jimbo92107

One of the main reasons I am optimistic about the future of this team is that its young core players appear to be determined to keep improving every aspect of their game. In fact, I can't point at anybody and say, "That guy's just coasting on his ability." Jorge Polanco may be the most striking example of a Twins player improving himself, but an article of this sort could be written on almost any of the Twins players. All of them appear eager to get better, and many of them are succeeding.

Too Bad, Missed Your Chance. All the cool kids are saying it!

TB:MYC

I'd split the award for Rookie between pitchers and position players. That way, Harper gets one, too. No doubt about Arraez, baby. This kid has star written all over him. The batting stance looks like a blend of Rose and Gwynn. Flips his wrists like Carew. Reacts to every pitch like he's his own umpire, passing judgment on each one. And OhMiGod, when he decided to really crank one... He pounded it onto the pavilion in right field. That's Jim Thome territory! Yo, Twins FO - keep this kid happy.

You are right, of course. Local brews shall take precedence. Notice that the Big Boys are trying to imitate the look of local brews. They fooled me, the blighters!

I shall scour my closets and drawers for further objects of metaphorical usage. Why just yesterday I found a thimble. I suppose it could drive home a point or two... Hat tip to the writers of The Tick, of course. The rolled up newspaper of justice makes a satisfying whack on the rear end of misbehavior. The toughest ones are still the Yogi-isms.

56 wins, 33 losses going into the All Star break. Who predicted that? Not me, that's for sure. We had all become so accustomed to a losing team that even when we saw this stacked lineup in April, we assumed that all kinds of things would go wrong: Schoop would not hit, play mediocre 2B. Pineda would be terrible, probably blow out his elbow again. Gonzo would look mediocre, nowhere near as good as Escobar. Cruz would be a total has-been, spend most of his time on the IL. Adrianza would field okay, but not hit his weight. Buxton would struggle, stub a toe, miss half the season, then whiff at every outside curve. Castro would struggle with the repaired knee, miss half the season on the IL, not hit a lick. Garver would let every other pitch get by him, but hit pretty good. Polanco would regress. Sano would arrive in training camp 60 pounds overweight, then get hurt (almost true). Cron would be a flash in the pan and an average first baseman. Willians Astudillo would look like us, and play like us. Chubby people can't play...right?? Kepler would whiff and whiff, and look at best average in RF. Rosario would be the only star, a single s'more on a dumpster fire. Berrios would look average. Gibson would pitch a couple good games, then implode. Jake Cave would wind up playing CF most of the year, look pleasantly average. Odorizzi would have another mediocre year. ERA about 4.5 Luis Arraez? Yeah, right. And I will stumble over a ten-pound emerald. Martin Perez? Soft-tossing lefty with nothing special except control issues. Devin Smeltzer? Never heard of him. Another slow-tossing lefty? Mercy! Ryan Harper? Boom, boom, boom to his feeble curves and sub-90 heat. That was my prediction. Tyler Duffey would get DFA'd. Head case with no effective pitches. Blake Parker? More tics than Nathan, half the talent. Walk walk, boom boom boom. Trevor May would have more walks and home runs than strike outs. Magill and Morin? Did the FO give up on the season before the season? People said that. Not sure I should mention Mejia, who has lived up to all our pessimism so far. Taylor Rogers looked good last year, thus he would look bad this year. Zach Littell would never make it, can't throw over 90. Hildenberger would be the only reliable arm in the pen, but it wouldn't matter. Kohl Stewart would look like a complete flop. Lewis Thorpe would throw hard, but look like a nervous rookie. Baldelli would be a nice guy tending a daycare full of spoiled and angry children. Instead, we were slapped in the face with the wet mop of success, knocked off our feet, landing on the throne of first place in the American League. Somebody shoved a crown on our heads, and we were like, "Wait, what??" This is not to say the Twins have not suffered any problems this season. However, at some point, nearly every man on that list has played like an All Star. To the core of my being, shocked I was. Talked like Yoda I did. Now, as together we stand at the grim precipice of success, looking out over the terrifying prospect of a winning season, we must gather all our pessimism and hurl negation upon this vile aberration! No way, bruh! This ain't happenin'! We're the Minnesota Twinkies, man! We gotta real pretty ballpark, but that's where I draw the line! I like the Philly cheese steak, and the Goose Island is great, but I will not stand here and suffer through the false hope of a good looking baseball team! Who's with me? We're all moving to Detroit, to cheer for Gardy and the Tigers! Yaaaaaaaa....

