Has The Decision on Liriano Been Made?
Posted on April 25th, 2008 – 12:42 AMBy La Velle
I’m changing planes and about to catch a red-eye to Dallas. Got online and read a story in the Rochester newspaper that Bobby Korecky has been called up.
The Twins have not officially announced this move, but it’s standard practice for the player to be called up to be told before we’re told. And I’m sure the travel is a factor in this news not being released by the club.
As the story points out, either Francisco Liriano or Brian Bass could be headed to Rochester to create a spot for Korecky. My guess is that it’s Liriano. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire hinted strongly that Liriano needed to go to the minors and regain his confidence after falling apart against Oakland on Thursday.
Don’t forget, the Twins have three off days over an eight-day stretch starting on Monday. They could go with a four-man rotation for awhile, and this allows Gardenhire to have a fresh arm in Korecky in the bullpen after using his bullpen in relief of Liriano.
Good for Korecky. He’s not overpowering but he’s on the 40-man roster and is getting his chance.
165 Responses to "Has The Decision on Liriano Been Made?"
Sounds like Korecky will only be up until we need a fifth starter. He’s paid his dues in the minors and deserves a shot. We definitely can use another bullpen arm for the Texas series. I’d think either Mulvey or Slowey will be promoted soon. Hopefully, Liriano can go back down and start to figure things out again, because he’s still a big part of our future.
sorry but i’m reposting the following after I realized LVNIII started a new thread right after I posted. it’s something i’ve been wanting to talk about for a looong time:
everyone,
Liriano was an unusual case. I remember the first 2006 game he felt something in his elbow… it was after he slipped on his follow through which screwed up his left leg. that in turn altered his arm motion. he didnt complain of arm discomfort until later in the game.
serial MRI’s never showed elbow injury. yet Liriano kept feeling “something” in his elbow. Another pitcher on the staff, i think Silva, kept telling him that he needed to think about his long term career and not jepeordize his arm, which made him more of a headcase.
the whole idea that his “violent” arm motion (which i’m not arguing is not violent) caused either a progressive or an acute elbow injury due to his natural delivery is something i’ll never agree with, since it was precipitated by a slip and then altered mechanics for one game and since we have never seen proof of elbow injury on his multiple MRI’s.
then he had “prophylactic” TJ surgery to avoid elbow problems in the future. Twins did this b/c Liriano was not going to push himself as long as he felt something funny in his elbow and they made a calculated guess it was not going away in 2007.
If anyone doubts the above, just google “Liriano MRI”. it’s bizarre.
I am still thinking that we might see Perkins or Humber before we’ll see Mulvey. Mulvey definitely has been impressive, but he isn’t on the 40-man roster. With Liriano going down, Gardy might want another southpaw, what with all the other starters being righties. I am thinking that we will see Perkins next.
Sending Liriano down is hard for us to see (so many of us were hoping he would be back to 2006 already). However, we need to take him much more slowly. We just can’t keep sending him up to be destroyed, which he will be unless we fixes the control on his fastball, finds his slider, and loses that horrible slurve he seems to be depending on.
We’ll go with a 4-man rotation for the next week or so. When we need a 5th guy, we’ll call up Slowey. This is my prediction–for whatever it’s worth.
I agree with Hank, Slowey will be healthy by the end of next week. If he isn’t they can always call Liriano back up.
He never should have been called up in the first place. And yes I said that before he threw his first pitch this year.
Yep let Slowey get the call is needed.
I like the move. I think it’s a great idea to give this guy a chance for a week and then call up Slowey when they need a starter.
great move by the twins…hope it works out well for all involved…good luck to korecky
At least everyone has been saying that it will be 2009 before we truly know what to expect long term from Liriano. There’s no reason to rush him.
I agree that you don’t rush Liriano but shouldn’t he be a lot closer to full strength by now? His surgery was over 18 months ago, normally guys are back pitching by about 12 months and by 18 months they are at least back to full strength with many stronger after the surgery.
I am starting to question how hard the Twins pushed Liriano during his rehad and how hard Liriano pushed himself during rehab. I think time for excuses are over and Liriano needs to start improving, the Twins need to stop babying him so much and tell him it’s time he becomes a man.
I think this is a good idea. Bring up Slowey too.
Korecky, Slowey, Livan…. too many soft throwers in the organization. They will do if we have 3 others that throw 93-95 mph….but Boof, Baker and the rest are about 90 mph. Other teams scout us well and tell their big bats to sit back and wait on a fat slow one. I think Livan’s run is about over just like Ramon Ortiz started out 3-0 last year but was done by late May.
