Game7-91

Me too. The "trade for the injured pitcher" pattern is worrisome. Last time Mahle had shoulder fatigue he was out for a month. Twins cant afford that, but it will be what it will be. One week, one month, one year...whatever the outcome, I would hope there is some serious evaluation being done, including by ownership, about why these unfortunate outcomes keep happening, and then, stop repeating the pattern.

Twins should bring in Sweet Music to teach pitching staff the circle change. Maybe one of the starters especially clicks with it.

How about a suicide squeeze for a run!?? Sonny Gray interview not a great imo...signs of discontent, and left to wonder if he's the only one ...

Ahhh, a visit from Dr Royals to cure whatever ails............. Three in the sleeve on the 'morrow

A hit with risp! We are on a roll tonight!!!

Nice work CT! Not hard to see why KC is at 41 wins.

My oh my, into the 7th and 90 pitches....knock me over with a feather

Aaron Judge: Someone will find out why you dont dole out term and top market to a guy who suddenly finds excess power and durability in his contract year. Fools gold. Someone will pay it, it sure better not be Falvine and company.

"...the caveat to expected stats is that they don’t matter until they’re actualized." No truer words! Of the several mysteries surrounding this season's roster management, the stranger things-like dedication to maintaining Pagan remains the most mysterious by far. Someday this story will deserve a place in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

The way pitching staffs are used, they are only as good as the weakest link in the chain. On any given night, 3 or 4 relievers are given a chance to turn victory into defeat. Law of averages says at least one of those links will oblige on any given night. As notoriousgod71 says above, a big part of bettering the pen is increasing performance from the SP's. Is it really going to be acceptable year after year that your highly compensated SP is expected to get 15 outs, giving up 3 runs or less, a "quality outing", while the BP is then expected to get 12 outs, including the outs 21-27, when so many close games are decided. Dont pay the pen? They are tasked with getting nearly the same amount of outs as the SP's, and those outs are higher leverage, less margin for error than are outs 1-15. And these are usually the guys who are inferior pitchers...the reason they are RP's is usually because they dont have the secondary pitches to begin with. And we expect a sequence of 3-4 guys like this to protect 1-2 run leads? Talk about being set up to fail. Rotation usage is bass ackwards imho. The SP's need to step up. 110 pitches is not going to break their arm. Most of them break down averaging 90. Maybe teams need to look at 6 man starting rotations, with higher pitch count expected, and 18 outs expected. Reduce BP usage to 2 guys per game. At least gives the BP less chance to blow it, and shortens the number of outs needed to get to the closer.

2023 brings an end to the infield shift. If anyone stands to benefit from that, it would be Kepler. Even with that, and good health, that his toe injury completely recovers, he seems a good 4th OF candidate and late inning defensive replacement, but not a regular starter at this point in his career. Assuming that we would have a viable starting RF to replace him. And that cannot for the love of God or money be Jake Cave. Maybe they give Wallner a shot, or look to sign another corner. Kepler would still stand to log a fair amount of innings. 8M is an overpay for that type of role, but its not a bad strategy to give it a go and see if he plays better in that role. If so, look to a market-level extension for 2024. If not, cut bait.

Gray, López, Pagán ... these are all pitchers the front office brought in with big trades, and now the team's fate has been tethered to them in significant ways. If things continue to trend the way they have, we know where the accountability will lie (beyond the players themselves). Speaking truth Nick.

Good question on Maeda. Just checked, both he and Dobnak are included. 17 of the 28 players on Twins list are pitchers.

Archer looks a lot like a nice BP piece. Tucker Davidson's line coming into today' game:

Great point. I clarified that first question a bit to better get the gist of what I was trying to ask, but this is pretty much it. Does injury prevention/injury management need a re-working? It does seem year-after-year we are left to wonder at some odd injury management decisions. Maybe someday I will dig a little deeper into past seasons to see where Twins stand comparatively over time.

Yes, and would still prefer9-toed Max to Jake Cave

Sad, are we in 3rd place now?

How much do injuries affect team performance, and W-L record? Using Spotrac IL tracker, I put together this team-by-team record of current IL trends for each team. The Twins rank tied for 2nd in most players spending time on IL this season, 4th in most games lost, and FWIW 13th or so in salary lost to IL. Only Cincinatti has lost more players to IL, with 33. OTOH, Cleveland is 2nd with fewest games lost, the Twins standing a healthy 61% more than Cleveland in total games lost. The average number of players lost is 20.6, median is 20 as well. Twins are 37% above MLB average. I will leave to others with stat skills if someone has the interest and time to extrapolate any relationships between IL and W-L, standings, etc....The numbers are not wholly explanatory, as this only tracks IL, not actual injured status. So Buck for example does not show up outside of his earlier IL stint, even though his performance is clearly impacted by chronic injury. But it still is interesting to see the raw data. And wonder, is this a measurement of overall organizational effectiveness at finding wins from injury prevention/injury management processes? If so, it seems the Twins as an organization are lacking. Or is it just random chance? TEAM PLAYERS GAMES SALARY Minnesota Twins 28 1,482 $19,695,754 Chicago White Sox 22 1,034 $27,311,959 Cleveland Guardians 14 590 $1,873,537 Cincinnati Reds 33 1,805 $19,146,288 Houston Astros 13 668 $21,323,396 New York Yankees 19 908 $27,734,718 Arizona Diamondbacks 18 657 $8,515,647 Texas Rangers 20 593 $8,408,691 Detroit Tigers 22 1,228 $13,213,117 Philadelphia Phillies 24 1,090 $19,588,138 Toronto Blue Jays 15 681 $19,077,925 Tampa Bay Rays 27 1,681 $18,963,632 Washington Nationals 21 1,465 $37,151,205 St. Louis Cardinals 15 687 $15,527,953 Pittsburgh Pirates 28 1,248 $7,451,460 Seattle Mariners 19 928 $11,917,427 San Diego Padres 18 1,105 $28,998,575 San Francisco Giants 23 935 $27,803,734 Oakland Athletics 20 770 $4,919,680 New York Mets 18 957 $43,906,012 Milwaukee Brewers 21 881 $8,584,348 Kansas City Royals 20 756 $11,191,535 Los Angeles Angels 18 960 $26,494,588 Boston Red Sox 23 1,316 $49,669,322 Los Angeles Dodgers 22 1,379 $31,843,729 Miami Marlins 27 1,118 $9,695,396 Atlanta Braves 16 906 $18,159,353 Baltimore Orioles 12 577 $3,845,750 Chicago Cubs 27 1,558 $31,065,902 Colorado Rockies 17 780 $14,883,593

The strike zone box is only helpful if it shows where the pitcher intended to throw it. Strike-by-intent, aka framing.

Love it when the kids go from home to 3rd in tots league. It is actually a brilliant strategy, and would definitely change the nature of the game if MLB would adopt a "run wherever you want to" rule.

Dodgers on the way to #12 tonight, a mere 13-3 lead over KC. Me thinks we caught them at a bad time. But as the old adage goes, no one has ever won the World Series in August.

Would that go with melted cheddar or swiss? Either way sandwich would have a better chance against the hard-slider.

Cleveland lost , 2-1. So there's that. Twins 58.7% win probability after CC HR. So, Vegas thinks there's a 41.3% chance Angels have a collective pulse. Sheesh.

Took 25 guys to bring Herbie down.

Good point, he should switch to a fine scotch between innings, those framing metrics would improve. 28 on Sep 1st. Will Twins have 28 competent, healthy bodies to field by then?