Darius

Just once I'd love for one of these brown nosing network reporters like that hack Doogie or Johnny Athletic to do what their readers actually want them to do, and cut out the fluff. Hold this FO accountable and ask them, "what is your thought process on Belisle, Grossman, etc?" By no means am I imploring anyone to be offensive or rude. But, ask a real GD question. I miss the days of actual journalism. All media today (with the exception of sites like these) is absolute garbage.

Not another guy with a short and inexplicable run of success that'll be given an agonizingly long leash. I thought we were past "the Twins' way."

As a fan, it's borderline insulting that they're using Belisle. It's also rather discouraging that Molitor has already seemed to run Pressly and Reed into the ground and we haven't made it to the All-Star break. Despite that, I can't really complain much about taking 2 of 3 from Boston with 3 great starting pitching performances against one of the best lineups in baseball. Hopefully a sign of things to come.

I'm reading the words that indicate we shouldn't be alarmed. But, on the inside, I'm still thinking that this will totally derail his career in some way because that's just the kind of thing that happens around here.

I don't think any of this is especially surprising, or something that shouldn't have been foreseen by the FO. Deep down, I think everyone knows it's inevitable that Dozier just won't break out of the "slump." I use quotes because he "slumps" so often I'm not sure you can really call it that. It's more his norm. Kepler, Buxton, Garver, and Morrison should come as surprises to no one. None of the young guys has had a significant track record of production that you can point to, and I think we're seeing why nobody wanted to sign Morrison (he's useless when he's not hitting HRs, and he's in a park tough on lefties). Nobody should be surprised when Mauer misses time with an injury at this point. Any games he can give you is basically a bonus. The next slide into a base or dive for a ball might be the last time he's on an MLB diamond as a player. The rest of the lineup was clearly sub par from the jump (LaMarre, Adrianza, Wilson, Grossman, Petit, etc). How can we count on Polanco for anything? He was awful for a while, and his hot stretch was promptly followed by a positive PED test. Also, Escobar filled his role for a while before Sano went down, likely a lot better than Polanco would have. As far as Sano goes, we've been hearing these rumblings and concerns for years. Nothing shocking there. The surprises to me are: Rosario, and Escobar. But, they are a positive development that is helping, not hurting. So, my point is, I'm sure there is some flabbergasting question on how to get this group of personnel to perform. The problem isn't a mystery out there in the ether. The problem is that a lot of these guys just aren't that good. The second half of last year was a result of an ridiculously unlikely alignment of the stars. Expecting this group of guys to be the top offense in the American League was always an extremely flawed supposition.

Unfortunately, while we were waiting the season likely got away from us.

Frankly, he's a poor decision maker as a manager. That said, the Twins FO and players aren't doing a lot help the guy. I know everyone likes to believe that this team is the great one from the second half last. But, that was the outlier. This is a bad baseball team. It's possible that he should get loads of credit for getting a great second half out of an awful team. The roster was always hanging by a thread, and the thread snapped. As far as the FO, adding Lance Lynn and Logan Morrison is kind of a joke. We're just so used to nothi happening, that we all thought it was amazing. As much as I can't put the performance of the team entirely on Molitor. I still the awful bullpen usage, head scratching substitutions, etc. He's a great baseball mind, but I just don't think he's really cut out for managing a team. Maybe as a coach, or a FO position, he'd be wonderful.

He won't keep up this kind of production, but Rosario is on pace for something like 112 runs, 39 homers, 122 RBI, and 15 steals in 18 attempts. Just a little perspective on how incredible he's been this year. That would be one of the best Twins' seasons of all time, and probably land him in the top 2-3 for MVP votes. I'd love to see his stats over the previous 162.

Gibson has a 3.27 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP, and is striking out a batter an inning (8.8 K/9) this year in 82 IP..... and he just picked up his second win. As if we needed more stats telling us how bad this offense is.

Not only this year. This is going back to June/July last year. He's on to something, here. He's got the stuff. It looks sustainable. Now, there is always another shoe that hasn't dropped.

Good grief, people are now starting to disaprage Rowson in the comments? He's done wonder s with Rosario and Escobar. He did the same last year with Polanco and a stretch with Buxton. Kepler has slowed down, but he's got him hitting lefties competently. The guy is good coach, and they need to keep him around. Its completely unreasonable to put Buxton's typical agonizing start and injuries, Dozier's typical disappearing act for 3/4 of the season, Polanco's PED suspension, Sano's injuries/plethora of issues on Rowson. What in the name of Pete is Rowson supposed to do with Wilson, Petit, LaMarre, Grossman, Adrianza, etc? This is a professional sports team in Minnesota. This is what happens. Seasons get derailed by this or that every year. I'm not ready to call Rowson an issue just yet. Not after seeing him turn a lineup of misfits into the premier unit in the American League for a significant portion of 2017.

A lot of people seem to think this team is a sleeping giant waiting to awaken. I used to think that. I'm not sure anymore. Dozier and Sano are the drivers of this lineup, even with Rosario and Escobar hitting well. Those were the 40 homer type guys that can hit them in bunches and put teams away by themselves. They're pretty bad this year and there isn't much light at the end of their tunnels right now.

I'm not sure the math adds up, but maybe I'm not following. Slot is $1.1M in the second, and you "save" 600K. Say you save $1M in the first round. Now, say slot is $600k in the third. In the second you'd have the $2.1 million to allocate to a player. In the third you'd have $2.2. So why not just take the guy you want in the second? What difference does $100K make?