I still think our best overall prospect is Glenn Perkins. He can hit 92-93 and is as crafty as the others. Too bad the injury slowed him down, but I think he has the mental abilities to get back to the majors and do well. But we need more like him~
Is it time to start the Joe Mays comparison watch? Not everyone comes back from TJ surgery.
what a shame. there was no need or reason to rush FL. What were these jerks thinking.
Not sure whether anyone else notices the significance of Bobby Korecky joining the major league roster, LENIII, but he is actually one more bit of evidence in Chuck Knoblauch, the “gift that keeps on giving”! Recall that one of the key players for Knoblauch was, of course, Eric Milton who after serving us well for a few years we packaged off to the Phillies for Carlos Silva, Nick Punto and…Bobby Korecky! Now if we could get something of value maybe, for LNP, Knoblauch could be giving to the Twins in near perpetuity! 
They were thinking like about half the fans and bloggers who ripped the Twins when Liriano started the season in Fort Myers instead of MLB.
About the same amount of outrage as now, only 180 degrees difference due to hindsight.
lot of egg on gardy and co. face for bringing him up when not ready. the rochester people said he wasn’t ready and what did gardy say they couldn’t trust him to do his work down there. not much faith in your minor league system if thats the case. will he suddenly get the proper coaching this time?
imo gardy has made some very questionable moves this spring.
gobbledygookguy,
I’m not clear.
Is your final answer…..
Mistake to bring him up?
Mistake to send him down?
Mistake either way?
Awaiting final results before assigning mistake?
Nealcp,
Regarding the Knoblauch endless gift:
Don’t forget the Buck Buchanon-Jason Bartlett-Delmon Young/Brendan Harris/Jason Pridie string.
Why didn’t we start Liriano out of the bullpen and let the Bass kid start? The Twins small hope in this rotation is Blackburn and If the stars stay aligned and his fastball down Opie Baker. Can’t wait to see a healthy Kevin “watch this break” Slowey back in the rotation.
time to bring up Mulvey. He is working it down in AAA
I didn’t realize Gardy was the general manager.
sid i think the mistake is not having an organization in sync. the rochester people said he’s not ready so they bring him up anyway. they are supposed to be coachs doing a job and you’d hope that they did a good job and were trusted to do it. i have no idea if he was/is ready but the results are clear the rochester people were correct.
it may be time to treat him like they did santana early, an inning or two get back his command and control. i wish i had faith the organization knew what the right course of action is. right now it doesn’t look like they know what to do.
the real sid would blame it on the umps!
I’m willing to bet Liriano will never be the same, I hope I’m wrong…plug Mike Smithson in.
Didn’t know the Twins BP was taxed. Wow, 8 guys in the pen now. Don’t need a 5th starter till May 10.
Until then, Everett returns and the bench will be back to Punto/Redmond/Tolbert/Monroe. I woulda thought they’d be looking for a bat with power rather than an 8th BP pitcher.
gobbledygookguy,
The real Sid would say that his good friends, Robert Montgomery Knight and Lou Holtz were impressed by Liriano in Spring training and the Twins have certainly picked another winner.
Hey, if I can steal his name, I can steal his schtick!
I think we are finding that Liriano’s issues are as much mental as they are physical. I think the Twins wanted to hold him close for awhile so they knew what had to be fixed and whether he could do it against major league batters. Now that they know, they believe he will have to work it out in AAA.
Great news about Korecky getting his first taste of the majors (that makes him the 4th Twin this year; Bass, Span, Tolbert) He has been almost lights out this year. The Twins do not need a fifth starter until May 10th when presumably Slowey will be up. That is 15 days or so when an extra reliever might make a difference, where players like Mulvey will continue starting and racking in innings because the need them (e.g. Mulvey’s longest outing is 6 innings, he needs more in order to be an effective starter in the majors)
i don’t think mulvey is on the 40 man roster is he? if they bring him up they would have to take somebody off and his clock would start ticking. i think but could be wrong as usual.
Cheer up, Electric Jim. Liriano still has good stuff. Last Friday, he struck out 2 in the first inning. And his bullpen sessions are excellent. It’s not like he’s got a dead arm or a sore arm.
Come gametime, he’s just not throwing natural. Like Blyleven said, he needs to stretch it out in the minors, so it becomes second nature to him again.
