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.

Cleveland loses again! Twins now have a 9 game lead in the Central. Some numbers to chew on: Twins Magic Number: 103 The Twins can get to 90 Wins by going 55-56, the Indians would need to go 64-47 (.577, or a 93-win pace over 162 games) to get to 90 Wins. The Twins can play about .550 ball and win 96 games, in which case the Indians would need to go 71-40 (.640, ~ a 103-win pace over 162) The Twins have gone 8-8 against the Astros, Yankees, Indians, and Phillies. They have gone 27-8 (.771) against everyone else (non-contenders) Throwing Tampa, Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta into the Contenders category, the Twins are on pace to win 110 games if they play .500 against contenders (39 games left) and .771 against non-contenders (72 Games Left).

Priority number one is absolutely the bullpen. I think they would do well to try to find 2 reliable, if not stud, relief pitchers. They will be expensive, but they're out there and we need them. The options in-house are virtually nonexistent. Some insurance in the rotation would not hurt, either. The rotation has been very good, but expecting everyone to stay healthy is hardly realistic. Just ask the Indians. On offense, it would be hard to justify any substantial upgrades. The Twins should always be looking for upgrades, but investing a lot of assets into marginal upgrades is not logical, not when the bullpen has a good bit of room for improvement. To be clear, the bullpen has been good. It's benefited from having long starts from starters as well as a punishing offense giving it run support. However, adding another high-leverage reliever is a must, otherwise you're putting your faith in Trevor May and Ryne Harper to get important outs down the stretch and in the playoffs. That's a chance the Twins can't afford to take.

A lot of people, myself included, were in your boat. 538 pegged the Twins with 84 wins to start the season. For the Twins to hit 90, it was always going to take a lot of things going well. So far, a lot has, but not necessarily the things we expected.

The Twins went 14-14 in August and 15-13 in September. The only disastrous month was April (8-14). I know that a lot of those wins were against KC, Detroit, and Chicago, but calling it "tanking" is truly misguided. The trades all made sense, and make more sense in retrospect. The Twins were out of it and had expiring contracts they weren't going to bring back anyway. There was some experimentation the last 2 months, but they did not "tank" as you suggested.

