caulfield12

TLR? Madrigal? Grandal? Doppler Radar/the weather channel forecasts?

Yes, mostly, his first year (compared to expectations, which were so much higher for those other three you listed)...but huge sophomore slump. Not quite like Beckham's first 4+ months, but it was solid, comparable to Eloy his rookie year.

It seems like one of those games Dunning potentially gets too amped up, overthrows...and only lasts 2-3 innings. We shall see.

I thought this was going to be Jerksticks until I looked up and saw poster’s name. Brooks Boyer and Merkin will be strongly disappointed. Actually, it should be Minoso, Pierce or Aparicio/Fox.

Nelson Cruz is just unreal...when he’s able to be in the lineup. That prediction didn’t age well. 10-7 Twins now. Collision of two teams trending in opposite directions.

Right forearm tightness. Another likely surgery candidate. He joins the startling list of Clevinger, Morejon, Baez in the last 12 months. Strahm had knee surgery, too, another guy who used to be capable of starting. They currently have Weathers spot starting, Paddack scuffling since last season but holding on due to attrition and Gore probably the next man up. Likely still a wild card team, but few teams could survive the loss of three starters and then another Top 75 guy.

Can we get Ben Badler to answer some FS questions,...particularly the reasons for our seeming reluctance to sign the youngest Latin American prospects? Risk mitigation? More projectability closer to 18? Morals/ethics/birth certificate manipulation? Is this philosophy coming from JR or Paddy/front office?

So God is on his side, too? Doesn’t always work for Notre Dame in big games...but Jesus, definitely a HoF type quality person, that’s for sure.

No different than a rain shortened one, like Melido Perez pulled off back in the day...

Maeda getting bombed, A’s really taking it to the Twins and now likely to win their 11th in a row. First time in a while that Donaldson, Cruz are together in the same line-up.

And, in all fairness, Bohm is also now up and not exactly lighting the world on fire, either.

Probably also a financial decision as much as anything...get a much bigger crowd in around Memorial Day rather than freezing one’s butt off near the lake in April.

So now we have DHer against KC on May 14th and another one 2 1/2 weeks later. Still better with minor starting in first week of May to get more looks at options like Lambert and Stiever. Also, the minor league season extending to the end of September and playoffs into early October will be interesting to keep an eye on...what impact, if any, that has on teams/rosters.

If you have an entire lineup built with this mentality (get em on, over and in), like the 2014-15 Royals, it can work. But it has to be the entire team’s mindset, like the 2005 White Sox with Pods and Iguchi setting the table for the 3-4-5 hitters. Right now, it’s a blend, but still more free swinging, high K hitters. Mercedes has been really good at making contact. Eaton’s a huge step up from Mazara. Madrigal. Even Robert is a much improved pure hitter, just lacking the homers to show for it.

The difference is huge, though, between spending $170-200 million and being in the White Sox and Twins’ current midrange (literally #15/16) in terms of Opening Day payrolls. You can look at it as we’re $80 million ahead of the very bottom (Indians) or $42 million behind the small market Padres. That’s also $68 million behind the Yankees and $116 million behind LAD. The Yankees and Astros are ahead of the Mets, and then also you have the Phillies, Angels and Red Sox. So you could describe only the Dodgers as truly unfettered spenders. It’s just the odds of making the postseason and especially advancing decrease by roughly one standard deviation for teams 11-20 and then again for 21-30.

Stiever...

Avi's around a mid 700's OPS and Omar Narvaez suddenly looks like a world-beater on offense again. Narvaez is at almost at a 1.000 OPS and hitting .386 with a couple of homers and 8 RBI's.

I love how the ad/banner in this thread is cotton face masks...many designs and choices, affordable, 100% cotton, haha.

At it again, this time @ SD. Padres will only be 1 game over .500, and 4 1/2 GB of LAD. That said, many teams would have a tough time facing Woodruff and Burnes back to back. That NL Central will be a helluva dogfight.

Still incredible there was a SECOND catcher's interference that almost led to Crochet's inning completely blowing up. They escaped this game, but they can't count on that happening against teams with better offenses/higher than $50 million payrolls, 30th in the majors. Would argue that Hahn really needs to go out...and find a veteran reliever with playoff experience to stabilize the bullpen a bit more. Hendriks is the only really "been there, done that" guy on the roster. Bummer, but he's struggled and gotten inconsistent results compared to his normal standard prior to this season.

We might win this game. But we're not going to do anything but barely survive the Central playing this way. Madrigal's throwing yips are one thing, whether it's a Knoblauch/Sax thing going on, who knows. At least he's carrying his "weight" on offense, more or less. Grandal is the highest paid player in team history, and he's playing like he's on the Jay Bruce early retirement track at age 34. Of course we could never get so lucky to save the remaining dollars on that contract, so we'll get a Konerko fade without all the pleasant memories and WS ball hand-off to JR. It's one thing if he doesn't hit, but the same mental mistakes over and over again? You can't move back a bit from the plate/batter's box? Or stop reaching forward? Rodon is going to be denied an opportunity to win the game (as it turned out after 20 minutes, they extended him over 100 pitches.) The bullpen will have to cover an extra inning. Rodon is throwing 15-20 additional high stress pitches after a no-no, where he gave everything he had physically down to the very last out. This bullpen will not survive the season with things going as they are...no matter how vaunted it was in the offseason. I didn't even see the Moncada deflection, so until I watch the replay I'll have to reserve judgment, but there were THREE freaking plays in one inning that could have been made. Granted, Anderson got the out at home and spared a complete letdown (I was expecting Hernandez to have hit a bases clearing double or triple on my At-Bat phone app upon refreshing.) Now Mercedes is out? For defensive purposes? And Leury in? They say a team is a reflection of its manager, and we're clearly (at least so far) lackadaisical, inconsistent/erratic and lacking in focus. What other explanation can there be? At least when Robin Ventura came in for the 2012 season, we went from one of the worst to one of the best defenses, playing behind over 10 rookies that pitched that season. How can we be even worse now without Eloy Jimenez on the field? Finally, Yoan Moncada has to really figure out if he's going to be a "shoulda been" MLB superstar or a rap and reggaeton impresario? I can see him having a 700-725 OPS, but in the 600's again after so many seasons to overcome his various offensive struggles, especially from the RH batter's box. Maybe he just did that? Who knows where his head is at, same with Grandal and Madrigal.

China Evergrande (a massive real estate conglomerate) having tens of billions behind their e-vehicles is the scariest indicator in that market...with no realistic plan or technical expertise to actually produce a working car, let alone prototype. Worth supposedly $87 billion, and another company overextended into areas like professional football that is far outside their core area of competency. https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3130063/shanghai-auto-show-2021-chinas-evergrande-nev-valued-us87 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-18/china-s-87-billion-electric-car-giant-hasn-t-sold-a-vehicle-yet As far as Tesla goes, there’s plenty of bad news coming from both the US and China right now...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/opinions/vaccine-passport-covid-19-baldwin/index.html Vaccine passports, technical/public safety question...or an ideological one?

Xavier for Nunge and Frederick likely to be a KY Wildcat...no way Iowa gets to tourney next year without Marcus Carr. The idea of Bohannon back and Connor McCaffrey after two hip surgeries is bleak bleak bleak to abysmal.

It’s frustrating with McCaffrey’s son blocking legit point guards... Guess it will be the Murrays, Oglesby (needs to slim down), Weiskamp, Patrick McC and Ulis, Perkins, Toussaint as rotation. Need immediate contributions from Mulvey at center and Payton Sandfort. One of those three guards will exit as well, unless Weiskamp bolts, too.