We put up the 3 small things we have in our yard for Halloween. How much do you deck your house out?
60 thoughts on “October 10, 2019: All Gussied Up”
You know, for some additional perspective I would say what happened to the Dodgers is a whole lot more disappointing than what happened to the Twins.
Yep. They were top 3 in the 4ltr Power Poll for pretty much the entire season.
Pretty much the entire decade
The Dodgers’ loss is like getting dumped at the altar. The Twins’ loss is like watching all your friends get married while you can’t hold a relationship for longer than 6 months. Different kinds of pain.
I'd say a team like the Orioles would be like you're married with kids and jealous of all your childless friends who go on exotic vacations because they have money.
At this point, we put a pair of jack-o-lanterns on each side of the porch, and it's pulling teeth to get me to carve them. Gone are the days of Runner daughter's chalk outline on the driveway with ketchup spattered around
Tuesday we had a high in the 70s. Today we're in the middle of a snowstorm.
I don't do decorations of any kind. I leave that all up to my wife, regardless of the occasion.
Salt River keeps rolling, as they defeated Glendale 6-2. The Rafters are 12-5 and lead both Mesa and Scottsdale by four games.
Luke Raley was 0-for-3. He is batting .174/.245/.283 in 46 at-bats.
Dakota Chalmers pitched 1.2 innings, giving up one run on one hit and five walks. He struck out four. His ERA is 4.50 with 17 strikeouts and 10 walks in 10 innings.
Jovani Moran struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up a walk. His ERA is 3.00 with 11 strikeouts and 8 walks in 6 innings.
Zach Neff struck out two in a perfect inning. His ERA is 2.08 with 9 strikeouts and no walks in 8.2 innings.
Lot of firings with a few retirements makes me wonder what the record is for open manager positions in the offseason.
This surprises me a bit. I thought they would give him one more year. I think Maddon and Girardi are going to nicely benefit from the demand for their services.
Ugh, do we have to have Girardi back in the league?
The manager merry go round might be good fodder for a bracket challenge?
Reading through a few off season articles. One decision I am stuck on a bit is whether to keep Castro. First thought is let him go and get Garver more playing time. But further thoughts bring me to keep him, as lefty hitting catchers are pretty scarce. He is solid behind the plate and we can get Garver some at bats at first while keeping his legs a bit more fresh. So basically, it boils down to possibly a decision between keeping Cron or Castro (I don't think we keep both). Thoughts?
If it's Cron vs. Castro, Castro without a doubt, right? Cron is way more replaceable.
Agreed. Catching depth looks thin/non-existent. I like Astudillo but him being the secondary catcher rather than a turtle-Gonzalez makes me uncomfortable about what happens when Garver gets hurt.
Yeah. Marwin plays a good first and is almost a good a hitter (plus has a lot of versatility). I'm not convinced Astudillo is anything more than a 25th guy. Though having all three again is fine. Gives Garver more rest if needed
I'll come out and say it. If Astudillo can't learn a little patience, I don't really think he's even a 25th guy.
Yeah, he is kind of a fun guy to have on the team, but I have zero confidence in his ability to have a quality at bat in a tough situation against an above average pitcher.
If its an either or my money is on Cron depending on whatever his surgery ends up being for this thumb. I don't know that the Twins will be competitive for Castro's services price and playingtime-wise.
I’d be fine with keeping Castro, though it’s too bad he’s the lefty hitter in the “platoon.”
With the lack of good free agent catchers out there besides (probably) Grandal, I think someone (Angels?) will give him a deal to be their starter. Have to think he'd rather do that than come back here to be Garver's backup.
Air resistance in the playoffs has shot up to the highest level since 2016, causing fewer homers. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the postseason baseball is totally different than the one used in the regular season. https://t.co/U4NBMd05k9pic.twitter.com/bdIl09blQF
I don't have access to the article, but...... that's something.
