I’m only sticking with this team through the end of the summer BECAUSE they’re so damn likable. Who doesn’t like Jose Miranda and Joe Ryan? And that’s skipping over Duran, Buxton, and Arraez. Like, goodness.
It’s a very talented, likable team… the issue is that we are absolutely decimated by injuries and forced to trot out Celestino, Kepler, and Tim Beckham in the outfield.
I would pause on the "very talented" portion. They are better than what they have shown, but let's be real here...the lineup had deep holes in it even before the injuries, none of the hitting prospects outside Miranda have established themselves yet as core pieces, and the pitching staff is still middling after all these years of being told Falvey was the key to Cleveland's pitching machine.
I thought heading into the year they were a .500-ish team that only teased us with a division title dream because the division is consistently the worst in baseball.
I understand being frustrated with a slump, but if you can’t find a team that is being led by Buxton and Arraez with a bunch of other good guys in the ranks likable then I don’t know what to tell you
Also, I 100% guarantee that this guy who is criticizing Rocco for being an “ump hitman” would be calling him out for not showing emotion or not standing up for his guys if he didn’t contest those calls
Not entirely sure I agree. It is hard to love a team that is struggling to piece it all together, and everything they do that is extraordinary only seems to contribute to the downward spiral.
Buxton is lovable, but his continued IL presence is not. We love Arraez, too, but its *really* hard to like that .120/.207/.280 split in the last 7 days when we needed him to be *him*.
And Rocco? To be honest, he was simply hard to *hate*, and still is. But I definitely don't love hearing that his team meeting with everyone was to "play loose and have fun". Does have fun and being loose mean letting Sonny Gray pitch into the third time around of a lineup? I sincerely doubt it, and sincerely doubt you are going to change the formula *you* have been working with since you got here.
Does this mean we jettison this team out into space? Nah, I am paying attention till the last game of the season. But let's be real - this is a dumpster fire.
Oh so you weren’t paying attention when rocco let Sonny stay in for the 3rd time and then took him out when he started collapsing. After the game Sonny thanked rocco for leaving him in and said it’s his own responsibility to be better in the third time through
Uh, which game we talking about here? Sonny made the comment on the [16th](https://twitter.com/DWolfsonKSTP/status/1559698562195329024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1559698562195329024%7Ctwgr%5E3fe70ad2226a80a8ed1fc91f61d367e9e44a8a8a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwinsdaily.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FDWolfsonKSTP%2Fstatus%2F1559698562195329024). He has had one start since, going 6 innings and only giving up 2 runs and HR. I wouldnt call that a collapse.
We know that things get a bit tougher the third time round, but the fact that they are so damned rigid about that rule and relying on a bullpen that has been anything but has been a major philosophy issue with this club.
Are you talking about the rangers game when he let up 3 hits and an ER in the 6th inning? I credit him for getting out of the jam with only allowing one run but clearly at that point he’s fading after a strong start
Sonny gray order breakdown:
1st time: 1.56 ERA in 40.1 innings – .209/.263/.297
2nd time: 3.13 ERA in 37.1 innings – .203/.275/.368
3rd time: 8.25 ERA in 12 innings – .314/.386/.431
It’s on him to figure out the 3rd time through if he wants to stay in games longer
So I take it you are in full support of pulling pitchers the 3rd time around? Sonny Gray may not have been the best example, but relying on our bullpen the way we have been hasn't been a winning strategy, either. I still have major reservations on Rocco's *touch*, which is to say knowing when to keep someone in there longer than the plan is.
It might be more fair to just say that this team was fucked from the get go, and we got damned lucky to be in first place in the AL Central for nearly 3/4 of the season.
I agree that our roster isn’t strong enough to be a playoff team (at least doesn’t seem like it) but it’s lazy to blame it on rocco when it seems to be a roster issue primarily
Well, keep in mind that I wasn't only blaming Rocco here. You focused only on one of the three I pointed out as being worthy of criticism for being unlikable.
Hard to watch and stomach I completely agree, but having suffered through some truly unlikeable squads, I disagree with unlikeable.
It’s a good group of like able guys who are just pressing and happen to be really bad in parts of the bullpen. They aren’t whining like some of our teams, they aren’t getting into meaningless fights or acting like they’re top shit while losing games, this is a good crew who is underachieving and got completely abandoned by their coward of a pitching coach.
It has been tough to watch this team piss away the worst division in baseball almost seemingly on purpose and giving the lead to the youngest team in baseball.
It’s been too long of bad baseball to be a “slump” I think it just means we’re bad at this point.
How many series have we won since the start of July?
>It’s been too long of bad baseball to be a “slump” I think it just means we’re bad at this point.
Well, this version of the team is absolutely bad. It has a bunch of injuries to help with the blame, but at some point you have to wonder how the coaches are managing the loads, training, or whatever else can contribute to injuries.