Check the blog yesterday, gobble……the Twins appraently have 3 positions to tinker with on the 40-man, and it was reported that they are carrying only 38 currently.
I’m not sure jama and I agree on much in these threads, but I’m with him on this issue. It’s time to make Liriano accountable for his own actions (and inactions). Get him all the help he needs, whether coaches or shrinks, but he doesn’t set foot on a major league field again until he starts taking responsibility for getting his arm, his body and his head in shape to compete.
Time to grow up.
romer, I hope your right, I suppose with that kind of injury it’s hard to say hell, let’s rare back and throw it…
imo the main thing we all fail to mention is that liriano needs to get healthy so we can trade him for prospects! can’t wait for that trade speculation!
There’s no way to tell if franchise will sink or swim right now!
He needs to show some consistantancy.
I am all for letting Franchise go back to his old falling of the mound delivery!
that delivery was partly respondsilble for the unrecognisable movement on his slider! Ususally pro pitchers aren’t allowed to fall of the mound like that so hitter aren’t used to the movement that come from that style
I support sending Liriano to AAA to wake him up.
Besides, a rotation pitcher has be be demoted when Slowey comes off the DL and Liriano has had the worst starts by far.
The big unit used to throw a nasty unhittable slider when he was young and fgalling of the mound with every pitch!
After “correcting” his delivery it took a couple years before the unit was able to feel cofortable with his slider again.
liriano will probably go down to AAA.. he isnt ready yet and everyone knew it at the start… even humber isnt back yet and this is his second year back…
(we took a risk on humber because of his amazing upside if he comes back…)
it CAN take 2-3 years to come back from tj surgery if you even ever do….
and finally to end my comment
TOLBERT FOR ROY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hopefully Slowey can stop sucking!!
He’s just another boring mediocre AAAA pitcher right now!
I want Johan Back!!
I want to go to a game soon but all our pitchers suck!
I always went when Santana pitched because I like going to a game we will win!
shameless,
Please explain why the break on a slider is enhanced by falling off the mound to the glove side.
I work with a lot of pitching coaches who don’t seem to realize that.
The big shots were watching Duensing pitch for Rochester yesterday…
i hate to harp on this but our pitching isn’t the problem. team era is 5th out of 14 and without liriano would be better. team hitting, or lack thereof, is another matter, 13th in runs & slg, 14th in obp & bb, 10th ave.
put the blame or lack of production where it belongs.
sane who is that hitting coach again?
When the Twins acquired Delmon Young, Craig predicted Delmon would hit 8-9 HR this year for the Twins. Craig is sorry Craig said that, because everyone got so mad at Craig and called Craig all kinds of nasty names. Craig should have just let reality sink in slowly.
Craig predicts Delmon will hit his first HR on the pint-sized playing field in Texas. Delmon has been trying hard to knock one out, but like Craig said, Delmon has warning track power. Craig says, that won’t hurt him in Texas, though.
Craig thinks the guy who called Craig an idiot, and said Delmon was going to hit 38 HR, has changed his user name. Craig can understand why, but Craig would never hold it against him.
Kinda sucks getting scooped by the Rochester paper, doesn’t it?
Sane,
Looking at it from a physics point of view it would seem that falling off the mound to the glove side would indicate unstopable hand/arm inertia in that direction. In my opinion this inertia could indicate the imparting of greater than normal spin velocity on the ball. Having the effect of baffling hitters unused to seeing the type of ball movement caused by that spin.
TOLBERT FOR ROY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyone else agree?
I like Tolbert, but he isn’t going to play enough.
Most teams carry 12 pitchers. Some, such as Houston, carry 13. Milwaukee carries 14.
Thirteen pitchers would be ideal, especially in the AL where you really shouldn’t need a pinch hitter, and you don’t do the double switch.
Paul,
My confusion is that left-to-right (for an LHP) hand motion is a curve ball release, while normal slider release is more downward on the left side of the ball.
I am wondering if Liriano’s slider release has his two fingers in front of the ball. (ala curve ball)
If he throws the ball 92 mph with that release, violent is a good description.
With a NORMAL slider release, I don’t think falling off to the glove side would help the pitch break to the glove side very much.
I think Joba C will win ROY
gobble,
“put the blame or lack of production where it belongs.
sane who is that hitting coach again?”
I put the blame on the hitters until someone can explain to me the differences between what Vavra teaches and what the “good” batting instructors teach.
My guess is the differences are minimal, but the differences in the students are the real difference.