Maybin's homer had the highest launch angle of any homer the Yankees hit all year, so I wonder what that was about.
I doubt this would have changed the Twins/Yankees series (since the Yankees were also reliant on homers), but if the ball is different that would be dumb given the Twins' major strength this year.
Probably used the old ball when the Yankees were at bat and the new one when the Twins came up.
I *almost* believe you could get away with that if you really tried. I bet it’s totally the sort of thing that could happen 100 years ago in baseball.
Bill Veeck would've tried it.
Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the postseason baseball is totally different than the one used in the regular season.
And the 2020 baseball? Time to hold that record forever.
There are a couple guys who the Twins probably would like to sign to an extension, if they can come to an agreement with the player. Sanó might be the most interesting question here — do you extend him, hoping he’s turned a corner with his health & consistency? Or go year-to-year? (Obviously Sanó probably has his own ideas about what he’d like.) Dyson seems like a no-brainer non-tender — the cost to acquire him is sunk, and he’s a free agent after next season — and Cron could be a non-tender again this off-season, too.
Also another option for Pérez the Twins. $7 million for next year or $500k buyout. One win in free agency is somewhere above $8 million and Pérez provided 0.3 rWAR. Sounds like a decision as easy as Cruz's in the other direction.
I agree with this idea.
I think Sanó has turned a corner, but I also think he's a DH after Cruz is gone, so it all depends on whether or not you want to pay a DH like that (then again, Cruz showed that the DH position potentially has quite a bit of value).
They should take another shot at extending Berrios, though I'm curious whether he'll try to get at least one more season under his belt before he really thinks about it. He's an all star with superstar potential.
Cron and Dyson seem like non-tenders.
I forgot to add in my LTE that Dyson might not even pitch at all next year. I wouldn't mind a two-year deal like what Pineda had but that's it.
I was thinking the same thing — Dyson likely won’t pitch in his last year of control, so I can’t imagine they’re going to pay him.
The other side of the Sano DH coin is that he has a much better chance of not spending time on the IL.
I keep thinking about Cron's defense being very valuable to our otherwise defensively challenged infield, and how that might make him worth keeping around (notwithstanding one key play...). It seems like a close call to me.
+3 DRS and -1 UZR. Doesn't look especially difficult to replace.
At a minimum, I suspect Sano might not replicate it.
Tyler White will be available.
Is someone I didn't advocate for going to follow me around for a while?
As long as you keep posting Jaffe columns, probably.
Even if he covers something completely different? Is Jaffe actually a hack writer and I haven't realized it? I'm definitely a dumb reader. I generally don't pay attention to the author and only linked to it because it popped up in my reader right after seeing the Rob Arthur tweet and wanted to attribute the writer.
It's my bad. I don't mean it to be that serious. I know you didn't advocate for White. The gag was only meant to be about Jaffe, who I do think is a hack, but anybody else's judgement of his writing is up to them. (Last time I did the bit, it was in response to a post of his ALDS preview).
I only got it this time because of that response. I completely forgot who he was. Which, I suppose supports your point on how much the Twins missed out there.
Since I'm here, let me write some stuff about Cron/the first base situation (not that anyone should take me too authoritatively either).
As a long time advocate of the position that "all first basemen are the same (except James Loney (and also Tyler White))", I wouldn't really want to pay Cron the projected number for his final arb year. I agree with you and Al below that Cron's defense is not special and only looks good in comparison to Sano/Adrianza at first. On the other hand, I care a lot more about bad multi year deals than bad one year deals, so if they bring him back it won't bother me a lot either. I personally don't think Sano is ever going to be a big chunk of the plan at first; I agree with nibbish that his future is exclusively DH and they'll live with playing him at third till then where at least his arm can do something positive sometimes. I don't love the idea of planning to use Gonzalez a lot at first since the value of Gonzalez is mostly in playing him in lots of spots, but as I also said, I think Castro will be harder to bring back than Cron, so if Castro's gone, they may need to play Garver more at catcher than they did this year. Which is to say, I could see a grouping of Gonzalez/Garver/Sano once in a while as the bulk of first base usage, but that probably relies on having a reliable second catcher. Eventually I think the idea is to get Kirilloff or Rooker if/when they're ready to be long term options at first (assuming they too can hack it there defensively, which is an open question in at least Rooker's case). So having one guy (Cron) as the bridge to one of those guys might make more sense than planning on a collection of guys who are used primarily in other spots. But, if I'm wrong about, say, Castro's market, then I'd agree I'd rather have him back than Cron and use Garver more at first.
