Eephus

Underrated candidate - Buxton. 2nd highest WAR on the Twins. Not that it all boils down to WAR, but I saw this stat recently and was very surprised. Polanco is 1st, Kepler is 3rd.

Very happy for Smeltzer. What a beautiful story.

Twins catchers lead the majors in avg. (.336), home runs (12), OPS (1.147).

This is pretty funny. I also wonder if people make positive attributions on certain names/frames that sound and look strong DNA wise. I've suspected that part of the Travis Blankenhorn ranking has to do with his name/appearance. If he were named more generically like Jim Smith or Jose Rodriquez would people rank him as highly?

Nice to see Garver can do more than just wheel around the bases for triples.

Right or wrong, Sano has to stay healthy to quiet the weight watchers. I don't care what he weighs or how he looks...he needs to play in 130+ games or he's going to be questioned. He might look like a defensive end, but he isn't. He plays a non-contact POS in a non contact sport.

This is maybe echoes of my 1970s baseball card interpretation of how good players were who I didn't know anything about, but there's something about the name Blankenhorn that makes me think: rock solid, no nonsense ballplayer. My not even half-baked theory on why we like Blankenhorn is that his name sounds like an old school ballplayer. Absolutely not trying to cast aspersion on any of the analysis here, but when I see him rated fairly high despite not that solid of numbers I can't help but wonder what his ranking would be if his name was Joe Smith or Jesus Rodriquez.

If Molitor doesn't follow basic requests from the FO, he's not going to stay. If they say bunt less and he refuses, he'll probably not stay. If the FO says to stop burning through your bullpen in the 5th inning and Molly doesn't do it, he's not going to stay. My guess is that if Molly was that obstinate with the FO, he would have been gone yesterday. So, I guess I'm saying he's been somewhat on the same page with FO. That said, if the FO is in love with someone else, Molly might be negotiating his role as Twins Executive Assistant GM of blah, blah, blah.

Garver's 3 triples!

The Twins need to take a page out of Glen Sonmor's book when the North Stars finally stood up to the Bruins in Boston Garden...after not winning 35 games over 14 years there. Better wait until Sano's back if we're going to start a brawl though. 7 seconds into the game and when the game ended 406 minutes of penalties:

How would you like to be Esco today? He has 2 HRs, a triple and 6 rbi and he gets 5th billing after run differential, Gibson, Mauer and Buxton. As you say, Tom, plenty of notable performances. These guys are spoiling us. Thanks for the nice recap!

Great game. Fun times for fans. Curious -- I was half listening to the game on the radio -- how Garver did behind the plate? Seemed like I heard several "...the ball gets away from Garver...". I guess with Berrios' ball movement this is probably not uncommon.

Assuming Molly doesn't have a lot of control over personnel, it's hard to imagine this team (with another manager) could expect to be much better than it is now. Over the long haul there might be a better manager for the team, but seems to be as good or better a chance they'd be a little worse under someone else.

It seems like he has a tendency to slow down as soon as he thinks he can on plays. There's something a little "too cool for school" about it (and knuckleheadish). The play at home where he slowed up because he thought there wouldn't be a play at home was a classic example. Sounds like the missed sign/failed stolen base situation was similiar. Also, I've seen it in the outfield with balls that he thinks are obvious doubles. Once he thinks there won't be a play, he jogs to the ball and lobs it in. Sooner or later this approach backfires.

Brusdar Graterol sounds like a name getting read backwards. Great name.

This reads like a Sid Hartman column. All that's missing is a close personal friend reference and jottings instead of quick hits. I like it!

I sort of like that Miller in Strib dropped the middle name. "And Adam Walker, a corner outfielder who has hit at least 25 home runs in each of the past four minor league seasons, has been claimed off waivers by the Milwaukee Brewers."

Phil Miller has taken this opportunity to declare that he's tired of typing Adam Walker's middle name. "And Adam Walker, a corner outfielder who has hit at least 25 home runs in each of the past four minor league seasons, has been claimed off waivers by the Milwaukee Brewers." I'm ok with Adam Walker from here on out.

I'd have thrown in $20 to help cover the cost of getting rid of Nolasco. That alone makes this look like a deal worth trying.

I's like to think there's an above average bullpen somewhere some day among all those prospects.

There seems to be something Anthony Slama-ish going on with Hildenberger. Outstanding numbers every year but not a lot of love from the Twins brass or from the vaunted legions of prospect rankers. HOpefully he turns out to be a lot better than Slama.

Agree with many of the comments that this is going to be several years before this team is good. I mean we are talking about names like Gonsalves, Gordon, Stewart (not too mention the older younger guys) might be on the team or a year or two when this team is good again. It might be window dressing and it might be easier said than done, but I'd really like to see this team emphasize the fundamentals with the young guys. Some of it is experience, but seems like we need a few years of baserunning, fielding, fundamentals boot camp. I would have thought that was part of Molly's forte, but I'm not seeing it.

The Twins are many players away from being a good team, sad to say. I don't have much confidence in signing free agents to long-term contracts (whether it's Ryan or someone else signing them) to get out of this hole. So if we need about 1/2 the roster to turn over and it's not done through free agency...it's not hard for me to envision that the Twins won't be competitive until today's top 10-20 prospect have grown up and we find out who is legit among them. This is going to take time....it's so rare for any prospect to come up and set the world on fire. It's crazy to think we can have 4 or 5 prospects come up and be above average in the first 1-2 years. I guess the point is....there's no emergency to open up logjams in days vs weeks. It would be crazy to see Polanco leave via waivers. I can't imagine that happening. Whether he gets starts getting regular playing time in July or August is not going to matter too much. Whether Sano starts getting regular time at 3rd in early July or late July is not going to matter too much.

http://www.startribune.com/arcia-blasts-walk-off-homer-in-ninth-to-spark-twins/377063081/ The recap of this game 4/26 game with Arcia hitting the gamewinning HR says it all. Arcia's got great potential and the Twin leadership (like'em or hate'em -- they are the ones making the decision) got too tired of him not following their fairly straightforward advice repeated perhaps thousands of times: Ozzie, don't swing so hard. If they felt Arcia had the ability to learn, Kelper would have been sent down or Santana would have been DFA'd. Arcia might have an impact in the MLB some day. I personally wouldn't bet on it (but I wouldn't bet very much against it either . Goin' way out on a hypothetical limb here!)

Rosario is hitting .317, but he also has an OBP of .317. No walks in 60 ABs. Is there some defiance going on? The Twins were very clear about his need to stop swing at everything. Hard to imagine a player with Rosario's experience couldn't manage a few walks out of 60 ABs if he truly considered it a priority.