That was my major complaint in that Kikuchi hadn't been employed out of the pen all season. It almost worked as Kikuchi induced soft ground ball contact but unfortunately the batted balls found the holes in the infield.
Think about it for a second and it should make sense. The offense struggled to the point where the team felt it was necessary to employ extreme strategies in an attempt to limit the Twins ability to score runs.
It definitely feels like the organization could stand to bring in someone from outside the organization for some fresh ideas as too many of the key contributors seem to be massively moving backwards at the plate.
Who is starting in his place though? Vogelbach? Vlad still offers the most offensive upside on the entire squad and he's not going to find his form at the plate if he's parked on the bench.
I prefer to look at a game earlier in the season where Montoyo intentionally left Chatwood in when he was struggling tremendously to prove a point after Chatwood was upset about being taken out of a game. Semien's MVP quality season was one of the primary drivers towards the team having a chance in the first place.
The 2021 also had a fearsome lineup that featured the likes of prime Springer, Semien, MVP Vlad, the best full season version of Teoscar and Bo in the top 5 so it's not like AA is the only GM in recent history that built an offensive juggernaut.
The guy has been gone for a nearly a decade. Maybe it's time to move on with your life.
I'd hope you would realize that the years from 2017-2020 were spent cleaning up the mess that the previous guy left behind, but that would require even a modicum of rational thought.
Oh f***. It's crazy to think but the team might actually wish that they still had Mitch White available to them to soak up some innings given how incredibly thin the starting depth has become in recent weeks.
I looked up the baseball savant breakdown of his last start and he is featuring an interesting pitch mix. He threw 30% cutters, 27% change ups, 22% 4 seamers and 21% sliders. He averaged only 91 MPH on the 4 seamer but the change up played like an elite pitch yielding a 62% whiff rate. At a glance he appears as though he might be a Trevor Richards type or something of that sort.