Platoon

I have never been able to understand union members who stay at a job (or 5 jobs) and dislike unions. Maybe it’s the above average pay, security, health care and generous paid time off that’s so aggravating. There’s lots of "at will" jobs available, and lots of people who would love to replace disgruntled ex union members. As for the owners, it’s truly hard for me to feel sorry for someone who makes as much money as they do, and has, in the first place, the wherewithal to buy into a franchise that for many is both, at a minimum, an asset that will appreciate dramatically and entry into a pretty exclusive good old boys club. Finally a word to the 75% who think with "hard work" they can make it into the 1% bunch. Really? You got to be kidding me! It’s thinking like that that not only keeps you out of the upper 1%, but likely keeps you in the lower 50%. Wealthy people love thinking like that.

Good hitting may get you to the playoffs, but poor pitching will take you right out of them. A question on the opening argument posed by debater A. I assume the pitching ranks for the teams listed were for the teams pitching, starters and bullpen. As I assume were the hitters. That said, very few of the teams "drag down team stats" pitchers were used in playoff series. But they were used in a regular rotation during the season. If it was two starters not used, 40% of the SP were not used in key playoff situations. Whereas on the offensive side, the opportunity for bench players to drag down numbers would seem to be quite a bit smaller since they likely represent a smaller percentage of playing time during the year. And in the case of an offense only PH, may actually increase offensive teams stats. Point being, the pitching staff you see in the season is not the same you see in the playoffs. They cull the bottom 40% in effect. On the other hand, baseball does not allow you to leave the bottom 40% of your batting order on the bench during the playoffs.

I never miss it….. he has had better years than this one, and maybe the fact that the T Wolves have been so bad for so long that this years pick was mundane. I liked his take on Buxton. Buxton is getting on 28, his reliability factor is fairly ingrained. I know baseball has changed, but I trust Reusses’s take on the game. It was honed with hands on experience for decades, and is enhanced by his following of different levels of the game, not only the professional version

Remember if you trade Buxton for prospects, which are an unsure thing, you are trading an unsure thing for them. Basically with Buck you have a 50/50 chance of playing Buxton, or Jake Cave, a fourth OF carried for insurance. I like Buxton, and have always believed in his talent even when he struggled, but since everyone uses stats on this site, here’s a stat: he only plays half the time. I am not sure if Cave and the other fill ins have a negative War or whatever you call it, but it should be subtracted from Buxton for the the CF value. Signing Buxton to see him play is one thing, signing him to win is another. As good as Buxton is he won’t make a team a winner that has two? SP, and basically no SS. Mike Trout can’t move the Angels, and they don’t have near the problems the Twins have. I like Buxton, you want to sign him so we can maybe watch him play fine I am good with that. If you are signing him to make the organization better in the long run, then it’s a mistake.

I don’t know if players care, or even should care about how they are perceived by fans. As you stated everyone LOVED Kirby. But for some inexplicable reason many fans felt animosity towards Mauer. While many made his contract a point of contention, I also think his low key, and private nature also played into the equation. I have always thought that how an athlete spends his personal time is his own thing, and as for the contract, I couldn’t care less how much of the Pohlad fortune Mauer or anyone else manages to receive for their talents. Regardless of their talents during their careers Kirby seemed bigger than life, and in comparison it could be said Mauer was "smaller" than life. But in the end, it ended up exactly in reverse.

Both arguments were persuasive, and well articulated. My vote was more for the player than for the "arguer". Mauer. The "who had the most championships" theory falls somewhat flat when you consider that putting Babe Ruth on some of those Twins teams wouldn’t have moved the needle. Both players were excellent in their own ways. But Mauer played the second most important position in the game, and the most difficult with a talent very few have ever brought to that spot. And he did it for quite a few years. As for the injuries, well Puckett also suffered his own, simply later in his career. Neither were injured at a time of their choosing, and both got to play long enough to determine a fair assessment of their work. Finally, as far as pure physical baseball talent. Mauer could transition to an IF spot, it’s doubtful Kirby could have. While the Twins moved Mauer to 1B, I always thought his arm and glove would have played well at third also. And as for those who don’t think a good glove is important at first base, have you saw Sano play there? I rest my case!