Quickly checks to see if Punto is playing for Italy. Danny V was playing for someone's national team too, Israel maybe?
Update: I do not understand olympic baseball this go around and don't have the energy to examine what looks like a crazy cluster___ at first glance.
Okay well Punto isn't on ITA's roster I was right about Danny V though. Twins 1B solution ...?
A day late and a run short, but my opinion of the 2019 Twins is that it was a fun season! Its way more fun to have your favorite team win 100 games than it is to lose a 100 games. We've been there done that and its not fun. We got to know a few new exciting players (Luis Arraez for example) got some great nicknames (La Tortuga! Bomba Squad!) and saw some youngish players take some positive step towards being bigtime players (Kepler, Buxton). While it sucks to flame out against the Yankees again it sure beats the alternative of being out of the pennant race by Memorial Day. A few tweaks of the roster and we'll be back next year kicking Cleveland's butt.
My wishlist for the offseason includes a stud pitcher (of course every team wants that), another LHRP to help Rogers (a reunion with Frankie Liriano?) and a better 4th OFer than Jake Cave
🙂
I’ll just leave this here.
randy dobnak’s response to maybin’s celebratory uber tweet is one of the greatest comebacks in MLB history pic.twitter.com/7UZ3VmtEGs
You know, for some additional perspective I would say what happened to the Dodgers is a whole lot more disappointing than what happened to the Twins.
Yep. They were top 3 in the 4ltr Power Poll for pretty much the entire season.
Pretty much the entire decade
The Dodgers’ loss is like getting dumped at the altar. The Twins’ loss is like watching all your friends get married while you can’t hold a relationship for longer than 6 months. Different kinds of pain.
I'd say a team like the Orioles would be like you're married with kids and jealous of all your childless friends who go on exotic vacations because they have money.
Trueblood is contributing to Twins Daily now? This is fantastic news.
I also agree with this article completely.
😁
Should be a fairly regular gig, I understand.
At this point, we put a pair of jack-o-lanterns on each side of the porch, and it's pulling teeth to get me to carve them. Gone are the days of Runner daughter's chalk outline on the driveway with ketchup spattered around
Tuesday we had a high in the 70s. Today we're in the middle of a snowstorm.
I don't do decorations of any kind. I leave that all up to my wife, regardless of the occasion.
Salt River keeps rolling, as they defeated Glendale 6-2. The Rafters are 12-5 and lead both Mesa and Scottsdale by four games.
Luke Raley was 0-for-3. He is batting .174/.245/.283 in 46 at-bats.
Dakota Chalmers pitched 1.2 innings, giving up one run on one hit and five walks. He struck out four. His ERA is 4.50 with 17 strikeouts and 10 walks in 10 innings.
Jovani Moran struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up a walk. His ERA is 3.00 with 11 strikeouts and 8 walks in 6 innings.
Zach Neff struck out two in a perfect inning. His ERA is 2.08 with 9 strikeouts and no walks in 8.2 innings.
Kapler fired.
Lot of firings with a few retirements makes me wonder what the record is for open manager positions in the offseason.
This surprises me a bit. I thought they would give him one more year. I think Maddon and Girardi are going to nicely benefit from the demand for their services.
Ugh, do we have to have Girardi back in the league?
The manager merry go round might be good fodder for a bracket challenge?
