caulfield12

Or you can argue without so many blown saves, defensive blunders and getting outmanaged consistently... Most of that shows up in the respective head to head competition in the AL Central. Sox are 7-12 vs. 13-3 for the Twins, a 7 1/2 game spread. Guardians are 8-6. But we even trail KC and Detroit.

Aaron Boone showed he’s the rare manager with a backbone in the Josh Donaldson fiasco “When I first heard the name Jackie, I was really taken aback,” Boone said on Sunday. “Frankly, I was upset about it myself.” ..... From a human perspective, that’s a fairly easy statement to make. Not making racially driven jokes about people is a pretty easy thing to get on board with. But so often in the past, managers across Major League Baseball have let the name on the front of their jersey dictate their decisions. If the person under fire is on their team, the manager will often lean on empty statements about needing more information or reviewing things internally, even if it’s clear as day that their guy screwed up. That’s not what Boone did at all. While he acknowledged that the context of the situation is important — Anderson said he felt like “today’s Jackie Robinson” in a 2019 interview and Donaldson told reporters that he’s called Anderson the name before in jest without it being an issue — Boone also drew a pretty hard line, by MLB manager standards, against Donaldson’s comments. In saying that he wants the notorious agitator to “rein it in” and “read the room,” Boone went about as close to denouncing his own player as a manager can. Boone and his wife Laura have two Black children, Jeanel and Sergot, whom they adopted from Haiti. During the 2020 season, in the wake of Jacob Blake being shot seven times in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisc., Boone broke down in a press conference when discussing how hard and heavy that year had been (see video below). https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-josh-donaldson-aaron-boone-20220523-ggbnlrdzczguvd64iowjagh66a-story.html

https://nypost.com/2022/05/24/aaron-judge-critical-of-josh-donaldsons-jackie-comment/ Unsurprisingly, only one of 21 comments after the story supported Anderson. "Can't believe people are offering excuses for Donaldson and minimizing the comment. You just can't go where Donaldson went and it was very stupid of him to go that route - in New York of all places with both the media and Jackie Robinson's history - to try to rile Anderson up. Anybody with half a brain knows it's out of line." Some went after Judge for going after a teammate and "wokeness." One thought this would result in a mid-season trade of Donaldson.

Lynn was at one point late May. Jimenez mid June but nobody quite believes that one.

Minnesota 9-4 in one run games (that will even out), 14-6 in day games, 5-6 against teams over .500 AL Central Head to Head MINN 13-3 ----- CLEVE 8-6 4 GB KC 9-12 6.5 GB DET 4-8 7 GB CHW 7-12 7 1/2 GB

They have to protect Kopech throughout the middle 1/3rd of the season though.

Tigers tied it 4-4, what do you know? Former Guardian/Indian Joe Smith gave up his first run of the season for the Twins.

He's actually more likely to comment on it than most around baseball...or Stephen A. Smith.

Twins with a Kepler grand slam against a pitcher nobody has heard of with a 12 ERA.l in the bottom of the first. Likely to be 10 games over .500. Btw glad we were smart enough not to go after Javier Baez at least. The defense and base running just can't offset the offensive woes. And we will also see how the Guardians stack up against the Astros in Houston. Likely pretender, but they've been sticking in there for longer than most would have given them credit for.

https://m.startribune.com/chris-paddack-mets-padres-trade-twins-tommy-john-surgery-lavelle-neal/600175699/ Why the Mets shied away from Paddack (and Kumar Rocker)...but Twins didn't.

Now you've done it. Haven't Frank Thomas or Bo Jackson stood up for their former War Eagle/Auburn Tigers alumni?

Self-induced.

Seemingly.

One of many cases of addition by subtraction if you look at all the payroll space it created...they were able to add Correa for at least one season.

I guess a two game suspension knocked down to one would look bad for baseball...but if they don't make him serve that one, MLB under Manfred is a complete and utter joke. Might as well just cancel Jackie Robinson Day itself if they choose to take that course of action.

https://www.mlb.com/news/updated-top-100-prospects-list-may-2022 12 from the AL Central with Witt Jr. and Torkelson graduating. Still no White Sox.

The Blue Jays have a long ways to go to pull that off. Rays and Red Sox have a ton of flaws of their own on display.

https://theathletic.com/3326410/2022/05/21/white-sox-yankees-tim-anderson-josh-donaldson/?source=freedailyemail&campaign=601983 https://sports.yahoo.com/tim-anderson-never-asked-for-josh-donaldson-yankees-jackie-comment-but-he-always-answers-155216114.html This is the most well-written response to the whole situation so far. "Reveling in the moment with teammates, a hot ESPN field microphone captured him yelling, “Making motherf*****s shut the f*** up." And then he declined to say more about it after the game. Perhaps that is an answer no one can misunderstand."

https://sportsnaut.com/mlb-rotation-rankings-best-starting-pitchers/ Have to push the Mets down with top two out and Bassitt temporarily #1. Dodgers and Brewers are obviously up there. SFG when everyone is healthy. Marlins are rapidly ascending. Somehow teams like the Rays and Braves keep producing arms. Statistically the A’s have been really really good, too. https://www.mlb.com/news/best-mlb-rotations-2022 Preseason the Sox were #4. And I still think we need to look at 5-6 Cueto starts before drawing any firm conclusions. Keuchel and VV will obviously drag them down.

Let’s at least see Montgomery in High A before you start talking about having ANY type of leverage over Anderson. Odds are that Montgomery just as likely ends up at 3B or possibly second when all is said and done. He’s going to have to be Corey Seager Lite to unseat Timmy at age 31.

What’s a Jomboy?

The days of Lynn being the Sox #1 are over and gone. Woodruff has been uncharacteristically awful so far so that’s a bit of a tossup based on two months of 2022 or the last 2-3 years cumulatively. Lauer wasn’t able to hold his spot in SD at the back end of that rotation and was traded. Doesn’t have dominant stuff but can be a Greg Hibbard type for them.

Well, technically he would be 31 at the beginning of the 2025 season, after his two option years are finished, turning 32 that following June.

And the focus is quickly and increasingly going to turn to Anderson as soon as Giolito’s future is resolved, one way or the other.

Far too late for that. The die is already cast with our minors, maxed out payroll and inability to generate higher draft picks. And especially the increasingly large number of veteran contracts across this roster that need to produce over the 2022 and 2023 seasons.