I couldn't pay as much attention as I would have liked to that game, but I'm hoping there's a Grand Plan from on high about to kick in (I don't mean that heretically, just that I hope a solution appears).
Man, it was a close game and I was distracted from most it so I can't nitpick, but I hope they can figure it out. From what I saw though, it sure did look like McDaniels and KAT had themselves a game.
Speaking of which, sacrifice bunting with Joey Gallo on deck is one heck of a master plan
Here's two Joey Gallo numbers for you:
.556
.568
Which one is his 2024 strikeout percentage and which one is OPS? I question the master plan of any team that has Gallo taking up a 40-man spot at this point.
The Yankees broke him permanently.
I think the Wolves are hiding Ant's injury. He hurt his back in game 6 and hasn't been the same since.
Yeah, he appeared to be favoring in the 4th quarter last night
Speaking of puzzling master plans:
Ages of the Twins pitchers on their opening day roster in 1988: 29, 33, 37, 43, 31, 38, 43, 32, 28, 28.
That's an average age of 34. By May 4th, the three oldest played their last games in the major leagues. By the end of the season, their average age was down to 29.6.
Twins were 8-13 in April and despite not having another losing month they never could catch the A's.
Considering the A's finished with 13 more wins, the Twins would've needed to go 17-4 that month if everything else stayed the same. Poor Blyleven led the league in losses despite a great FIP.
Oh, for sure. But they never really competed all year and the year was seen as a "down" year by the media, despite the team being much better than the year before. Of course, a lot of that vitriol was for the Herr/Brunansky trade. While stupid, that trade didn't make much of a difference. I wonder if there's any articles out there from the Twins brain trust about why they thought Carlton, Niekro, or Martinez had anything left in the tank.
Yeah, media continually pointed at 1988 as a huge letdown from the WS season, but many on the team had career years in '88
When you win a WS, you don't just hand out walking papers left and right. Unless they're Steve Carlton
The Twins essentially had two starting pitchers in 1987, three if you count Les Straker. The other rotation starters, at various points, were Niekro, Mike Smithson, Carlton, Mark Portugal, and Juan Berenguer (who actually was very good in six starts). In 1988 Allan Anderson came along, which gave them three starters, but Blyleven's ERA ballooned to 5.43 (although with a very good FIP, as sean points out). The other rotation starters in 1988 were Straker, Charlie Lea, and Freddie Toliver. I don't think their plan was specifically to use old pitchers. They were just desperate for pitchers, period. It's really pretty remarkable that their teams were as good as they were, given that starting rotation.
The one constant, of course, was Frank Viola. He was very good in 1987 and even better in 1988.
I wonder if, despite winning a World Series, decent pitchers didn't want to sign with the Twins because of the reputation of it being the homer dome. Or Pohlad was just cheap.
Pohlad was cheap. Many of those pitchers had been released by other teams.
Question 1, a two parter: would you want one, and if so, which?
Question 2: would you prefer any of the other MN teams?
1) we're getting too much like blue line flags when you alter colors like that, in my mind. Die was cast - I'll just take the official one.
2) huh?
These are recolored with the official TWolves pallette.
Here are the other ones I've mocked up. These are quick and dirty, I'd do them again more nicely
Damn. I saw at work that Naz Reid towels were back up, but they were gone by the time I got home.