Here is my thought… Bass is out of options, so it won’t be him. However, does Liriano have to go to Rochester to regain his “old self”? He gives a lot of the credit for his success to Bobby Cuellar… who ironically is the New Britain manager now. I think it would make a lot of sense to send him there to work with someone who he trusts and who has helped him.
The last “good” Twins hitting coach was Terry Crowley who had Hrbek, Gaetti, Puckett, Brunansky, Gagne, Laudner, Bush, Lombardozzi and Larkin to coach and Dick Such to distract the coach-bashers.
I wonder how much service time credit has to do with the Liriano decision(s). For everyone’s information, Francisco had two years plus about a month of big league service going into this year. When he was demoted at the end of the spring, the thought was that he would be on the big-league roster by May 1, and he was despite fair to poor results in his rehab starts. His recall kept him on track for free agency after ‘11, but another demotion would move the calendar back a year. Now, no official transaction has occurred. My guess is that the Twins are looking into putting Liriano on the disabled list with immediate rehab starts and if they can’t, then they will option him to Rochester. The option would certainly be on merit and Liriano and his agent would pretty much have to accept it.
Sane,
Let’s face it. Liriano is a unique pitcher. With unusual stuff. You may be correct. But consider; Maybe he’s throwing a curve with such velocity that it doesn’t get a chance to bite and people just call it a slider.
seth,
I’m pleading bad memory, but wasn’t Cuellar’s connection with Santana?
There’s always been sometihng really wrong with the communications with Liriano… Initially with his injury he wasn’t saying anything. Then, no one knows whether he came back svelt or fat. On the radio this morning Gardy basically said Liriano needed to see for himself (by getting shelled) that he’s not working hard enough to come back. Isn’t anyone talking to him????
I thought he was up for FA next year… shouldn’t he be working extra hard to set his value??
This all seems very weird…
Sorry but we will have no summer this year it has been cancelled. Carl Pohlad was to cheap to renew the Suns contract for this year and next year and now the state taxes must pay for it.
thrylo98,
“(e.g. Mulvey’s longest outing is 6 innings, he needs more in order to be an effective starter in the majors)”
That’s not true, he pitched 7 innings in his second to last start on 93 pitches ( April 17th).But, I will give it to you that their building up his arm strength.
If you look at the box scores, the number of pitches he has thrown have been slowly rising from the 70’s to 104 in his last start.
His last start he pitched 5 2/3 IP, he had a few more walks then he usually throws and an error in the field that did not help. Still he only allowed 1 earned run on 5 hits and 5 KO.Not a bad outing.
Send down Boof and Liriano and bring up Mulvey. Another idear is send Boof in as a MR and try Bass as a starter one more time. Does Neshek’ wind up remind you of the Tin Man having a seizure
Liriano’s slider, slurve, and change are useless without a fastball. Until his has command of his fastball and can hit both sides of the plate, it doesn’t matter how well he can throw his breaking balls.
If Mulvey threw 104 pitches in his last start, he has already been stretched out. If he can get to 100 pitches in his MLB debut, he jumps ahead of Liriano, Slowey and Boof.
I would like to see if we could use Boof as a LR and send down Liriano and bring up mulvey. Is there any powewr hitters in the Twins AAA club we could bring up. Just seems like we have no ability to score any type of runs
Sometimes you have to see for yourself that a pitcher isn’t ready. What, you want Gardenhire to leave the Twins for a couple days to watch Liriano pitch in the minors?
They tried something and it didn’t work. Get over it.
Tommy John Surgeries are not real easy to come back from. Liriano isn’t just somebody you can just plug in and think oh wow here is Santana’s replacement and he is good again for 18-20 wins a season.
sane
I didn’t do any research or anything to be sure, but I would have to believe it couldn’t have been santana giving props to cuellar, as santana was with the MLB his whole time here via Rule 5 draft
I think Seth might be on the right track. Bring Liriano through the system again slowly. AA with Cuellar could be the way to get the magic back. Liriano did like working with Cuellar. Here’s a quote from 2006 from an article in this paper:
Liriano, as Gardenhire put it, “is ahead of the curve,” already possessing an excellent fastball and slider, and already having worked with Cuellar on his formidable changeup. “Bobby Cuellar, he was the man,” Liriano said.
Santana’s replacement would only have to go 15-13 3.33.
sane says:
April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Santana’s replacement would only have to go 15-13 3.33.
JEFF WEAVER???
