playoff probability is too high.

When the players go on strike, I think the MLB will be more than willing to drop 12 games.

It seems pretty clear at this point that a realignment is on the horizon in Major League Baseball. Different ideas have been shared, but the most popular and most sensible one is for baseball to realign their divisions so that the teams are in closer proximity to each other. Such an alignment would probably not help any team more than the Seattle Mariners, who currently have to play 6 series in the state of Texas; more than 2,000 miles away from Seattle. These ideas have arisen in light of the rumors of baseball expanding to 32 teams, with one team likely to be in Portland, Oregon and the other somewhere in the Eastern time zone. Such expansion will necessitate realignment anyhow, so it's possible that the MLB will wait until then to do anything, but in reality, they could start sooner. Indications are that the goal is for the Oakland A's and Tampa Bay Rays to move into new stadiums before expanding. However, negotiations are slow. The Rays are committed to playing at Tropicana Field through 2027 and have made little progress on what to do after, though they have begun to explore a disastrous idea to split time between Tampa and Montreal when their lease on the Trop is up. The current travel for the players is grueling, especially for the teams in the west, who are vastly outnumbered by teams in the central and eastern time zones. Instead of waiting for the expansion to happen, which will probably be close to a decade from now, if not longer, the MLB could realign AND shorten the season much sooner. Here's how: The first step is making the rules uniform. This realignment will jumble up the league, so the DH will either have to be universal or banned first. Then, the MLB could align their divisions as follows (basically, just take the divisions as they are now and shuffle the deck a little bit) WESTERN CONFERENCE Pacific: Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers Southwest: San Diego, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Houston Upper Midwest: Kansas City, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Minnesota, Milwaukee EASTERN CONFERENCE Rust Belt: Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh Metropolitan: Toronto, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston, Philadelphia Southeast: Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami I like this arrangement for a number of reasons, it's not perfect, especially for the southwest, but it's better than what they have. Also, there was no choice but to break up either Chicago's teams or KC and St. Louis. It's unfortunate, but something had to give. As for the length of season, this schedule would make a ton of sense: Vs Division opponents: 15 games vs each X 4 teams = 60 Games Vs Rest of Conference: 6 games X 10 teams = 60 Games Interleague: 6 games X 5 teams =30 Games (Play a 3 game series at home and on the road vs an entire division) Total of 150 games As I mentioned, it's not likely that the MLB will do anything until expansion happens (which I'm pretty indifferent about, honestly). However, in order to give the players a more reasonable travel schedule, and to give fans more chances to travel and see their team in nearby stadiums, this realignment makes a ton of sense.

Some numbers to chew on for you all this evening: -The Twins won their 40th game today. Last year, they had 30 more losses under their belt when they won their 40th game. -The Twins have a magic number of 93 with 104 games remaining in the season. -If the Twins play .500 over the last 104 games, they would finish with 92 wins. The Indians or White Sox would need to go 63-40 (.612) to catch up. -The Twins have 17 games left with Kansas City, 13 with Detroit, and 16 with Cleveland and Chicago. They're probably doing better than 92 wins. -FiveThirtyEight has assigned a probability of 97% of the Twins making the playoffs, 93% of them winning the division. They project them to finish with 101 wins and with a run differential of +191. They have the 5th highest team rating, trailing only HOU, LAD, NYY, BOS. Thanks guys, Go Twins!

Happy Memorial Day, Twins Daily! I hope that you all are enjoying your long weekend and getting to spend some time with your families while we, as a nation, honor our fallen heroes. Memorial Day is a big day. It marks the beginning of when the MLB standings start to mean something. Now almost a third of the way into the season, there can be no more "small sample" excuses, no more "cold weather" excuses, and a slow start is more than just a slow start now. With all of that said, here is a look at the AL Central entering play on Memorial Day: Twins: 36-16 Indians: 26-26 10 GB White Sox: 23-29 13 GB Tigers: 19-31 16 GB Royals: 18-34 18 GB Nobody is surprised about the bottom three, but all of baseball is surprised by what is at the top. The Indians, who are without Corey Kluber and Mike Clevinger, are as average as their .500 record suggests. They have scored the 5th-fewest runs in baseball and now have a patchwork rotation because of the injuries. To compound matters, Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco have struggled to hold down the fort in Kluber and Clevinger's absence. Bauer only has one quality start in his past six tries and Carrasco has a 4.60 ERA on the season. As for the Twins, there has been plenty of literature on this site about how they have been doing. I am not going to reiterate it, I will instead bring something else to the table. *The Twins are currently playing to a .692 win percentage. If they were to sustain that pace, they would end the season with 112 wins. *The Twins Magic Number to clinch the AL Central is currently 101 with 110 games left for each team, so any combination of 101 Twins wins and Indians losses will clinch the division for the Twins. *If the Twins were to play .500 the rest of the way, they would end up with 91 wins. For the Indians to reach 91 wins, they would need to go 65-45, a win percentage of .591. In other words, if the Twins played .500 the rest of the way, the Indians would need to play at a 96-win pace to catch them. *The Twins will, most likely, play better than .500 the rest of the way, but probably won't finish with 112 wins, either. So, for example, let's say the Twins play (approximately) .550 for the next 110 games. That would give them 96 wins, a reasonable total. The Indians would then need to go 70-40 (.636, a 103-win pace) to catch the Twins. Now, I realize that the math does not look good for the Indians. However, there are still 16 head-to-head matchups between the Twins and Indians, 9 of which are at Progressive Field. Realistically, the Indians need to win BARE MINIMUM 10, but more likely 11 or 12, of those match-ups to have a chance. If they can't muster that, then they probably don't have a prayer. FiveThirtyEight currently has a 94% probability assigned to the Twins to make the postseason, with an 89% chance of winning the Central. It's not over yet, but it's getting late early for the Tribe.