Adam Houck

Fun fact: The Twins have scored 4 runs and/or given up 2 runs in 7 consecutive games. I feel like that's a stat Wally Holland would appreciate.

Someday I hope to see a MLB where you're allowed to have fun like in other sports and a whole team won't want to fight you over it.

According to the "Playoff Procedures" on the website, if the Lookouts win both the 1st half and the 2nd half (which it looks like they will), they will host games 1, 2, 4, and 5 which is probably why they are already selling games 1 and 2.

On Monday the Atlanta Braves acquired Brian Matusz from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for in exchange for a couple minor leaguers. This deal may have seemed odd in the sense that Matusz is ineffective, owed $3.6mil the rest of the season, and the Braves released him immediately. However, under a newer rule, Atlanta was able to acquire a “competitive balance” draft pick in the deal. According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo!™ Sports, the Braves are now in the business of buying draft picks. It is an interesting strategy for a MLB team to take this approach as trading for draft picks until recently has been a non-feature of professional baseball. The 2013 MLB draft was the advent of competitive balance draft picks (CBDPs). And, unlike other draft picks, CBDPs can be traded. In a nutshell, the MLB awards extra draft picks within the top 100 overall selections to teams in the bottom 10 of the league in revenue and market size in addition to any other team that received revenue sharing in the previous year. If you’re an NFL fan, think of them somewhat like compensation picks. The Twins were awarded one CBDP in the upcoming draft, #73 overall. Mike Axisa of CBS Sports wrote an interesting article on potential trade partners for the Braves and their strategy of accumulating draft picks in exchange for cash to bail themselves out of their predicament. Ricky Nolasco is owed $12million in both 2016 and 2017 with a vesting option of $13million for 2018 if he pitches 400+ innings over the previous two years. In short, to state the obvious, this is an awful contract to saddle a team with. Would the Braves (or any other team for that matter) take on that contract in exchange for the 73rd overall pick? As Axisa points out the 73rd pick is worth less than a +2 WAR over six years which isn’t much but it isn’t nothing. On the high side, it would be worth a player who commands about $14million over that time span. You would hope with the added payroll flexibility the Twins would be able to obtain a better return (but the Twins’ use of their payroll money is another blog entirely). Axisa also seems to think the Braves could also flip Nolasco for a couple prospects in the future which would appear to be optimistic unless Nolasco is pitching well in the last year of a deal. One may wonder if the Twins should be using the same philosophy as the Braves. I would argue, current season results aside, the Twins are further along in a rebuild and are more in need of payroll flexibility than draft picks. The Braves were supposed to be awful this season, the Twins were not. However, if the Matusz deal is any indication, it’s going to take a lot more than Nolasco and the pick in exchange for a bag of baseballs to get it done. I would expect the Braves would inquire more into Suzuki ($6mil), Jepsen ($5.3mil), or potentially even Plouffe ($7.2mil but a far more productive player than the others) instead. Obviously, if a deal is to be made, it will have to be done prior to the June draft.

The Benefits of Total. System. Failure. Okay, this sucks, it sucks a lot. The Twins are bad, really bad, but you already knew that. Truth is, most fans are already advanced to the last stage of grief: acceptance and we’re not yet to June. Fun fact that I heard on the way home from work today: according to Rotten Tomatoes, the Twins’ winning percentage is still better than the percentage of positive reviews for Rob Schneider movies. So we got that going for us, which is nice. That being said, did you know that you can reap some benefits of this lost season? Were you aware that a bad baseball team can give you perspective, gravitas, and dare I say, a better life? Well read me now and believe me later. Here it is, the benefits of Total. System. Failure. 1. We get to enjoy Minnesota Summers! Both weeks (rimshot). Isn’t it a pain when you’re camping in one of our fine State Parks or fishing out on the lake and you’ve got to have the radio on or you find yourself standing on top of the camper trying to get a wireless signal so you can get the score of the game? Now, no need! Because who cares!? Spend some quality time with your family without keeping an ear fixated on the transistor radio while your significant other goes on about their week. No more scaring away the fish while you yell “PLOOOOOOUFFE!” from the boat. Just a nice relaxing outdoor-enjoying Summer. Take that Chicago! 2. You get to watch all the good baseball you want! We wouldn’t know it otherwise but there is some fine baseball being played away from Target Field. We get to follow and watch any team we want. You’ll do way better with your fantasy team than some schmuck that watches their own team 150+ times a year. If you have MLB Network, you can tune in and let MLB Tonight take you around the League for every important and interesting at-bat and pitch. You can watch MIke Trout, Bryce Harper, and Kris Bryant, all season. For example, instead of watching the Twins you could have been watching Odor punch Bautista during a game last week. That would never happen in at Twins game. The closest we’ve gotten of late was Torii Hunter taking a swing at Justin Morneau in the lockerroom, missing, and hitting Nick Punto (true story). 3. You have easy access to one of the finest stadium in the Majors! No more resorting to scalped tickets from season ticket holders or waiting in long lines at the concession stand. In fact, you may have your very own beer guy. It’s like you’re a VIP in the bleacher seats! Plus, bobbleheads. In the name of Tony, the Killer, and Carew are there bobbleheads. Maybe instead of having to be in line eight hours before the gate you can show up at a reasonable time and snag yourself one. Who am I kidding, this is Minnesota, we love ourselves some bobbleheads as much as we love talking about the weather. That part won’t change. 4. You will become a Minor League expert! Think about it. Instead of following one Major League team, you can follow around four Twins Minor League franchises. Plus, they’re all a lot better, relatively speaking, than the Twins. Even with the influx of young players into the Majors (and recently an influx of that same talent back to AAA), there is still some good talent at the lower levels. The most recent round of wasted seasons has seen some high draft picks aside from Buxton. Top ten picks Kohl Stewart and Nick Gordon are having good years down in Ft. Myers. In fact, the Miracle sport some of the finest young players in the system. Remember at the beginning of the season when Twins fans dreamed of a Rosario-Buxton-Kepler outfield? Well you got that in Rochester right now. Plus, you have the Twins best pitching prospect in Berrios leading the rotation. In addition to all of the glitz and glamour of being “that guy” that follows MiLB, you also have the opportunity to become the foremost expert in next year’s draft. With the Twins, at the moment, in the #1 pick slot, we fans can start looking at the prospect class of 2017 now. Just think about it, when next June rolls around, your friends will be amazed with your intricate knowledge of the strong catcher class and intimidated with your strong opinions on the debate on drafting for need vs. talent in the early rounds. No more lonely weekends for you! Conclusion: As you can see, a season or so of bad baseball from the Local Nine can make you a more rounded baseball fan and human being all together. Problem is, of course, is that your Minnesota Twins have had a lost decade thus far. Let’s hope that by next season we’ll be back to ignoring our families on weekend trips, getting gouged by scalpers and bobblehead resellers, not knowing the entire prospect class, and not even knowing there is a MLB draft. Killebrew willing.

Along those lines, I'm a die-hard and I live about 2 hours away so this package is perfect. This is the only package offered that is doable for me. This isn't just for the "super-casual" fan.

I'd be careful, Parker. If you keep making points like this about Mauer with "stats" and "evidence" Aaron Gleeman will get butt-hurt and block you on Twitter

I'll always remember Dick Bremer's call: "That left Kansas City and I hope it landed in Milwaukee." About as edgy as Bremer gets.