So they wanted to bring Liriano up here and see how he fared. He got to ST late, and didn’t get to work with Anderson as much as they would have liked. They wanted Anderson to get a good look, and make his suggestions. I don’t see any problem with that. I don’t think they expected him to light the world on fire. They wanted to see where he was at against MLB competition and have their guy see what he had to work with. Now they’ve seen it and it’ll go from here.
TheGuarantee,
I thought Cuellar taught Santana his changeup, but my memory is so bad that I get a hernia trying to remember.
Santana credits Cuellar for the changeup. That is correct. I believe Johan went down for a while after spending his Rule 5 year on the major league roster.
I’m curious as to what the lineup will look like tonight with Cuddy back. I hope they put him in the 3 spot and move Mauer back to the 2 spot and i still think Gomez should be moved down to the bottom regardless of what happened yesterday.
I think Cuddy should be down the list a little ways. Make him start in like the 6 hole
Yes,
Santana stayed up his whole rule 5 year and the went down the next year and perfected the change up in Edmonton I believe.
sane that explains a lot!
sid i think it’s the umps fault!
2002 23 EDM PCL AAA MIN
5W 2L 11G 9GS 49IP 37H 24R 17ER 27BB 75K
Not a bad line there, look at those K’s
Ever since then, Santana has struck out more batters than inning pitched. Before that at the majors he had 92 K’s in 129 2/3 IP
And an ERA of 5.89
You know Gomez has 1/3 of the Twins HRs after you take Morneau and Kubel out. Gomez should probably be hitting 3rd or 5th.
lol
LNP4Life No big surprise there his biggest pitch is the changeup. His fastball is fair at 91-93 mph.
Seth, I agree. Sending Liriano to AA New Britain would be a wise choice as he’s closer with Cuellar than with Cliburn in Rochester. It’d give him (hopefully) work against the level of which he’s probably at right now, and it’d give him time to regroup with a person he trusts.
Perhaps the reason why there hasn’t been an official announcement yet is because they’re considering this? We’ll see, but I like that idea.
I think it would help Larianos confidence if they just let him pitch against our starting lineup.
liriano should go in as a MR along with Boof
I hope management is thinking like you guys. I think Liriano to Cuellar is a perfect solution. An alternative is to make Cuellar the personal pitching coach for Franchise and send them off together wherever he goes.
Just lookin’ at how my man Gomez is doing 1/8th into the season. Gomez’ relative position in various hitting stats (many are ties):
First:
SBs;
Hits;
Doubles;
Triples;
SOs (pain);
ABs
Second:
Runs scored;
TBs
Third: HRs
Fifth: RBIs
Eighth: SLG
Tenth: BBs (painful)
Eleventh: OBP (more pain)
Twelfth: AVG
I expect all or nearly all his firsts and seconds to continue. If he can fix his BBs to at least an average level and improve his Avg to .270, I will be a happy camper.
I should have said “his position relative to his teammates”; although it is pretty obvious he isn’t 3rd in the league in HRs.
bc that would mean we’d be shutout again!
i agree send him down to cueller. to bad it’s not mike cueller very good pitcher killed the twins.
For people ripping on the pitching, you do realize that all of the starers, with the exception of Liriano, have been pretty outstanding so far? There have been precious few starters getting lit up outside of Liriano, and even Boof has pitched way better than the record indicates. Lay off the starters, Liriano is the only one who needs to be sent down.
There are three issues here:
1.) Gardy blew this one, and it might cost this kid his entire season. Frankie looks like he has a head full of puss right now. He’s in better shape than ever, but he can’t pitch. Are we really to trust this next decision after that debacle?
2.) Why send Frankie to AAA??? From what we’ve seen, he might be overmatched there right now as well. Why not send him to AA for three to four starts and allow him to baby step his way back? If they send him to AAA, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll have to demote him again. He needs to get his head straight, and you just don’t do that at AAA. AAA is where guys like Slowey, Blackburn, Phillip Hughes, and a number of other young studs pitched last year. It is the high octane minor league level. It isn’t some country club.
3.) And why Korecky? He deserves a shot, but not more than Mulvey. And bringing up Korecky is assuming Slowey’s rehab will be successful and that he’ll actually get MLB hitters out once here. I love Slowey, but that’s a hell of an assumption. Meanwhile, they could give Mulvey a reward for a bona fide stellar April, and if he can’t cut it, send him down when Slowey is ready. That way we get to see if either can handle it BEFORE we piss away April AND May, as is the typical Gardenhire approach. (Why Gardy thinks April and May games are any less important than August and September is beyond most of us.)
