Don Walcott

I'm not so impressed when the pitcher is lights out and we have good ABs, good defense, etc. I'm more impressed when they don't have their best stuff, when they are terrible, when they are relatively clueless . . . and yet they still manage to beat the White Sox.

I think i get it. So . . . it's like rain on your wedding day?

I googled it, but couldn’t find anything about Sano and Chattanooga ushers other than posts on this site. Does anyone know if there is any other source for this allegation?

We still get the game recaps, right?

It looks like we signed a real competitor. I'm happy to see that the FO pays attention to more than just numbers.

My new favorite Sanchez moment.

Neither Cobb nor Lynn excite me.

We also have Pineda potentially in the rotation in 2019. I agree with Darvish or one-year stop-gap.

By K/9, Archer was better than Kershaw. By K% Kershaw was better. That's because Kershaw doesn't allow as many walks and hits. Archer had more Ks per out recorded, and Kershaw had more Ks per batter faced. I'd rather know % of Ks per batter faced.

I'm so tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for Yuuuuuuu.

From MLB.com: Pohlad, speaking to fans during a question-and-answer session during TwinsFest at Target Field on Saturday, was asked about Darvish and indicated he's interested in signing the ace. "I'm on board with that," Pohlad said while on stage, bringing cheers from Twins fans at the event. "There are some interesting names and some interesting opportunities there, but I'm as intrigued by [Darvish] as anybody and attracted to [signing him] as anybody." Twins president Dave St. Peter echoed Pohlad's comments that the club remains engaged with Darvish, who is the top starting pitcher on the free-agent market. "There is mutual interest in seeing if something makes sense for both parties," St. Peter said. "We are not there yet today but that could accelerate here in the near future." Derek Falvey, the club's chief baseball officer, indicated on Friday that the Twins have room in their budget for a frontline starter even after committing $16.75 million over two years to reliever Addison Reed last week. "Any player we add, there won't be a budget limitation," Falvey said. "If we bring the right deal to Jim, he'll support it."

I want to see Polanco hit .300/.350/.450 while playing decent SS. That would be huge for this team.

Cole to the Astros. So they are out. Time to get this deal done!!

Please, you guys, no sexting.

Although there were some bright spots like Hildenberger, Rogers and Busenitz, I think we can count on this bullpen imploding if we don't make any more moves this off season. Kind of like Rodney, last year, we were lucky to have the bullpen implosions take place in big ways in relatively few games, rather than in smaller ways in more games. I don't know if Rodney was lucky in this same way or good. I hope I'm wrong, and he's good and the Twins bullpen also is good, and they don't lose us a lot of games. But I think that will happen if we don't sign at least one more proven reliever.

I think we could have done better than Rodney. I've never thought he was that good, and I don't care that they managed to not spend very much money to get him. But I hope to be proven wrong. And I hope they sign one more good reliever.

I remember getting the "Ichiroll" when I was at Safeco about 10 years ago. I wonder if they have already offered to serve "Shoheirolls." Seattle makes a lot of sense for Ohtani as a city in which he'd be able to assimilate. But I'd still prefer a bit more sunshine if it were me.

DC and Chicago over LA, San Fran & Seattle? Maybe I’m regionally biased towards the west coast and Rocky Mountains, but I can’t imagine anyone preferring DC and Chicago. (I don’t know enough to say anything about NY, but I’d prefer all three plus Portland and Denver over anywhere east of the Rockies).

Amen, brother.

I’m thankful that Eddie Rosario turned a corner in 2017. Obviously, Buxton and Sano are exciting to watch. But Eddie is right there with them as one of the most exciting players in the game. He’s become a fearless, big time hitter, and a key piece in the lineup. I look forward to big hits, like his dinger against the Yankees, for many years to come.

Congrats to Mollie! I think this is a well earned award. I understand the comments about the 103 season being under his leadership. However, a lot of things snowballed out of control in 2016, and at some point really early in the season there was no chance to make the playoffs. I give Molitor credit for sticking it out in 2016. I'll bet he earned some loyalty from the players for going through 2016 with them and coming out the other side with hope for 2017. In 2017, he definitely kept this team together, even after the FO threw in the towel (I'm not criticizing the FO for that). Oh, and he's one of us!