I don't know much about the guy. But, all you hear these days are that guys with limited defensive ability/flexibilty, limited athletic ability, and decent bats/power are pretty replaceable. It doesn't seem to difficult to find a RF/1B/DH type that can hit a little bit for cheap (Logan Morrison darn near had to pay his way onto a roster after nearly hitting 40 HRs). So, that being the case, I hope the kid can flat-out rake. It seems like Rooker was a more established hitter who was closer to majors and was taken later in the draft. Kind of head scratching. So, maybe more upside is there? I would've preferred one of the pitchers, but who am I to say. If they use this to pick up a guy a little later that falls due to signability issues (Enlow type), I'll feel pretty good about it.

Just looking at the comp picks, and I'm confused (don't know the formula, I guess). It seems ridiculous to me that Tampa gets the 31st and 32nd picks for Alex Cobb and Darren Rasmussen. Higher than the Royals losing Cain and Hosmer. Is there somebody record based input? Also, how do the Cardinals and Indians get competitive balance picks ahead of the Marlins, Athletics, Reds. I know that is based on revenue and record, so it seems a little strange. Again, not a big MLB draftnick, but some of these arbitrary comp picks seem a little off.

I find the "best player available," cliche to be kind of absurd. 1). How is that even something you can quantify, given the multitude of positions? What metric do you use to determine this SS is better than that SP in the first place? 2). There is no consensus for BPA, probably even within the same front office. 3) There are sign-ability considerations. Within those sign-ability considerations, every pick is made under the pretense that the selection is the best player available for that team. 4). If a front office passes on a player B that they can sign, that is better than player A, just for the hell of taking player A, they wouldn't have a job long. 5). Position fluidity makes it nearly impossible to determine where these guys will end up, anyway. Tons of guys get drafted as Short stops and catchers and move to different positions. When do you ever see a high school pitcher drafted as a reliever (they're all starters). How do you put a value on that? You have no way of know if player A will be blocked by player B in rookie ball. My point: Everyone thinks they are drafting BPA. Nobody has to be reminded to take BPA, and there is no other viable draft strategy that has ever existed. Nobody walks away from the war room saying, "we did good job of staying away from the better players this year boys, we should be set for 2022." Only fans think "Royce Lewis when we already have Nick Gordon? What the hell?"

Something else: A coach of mine in college used to do something where he would verbally say "score" while giving the stop sign. Or "hold up" etc, while waving a person around. We would discuss which cues to follow before the game. It's design was to try and get throw home, which could end up in error or allow a trailing runner to advance. Not saying that's what happened here. But, you can't always pay attention to the physical cue.

My weekly summary is as follows: Eddie Rosario. There is no way to take it easy on Glynn now this one. It was an awful, awful decisions on multiple levels, no matter the situation (on-deck hitter, score, number of outs, etc). First, it was clear that he had no chance from the get go. Adrianza isn't fast, despite the stereotypes related to his role (diminutive utility guy). Just an opinion there. Mainly, there is one out, and Wilson is on deck. Sure, that's not ideal. But, after that, Dozier is set to come up with two outs....and he's been on fire. If he's walked intentionally, the hottest hitter on planet earth is up with the bases loadedz Instead, Dozier leads off the next inning with nobody on base. It ended up working out, but IMO it was a colossal misevaluation of the situation. To be clear, it's not an easy thing. It's a decision made in a fraction of a second. But, when that's your job it comes with some expectation of excellence.

To each his own. But, IMO, if a guy is giving up a ton of dingers in recent days/weeks, I'm going with the hot hand during a one-run game in the 8th against the team you have to beat to make the playoffs. If they think he gives them the best chance, but has been pitching terribly lately, arent they basing that on the history of his career before the struggles? I'm not even upset that they gave him the eigth. I just replied my thoughts to a discussion initiated by another poster. I don't think it could really be disputed that if they were more fluid with the bullpen, they'd probably have a few more wins right now. I'm not calling for a players head, or anything. When Rodney was struggling and Reed was great, switch things up. When Reed is struggling and Hildenberger, Duke, etc are pitching well, switch things up. I don't think it's really that controversial....but the predefined bullpen role paradigm runs deep in some folks, including our manager.

IMO, it's all Dozier. Rosario has been good all year. But, Dozier gets out of his annual brutal slump, and they all of the sudden start looking like a competent offensive club again.

That just seems like common sense, right? Apparently, there is unwritten rule that you can't bump a guy from his spot due to performance (see Rodney's first few weeks -- wouldn't it be nice to have one or two of those games back right now?). You MUST let him work it out in his accustomed high-leverage role, because of history or gentlemans agreements and handshakes or something. There is no doubt in my mind he'll work it out. But, I agree, when you're pitching poorly and giving up moonshot after moonshot.....probably not the best idea to let him work out during a tie game in the 8th.

The Wade double anomaly is very strange.

Good for Littell. Pretty good timing to get a kid pitching well up for a start. If they take 3 of 4 from Cleveland today, then go do some damage in a 4 gamer with the Sox, they could find themselves back working striking distance. They have a couple of tough series outside of the division this month (Bos and LAA), but they have another set with Cleveland, as well as the White Sox, Tigers, and Rangers.

As soon as I write the club off, they get themselves in a position to take 3 of 4 from Cleveland. Rosario is unreal. Since Puckett, I can't think of a player I enjoy watching more. It's not only the wild swing, but the passion with which he plays the game. His enthusiasm while rounding the bases after a homer, while still not bat flipping and showing others up like a dunce, is infectious. Another wild comparison that comes to mind: Vlad Guerrero. Has anyone other than he had this much success with that type approach? He's routinely taking pitches a foot out of the zone and driving then over the fence, while simultaneously sustaining a high BA. Pretty incredible.

Joe Mauer made his major league debut at age 20. Kiriloff is in CR at 20. Not really sure there is or should be a comparison there.