The Twins need to put Liriano’s 2006 out of their minds and treat him like the new pitcher he is. Bring him along the same as they are Mulvey and Humber.
Korecky is the guy the Twins call on because his clock is already ticking. Korecky is already on the 40 man roster.
Bringing up Mulvey would require moving him onto the 40-man roster and therefore start his clock ticking. ‘Rewarding’ Mulvey for a good April would be sacrificing another year before he can become a free agent. If Mulvey was going to be a bona fide starter in the rotation now, you could do it … but not to be another Brian Bass.
Lala,
Agree with #2. AAA may be too high for Liriano right now.
#3 Its Korecky because, in the short term, they don’t have enough starts for a fifth starter (Mulvey). Later, Korecky goes down and Mulvey or Slowey comes up to MLB.
#1 Since ST, I was against Liriano going to MLB this year before he proved he was ready (earned the promotion).
It was a mistake, but it doesn’t prove that everyone that made that mistake is incompetent. Even some of us competent people have made some doozers.
Tell me I’m wrong, but having Guerrier and Perkins in the starting rotation would be better than at least 2 other pitchers they have there right now. Both have the command of multiple pitches, can throw up to 92 mph and have some courage and savvy others lack. They might be the 4th, 5th starters on this or any other team, but right now they could be some of our better options…
I would still bring up Mulvey. Kubel is doing just great pretty soon he will be hitting .310 with 30 + HR’s LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Fry Dog,
Perkins
0-1, 4.26, 16K, 14BB at AAA
after HORRIBLE ST. Not close to MLB starter.
Guerrier
1-1, 5.11, 8K, 4 BB
Needed in bullpen and 5.11 ERA won’t make him a starter.
“They might be the 4th, 5th starters on this or any other team”
Maybe the New Britain Rockcats.
jimmybee,
I think your a little lite on the HR’s for Kubel. I was thinking more in the 45+ range. He may need to change his name to Prince Kubel.
I have one thing off the subject to ask. I grew up in California and live in Minnesota and I can’t stand Wisconsin teams. Why is the U of M in Basketball and Football so bloody pathetic. Also Wisconsin sits next door to Minnesota and they have a pretty good program over there. In other words why were we lame enough to get a used car salesman in Brewster to coach our U of M football team
LNP4Life I would have to agree with the “Prince” name/title especially after he starts getting in the 130-140 RBI range
jimmy bee,
At least you got the Wisconson thing right. Last thing we need is more cheese brains. Minnesota hasn’t had a football team since the early 60’s because they no longer have a monopoly on the black players. They couldn’t play down south then. Wisconson also has a good draw of talent from the Milwaukee/Chicago region. It’s better than we have here most years. Also, Minnesota hasn’t emphasized the sports as much as other Big Ten universities until more recently. More of an academic school. Sort of like Cal vs. USC
I gotcha the Cal vs USC thing completely explains it to me. I just have to put things into a PAC-10 mentallity and then I start understanding it.
It’s a good comp
Golden Gophers, Golden Bears
Nor Cal or So Cal??
LNP4Life Growing up in SO CAL when a player was available that was better then a player you have currently on your team without depleting your system you went out and acquired him. That is why sometimes I don’t understand stingy ball. That means to me getting rid of a Castillo for someone of lesser talent. It will take me a while and I will get it soon enough
cal and usc always have bad football teams. one theory is that blue chip football prospects don’t want to come here because they aren’t the center of attention. as far as star power goes the vikings, twins, wild, u-hockey … all out shine the u football program thus a lot less attention. u-football kind of gets lost in the shuffle. u-bball just has been lost after the final four and clem haskins era, probation and a bad recruiter and coach in munson. when minnesota produces 30-40 division one hockey players every yr those great athletes aren’t possibly great football players. imo which is often wrong!
gobbledygookguy-UCLA for a while was better at Football in the early 90’s then USC it is quite competetive outt there. It is kind of equall to U of M against Wisconsin. These days under Pete Carrol though USC is a power house
USC is also known out there as the University of spoiled children
Also, when was the last time a major football player came out of a Minneapolis high school?? Gotta be some there, you would think
And if you look at Ohio St. 90% of their players come from in Ohio. We don’t have that talent pool here.
gobble,
USC always has bad football teams?
Is that sarcasm?
You aren’t even close.
