Doomtints

I'm guessing Guillen is blackballed for his pro-immigration and pro-Castro remarks (the latter saw him suspended for 5 days), along with his criticism of how the league treats players from Latin America. He also called a Chicago journalist a sexual slur. The White Sox championship year was a fluke. Their pitching was insane that year and they were never able to come anywhere close to duplicating that performance. When I think of White Sox teams under Guillen I think of lazy defense and streaky hitting/pitching ... and food poisoning for the Twins players whenever they came to town.

That's code for, "When he was hired the team was already established. He didn't have to do much coaching, if any. Now we are rebuilding and he has no fricking clue what to do." It's impossible to know if Girardi is better than Molitor with the talent he inherited. Can he fill in a lineup card properly, or did batting order even matter for his teams? Does he know when to pull a pitcher, or did it really matter when the team offense could always battle back anyway? Let someone else pick him up. Besides, most Yankees would rather die than put on a Twins uniform.

On one hand, it's great to see some love for Garver after seeing so many forum posts being down on him throughout the year based on his slow start. On the other hand, if his numbers are the team's RoY, this team is in trouble.

Sano and Buxton are dirt cheap players. Yes, the Twins should NOT be dependent upon them. The two of them should be supplementing (and continuing to learn from) other good players who are being paid what they are worth. This doesn't mean Sano and Buxton are not important parts of the team, cornerstones of the foundation and the future. It means that with the two of them and their low salaries, you can pick up other people too.

Grossman outperformed expectations in Minnesota, but I have never had strong feelings for him one way or the other. It wouldn't surprise me if his loss was felt in some way, though. Gotta be careful what you wish for. Remember everyone wanting to get rid of Nick Punto?

Jim Thome is bored out of his mind right now. He lives in west-suburban Chicago and has been a pollution activist because of a high-polluting factory near his neighborhood. His activism woke up the Governor-Without-A-Pulse when it was pointed out to him by Thome that this is a Republican-voting district. In a rare sign of life for the Governor, he wants the plant closed before the election.

Top Candidates (from what I perceive to be the Twins perspective) Jeff Banister - Has a 1.000 career batting average in the MLB. Two division titles in his three full years of managing. Turned the Rangers from 67-95 to division champs in one year. The Twins front office knows him, helped hire him in TX, share his ideas of numbers-solving-everything, and like him. Charlie Montoyo - AAA managerial experience, Rays bench coach. Analytics-wired, likes trying new things (such as openers). Consolation Prize Candidates Hensley Muelens - One of the many finalists for the last Yankees managerial job on this list. Joe Espada - Has a nice slice of coaching experience and is a good hitting coach. Chris Woodward - He could fall to the Twins if the above names pass on managing in MN. People feel he will manage someday, but he might not be ready yet. Rob Thomson - Why not. His name will come up in any managerial conversation for the next few years. If the Twins want to follow the Vikings and pick up the "Candidate in every conversation" and have their own Brad Childress, here he is.

Also... Bergman and Mays actually do look very similar. My money is on it being the same guy.

Pitchf/x started the season after Mays left the league. Fangraphs has no velocity data on Joe Mays at all.

A lot of us have been wanting this for at least 5 years now. We were asking politely and reasonably, of course.

It's been a long time since 2001 and I am still shocked how Mays and Milton were so great for one year. And that's it. The only thing that makes sense is they were juicing.

The Twins were .500 after the trade deadline.

The GOP is throwing around a really big nutsaq now that they have Trump + a full on propaganda network on their side. These are some really sad times.

Not without more research. All of these teams are light on "home grown" talent based on this graph. This means most of their players came through trades. We would have to analyze the nature of these trades to know more, but I think we can be certain the trades weren't the type of trades we saw at the trade deadline this year with the Twins. This *does* show that relying solely on home-grown talent is not a recipe for success most of the time. But hey, the Twins tried it. It's good to try something.

I think he knew it was coming too. His quote about how he wanted to be back next year was a little strange given his contract situation. He sniffed something out or he was already told.

Don't shoot the messenger. Also, you owe me a beer when they Twins announce Banister as the next manager.

Banister (we will have to learn how to spell his name!) was hired by the Rangers because he is an "analytical yet personal" manager. He purportedly was to use "analytics" to make his decisions while using his people skills to mentor. Banister is exactly what this front office says they are looking for.

I'm thinking that's 100% what is going on here.

The Everson Griffen thing has really shell-shocked this team, especially over that first weekend. Last week they merely missed his presence, but against the Rams they were not themselves. In any case, predictions had the Vikings as Super Bowl favorites and now predictions have them as long shots to even make the playoffs, and it's only been four weeks. Seems weird but this IS the Vikings after all. The surest way to make them lose is to mark them as impossible-to-beat favorites.

Good move for the team. I have nothing but good things to say about Molitor as a person, as do all of us, but he was only about 75% of a baseball manager. I hope he sticks around. I imagine Jeff Banister, fired a couple of weeks ago by the Rangers, will be the next Twins manager.

Astudillo can play any position and he might be better than anyone the Twins could pick up. Either trade Garver to keep Astudillo under C (which seems daft as he would be part time there) or keep both of them and Astudillo becomes the new primary 1B with some spotting by Garver. Seeing as Astudillo gave the Twins an "extra player" who can play any position, they simply need to choose where to put him. 1B seems the safest option.

I think calling him a "hero" is the problem in a nutshell. He's not a hero, and I think if people had never framed him as such there would never have been any kind of backlash. Every "hero" has his or her detractors. He is/was a good player. I think he was "clutch" and I think the $ wasn't a real problem. When it comes to leadership, the story back in the day was he turned around Morneau back when both of them were single. But since then there have been no such stories. I doubt he was much of a leader in the clubhouse, though I have zero doubts about his willingness to help people out (and maybe that's how some of you define leadership). Mauer "peaked" at a typical baseball age, but not at a typical age for a HOFer. The question is did he do enough before his decline. I think he did and I don't say that as a Twins fan. As a Twins fan I would say he DOESN'T deserve HOF consideration as he has been so underwhelming for so long, but looking at his peak numbers (and even his overall numbers) they are astounding. This is a rare case where being in a small market might help his chances to get in the HOF. Out of state writers will look at his stat sheet and see a HOF-worthy player without being burdened by having sat through his years of mediocrity on a daily basis.

I would have gone with Escobar or Rosario. It always felt like Gibson was on the cusp over the past three years.

It would be interesting to see which players had the biggest home/away splits.

I would have picked up Arrieta without hesitation. The contract he signed is team-friendly and ingenious. The Twins have better hitting and better defense than the Phillies and Arrieta would have had a better year in a Twins uniform. The Phillies only won three more games than the Twins, even after the talent dump at the trade deadline. With Arrieta I think the Twins repeat as 85-game winners even with the nosedive the hitting took. But ... that ship has sailed.