All Things 2022 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

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I am thinking the twins need to utilize an opener more often. They have 3 guys that are clearly not trusted to pitch in close games: Duffey, Thornburg, Thielbar. With only having 8 bullpen arms you can’t have dead spots on the roster. The starters also only get 5 innings or so each game, so you are asking for 4 innings out of the bullpen every game. I would like to see Duffey start for an inning and then bring out Bundy to hopefully go 2-6. Then you’re asking for 3 innings at the end which is more doable. Plus maybe it helps Duffey to get his mojo back to record some outs. If it goes bad and he gives up 3 runs at least you have 9 innings or 8 innings to catch up as opposed to 2. Just a thought given how hamstrung Rocco is with the abomination of a bullpen the front office gave him.
Something has to change cause this is insanity doing the same thing over and over. Part of me wants Rocco to bring in the other bullpen stuffs in close games to show the front office the absolute garbage he has been left with.
 




Breakin' The Plane said:
Buxton out of the lineup again today. More adventures with Nick Gordon in CF.
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Yeah, rocco talked quite a bit about buxton on the post game last night. He is dealing with a few different injury issues that are really making it difficult for him.
 




Oliva, puckett, liriano, mauer, morneau, kubel, buxton, royce lewis. I'm probly forgetting some. Twins must lead the league in devastating injuries to potentially hall of fame caliber players.
 

golf said:
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The Twins have the 4th highest innings pitched by their relievers this year in all of MLB. Rocco was relying on his bullpen WAY too much since he had 14 arms to start the season. Now they're all already gassed not even halfway through the season. If Rocco would allow his starters to go farther than 75 pitches, the suspect bullpen wouldn't be as important.

OK, the analytics say that you shouldn't leave your starter in for a third time through the lineup. Maybe in a vacuum in a single game that makes sense. But if it means churning through your not-very-good bullpen 5 innings every game, it's not going to hold up over the course of a season. I bang this drum constantly, but this organization as currently set up is paralyzed by analytics.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.a...tdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=12,d
 



While I'm on the rag Rocco train...in the post game last night, they said Rocco said he almost never gives a sign for a straight steal, and almost never gives a sign to NOT steal, leaving it almost entirely to the individual player. WTF are you doing in the dugout? Isn't that your f'n job to make calls like that?
 

forever a gopher said:
The Twins have the 4th highest innings pitched by their relievers this year in all of MLB. Rocco was relying on his bullpen WAY too much since he had 14 arms to start the season. Now they're all already gassed not even halfway through the season. If Rocco would allow his starters to go farther than 75 pitches, the suspect bullpen wouldn't be as important.

OK, the analytics say that you shouldn't leave your starter in for a third time through the lineup. Maybe in a vacuum in a single game that makes sense. But if it means churning through your not-very-good bullpen 5 innings every game, it's not going to hold up over the course of a season. I bang this drum constantly, but this organization as currently set up is paralyzed by analytics.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.a...tdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=12,d
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Yes. I feel the same way about bunting. The situations on Tuesday in the 10th and 11th innings called for bunts. Using analytics as a general guideline is fine, but shouldn't be set in stone.
 

forever a gopher said:
While I'm on the rag Rocco train...in the post game last night, they said Rocco said he almost never gives a sign for a straight steal, and almost never gives a sign to NOT steal, leaving it almost entirely to the individual player. WTF are you doing in the dugout? Isn't that your f'n job to make calls like that?
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My disdain for him comes from his first season as a manager. Polanco bunted in what modern baseball says would be a bit of an unconventional situation. The media asked him why he asked for a bunt there and he said something like, "You'll have to ask him. That's his call."
 

Bases loaded no outs as soon as the bullpen enters the game.

For all the people saying they need to go get a starter and two bullpen arms.
1.) who do you want
2.) who you gonna give up

The twins prospect pool ain’t exactly deep and it is littered with injuries so not sure those guys can be traded. I don’t thinks it’s realistic to expect the twins to trade that many prospects in order to get a front line starter and two bullpen arms.
 



Smeltzer throws 6 shoutout innings, giving up a whopping three hits, but gets pulled because he was approaching that magic number where a pitcher's arm falls off if he throws 100 pitches in a game.
 

That’s a bold play to take Duran out with 4k’s to put Thielbar into the game. Seems cute again like last night.
 



Breakin' The Plane said:
Buxton out of the lineup again today. More adventures with Nick Gordon in CF.
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Thanks for the reverse jinx... on offense! Keep it up GH! Nearly every time you've ragged on a player, they respond the very next day. Let's see what Rocco can do now after the last few days of calls to run him off!
 

From the Parkinglot said:
What has been that he has chronic knee issues and will struggle to stay healthy the rest of his career with the twins?
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It has been known that sitting him for 2 weeks isn't going to make a difference for 2022. Don't know if that's going to be case for the duration of his career or if there's a procedure/ rest-rehab that can get him more healthy long term.

Perhaps there's a new ailment which will make a Buxton Injured List move inevitable.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
My disdain for him comes from his first season as a manager. Polanco bunted in what modern baseball says would be a bit of an unconventional situation. The media asked him why he asked for a bunt there and he said something like, "You'll have to ask him. That's his call."
Click to expand...
Can't argue with anything Rocco did today, which I'm sure as always, was done with guiding principles set up by the Falvey-Levine computer brain trust.

I was at the game today. Pleasant day to play hooky from work and sit in the shade with a couple of Summit Slugfests.

I'm ready for a nap.
 

Shudder to think where we’d be without Smelter- so great he stuck with it And figured out how to make his stuff work at this level.
Sneaky Twins MVP of the first half🏆
 

Winder optioned to St. Paul after his rehab start - likely to get one of the games vs. Cleveland on the upcoming DH next week; team’s can add an extra player for a double dip
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Winder optioned to St. Paul after his rehab start - likely to get one of the games vs. Cleveland on the upcoming DH next week; team’s can add an extra player for a double dip
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He should be in the rotation to stay after that. Bundy to the bullpen. If not, Winder to the bullpen. Either way, he is one of our 13 best pitchers.
 

On Buxton, I have read that patellar tendonitis has several treatment options.

there is a surgical procedure that can be done, but that is fairly rare - kind of a last-case scenario.

one option is that plasma-rich platelet treatment that KAT recently tried for the Wolves.

also saw an article that Royce Lewis had a newer type of ACL surgery that is supposed to provide more support for the knee going forward and hopefully reduce the chance of additional injury.
 

Twins offense is lifeless again for the 2nd straight day as they lose 1-0 to a Rockies team that was 10 games below .500 and had a pitcher on the mound with an era of 6.16 prior to throwing 7.2 innings of scoreless ball tonight. It's the 6th time in the past 11 games that the Twins offense has scored 2 runs or less.
 

RealU said:
Twins offense is lifeless again for the 2nd straight day as they lose 1-0 to a Rockies team that was 10 games below .500 and had a pitcher on the mound with an era of 6.16 prior to throwing 7.2 innings of scoreless ball tonight. It's the 6th time in the past 11 games that the Twins offense has scored 2 runs or less.
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This team just can't develop hitters or draft them. It just goes on and on and on, year after year after year.

Arraez and that's it. Buxton doesnt count as he was a top pick.
 
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Well we should know by the end of the month whether we can adjust our viewing schedules for the rest of the summer

That Toronto series seems like a lifetime ago at this point - infinity Ugh
 


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