Back to Baseball. I can’t wait till tonight to hopefully see Young’s first HR and also for Cuddy to come back. I still think Cuddy should bat 6th just for tonight or maybe even use him as the DH to see how he is coming along
oh
and jimmy bee
booo so cal
although it is better than freezing my a** of on a summer night in San Fran
i was kidding about cal and usc. if you go to wis., iowa you are the big shots in town. in mpls/st. paul nobady but sid cares.
LNP4Life I root for the U of M, UCLA and ASU
away from baseball i don’t think most people realize how many d-1 hockey players we produce and how many nhl players we produce. these are all great athletes not playing football.
LNP4Life Yeah never been to San Fran on a warm night. Always raining. Nothing like Nap cabbage shooting down the streets in china town on a bone chilling evening. Ishi Ish
sorry but this even surprises me:
from lets play hockey:
From our calculations, there are over 1,311 Minnesotans currently playing hockey at the pro, college and junior level in North America.
last year there were 14 drafted in the nhl draft 3 in the 1st round a lot of talent.
gobbledygookguy-What ever happened to that guy that smacked his head into the boards and then needed brain surgery. Sorry don’t watch a great deal of Hockey but hoping to start watching the sport slowley. Just didn’t grow up in an area where they watched alot of it
Yeah, lived in Novoto for a year after school. Made a couple trips down south, found it to be more pleasant down there. Living out there broke the bank though.
People who don’t like the dome should go to Candlestick, or whatever they are calling it now. That place is a dump. The baseball stadium for the Giants, AT&T, is pretty nice though. Oakland is nothing to brag about either. But the stadium spruces up the rest of the area.
I always get a laugh out of phrases like the one above: “there are over 1,311 Minnesotans”
So, why not either give the number or say “over 1,300″? It’s funny to be both precise and estimating at the same time.
Call me weird, but I find that funny.
Nor Cal is Very Expensive. I liked to watch San Fran against the Dodger’s. It was much more fun when Barry was around to make it very interesting. Nothing like a bunch of So-Cal people and NorCal people stabbing each other and the fist’s would start a flying
All people who want to rip on our hitting it isn’t even possible for Young, Mauer, and Lamb to continue to hit as poorly as they have!
These guys are proven hitters that will come around and tehn our offense will be good enough to win a majority of games……..we are rebuilding though and the lose of the best starter in the game is going to dog us for along time!
As much as Barry is hated everywhere else, he is loved in SF. Hell, I even started liking him being out there. He’s getting a raw deal. If there is one thing Giants fans don’t like, it’s Tommy Lasorda. That man is hated.
Ruh-Roh! Guess who’s on the Texas Rangers and ready to take you deep! In case you didn’t have enough fun yesterday afternoon, D.MURPHY is back and he’s going to “swing and that ball is hit pretty well! *crowad gasps and roars* way back there, it seems to be carrying.. and that ball is GONE! Over right field wall and Murphy puts the Rangers on the board 3-0 in the first. HOMERUN, David Murphy!”
Lasorda tried having a restaurant in my home town of Pasadena and it actually flopped and was shut down due to rat’s and all and all not being cleanly enough. Come one come all to Dodger stadium and see The San Francisco Giants vs the LA Dodgers on hand gun / Hard liquor night
I also aquired an asian fixation, some of those girls are finnnnnnnnnne
of course, so cal has the latina girls.
so on hand gun/ hard liquor night, do you have to choose, or do you have to turn in an empty bottle to get the gun??
that is like 1/2 the state these days
of course in So Cal the Latina girls develop early and turn into overweight big haired muffin tops by 21 years of age and that is pushing it quite a bit
zI have alot more confidence in pitching coach Anderson than Vavra. The problem the past few years is not the pitching, but the hitting. This small ball stuff and getting shut-out every other night is stupid. Do we ruin each power hitter coming up the chain by the Kelly’s “use the whole field” philosophy? This philosophy runs through Ulger, Gardy, and the whole chain. It is time for a real hitting coach who was a power hitter and can teach some power hitting. Also teaching big boy Mauer to hit with some power would be great. A 6-4 220 pound singles hitter is not using his God given gifts.
that’s why you gotta get em early, before the 3 kids
Don’t worry LNP you were not the only one broke out there. If you talk to other people they tell you 2 different things
Are you broke, or are you realy broke? Everyone is broke out there but to what degree are you broke
To those of you trashing Liriano’s work after surgery: I have had both my elbow and my shoulder operated on at different times and can tell you that both the physical and mental rehab is long and demanding. Even after I was given the physical OK to play again it took a long time to trust that I wasn’t going to blow it out again. Then, on top of that, every twinge made me wonder if I had screwed it up again. I realize he makes a lot of money to his “job” but lets not forget that he is a kid who most likely doesn’t understand how to deal with being less than the best. The coaching staffs will need to push him beyond what he is comfortable with and prove to him that he can do it. Until they do that he will have doubts every time he throws the ball.
jimmy bee,
i wasnt to the point of suckin dick for rent money, so i was sittin alright
LNP4, jimmybee,
Baseball and ethnic stereotypes.