Reading through a few off season articles. One decision I am stuck on a bit is whether to keep Castro. First thought is let him go and get Garver more playing time. But further thoughts bring me to keep him, as lefty hitting catchers are pretty scarce. He is solid behind the plate and we can get Garver some at bats at first while keeping his legs a bit more fresh. So basically, it boils down to possibly a decision between keeping Cron or Castro (I don't think we keep both). Thoughts?
If it's Cron vs. Castro, Castro without a doubt, right? Cron is way more replaceable.
Agreed. Catching depth looks thin/non-existent. I like Astudillo but him being the secondary catcher rather than a turtle-Gonzalez makes me uncomfortable about what happens when Garver gets hurt.
Yeah. Marwin plays a good first and is almost a good a hitter (plus has a lot of versatility). I'm not convinced Astudillo is anything more than a 25th guy. Though having all three again is fine. Gives Garver more rest if needed
I'll come out and say it. If Astudillo can't learn a little patience, I don't really think he's even a 25th guy.
Yeah, he is kind of a fun guy to have on the team, but I have zero confidence in his ability to have a quality at bat in a tough situation against an above average pitcher.
If its an either or my money is on Cron depending on whatever his surgery ends up being for this thumb. I don't know that the Twins will be competitive for Castro's services price and playingtime-wise.
I’d be fine with keeping Castro, though it’s too bad he’s the lefty hitter in the “platoon.”
With the lack of good free agent catchers out there besides (probably) Grandal, I think someone (Angels?) will give him a deal to be their starter. Have to think he'd rather do that than come back here to be Garver's backup.
I don't have access to the article, but...... that's something.
Maybin's homer had the highest launch angle of any homer the Yankees hit all year, so I wonder what that was about.
I doubt this would have changed the Twins/Yankees series (since the Yankees were also reliant on homers), but if the ball is different that would be dumb given the Twins' major strength this year.
Probably used the old ball when the Yankees were at bat and the new one when the Twins came up.
I *almost* believe you could get away with that if you really tried. I bet it’s totally the sort of thing that could happen 100 years ago in baseball.
Bill Veeck would've tried it.
And the 2020 baseball? Time to hold that record forever.
Jaffe also writes about the home runs too.
MLBTR released its projected arbitration salary projections for the 2020 season. The Twins have ten players up for arbitration:
Adrianza ($1.9m)
Berríos ($5.4m)
Buxton ($2.9m)
Cron ($7.7m)
Duffey ($1.1m)
Dyson ($6.4m)
May ($2.1m)
Rogers ($3.9m)
Rosario ($8.9m)
Sanó ($5.9m)
There are a couple guys who the Twins probably would like to sign to an extension, if they can come to an agreement with the player. Sanó might be the most interesting question here — do you extend him, hoping he’s turned a corner with his health & consistency? Or go year-to-year? (Obviously Sanó probably has his own ideas about what he’d like.) Dyson seems like a no-brainer non-tender — the cost to acquire him is sunk, and he’s a free agent after next season — and Cron could be a non-tender again this off-season, too.
Also another option for Pérez the Twins. $7 million for next year or $500k buyout. One win in free agency is somewhere above $8 million and Pérez provided 0.3 rWAR. Sounds like a decision as easy as Cruz's in the other direction.
I agree with this idea.
I think Sanó has turned a corner, but I also think he's a DH after Cruz is gone, so it all depends on whether or not you want to pay a DH like that (then again, Cruz showed that the DH position potentially has quite a bit of value).
They should take another shot at extending Berrios, though I'm curious whether he'll try to get at least one more season under his belt before he really thinks about it. He's an all star with superstar potential.
Cron and Dyson seem like non-tenders.
I forgot to add in my LTE that Dyson might not even pitch at all next year. I wouldn't mind a two-year deal like what Pineda had but that's it.
I was thinking the same thing — Dyson likely won’t pitch in his last year of control, so I can’t imagine they’re going to pay him.