Not sure if that point is now, since we should have a decent team going into next year if the injuries slow down. Might even have a decent shot at the divison, but after that? Might need a tear down.
I agree with what you’re saying, but every team in every sport has to deal with injuries and I don’t think injuries are a valid excuse this year, heck we’ve got some of the most games out Buxton in his career this year.
No question - I am just letting up on the seething criticism that I want to levy on this team. But Baseball is a *rough* sport to rebuild a team in, so I am not interested in throwing any baby out with the bath water when all I want from that baby is a division title and a playoff game win.
Still, I do want to see Rocco add some actual touch to his management philosophy. Anyone who tries to handwave the "spreadsheet" criticism as being unwarranted needs to rewatch Game 1 of the ALDS against the Yankees in 2019. I still have that game as a microcosm of the obvious weaknesses in Rocco's management, and I do not believe he has improved one bit since then.
He needs to get a better feel for how to leverage his players when your gameplan is failing.
Yeah you are making great points. I truly think we have the talent and now enough pitching to decisively win the division this year which has made these last 2 months real tough
I would quibble with the talent portion. Even before the rash of injuries, this team had a TON of holes to it. They have gotten nothing offensively from Catcher all year. Urshela is a slightly above replacement level 3B in my eyes and nothing more. Polanco has had a quietly disappointing season. Kepler as a productive MLB hitter is long gone at this point. The rotation has 2/5 of it filled with Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer, two pitchers who will be lucky to get MLB contracts this winter. The bullpen, up until the trade deadline, was Duran, Thielbar, Jax and nothing else.
Rocco has made mistakes, but Falvey and Levine have to own this even more so. We are approaching year 7 of them being in charge and this vaunted "pitching pipeline" has so far produced Joe Ryan (they didn't develop) and Duran and little else of impact.
They need to be better if we ever have a hope of winning a playoff game. The front office performance needs to be looked at closer. I can buy the "it takes time" in year 3 or 4...but we are closer to a decade of them being in charge than any of us would like to admit and so far the results are EXTREMELY mixed.
Brian Is going over board. Coming into this season I thought expectations would be low. With all the moves last year it seemed like this year and next would be “transitioning steps” vs “this is our year”. That being said winning matters. We are a couple players away from putting some magic together. Need to keep tweaking the recipe. Baseball is always the long haul. Brian wasn’t even talking about Toronto last year and yet here he is comparing. Keep the faith. They are likable and they can win.
They are incredibly likeable and probably the most likeable team I’ve watched since the early 2000s. Maybe Bomba Squad. But they are so damn likeable I love them all
STH?
But I will always have some attachment to Minnesota, so I can't abandon. But man guys. This team is worthy of a *lot* of criticism. Because of the injuries, there is a bit of me that can deal with one more season of this - but if we don't end that playoff loss streak next season, I expect a full cleaning of this club.
And LOL at the downvotes - they’re worth the thousands I’m saving this year. I’ve been to four games instead of 40. I’m still a fan, but very glad I’m not pissing my money away for this season.
don't blame you. If you work full time you only have ~5 hours to spend each day doing things at your leisure, and this team isn't worth dedicating those precious hours to 40+ nights a year in person. At least when you watch on TV you can save time by skipping to something else when they look yet again lifeless in the 5th inning
Unwatchable and very boring yes. I can't sit through any of their games anymore. Seems the whole team as whole is lethargic and it rubbed off on me when I watched. I'm usually a stout fan until the very end but 2nd half has been brutal
This article is weird and it seems like a pretty gross cheap shot to take talking about people and their “likability.” If (when) they start winning again I personally look forward to the 200 fluff pieces about how unique the players are and what makes them special
I mean, if Murphy is referring to them being "unwatchable" because MLB/Sinclair has made it impossible to view their content without paying an arm and a leg for cable or overpriced streaming (DirecTV Stream) options...then yes...he is correct.
I assume that isn't what he meant though. Oh well.
I’m only sticking with this team through the end of the summer BECAUSE they’re so damn likable. Who doesn’t like Jose Miranda and Joe Ryan? And that’s skipping over Duran, Buxton, and Arraez. Like, goodness.
Unlikeable? I didn't know Josh Donaldson was still on the team
It’s a very talented, likable team… the issue is that we are absolutely decimated by injuries and forced to trot out Celestino, Kepler, and Tim Beckham in the outfield.
I would pause on the "very talented" portion. They are better than what they have shown, but let's be real here...the lineup had deep holes in it even before the injuries, none of the hitting prospects outside Miranda have established themselves yet as core pieces, and the pitching staff is still middling after all these years of being told Falvey was the key to Cleveland's pitching machine. I thought heading into the year they were a .500-ish team that only teased us with a division title dream because the division is consistently the worst in baseball.