I'd just like to see a "proof of life" photo of Trevor Hildenberger. Is he still alive? Are his captors treating him well? Is there a GoFundMe campaign to pay his ransom?

Sure, it's just low-A ball, yet what Andrew Cabezas did was still remarkable, and now it is stashed in his head as something he can do - pitch a complete game shutout. Not many pitchers have that memory, especially after they start pitching to guys that get paid to hit. I'll be interested to see how Cabezas fares in his next start, after guys know a little more about what he throws. If he still keeps a lid on hitters...

Terrible luck for Wade, I hope he heals up quickly. I was a little surprised to see how the Rangers jumped all over Duffey. He does need to improve his fastball command, so hitters can't sit on one pitch. Also, it seemed like his curve ball has become average, which ain't good enough to get the whiffs it used to get. I remember guys missing Duffey's curves by a foot. Now, they're fouling them off. Bring back the big bender, Duffey!

Dividing up Transactions by team is a good idea. Looks like some people were surprised by Kohl Stewart's recall. Not so much here. To me, Stewart looks a little better each time I see him. Much like our solar system 4 billion years ago, gradually Stewart is accreting experience and wisdom. Eventually, he may catch fire and become a new star. Let's hope he gets it done a little quicker...

Ba-la-ZOE-vich. I can remember that. We should all remember that, 'cause he's gonna be in a Twins uniform for a long time. Hope he's learning a change up.

Just looked at Nelson Cruz hitting two homers yesterday. You know whose swing looks kinda like that? Mitch Garver's. I know people are always comparing Cruz to Sano, but Sano's swing is a lot bigger and more swoopy. Cruz is more short to the ball, which is Garv Sauce's whole emphasis. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Garver add more power as he watches Cruz do his stuff in batting practice. In fact, it looks kinda like the whole batting order is getting tips from Cruz. It would explain a lot.

Glad to see the team get back to its homer bashing ways. Sano finally is finding the top of the ball instead of swinging under it. Next, let's see Buxton hit some line drives.

Graterol, Larnach, Thorpe and Gordon. Two good pitchers and two good position players. And this chair. And this lamp. But I'm keeping the table.

Sounds like the White Sox have team speed and one good starting pitcher. I'm okay with that. Carry on, Super Twinkies!

Time to start the batting order with Arraez and Polanco. Set the table for Cron, Cruz and Rosie.

Try as I might, I just can't find myself objecting to having a guy that hits like Tony Gwynn on the Twins roster. I like Schoop, but sometimes it's better to have a guy that's on base all the time batting ahead of your power hitters. I could see Luis Arraez leading off for the next decade, while playing perfectly good second base. He will score and drive in tons of runs.

Good point, except that the level of trade excitement for Gibson was not as high as for Pressly. I think teams looked at Gibson's improvements as an anomaly in an otherwise disappointing career. Pressly was easier to read - he looked like a blossoming fireball closer. I think the Twins may have tried to market Gibson, but they were disappointed in the counter offers. In the case of Gibson, the Twins held onto what they had because Gibson's perceived value wasn't that high. Again, there's a chance that Alcala will blossom into a fireball relief pitcher, too. And there's a chance that Celestino will round out into a good outfielder, tho that seems less likely at the moment. Unfortunately, neither of those things will happen this season, when the Twins need it most.

20/20 hindsight tells me that the Pressly trade was a major blunder, probably for the reasons birdwatcher suspected - the FO didn't think the Twins would be competitive in 2019. As luck had it, the mlb journeymen the team picked up turned out a lot better than expected, and the young core players came back healthy and mostly improved. Imagine how the Twins would look today if you added Pressly to the pen. Suddenly you'd have stability at closer, meaning Rogers or May could be the setup guy. On the other hand, the two guys Houston coughed up might still turn out pretty good. Alcala is a mid-90's flame thrower in AA, and Celestino...is hitting .217 in low A. Oh, hell. Well, project guys sometimes make good. But Pressly sure would good right now in the bullpen...