I think the DH should be "universal"! There should be unlimited DH’s for any team, as long as you have a roster spot. Need a elite defensive SS that can’t hit? No problem. He plays SS and some 38 yr old veteran stick hits, and rumbles around the bases. Your entire bench could be full of DH types, and if the guy he is hitting for goes down, just insert the DH in the field. Or maybe limit DH’s to 4 per lineup and increase rosters to 30? Who wants to watch Simmons or Sano hit? Think of the offense, think of the dingers, think of the complaints cause your pitching staff has a collective ERA of 12.6?

Let’s see? A player that could matter to the Twins? Hmmmmm? I know one. Eddie Rosario. He could have made the Twins better this year, or then again maybe not? That’s the wonder of Eddie, you just never know. The only thing for sure was that he was often entertaining and aggravating on the same day!

So true. Which is why managers are not simply someone who reads where some stat sheet tells him where to play his SS? There are different personalities involved. Some can handle certain stresses and some can’t, despite seemingly identical talents. It’s the managers job to discern these differences and put the player in his best position to succeed.

Truth be told there are coaches adverse to velocity, since it generally entails walks with the strike outs. That said velocity is the third of the three legged pitching stool, but if you don’t have it the first two legs aren’t as effective. If you can’t get a hitting thinking about keeping up with your fastball, your change up just isn’t as effective despite the difference in velocity. But the big difference maker here is matching consistently low velocity "pitch to contact" pitchers with mediocre defense. Yes we have Buxton, some of the time. But short of that the teams overall defense has been uninspiring for quite awhile. If you don’t have high SO rates by your staff, someone better be turning that contact into outs!

Maybe Rocco will give an emotional press conference on how great it was to have Maggi on the team and see him realize his dream come true. His parents, other family and friends, could all fly in and Marney could interview them? ?

Co-hitting coaches? Ugh! If you want a hitting coach fine, the find one you like and let him coach. Two hitting coaches mean two opinions, even if they are similar.

And what happens if the Twins sign Buxton to big bucks, long term? And then his injury history remains constant? Will he get the same "love" Mauer got from many fans? That’s not a reason to trade him, it’s just a curiosity. The only way the Twins would sign him is if they get the home team discount and I don’t see that happening. While Buxton may have the Twins over a small barrel, Mauer, with the new stadium and being a local, had them over a huge barrel.

I am not going to grade him. But I will make two comments. 1. This team plays fundamentally poor baseball. Some is mental from a seeming disregard for basics, ie, cutoff men and throwing to the correct base. Some seems a lack of focus, lollygagging throws in the infield. 2. Analytics? Analytics have their place, and yes everyone uses them. But, and there is always a but, turning the game over to your BP in the 6th is fine, if you have 4 capable RP available and healthy. Just turning it over on some days when your already suspect pen is deleted by usage or injury isn’t managing, it’s reading a spreadsheet. I did see that later in the year he opened the playbook up and bunted and ran on occasion trying to generate some scoring opportunities. Yes, the book says a 3 run homer or two run double is more productive. But someone better be hitting them in that case. I thought Rocco got dealt a poor hand this season due to injuries, FO mistakes, and subpar years by some players, possibly due to some of those players being over hyped? So there were limits to what he could do. No matter the cause, he didn’t exceed expectations. BTW, any conversation that Rocco is a players manager has to take into consideration the Maggi situation. Absolutely bush league!! It would make me hesitant to buy a used car from him!

I will say this about Cowboy Joe. I didn’t think he was a good umpire, at least in the last years. I can’t really say anything about his abilities earlier in his career. But there is no doubt that anyone who does something that long does it because he loves it. It would not be likely money would have been the driving force. That and the video of Nelson Cruz getting the pic during an at bat for one of Joe’s landmark games still was a great baseball moment. Joe West retiring won’t make baseball a better game, nor will robo umps. It may be a more "accurate" game, but also a more sterile one. Just another step towards more spreadsheet baseball!

