The level of respect for departing Twins coaches by other teams seems to far exceed the Twins’ competitive results; no one is poaching Rockies coaches, for example. That these coveted coaches keep failing & getting fired by the Twins does not speak well of the front office and ownership. Am I wrong?

It seems like their pre-game points of emphasis are:
- come out with high energy/effort
- set an early tone by playing more physical
- prioritize defense and make it tough for the opponent to find an offensive rhythm
- don't foul

It's gotta be tough to do the first three things without fouling.

Watching Doc et al.'s well-designed defensive strategy against Maxey work and then watching Nurse et al. quickly adjust and take a huge lead was demoralizing. It felt like the Bucks went into this match-up assuming that if they neutralized Maxey, the 76ers would just give up. Obviously not! 😠

The replays they showed on TV seem to prove that he was *in*-bounds. There was an official right there staring at his feet. Is this a new replay procedure? Do they offer any evidence to the public/media? Do they review every three point or boundary-adjacent shot? How is that logistically possible?

To the intern who wrote this tweet: quit your job. Whatever you think you’re getting out of doing this, it’s not worth surrendering your dignity.

Does John Conley have a reputation for this “style” of officiating (bad, inconsistent, quick/vindictive Ts, constant out of position)? This has to be embarrassing for Mitchell Ervin… he’s usually fine.

Perhaps the catch-22 of the Brewers philosophy is that “win today” is needed to overachieve in the regular season and earn another bite at the postseason apple, but the energy required to do that every day is too difficult to sustain into September/October.

Good thread!

Relatedly, I wonder if the position players’ workloads similarly compromised their late season/postseason performance. Yelich, Contreras, Frelick, and Turang all seem quite depleted and Collins entirely ran out of gas. It would be interesting to try to confirm/quantify that.