gunnarthor

Again, he's a good starter but it was 11 starts. He's had 11 starts runs like that in pretty much every season. "We changed his delivery", "we changed his stance", "he's in the best shape of his life", "he rededicated himself this season", etc. Hell, I really do hope I'm wrong. I hope he comes in second in Cy Young voting. But at this point, I think we should wait on more than 66 innings before we change our view of him.

I think Cleveland will be sneaky good and hang around all year, pissing me off. I'm not sure how much stock you can give hitters in certain parks but Rosario hit better at Progressive Field than any other park, and it wasn't really close. I think the dimensions just sort of suit him. Anyhow, they have good pitching. I think they'll finish third but outperform their projections. I think the Twins will win the division again. Chicago wil fade a bit. Not sure if they'll have a sophomore slump so much as the full grind of a full season will affect their players. Like, I don't think Dylan Cease is a 111 ERA+ pitcher over a full season. KC and Detroit will make improvements. If you squint, KC could push for .500 and Det's young players could be exciting for them to watch. But Twins shouldn't have to worry about them too much. MN 93 - 69 Chi - 89 - 72 Clev - 84 -78 KC - 74 - 88 Det - 70 - 92

That is true. He, like Ervin Santana and many, many others, could have a career year, contend for an all-star or cy young and revert to his career norms. The idea that only NY has a better #1 starter is the main problem here, it's such a wildly silly idea that no one should take it seriously. But Maeda is a solid ML starter, like Pineda. We will see.

He hasn't but that doesn't really matter. He's managed three 3+ WAR seasons already and his career fip is 3.63. Playing in the AL East didn't help his numbers, he's getting older and a bit rounder, but he could certainly have Ervin Santana like season where he stays healthy and is constantly good. Keeping him is actually one of Levine's better moves, IMO. I would not be shocked at all if he was our second best starter over the full season.

I didn't say they were less exciting then those cruddy Twins teams, I said this was the least excited I had been about a Twins team in a long time. I also said they play boring baseball. And I said they were a playoff team.

Yes, I did put my opinion in that post. I think high strike out, low OBP, HR dependent offense we saw last year was boring. I think games where both teams make 9 pitching changes is boring. You can disagree. Last year and this offseason, for a variety of reasons including COVID, the shortened season, my insane work schedule, and other interests, was the least involved I've been with the Twins since probably 2001. I think I've been on TD from the start and I've posted hundreds of times every off-season on minor league development, FA wish lists, etc. This was the first year I didn't. Partly because I just didn't care as much about these Twins. It happens. I'm hoping that by opening day, my love for the Twins is back to pre-COVID levels. But I didn't call you a homer for liking the Twins. You own TD. You should like the Twins. I called you a homer for suggesting that Colone fixed the pen and that Maeda is second to Cole. Those are not rational positions.

It was 11 starts. 66 innings. Meada has had runs like that in nearly every season 2016 - First 12 starts, 70 innings. 2.70 era 2017 - 11 starts (counting 2 innings in relief b/c i don't want to do math) 65inning, 2.63 era 2018 - 11 starts 64innings, 2.64 era etc He had a nice season but it was only 66 innings. Phil Hughes gave us a 6+ WAR season. Liriano and Pavano and Berrios and Ervin all gave us better seasons since Johan. My complaint in this thread hasn't been to say Maeda sucks or the Twins suck. I think in pretty much each post I said this is probably a playoff team. My point has been that some of the exuberance for this team is a bit misplaced. The idea that Cole is the only starter on a contender that you'd take ahead of Maeda is insane. I'd take Berrios over Maeda and I wouldn't be shocked if Pineda is better than him this year.

Maeda trade was solid. So was the Odorizzi trade. He's not helpless. But he's made bad trades and hasn't - yet - traded for elite players.

You make some fair points in all your posts (not the Maeda one, that's absurd on its face) but it's just to over the top homerish for me. Colone is fixing the pen? I think this team is a playoff team. If Buxton can stay healthy, he's at least a 5 WAR player. He's that good. Berrios might have one more upgrade in him. But the all-or-nothing offensive approach and the bullpen games make this a boring team to me. Others may enjoy it. This team also has a bit of "full system failure" potential - again. Hopefully, that doesn't happen. It also doesn't look like we've done anything to be anything other than a bully to the really crappy teams and can't win in the post-season. We have little depth. We rely far too much on "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" to our bench and pen. Our minor leagues seem to have decent depth but not huge upside. Levine hasn't shown he can make first rate trades and has been mocked a bit for the Dozier fiasco when he got here and how Houston fleeced him the next year. I think its fair to say that, after this year, he will have had five years as our GM and it's not clear he did enough to build around the young core he was gifted. I don't think that's a controversial statement.

