BD57

A batting champion & established hitter (granted, not a power hitter) for a guy who'll pitch every 5th day. Our offense wasn't dynamic last year with Arraez. How will we score enough runs without him to give Lopez a chance to win every 5th day? A good starting pitcher gets 30 starts (or so), and will pitch well enough in 20 of those starts (or so) to give you a chance to win. Of those 20, there will likely be a few games where the offense doesn't pull its weight & a well pitched game winds up a loss regardless. Let's say we win a few of the game where he doesn't pitch well, to offset the games we lose despite how well he pitched. We're still talking about less than 20% of the season. Granted, the equation's different if we get to the post season. There, having a true #1 leading the pack can be a big deal - but you have to get there first. We need offense as much as starting pitching, IMO.

If we're trying to win games, which is the object of the exercise as I understand it, Buck contributes nothing when he's on the bench / DL list. The guys we put in the lineup when he's out bring a lot less to the table (thus far, at least). Buck can't win us two games at a time. We need him in the lineup, and a lot more often than has been his history.

130 games, 500 PA. Twins are paying him too much money to have him available only half the time.

i'm hoping the "splash" on both sides of the logo on picture #3 won't be part of it ... looks "Seattle Pilot-esque." Not a huge fan of squishing the C either. Taking out the gold is OK.

we've signed too many guys "hoping for better" Starting pitchers we "hope will improve on the past couple of years" . . . or even "hope won't spend half the year on the DL." Relievers we "hope will return to the form they had x seasons ago." Position players we "hope will return to the form ... and/or avoid the DL." Look at all the guys we had on the DL last year, how many of them are "hoped for better" guys: Hope Buxton stays off the DL for most of the year / plays 130 games Hope Larnach / Kirilloff become healthy / productive Hope Sano becomes even marginally consistent in a helpful way Hope Maeda / Mahle / Paddack / Ober contribute Hope Jeffers gets healthy & improves at the plate Hope Lewis recovers & is as dynamic as he was during his cup of coffee We have very few guys who we can count on, guys who were dependable & effective in 2022. Now, maybe the lack of a proper spring training in 2022 had something to do with that (sure hope so) . . . but, IMO, we need guys who (a) show up for work every day and (b) are definitely "better than average."

"Lack of options" is the biggest issue I think of when considering "managing the Twins." Have to hope the truncated spring training had something to do with all the injuries & time missed because of same. Please . . .give me some reason to be more hopeful. For too much of the year, the majority of the lineup should've been playing in St. Paul, getting experience & getting better, but they were starting for the Twins b/c the guys who "should have been playing" were injured & out. Hard to win with a AAAA lineup . . . . Same issue with pitching. Moves were made to bring in better pitching, then guys get hurt (in some cases) and don't produce (in others). What do you do next? I share the opinion that Baldelli's too "twice through the lineup for the starter bound," especially when you consider the relative weakness of the bullpen options (woefully lacking in guys to get you from Inning #4/5/6 through inning #8). Twins' baserunning was atrocious this year. Responsibility for that falls first on a coaching staff (IMO) - if they refuse to accept that sort of thing, they'll get less of it. While I'd expect them to do their best to keep such things in the locker room, we would have noticed if 'something was being done about it' (IMO). Ultimately, this roster produced the result it earned. We have too many guys who miss too much time too often. Think about it . . . how many guys do we have where their season is described by the words "missed a whole lot of time due to injury again"? IMO, we need "New hitting philosophy & coaches system wide." Too much trying to hit home runs, etc., too much striking out, not enough contact. "Baserunning practice." Ran into way too many outs, left way too many runs on the bases b/c of poor baserunning. "Top flight pitching coach" Get someone who's a master of the craft in, someone who's going to stay a while. There's no stability there. "Evaluation / restructuring of training" Again, while this might just be because everyone started in a bad place because of the truncated spring training, it sure seems like guys were dropping like flies because of sore (fill in blank here).

If "the plan" was to have the guy you're building your team around play only 100 games - 61.7% of your team's games - then that "plan" had to be based upon Buck's health being compromised & the goal being "get as much as we can from him this year in light of his health being compromised." But . . . there's no way that should be "the plan" for a healthy, 5 tool outfielder. IMO, every front office in the game would want a generic "star" with Buck's talents on the field for at least 140 games. Which is the issue with Buck . . . will his health ever allow him to play the volume of games which his talent says he should play?

"The Plan" didn't work. IMO, the only "Plan" which has any chance of working is Buxton figuring out what it is about his body which makes him so fragile & fix it. I know, some of the injuries are absolute flukey stuff which no one could guard against, but . . . I can't help believe there's something about his conditioning plan, etc. which renders him vulnerable, whether it's stretching, muscular imbalance, whatever. I'm sure the Twins & Buck are as frustrated as all of us fans are, and want to figure it out more than we hope it will happen. Just wish it would.

We've been running out MAYBE three "projected starters" a game for, what, three weeks to a month now? Buck is extraordinarily talented, and, for whatever reason, can't stay on field. I can only imagine how much it frustrates him - seems to have HOF talent, but will never play enough to get considered.

I think they said it was the Nationals . . . if I remember correctly, no.

Eddie Guardado did that on a nightly basis when he was our closer.

Radio guys mentioned yesterday that the metrics say we're the second-worst baserunning team. I'm not surprised.

we cannot get rid of these goofs calling balls & strikes soon enough.

The managers who keep winning even though the team "has injuries" have DEEP rosters. Our roster isn't "deep." This team is better than last year (yeah, I know .. not a huge leap). IMO, it's also better than "results you could expect": Preseason predictions don't factor in "unknown injuries which will inevitably occur." Those predictions had the Twins as a .500 team (+/-) We've had a boatload of injuries . . . and yet, we're still above .500 at the end of August. I'd love to see where we'd be with a healthy Royce Lewis, etc.

"Leadership" flows from production, and there's been darn little of that for the past couple of months.