53 thoughts on “March 6, 2015: Oh Right, That”

  1. Going to the Twins/Rays tilt this afternoon, and not forgetting sunscreen, shades, and my Twins hat. Ear buds, too, but unfortunately the Twins' broadcasters have the day off.

      1. We call my little brother Boog. But it's short for "Booger" so it's not pronounced in the same manner as the ballplayer's name.

    1. Who would have thought the Twins would struggle to score runs with this lineup? If you have a losing record in home spring training games, you've got big problems.

  2. Heck of a third period by the Wild last night. Minnesota is now 5th in the West and only 4 points behind Chicago for 3rd place in the Central. They're currently holding down the top Wild Card spot, 1 point ahead of Winnipeg.

    How many games does a player have to play in to be considered for Comeback Player of the Year ... /checks interwebs/ never mind, the NHL doesn't explicitly have one of those.

    Also looks like Kuemper & Backstrom put him too far in a hole to compete for the Jennings award and I don't think there are enough games left for him to push Carey Price for the Vezina Trophy (dude has 10 more wins in only 11 more games than Dubnyk).

      1. Heh. It'd be nice if Price stopped winning/playing at a high level for the next 2+ weeks, but I don't see that happening.

        1. I would think tonight would be the best time to give him a breather, but it sounds like he's going to start again.

          1. With as many new guys being pressed into service between acquisitions and injuries, I can understand why Yeo wouldn't want to mess with his most consistent player over the past 5 weeks. That being said, I'm with you - dude could use a night off.

        1. I was going to say "Weird...I quoted The Princess Bride just today." Then I realized it wasn't weird that I did this, and elected not to say anything.

  3. Discuss:

    “Much of our improvement is ultimately going to come from Trevor Plouffe, and Dozier, and Kyle Gibson and Glen Perkins,” Ryan said. “Those are the guys who have proved they can play up here. Now it’s a matter of taking it to the next level.”

    Let me start: those guys are a helluva lot closer to their ceilings than pretty much everyone else on the club, geriatric former center fielders excluded.

    1. Gibson, maybe. Perkins is supposed to... go Eckersley on us? Dozier is the next Sandberg? Plouffe put up 4 rWAR last year, I would be ecstatic with more than that, but it seems really, really unlikely.

      Yeah, the team's improvement is probably not going to come from the improvement of thee of those four.

      1. I agree with your (and SBG's) assessment. So why does Terry Ryan say something like this? Is it just bluster? Does he really believe it? Are we so far down in our collective mother's basements that we can't see how much those guys are going to improve?

        1. Agree with everyone else. I'm really hoping they don't give Dozier a long-term extension, not because I dislike him or think he's bad, but because I think he's about as good as he's ever going to be. That means in a few years he'll be in decline and won't be all that good any more.

          As for why TR says those things, well, he's got to say something. He can't very well say, "We're going to lose ninety games again this year". Everyone who follows the team closely knows the real hope for improvement is if/when Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Berrios, Stewart, etc. arrive.

      2. Plouffe put up 4 rWAR last year

        .

        Holy crap. I had no idea that his season was that good. That ranks him tied for 28th in the AL for position players, ahead of Albert Pujols, Erick Aybar, Edwin Encarnacion, and Evan Longoria, to name a few.

        1. fWAR had him at 3.5, too.

          I had forgotten that he hit a lot of doubles (40!), but Fangraphs and bbref also credit him with vastly improved defense.

        2. Koskie averaged 3.7 rWAR in his six full seasons with the Twins. Only once did he significantly surpass 4.0 rWAR (6.3 in 2001). He also had a 4.2 and a 4.0.

    2. “Much of our improvement is ultimately going to come from trading Trevor Plouffe, and Dozier, and Kyle Gibson and Glen Perkins.

      FTFTR

    3. I think this is much ado about nothing. I think it's TR's way of taking pressure off young players and basically saying we need these guys to be our veteran leaders along with Joe and Torii. The real improvement needs to come from Santana and Nolasco and hopefully without much fall off from Hughes. I was more interested in TR talking about contending this year. If he truly means it, then that should mean that Buxton, Sano, Meyer, Berrios, et al., should be truly competing to go north if they show that they are the best option right now.

      1. I was more interested in TR talking about contending this year.

        I took that to be TR's way of saying "please come to baseball games, we don't think we're going to be quite as bad this year."

  4. So I guess I'm behind in my reading because I'm just now learning about the whole Curt Schilling and daughter and Twitter thing. Has that already been discussed here?

    1. Wow, I... missed that.

      I mean, I like a lot of the aspects of it, and I get that anonymity is intoxicating and all that, but it is insane how awful Twitter can be.

      1. Wow is right. I have done and said stupid things in my life, but still don't get trolls. Especially disgusting asshole trolls.

      1. To be fair (again), he's just an asshole with a platform. Homeboy has said/condoned plenty of awful things. The issue is certainly real, but I'm not ready to celebrate him as the spokesperson.

      2. I'm surprised troll shaming sites aren't more prevalent. (Maybe they are...I'm minimally exposed to anonymous social media, and I don't read the comments...)
        You'd think they'd get plenty of traffic as they're a revenge we can all feel good about (facetious), and they'd be that permanent public record of troll behavior that Shilling alludes to.

        1. Would actually be a good way to trim the prevalence of trolls: make it permanently googleable.
          But maybe open yourself up to lawsuits? I wouldn't be brave enough.

          1. fortunately/unfortunately, some share of trolls are minors. Not sure if I really want to support efforts to permanently brand dumb-ass kids in this way.

            The same holds to some degree for young adults. But by the time you are in, say, your 30s, you should certainly be able to behave like an adult in public.

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