Good career. I knew he was a later round guy so I figured he'd be our best 8th round ever pick - career 23 WAR for an 8th rounder is amazing, obviously. But Radke was also an 8th rounder so ... Anyhow, he was fun to watch and he and Hunter seemed to loosen up the team a lot in 2015. Hope he enjoys retirement.

Honestly, I can't think of anything that says we have a homer problem more than arguing that our 33 year old, 7 WAR career pitcher, is the second best pitcher in the AL.

The article in question is simply not good. It's arguing that Colone, a cost saving signing, is how the FO is improving our post-season chances. The reality is that this FO inherited one of the best possible situations in 2017. They had a young team with numerous top 100 prospects only a year removed from challenging for a playoff spot. They had the #1 pick in the draft. They had an owner saying he'd spend money. This was a playoff ready team. They didn't build it. And they failed to augment it. They made a lot of moves, most - not all - are in the meh category. They quit on the team in 2017 but the players didn't. They brought back Molitor when it was clear they shouldn't have done that then they blamed their system failure season on him and brought in Rocco (a good move). It's not clear they know which players are building blocks and which players should not be. It's 2021 and our best hitting prospect and best pitching prospect were still acquired by the previous regime despite this FO having 6 first round picks, including 3 in the top 15. We might be a playoff team, we should be. But our rotation looks to be middle of the road. Our offense could be bad, especially if the Rooker/Larnich/Kiriloff group can't come up and help out in LF. Nelson Cruz was a good signing and I was in favor of adding Donaldson but that might really be a bad move.

That's not true. 2011 was a huge expectation year. We just came off the magical 2010 season, Liriano and Young were going to take the next step to be elite players, Morneau would be back from his concussion, Mauer, Cuddy, Kubel were still in their prime. Man, was I excited for that year. 2012-2014 were pretty bad but I cared about those teams and the Twins minor leaguers. I cared a lot. I probably posted more in those years than any other time. And 2015 we just missed the playoffs and saw a lot of what Sano and Buxton could be. That made 2016 even more exciting. This year I think we are a lock for a playoff spot and don't think we will win a playoff game. I think we will be forced to watch boring baseball where we hope for a HR and watch 9-12 pitchers in each game.

Eh. TD is getting to be a bit too homery. This should be a make or break year for the FO and it doesn't look much different than other offseasons. Potentially strong offense that's going to strike out a lot, with a low OBP. No ace. Bullpen heavy pitching staff loaded with quantity over quality and games with 5+ pitchers. Boring baseball. We've had to rely on guys like Littell, Romo, Arreaz, Stashak etc in the playoffs. This is the least I've cared about a Twins team going into a season in over fifteen years. I'm also not sure much of the premise of this article is accurate. While defensive stats are pretty hard to pin down and last year was only 60 games, fangraphs rated the Twins defense pretty well, especially at short stop. I don't think Simmons, now 31 years old, is going to be a huge upgrade like others do. Yeah, they had a few bad moments in the playoffs but we managed two runs in two games because our offense was not good last year. And we still owe Donaldson 71m over the next three years. Uff-da.

Pretty sad story here. Not sure how many of us are like this young man but probably worth reading anyway. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/investing/robinhood-lawsuit-suicide/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/investing/wall-street-market-bubble-yusko/index.html

Any of you guys have thoughts on Snowflake or Square?

I feel ya. We've all been there, done that. Don't let it discourage you. You doubled your money and identified a sound investment. That's great!

Yeah, Guerrier would be a wonderful outcome. Just not a realistic one.

He's 27 with 40 ML innings. Playoff teams shouldn't rely on him to make the difference. He could be an average bullpen arm. He might have a Matt Gurrier type career - less innings, obviously, but better k-rate. Solid set-up guy is probably his ceiling but it's probably closer to low-leverage bullpen arm.

Physically, he looks a lot bigger than he did with the Twins and he is throwing the fastball 6 miles per hour faster. I believe a few of his teammates in Oakland were caught using PEDs. Would anyone really be surprised to find out that he was using PEDs?

I did. Should have bought more. ROKU was also a really nice buy, too. I bought that at 47, IIRC.

It's 2020 and Nick is still complaining about Terry Ryan. Good lord, move on man.

My wife loves Disney and when it was falling during the pandemic I said, hey, it's at 90, you should buy more for your IRA. She said sure. I found out today that she didn't.

https://www.investors.com/news/amd-stock-twilio-stock-novocure-stock-flashing-buy-signals/?src=A00220 Likes NVCR and OKTA, one of Mike's picks. I passed on AMD a while back and still regret it.