I will be the first to admit, I was absolutely stunned by the Twins poor start in 2018 and am equally as stunned by their dynamite start to 2019. All of you on Twins Daily are aware of this, but just to reiterate for the sake of context: -The Twins came off of a 103-loss 2016 season to nab the second Wild-Card spot in 2017 with a record of 85-77. -The Twins had an emerging group of youngsters such as Max Kepler, Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Miguel Sanó, José Berríos, and Eddie Rosario that seemed poised to improve after strong finishes to 2017 (with the exception of Sanó, who as an All-Star but missed the last two months due to injury) -The Twins also were anchored by veterans such as Brian Dozier, Kyle Gibson, Eduardo Escobar, Joe Mauer, and Jason Castro, who were all instrumental to the Twins' run at the end of 2017. -The Twins then added veterans Addison Reed, Fernando Rodney, and Zach Duke to shore up a weak bullpen that waved goodbye to Brandon Kintzler at the 2017 Trade Deadline, when the Twins were below .500 and looked to be out of the race. They also traded for Jake Odorizzi, who the brass liked and believed had untapped potential (he was a former top prospect, after all) and signed starter Lance Lynn, who had a very good track record in St. Louis. The result? A 7-4 start, followed by a 3-13 stretch that included an 8-game losing streak, en route to a disappointing 78-84 finish to the season. It also was the gut-wrenching goodbye to fan-favorites Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar, in addition to Duke, Rodney, Lynn, and, to my surprise, Ryan Pressly. I, along with many other Twins fans, held on to hope for dear life until the Twins were swept in a three-game series in Kansas City after the All-Star Break. At that point, I knew and finally, reluctantly, accepted that it was over. A once-promising season thrown down the drain. However, looking back, is that final 78-84 mark actually surprising? And is it actually bad? Let's stop and consider. It all started before the season started, when Ervin Santana, the ace of the Twins in 2017, delayed his surgery until February and would not be able to start the season on-time. As it turned out, he didn't throw a pitch until August. Then, the news broke that Jorge Polanco would miss 80 games with a suspension for testing positive for Stanozolol, a banned substance. The Twins were surely upset, but not panicked, as Lynn was signed and Escobar became the regular shortstop and hit very well. In April, the Twins had three consecutive games postponed due to weather, which ended up giving the Twins 4 days off before going to Puerto Rico, where they played in a 16-inning game that resulted in a win vs the Indians. Then the 8-game losing streak began. The barrage of setbacks then continued when it was announced that Jason Castro was going to miss the rest of the season. Jason Castro was not a huge weapon offensively at this point, but his value defensively was immense. The Twins turned to veteran Bobby Wilson, who almost gave up baseball before the season, to receive a bulk of the playing time alongside Mitch Garver, who was still very unpolished. Byron Buxton then proceeded to make 2 trips to the Disabled List and ended up only playing in 28 games all season. That opened the door for Ryan LaMarre and, eventually, Jake Cave. Cave showed an ability to hit the ball, but he and Robbie Grossman in the outfield on a regular basis is clearly not ideal and a substantial downgrade from having Buxton in center, even if he put up mediocre numbers at the plate. Then June rolled around and the Twins were treading water, fighting for their lives to stay alive. The Twins were forced into making the nuclear decision to send a struggling, and by some reports disinterested Miguel Sanó not to Triple-A, but to Single-A for a complete reboot. His struggles opened the door for Ehire Adrianza to play shortstop every day until Polanco returned. Similar to Cave, Adrianza is a decent player, but he is not a healthy, productive Sanó. The more bench players that have to play regularly, the harder it is to win games. To compound that, Addison Reed, who was solid for the Twins early, started to break down from overuse and spent a lot of time on the Disabled List. To this day, he has not regained his already-declining velocity and was just recently Designated for Assignment. The Twins embarked on a late-June, early-July, 9-game road trip to Chicago (3 with each team) and Milwaukee. The Twins went 1-8 on that trip and were, in my mind and the mind of most, dead in the water. Then they went 9-2 on a homestead against the Orioles, Royals, and Rays right before the All-Star Break and were hanging on by just enough of a thread to keep me optimistic. Then the aforementioned Royals series happened and I knew what little hope was left was gone. The last week of July saw the departure of Brian Dozier, most notably. Another reason for the Twins struggles was that Dozier was never able to get it going after having a hot first week in Baltimore and Pittsburgh with 4 home runs. It was all downhill from there, though a dramatic walk-off grand slam in the last game before the break provided one last thing to cheer about before his send-off to LA. To summarize, here is what happened to the Twins in 2018: -Injured starting catcher, who was replaced by a veteran backup. -Injured starting center fielder -Suspended starting shortstop -Injured ace -Injured relief-ace -Declining starting second baseman -Disinterested former-All-Star third baseman who had to be demoted and rebooted All things considered, it is no surprise that the Twins underperformed in 2018. All told, perhaps 78 wins is not so bad after all. 2019 is off to a great start; this was the expectation last year, but we're getting it a year late! In my opinion, this team is better than the Opening Day 2018 team.

Hope Garver is ok. The man was crushing it. Gotta get healthy and come back. The Twins have Castro and Astudillo who can hold down the fort in the meantime. My money would be on Sanó getting the call-up. Guess the deliberation over Whether Adrianza or Astudillo or a pitcher was the odd-man out. Looks like this one may have worked itself out. Adrianza may be the #1 beneficiary, in my opinion.

This was a tough game to lose. The Twins had their chances, but it is becoming more evident that the Twins need to get a lead early and add to it in order to win games. However, let's look on the bright side: FiveThirtyEight's projections had the Twins winning 4.1 games this week and the Indians winning 4.18. In reality, the Twins won 5/7 and the Indians won 3/7 (They split a 4-gamer with the White Sox and lost 2/3 in Oakland) The Twins lead was shrunk to 4 games today, but that is still a sizable lead and one that the Twins should take advantage of. All told, the Twins exceeded expectations this week while the Indians underperformed (again).

Doing some extrapolating here, but: vs Elite teams (Yankees, Astros): 5-5 vs Contenders (Indians, Phillies, Mets): 4-4 vs Non-Contenders (Royals, Tigers, Blue Jays, O's): 16-4 The Twins playing around .500 ball vs good teams might be good enough, but it's hard to imagine playing .800 ball against the bad teams. There are a lot of games against the bad teams on our schedule, but maintaining a 16-4 pace against them is unsustainable. What am I getting at? This run has ben outstanding, but I don't think the Twins are going to win 106 games. At this point, though, 95 is very doable.

Personally, I don't really care about the team having a "face." For that matter, I don't think there really is a "face" of the Twins right now. This team is firing on all cylinders and working together like a well-oiled machine. This team doesn't need a "face," it needs to keep gelling like a well-oiled machine.

It's starting to look more and more like Browntown underestimated the Twins, like Morneau said. Speaking of which, did anyone else notice that Justin was starting to criticize the Indians and Dick completely cut him off? I enjoyed that haha.