The other side of the Sano DH coin is that he has a much better chance of not spending time on the IL.
I keep thinking about Cron's defense being very valuable to our otherwise defensively challenged infield, and how that might make him worth keeping around (notwithstanding one key play...). It seems like a close call to me.
+3 DRS and -1 UZR. Doesn't look especially difficult to replace.
At a minimum, I suspect Sano might not replicate it.
Tyler White will be available.
Is someone I didn't advocate for going to follow me around for a while?
As long as you keep posting Jaffe columns, probably.
Even if he covers something completely different? Is Jaffe actually a hack writer and I haven't realized it? I'm definitely a dumb reader. I generally don't pay attention to the author and only linked to it because it popped up in my reader right after seeing the Rob Arthur tweet and wanted to attribute the writer.
It's my bad. I don't mean it to be that serious. I know you didn't advocate for White. The gag was only meant to be about Jaffe, who I do think is a hack, but anybody else's judgement of his writing is up to them. (Last time I did the bit, it was in response to a post of his ALDS preview).
I only got it this time because of that response. I completely forgot who he was. Which, I suppose supports your point on how much the Twins missed out there.
Since I'm here, let me write some stuff about Cron/the first base situation (not that anyone should take me too authoritatively either).
As a long time advocate of the position that "all first basemen are the same (except James Loney (and also Tyler White))", I wouldn't really want to pay Cron the projected number for his final arb year. I agree with you and Al below that Cron's defense is not special and only looks good in comparison to Sano/Adrianza at first. On the other hand, I care a lot more about bad multi year deals than bad one year deals, so if they bring him back it won't bother me a lot either. I personally don't think Sano is ever going to be a big chunk of the plan at first; I agree with nibbish that his future is exclusively DH and they'll live with playing him at third till then where at least his arm can do something positive sometimes. I don't love the idea of planning to use Gonzalez a lot at first since the value of Gonzalez is mostly in playing him in lots of spots, but as I also said, I think Castro will be harder to bring back than Cron, so if Castro's gone, they may need to play Garver more at catcher than they did this year. Which is to say, I could see a grouping of Gonzalez/Garver/Sano once in a while as the bulk of first base usage, but that probably relies on having a reliable second catcher. Eventually I think the idea is to get Kirilloff or Rooker if/when they're ready to be long term options at first (assuming they too can hack it there defensively, which is an open question in at least Rooker's case). So having one guy (Cron) as the bridge to one of those guys might make more sense than planning on a collection of guys who are used primarily in other spots. But, if I'm wrong about, say, Castro's market, then I'd agree I'd rather have him back than Cron and use Garver more at first.
I don't think hours defense is that great.
Looks like Justin Morneau is coming out of retirement.
!!!
Quickly checks to see if Punto is playing for Italy. Danny V was playing for someone's national team too, Israel maybe?
Update: I do not understand olympic baseball this go around and don't have the energy to examine what looks like a crazy cluster___ at first glance.
Okay well Punto isn't on ITA's roster I was right about Danny V though. Twins 1B solution ...?
A day late and a run short, but my opinion of the 2019 Twins is that it was a fun season! Its way more fun to have your favorite team win 100 games than it is to lose a 100 games. We've been there done that and its not fun. We got to know a few new exciting players (Luis Arraez for example) got some great nicknames (La Tortuga! Bomba Squad!) and saw some youngish players take some positive step towards being bigtime players (Kepler, Buxton). While it sucks to flame out against the Yankees again it sure beats the alternative of being out of the pennant race by Memorial Day. A few tweaks of the roster and we'll be back next year kicking Cleveland's butt.
My wishlist for the offseason includes a stud pitcher (of course every team wants that), another LHRP to help Rogers (a reunion with Frankie Liriano?) and a better 4th OFer than Jake Cave
🙂
I’ll just leave this here.
Amazing. I enjoyed Dobnak before, now I love him.
That's a third degree burn.