wickedslider

"but when was the last time a real stud came to Minnesota?" I'd say it was Jack Morris for the 1991 season.

Funny how the article in the Strib mentions that Sano's accuser is Betsy Bissen, photographer for Twins Daily, but that Twins Daily failed to mention that in their story.

dammit!

Nice trade. An established ml starter and a catcher for a low end prospect. I wonder if the catcher was thrown in to that the Twins can call up Garver and have this guy take his place?

Bartolo cannot get through the 5th inning anymore. Once he goes through the lineup, they get to him. I hope the arrival of Garcia allows the Twins to waive Colon.

I was also surprised at the O'Rourke DFA. His stats seemed to show that he had the characteristics of a LOOGY. I'd have thought he was worth a prospect at least in a trade. Perhaps there is something we don't know?

Not to mention how poorly Molitor used Kepler when he was up here. He should have been playing a couple of games a week at least to keep him sharp and to get an idea of what we have in him.

let's face it, despite being younger as a whole, the '87 WS team lost a of games, for quite awhile before they finally won it all. Yes, we have better pitching than those clubs did, but there is a lot of youth in the batting order. We have inexperience in the whole outfield and our starting DH. That's 4 bats out of 9 with relatively little to no experience at MLB level. There's going to be growing pains. The league has scouted us and adjusted accordingly. Our turn.

Maybe Murphy knows how to throw a clubhouse dance party, ala Torii Hunter?

Ramos has not been all that for the Nationals. He's only had 2 seasons with over 400 at bats and 1 with over 500 at bats. He has hit .258 with 61 hr's and 68 dbls over 6 years. His one strength seems to be throwing out base stealers with his CS of 33%. But again, he's not been very healthy. If he's have been here with those type of at bat #'s, we'd have seen a lot more of people like Chris Hermann etc.

That would be the best case scenario. We could really benefit if Nolasco would pitch well and reestablish himself as a decent starter. Then he can bring some value in a trade. I am still not sold on our catching situation, nor our options for bench players. We could use a Ben Zobrist type of guy as a sub. If Nolasco could end up being traded for a strong bench player or another catcher to replace Suzuki next season, we would be in good position. We could also use a good lead off type of hitter unless Buxton finally fulfills his potential. It also seems like we have some decent options for the BP and I think May could still become a starter, if not this year then the next.

Bert is a toughie only in the sense that he only played half his career here but that is still 11 years. His win totals while with the Twins are as follows;10, 16, 17, 20, 17, 15, 4 in first stint, 8, 17, 15, and 10 during his 2nd. He was traded during the season in the 7th year of his first stint and didn't leave for greener pastures. He was vital to the 87 team's success, our first major sports championship since the forgotten Mpls Lakers. He is in the HOF as much for what he did here as anywhere else. I am old enough to remember the aging nucleus of the Twin's teams he played on early in his career, thus his nearly .500 record. They won 98 games his rookie year then went on to win totals of 74, 77, 81, 82, 76 and finally 85 until he was traded. Many of his losses were low scoring 1 run games as evidenced by an ERA well under 3.00 during 4 of his 6 first season and at or very close to 3.00 the other 2 seasons. The complete game and innings pitched totals he put up were astounding and he still lasted over 20 seasons. He would be a GOD now with those stats. The Twin's all time pitching stats include those of the Washington Senators so I'm excluding them when I attempt to find Blyleven's place among Twin's pitching records. He's second to Jim Kaat in wins for the Twins, 4th in ERA with way more innings pitched than those above him, 3rd in #of starts, 2nd in innings pitched, 1st in SrikeOuts, 5th in WHIP, again with 1300 more innings pitched than the closest guy above him. Kaat, Radke and Santana all played for much better Twins teams than Blyleven, yet still trail him in most pitching categories. Kaat only bested Blyleven in number of wins, innings pitched and HR and BB allowed rates per season though he did surpass Blyleven in total Hr's and BB's allowed with all the extra innings pitched. Kaat had more wins for way better teams, but his ERA and WHIP weren't as good and Bert struck out nearly 200 more guys in roughly 450 less innings. Radke was near him in wins but gave up over 80 more HRs in 100 less innings. Though Radke did walk far fewer guys than Blyleven he still has a higher WHIP of 1.26 vs 1.19 which tells me that Radke was far more hittable. Radke was the quintessential "pitch to contact" guy that the Twins based their drafting on for too many years. You have to go back to Walter Johnson, one of the all time best ever to find a more dominant pitcher with reasonable longevity in the Twins/Senators organization, than Bert Blyleven. Blyleven is arguably the most dominant pitcher to ever don a Twin's uniform for a reasonably long period of time. Jim Kaat is the only one who comes somewhat close, with Brad Radke and Johan Santana perhaps tied for a distant 4th. I think yes Bert did enough, and certainly more than any other Twins pitcher, to deserve to have his jersey number retired.

Hi, excellent breakdown of Gibby's stats. I had high hopes for him this year and so far he's been good/very good more often than not. Look, I don't want to be viewed as "that spell check" guy. But within the quote, "For all intensive purposes, the numbers were mediocre across the board." there is a mistake which for some unknown reason I'm seeing time and again on stories I read as of late. "intensive purposes" is the culprit. The correct term is "for all intents and purposes". there done. And again, I'm normally not that type of guy.

Please forgive my ignorance. What is the difference between control and command of a pitch such as a fastball for instance? I've heardthe terms but thought they were interchangeable. Thanks.

What type of shift protects against home runs, and doubles off the wall? ;-)

terry Ryan's dumpster diving efforts in going after middling free agent pitchers is as much to blame as anything for this fiasco. Nolasco and Santana have been disasters. Pelfry until this year was a disaster and even now is not a reliable pitcher by any stretch. Hughes after one good season is now showing why the Yankees allowed him to leave. For what we have paid for these 4 we could have had an ace and a great 2nd pitcher to go along with May, Gibson, and Berrios or some other inexpensive 5th starter. Terry Ryan is not a good judge of pitching talent period. No one can blame ex pitching coach Anderson for this garbage.

Somehow I don't see Arcia as any type of decent 1st baseman. Do you really think he is going to dig out those one hoppers consistently? Vargas, I could see more so than Arcia, at 1B.

Look at Tulo's home and away splits. He's much much better at home than the road.

I certainly don't think the Twins should deplete their farm system nor give up a guy like Gibson for help this year. Especially for a guy like Tulowitski. If we were a player away from being great, that is one thing. But we still have holes at C, SS, Relief Pitching, and a lack of power and consistency in the lineup and I don't see us fixing all of those situations on a permanent basis by the trade deadline. The only move I could see is if they could get some relief help to help close out the games they lead so as to help the players maintain confidence. But again, I wouldn't sell the farm to get it.