ERA+ relies on some very dubious assumptions regarding defensive statistics and ballpark factors. The Morris debate actually highlights the deficiencies in ERA+ and bWAR (which uses ERA+), Baseball Reference has Morris' best season as 1979, when he pitched 197.2 innings (he got called up at the end of May). He had a 3.27 ERA. However, Tiger Stadium was considered a hitters park that year, and his defense wasn't considered to be very good. In 1983, he pitched 293.2 innings with a 3.34 ERA. However, Tiger Stadium had magically transformed into a pitcher's park (partly due to the Tigers staff being the best in the league in 1984), and his defense was considered better. So his ERA+ was better in 1979, and hence his bWAR ended up better in 1979. To me, this is ridiculous. There's no question Morris was better in 1983. He threw nearly 96 more innings at basically the same ERA. He had a 19.3% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate, compared to 14% and 7.3% in 1979. He had a 1.158 WHIP compared to 1.204 in 1979. How on earth could bWAR be 5.8 in 1979 and only 4.0 in 1983? Well, because ERA+ and bWAR are terrible rating systems for starting pitchers. Morris' fWAR for 1983 was 6.2 and for 1979 it was 3.6. So fWAR has Morris 2.6 games better in 1983, and bWAR has Morris 1.8 games better in 1979. These rating systems not only don't align, they actually completely disagree about value. The reason this doesn't make sense is that these rating systems are not perfect, nor should they be relied upon in assessing historical facts. The rating systems are better at prediction, as they are based on hypothetical value, not actual historical value.

And every batter he struck out was a position player or DH. He never got to strike out other pitchers.

Buxton not winning would have been a travesty. He was spectacular this year. If he stays healthy, he will definitely win a bunch of these. Even if he doesn't deserve it in some future year, there seems to be an incumbency factor to the award that's just as pervasive as the gold batting glove factor. And good for Dozier. Despite defensive metrics, yada yada yada, I don't see Kinsler and Pedroia as being noticeably better than him. His playing a lot of games very consistently with the glove was valuable to his team.

I thought it was clear i was acknowledging that I was cherry picking facts. Given time and space constraints, isn't any post cherry picking? . . . Now, I'm nit-picking. I mentioned the 3 All-Star starts because you can't find another pitcher who started 3 All-Star games who is not in the Hall. Morris probably wasn't in more All-Star games because he had several seasons where he wasn't very good in the first half, but was lights out in the second half -- like 1983 and 1986. I agree with Glavine being a first-time HOFer. I also think Mussina should be in. Clemens would be in, but for steroids. So, my point on the Cy Young votes is that the only pitchers touching his era who had more years where someone voted for them were HOFers. And, I thought, my other point was that he should have been the Cy Young in 1983, but for a bias toward wins. He pitched way more innings than Hoyt, with an ERA of 1/3 of a run less, with way more strikeouts, but Hoyt had 24 wins. If he were a guy who had more WAR to appease people who rely solely on that rating system, everyone would be pointing out the injustice of the 1983 Cy Young voting. Here's a list of pitchers who had less years with Cy Young votes:: 1. Steve Carlton – 6 HOF 2. Fergie Jenkins – 6 HOF 3. Dennis Eckersley – 6 HOF 4. Tom Glavine – 6 HOF 5. Mariano Rivera – 6 Sure thing HOF 6. Johan Santana – 6 7. Roy Oswalt – 6 8. Justin Verlander – 6 9. Dan Quisenberry – 5 10. CC Sabathia – 5 11. Andy Pettitte – 5 12. John Smoltz – 5 HOF 13. Bruce Sutter – 5 HOF 14. Phil Niekro – 5 HOF 15. Gaylord Perry – 5 HOF 16. Rich Gossage – 5 HOF 17. Don Sutton – 5 HOF 18. Catfish Hunter – 4 HOF 19. Rollie Fingers – 4 HOF 20. Lee Smith – 4 21. Trevor Hoffman – 4 Likely HOF 22. Curt Schilling – 4 23. Bert Blyleven – 4 HOF Here's a list of those who had as many or more: 1. Roger Clemens – 12 2. Randy Johnson – 10 HOF 3. Tom Seaver – 10 HOF 4. Mike Mussina – 9 Likely HOF 5. Greg Maddux – 9 HOF 6. Jim Palmer – 8 HOF 7. Nolan Ryan – 8 HOF 8. Roy Halladay – 7* Likely HOF 9. Pedro Martinez – 7 HOF Another cherry-picking fact: Glavine had 682 career starts, and 216 wins where he pitched 7 innings or more. Morris had 525 career starts, and 217 wins where he pitched 7 innings or more. 86% of Morris' wins were 7 innings or more, leaving 2 innings or less for the bullpen to handle. 45% of his wins, the bullpen didn't need to get up at all (more than 1 out of every 5 times he pitched). Both guys had pretty consistently good or great offenses on their teams. But Morris relied much less on his bullpen. Sure, there were years where his stats ended up pretty ordinary (except for innings pitched and CGs). But my point is that its seems like people either don't remember or don't want to remember how dominant he was at times during his prime.