Ouch! "Always competitive Central Division"………. My sarcasm needs to be more focused? I had intended to point out that the School Sisters of Notre Dames team wasn’t in the Central last year due to Covid restrictions, but thought that a bridge too far. I may have to reevaluate? Lol. The "always competitive Central" is one of our problems since so little needs to be done to be competitive in that division, and this year we succeeded beyond expectations in the "so little" part! ???

This is a team that wins when it hits HR’s and struggles to score when it doesn’t. It’s still a team loaded with corner power guys, and with the exception of Buxton, nothing to speak of defensively in the middle. The rotation is made up of #3 and #4 starters at best and while the bullpen has had a small run, it’s not noted for shutdown talent, and still has no "closer". That and a serious disregard for fundamentals doesn’t bode well. The Twins didn’t finish last by mistake. Our preseason optimism was based on the 2019 career year, year. And getting to play within the always competitive Central Division in 2020. It now continues with the hope for 2 or 3 SP, a few BP arms and a Good defensive SS who can hit. Fortunately no one else needs any of these talents, so an over winter rebuild should be good to go. That and JP’s long held policy of giving the FO any resources they need to succeed make me very optimistic for next year!

This was a just ok OP, until I got to the Christian Ponder part at the end! Nailed it!

Fundamentals? This is a horrible team fundamentally. Fundamentals won’t overcome poor talent, but they will help make a average team very difficult to beat. Talent? Is it possible that fans, and media overestimated this group. My thought on this is somewhat driven by constant references to 2019, a year of career years for some on this roster. Also, a year where the roster and the baseball in use made a perfect match. This allowed a very productive offense to cover up some inherent flaws in the roster, such as the aforementioned fundamentals, defense, and an overall lack of pitching talent.

Whether Maggi ever gets back or not, this was totally classless and as usual clueless by Rocco. It would almost have to be intentional. And his completely BS statement about how emotional and difficult it was to send him back down just makes him sound more out of touch than most days. I have no personal investment in Drew Maggi, but this was crap. The Twins have been toast since May. For those who think you should always play two win? The Twins should have worked harder on that approach during last winter!

The Twins win when they go on a HR rampage. They lose when they don’t. Obviously you will win more games when you hit more dingers. But, that won’t ever be the route to the WS or a WS ring. In baseball it’s virtually impossible to win consistently in the playoffs with offense. Pitching rules late in the year.

Is there a dissonance between managers and FO people on call ups? In a season like this there is no reason not to let Maggi play. I don’t say that because I think he is an improvement on anyone else on the roster. He is a minor league lifer. This is his shot. Whether the Twins lose 90, or 91 won’t make any difference to me. Molitor used to do this also.

It was a running joke around our house, how do you get Hunter or Cuddyer out? Intentionally walk the bases full, and throw them 3 breaking balls off the outside corner. The more men on base, the harder they tried to hit that big HR, and usually the less they succeeded. Both good ball players, but the tendency to chase on "clutch" situations kept them no more than that.

"That said, when Sano makes contact, a lot of good things happen, so I for one would certainly love to see him make more contact." And therein lies the problem. Contact. To me the saddest? thing about watching him hit is that when he gets 2 strikes, the only thing keeping him from striking out is whether the pitcher can locate that breaking ball just off the bottom corner of the strike zone "box" off the outside corner. I know it’s coming, he knows it’s coming, and by now my wife knows it’s coming. And he still swings at it, while pulling away, over and over and, well you get the picture. Yup, he can ruin an opposing pitchers day. But while he does that, there are few that wouldn’t want to face him in close RBI situations. Few runs are driven in with a K. But lots are with a deep fly ball, or even a GB.

Nothing ups the click count like a good Twins Yankees game, and some questionable calls by the plate ump. I hope that if they go to Robo Umps everyone will be happy, and there won’t ever again be any whining over balls and strikes. But I highly doubt that, just as I doubt that the change will improve the Twins chances against NY.