Doomtints

True, but don't forget these were all .500 teams to start with, at best. It wasn't illogical to think they would finish at or just below .500 too.

Probably not. Colon will be on the playoff roster should the Twins survive the WC game, but he probably won't be in the rotation.

After the Twins clinch, there will be a couple of filler games. He should pitch.

Steppenwolf had those two really good songs but managed to produce nothing else listenable. Fast forward to The Damned, who seemed to make an entire career out of cloning "Born to Be Wild" in as many was possible. Missed opportunity by Steppenwolf there.

I feel like all players are streaky. That's baseball. This is why we compile stats -- what matters is how one finishes the year which provides an overall view: including the good stretches and the bad.

No question that Buxton needed to be with the team, batting at the bottom of the order until he started to see the ball and get his timing down. This was absolutely the right call. If Buxton spends any significant time in AAA this year, the Twins don't make the playoffs and don't finish over .500.

You say this a lot, but 3-man rotations are the norm in the playoffs. Teams want 3 starts from their ace, which only happens with a 3-man rotation for a 7-game series. It's been this way since at least the 60s, if not forever.

I thought it was 84, and even that was looking to be too high.

That's crazy talk. He was good both this year and last year in VERY limited duty. I believe he has been their best bat this month, again in limited duty. He might be around, he might not. It's difficult to know if the Twins don't like him or if the Twins think he is solid and are taking advantage of his options. We will find out by the time next season starts.

Molitor isn't the reason the Twins are finding themselves in the playoffs. - "Improved defense" which is almost entirely attributed to having Buxton for the full year. Yes, Molitor has claimed credit for this, stating that before the season started he "had a talk" with the team about defense. - An American league that will likely produce a grand total of 5 teams over .500. - An MLB that had a down year for pitching and a power hitting renaissance, which means the weak Twins pitching is less of a liability. The teams with good pitching are all going to be in the playoffs, BTW. What does Molitor truly deserve credit for? This is a legit question. I see essentially the same manager I saw last year, but with better hitting, defense, and pitching. He still sends guys to the minors at strange times, makes strange decisions for starting pitchers in spot-starts, holds people in the minors a little too long, doesn't know when to pull a pitcher from a game, etc. And yeah, some of you are itching to hit "reply" to say it's the front office making some of those decisions -- if that's true I'm not sure why Molitor claims credit for the decisions. I'm sure he's a great guy, and hey, there might not be a better manager out there on the cheap. However, I'm not sure what is plusses are. The players are fighting on their own this year, and if you ask Molitor what happened, he wouldn't be able to tell you (apart from the first bullet point above: defense. Which again, he thinks he alone fixed).

Depending on how things finish today, the other teams will have to win 5 or 6 more games than the Twins to tie, with 6 or 7 games remaining.

The other three "contenders" won't even finish .500.

Please provide proof this is how he isn't doing it.

Start him in the WC game and hope for a Blackburn.

I don't think Molitor "pulls pitchers too early." Search the forums, you will find me saying that he pulls pitchers "too late" -- after the game is out of control. Think about what is truly being said a little more. I already said it explicitly in what you quoted, but I can say it again if it helps you "let it go": Molitor has no idea when to pull a pitcher. Too early, too late -- who cares? It's the same problem. He is terrible on both ends of this.

If the Twins win 4 more games (which is <.500 and probably worst-case), neither the Angels nor the Rangers have much of a chance as they will have to win 7 just to tie (.700). Don't worry about what the other teams do, this is on the Twins. Plus, the post-trade Tigers seem to be utterly useless. How many wins did the Indians get from the Tigers during their winning streak? 7, which is 1/3 of the wins on the streak.

We are making the same point. He has no frigging idea what he is doing. He pulls people too early, he pulls people too late. He has no game awareness and no idea how to evaluate performance. He makes his decisions in a bubble.

This seems like the worst possible time -- during a playoff push -- for the Twins to talk to any player about extensions or salaries. Also, if we don't think Mauer wants to play for someone else, there is no reason to sign new paper early, or at least not until next season starts rolling.

The problem with those playoff percentages is they have never been quality checked, are based on dubious assumptions, and they change daily which makes them wrong 161 game days out of the year. We don't need percentages. The Angels/Rangers need 5-game swings to happen with 9/10 games left. This isn't likely. Is it 75% unlikely? Don't know, don't care. If someone tells you that they DO know, run away. Whether or not we have these percentages, we are still evaluating the outcome day-to-day. The percentages do nothing for us. They don't help us and they are without meaning.

The Cubs narrative of having crappy teams forever isn't really true. They have one of the best W-L records in baseball history. They just didn't win "the big one" for a long time. They're a lot like the Vikings.

Molitor is weird... Pulling the starting pitcher after 4 2/3 innings so he can't get the win when the tying run is not at the plate. He has done this more than once to young pitchers, pulling them when they have just 1 out to go to get the win. I really hope he's gone. I'm tired of the embarrassing way he manages pitching during games.

Given their remaining schedule, it is entirely possible the Angels win 6 or 7 games, yes. But still, this is on the Twins, and I think they know that. They should be able to make it even if just by 1 game.

So you will be happy when the magic number is 1 or, even better, 0. I think that's true for all of us. As far as algebra goes, the Angels need to win x+2 games, x being however many games the Twins win, just to tie. The Twins will probably win 5 more games (.500) meaning the Angels have to win 7. I wouldn't worry about the Angels doing that. The Twins would need an epic collapse to miss the playoffs this year.

He has another 5 years before free agency, who knows what the player salary market will be like then or what his numbers will be. However, he provides zero value when he sits on the bench due to injury. He lost 1 year due to a throwing injury and has yet to play more than 116 games in a season. This year he will sit on the bench for two months. DH him to keep his bat in the lineup, no one cares about his defense.

I don't buy it that the AL playoff teams would fear the Twins. The Twins are hitting with a lot of power, but so is everyone else this year. As usual, the playoffs will come down to pitching. Sure, teams will concede that a couple of the Twins starters could beat them on a good day if the defense is playing well, but that's probably more realism than fear. It's doubtful that the Twins would catch anyone off-guard, anyone they face will play the games to win.