Two subjects at which you are clueless.
if you aint goin broke you aint tryin
gotcha LNP,so you were not stealing the homeless peoples aluminum cans while they slept then running down to Ralph’s to recycle them at night.
stereotypes,
i’m talkin about fine lookin ladies. there’s nothing like beautiful brown skinned honeys
gotta love the eye candy, so much better out in Cali than here.
jon is shelterred. They are actually pretty hot
No kankles out in Cali
How about pelvicles?
jon what is a pelvicle
Kankles are the result of walking through snow drifts or pulling plows.
god i hate kankles
gotta love tank tops and mini’s
Pelvicle is one width from pelvis to ankles.
Some of the size 12 shoe scandawhovian women trying to fit in a size 7 with the kankles frighten me a bit
the only good part of winter is seeing the cuties in sweaters
umm umm good
Please, a little PC before we get kicked off the blog.
jimmybee,
If you get kicked off this blog, you better send JoeC some candy and flowers.
ok now back to baseball. Cuddy’s first game back I think the 6 hole would be the place to start him at or possibly as the DH and try to see where he is at. No more sliding for a while also
I really think joeC is a great guy and also not to mention a stand up guy.
jimmybee,
Good start.
jimmy bee
do friday afternoons at work blow or what. good shootin the sh*t with ya
I think Cuddy will be DH’ing his first few games back. But I don’t know how much his throwing is affected. If he can give it a heave, he’ll be in right.
where he’s batting should be interesting. slide him in behind Delmon, or Morneau?? or Kubel. I don’t think he’s going right back to 3rd, or going to hit 7th.
David “way back” Murphy.
come on now,
at least use Josh “I’m off the junk” Hamilton. He’s the real threat, not some wanna be slugger
Gotta run LNP have a great weekend chat again soon.
Hey when you add Delmon Young’s home run total with Joe Mauer’s home run total…. you get 0 !! Who’d have thought that after 24 games.
Just heard on XM that the Twins optioned Liriano to Rochester.
Be nice if we had some reporting around here, ahem. Not your fault, I know, but why did the Twins wait so long to make the official announcement.
Thought Korecky was a relief pitcher. Nevertheless pitching is the least of this teams concerns. Lamb, Young and Mauer 3 biggest disappointments of early season so far. Didn’t expect anything out of Everett and Gomez is about what we were told he’d be. # guys with HR’s this deep into season is a joke. Granted Cuddy been out for nearly 20 games, but Young and Mauer have shown no power numbers at all. It’s one thing for Mauer to be hitting .330 with no power, but dipping under .290 is pathetic. He’s an over sized singles hitter.
Here’s something wierd if you look up Mauer on baseballrefrance.com they say his numbers through age 24 are comparable to Rod Carews. The only differance is Carew had great speed so he had more SB’s.
Look at the number of HR’s the Phillies have from their infield alone.
Carew wasn’t 6′5 225lbs and a #1 over draft choice either. Nor did Carew take every third day off. Who gets handled more gently around here, Mauer or Lemaire/Riseborough?
For all of you calling for Mulvey, he is a starter and the Twins recalled a reliever because they have days off coming up so they don’t need a starter for awhile. Starting the clock for Mulvey right now is no big deal. He has no service time and would need nearly seven years of service to qualify for free agency. If he wasn’t sent back after his first recall, it may garner him super two arb. status after the 2010 season.
There is room on the 40-man roster to add two players. The “sluggers” who auditioned this spring have not stood out at Rochester, between Knott, Ruiz, and Jones none are hitting over .250, so I really don’t think they are serious candidates to be recalled.
If this was more than a “cup of coffee” recall for Korecky, I would think it would have been better to recall one of the lefthanders from Rochester. Mariano Gomez has been terrific and might really help out as a second lefty in the ‘pen.
How has Duensing been so far? So Ruiz isn’t hitting .250. Mauer and Young have 0 home runs. I’d take anyone with any pop right now. .250 or not.