Duffey and Littell look more reliable than May. There is still time to try out a few minor league starters and bring back a few guys like Hildy, Mejia and Moya before testing the FA market. Smeltzer looks crafty enough to go a couple innings, and Romero can just go with high heat for an inning. Morin and Parker I don't trust. Both seem shaky. Some days I'm glad I'm not Twins FO. Mediocrity abounds when it comes to relief pitching.

When David Ortiz left the Twins for Boston, he complained that the Twins tried too hard to make him a "disciplined, complete hitter," or something like that. He said they tried to make him hit the ball oppo in certain counts, while Ortiz simply wanted to bash every ball as hard as possible. According to Ortiz, the Red Sox let him become Big Papi, a home run hitting beast he was meant to be. I am wondering if the Twins are making the opposite mistake with Miguel Sano. Are they simply refusing to tamper with his massive swings, or are they allowing Sano to refuse any significant coaching on his massive swings? Thing is, I have seen Sano hit the ball for singles. The man can handle the bat, when he wants to. To me, Sano's "problems" with his swing seem more like policy confusion than mechanics. When he doesn't commit to his planet-splitting home run swing, Sano can barrel the ball up with shocking precision. I say 'shocking' because his singles swing is so much different than his home run swing. I have seen Sano flip his wrists and send an easy line drive to the outfield. When he swings like that, does he still have the same vulnerabilities? I suspect not. In fact, I suspect that Twins management is telling Baldelli to give Sano the home run green light every at-bat. Why? Comes down to the old butts in the seats. People come to the stadium to see Sano bash a ball twenty feet over the wall, not to see him stroke singles, even if a single would drive in a game-winning RBI. I agree with Parker that Sano needs to load up earlier, so he can get a better read on pitches. But if he does that, it won't change Twins policy about Sano. They will still want him to do his massive swing, even in situations where the team really just needs a hit. The problems may seem separate, but are they really? When Sano reduces his swing to stroke singles, some of those will still go over the wall. He doesn't need to put every ounce of his strength in to every swing, just barrel it up and watch 'em fly. It's a little like the Sandy Koufax problem. Koufax didn't need to throw so hard to get guys out. In Sano's case, he doesn't need to swing so hard to hit balls out.

Agreed for the moment, but things could change if Arraez gets better technique with his feet and glove. Tortuga's glove fails a bit too often to rely on him as your super-sub, and that includes at catcher, where I have seen him muff a few too many pitches in the dirt. A lot has been said about A-Stud's uncanny contact rate, but now we have seen the down side - repeated two-hoppers to SS, or easy fly balls to the outfield. Meanwhile, Arraez's bat seems to produce more genuine hits, and the guy is willing to take a walk, unlike El Cherubo. Which one will be the better hitter a year from now? Arraez. His plate discipline and his ability to aim the ball in holes will win the day. Astudillo will continue to entice with his streaky bat, but once Ben Rortvedt arrives, he and Garver will get the lion's share of catching duties. Unless A-Stud learns to aim his hits better, he'll remain strictly a bench option unless a catcher gets hurt.

I was starting to feel that way myself, until I saw the same kinds of changes in Duffey's stuff that we have seen in Martin Perez. I think Wes Johnson truly is the arm whisperer. He is transforming pitchers in the Twins system, making many of them more powerful and effective. Tyler Duffey used to have a barely adequate fast ball, combined with a mind-bending curve. Now, Duffey has become a power pitcher with an effective 4-seam heater, a really good slider, and still has his big curve. That's quite a change. Don't forget, we have also seen the velocity increase for Zack Littell, whose heater used to limp in at about 91 mph. Now he pops it in at a brisk 94 to 96. Johnson's magic may not be enough to save every pitcher, but I say give him a full season to see what his nu-wave mechanics can do for all the arms on this team.

Luis Arraez looks like a young star to me. Reminds me of the feeling I got when I first saw Jorge Polanco. Guy just seems to have baseball in his blood. Same is true with Astudillo. I try to keep Torts and Arraez both. Might have to say bye to Adrianza's great fielding. If the Twins do send down Arraez, I hope they work his butt off at all the infield positions. At some point his glove will be good enough so that his bat wins the argument. Pretty much that's what Polanco did.