Doomtints

Why do you think Polanco's defense is bad? I see criticism of Polanco from all sides that frankly baffles me. Some people say his defense is bad, some people say he can't hit. I'm wondering where this is coming from. The Twins are bouncing him around but there is no visible reason for it. Polanco is going to be an all-star, and on a playoff team he would probably already be showing that.

At the start of the season it looked like 2016 would beat the 1982 season (60-102) as the worst year since being in Minnesota. Then the team improved and it looked possible that they would hit 70 wins. With a little over a month left and with 11 wins needed to get to 60, and with the way the pitching has been this month, we are again looking at the possibility of this being the worst season of the franchise. 11 wins in 5 weeks should not be impossible but with this team it might be. Right now it seems like 11 wins is near the best-case. I'm wondering what caused things to unravel so quickly again? The Twins were rolling very well for about a month to a month and a half. Why did the pitching staff give up so suddenly and completely? This is different from the losing streaks to start the season, where they couldn't hit the ball. Now they are hitting but they can't pitch.

Why have the Twins nose-dived again over the past two weeks? News from broadcasters and writers suggests players are getting different advice from multiple coaches at the same time. Are the coaches scrambling to save their jobs?

Game 7 of the 1987 World Series is available on mlb.com to watch for free. Watch it and tell me the Twins weren't juiced. They won game 7 based on their defense and not their hitting, mind you. But look at their body structures in that game and their power numbers from that year.

If you look at ABW's numbers, he has been the same player for three years now. He is a known quantity. If the Twins want to sell him, now's the time. If they want to see if he can play, ditto. But what happens if he CAN play and next year the Twins have Buxton, Rosario, and Kepler all firing on all cylinders?

No. The director position would be strategic. The GM and his assistants would be the people running around executing the strategy. This is dividing one position into two.

Hey now. Don't be one of those guys who stops someone from chasing after his or her dreams.

Emails for everyone in the Twins front office are on mlb.com. Good luck!

Hitting opposite field requires a timing adjustment, especially if they want him hitting with the same amount of power. If they are trying to get him to hit opposite field with less power, they already have Joe Mauer for that and they probably need to be escorted off the premises immediately for trying to break Miguel Sano.

Why are you yelling at me?

#1 2016 bust - Nunez. He has been off the roster for quite some time now. What a slacker! Not a fan.

Wow. Big changes are really coming!

It's more than that. It's balls-hit-that-direction-that-resulted-in-outs. So it's FP% plus zone defense plus catching baserunners, with double plays and fielder's choices thrown in for fun. Though the specific formula for UZR is secret knowledge (do you know the formula?), I strongly suspect F2O% is a factor. This means it's factored into fWAR as well. The zdefense guy is using it and getting similar numbers to UZR.

Eh, I'll never ignore you! We disagree but you have well thought out opinions.

Most of the 40-man dudes will be up, obviously. Who else? Could be no one else.

Every message board should come with an "ignore user" function, and when activated posts by that person would not be visible. The filter should also make it so that person can't see your posts either. This would solve a lot of problems before they start.

Glad to help. Learning about new baseball metrics is always fun. F20% rolls up into a few of the newer defensive stats. It's a great thing to look at to avoid the small sample size issue with defensive stats. When the sample size is adequate, using Total Zone or UZR metrics is good enough.

Starting pitching is a dime a dozen as well, yet the Twins can't get it done. They need to figure out how to do it before they can do it, clearly.

True, there isn't much patience at the moment. But who is to blame for that? I would expect fans to be critical in such a terrible season, even moreso after a string of bad seasons going back six years. And it's the same problems, over and over. It may seem like a broken record, and that's because it is. Getting angry at fans expressing frustration isn't going to solve the problem.

If he is as bad as you would say, who would trade for him? He is ranked #6 in catcher salary and I'm guessing his catcher metrics rank him closer to #26. And as bad as #26 is, the Twins don't have someone better on the 40-man.

The problem: Pitching has been needed for a very long time now. They need a new approach first, because what they are trying isn't working.

We don't need Wimmers. We need Winners.

One thing I have thought about regarding concussions. As we all know, kids have huge sugar cravings. Truth is that at that age, sugar is needed for brain development. There's a reason they crave an endless supply of it. By the time one hits the mid-40s, sugar isn't as necessary and the cravings are much lessened. When you once could eat an entire cake as a kid, at middle age half a piece is about all you want before it starts tasting disgusting. What I'm getting at is, if high-sugar diets help brain development, would going on a short-term high sugar diet help with post-concussion symptoms? Athletes like Mauer are probably dedicated to low-sugar, high-protein diets and maybe this is the opposite of what their body needs when it comes to dealing with a concussion? Any doctors here wish to comment?

I agree that "the Twins way" would suggest it won't happen. But Pohlad seems to be legitimately disgusted and is set on making huge changes. It wouldn't surprise me if the changes came quickly. As you say, he may wait for the next GM to make the moves instead. That would be prudent. It just depends on his views on how bad things truly are.

Pohlad was right when he said it was a total system failure. That's what it is. The Twins became an organization that you could not get fired from. Employee relations > winning. What went wrong? Take your pick. It was everything. Ryan wasn't doing his job. The coaches aren't doing their jobs. Somehow management has blamed the players for not "stepping up" which is ridiculous. How many days will pass at the end of the season before the mass firing?