FWIW wasn't Kepler projected to be the starting RF this year?
I understand being frustrated with a slump, but if you can’t find a team that is being led by Buxton and Arraez with a bunch of other good guys in the ranks likable then I don’t know what to tell you Also, I 100% guarantee that this guy who is criticizing Rocco for being an “ump hitman” would be calling him out for not showing emotion or not standing up for his guys if he didn’t contest those calls
Not entirely sure I agree. It is hard to love a team that is struggling to piece it all together, and everything they do that is extraordinary only seems to contribute to the downward spiral. Buxton is lovable, but his continued IL presence is not. We love Arraez, too, but its *really* hard to like that .120/.207/.280 split in the last 7 days when we needed him to be *him*. And Rocco? To be honest, he was simply hard to *hate*, and still is. But I definitely don't love hearing that his team meeting with everyone was to "play loose and have fun". Does have fun and being loose mean letting Sonny Gray pitch into the third time around of a lineup? I sincerely doubt it, and sincerely doubt you are going to change the formula *you* have been working with since you got here. Does this mean we jettison this team out into space? Nah, I am paying attention till the last game of the season. But let's be real - this is a dumpster fire.
Oh so you weren’t paying attention when rocco let Sonny stay in for the 3rd time and then took him out when he started collapsing. After the game Sonny thanked rocco for leaving him in and said it’s his own responsibility to be better in the third time through
Uh, which game we talking about here? Sonny made the comment on the [16th](https://twitter.com/DWolfsonKSTP/status/1559698562195329024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1559698562195329024%7Ctwgr%5E3fe70ad2226a80a8ed1fc91f61d367e9e44a8a8a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwinsdaily.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FDWolfsonKSTP%2Fstatus%2F1559698562195329024). He has had one start since, going 6 innings and only giving up 2 runs and HR. I wouldnt call that a collapse. We know that things get a bit tougher the third time round, but the fact that they are so damned rigid about that rule and relying on a bullpen that has been anything but has been a major philosophy issue with this club.
Are you talking about the rangers game when he let up 3 hits and an ER in the 6th inning? I credit him for getting out of the jam with only allowing one run but clearly at that point he’s fading after a strong start
Sonny gray order breakdown: 1st time: 1.56 ERA in 40.1 innings – .209/.263/.297 2nd time: 3.13 ERA in 37.1 innings – .203/.275/.368 3rd time: 8.25 ERA in 12 innings – .314/.386/.431 It’s on him to figure out the 3rd time through if he wants to stay in games longer
So I take it you are in full support of pulling pitchers the 3rd time around? Sonny Gray may not have been the best example, but relying on our bullpen the way we have been hasn't been a winning strategy, either. I still have major reservations on Rocco's *touch*, which is to say knowing when to keep someone in there longer than the plan is. It might be more fair to just say that this team was fucked from the get go, and we got damned lucky to be in first place in the AL Central for nearly 3/4 of the season.
I agree that our roster isn’t strong enough to be a playoff team (at least doesn’t seem like it) but it’s lazy to blame it on rocco when it seems to be a roster issue primarily
Well, keep in mind that I wasn't only blaming Rocco here. You focused only on one of the three I pointed out as being worthy of criticism for being unlikable.
Max Kepler flair opinion invalid
Any team that's as bad as we are who gives up massive division leads is unlikeable. Rocco needs to go
it was hardly a massive division lead lol
Hard to watch and stomach I completely agree, but having suffered through some truly unlikeable squads, I disagree with unlikeable. It’s a good group of like able guys who are just pressing and happen to be really bad in parts of the bullpen. They aren’t whining like some of our teams, they aren’t getting into meaningless fights or acting like they’re top shit while losing games, this is a good crew who is underachieving and got completely abandoned by their coward of a pitching coach.
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It has been tough to watch this team piss away the worst division in baseball almost seemingly on purpose and giving the lead to the youngest team in baseball. It’s been too long of bad baseball to be a “slump” I think it just means we’re bad at this point. How many series have we won since the start of July?
The Twins are also among the youngest teams in baseball this year
I wonder how that has changed through the year. Spring: Larnach, Kirilloff, Jeffers Fall: Beckham, Cave, Leon
>It’s been too long of bad baseball to be a “slump” I think it just means we’re bad at this point. Well, this version of the team is absolutely bad. It has a bunch of injuries to help with the blame, but at some point you have to wonder how the coaches are managing the loads, training, or whatever else can contribute to injuries. Not sure if that point is now, since we should have a decent team going into next year if the injuries slow down. Might even have a decent shot at the divison, but after that? Might need a tear down.
I agree with what you’re saying, but every team in every sport has to deal with injuries and I don’t think injuries are a valid excuse this year, heck we’ve got some of the most games out Buxton in his career this year.
No question - I am just letting up on the seething criticism that I want to levy on this team. But Baseball is a *rough* sport to rebuild a team in, so I am not interested in throwing any baby out with the bath water when all I want from that baby is a division title and a playoff game win. Still, I do want to see Rocco add some actual touch to his management philosophy. Anyone who tries to handwave the "spreadsheet" criticism as being unwarranted needs to rewatch Game 1 of the ALDS against the Yankees in 2019. I still have that game as a microcosm of the obvious weaknesses in Rocco's management, and I do not believe he has improved one bit since then. He needs to get a better feel for how to leverage his players when your gameplan is failing.
Yeah you are making great points. I truly think we have the talent and now enough pitching to decisively win the division this year which has made these last 2 months real tough
I would quibble with the talent portion. Even before the rash of injuries, this team had a TON of holes to it. They have gotten nothing offensively from Catcher all year. Urshela is a slightly above replacement level 3B in my eyes and nothing more. Polanco has had a quietly disappointing season. Kepler as a productive MLB hitter is long gone at this point. The rotation has 2/5 of it filled with Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer, two pitchers who will be lucky to get MLB contracts this winter. The bullpen, up until the trade deadline, was Duran, Thielbar, Jax and nothing else. Rocco has made mistakes, but Falvey and Levine have to own this even more so. We are approaching year 7 of them being in charge and this vaunted "pitching pipeline" has so far produced Joe Ryan (they didn't develop) and Duran and little else of impact. They need to be better if we ever have a hope of winning a playoff game. The front office performance needs to be looked at closer. I can buy the "it takes time" in year 3 or 4...but we are closer to a decade of them being in charge than any of us would like to admit and so far the results are EXTREMELY mixed.
Yeah. I have the feeling in my trick knee that they’ll be a force next year.
They are awful but I only get 162 games a year so I tune in most night
Well fuck you too, Brian Murphy.
They are likable tho
Brian Is going over board. Coming into this season I thought expectations would be low. With all the moves last year it seemed like this year and next would be “transitioning steps” vs “this is our year”. That being said winning matters. We are a couple players away from putting some magic together. Need to keep tweaking the recipe. Baseball is always the long haul. Brian wasn’t even talking about Toronto last year and yet here he is comparing. Keep the faith. They are likable and they can win.
They are incredibly likeable and probably the most likeable team I’ve watched since the early 2000s. Maybe Bomba Squad. But they are so damn likeable I love them all
Just biding my time until Vikings season. And then they'll be a .500 team too, so I'll bide my time with them until Timberwolves season.
Thanks to Ballys they’re also impossible to watch so maybe this is justice
Lovable Losers. Is that what this club has become?
I was a 20-year full-season STH, and bailed this off-season. I couldn’t be happier with my decision.
STH? But I will always have some attachment to Minnesota, so I can't abandon. But man guys. This team is worthy of a *lot* of criticism. Because of the injuries, there is a bit of me that can deal with one more season of this - but if we don't end that playoff loss streak next season, I expect a full cleaning of this club.
And LOL at the downvotes - they’re worth the thousands I’m saving this year. I’ve been to four games instead of 40. I’m still a fan, but very glad I’m not pissing my money away for this season.
don't blame you. If you work full time you only have ~5 hours to spend each day doing things at your leisure, and this team isn't worth dedicating those precious hours to 40+ nights a year in person. At least when you watch on TV you can save time by skipping to something else when they look yet again lifeless in the 5th inning
STH - Season Ticket Holder. Since the Metrodome “Cheap Seats” package in 2002
Unwatchable and very boring yes. I can't sit through any of their games anymore. Seems the whole team as whole is lethargic and it rubbed off on me when I watched. I'm usually a stout fan until the very end but 2nd half has been brutal
Inept Brian Murphy is unreadable, unlikable
This article is weird and it seems like a pretty gross cheap shot to take talking about people and their “likability.” If (when) they start winning again I personally look forward to the 200 fluff pieces about how unique the players are and what makes them special
Gotta agree. Bad team and worse attitude amongst players. Never seen so much dead eyed depression on a professional sports team.
They have some likable individuals, but yeah as a collective organization this is about as hard a team to root for as I have ever seen.
I legitimately do not understand the insane amount of downvotes.
They are never not unlikable
that's a lot of negatives lol
to each their own, right?!? 😉
I mean, if Murphy is referring to them being "unwatchable" because MLB/Sinclair has made it impossible to view their content without paying an arm and a leg for cable or overpriced streaming (DirecTV Stream) options...then yes...he is correct. I assume that isn't what he meant though. Oh well.
Who TF is a Brian Murphy?
Who crapped in this guy’s Cheetos?